Word: kissel
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...Hong Kong's notorious "milk-shake murder" case may have seemed cogent, but last week Hong Kong's top court disagreed. The court granted Kissel her second and final appeal, ordering a retrial and creating the possibility that Hong Kong's murder trial of the decade will be replayed in court. "Mrs. Kissel killed Mr. Kissel. That much is not in dispute," the Court of Final Appeal wrote in a unanimous decision. "But was the killing certainly murder or might it have been in self-defense...
...first time around, the real-life courtroom drama captivated Hong Kong's expat community and made headlines as far away as New York, spawning a made-for-TV movie and a true-crime best seller. During the 2005 trial, the prosecution chipped away at Kissel's credibility by revealing she had a secret lover in Vermont - a television repairman. The team put a private investigator on the stand who said that her husband, an investment banker, told him he was worried his wife was trying to poison him - testimony that the appeals court judge dismissed last week as hearsay that...
...Kissel's lawyers, however, painted a different picture; one of a sexually abusive husband who trawled the web for escorts and gay porn. Kissel admitted that she killed her husband, but said that he had come at her with a baseball bat and that she had been defending herself. Her doctor testified that Kissel didn't show any signs of being physically attacked with a bat, but later said it was possible she was assaulted. Kissel side stepped the question of whether or not she had served her husband a drug-laced milk shake. As the local English daily...
...tried again, Kissel's lawyers hope to argue that she was mentally impaired at the time of the killing. She might walk away with time served. A new trial, however, may reveal less about the milk-shake murder than it does about the health of Hong Kong's judicial system. The Court of Final Appeal quashed Kissel's earlier conviction on the grounds that the prosecution relied on hearsay from the private investigator, and that the trial judge misdirected the jury on the question of self-defense...
...wasn't a flattering comparison. In the meantime, Kissel can apply to be released on bail, and her lawyers have already started to argue publicly that the media circus surrounding her first trial will make it impossible for her to get a fair hearing. As he told reporters last week, "Can the milk-shake murderer get a fair trial in Hong Kong? Probably not." In the end, that might just be her strongest argument...