Ronko Yamada

Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and many more joined the fight.

College students sold hot links and held car washes to raise money for the Chol Soo Lee Defense Fund.

Older Asian Americans spoke at churches and asked for donations.

Some supporters even wrote a song.

Proceeds from all these efforts went to the Defense Fund, and eventually they had raised enough money to reinvestigate Chol Soo Lee's case.

The free Chol Soo Lee Defense Fund hired new lawyers for Chol Soo Lee.

Leonard Weinglass, who defended the Chicago 7, took the lead.

And he hired a private investigator named Josiah Tink Thompson.

Tink soon discovered another witness that Chol Soo Lee's original defense attorney never knew about.

And that's because the police never told them.

A man named Stephen Morris.

Stephen Morris had been ready to testify on behalf of Chulsu Lee, but he never heard from the police again.

And nobody who was defending Chol Soo Lee was made aware of his existence.

A judge ruled that since the police suppressed the existence of the witness Stephen Morris, Chol Soo Lee's murder conviction had to be thrown out and a new trial had to be held.

It was 1979 when Chol Soo was granted a retrial for the killing of Yip Yee Tak nearly six years earlier.

With additional evidence and a crack legal team by his side, there was hope.

But there was also dread, because in the meantime, Chol Soo Lee had to be tried for the prison yard stabbing.

The jury in that case had no idea that Chol Su's earlier murder conviction had been overturned, and they found him guilty.

Because it was his second murder charge, he was sentenced to death and transferred to San Quentin's death row.

Chol Soo Lee sat on death row in San Quentin for the next three years, awaiting his retrial.