Prosecution in Quandary Over Inmate Who Tried to Kill Herself

After weeks of being comatose and near death, Keon Ja Lee is slowly improving. She is awake, can communicate a little with doctors and is able to follow simple commands.

What she is not capable of doing is standing trial--or paying her medical bills.

Lee’s brain damage was caused when she tried to hang herself in the County Jail, and the severity of her condition has created a strange inversion of the criminal justice system. County prosecutors have considered dropping charges that the Rancho Penasquitos woman attempted to murder her son, a decision that would relieve the Sheriff’s Department of the cost of her custody.

Her defense attorney and family aren’t sure they want the charges dropped, fearing that Lee’s huge health-care bills would fall to her family, said Jeffrey Martin, a county public defender representing Lee.

The case has been in limbo for months while the county has spent more than $150,000 in hospital costs.

“It’s a very unusual case, a case in which I am not necessarily in favor of dismissing the charges,” Martin said.

For now, the case will continue to simmer. Prosecutors say they will ask Friday, the day of Lee’s preliminary hearing, for a continuance, pending a change in Lee’s condition. The continuance is expected to last at least several weeks, Martin said.

‘She Is Somewhat Awake’

“I am surprised that she is as improved as she is,” Martin said. “She is somewhat awake and tracks some things with her eyes. But it remains to be seen what the degree of her recovery will be.”

Prosecutors earlier last month had considered dropping the charges against Lee because of her comatose condition.

“It is analogous to someone committing a crime and later dying. You can’t prosecute someone dead or hooked up to a machine,” said Aaron Katz, the deputy district attorney prosecuting the case. “Now, if that person is getting better, you can proceed with the charges. And these are extremely serious charges.”

Katz denied that prosecutors are weighing the medical costs in their decision on whether to dismiss charges. But, in the past, prosecutors have been quoted as saying the costs were a factor. Martin has accused the county of trying to shirk its financial responsibility in the case.

“It’s clear that the state and county have an obligation to care for prisoners in their custody. This includes keeping them safe from others who are in custody and keeping them safe from themselves, if that’s a possibility,” Martin said, referring to his client’s suicide attempt while in her jail cell.

To be prosecuted, Lee would have to be able to communicate with her attorney and help provide her own defense, Katz said. If she is unable to recover adequately, and a judge allows the charges to be dropped, her family would be responsible for her health-care bills, he said.

But both Katz and Martin agreed that another county or state agency would help Lee’s family meet those costs.

“It mainly shifts from one agency to another. The family would not be left alone to come up with the funds,” Katz said. But, he added, “payments no longer would come out of the Sheriff’s Department.”

Suing the county is another alternative for Lee’s family, in the event that the charges are dropped, Martin said. Her relatives declined to comment.

Said She Wanted to Kill Herself

Lee, 37, allegedly stabbed her 11-year-old son, Chung Lim Lee, repeatedly with a kitchen knife on Jan. 6. She told police who arrested her that she wanted to kill herself. After being examined at the County Mental Health Hospital, she was taken to the County Jail at Las Colinas and charged with attempted murder, child abuse, injuring a child and assault with a deadly weapon, reports show. Bail was set at $500,000.

On Jan. 30, Lee was found hanging from her cell bunk bed, by a noose fashioned from a nightgown. Deputies brought her down and tried to resuscitate her. The woman was transported to Grossmont Hospital, where she slipped into a coma.

Early in March, when Lee was listed in critical condition, prosecutors tried to have the bail waived and the woman released on her own recognizance. Defense attorney Martin fought the request, arguing that the county simply was trying to get off the financial hook of paying for Lee’s bills. A judge denied the request, ruling that bail should stand because Lee could not be present to agree not to run away before her case came to court.

After her condition improved, Lee was moved on April 21 to a private care facility officials declined to identify. Since then, she has made some progress, but doctors remain unsure about the extent of her brain damage and her chances of recovery, Martin said.

Lee’s stay of 81 days at Grossmont Hospital cost the county about $129,000, an average of about $1,592 a day, the Sheriff’s Department reported.

The Sheriff’s Department, with a $2.5-million budget in 1988-89 for hospital care of inmates, normally pays a flat fee of $1,082 a day, plus unusual expenses, to hospitals it contracts with.

That department now is paying an average $500 a day for Lee’s care at the private facility. That is the going rate at the facility, which does not contract with the county, a sheriff’s spokesman said.