Court rejects killer’s appeal over translations at trial

By Cy Ryan (contact)

Thursday, Dec. 3, 2009 | 3:58 p.m.

CARSON CITY – The Nevada Supreme Court rejected the appeal of a Las Vegas killer who says he’s entitled to a new trial because his court-appointed Laotian interpreter made inaccurate translations at trial.

The court said some of the inaccuracies fundamentally altered the context of the testimony of Vannasone Quanbengboune but there was overwhelming evidence of guilt for a first-degree murder conviction.

Quanbengboune, now 39 and confined to Ely State Prison, is serving a life term without the possibility of parole for the fatal shooting of his girlfriend, Raynna Bunyou, in August 2003.

Chief Justice James Hardesty, who wrote the decision, said “the court-appointed interpreter’s inaccuracies in the translation of Sonny’s trial testimony do not warrant a new trial because the errors were not prejudicial.”

After the trial Quanbengboune hired his own Laotian interpreter, who discovered there were wrong translations by the court-appointed translator.

Quanbengboune confronted Bunyou outside a Las Vegas lounge about lies he said she told him and he shot her in the leg. She fell down. Patrons of the lounge came outside to see what was happening and he ordered them back inside. He then shot Bunyou in the head. He maintained there was no premeditation.

The court-appointed interpreter made wrong translations about the firing of the gun. For instance the court-appointed interpreter called the gun a “one-shot at a time” gun. The prosecution called it a “single action only gun.”

The gun had to be cocked a second time before it could be fired. Through mistakes in translation, it appeared Quanbengboune admitted he cocked the gun a second time. The prosecution used this to show premeditation. But his testimony, according to the independent interpreter, was that he did not re-cock the weapon.

The district attorney’s office produced a ballistics expert who explained the gun had to be re-cocked in order to fire a second time.

“Thus, overwhelming evidence supports the conclusion that Sonny (Quanbengboune) acted with premeditation,” wrote Hardesty.