A Las Vegas man accused of killing a doctor and wounding five other people during an allegedly hate-driven mass shooting at a Laguna Woods church in 2022 was moved from county to federal custody this week, after federal prosecutors indicated that they intend to pursue the death penalty.
David Wenwei Chou, 72, is facing capital cases in both state and federal court. Until this week, the state case was expected to move forward first, with an Orange County Superior Court judge last year finding that the state trial could proceed in front of a jury.
With rare exceptions, local murder cases are handled by local prosecutors in state court. But Chou’s move to federal custody strongly indicates that the federal trial, rather than a state court trial, will take place first.
Federal prosecutors apparently reached their decision on whether to pursue the death penalty before their local counterparts. And, with Gov. Gavin Newsom in office, a federal death-penalty conviction is far more likely to result in an actual execution.
A prosecutor on Friday, March 13, informed the Orange County Superior Court judge who had been presiding over Chou’s state court hearings that the U.S. Marshal Service the day before had moved him from state to federal lockup. No reason for the move was given during the brief hearing.
Afterward, an attorney representing Chou in the state court case declined to comment.
Several hours later, Chou made his first appearance at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana, several blocks from where his previous state court hearings were held. He was brought into the courtroom in a wheelchair, but appeared alert as he listened to the proceedings with the help of a Mandarin-language interpreter.
Chou pleaded not guilty to 53 charges during the short hearing. Afterward, a federal public defender declined to comment on Chou’s charges or the decision by federal prosecutors to pursue the death penalty.
Chou is accused of targeting a Taiwanese Presbyterian congregation in a church on El Toro Road just outside the expansive retirement community of Laguna Woods Village because of a long-simmering grievance with the Taiwanese community.
The man killed while rushing Chou during the shootings — John Cheng, an Aliso Viejo doctor — has been hailed as a hero whose actions saved other congregants’ lives.
A U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman on Friday, March 13, declined to say why the office decided to move Chou into federal custody prior to the conclusion of the state court case. The federal indictment was filed nearly three years ago. Officials with the Orange County district attorney’s office, which is handling the state’s case, declined to comment.
Chou has previously signaled a not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity defense.
Local prosecutors in recent hearings had indicated that a decision on whether to pursue the death penalty in state court, rather than life without the possibility of parole, has not yet been made. Such a decision ultimately rests with District Attorney Todd Spitzer, who traditionally weighs that decision with input from his top prosecutors and the defense.
There were strong signals in the court record last year that prosecutors on the federal level were intensifying their consideration of whether to pursue the death penalty against Chou. The restoration of the federal death penalty was one of the first criminal-justice items announced by President Donald Trump when he returned to office in January 2025.
Less than a month later, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo lifting a moratorium on federal executions that had been adopted by her predecessor, Merrick Garland.
On Jan. 28, federal prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, and the agency’s Civil Rights Division, gave notice in a court filing that they intended to seek the death penalty in Chou’s case.
On the state level, it has been more than two decades since a condemned prisoner was put to death.
Seeking the death penalty is still an option for local prosecutors in special-circumstances murder cases. But Newsom in 2019 placed a moratorium on the death penalty in California. Since then, the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison has been closed and prisoners moved off of death row.
The first Trump administration, by contrast, oversaw 13 federal executions, making him the most prolific executioner president in more than a century. President Biden, shortly before leaving office, commuted the sentences of dozens of men on federal death row. But Trump has signaled that he wants to refill federal death row, and his attorney general has pledged to seek capital punishment more often.