Killer’s case and death penalty dilemmas in China

BEIJING ( Caixin Online ) — By raping and murdering a 19-year-old woman before killing her 3-year-old brother, Li Changkui incurred the wrath of the victims’ relatives, a Yunnan Province village stunned by the horror, and eventually a local court.

The Zhaotong Prefecture Intermediate Court last year convicted Li, 28, of intentional homicide and rape for the May 16, 2009, incidents before condemning him to death.

Yet Li was allowed to appeal the decision and present his case to the province’s most prominent judges. As a result, the Yunnan Provincial High Court in March overruled the lower court and commuted Li’s sentence with a two-year reprieve — thus incurring even more wrath from relatives and neighbors of the dead.

Li’s successful appeal has also intensified a nationwide debate over the proper use of the death penalty in criminal cases.

The high court ruled that the original sentence was too strict, even though the judges agreed Li was guilty and that the legal proceedings had been properly handled.

Li had surrendered to police, confessed to the crimes and cooperated with authorities, the high court noted. He also showed remorse and took steps to financially compensate the victims’ family.

In objecting to the second decision, the family argued that Li had waited until four days after the slayings to turn himself in, and that his relatives had offered only about 20,000 yuan as compensation to relatives of the murder victims.

The victims’ relatives and more than 200 of their village neighbors filed a complaint to the high court requesting a retrial and demanding a tougher sentence for Li — immediately. Incredibly to many, they got what they wanted.

Public debate

Yunnan media outlets closely followed the Li case, and the public has generally reacted with outrage. Many say Li’s crimes were worse than those committed by Yao Jiaxin, a Xi’an Conservatory of Music student convicted of running down a pedestrian in 2010 with a sedan, and then stabbing the wounded woman to death. Yao was sentenced to death and executed.

A deputy chief justice for the Yunnan high court, Tian Chengyou, said judges had decided Li should receive a lighter sentence partly due to the fact that the killer and victims were neighbors with a history of relationships.

Tian also noted that the highest court in China, the People’s Supreme Court, in recent years has been encouraging courts to issue fewer death sentences and use the death penalty more cautiously. Particularly worthy of note, the Supreme Court said, are cases in which serious crimes are connected to marital, family and neighbor disputes.

“Society needs to be a little more rational” about sentences, Tian said. “A public carnival must not be allowed to decide a death sentence. The old life-for-life concept needs to change.

“Reducing use of the death penalty is now the general trend.”

Yet Tian’s public remarks in July not only failed to quell criticism of the Li ruling, but stirred more debates until, eventually, the high court agreed to a retrial.

Reversing verdicts

Chinese Police Officers
rehearsing executions

Some legal experts have attacked the latest retrial decision, saying there was no evidence that the high court had erred during the appeal proceedings. The retrial order, they argue, stems from administrative interference in the judicial system in an attempt to accommodate public opinion.

Even when a court errs, Peking University Law School Professor He Weifang told Caixin, an illegal means cannot be used to correct the mistake. And under Chinese law, an appeal known as the second instance is considered the final judgment, which means its decision should never be reconsidered in a retrial.

In China, He said, a retrial decision such as in Li’s case probably points to intervention by one or more key government officials who feel pressured by public opinion.

And it’s difficult for authorities in sensitive criminal cases to avoid the impact of public opinion, especially since China’s judiciary lacks true authority and independence, said University of Hong Kong Assistant Law Professor Zheng Ge.

Some critics worry Li’s retrial will set a precedent and lead to more case re-evaluations and reversed verdicts in the future.

Indeed, shortly after the retrial was announced, the public learned of several other cases in which death sentences were overturned in Yunnan, prompting new calls for retrials.

Li’s lawyer Zhang Qingsong, of the Beijing Shangquan Law Firm, said the decision to launch a retrial for Li violates the law.

The criminal code says a retrial is possible for only a few reasons, such as if fact errors were presented at the original trial, evidence used in a conviction or sentencing was unreliable, evidence is contradictory, improper legal provisions were applied, or the judges accepted bribes, showed favoritism or otherwise behaved capriciously or arbitrarily.

In short, Zhang said, an original judgment can be overturned with a retrial only if it is “really wrong.” None of these criteria were met at Li’s trials in the intermediate or high courts. Thus, he said, there is no legal basis for a retrial.

Taking the case from another perspective, some scholars say a reversed verdict for a death penalty case can stir public ire, especially if citizens and the media are allowed to be active observers of court procedures.

One criminal law expert, who declined to be named, said courts in China should operate in accord with the internationally accepted legal principle of “non bis in idem” — which means an appeals court cannot impose a tougher penalty.

“Regardless of whether an original judgment was right or wrong, a court cannot go back on its conviction and kill the suspect,” the expert said. “Doing that, in terms of a specific case, may be fair. But the damage to the overall rule of law environment would be very scary.”

Supreme Court Chief Justice Wang Shengjun last year said a court’s capital punishment decision should hinge on public perceptions. Since civil rights have yet to take root completely in China, any perception that a murderer is being coddled can spark public outrage. This may happen even if lawyers and intellectuals have neither reached consensus on a case nor influenced public opinion.

While the debate continues, the court in Yunnan has started retrial proceedings for Li. Relatives of the murder victims, villagers and the rest of the nation will be watching. Read this report on Caixin Online.

Source: MarketWatch, August 23, 2011