Chinese mother of man wrongfully executed over rape and murder gets 2.7m yuan payout

Nie Shubin

The mother of a 20-year-old man who was wrongly executed for rape and murder more than two decades ago will receive about 2.7 million yuan (US$391,000 or HK$3.04 million) in compensation, including a record 1.3 million yuan for emotional damages, local media reported.

The amount is far less than the 13.9 million yuan demanded by the family of Nie Shubin.

He was taken into custody shortly after police found the body of Kang Juhua in Shijiazhuang in Hebei province in 1994.

Nie confessed during police questioning and was tried and executed the next year, at the age of 21. In December, the Supreme People’s Court overturned the verdict, citing a lack of evidence and questions over the authenticity of his confession.

Nie’s mother, Zhang Huanzhi, said she would not appeal against the compensation award handed down by the province’s highest court, according to Shanghai-based online news outlet Thepaper.cn.

The case has been widely considered one of the mainland’s most notorious wrongful executions.

Citizens and legal scholars alike said it exposed deep flaws in the criminal justice system.

More than a decade after Nie was executed by gunshot, a man arrested for another crime, Wang Shujin, confessed to killing Kang.

The lump sum paid by the government consists of 1.3 million yuan for emotional damage, 1.26 million yuan for his death and burial cost and 52,000 yuan for infringement of personal freedom. The sum also includes one-off financial aid to the victim’s mother, which amounts 64,000 yuan.

The family’s demand for financial payment in relation to the rehabilitation of their name was denied, however, as the court deemed its public apology sufficient, Thepaper.cn reported.

The compensation for emotional damage was the highest yet awarded in China to families of victims of a miscarriage of justice, the report said.

The previous record was one million yuan, which was given to the parents of another young man named Huugjilt, who was also wrongly executed for rape and murder at the age of 18.

Huugjilt was similarly convicted following a confession while in custody and executed shortly after in 1996. A serial murderer and rapist confessed years later to the crimes.

Source: South China Morning Post, March 31, 2017

Parents of man found innocent 21 years after being executed receive 2.68 million yuan in compensation

Nie Shubin's parents

The parents of man who was executed 21 years ago only to be found not guilty of rape and murder late last year have been awarded 2.68 million yuan ($388,000) in compensation by the Higher People's Court in Hebei Province.

Originally, they had asked for 14 million yuan ($2 million).

The compensation included 1.3 million yuan for emotional damage caused to Nie's parents, a record high sum. It also included 1.26 million yuan for his death and burial cost, along with 52,000 yuan for infringement of personal freedom and 64,000 yuan for financial aid to Nie's mother who said that she will not appeal the court's decision.

For Nie's family, the road to vindication has been a long one.

Last December, the Supreme People's Court (SPC) admitted that flaws in the Chinese justice system had led to the wrongful conviction of Nie, who was found guilty in 1995 of raping and murdering a Shijiazhuang woman.

The SPC overturned the conviction after finding that several legal violations had been committed during Nie's trial. They included insufficient evidence, lost documents, and a confession found to be inadmissible because it was gained through torture, along with the fact that key details like time and cause of death had not been confirmed by the prosecution.

Back in 2005, it became apparent that there was something not right about Nie's case after a man named Wang Shujin admitted to committing the crimes for which Nie was found guilty.

Unfortunately, a special investigation into Nie's case by Liu Jinguo, who had served as head of the party's provincial Political and Legal Affairs Committee at the time, stalled when Liu was promoted to another department.

Huugjilt's parents

It took almost ten years of constant petitioning before Nie's parents were given another opportunity to vindicate their son. But even after the SPC assigned the case to a Shandong court for review in 2014, it wasn't until this past June that the SPC finally decided to reopen Nie's case.

The extremely long time it took for China's courts to find Nie innocent pales in comparison to the time it took them to punish him. Just a month after his conviction, 21-year-old Nie was executed.

Nie's story is strikingly similar to that of an Inner Mongolian man named Hugjiltu.

Two years ago, Hugijiltu was found innocent of rape and murder charges that he was convicted of 18 years before.

Unfortunately, just like Nie, Hugjiltu had been swiftly punished for his crime, being executed just two months after his trial. He was 18 years old at the time.

One month after Hugjiltu's conviction was overturned, his parents were awarded with state compensation -- amounting to just 2.06 million yuan.

Source: Shangaiist, Alex Linder, March 31, 2017

⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

Comments

Execution date set for prisoner transferred to Oklahoma to face death penalty

An inmate who was transferred to Oklahoma last month to face the death penalty now has an execution date. George John Hanson, also known as John Fitzgerald Hanson, is scheduled to die on June 12 for the 1999 murder of 77-year-old Mary Bowles. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday set the execution date. The state’s Pardon and Parole Board has a tentative date of May 7 for Hanson’s clemency hearing, executive director Tom Bates said.

Inside Florida's Death Row: A dark cloud over the Sunshine State

Florida's death penalty system has faced numerous criticisms and controversies over the years - from execution methods to the treatment of Death Row inmates The Sunshine State remains steadfast in its enforcement of capital punishment, upholding a complex system that has developed since its reinstatement in 1976. Florida's contemporary death penalty era kicked off in 1972 following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Furman v. Georgia , which temporarily put a stop to executions across the country. Swiftly amending its laws, Florida saw the Supreme Court affirm the constitutionality of the death penalty in 1976's Gregg v. Georgia case.

'No Warning': The Death Penalty In Japan

Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite criticism over how it is carried out. Tokyo: Capital punishment in Japan is under scrutiny again after the world's longest-serving death row prisoner, Iwao Hakamada, was awarded $1.4 million in compensation this week following his acquittal last year in a retrial. Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite international criticism over how it is carried out.

Arizona | The cruelty of isolation: There’s nothing ‘humane’ about how we treat the condemned

On March 19, I served as a witness to the execution of a man named Aaron Gunches, Arizona’s first since 2022. During his time on death row, he begged for death and was ultimately granted what is likely more appropriately described as an emotionless state-assisted suicide. This experience has profoundly impacted me, leading to deep reflection on the nature of death, humanity, and the role we play in our final moments. When someone is in the end stages of life, we talk about hospice care, comfort, care, easing suffering and humane death. We strive for a “good death” — a peaceful transition. I’ve seen good ones, and I’ve seen bad, unplanned ones.

USA | Federal death penalty possible for Mexican cartel boss behind 1985 DEA agent killing

Rafael Caro Quintero, extradited from Mexico in 2022, appeared in Brooklyn court as feds weigh capital charges for the torture and murder of Agent Enrique Camarena NEW YORK — The death penalty is on the table for notorious drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, the so-called “narco of narcos” who orchestrated the torture and murder of a DEA agent in 1985, according to federal prosecutors. “It is a possibility. The decision has not yet been made, but it is going through the process,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Saritha Komatireddy said in Brooklyn Federal Court Wednesday.

Louisiana's First Nitrogen Execution Reflects Broader Method Shift

Facing imminent execution by lethal gas earlier this week, Jessie Hoffman Jr. — a Louisiana man convicted of abducting, raping and murdering a 28-year-old woman in 1996 — went to court with a request: Please allow me to be shot instead. In a petition filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on March 16 seeking a stay of his execution by nitrogen hypoxia, a protocol that had yet to be tested in the state, Hoffman requested execution by firing squad as an alternative.

Bangladesh | Botswana Woman Executed for Drug Trafficking

Dhaka, Bangladesh – Lesedi Molapisi, a Botswana national convicted of drug trafficking, was executed in Bangladesh on Friday, 21 March 2025. The 31-year-old was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail after exhausting all legal avenues to appeal her death sentence. Molapisi was arrested in January 2023 upon arrival at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, where customs officials discovered 3.1 kilograms of heroin hidden in her luggage. Following a trial under Bangladesh’s Narcotics Control Act, she was sentenced to death in May 2024. Her execution was initially delayed due to political unrest in the country but was carried out last week.

A second South Carolina death row inmate chooses execution by firing squad

Columbia, S.C. — A South Carolina death row inmate on Friday chose execution by firing squad, just five weeks after the state carried out its first death by bullets. Mikal Mahdi, who pleaded guilty to murder for killing a police officer in 2004, is scheduled to be executed April 11. Mahdi, 41, had the choice of dying by firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair. He will be the first inmate to be executed in the state since Brad Sigmon chose to be shot to death on March 7. A doctor pronounced Sigmon dead less than three minutes after three bullets tore into his heart.

564 People On Death Row In India, Highest Since The Turn Of The Century

In 90% of of all death penalty sentences in 2024, trial courts imposed sentences in the absence of adequate information about the accused, finds a recent report Bengaluru: Following the uproar and the widespread protests after the August 2024 rape and murder of a medical professional in Kolkata’s RG Kar hospital, there were demands for death penalty for the accused. The state government passed the Aparajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill 2024 (awaiting presidential assent) which included mandatory death sentence for rape which results in death of the victim or if the victim is left in a vegetative state, despite such a mandatory sentence being unconstitutional.

South Carolina | Spiritual adviser of condemned inmate: 'We're more than the worst thing we've done'

(RNS) — When 67-year-old Brad Sigmon was put to death on March 7 in South Carolina for the murder of his then-girlfriend's parents, it was the first time in 15 years that an execution in the United States had been carried out by a firing squad. United Methodist minister Hillary Taylor, Sigmon's spiritual adviser since 2020, said the multifaceted, months long effort to save Sigmon's life, and to provide emotional and spiritual support for his legal team, and the aftermath of his execution has been a "whirlwind" said Taylor, the director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog