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Freed prisoner shows legal system's flaws
WUHAN/BEIJING: Legal experts believe the case of a man who spent 11 years in prison for a murder highlights loopholes in the law which should be plugged. She Xianglin, 39, from Central China's Hubei Province, has been released from captivity following the reappearance of his supposedly dead wife. He is demanding compensation and will be retried by the local court this week.
Zhang has now reappeared with a new husband and a son. Zhang went missing in 1994 and soon afterwards police found an unidentifiable female body near She's home. Although no DNA testing was carried out and there was no other evidence, police believed the body was Zhang's, and accused She of her murder. After several rounds of interrogation and beatings, She confessed. He was sentenced to death by local courts but the High People's Court of Hubei saw "quite a few doubtful points" and ordered a retrial which changed the sentence to 15 years in prison. Legal loopholes Li Guifang, deputy director of the Beijing-based Criminal Committee of the All-China Lawyers Association, said in an exclusive interview that She's case demonstrated the failure of the local legal system. "The police should bear the brunt of the responsibility, because they falsely identified the body, the major evidence in this case, and probably extorted a confession through torture," said Li. Prosecutors and courts were also to blame, he said. Although there was some doubt the body was Zhang's, local prosecutors started legal proceedings instead of investigating further. Local courts failed to clarify the truth even after the retrial. Academics say forced confessions are not unusual in China. "Although strictly forbidden by law, they are common in many places because the police are under great pressure from above to solve crimes," a law professor told Xinhua. Defendants' legal rights to a lawyer have also been denied by police in many situations, said Li Guifang of the lawyers association. "If a lawyer had been appointed in the first place, this case might have gone differently," he said. Judicial reform China's top law enforcement organs are taking actions to reform the old justice system to minimize the possibility of convicting the innocent. The Ministry of Public Security has initiated a nationwide campaign since 2004 to improve the police's capability of criminal investigation. The police were urged to strengthen their study of fundamental investigation knowledge, and improve their on-site investigation ability with the assistance of high-tech facilities, such as a DNA test. The Supreme People's Court is now considering retrieving the right to review the death penalty from the provincial high people's courts, so as to ensure a "fair and prudent" meting-out of capital punishment. Seeking compensation Finally out of the prison, She told reporters that he will demand compensation from the local courts and police according to the State Compensation Law. She received a medical examina-tion after his release, which showed he suffered from double-vision and a severe spinal disease, which made him hardly able to sit. Lu Dingbo, current vice-director of the Police Bureau of Jingshan County and the person who was in charge of the criminal investigation of She's case, expressed deep regret, but tried to defend himself by stating that there were no DNA examination facilities 10 years ago.
(China Daily 04/06/2005 page3) |
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