China: Mother's Fight to Exonerate Executed Son Highlights Gaping Holes in Justice System

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNxLUWJ0LaUXyNfudRN0WUsZs2KhVuafr-fTEuSwiX4wl1cvrYswlyYsLuCi9n9S7gkmOQT2BXV-cBxa3SKHz_AIAfYpN0BHWMmK4P83JzsryTr27ikqkXvA7xKhytfrUP3jXsWqnrRtM/s1600/Nie+Shubin+%2528file+photo%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Nie Shubin, wrongfully executed at age 20" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNxLUWJ0LaUXyNfudRN0WUsZs2KhVuafr-fTEuSwiX4wl1cvrYswlyYsLuCi9n9S7gkmOQT2BXV-cBxa3SKHz_AIAfYpN0BHWMmK4P83JzsryTr27ikqkXvA7xKhytfrUP3jXsWqnrRtM/s400/Nie+Shubin+%2528file+photo%2529.jpg" title="Nie Shubin, wrongfully executed at age 20" width="372" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nie Shubin, wrongfully executed at age 20</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>"Invisible forces" in police have delayed a retrial for Nie Shubin after fresh evidence, suggesting his innocence, emerged, says former journalist</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">More than 2 decades after a young man in the northern province of Hebei was executed for the alleged rape and murder of a woman, his mother is anxiously awaiting a retrial to clear his name.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Zhang Huanzhi's only son, <a href="http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.fr/search/label/Nie%20Shubin" target="_blank">Nie Shubin</a>, was executed in 1995 - when he was 20 - for raping and killing a woman in a cornfield near Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital. A decade later, another man arrested for a separate crime, confessed to the murder.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Zhang had fought for years after this fresh evidence emerged to exonerate her son, but she kept on hitting a wall. The case is back in the public spotlight after the country's highest court, the Supreme People's Court, on June 6 ordered a court in the eastern province of Shandong to review the 1995 ruling, saying evidence that lead to his death sentence were "unreliable and incomplete."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Zhang's dogged pursuit, lodging repeated appeals at courts in her home province Hebei and in Beijing, has helped turn Nie's case into an example of the flaws in the Chinese criminal justice system, including the use of torture, lack of due process and lax review of death sentences.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But Nie's is not the only incident of a possible miscarriage of justice reported in recent years. In February, a man from the eastern province of Zhejiang, Chen Man, convicted of arson and murder, was allowed to walk free after languishing in prison for 23 years when his sentence was overturned due to lack of evidence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In late 2014, a court in Inner Mongolia said an 18-year-old killed by firing squad in 1996 for alleged rape and murder, was innocent. The Inner Mongolia Higher People's Court said the defendant, Huugjilt, was wrongfully convicted after being tortured into making a confession.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nie's case had also galvanized the legal community, media and the public to scrutinize the gaping holes in the country's justice system. "There is no doubt Nie will be exonerated soon," said Ma Yulong, a former reporter at Dahe Daily, a newspaper in the central province of Henan, who has followed Nie's case starting in 2005.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nie's retrial can help in some measure to restore public faith in China's legal system, said Li Shuting, the lawyer representing his family.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Quest for Justice</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Shandong High Court in-charge of reviewing the case said the evidence on which the original verdict was based was incomplete because many questions have gone unanswered, such as the exact time the crime was committed and the weapon used for the murder. However, the court has not announced a date for a retrial.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nie was sentenced for premeditated rape and murder on March 15, 1995 by the intermediate court in Shijiazhuang, after a closed-door trial, state media reports show. He was executed a month later.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2005, another suspect named Wang Shujin, arrested for a similar crime, confessed to raping and killing several women, one of whom turned out to be the victim in Nie's case. Ma was the 1st to break the news, which attracted wide public attention to the case.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After this fresh evidence emerged, Liu Jinguo, the head of the party's provincial Political and Legal Affairs Committee at the time, who oversaw the security and legal systems in Hebei, set up a special team to reopen Nie's case and ordered the results to be published within one month, Ma told Caixin on June 14.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmHdORZ6-js4-Iinb2s_c374KhN5jWym715boa1OqIFwQdClNE00Uc1zUq1F3ZegEZEGTffjz5vJkaQ28VSkWPPDGCmRUpr_Q6b3Z_3s0Jy5ZtWRYItjWwI3YzP99MnRCI0aeD7bdohsVS/s1600/execution+china.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="A Chinese police officer lights an inmate's last cigarette minutes before his execution." border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmHdORZ6-js4-Iinb2s_c374KhN5jWym715boa1OqIFwQdClNE00Uc1zUq1F3ZegEZEGTffjz5vJkaQ28VSkWPPDGCmRUpr_Q6b3Z_3s0Jy5ZtWRYItjWwI3YzP99MnRCI0aeD7bdohsVS/s400/execution+china.jpg" title="A Chinese police officer lights an inmate's last cigarette minutes before his execution." width="258" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Chinese police officer lights an inmate's last<br />cigarette minutes before his execution.</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">Liu's order gave Nie's family a glimmer of hope, but it vanished quickly. The investigation stalled when Liu was promoted shortly afterwards to vice minister of public security in Beijing, said Ma.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">From then on, Zhang Huanzhi has made countless trips to courts in Hebei and Beijing, to appeal her son's case, but she was turned down by officials who said her documents were incomplete.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It wasn't until July 2007, when the Supreme Court in Beijing accepted Zhang's appeal and ordered the Hebei High Court to review the case.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But this court never carried out the review. "We tried every means possible to get a retrial, but they were all in vain," said Li.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In March 2007, the other suspect, Wang, received the death penalty for 4 counts of murder and rape. But this did not include the victim in Nie's case, although Wang admitted to the crime. In a twist of fate, Wang even appealed his verdict and insisted that he had killed the woman Nie was charged with murdering. But his appeal was turned down by the Hebei court in 2013.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Wang is now on death row, waiting for the Supreme Court to review his sentence, but the process has been delayed due to his connection to Nie's case, Li said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ma said he had learned from sources in the Hebei public security system that officials had tortured Wang, forcing him to recant his confession connected to the 1994 murder in Shijiazhuang before the 2nd trial.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are "invisible" forces in Hebei's police and legal system that have resisted the reopening of Nie's case, said Ma.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Fresh Hope</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In December 2014, the Supreme Court ordered a high court in another province Shandong to re-examine the files of Nie's case. The Supreme Court's June decision for a retrial, which comes after four delays, had rekindled the family's hopes to have Nie exonerated.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Li told Caixin that there were many holes in the evidence presented including Nie's testimony, the murder weapon used and even the exact date of his execution. He has been collecting evidence that show Nie was tortured while in custody and highlight deficiencies in due process when handling the case.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The case "is obviously a wrongful conviction with little complexity, but it has taken more than ten years to get a retrial due to delays by officials in Hebei," said Li.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Police offices' over reliance on harsh interrogation techniques to elicit confessions from suspects in criminal investigation cases have led to many wrongful convictions, said Li. Some investigators and officials rush to close a case to secure bonuses and promotion, he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Fundamentally, "the lack of independence of the judicial system had led to the miscarriage of justice," said the former journalist Ma. "Without further legal reform, there will be other cases like this in future."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: caixin.com, June 18, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

China Exoneration False confessions Innocence Nie Shubin Police Posthumous Torture China: Mother's Fight to Exonerate Executed Son Highlights Gaping Holes in Justice System

Nie Shubin, wrongfully executed at age 20 "Invisible forces" in police have delayed a retrial for Nie Shubin after fresh evidence,...

Baca selengkapnya »

China's SC orders retrial of Nie Shubin, convicted of rape & murder and executed 21 years ago

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTv8GbC5OAlUSUiwMu3giO6RmR1pwbZQ-nI7hRf_Hbw79YmHcaw96E8ift4B7UXI3ctEWUaf0H-0xD514blk5_DrNWw14wq7fUpq3FjJowdbMI4hboSr6xVodUXWxOgcgrIGvDrYC7pXk/s1600/Nie+Shubin+%2528file+photo%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Nie Shubin (file photo)" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTv8GbC5OAlUSUiwMu3giO6RmR1pwbZQ-nI7hRf_Hbw79YmHcaw96E8ift4B7UXI3ctEWUaf0H-0xD514blk5_DrNWw14wq7fUpq3FjJowdbMI4hboSr6xVodUXWxOgcgrIGvDrYC7pXk/s320/Nie+Shubin+%2528file+photo%2529.jpg" title="Nie Shubin (file photo)" width="298" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nie Shubin (file photo)</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">The Supreme People's Court has ordered a retrial of a man executed 21 years ago, according to Xinhua News Agency.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.fr/search/label/Nie%20Shubin" target="_blank">Nie Shubin</a>, a worker in Shijiazhuang, northern China's Hebei Province, was put to death in April 1995 when he was 20 years old for allegedly raping and killing a woman in a cornfield.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nie was convicted of intentional rape and murder on March 15, 1995 by the intermediate people’s court in Shijiazhuang. In addition to having all of his political rights taken away for both crimes he was given a death sentence. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In December 2014, the Supreme People’s Court, in accordance with a request from the Higher People's Court of Hebei Province and in the spirit of related laws, appointed the Higher People's Court of Shandong Province to conduct a review of the case.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Accordingly a panel of five judges conducted in depth document review with other parties along with proper verification of the autopsy of the victim to see whether or not there were bone fractures. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Several trips were made to Hebei etc. to conduct investigations and talk with the appellee and their lawyer.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The new panel decided that there was not enough evidence to prove Nie Shubin was guilty, with many doubts in the aspects of time and tools used in the crime as well as causes of death. It is not possible to rule out that perhaps another person did the crime. Accordingly, they suggested a re-trial with affiliated parties.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Supreme People's Court agreed with their opinion and in compliance with article 242 and 243 of the People’s Republic of China criminal procedural law the case is to be brought into reconsideration.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Supreme People's Court will organize a collegiate bench and maintain a just attitude and conduct a hearing based on the facts and criterion of law, and a verification letter of the re-hearing was presented to Nie Shubin’s mother. Results will be presented to the public in a timely manner. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: <a href="http://en.people.cn/n3/2016/0608/c98649-9069859.html" target="_blank">People's Daily Online</a>, June 8, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">China orders retrial of murder case of man executed 21 years ago</span></b></div><br />More than 2 decades after a young Chinese man's execution, the country's supreme court on Wednesday informed his mother of a new trial, shining a spotlight on an old murder case viewed by many as a symbol of the fatal flaws in China's criminal justice system.<br /><br />Calling the evidence for the conviction and sentencing in 1995 of 20-year-old Nie Shubin "unreliable and incomplete," the Supreme People's Court ordered the case to be retried "openly and fairly" - but did not give a trial date.<br /><br />The court statement alluded to the biggest twist in the case: Another man later confessed to the crimes -- raping and killing a woman -- that Nie was executed for.<br /><br />"Major questions exist in terms of when and how the defendant allegedly committed the crimes as well as how the victim died," it said. "The possibility that another person may have committed the crimes cannot be ruled out."<br /><br /><b>A mother's fight for her son</b><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvOJILrPpSQ1n_DsjiT5ZtqqHoOo47073SgN8uhwIIcCVavFCRHLPXROGm8PEa6Chiufl3RVVtea_2kLzAuTk9vCvctP8w0X8vTveZzSjtiZyASYogtngizuNxbhIQG5lXmaGll4s7Paw/s1600/Nie+Shubin%25E2%2580%2599s+mother+visits+his+grave+and+makes+offerings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Nie Shubin’s mother visits his grave and makes offerings" border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvOJILrPpSQ1n_DsjiT5ZtqqHoOo47073SgN8uhwIIcCVavFCRHLPXROGm8PEa6Chiufl3RVVtea_2kLzAuTk9vCvctP8w0X8vTveZzSjtiZyASYogtngizuNxbhIQG5lXmaGll4s7Paw/s400/Nie+Shubin%25E2%2580%2599s+mother+visits+his+grave+and+makes+offerings.jpg" title="Nie Shubin’s mother visits his grave and makes offerings" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nie Shubin’s mother visits his grave and makes offerings.</td></tr></tbody></table>"I'm very excited about the development," Zhang Huanzhi, Nie's 72-year-old mother, told CNN by phone Thursday. "I'll visit his grave soon to tell him that Mom's efforts all these years weren't in vain -- and justice will prevail in your case."<br /><br />When CNN last met Zhang in her small village in 2011, the farmer from Hebei Province was still fighting in earnest to exonerate her son, making countless journeys to the provincial capital of Shijiazhuang -- some 320 kilometers (200 miles) southwest of Beijing.<br /><br />"I bike to the closest bus stop and then take a 2-hour ride to the provincial high court," said Zhang back then. "As long as I can still move, I'm not giving up."<br /><br />Zhang goes to court whenever she catches a break between tending the cornfield and feeding her livestock.<br /><br />Zhang hopes the government would do whatever it takes to protect other families from the kind of anguish she has suffered.<br /><br />Nie Shubin was executed in 1995 for raping and killing a woman. A decade later, another man confessed to the same crimes.<br /><br />Zhang hopes the government would do whatever it takes to protect other families from the kind of anguish she has suffered.<br /><br />Many have viewed Zhang's plight -- and the case involving her only son -- as an egregious example of widespread police torture, deficient due process and lax review of death sentences.<br /><br />For years, Zhang kept hitting a wall and even the People's Daily -- the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party -- ran a scathing commentary in September 2011 that asked: "In a case where someone was clearly wronged, why has it been so difficult to make it right?"<br /><br />"Rehabilitation means little to the dead, but it means a lot to his surviving family and all other citizens," it said. "We can no longer afford to let Nie's case drag on."<br /><br />Zhang was dealt with a blow in 2013 when the Hebei high court ruled that, despite his confession, a man named Wang Shujin was not the perpetrator in the Nie case.<br /><br />Hopes were rekindled when the supreme court the following year ordered the high court in another province to review the case.<br /><br />Zhang's lawyers were allowed to examine the case files last year, and said they discovered multiple forged signatures, and evidence of provincial authorities in Hebei pressuring Wang to recant his confession through mental and physical abuses.<br /><br />China has long insisted it is ruled by law, stressing that its judicial system bans evidence obtained through torture and increasingly limits the death penalty.<br /><br />Still, it executes more people than all other countries of the world combined. Human rights group Amnesty International estimates the figure -- considered a state secret -- to be in the thousands every year.<br /><br />Many experts also argue that, with the ruling Communist leadership more concerned about maintaining social stability, ordinary citizens and lawyers alike face a repressive legal environment in which criminal suspects do not enjoy the right to silence.<br /><br /><b>Persistence pays off</b><br /><br />Zhang's refusal to stay quiet, fortunately, has finally made a difference in Nie's case.<br /><br />She now seals her most treasured possessions in a plastic bag: 2 old photos and several legal documents.<br /><br />"He was about 19 and it was taken right here in our courtyard," she told CNN 5 years ago, pointing to the fading color prints of her shy stuttering son beaming for the camera.<br /><br />Nie was taken into custody not long after the photos were taken and would never see his mother again.<br /><br />Zhang said local police, during their several visits to question the family and search the house, never told her why they had detained her son. Court documents cited "tips from local residents" but did not elaborate.<br /><br />Authorities tried Nie behind closed doors and barred the parents from the courtroom, but Nie told a lawyer hired by his family that he was beaten into a confession on his 6th day in jail.<br /><br /><b>Lone quest for justice</b><br /><br />7 months after he was first detained, the government executed Nie -- without notifying his parents.<br /><br />After the initial shock, Zhang had to endure more agony to locate her son's remains and deal with a failed suicide attempt and subsequent half-paralysis of her husband, who was devastated by Nie's execution.<br /><br />Living off her husband's meager monthly pension, Zhang has learned to take care of the family by herself.<br /><br />Carefully laying the contents from her plastic bag on a table, Zhang described in 2011 each legal document as she recounted her 6-year lone quest for justice: a copy of the verdict against Nie that detailed his "crimes;" a 2007 letter from the Supreme People's Court in Beijing instructing the Hebei high court to "process" her appeal; and most importantly, a printout of a written statement by Wang's lawyer on his client's confession.<br /><br />"The cold reality doesn't offer us ordinary people much hope -- so why do I keep pursuing?" Zhang asked back then.<br /><br />"I don't want to hold anyone responsible, I don't want government compensation, and I don't want the judge to bring back my son alive -- but one thing I must have is his innocence."<br /><br />Source: CNN, June 9, 2016<br /><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Death-Penalty-News-206848499362906/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

Asia China Exoneration Innocence Nie Shubin Posthumous Torture China's SC orders retrial of Nie Shubin, convicted of rape & murder and executed 21 years ago

Nie Shubin (file photo) The Supreme People's Court has ordered a retrial of a man executed 21 years ago, according to Xinhua News Agency...

Baca selengkapnya »