Wang Yi's intentional injury case
1. Basic facts of the case
Defendant Wang Yi, female, born on January 29, 1971, Han ethnicity, college education. He was criminally detained on 28 May 1999 on suspicion of intentional injury and released on 10 September 1999. He was criminally detained on 9 December of the same year, released on 23 December and rearrested on 28 January 2000.
The People's Procuratorate of Nantong City, Jiangsu Province, filed a public prosecution with the Nantong Intermediate People's Court for the crime of intentional injury committed by the defendant Wang Yi. The plaintiffs in the attached civil lawsuit, Wang Di and Huang, also filed an attached civil lawsuit.
The Nantong City Intermediate People's Court ascertained through an open trial that: Defendant Wang Yi was seriously estranged from his family because of his parents' long-term interference in his marriage and the fact that he had given his sister Wang Di 90,000 yuan to buy a house by himself. Because of his long-term poor health, he suspected that his parents deliberately delayed his treatment and wanted to kill him, and gradually developed the idea of revenge on his family. At about 1 p.m. on May 28, 1999, Wang Yi purchased a bottle of sulfuric acid at the medical device chemical reagent specialty store at No. 41 Renmin East Road, Nantong City, and when he returned home, he quietly poured half a bottle of sulfuric acid into a teacup, and then called his mother Ni Yulan, sister Wang Di, brother-in-law Huang Jian, and aunt and nephew Huang to come to his residence for dinner. At around 20:30 that night, Wang Yi took the opportunity of the victims Wang Di and Huang to go home, holding a teacup containing sulfuric acid, pretending to send Wang Di and Huang downstairs with his mother Ni Yulan. When Ni Yulan asked what she was doing with the teacup, Wang Yi lied that it was boiling water and was thirsty to drink. When he walked to the dark place on the east side of Building 94A in Xuetian New Village, the defendant Wang Yi said "I'm sorry for you" and suddenly poured sulfuric acid on Wang Di, Huang, and Ni Yulan. Wang Di and Huang screamed in pain after being splashed with sulfuric acid, Wang Yi took off his coat to his sister Wang Di, and went upstairs to bring water to Wang Di to rinse. According to the forensic evaluation of the Nantong Municipal Public Security Bureau, the victims Wang Di, Huang, and Ni Yulan were all seriously injured. Among them, the disability level of the victims Wang Di and Huang reached level 3, and the victim Ni Yulan's disability level was level 9.
On June 7 and June 30, 1999, the Nantong City Chongchuan District Public Security Bureau commissioned the Nantong City Mental Illness Appraisal Committee and the Jiangsu Provincial Mental Illness Appraisal Committee to conduct two judicial evaluations of Wang Yi's mental illness, both of which concluded that "Wang Yi suffered from schizophrenia and was incapable of responsibility at the time of committing the crime." Accordingly, the public security organs released Wang Yi.
The victim Wang Di found it difficult to accept this appraisal conclusion, raised objections through various means, and repeatedly asked the public security and procuratorial organs to conduct a new evaluation of Wang Yi's mental illness. On 2 December 1999, the Chongchuan District Public Security Bureau of Nantong City commissioned the Institute of Forensic Science and Technology of the Ministry of Justice to conduct a forensic evaluation of Wang Yi's mental illness, and the institute issued an appraisal on December 2, 1999, concluding that "Wang Yi was not mentally ill and that the crime was caused by emotional reactions." Wang Yi has full responsibility capacity."
After trial, the Nantong Intermediate People's Court held that the defendant Wang Yi intentionally injured others by pouring sulfuric acid, causing serious injuries to three people, and his conduct constituted the crime of intentional injury. Wang Yi's injury to his immediate family members was not caused by the intensification of family disputes, but was entirely caused by his personal intolerance, and his methods were particularly cruel and the consequences were particularly serious, and he should be severely punished in accordance with law. The economic losses caused by their criminal conduct to the plaintiffs in the attached civil lawsuit, Wang Di and Huang, shall be compensated in accordance with law. The Nantong Municipal People's Procuratorate's indictment of the charges is convicted and should be upheld. With regard to the defender's defense opinion that the defendant Wang Yi suffered from schizophrenia at the time of the crime and did not bear criminal responsibility on the basis of the two appraisal conclusions issued by the Jiangsu Provincial Mental Illness Appraisal Committee and the Nantong Municipal Mental Illness Appraisal Committee, upon investigation: the materials on which the above two appraisal conclusions were based were only Wang Yi's confession and the statements of Wang Yi's mother Ni Yulan and her boyfriend, and these materials could not be corroborated by each other after being cross-examined at trial, and were obviously one-sided. The evaluators also did not go to the scene of the crime to conduct an investigation, and did not learn about the situation from the defendant's father, sister, or co-workers, so it was determined that the defendant had no motive or purpose for committing the crime, was not premeditated, and was not objective and scientific. These two findings are not accepted. In addition to the materials submitted for inspection, the appraisal personnel of the Ministry of Justice's Institute of Forensic Science also went to the scene of the case to conduct an on-the-spot investigation and understanding, and the appraisal conclusions made on this basis were relatively objective and fair, and should be accepted. In accordance with the provisions of Article 234, Paragraph 2, Article 57, Paragraph 1, and Article 36 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, and Article 119 of the General Principles of the Civil Law of the People's Republic of China, the judgment is as follows: Defendant Wang Yi committed the crime of intentional injury and was sentenced to death and deprived of political rights for life; Defendant Wang Yi compensated the plaintiffs in the attached civil lawsuit, Wang Di and Huang, for medical expenses, transportation expenses, lost work expenses, etc., totaling RMB 74,472.10.
After the first-instance verdict was announced, the defendant Wang Yi did not appeal, and the public prosecution did not raise a counter-appeal. The attached civil judgment has taken legal effect. The Nantong Intermediate People's Court reported to the Jiangsu Provincial High People's Court in accordance with law to approve the death sentence of the defendant Wang Yi.
During the review period, because the conclusions of the previous three psychiatric evaluations were contradictory, the Jiangsu Provincial High People's Court found it necessary to conduct a new evaluation, so it organized medical experts in accordance with the law to conduct a fourth evaluation of the defendant Wang Yi's mental illness, and on October 20, 2000, it made an evaluation conclusion that "the defendant Wang Yi suffers from schizophrenia and has no capacity for criminal responsibility". Due to the great divergence of opinions among the four appraisal conclusions, the Jiangsu Provincial High People's Court decided to entrust the Judicial Appraisal Center of the Supreme People's Court to organize psychiatric experts to conduct a fifth review and appraisal of Wang Yi, and concluded that Wang Yi had the capacity to limit criminal responsibility at the time of committing the crime. Based on this, the Jiangsu Provincial High People's Court found upon review that the defendant Wang Yi intentionally injured others, causing serious injuries, and that his conduct constituted the crime of intentional injury, and that the means were particularly cruel, causing serious injuries to three people, two of whom were seriously disabled, and the consequences were particularly serious, and should be severely punished in accordance with law. In view of the fact that the defendant Wang Yi was unable to fully recognize and control his own behavior when he committed the crime, he may be given a lighter punishment. The original people's court found that the defendant Wang Yi was a person with full capacity for criminal responsibility, and that the death sentence was improper, and the sentence should be commuted. On April 27, 2001, in accordance with the provisions of Article 234, Paragraph 2, Article 57, Paragraph 1, and Article 18, Paragraph 3 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China and Article 276 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Enforcement of the Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China, it was ruled that the defendant Wang Yi was guilty of intentional injury and sentenced to death with a two-year suspension and deprived of political rights for life.
Second, the main issues
When multiple appraisal conclusions contradict each other, how should the court review and accept the conclusions?
III. Grounds for the Trial
According to Article 119 of the Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China, which stipulates that "in order to ascertain the facts of a case, when it is necessary to resolve specialized issues in a case, a person with specialized knowledge shall be appointed or hired to conduct an appraisal". Psychiatric evaluation is a highly professional technical activity that is common in judicial practice. Generally speaking, the appraisal conclusion should be carried out by experts with considerable attainments in the professional issue to be evaluated, so their judgment opinions and conclusions are usually more scientific and credible. However, we should also realize that due to the high complexity of the appraisal issue itself, the particularity of the appraisal case, and the constraints and influences of various factors and conditions in the appraisal process, the appraisal activities of experts may also draw unscientific and correct conclusions. Therefore, the appraisal conclusion should be used as evidence for the final verdict, and like other types of evidence, it must also be verified as true through court investigation procedures such as presentation and cross-examination in court in accordance with the law, and can be mutually corroborated with other evidence in the case, eliminate contradictions, and reach a reasonable and exclusive conclusion.
In this case, there were five conflicting and contradictory appraisal conclusions in the evaluation of whether the defendant Wang Yi was mentally ill and the degree of illness, which is enough to show the high complexity of the psychiatric appraisal and the possibility of error in the appraisal conclusions. As mentioned above, the appraisal conclusion is only the professional opinion provided to the court by an expert in a certain aspect on the specialized issues involved in the case, and whether the appraisal conclusion is scientific and correct or not, and whether it can be used as the basis for the verdict, remains to be reviewed and accepted by the judge. The review of appraisal conclusions generally mainly includes a review of the evaluator's qualifications, appraisal materials, appraisal process, appraisal basis, and consistency of appraisal results with other evidence in the case. In this case, the people's court in charge of the review first carefully examined the appraisal materials on which the five appraisal conclusions were based. Therefore, in order to accurately determine the actual mental state of the person being evaluated at the time of committing the harmful act, it is necessary for the evaluator to have a true and comprehensive grasp of the appraisal materials, and it is necessary for the evaluator to go to the scene, visit witnesses, question relevant parties, and examine the victims. During the last appraisal of this case, the forensic psychiatric experts who participated in the appraisal read the relevant files and conducted a comprehensive investigation of the victim Wang Di and his family, the parents of the appraised and their boyfriend, the colleagues of the appraised's work unit, the correctional personnel of the appraised's detention facility, the criminal suspect detained in the same room, the treating physician who was hospitalized for the appraised person, the first-instance trial personnel of the case, the public prosecutor of the case, and other relevant personnel; Two psychiatric examinations were conducted on the person being evaluated; read and analyzed 13 letters written by the person being evaluated in the detention center; The relevant personnel involved in the appraisal of this case were investigated and questioned in the previous cases, and finally the investigation materials obtained were fully and comprehensively analyzed and concluded on this basis. Compared with the previous appraisal conclusions, the material on which the last appraisal was based was extremely comprehensive, rich and objective. Second, the adjudicators in this case also carefully examined the consistency of the five appraisal conclusions with other evidence in this case. Through in-depth investigation and visits, the adjudicators ascertained that the defendant Wang Yi had certain conflicts with his parents over personal marriage, housing, and other issues, and that since he suffered from myocarditis at the end of 1998, Wang has been paranoid that his parents do not care about him at all. In particular, after he contracted bacillary dysentery in May 1999, he believed that his mother deliberately delayed his treatment, resulting in myocardial ischemia, rotten intestines, and bad internal organs. She watched her stool every day to see if there were any intestines coming down, suspecting that she was terminally ill and dying. He saw his mother talking to her boyfriend and thought that he was planning to kill her, and that his internal organs had been cured by his mother with poison, and wanted to take revenge on his mother. All these circumstances are sufficient to reflect that the defendant Wang Yi had a mental disorder at the time of committing the crime, his ability to recognize and control his own behavior was considerably weakened, and there were specific pathological and practical reasons for the harmful acts he committed. In addition, judging from the facts of the case, in order to take revenge on his mother, sister and nephew, the defendant Wang Yi consciously purchased sulfuric acid in advance and poured it into a teacup in advance. When he called the victim to invite him to his residence for dinner and saw him off, he falsely claimed that the teacup he was carrying was water for drinking, and chose to pour sulfuric acid on the victim in a dimly lit place. I also hesitated before pouring sulfuric acid, and said "I'm sorry for you". All this shows that Wang Yi also had a certain understanding of the nature and consequences of his actions when he committed the crime, and he did not completely lose the ability to recognize and control his own behavior.
To sum up, the Jiangsu Provincial High People's Court, with a highly responsible attitude, on the basis of carefully examining, analyzing, and comparing a number of conflicting appraisal conclusions, finally held that the Supreme People's Court's Judicial Appraisal Center's appraisal conclusion that "Wang Yi had a long-term mental disorder, but had not completely lost his ability to recognize and control his own behavior at the time of committing the crime" was an actor with limited capacity for criminal responsibility, which was relatively reasonable and consistent with the actual circumstances of the case, could be corroborated with other evidence in the case, and could be interpreted consistently. Decides to admit it. On this basis, the defendant Wang Yi was sentenced to a suspended death.
[Editor's note: This case has a certain reference value in reviewing and accepting appraisal conclusions.] Criminal law theories generally divide mental patients into three categories: one is mental loss (a mentally ill person who is completely unable to recognize or control his own behavior), the second is mental exhaustion (the ability to recognize or control his behavior has been weakened to a certain extent but has not yet been completely lost), and the third is intermittent mental illness. Different principles of criminal responsibility shall apply to each of the three categories of mentally ill persons. Paragraph 3 of Article 18 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that a mentally exhausted person who commits a crime shall bear criminal responsibility, but the punishment may be mitigated or commuted. From the perspective of the prudent use of the death penalty, we tend to believe that it is generally not appropriate to apply the death penalty to a person with a more serious degree of mental exhaustion if he commits a crime and pursues criminal responsibility. For similar cases, please refer to the Criminal Trial Reference, Vol. 24, the Agudun Intentional Homicide Case. ]