In Chinese history, there are many famous unjust cases, and the formation of these unjust cases not only reflects the imperfection of the judicial system at that time, but also reflects various problems in society. Behind every unjust case is a person's life and even the future of a family. Judging from the experience of lawyer Chen's unjust case rehabilitation, the possibility of misconviction for sexual crimes is extremely high, and an honest person is labeled as a rapist, and there is no way to argue. Today, the case that Lawyer Chen wants to talk about is how a honest and honest man became a murderer who brutally raped and killed his niece, and how he was able to rehabilitate Zhaoxue. This case is also known as the Henan version of the "She Xianglin case", and Mr. Chen has also analyzed the She Xianglin case in previous articles, and this case has similarities and special features. Let's follow Mr. Chen to find out what inspiration this case has given us after 9 years of finally revealing the truth.
1. Brief facts of the case
On the evening of December 2, 1999, in Xiaolizhuang Village, Shenqiu County, Zhoukou City, Henan Province, Zhang Fen, a 22-year-old female doctor, disappeared mysteriously after visiting a doctor. A month later, her body floated from a well next to the village, and when it was recovered, Zhang Fen still had a rope hanging around her neck, and at the other end of the rope, half a bag of bricks was tied. And the first person to find out that Zhang Fen is missing, is Zhang Shaoyou, it is worth noting that he is over forty years old and still unmarried, and he is still Zhang Fen's uncle, during the police interrogation, he behaved extremely nervous, stammered, and even eavesdropped in the corner when the police interrogated other suspects. 's abnormal behavior and special identity made the police suspect that the murderer who raped and killed Zhang Fen was Zhang Shaoyou, who was incoherent and wooden in front of him.
Once the police form a mental evidence of who is a criminal, it will be difficult to change the result, and the next thing is to change the law and let Zhang Shaoyou "recruit from the truth", give the result first and then gather evidence. In January 2000, the police detained and arrested Zhang Shaoyou on suspicion of intentional rape and murder of his niece. In the following two years, during his detention, he repeatedly confessed to the fact of "raping and killing his niece". On 24 December 2002, the Zhoukou City Intermediate People's Court sentenced Zhang Shaoyou to death for intentional homicide and rape without any physical or human evidence. Zhang Shaoyou was grief-stricken and indignant, his emotions were out of control in court, and he shouted: "I wasn't the one who killed my niece, I was wronged, I was beaten if I didn't admit it, I can't stand it!" ”。
Seeing this, how Zhang Shaoyou's guilty confession came about, everyone must have a good idea in their hearts. Zhang Fen's younger brother Zhang Zhiming didn't believe that his uncle was the murderer of his sister, when Zhang Shaoyou was arrested in 2000, Zhang Zhiming rushed to the scene to question Zhang Shaoyou, in the face of the questioning and suspicion of his relatives, Zhang Shaoyou, who has always been honest, collapsed, and cried to his nephew: "I really didn't kill it, it was someone else who beat me and asked me to recruit." It's a pity that the police won't listen at all, and neither will the court, but the bruises on Zhang Shaoyou's arms won't lie. It is clear that he was tortured to extract a confession.
Hearing the death sentence of his uncle, Zhang Zhiming's heart was difficult to calm down, what was going on, how could his uncle rape and kill his sister? If he didn't do it, why admit it?
After Zhang Shaoyou was imprisoned, Zhang Zhiming went to visit, saw his uncle skinny, and kept saying that he was wronged, plus on weekdays, his uncle took good care of him and his sister, and even took out his savings for his sister and brother. Zhang Zhigang became more convinced of his uncle's innocent judgment, and made up his mind to rehabilitate his uncle. With the belief of his close relatives, Zhang Shaoyou in prison actively participated in labor reform, and at the same time, he was constantly avenging his grievances. The road of redress is destined to be long and difficult, but once people have faith and work hard for it, they will definitely usher in the dawn of dawn. In March 2008, Zhang Zhigang received a strange phone call, in which the man claimed to know the real murderer of Zhang Fen, and his name was not Zhang Shaoyou, but Hu Xiaogang. Zhang Zhiyuan then went to the Henan Provincial Public Security Department to report the case. In April of the same year, the public security organs arrested the real culprit Hu Xiaogang in Korla, Xinjiang.
In fact, the police were suspicious of Hu Xiaogang at the beginning, because not long after the incident, Hu Xiaogang's family moved to Xinjiang, which was very unusual at the time, but the police's preconceived ideas misled the judgment of the case, and a person who had never done anything bad for most of his life was unjustly imprisoned for 9 years.
2. Analysis of difficult points in the case
The body was soaked in water for a long time and was found a month later, and fingerprints and sperm spots were also difficult to extract, this case is indeed more difficult. However, it is too hasty for the police to determine Zhang Shaoyou's murderer only on the basis of his nervousness during interrogation and his behavior of eavesdropping on the conversation.
First of all, it is necessary to visit and investigate what Zhang Shaoyou is and whether he has a motive to kill. In this case, based on their experience in handling the case, the police believed that Zhang Shaoyou was still a bachelor in his 40s, and then determined that he had a motive for rape, which was obviously untenable. Rape and murder are mostly motivated by lust, trapped by love, or murdered for money, and Zhang Shaoyou is honest on weekdays, and even said that when Zhang Fen gets married, he will use all his savings to give her a dowry, and it is not logical to believe that such a person has a motive to kill.
Secondly, it must also be a question that everyone wonders, why Zhang Shaoyou has to admit that he killed his niece, and whether he can be directly convicted with the suspect's guilty confession. According to Zhang Shaoyou's description and the fact that there were many bruises on his arms, it can be inferred that he was tortured to extract a confession during his detention, and the case-handling personnel insisted that Zhang Shaoyou was the murderer, and there was no other evidence to support this case, so obtaining a confession of guilt from the criminal suspect was naturally the most effective way. But can a criminal suspect's confession alone be convicted? Can he be identified as a murderer? Criminal cases emphasize the elimination of reasonable doubt, and a chain of evidence should be formed between evidence, and conviction cannot be made for isolated evidence. In this case, an obvious flaw is that the key that Zhang Fen carried with him disappeared, but Zhang Shaoyou didn't know where the key was, because the location of the key was only known to the real murderer, but the police did not notice this fact, and arrested an innocent person despite many doubts.
Zhang Shaoyou's grievances are inseparable from his own persistence, and he has left the firm support of his family. In the face of unjust, false and wrongly decided cases, if you want to overturn the case, you need not only a professional team of lawyers, but also the trust and help of family members, and work together to clear up the grievances of the parties. The reversal of unjust, false and wrongly decided cases, especially sexual assault cases, is most likely due to problems in the identification of evidence, and judging whether a person is guilty or not by virtue of the so-called case-handling experience and psychological evidence, which is not illegal and does not conform to human nature, and when defending such cases, more attention should be paid to sorting out the evidence and restoring the truth.
About author:Beijing lawyer Chen, LL.M., senior partner lawyer, has served as a special forces commander, prosecutor, investigator, discipline inspection cadre, corporate executive, rich experience, profound education, good at difficult and major cases, a variety of legal relationships cross complex case handling, keep promises, worthy of trust.