On August 8, 2024, a case of theft, insult, and intentional destruction of corpses disclosed by a self-media has attracted widespread attention from the society, such as the maximum statutory sentence for this crime is three years in prison, and there are thousands of corpses stolen in this case, how to convict and sentence may challenge the bottom line of justice. Today's Q&A asks: "What is the crime of stealing a corpse to make implant material?" To answer this question, it is necessary to start with the basic facts of the case and the determination of the crime.
Today's legal Q&A, · crime identification and number of crimes
1. The basic facts of the case and the charges are determined
Most of the materials disclosed by a self-media are from the "Prosecution Opinion" prepared by the pretrial department of the Taiyuan Municipal Public Security Bureau on May 23, 2024. According to the description of the materials, the basic facts of the case are divided into two parts, namely the facts of the crime committed by the unit and the facts of the crime committed by the natural person, as follows:
Facts of the unit's crime: From January 2015 to July 2023, Shanxi Aorui Biomaterials Co., Ltd. illegally purchased remains and residual limbs from Sichuan, Guangxi, Shandong and other places as raw materials for the production of "allogeneic bone implant materials" products; During the investigation, the police seized more than 18 tons of raw materials and semi-finished products of human bones and 34,077 finished products of the company involved in the case. After auditing in accordance with the law, the company's total operating income reached 380 million yuan during the aforementioned period.
Facts of the natural person's crime: From 2017 to 2019, Su Moumou controlled the crematoriums of funeral homes in Shuifu City in Yunnan, Banan District in Chongqing, Shiqian County in Guizhou, and Daying County in Sichuan by contracting, buying shares, and sending people to settle in. The criminal suspect Su Moumou provided more than 4,000 human skeletons to Shanxi Aorui Biomaterials Co., Ltd.
The reason for this is that there are two types of crimes involving "corpses" in the Criminal Law, namely, Article 234-1, Paragraph 3 and Article 302, and the crimes referred to in the former article are also "theft, insult, and intentional destruction of corpses, bones, and ashes".
According to Article 302, this crime does not include crimes committed by units, and accordingly, it is meaningless for the Prosecution Opinion to describe the facts of crimes committed by units.
2. Rules for the identification of crimes
Article 302 of the Criminal Law stipulates: "Whoever steals, insults, or intentionally destroys corpses, bones, or ashes shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, short-term detention, or controlled release." Accordingly, the "two supremes" will be in the law "...... The substitution of "crime" for "medium" is the specific crime in this article; Accordingly, most judicial officers can decompose the offence as "theft of a dead body...... Sin" "Insulting the corpse...... sin" "vandalism...... sin".
According to the literal interpretation, the breakdown of the above crimes seems to be logical. However, the "quasi-crime" of this crime, i.e., the crime of disturbing public order, tells the judicial officer that the purpose of the Criminal Law is to regulate the destruction or disturbance of public order and good customs. The purpose of stealing corpses to make implant materials is different from this crime, and accordingly, according to the rules for identifying crimes that are consistent with subjectivity and objectivity, the judicial organs should find that it is a crime of theft.
The price of the stolen corpse does not need to be determined, for example, the price of contraband such as drugs. The theft of more than 1,000 corpses can be assessed as "having other particularly serious circumstances", and according to article 264 of the Criminal Law, the statutory sentence is 10 or more years imprisonment or life imprisonment, and a fine or confiscation of property.
At present, 75 criminal suspects have confessed to the suspected crime of stealing corpses and have pleaded guilty and accepted punishment. Accordingly, judicial officers should develop good rules for identifying crimes, that is, consistency between subjectivity and objectivity.
Rules for the identification of crimes
3. Determination of the number of crimes and combined punishment
In judicial practice, the determination of the number of crimes includes the number of crimes with the same crime, such as theft or fraud committed by the majority of the perpetrators, and the number of crimes with different charges, such as theft and intentional injury. In order to prevent undue aggravation of punishment in cases of property crimes, the 1997 Criminal Law stipulates in a number of legal articles that "punishment shall be imposed according to the cumulative amount", for example, the second paragraph of Article 383 stipulates: "Where repeated embezzlement has not been dealt with, punishment shall be imposed according to the cumulative amount of embezzlement." ”
It is worth mentioning that the 1979 Penal Code does not provide for "cumulative" property offences. For example, the first paragraph of Article 150 provides for the crime of robbery, and the second paragraph stipulates: "Where the circumstances are serious or cause serious injury or death, the person shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than 10 years, life imprisonment or death, and may also be sentenced to confiscation of property." ”
The 1997 Criminal Law provides for the "accumulation" of property crimes, and many judicial officers believe that crimes such as violations of personal rights can also be applied "cumulatively" and are subject to concurrent punishment. For example, the defendant intentionally wounded another person twice and caused two minor injuries to each other; Most judicial practice is that the penalty is accumulative, and the combined punishment is applied, and the result of the judgment is fixed-term imprisonment of less than three years. As a result, violence continues to occur.
Determination of the number of crimes and combined punishment
The 1997 Penal Code does not provide for "cumulative" offences except for property offences. Accordingly, in the case of stealing corpses to make implant materials, even if judicial personnel cannot be found guilty of theft through the rules of subjective and objective consistency, they can also separately sentence each theft of corpses, and implement combined punishment for several crimes, so as to "punish the crime as appropriate". The theft of thousands of corpses and the sentencing of up to three years may challenge the bottom line of justice.
Links to the main legal provisions
Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China
Article 302 Whoever steals, insults, or intentionally destroys corpses, bones, or ashes shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, short-term detention, or controlled release.
Article 264:Whoever steals public or private property, where the amount is relatively large, or who commits multiple thefts, burglaries, thefts with a murder weapon, or pickpocketing, is to be sentenced to up to three years imprisonment, short-term detention or controlled release, and/or a fine; where the amount is huge or there are other serious circumstances, a sentence of between 3 and 10 years imprisonment and a concurrent fine is to be given; where the amount is especially huge or there are other especially serious circumstances, a sentence of 10 or more years imprisonment or indefinite imprisonment is to be given, and a concurrent fine or confiscation of property.
Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China (1979)
Article 150:Whoever robs public or private property by violence, coercion or other means shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years.
Where the crimes in the preceding paragraph are committed, where the circumstances are serious or cause serious injury or death, a sentence of 10 or more years imprisonment, life imprisonment, or death is to be given, and property may be confiscated concurrently.