The Paper's reporter He Liquan
On December 31, 2021, the Sichuan Provincial High People's Court pronounced a retrial verdict in the case of "Zhang Zhijun's murder of his son-in-law's family of three" at Mianyang Prison in Sichuan Province, and changed the sentence to Death sentence for Zhang Zhijun and deprived him of his political rights for life. "We've been waiting too long for this day." Regarding the appeal verdict, the family of the victim said that it hoped to comfort the three relatives who had passed away.
The Paper previously reported that Zou Peng (pseudonym) and his parents Zou Mouhai and Yang Moufen were stabbed to death with a knife in a residential area in Pengzhou City, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, in January 2019, and the perpetrator was Zou Peng's father-in-law, Zhang Zhijun. Previously, Zou Peng's marriage with his wife tended to break down and he had long lived separately. On the day of the crime, due to the problem of the adoption of the young daughter, Zou Peng and his party of three people went to the door to argue with their parents-in-law, during which a murder occurred.
The Chengdu Intermediate People's Court of Sichuan Province found defendant Zhang Zhijun guilty of intentional homicide in the first instance and sentenced him to death. After Zhang Zhijun appealed, the Sichuan Provincial High People's Court changed the verdict of Zhang Zhijun to intentional homicide in the second instance and sentenced him to death with a two-year suspension of execution.
On April 23, 2021, the victim's close relatives and lawyers formally submitted a complaint to the Sichuan Provincial High Court by mail for a retrial. On April 30, the Sichuan Higher People's Court announced that trial supervision procedures had been initiated for the case. On May 13, the Sichuan Provincial High People's Court decided to retry the case, which began on August 20.
The death sentence in the second instance was changed to a suspended death sentence, and the "letter of understanding" was questioned
With regard to this case, the Chengdu Intermediate People's Court held in the first instance that the defendant Zhang Zhijun stabbed the chest and abdomen of others several times in a family dispute with a sharp knife, resulting in the death of the victims Zou Peng, Yang Moufen, and Zou Mouhai, and his conduct constituted the crime of intentional homicide and should be severely punished according to law; this case was caused by a family dispute, the two sides had a dispute over the child, the defendant did not face the unlawful infringement provided for in China's criminal law, and his behavior was not defensive; and his methods were cruel and the consequences of the crime were serious, and whether he had premeditated the crime, it did not affect the sentencing and sentencing Zhang Zhijun surrendered voluntarily, confessed truthfully after his return, and pleaded guilty in court, but his crime was extremely serious and insufficient to give him a lenient punishment. Accordingly, the Chengdu Intermediate People's Court convicted Zhang Zhijun of intentional homicide and sentenced him to death and deprivation of political rights for life.
After the first-instance judgment, Zhang Zhijun appealed. The Sichuan Provincial High People's Court heard the case in public on July 21, 2020. During the trial, the Sichuan Provincial People's Procuratorate recommended that the original judgment be upheld in the second instance. According to the opinion of the prosecutor who appeared in court at the second instance obtained by The Paper, the prosecution believes that in the face of general family disputes, the defendant consciously chose to use a highly lethal bone removal knife to stab the victim. At that time, it should have been a family conflict and did not constitute an imminent wrongful infringement. Although the defendant reported the case afterwards and waited at the scene, he did not effectively rescue the defendant when he learned that the result of the injury had occurred during the incident, but instead used the same means and methods to cause the result to expand. At the same time, the three victims were not at fault.
On October 28, 2020, the Sichuan Provincial High People's Court rendered a second-instance judgment. The court held that Zhang Zhijun did have statutory and discretionary mitigating circumstances, such as voluntary surrender, voluntary confession of guilt, and forgiveness of the victim's relatives. In terms of Zhang Zhijun's subjective malignancy, the court held that the case occurred between specific relatives, based on the victim's unexpected arrival and snatching of his granddaughter, Zhang Zhijun's dissuasion was ineffective to carry out a crime of passion to safeguard the interests and safety of himself and his relatives, and the victim was directly responsible for the intensification of the contradiction, "so that the degree of reprehensibility of his criminal act was reduced, and it should be different from other intentional homicide cases that seriously endangered social order."
At the same time, the Sichuan Provincial High People's Court held that after Zhang Zhijun committed the crime, after the victim's family lost the ability to resist, especially after the victim Zou Mouhai was stabbed by him, he did not continue to commit harm, reflecting his subjective mentality of admitting guilt and repenting after committing a crime of passion. In the end, the Sichuan Provincial People's Court sentenced Zhang Zhijun to death with a two-year suspension of execution and deprivation of political rights for life.
After learning the results of the above-mentioned second-instance judgment, the zou and Yang family families were quite stunned. They pointed out that the letter of understanding was issued by Zhang Yu. Before the first trial of the case, Zhang Yu had found the relatives of Zou Mouhai and Yang Moufen (brothers and sisters of the two) and hoped that they would issue a "letter of understanding", but they refused.
The Paper has learned that the letter of understanding mentioned in the second-instance judgment was indeed issued by Zhang Yu and his daughter (signed by Zhang Yu on behalf of him). In the letter of understanding, Zhang Yu mentioned that he had a difficult and difficult life with his child, in view of the fact that Zhang Zhijun took good care of the child before the incident, he believed that he had feelings for the child, "Putting aside the special relationship between me and him, I still hope that the child will lose one less relative, more care and love, after careful consideration I choose to forgive Zhang Zhijun ..."
In this regard, the opinion of the prosecutor who appeared in court at the second instance of the case shows that the prosecution believes that the victim's family has not been forgiven in this case. In the defendant's appeal opinion, "the social relations between the two families were gradually repaired" and there was no evidence to prove it. Although Zhang Yu is the legal wife of the victim Zou Peng, the two parties have repeatedly sued the court for divorce.
The prosecutor held that Zhang Yu's father killed Zou Peng and his parents, based on the special relationship zhang Yu was in and the role played in the family conflict, the understanding was essentially to help his father intercede, and did not obtain the forgiveness of Zou Mouhai and Yang Moufen's relatives, and could not play a role in "repairing social relations".
A lawyer who has been engaged in criminal defense for a long time told The Paper that the reason why the victims' families should be forgiven in the process of criminal reconciliation is because the criminal law also has a repair function, that is, to restore peace as soon as possible to the damaged social relations. If there are multiple victims in a case, the defendant has not obtained the forgiveness of all the victims' relatives, and the effect of forgiveness is limited.
Retrial Sentence: Change of Sentence to Death
On April 23, 2021, the victim's close relatives and lawyers formally submitted a complaint to the Sichuan Provincial High Court by mail for a retrial. On April 30, the Sichuan Higher People's Court announced that trial supervision procedures had been initiated for the case. On May 13, the Sichuan Provincial High People's Court decided to retry the case.
On August 20, the case was retried at Mianyang Prison in Sichuan Province. The trial lasted for 6 hours, mainly focusing on whether the victim went to the door to "snatch the child", whether there was a fault that intensified the contradiction, whether Zhang Zhijun's killing was premeditated, planned, or passionate, whether his voluntary surrender was or sufficient for a lighter punishment, whether Zhang Zhijun had received forgiveness from the victim's family, and whether the second-instance sentencing was appropriate.
A relative of the victim Fang who attended the trial told The Paper that Zhang Zhijun appeared in court by video on the same day, and in the statement, he did not admit that it was his fault and denied that he was intentionally killing people, but belonged to legitimate defense and "passionate killing". When the judge asked about the details of "snatching the child", Zhang Zhijun said that he "did not remember". At the same time, Zhang Zhijun also expressed his "deep apologies" to the relatives of the Zou family and the Yang family who appeared in court. Zhang Moujun also said in court that he and Zou Mouhai had not met several times, and there was no contradiction before, "sorry for the victim."
On December 31, 2021, the case was retried. Before entering the "courtroom" to hear the verdict, a relative of the injured party told The Paper that so far, an apology from Zhang Zhijun's family has not been waited for, and for "Zhang Zhijun's own apology", it is "unacceptable". "The damage has been done." The relatives said that they believe that the retrial court will make a fair judgment, no matter what the result, will not forgive Zhang Zhijun and "will appeal to the end."
Soon after, the Sichuan Provincial High People's Court pronounced a retrial verdict on the case, sentencing Zhang Zhijun to death for intentional homicide. The court held that the defendant in the original trial, Zhang Zhijun, could not correctly handle the daughter's family dispute, and the act of killing Three Zou constituted the crime of intentional homicide, the criminal means were cruel, the circumstances were heinous, the consequences were particularly serious, and the crimes committed were extremely serious and should be punished according to law. Although Zhang Zhijun surrendered voluntarily, it was not enough to give him a lenient punishment, so he changed his sentence to death according to law. The judgment will be submitted to the Supreme People's Court for approval in accordance with law.
"We've been waiting too long for this day." Relatives of the victim's side told The Paper that they hope to execute Zhang Zhijun as soon as possible and comfort the three relatives who have passed away, "I have contacted Zhang Yu many times before to cooperate with the burial of the three deceased", but there was no response, "If you still refuse to cooperate, you will take up legal weapons to sue the other party." ”
According to relatives involved in the retrial and sentencing, At the scene of the sentencing, Zhang Zhijun himself appeared in court by video, and his family did not appear, and after hearing the death sentence, he did not have any expression and did not say a word. "It was a long-awaited result, and the killer got the punishment he deserved, but we weren't happy at all because our loved ones had passed away and we couldn't come back." The relative said.
Editor-in-charge: Ma Shipeng
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