One night in the second year of Changqing, the farmer Yao Wenxiu beat his wife all over the body, and his wife did not survive until dawn before she could breathe, Yao Wenxiu did not panic at all, and took the initiative to take his wife's body to the county court to surrender himself, because according to his cognition, the relevant laws and regulations would not punish him to death.
Yao Wenxiu claimed that last night, he and his wife had a verbal altercation because of some small matters, and the two pushed and shoved each other in the quarrel, and finally gradually escalated into a mutual beating, and he was in anger and accidentally killed his wife.
According to the record in the Vinaya, it is not killed because of fighting, nothing happens, and it is called killing. This is not considered "intentional homicide", so after the county order learned the specific history of the case and made a preliminary trial, the case was submitted to the Dali Temple, and the officials of the Dali Temple roughly looked at the file, and did not bother to delve into the details behind it, and decided to uphold the original judgment and detain Yao Wenxiu for several years.
However, Dali Sizhi Cui Yuanshi raised objections, the law is "fighting for fighting, fighting for beating", and in this case, Yao Wenxiu was unharmed, but his wife was injured all over the body, which was obviously not the appearance of mutual beating, but Yao Wenxiu's domestic violence killed his wife, but Cui Yuanshi was slight, Dalisi still decided to uphold the original judgment, and handed over the case to the Punishment Department for review, and the Punishment Department also upheld the judgment.
At this point, the case seems to be closed, but the case file was sent to Bai Juyi, who was then a Zhongshu She, for review, and the case finally had a turnaround, and he also believed that Yao Wenxiu could not escape the guilt of "intentional homicide" like Cui Yuanshi, and also gave Mu Zong a twist, with special emphasis on "If according to the judgment of the Punishment Department, the murderer can escape the death penalty as long as he claims that he is not intentional, and the world will not be in chaos for a long time." ”
After MuZong read Bai Juyi's recital, he knew the stakes, attached great importance to this case, and let departments at all levels re-investigate, according to the investigation, Yao Wenxiu's neighbors reacted that Yao Wenxiu had been committing domestic violence against his wife, and every three to five years he started to beat people, and it was no accident that people were killed this time.
In the end, Yao Wenxiu's wife-killing behavior was characterized as "ten evils" and sentenced to random sticks and beaten to death, and if there was no Bai Juyi's reasoning in this case, Yao Wenxiu would have been released after two years in prison at most.
This kind of case has extremely high requirements for the legal literacy of criminal officers, and if they only follow the script and do not have a detailed and in-depth understanding of the case, it will inevitably lead to unfair judgments, so the development of the law is not only a study of regulations, but also inseparable from the strict requirements of the criminal officer selection system. #History Miscellaneous # #历史故事 #
