This is probably the most absurd and ironic scene in the history of Chinese justice, in which the murderer standing in the dock confessed to his murder, while the public prosecutor and the procuratorate tried desperately to exonerate him and refute his confession.
The prosecution should have spoken up for the victim, but at this trial scene, the prosecution has been exonerating the murderer.
What are the unspeakable truths hidden behind such a rare scene? Is the defendant who honestly admits his guilt really the murderer in the case?
This absurd and bizarre interrogation scene took place in November 2020 at the Handan Intermediate People's Court in Hebei Province.
The murder case confessed by the murderer did not happen recently, but dates back to 26 years ago, in the western suburbs of Shijiazhuang in 1994.
One day in early August, the local police received a call and rushed to a farmland south of the Ishiki Highway. The fields are planted with dense corn, which is what people often call green yarn tents.
Peeling back the covers, the police entered and saw a naked female corpse with high symptoms of decomposition.
The police found the deceased's skirt and underwear in the weeds of a nearby machine well, which became one of the key pieces of evidence to identify the deceased.
With the results of the forensic examination, the police were able to further clarify the circumstances of the murder of the deceased.
After investigation, it was found that the deceased's name was Kanglan, who was 36 years old this year, usually kind to others, worked hard, had no enemies, and did not have emotional entanglements with anyone.
On Monday, when a colleague in the factory found out that she had not come to work or asked for leave, they felt something was unusual, so they organized everyone to search for her, and only then did they find poor Conlan who had been killed in the cornfield.
She had been sexually assaulted before her death, and was raped and then killed by the murderer, and died a tragic death.
After the police intervened in the investigation, some people reported that they often saw a young man in his 20s sneaking around the factory and was quite familiar with the cornfields.
This man often rides a blue mountain bike and likes to follow the lesbians who go to the toilet, probably to peek.
Mountain biking, this is a key clue, as long as the bicycle is found, then the suspect can be found.
At this time, the police had already preconceived and unilaterally determined that the reported young man was the murderer of Conlan.
The arrest of the suspect went very smoothly, and soon the police found a man named Nie Shubin through the location of the bicycle.
He was a non-existent man who could disappear immediately into the crowd, slow to react, stammering a little, and not quite like a vicious murderer no matter how he looked.
However, the blue mountain bike does belong to him, and he does like to follow the lesbians obscenely, and from the analysis of these objective evidences, the murderer is none other than him.
The Public Security Bureau gave evidence that he was the murderer, and he himself made a guilty confession after his arrest. Therefore, the procuratorate filed a lawsuit with the court in accordance with the relevant regulations.
It only took a month to find the murderer, and the local police definitely handled the case quickly. The prosecutor's office and the courts were also quick and made a final verdict on the killer in the second year of the case.
In 1995, the Second Trial of the Hebei High People's Court sentenced Nie Shubin to death. Soon, on April 27, he was executed.
Before that, Nie Shubin's mother, Zhang Huanzhi, didn't even get to see her son for the last time.
She said bitterly that her son knew best. Nie Shubin has been timid and introverted since he was a child, and he never dared to clash with outsiders, let alone dance with knives and sticks.
Let him kill a lame chicken, he can grind for most of the day, and finally drop a sentence I'm afraid.
How can such a child be bold enough to kill someone when he says he kills someone?
Zhang Huanzhi had a hundred questions in her heart, but no one answered them for her. From the Public Security Bureau to the Provincial High Court, everyone in the law enforcement and judicial organs unanimously determined that Nie Shubin was the murderer.
What can she do if she is a woman who has no right to speak?
It's not that they haven't tried to appeal, but all the materials are handed in, and in the end, they are all lost, and they can only silently accept this fact that is not valid in their opinion.
Just 10 years later, in 2005, an unexpected figure appeared, which made Nie Shubin's case a new possibility.
This man's name is Wang Shujin, who has been walking the rivers and lakes for many years with a fake identity, and when he was approached by the Handan police in 2005, he became the focus of the public security organs because he could not get his identity certificate.
He was not ambiguous, and the first thing he said was: "I have killed people." ”
According to his confession, he had committed several cases in his hometown in Hebei, four of which were rape and murder, and the other few were no homicides, only rape.
In his confession of murder, he referred to a place name, a cornfield in the western suburbs of Shijiazhuang.
In the summer of 1994, Wang Shujin raped a woman in a cornfield in the western suburbs of Shijiazhuang, then stripped her naked and brutally murdered.
The Handan police immediately launched an investigation, but when they came to Shijiazhuang and communicated with the local police, they were told that there had indeed been a rape and murder case in the same place in the same year, but the murderer had been executed 10 years earlier.
So, what is what Wang Shujin said? Here, there is a loophole in the logic, and all sorts of details show that 10 years ago, there may have been a major problem with the work of the justice system.
Zheng Chengyue, who was then the director of the Guangping County Public Security Bureau in Handan, quickly realized that the unjust case might have been formed and could not be reversed. Out of faith in the duties of the police, he decided that he must find out the truth and let the deceased Conlan really look at it.
Wang Shujin's matter was reported by the media and was soon known by Nie Shubin's mother, Zhang Huanzhi. She rekindled her faith and began to campaign, vowing to seek justice for her son.
Zheng Chengyue was moved by the strength of a mother, and her heart was even more energetic. As a policeman, if he can't uphold justice and speak up for the wronged, then he might as well take off his clothes and be an ordinary person.
He consulted a large number of files and various materials from 10 years ago, and did not let go of every detail, and the more he looked at it, the more he felt that it was full of loopholes.
Nie Shubin's confession was wrong, the suspect's time of committing the crime was wrong, and there were also problems with the detailed identification of the crime scene. He didn't understand why the police didn't find out about such an obvious problem.
Could it be that they are too stubborn to overturn their preconceived notions? Or do they just want to cope with the task and end it as soon as possible, at the expense of wronging a good person.
After clarifying the details of the case and analyzing it in combination with Wang Shujin's confession, Zheng Chengyue determined that Nie Shubin was an innocent person who had been wronged, and Zhang Huanzhi had suffered great pain under the grievances.
What he can do is not only to promote the retrial of the case within the scope of his ability, but also to use his personal connections to find lawyers and experts for Zhang Huanzhi.
Without him, Zhang Huanzhi didn't know how to persevere.
What makes them angry is that in 2007, when the Shijiazhuang Intermediate People's Court handed down the first-instance verdict against Wang Shujin, it did not weigh the relevant factors in Nie Shubin's case, but simply sentenced Wang Shujin to death because of the circumstances of the other victims.
What is even more unacceptable to them is that Wang Shujin said loudly in court that the deceased near the dry well in the summer of 1994 was also killed by himself, and he pleaded guilty very positively, but the prosecutor insisted that the matter had nothing to do with Wang Shujin and exonerated him.
In essence, the prosecution's exculpation or quibbling, it is just the protection of its own interests.
If it is admitted that Wang Shujin is the real murderer of Kanglan, it means that Nie Shubin died innocently and in vain, and it means that there have been major mistakes in their investigation and evidence collection and judicial trial.
In the end, public opinion will be directed not only at the perpetrators, but also at themselves.
Therefore, in order to protect themselves, they would rather sacrifice the truth, sacrifice justice, and sacrifice the authority of the judiciary.
Zheng Chengyue, as the number one person who overturned the case for Nie Shubin, was targeted in 2009 and was forced to leave his post early, from a deputy director to an ordinary policeman.
Job changes, physical problems, and declining income, Zheng Chengyue's life is full of hardships. In 2015, their house was even frozen by the courts, making it difficult to move on.
Those lawyers, prosecutors and others who spoke up for Zhang Huanzhi and Nie Shubin's mother and son have also been suppressed to varying degrees.
Even when his state got worse and worse, he did not give up his persistent pursuit of the truth. And a series of key evidence he collected was enough to defend Nie Shubin's innocence.
The key problems and clues found by Zheng Chengyue and others are mainly in the following aspects.
First, there is the issue of confessions. Under normal circumstances, whether a criminal suspect makes a confession of innocence or guilt, everything he says should be recorded truthfully and completely by the interrogators.
When Nie Shubin's confession was checked, they found that only the confession he made on September 28 had been recorded. He was arrested on the 23rd, and his confession was blank in the first five days.
This move has seriously violated the provisions of due process.
Moreover, Nie Shubin's confession of guilt is also inconsistent, his memory of the time of the crime is erratic, and 6 of the 9 confessions are changing.
Second, there is a big doubt about the time of the crime, which does not correspond to Nie Shubin's daily schedule.
The factory closes at 5 p.m., and unless he can teleport, it is impossible for him to commit a crime 5 kilometers away at the same time as he leaves work.
Third, investigators 10 years ago withheld an important piece of evidence.
They made a special trip to retrieve the attendance form from the factory and compared the time. Zheng Chengyue didn't believe it, they didn't find a problem.
And after the comparison, they did not return the timesheet to the factory, nor did they put the form into the evidence materials. Clearly, this is another major dereliction of duty.
Fourth, Wang Shujin's confession mentioned an exclusive and unique clue to the scene, while Nie Shubin's confession did not mention it at all.
Wang Shujin said that when he killed people, he threw the victim's key to an inconspicuous place not far away. He also had a deep impression of the specific location. In the pictures taken by the police at the scene, there is indeed the existence of this set of keys, and the direction and Wang Shujin's confession can correspond.
If it weren't for the on-site experience, Wang Shujin would not have known this detail.
As for Nie Shubin, his confession did not mention this issue at all, but focused on other irrelevant details, and said it clearly.
Empathy, a real murderer, I'm afraid it's difficult to spend so much effort to observe the surrounding environment. He made it clear that he was most likely asked to describe it that way.
Even though the evidence was so clear, in 2013 the Hebei court refused to overturn the original trial.
Fortunately, the following year, the central government issued new regulations, and the Supreme People's Court instructed the Shandong Provincial High People's Court to review the case, break through artificial obstacles, and conduct off-site investigation and trial.
In 2016, the dawn of hope finally came, and the Supreme People's Court declared Nie Shubin not guilty, and justice was not covered by darkness.
In 2020, Wang Shujin was still emphasizing that he had killed Kanglan, but the prosecution still insisted on exculpating him.
When Wang Shujin was executed in 2021, the court determined that the number of his murders was 3 and 1 attempt, and it was clear that Kanglan was included.