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Summary of the trial
Where the defendant's pretrial confession is accepted by the first-instance judgment, the second-instance trial may be the subject of the exclusion of illegal evidence. Where the defendant admits guilt in the first instance and submits an application for the exclusion of illegal evidence in the second instance, the legality of the evidence shall also be reviewed, even if the leads or materials related to the illegal evidence collection are not discovered after the conclusion of the first trial. A confession of guilt made by the defendant without going against his or her will is not evidence gathered by torture, and there is no need to conduct a legality investigation.
Basic facts of the case
Public prosecution organ: People's Procuratorate of Fuyang City, Anhui Province.
Defendant: Wang Jianting.
Defendant Wang Jianting had an ambiguous relationship with Li.
On the evening of December 18, 2011, defendant Wang Jianting went to find Li, but Li was not at home. Li's daughter-in-law, Cao, found that a stranger had entered at night, so she shouted. Wang Jianting stopped Cao from covering his mouth and strangling his neck, causing Cao to suffocate, and then carried Cao into the bedroom bed to commit adultery. Afterwards, Wang Jianting threw Cao's body into a wheat field well. According to the forensic evaluation, the victim Cao X died of mechanical suffocation caused by someone covering his mouth and strangling his neck.
On October 23, 2012, the Intermediate People's Court of Fuyang City, Anhui Province, rendered the (2012) Fu Xing Chu Zi No. 00224 Criminal Attached Civil Judgment: Defendant Wang Jianting committed intentional homicide and was sentenced to death and deprived of political rights for life, and was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment for the crime of insulting a corpse, and decided to carry out the death penalty and deprived of political rights for life, and compensated the plaintiff for the economic losses caused to the attached civil case.
After the first-instance verdict was announced, Wang Jianting was dissatisfied with the criminal part of the verdict and appealed to the Anhui Provincial High People's Court, arguing that he had been rescued after covering his mouth and causing Cao to not move, and that the death was an accident and did not constitute the crime of intentional homicide. During the second-instance trial, Wang Jianting's defender believed that Wang Jianting's confession of guilt was the result of torture, and applied for the exclusion of the confession before trial. Defendant Wang Jianting argued in court that it was Li who covered Cao's mouth and nose and caused his death, and that he was only instructed by Li to throw away the body and destroy the traces; during the investigation, he was beaten by the police, and in order to take the blame for Li, he confessed that Cao's death was his own doing. After being sentenced to death in the first instance, Li did not care about him, so he retracted his confession and applied for the exclusion of the guilty confession.
Adjudication Results
The Anhui Provincial High People's Court organized an exchange of views between the prosecution and defense before the second-instance trial, heard the appellant's opinions during the trial, and examined the legality of Wang Jianting's confession, holding that the appellant Wang Jianting's defense was to make a guilty confession in order to take the blame for Li, and ruled out the possibility of confessing against his will due to torture; 。 On the basis of the evidence in the case, on July 29, 2013, the (2013) Anhui Xing Zhong Zi No. 00167 Criminal Ruling was rendered, rejecting the appeal and upholding the criminal portion of the original judgment. On November 31, 2013, the Supreme People's Court approved the death sentence against the defendant Wang Jianting in accordance with the law in the (2013) Xing Yi Fu 47100422 Ruling.
Case Analysis
This case involves issues such as the scope of exclusion of illegal evidence, the conditions for reviewing the legality of evidence, and the criteria for extorting confessions by torture.
1. Whether the defendant's pretrial confession may be the object of the exclusion of illegal evidence in the second-instance trial if the defendant admits guilt at court in the first instance
If a defendant makes a guilty confession in court in the first instance, is it necessary to conduct a review of the legality of his confession of guilt before trial in the second instance? There is a view that regardless of whether the confession before trial was illegally obtained, if the defendant confesses the facts of the crime at the trial of the first instance, the confession of guilt in the first instance and the second instance can be directly accepted in the first and second instance, and the confession of guilt before trial is not evidence in the verdict of the case, so naturally it is not the object of exclusion from illegal evidence, and there is no need to conduct a review of the legality of the second instance. The author believes that the situation in practice is complex and it is not appropriate to generalize. The defendant's admission of guilt in court does not directly mean that the first and second instance trials may completely disapprove the pretrial confession of guilt. In the following circumstances, where the defendant admits guilt in court, it is still necessary to accept a pretrial confession of guilt: First, in cases where the defendant admits guilt, the trial is simplified or by reference to the ordinary procedures, and the defendant no longer makes a confession of the alleged criminal facts or only makes a brief confession, resulting in the defendant's confession at trial being incomplete and specific, not independent, and can only be used as evidence in conjunction with the pretrial confession record. Second, the prosecution did not implement the concept of trial-centrism, and even though the defendant made a guilty confession in court, he still chose the pretrial confession record as evidence. Since it is within the purview of the prosecution to present evidence to charge the crime, it is theoretically difficult for the court to deny the evidentiary validity of the prosecution's pretrial confession and directly use the confession in court as the evidence for the verdict. Based on this, in cases where the defendant admits guilt in court, not always the confession in court is used as the evidence in the verdict, and there is still the possibility that the confession of guilt before trial is used as evidence. As long as the first-instance judgment uses a pretrial confession as evidence in the verdict, the pretrial confession may be the object of exclusion of illegal evidence. At the same time, considering that the legislative purpose of the rule for the exclusion of illegal evidence is to review the legality of evidence, and to promote the implementation of division of labor and responsibility, mutual cooperation, and cooperation among criminal justice organs. Therefore, even if the evidence that can not be used as the basis for a verdict, it is necessary to conduct a legality review on the basis of the application of the defendant and his defender to achieve the above-mentioned purpose; In a situation where the first-instance judgment uses a pretrial confession of guilt as evidence in a verdict, it is inappropriate for the second-instance court court to directly use the defendant's confession in court as evidence in the verdict, and not to conduct a legality review of the application for the exclusion of illegal evidence.
II. Requirements for review of applications for the exclusion of illegal evidence during the second-instance trial
Article 103 of the Supreme People's Court's Interpretation on the Application of the Criminal Procedure Law stipulates that the second-instance people's court shall review the legality of evidence gathering. In this case, there are different understandings as to whether the relevant clues or materials provided by the defendant and his defender when they submitted their applications during the second-instance trial were not discovered after the first-instance trial. There are opinions that if the defendant does not apply for exclusion during the first-instance trial period when he understands and grasps the materials and clues related to the illegal evidence collection, it should be deemed that he has waived this right. The above-mentioned interpretation of the Supreme Court is a mandatory norm, which clarifies the scope of review that should be reviewed in the second-instance trial, and applications for the exclusion of illegal evidence that do not fall within the above-mentioned scope will not be reviewed during the second-instance trial, so as to ensure the efficiency and value of the trial. Another opinion holds that, according to the legislative spirit of Article 56 of the Criminal Procedure Law, the exclusion of illegal evidence is not only the procedural right of the parties, but also the duty that the judicial organs must perform in accordance with the law. There is no distinction between first-instance and second-instance trials in the performance of this duty, nor is it premised on the application of the litigation participants. Therefore, article 103 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on the Application of the Criminal Procedure Law should be understood as an indicative provision, not a restrictive provision. The review of the legality of evidence is an act of the people's court's adjudication duties, and the exclusion of illegal evidence, as a special procedure in criminal proceedings, is conducive to fully hearing the opinions of the prosecution (prosecution) and defense, so as to make a correct judgment on the legality of the evidence based on the relevant and targeted evidence provided by both parties.
Applications for the exclusion of illegal evidence that do not fall within the scope of this article may also be reviewed, especially in major cases such as the death penalty, where the value of fairness in the handling of the case exceeds the value of efficiency, and shall be reviewed.
III. Standards for judging defendants' confessions gathered by torture
Article 95 of the Supreme People's Court's "Interpretation on the Application of the Criminal Procedure Law" stipulates that the use of corporal punishment or disguised corporal punishment, or the use of other methods that cause the defendant to suffer severe physical or mental pain or suffering, to force the defendant to confess against his will, shall be found to be "extorting confessions by torture and other illegal methods" as provided for in article 54 of the Criminal Procedure Law. Accordingly, three elements are required to constitute extortion of confessions by torture: (1) torture, the use of corporal punishment or disguised corporal punishment, or the use of other methods that cause the defendant to suffer severe physical or mental pain or suffering; (2) the defendant's confession of guilt was the result of extorting a confession by torture, and there is a direct causal relationship between the torture and the confession; and (3) the confession of guilt was made against the defendant's will. Under normal circumstances, the act of torture itself is a sign that the confession of guilt violates its voluntariness, and it may be directly determined that the confession obtained is contrary to the defendant's will on the basis of the existence of the torture act, except where the defendant clearly indicates that the content of the confession is not against his will. The defendant in this case argues that he made a guilty confession for the purpose of shielding others after being tortured, which proves that the defendant has freedom to choose whether to admit that he committed a crime or to prove that another person committed a crime, and that making a guilty confession under such circumstances is the result of his own choice, and obviously does not violate his will. Therefore, under the condition that the confession of guilt is not against the will, regardless of whether the investigators committed acts of torture, the confession is not illegal evidence collected by torture, and there is no need to exclude it in accordance with the law, and there is no need to initiate the court investigation procedure for illegal evidence.
Author: Chen Jishuang
Unit: Anhui Provincial High People's Court
Case No.: First Instance (2012) Fu Xing Chu Zi No. 00224 Second Instance (2013) Wan Xing Zhong Zi No. 00167 Review (2013) Xing Yi Fu 47100422 No
Source: People's Justice, Issue 5, 2016