China Focus: Posthumous exoneration leads to investigation into misconduct

A provincial court in north China on Friday pledged to investigate allegations of judicial misconduct related to a rape and murder case overturned more than two decades after the convicted defendant was executed.

The Higher People's Court of Hebei Province in 1995 upheld the decision of a lower court to execute Nie Shubin after he was found guilty of raping and murdering a women on the outskirts of Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital of Hebei. Nie was 21 when he was executed.

On Friday, Nie was exonerated by China's Supreme People's Court after years of review.

The provincial court offered its sincere apologies to Nie's family and vowed it would start the compensation process, according to a court statement released following its decision.

The court, meanwhile, said it had learned a "profound lesson" from the case and would make sure to check evidence, process, and application of the law in each case to let people "feel the presence of justice."

The second circuit court under the Supreme People's Court said it had quashed the 1995 conviction because of insufficient evidence and unclear facts.

The original ruling had been based on dubious evidence, including the tools used to commit the crime could not be confirmed; the time and cause of death could not be confirmed; and several key documents, including some records of Nie's questioning and witness statements, had been lost.

The authenticity of Nie's confession was also questionable, the top court noted.

Nie's case did not come under public scrutiny until 2005 when another man, Wang Shujin, confessed to the crime. Wang, 49, was already facing the death sentence for an unrelated rape and murder case.

This is the latest legal milestone in China as authorities strive to correct past justice miscarriages.

In 2014, Huugjilt, a man from Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, was posthumously exonerated almost two decades after being executed for rape and murder.

An investigation in misconduct ensued, leading to the downfall of a senior local policeman. Feng Zhiming, under whose watch Huugjilt's case was initially probed in Hohhot City, was found guilty of bribery, illegal possession of firearms, and corruption in 2016. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Legal practitioners applauded the overturns as major progress for China's justice system, demonstrating the authorities' determination to adhere to rule of law.

Wang Wensheng, a lawyer with Beijing Grand Ken Law Firm, said that in the past, courts were prone to make mistakes guided by the presumption of guilt mentality. "But now, there is much improvement," he added.

Yin Yijun, director of criminal appeals department under the Supreme People's Procuratorate, said the exoneration shows the justice system upholds the principle of presumption of innocence, respect for legal process, and will have a profound impact on future trials.

Yin, whose office handles criminal appeals and compensations, said the procuratorate will continue to work with other branches of the justice to correct wrongful convictions and draw up policies to prevent such cases. Endi