The Supreme Court has granted a request by lawyers for convicted Taipei MRT killer Cheng Chieh (鄭捷) to appear in person for the upcoming court hearing to appeal his death sentence.
It is the first time a defendant on death row will appear at the Supreme Court for a trial hearing.
Cheng’s legal team is trying to stave off the death sentence, which was handed down by a lower court in March last year, and upheld by the High Court in October last year.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Cheng, then 21 years old, killed four people and injured 22 in a horrific knife attack on the Taipei MRT on May 21, 2014. He is being held at the Taipei Detention Center in New Taipei City’s Tucheng District (土城).
His lawyers, Lin Chun-hung (林俊宏) and Liang Chia-ying (梁家贏), said that Cheng had agreed to make the request, which they made at the Supreme Court’s pre-trial proceedings earlier this week.
They requested that Cheng defend himself at the trial hearing at the Collegiate Bench (合議庭) of the Supreme Court, which is scheduled for April.
Legal authorities said the victims of the attack and their families can also appear in the hearing, and prosecutors can speak on their behalf.
Cheng’s lawyers said the defense could also challenge the constitutionality of the death sentence.
They will seek an interpretation from the Council of Grand Justices, arguing that capital punishment violates the Constitution, they said.
The legal team said they would ask the Supreme Court to suspend the hearing pending a ruling by the grand justices.
Critics called the moves delaying tactics by the lawyers to buy time for Cheng, because the constitutional challenge could take years.
“It is a waste of legal resources, and a waste of taxpayers’ money,” National Taiwan University law professor Lee Mao-sheng (李茂生) said.
“For Supreme Court cases, it is usually the third ruling, which is to decide whether wrongful judicial procedures or contraventions of law had taken place during the first and second rulings. If there were questions, then the case should be sent back for a retrial. In this instance, the Supreme Court is taking on the wrong task,” Lee said.
DAREDEVIL: Honnold said it had always been a dream of his to climb Taipei 101, while a Netflix producer said the skyscraper was ‘a real icon of this country’ US climber Alex Honnold yesterday took on Taiwan’s tallest building, becoming the first person to scale Taipei 101 without a rope, harness or safety net. Hundreds of spectators gathered at the base of the 101-story skyscraper to watch Honnold, 40, embark on his daredevil feat, which was also broadcast live on Netflix. Dressed in a red T-shirt and yellow custom-made climbing shoes, Honnold swiftly moved up the southeast face of the glass and steel building. At one point, he stepped onto a platform midway up to wave down at fans and onlookers who were taking photos. People watching from inside
A Vietnamese migrant worker yesterday won NT$12 million (US$379,627) on a Lunar New Year scratch card in Kaohsiung as part of Taiwan Lottery Co’s (台灣彩券) “NT$12 Million Grand Fortune” (1200萬大吉利) game. The man was the first top-prize winner of the new game launched on Jan. 6 to mark the Lunar New Year. Three Vietnamese migrant workers visited a Taiwan Lottery shop on Xinyue Street in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (崗山), a store representative said. The player bought multiple tickets and, after winning nothing, held the final lottery ticket in one hand and rubbed the store’s statue of the Maitreya Buddha’s belly with the other,
‘COMMITTED TO DETERRENCE’: Washington would stand by its allies, but it can only help as much as countries help themselves, Raymond Greene said The US is committed to deterrence in the first island chain, but it should not bear the burden alone, as “freedom is not free,” American Institute in Taiwan Director Raymond Greene said in a speech at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research’s “Strengthening Resilience: Defense as the Engine of Development” seminar in Taipei yesterday. In the speech, titled “Investing Together and a Secure and Prosperous Future,” Greene highlighted the contributions of US President Donald Trump’s administration to Taiwan’s defense efforts, including the establishment of supply chains for drones and autonomous systems, offers of security assistance and the expansion of
Japan’s strategic alliance with the US would collapse if Tokyo were to turn away from a conflict in Taiwan, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said yesterday, but distanced herself from previous comments that suggested a possible military response in such an event. Takaichi expressed her latest views on a nationally broadcast TV program late on Monday, where an opposition party leader criticized her for igniting tensions with China with the earlier remarks. Ties between Japan and China have sunk to the worst level in years after Takaichi said in November that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could bring about a Japanese
RSS