The Taichung branch of the Taiwan High Court yesterday acquitted death row inmate Cheng Hsing-tse (鄭性澤) of all charges, overturning his convictions in a long-running case stemming from the 2002 killing of a police officer in Taichung.
Cheng, 50, maintained his innocence throughout his 14-year imprisonment, of which he spent 10 years on death row.
“I have been waiting for this day for 15 years,” Cheng said in a statement after the verdict. “Up until today, I was a man without a tomorrow. From this moment, I want to start a brand new life.”
Photo: Chang Jui-chen, Taipei Times
Cheng’s case went through seven trials and eight retrials, including the Supreme Court’s 2006 decision to uphold the death sentence.
In March last year, prosecutors applied with the Taiwan High Court for a retrial after new evidence emerged. Cheng was released on bail in May that year.
The details of the case remained unclear. There were doubts regarding the death of police officer Su Hsien-pi (蘇憲丕) and contradictory testimony over who at a Taichung karaoke parlor fired the gun that killed him.
Human rights advocates and judicial reform groups, including the Taiwan Association for Innocence and the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, relentlessly campaigned locally and abroad to secure Cheng’s release.
Cheng’s family and the rights advocates highlighted what they called flaws in the original investigation, as well as allegedly questionable investigation methods — including torture and a coerced confession — and the use of inconclusive evidence by prosecutors.
In one retrial, Cheng claimed that he was tortured by police, who he said administered electric shocks to his genitals and forced water down his throat with a hose.
However, prosecutors challenged his claims, saying the defense could not provide evidence of torture.
Taiwan Association for Innocence officials yesterday said in a statement that although Cheng was acquitted of all charges, “we cannot find joy in this, because it proves once again that there are innocent people who have been wrongly convicted and given the death sentence.”
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) expressed her support for Cheng and the association at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
“We have seen that the investigation and prosecution lacked professionalism, and were filled with mistakes. We must undertake a comprehensive review to ensure there will not be another Cheng Hsing-tse, nor another broken family,” Yu said. “The justice system should not be used to persecute victims.”
Upon learning of his acquittal, Cheng penned a statement, which was translated into English and Japanese by capital punishment abolition campaigners, in the form a letter addressed to Su’s son.
“For 15 years I was called a cop-killer and lived on death row. Every single day I lived in terror of being executed and my family receiving the devastating news. My family and I have been through an ordeal of pain and fear unimaginable to anyone else,” Cheng wrote.
“Nevertheless, in those 15 years, one particular image was always imprinted in my brain. It was the image of you looking at me the way you did the day the police took me to the funeral parlor and forced me, in handcuffs and restraints, to worship at the alter you had set up for your father,” he wrote. “You were already there by the time we arrived. Startled by the sound of chains, you turned your head to look at me.”
“Today, I am exonerated. Fifteen years on, I can now finally tell you, once and for all: I am not your father’s killer,” he wrote. “Although you and I are on opposite sides of this tragic incident, we [have] one thing in common: We have both suffered the most horrendous ordeal of loss, grief, hate, broken hopes and dreams. Your family and mine are all victims in this tragedy.”
If Cheng’s acquittal becomes final, he could receive compensation of between NT$3,000 and NT$5,000 (US$99.24 and US$165.40) per day of wrongful detention, prosecutors said, meaning he could receive up to NT$21.6 million.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
RSS