The Taiwan High Court on Friday surprised many who have been following the case of the "Hsichih Trio." The court reversed its 2003 acquittal of the three defendants, Su Chien-ho (
The trio's 16-year-long story has set several records and precedents in the country's judicial history.
Their case was the first in which the Supreme Prosecutors' Office filed three extraordinary appeals in a single case, and the trio remained on death row for more than 11 years; a period in which five consecutive justice ministers refused to approve their execution.
It was also the first case in which the final verdict of death sentences was delivered in a retrial petition appeal.
On Friday the trio became the first defendants in the country's history to be sentenced to death without being remanded in custody.
Su, Liu and Chuang had been convicted in 1991 of the murders of Wu Ming-han (
In February 1992, the Shihlin District Court sentenced the trio to death and the Taiwan High Court decided to maintain the death sentences the following year.
From 1993 to 1994, the Supreme Court twice requested the Taiwan High Court to re-examine the case, but the Taiwan High Court returned death verdicts both times.
In February 1995, the Supreme Court handed down its final sentence in the case, affirming the trio's death sentences.
From 1995 to 2000 the Supreme Prosecutors' Office three times filed extraordinary appeals to the Supreme Court, but all were rejected by the Supreme Court.
However, in 2000 the Supreme Court approved a retrial of the case in response to a petition filed by the trio's lawyers.
Su, Liu and Chuang were freed in 2003 when the Taiwan High Court found them not guilty, but later the same year the Supreme Court ruled that the High Court should re-examine the case.
Testimony by the defendants and forensic reports about the victims' bodies presented the main evidence in the trial, but no fingerprints, skin, hair or shoe prints connected to the defendants had been found at the site.
Presiding judge Kuan Yu-ming (官有明) told reporters after Friday's verdict that the legal reasons used to support the 2003 acquittal ruling had all been refuted by the Supreme Court, and his court could not find any reason to support an acquittal verdict.
He said he and the two other judges who had considered the case all found the defendants guilty.
"As judges, we could not turn a blind eye to the abundant evidence against the defendants," Kuan added.
Commenting on the case, prosecutor Lin Bang-liang (林邦樑) of the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office said that, given the media exposure the case had received over the past 16 years, it was unlikely that any judge could reach an independent and unbiased conclusion.
Kaohsiung prosecutor Chang Hsueh-ming (張學明), a former Tainan judge, said that since a total of 59 judges had presided over the case, with the majority having reached a guilty verdict despite pressure from human rights groups, he believed the evidence presented to the court supported Friday's verdict.
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