Prosecutors and defense attorneys yesterday argued over crime scene and autopsy reports by US forensic expert Henry Lee (李昌鈺) in a controversial double murder trial that has dragged on for almost two decades.
Taiwan High Court Judge Chen Po-chih (陳博志) had scheduled a pre-trial hearing in the 18-year-old “Hsichih Trio” case to examine reports compiled by Lee as well as court-appointed forensic experts.
The trio — Su Chien-ho (蘇建和), Liu Bing-lang (劉秉郎) and Chuang Lin-hsun (莊林勳) — were convicted in 1991 of the murders of Wu Ming-han (吳銘漢) and his wife, Yeh Ying-lan (葉盈蘭), whose bodies had been found at their home in Hsichih, Taipei County, with more than 77 stab wounds.
After spending more than a decade years on death row, the Hsichih Trio’s sentences were overturned in 2003. After the High Court reversed their acquittal and again sentenced them to death in 2007, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial.
Defense attorneys yesterday cited Lee’s reports in arguing that, based on measurements taken of the room in which the murder allegedly took place, as well as furniture inside the room and body measurements of the three defendants, it was very unlikely that the couple had not been murdered by a fourth suspect, Wang Wen-hsiao (王文孝).
Wang, a marine whose fingerprints were found at the murder scene, was executed on Jan. 11, 1992, under Military Law (軍法) after confessing to the murders. Wang told investigators his three friends Su, Liu and Chuang had also been involved in the murder.
Prosecutors yesterday rejected parts of Lee’s report, saying it was impossible to deduce from the blood splatter pattens who had stood where and at what point during the killings.
The prosecution favored conclusions drawn by court-appointed forensic experts, who wrote in their report that marks on the victims’ skulls had been inflicted by three different knives, and that more than one person had been involved.
Chen yesterday postponed the case to Sept. 21.
The Hsichih Trio, who spent more than 11 years on death row, were freed in 2003 when the Taiwan High Court overturned their sentences. Later the same year, the Supreme Court ruled that the High Court should re-examine the case. On June 29, 2007, the High Court reversed its 2003 acquittal of the three men and handed down death sentences to all three after ruling that they were involved in the murders.
In November 2007, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the Taiwan High Court for retrial, citing flaws and deficiencies in the previous ruling.
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