The Taiwan High Court yesterday acquitted Su Pin-kun (蘇炳坤) in a retrial on robbery and attempted murder charges, while chastising judicial and law enforcement officials for failures in the investigative process in a case that spanned 32 years.
Su, 69, was exonerated by a panel of three judges, ending his legal fight after being found guilty in 1987 and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Questions about the verdict had persisted amid suspicions that Su was convicted not based on evidence, but mainly on the testimony by another defendant, Kuo Chung-hsiung (郭中雄).
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
Su, a furniture factory owner, was arrested at his home on June 19, 1986, following a robbery and attempted murder of the proprietors of a Hsinchu jewelry store.
Su said he was framed by Kuo, who was sentenced to 16 years in the same case. Su and Kuo said they were tortured by police during questioning.
Kuo later admitted that he named Su as an accomplice because Su owed him back wages.
The panel yesterday said that investigators “should not distort the truth or look for a scapegoat when under pressure to name a perpetrator just to close the case, which resulted in the miscarriage of justice.”
“Through the retrial, examination of evidence and review of the case, [the court] found that Su did not participate in the robbery and attempted murder by Kuo,” the panel said. “Su is innocent of the charges.”
“Su was wrongfully convicted more than 30 years ago and had suffered a lot of physical pain and torment throughout this period. The panel sympathizes with Su for what he has gone through,” the judges wrote.
“The principle of presumption of innocence unless proven guilty must be the basic requirement in criminal justice, which police officers, prosecutors and judges should heed all the time,” presiding judge Chou Ying-wen (周盈文) wrote.
In the ruling, Chou cited three reasons for exonerating Su: First, in their quest to wrap up the case quickly, police tortured Kuo to extract a confession, which could not be supported by facts.
Second, prosecutors did not conduct a proper investigation, but chose to accept everything police had given them in their report and indicted Su, Chou said.
Third, the principle of presumption of innocence was not upheld, Chou added.
Su went into hiding for years under the protection of a prosecutor before he was arrested in 1997.
He then served two years and nine months in prison before he was granted a special amnesty in 2000 by then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) following a Control Yuan report on the case.
Many attempts were made on Su’s behalf to have his case reconsidered.
Two prosecutors-general filed a total of four extraordinary appeals against his conviction from 1992 to 1998, but they were not accepted.
Four requests for a retrial filed by heads of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office from 1987 to 1996 were also rejected.
However, with the help of the Legal Aid Foundation, the Taiwan Association for Human Rights and the Taiwan Innocence Project, Su finally got the High Court to consider the case in May last year.
The High Court held preliminary hearings in July and August before deciding in September to retry the case.
The preliminary hearing on Aug. 27 last year set a precedent as the proceedings were accessible to reporters, who were allowed to take photographs or make video or audio recordings in the courtroom to enhance public understanding of the rule of law.
The same rule was applied to yesterday’s court hearing, where Su’s acquittal was announced.
“Thank you all, judges,” Su said, bowing to the judges after the ruling was read.
Speaking to reporters outside the court after hearing the verdict, Su, flanked by his wife, children and grandchildren, said he was grateful to the many people who helped him along the way, but added that the ruling was not completely satisfactory.
“I have been wronged for 32 years. I should have been happy about the non-guilty verdict, but I am not,” Su said. “Honestly, it has been too long in coming.”
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