The Supreme Court in a retrial on Friday upheld the life sentence handed to convicted murderer Liu Chih-ming (劉志明), formally removing him from death row, where he has been for the better part of the past decade.
Liu’s case is the first time the court commuted a death sentence to a life term, after the Constitutional Court on Sept. 20 found the death penalty constitutional, but said it should be limited to special and exceptional circumstances.
The judgement was issued in response to a court challenge made by 37 prisoners on death row, who had filed the petition through their lawyers, saying that capital punishment was unconstitutional.
Photo: Taipei Times
Liu was convicted of sexual assault and larceny resulting in homicide for the violent murder of a woman in 2014 and was handed the death sentence.
In an appeal, the Kaohsiung branch of the High Court upheld the death penalty for Liu. The sentence was also upheld in the three retrials.
Liu, aged 52 at the time, in December 2014 was carrying a hammer while looking for his former girlfriend when he came upon a woman, a retired teacher surnamed Chen (陳), opening her car door, court documents showed.
Liu decided to rob Chen, who he had never met before, and attacked her. He used the hammer to strike her head 13 times, sexually assaulted her, bit off her nipple and took NT$2,000 from her purse, prosecutors said, citing evidence and recorded police statements.
Judges upheld the death penalty, saying it was a severe crime, as Liu had killed Chen by vicious and cruel means, and sexually assaulted her, adding that there was no likelihood of rehabilitation and that Liu should be permanently separated from society.
The High Court in the fourth retrial in May commuted Liu’s sentence to life in prison, saying there was a lack of evidence that Liu took the NT$2,000 and that Chen was a random target, so it was not premeditated murder and therefore did not fall under “most serious crimes,” according to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
It also cited results of psychological assessments and pre-sentence investigations, saying that there was a possibility of rehabilitation for Liu, as he had shown remorse for the crime. Public prosecutors disagreed and filed to appeal the fourth retrial.
The Supreme Court in its ruling then upheld the life sentence handed to Liu in the fourth retrial, which is the final verdict.
Groups in favor of the death penalty were joined by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators in condemning the Constitutional Court’s ruling last month, saying “it effectively abolished capital punishment in Taiwan” and that “the decision runs contrary to the expectations of the majority of Taiwanese.”
They also requested the Ministry of Justice to swiftly carry out the execution of the 37 convicted prisoners currently on death row.
The Taiwan People’s Party caucus yesterday said it would propose an amendment to the Criminal Code so that those handed a life sentence would not be given parole.
Additional reporting by Liu Wan-lin
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS