The Supreme Court on Friday overturned the death sentence of Liang Yu-chih (梁育誌), who was convicted of murdering a Malaysian university student in 2020, and ordered a new trial.
The ruling by the High Court’s Kaohsiung branch in January failed to thoroughly examine the evidence and did not provide sufficient reasoning, the Supreme Court said.
It was the first case to reconsider a death sentence after the Constitutional Court ruled in September last year that capital punishment is conditionally constitutional.
Photo: Wu Cheng-feng, Taipei Times
The crime occurred on Oct. 28, 2020, when Liang abducted the victim while she was walking alone near her university in Tainan.
He raped, beat and strangled her to death, took her belongings, and dumped her body in a mountainous area of Kaohsiung’s Alian District (阿蓮), the High Court said.
Liang had acted with premeditation, lying in wait with a rope that he used to kill the victim, it said.
The High Court upheld the death sentence on the cruelty of the crime and the high risk of reoffending.
However, the Supreme Court said the trial misapplied the law by treating the incident as a single offense, while it should have been prosecuted as multiple crimes — robbery, sexual assault and murder — with separate penalties.
The court also questioned Liang’s intent, as records suggest he might have initially planned only sexual assault before deciding to commit murder.
Additionally, the court failed to consider a prison counselor’s assessment that Liang had potential for rehabilitation, which might have impacted sentencing, it said.
Liang was first sentenced to death by the Ciaotou District Court in March 2022 for rape, intentional killing and robbery.
The High Court upheld the verdict in March 2023.
In June 2023, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial of the rape and homicide charges, citing flaws in the original ruling.
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