The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal of death-row inmate Chen Yi-lung (陳憶隆), who was sentenced in 2000 for the 1995 kidnapping and murder of businessman Huang Chun-shu (黃春樹).
Chen and accomplice Huang Chun-chi (黃春棋) have waited 25 years for execution, the longest of all 36 inmates currently on death row.
The two were sentenced to death in 2000 for kidnapping Shang for a ransom of NT$70 million (US$2.29 million at the current exchange rate) and murdering him.
Photo: Yang Kuo-wen, Taipei Times
They were sentenced under a now-defunct Criminal Code provision promulgated in 1999 that called for a “mandatory death penalty.”
However, a landmark ruling by the Constitutional Court on Sept. 20 last year stated that the death penalty could only be applied to the “most serious” premeditated murders or premeditated crimes resulting in death.
Constitutional Judgement No. 8 left the 37 prisoners — now 36 — on death row able to appeal following an extraordinary appeal filed by the prosecutor-general.
The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office last year agreed to file extraordinary appeals for Chen and Huang, citing the unconstitutionality of the original ruling.
Chen then submitted a retrial request to the High Court in June, citing the constitutional judgement as new evidence and seeking to determine whether his crimes met the requirements for the “most serious” of crimes.
However, the High Court ruled that the constitutional judgement allowed death-row inmates to ask the prosecutor-general to file an extraordinary appeal, but did not justify a retrial.
Chen's petition was based on a misunderstanding of the law and therefore did not meet the requirements for reopening the case, the court said.
Chen then appealed to the Supreme Court, which found no error in the High Court ruling and dismissed the appeal, finalizing his death sentence.
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