Zhang Yuhuan's murder case was retrial after 26 years and found not guilty

　　The Paper Journalist Wei Jiaming

　　Having been charged with intentional homicide for nearly 27 years, the 53-year-old Zhang Yuhuan finally waited for his acquittal.

　　At 4 pm on August 4, the Jiangxi Provincial Higher People's Court retrial and sentenced Zhang Yuhuan in the case of intentional homicide. The court finally declared Zhang Yuhuan innocent as "the original judgment was unclear and the evidence was insufficient."

　　The Paper noted that Zhang Yuhuan has been detained for 9,778 days since he lost his freedom on October 27, 1993. He is the longest defendant in custody so far.

　　The Paper previously reported that on October 24, 1993, Zhang Lei and Zhang Xiang, boys in Zhangjia Village, Huangling Township, Jinxian County, Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province were killed. Three days later, his neighbor Zhang Yuhuan was determined by the police as suspects. After being taken away, on November 3 and November 4, 1993, Zhang Yuhuan made the only two confessions of guilt in the entire case.

　　When the Nanchang Intermediate People's Court opened the trial for the first time, Zhang Yuhuan argued that he was wronged, saying that the Public Security Bureau forced a confession. On January 26, 1995, the Nanchang Intermediate People's Court found that Zhang Yuhuan was guilty of intentional homicide by killing two neighboring boys and throwing their bodies into the reservoir by means of handcards, ropes, and clubs. In the judgment, the Nanchang Intermediate People's Court held that the case had “clear basic facts and sufficient basic evidence” and the crime was serious. However, according to the specific circumstances of the case, Zhang Yuhuan was sentenced to death with a two-year suspension of execution. It is worth mentioning that there was no lawyer to defend Zhang Yuhuan in this trial.

　　Because of dissatisfaction with the verdict, Zhang Yuhuan appealed. On March 30, 1995, the Jiangxi Higher People's Court ruled to revoke the original judgment and remand it for retrial on the grounds of unclear facts and insufficient evidence.

　　Since then, the case has stalled for several years.

　　After a lapse of six and a half years, on November 7, 2001, the Nanchang Intermediate People's Court re-trial judgement once again determined that the case was "clear in basic facts and sufficient in basic evidence", and "according to the specific circumstances of the case", it made a judgment with the same result as the original judgment of first instance. .

　　Zhang Yuhuan still refused to accept it and appealed again. On November 28, 2001, the Jiangxi Provincial Higher People's Court made a final ruling: reject the appeal and uphold the original judgment. The ruling showed that the Jiangxi Higher People's Court held that the basic facts were clear when the case was finally heard, and decided not to open a court hearing, and the ruling did not show that a lawyer was defending Zhang Yuhuan.

　　After being imprisoned, Zhang Yuhuan still did not plead guilty and insisted on calling out injustice. His elder brother Zhang Minqiang told The Paper that Zhang Yuhuan would write a letter of complaint every week in prison, telling the judicial departments at all levels of his grievances, and finally successfully sent thousands of letters. Outside the high wall, the Zhang family also ran around and continued to appeal.

　　After consulting the case file materials, Zhang Yuhuan’s lawyer attorney summed up the six existing doubts in the case to The Paper: The lack of physical evidence can not directly prove that Zhang Yuhuan committed the crime, and other possibilities cannot be ruled out and a closed loop of evidence; the only one in the entire case There was a big discrepancy between the two guilty confessions; there was no lawyer to defend Zhang Yuhuan in the final trial of Jiangxi High Court, which was suspected of procedural violations.

　　Wang Fei pointed out that according to the third paragraph of Article 34 of the Criminal Procedure Law that was applied at the time of the final trial, if the defendant may be sentenced to death without appointing a defender, the people’s court should designate the lawyer who is responsible for legal aid. He provided defense, “the death penalty case did not have a lawyer to defend it, which is a major procedural violation. In addition, Zhang Yuhuan was found to have killed two children but was not sentenced to death immediately. The sentence of death with a reprieve is clearly left.

　　After many years of appeals, on March 1, 2019, the Jiangxi Higher People's Court made a retrial decision on the Zhang Yuhuan case. The retrial decision document shows that the Jiangxi Higher People's Court believes that the reasons for the appeal submitted by Zhang Yuhuan meet the conditions for a retrial, and it has decided that the Jiangxi Higher People's Court will form a separate collegiate panel to conduct the retrial.

　　At nine o'clock in the morning on July 9, Zhang Yuhuan's case was opened for retrial in the Fourth Trial Court of Jiangxi High Court. Lawyers Wang Fei and Shang Manqing appeared in court to defend Zhang Yuhuan's innocence.

　　In the court, the Jiangxi Provincial People's Procuratorate's court prosecutor issued a court opinion, suggesting that Zhang Yuhuan be sentenced to not guilty. The prosecutor who appeared in court stated that the physical evidence found in the original trial was insufficient to prove that the three physical evidences could not directly confirm Zhang Yuhuan's criminal act, so there was no objective evidence in this case. However, Zhang Yuhuan's two guilty confessions were inconsistent, and there were significant differences in important links such as the location of the crime, the means, and the time when the corpse was thrown. The authenticity is doubtful. The original judgment only convicted a guilty confession, first confession and then testimony, which was inconsistent with the facts, so it is recommended that the court change the verdict of not guilty.

　　Zhang Yuhuan reiterated his injustice in his final statement, saying that the confession was made under torture, and that his wife was dispersed after more than 26 years in prison, and he begged the court to give him justice.

　　On August 4, the Jiangxi Higher People's Court pronounced on Zhang Yuhuan's retrial and finally declared that Zhang Yuhuan was not guilty of "the original judgment is unclear and the evidence is insufficient."