Refusing to plead guilty after molesting a girl, trying to get away with it
Guangdong procuratorial organs filed trial supervision and protests in accordance with the law, the defendant was finally sentenced to 3 years in prison
□ Our reporter Zhang Ningdan
□ Correspondent Wei Lei Gao Yanyan
The man entered the underage girl’s room after drinking and molested him, and refused to admit the facts of the crime after he came to the court.
At the same time, in addition to the victim's statement, the testimony of other witnesses in the case is all evidence, and the evidence is relatively weak.
After several setbacks, the case was finally settled.
A few days ago, a reporter from the "Rules of Law Daily" learned from the Guangdong Provincial People’s Procuratorate that the Xian’s indecency case filed by the court had gone through the first instance, the second-instance ruling, the first-instance retrial, the second-instance final instance, and the retrial. The Guangdong Higher People’s Court recently retrialed it. In the verdict, the defendant Xian was sentenced to 3 years in prison for child molestation.
Going into the room after drinking and molesting a girl
One night in February 2018, Xian and friends were drinking at an open-air bar next to a rural restaurant in Heshan, Jiangmen City.
In the meantime, Xian left the wine table and went to the hotel's accommodation area alone to find a toilet.
After Xian entered the accommodation area, he found that the victim, Long (under 14 years old at the time of the incident), was playing on the phone alone on the bed, so he went straight into the room and carried out indecent acts against Long. Long struggled to cover his body with a quilt and called his mother. .
According to Long's mother's later recollection, when she returned to the room, she saw Xian sitting next to Long's bed, while Long was trembling while curled up on the bed against the wall.
Long's mother then asked Xian what he was doing in her daughter's room. Xian took advantage of the chaos and fled the scene on a motorcycle during a dispute with Long's mother.
During the dispute, Xian also overturned and broke two electric mahjong tables placed in the hotel.
The next day, Xian went to the local police station to surrender and confessed the crime of damaging his property, but refused to admit the crime of indecency against Long.
After the case was transferred to the procuratorial organ for review and prosecution, the two-level procuratorial organs of Jiangmen City comprehensively reviewed the evidence in the entire case, and prosecuted Xian for the crime of child molestation, provocation and provocation.
The court of first instance adopted the prosecution opinion of the procuratorial organ and determined that Xian constituted the crime of child molestation and provocation, but Xian refused to accept the sentence and filed an appeal.
After the appeal, the ruling of the second instance was sent back for retrial. After a retrial according to law, the court upheld the original judgment and Xian appealed again.
The court of second instance found that the main evidence that the public prosecutor accused Xian of child molestation was only the statement of the victim, Long. The testimony of Long’s mother can only prove that Xian entered Long’s room, and the testimonies of other witnesses are all evidence. , The evidence is weak.
The second instance found that Xian had insufficient evidence for the crime of child molestation, and accordingly the retrial judgment was revoked, and Xian was declared not guilty in the final judgment of the second instance.
Prosecutors filed a protest
After the judgment of the second instance, the procuratorial organ held different opinions on the result of the judgment.
"Sexual assault cases are hidden crimes, especially indecent crimes, often because of the lack of objective evidence and the suspect's refusal to plead guilty, and the verbal evidence is'one-to-one'." Undertook by the Juvenile Procuratorial Department of Jiangmen City Procuratorate The prosecutor introduced.
In this case, although only Xian and the victim were present in the room at the time of the incident, and the direct evidence was only the victim’s verbal evidence, the prosecutor believed that the victim had a clear memory of the incident and the testimony was stable and reasonable. The relevant evidence could form a chain of evidence and confirm each other. .
Comprehensive analysis of the evidence in the entire case, the prosecutor in charge believed that the evidence in this case was sufficient to prove that Xian had committed an indecent act to Long.
According to the relevant provisions of my country's Criminal Procedure Law, the second-instance judgment is the final judgment, and the judgment has taken effect immediately.
The original case has passed the first instance, the second instance ruling, remand for retrial, and the second instance verdict. How easy is it to change the verdict?
The only channel is through the trial supervision procedure, where the provincial procuratorate raises a protest to the provincial court.
The trial supervision procedure is a kind of litigation procedure initiated by the People's Procuratorate in accordance with statutory procedures and conditions to request the People's Court to retry the case. It is also the final litigation remedy for judgments and rulings. The initiation standard is higher and the procedure is more complicated.
In the past ten years, there has not been a case of protesting criminal cases involving minors through trial supervision procedures in Jiangmen area.
The Jiangmen and Heshan prosecutors felt unprecedented pressure.
In the end, the Jiangmen City Procuratorate's Procuratorial Committee deliberated and decided to submit the case to the Guangdong Provincial Procuratorate to protest.
Consolidate evidence to successfully protest
The prosecutor under the Ninth Procuratorate of the Guangdong Provincial Procuratorate, after comprehensively reviewing the case files, interrogating the defendant in accordance with the law, inquiring the investigators' case handling process, and seeking the opinions of the victim's family members, put forward a case review opinion.
The undertaking prosecutor believes that the case is not only supported by the verbal evidence of the victim, but also evidence such as witness testimony and on-site inspection of the victim's clothing.
Victim Long's statement was stable and natural, and his description of details was consistent with normal memory and cognition, clearly expressed, and logically natural.
Many details of his statement have been confirmed by confession, testimony, relevant physical evidence, and on-site environment.
The above-mentioned evidence can confirm Xian's crime of molesting a child.
At the same time, investigations by the investigating agency found that there were no other contacts or conflicts of interest between Long and Xian, and there was no evidence or clues to prove that Long and Xian had the motive for false accusation and the suspicion of perjury.
In addition, although Xian refused to admit the criminal facts of indecency in the multiple interrogations, his alibi about the time of the crime was inconsistent and his defense was unreasonable.
The undertaking prosecutor pointed out that Xian entered other people's houses to commit indecent acts, which undermined the girls' sexual rights and psychological safety, and violated the psychological bottom line of the public.
Article 25 of the "Opinions of the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Ministry of Justice on Punishment of Crimes of Sexual Violation of Minors in accordance with the law" clearly stipulates that those who commit rape or indecent crimes against minors shall be punished severely.
Those who enter the residences of minors or dormitories of students to commit rape or indecent crimes must be severely punished in accordance with the law.
Xian enters Long's room to molest him, not only seriously infringes on the minor’s sexual autonomy and physical and mental health, but also severely impacts the victim’s sense of home security and psychological security. He should be criminally punished and “entering the house” as a serious plot Severe punishment.
Regarding Xian’s act of smashing the mahjong table, the prosecutor in charge believes that he did not obviously disrupt the order of social management. The escape and retaliation to vent his anger in order to cause a dispute with the victim after the implementation of the indecency should be regulated in the scope of deliberate destruction of property , Should not be regarded as the crime of provoking troubles.
According to the opinions discussed by the Procuratorial Committee of the Provincial Procuratorate, the prosecutor handling the case conducted a series of supplementary verification work to further consolidate the evidence system of the case.
After that, the case was thoroughly reviewed by the Guangdong Provincial Procuratorate and supplemented with evidence. After two discussions by the Procuratorate, the Jiangmen City Procuratorate’s protest opinions were partially accepted and partially revised. Finally, a trial supervision protest was filed for the crime of child molestation.
On October 29, 2020, the Guangdong Higher People's Court opened a court session to hear the case.
The prosecutor undertook by the Ninth Procuratorate of the Guangdong Provincial Procuratorate appeared in court to support the prosecution and issued a trial supervision and protest opinion.
On December 30, the Guangdong High Court sentenced Xian to 3 years in prison for child molestation.
"The case has gone through two years and five trials. With the joint efforts of the provincial, municipal, and county procuratorial organs, the final successful protest is the Guangdong procuratorial agency's'principle that is most beneficial to minors' in handling cases involving minors. According to the person in charge of the Ninth Procuratorate Department of the Guangdong Provincial Procuratorate, the case uses the two serious plots of "householding" and child molestation as an important reference for conviction and sentencing, and fully considers the harm caused by this case to the victim and the bad social impact , Embodying the spirit of strict handling.
As a case of trial supervision and revision at the provincial level, it will play an exemplary role in handling cases of sexual assault of minors in the province in the future.