End Miscarriages of Justice: Prosecute Cases Scientifically

End Miscarriages of Justice: Prosecute Cases Scientifically
China Times editorial (Taipei, Taiwan, ROC)
A Translation
September 7, 2012
Summary: The Su Chien-ho case was in litigation for 21 years. But a verdict has finally been rendered. Airman Chiang Kuo-ching died in prison due to a miscarriage of justice. The families sued former Air Force Commander-in-Chief Chen Chao-min and others for malfeasance. The Taipei District Prosecutor's Office refused to prosecute. Yesterday Chiang's mother went to the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office and demanded that the case be reopened. What followed warrants concern.

Full Text below:

The Su Chien-ho case was in litigation for 21 years. But a verdict has finally been rendered. Airman Chiang Kuo-ching died in prison due to a miscarriage of justice. The families sued former Air Force Commander-in-Chief Chen Chao-min and others for malfeasance. The Taipei District Prosecutor's Office refused to prosecute. Yesterday Chiang's mother went to the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office and demanded that the case be reopened. What followed warrants concern.

The course of the Su case was full of twists and turns. The impact was far-reaching. Su Chien-ho, Chuang Lin-hsun, and Liu Ping-lang were suspects in the Wu Ming-han husband and wife homicides in Xizhi. Wang Wen-hsiao's fingerprints were found at the scene. A military tribunal found him guilty and executed him. Prosecutors continued to claim that the trio were accomplices. Three times the High Court upheld the death sentence. Three times Minister of Justice Ma Ying-jeou supported Prosecutor General Chen Han's appeals. Three times their appeals were rejected, Eventually however they obtained a retrial.

The High Court found no evidence that the trio had ever been at the crime scene and dismissed the charges due to lack of evidence. Three times it ruled the trio not guilty. The law required a speedy trial. The third time the trio were found not guilty, the prosecution could no longer appeal. The final verdict was not guilty.

The case remained in litigation for 21 years. The three defendants are now middle-aged. The victims' families have also suffered. They have been unable to find peace of mind. This newspaper has published numerous critiques of the case. Today we are taking another look. Taiwan can learn some valuable lessons about the justice system from this case.

The victims Wu Ming-han and his wife were murdered under tragic circumstances. Suspect Wang Wen-hsiao was executed. The biggest questions remaining are whether Wang had accomplices, and whether the Su Chien-ho trio were the accomplices. The brutality of the crime, whether accomplices were involved, and who the accomplices were are separate questions. They are not necessarily related. From the start, police assumed that the murder was robbery related. The MO was brutal. The victims' bodies had nearly 80 knife wounds. From this the police concluded that there more than one murderer was involved. Confessions obtained through torture were mutually contradictory. Police concluded that the Su Chien-ho trio were Wang Wen-hsiao's accomplices.

Initially the court was not sufficiently alert. Prosecutors and police concluded that the Su trio were accomplices. But the defendants' confessions flatly contradicted each other. No traces of hair or fingerprints were found at the scene. The prosecution alleged rape. But the police did not even bother to collect any material evidence of rape. The court did not even investigate whether torture was used. Based on extremely weak evidence provided by accomplice confessions, the court sentenced three people to death. Can such a verdict be considered justice? If it can, then justice on Taiwan is crude and cheap beyond belief.

Even after a not guilty verdict was rendered, some in the media still wondered "Who can say that the three were not murderers?" The court should have asked certain questions when it concluded who the murderer was. Could the court conclude that the trio had to be guilty merely because no one could be certain they weren't? The world contains thousands of possible suspects. No one can be certain they aren't murderers. Can the court then conclude they must be guilty? Defendants do not need to prove they are innocent. Prosecutors must prove that defendants are guilty. They must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Why has this case revolved around guess work and hearsay about whether accomplices were involved and who they were?

The Su Chien-ho trio has been acquitted. Do doubts linger about whether the murderers have been brought to justice? If they do, blame the prosecutors and police who handled the case. They failed to collect and retain crime scene evidence. The material evidence was insufficient. That is why the case was reduced to guess work and confessions extracted through torture. The crime scene was contaminated. The evidence was lost. Allegations that Wang Wen-hsiao had accomplices were originally guess work. Twenty-one years ago, the police made inferences. They failed to collect evidence. Today they cannot prove that the trio was guilty. They cannot be certain whether accomplices were involved, let alone who they were.

The High Court recently determined that the police used torture. It also determined that Henry Lee's report was consistent with the science. This was enough to overthrow previous speculation. This is the key to the not-guilty verdict.

Forced confessions are hateful. They are a violation of human rights. They are also unscientific. People will confess to anything under toture. Investigators are able to close their cases this way. But they are unable to prove that the alleged murderer was really the killer. They injure the innocent. They cheat the families of the victims, as well as the families of those wrongly convicted.

The Su Chien-ho and Chiang Kuo-ching cases are the result of major blunders in criminal investigation and evidence gathering. Examples persist. Civil rights reformers have taken an active interest in the Cheng Hsing-che case. The law requires a speedy trial. Su has been acquitted three times. As a result prosecutors may no longer appeal. The evidence was insufficient from the outset, No trial procedure can make up for a lack of evidence.

The Chiang Kuo-ching case and Su Chien-ho case teach us a lesson. Confessions obtained through torture are not justice. Rough justice is not justice. They merely undermine the credibility of the justice system. We must avoid repeating our mistakes. The justice system must confront its errors. It must abandon obsolete and outdated methods of case handling. It must use rigorously scientific methods to collect evidence. It must solve cases through evidence rather than guess work. It must not force the prosecution to make repeated appeals and resort to endless procedural delays. The best way is for judges to render not-guilty verdicts. They must insist that prosecutors and police gather evidence in accordance with the law. Only then can they find the real murderers. Only then can they ensure justice and fairness for the victims' families.

中時電子報 新聞
中國時報 　2012.09.07
社論－杜絕冤獄 從頭貫徹科學辦案
本報訊

    　纏訟廿一年的蘇建和案，終於定讞了；而空軍士兵江國慶因冤獄致死案，家屬控告前空軍總司令陳肇敏等人瀆職，北檢兩度以不起訴處分，江母昨日前往北檢，提出再議聲請，後續發展值得關切。

    　蘇案在司法程序中歷程曲折，影響深遠。蘇建和、莊林勳、劉秉郎三人曾被疑為汐止吳銘漢夫妻命案的凶手。在現場留有指紋的凶手王文孝遭軍法判決確定執行死刑之後，檢方繼續指控三人為共犯，先是三度遭到最高法院判決死刑確定，三度由法務部長馬英九支持檢察總長陳涵提起非常上訴，雖三次均遭駁回，卻終於得到再審的機會。

    　嗣後則經高等法院以現場無三人之任何跡證、證據不足，三度宣判三人無罪。因為有了《速審法》，第三次判決無罪，檢方不得復為上訴，終告無罪定讞。

    　廿一年的纏訟，三名被告都已步入中年；被害人家屬也隨之翻騰，無法平靜。我們已不記得為了此案寫下多少次的觀察評析；今天該要回顧一下，台灣可從此案中得到什麼寶貴的司法經驗與教訓。

    　本案苦主吳銘漢夫婦被害情狀悲慘，除了王文孝確定涉案業已伏法之外，最大的疑問就是本案有無共犯，以及蘇建和等三人是否為其共犯。然而下手凶殘與是否有共犯，以及誰是共犯，未必有關係。警方一開始只從凶手劫財殺人、下手凶殘、被害者身上共有近八十處刀痕，推斷凶手不只一人，再以刑求的方式取得共同嫌疑人先後矛盾的自白，據之認定蘇建和等三人就是王文孝的共犯。

    　早期法院也未能警覺，檢警認定蘇等三人為凶案共犯，不但被告彼此的自白存有重大歧異，而且均無毛髮與指紋遺留現場。檢方指控強姦，警方卻連證據採樣也無，法院甚至不問有無刑求，即憑著證據力極其薄弱的共犯自白，判處三人死刑。若是以為這樣的判決就可以代表正義，那麼台灣的司法正義也未免過於粗糙而且廉價了！

    　即使在本案判決無罪確定之後，媒體上猶聞有人問道：「誰能說他們三人不是真凶？」然而，問題就出在法院判決誰是凶手時，應該問什麼問題。如果只是憑著無人敢說他們不是真凶就說他們是真凶，那麼世上還有成千上萬的張三李四，也是無人敢說他們不是真凶，誰又可以因此就被法院指為真凶呢？無辜不需要證明，有罪才需要證明，而且須要指控者提出無可置疑的證明！本案為何至今都只能憑著猜測臆說有無共犯，誰是共犯呢？

    　蘇建和三人被判無罪之後，如果還是懷疑真凶沒有伏法，那麼最該負責的就是當初偵辦此案的檢警人員，完全沒有盡到蒐集並保留現場證據的責任。正是因為蒐證不夠嚴謹確實、純憑推論與刑求辦案，才會破壞了現場，滅失了證據。畢竟「本案除了王文孝，還有共犯」這個說法，原本只是個推論。廿一年前的警方只做推論，不做蒐證，就是今天沒有能力認定三人有罪的原因，也是今天連有無共犯也無法確知、遑論知道共犯是誰的原因。

    　高等法院在近次的裁判書中，業已認定警方當年確有刑求，也認定李昌鈺的鑑定報告符合科學法則，足以推翻先前純屬臆測的推論，正是無罪判決確定的關鍵。

    　刑求可惡之處，不僅在於違反人權，而且在於不科學；「捶楚之下，何求不得」？其結果是辦案人員報功敘獎，但卻無法證明所控的凶手真是凶手，不但殃及無辜，而且無法對被害人的家屬以及被冤枉者的家屬交代。

    　蘇建和案與江國慶案都是種因於偵查犯罪蒐證的重大失誤，而這樣的例子或許仍然還有，如民間司法改革團體積極關注的鄭性澤案，也值得注意。此次蘇案是因為《速審法》要求三次判決無罪檢方不得上訴而告定讞。其實開頭蒐證不足，後面再多的審級也難以彌補證據的欠缺。

    　江國慶案與蘇建和案提供的教訓是，刑求不是正義，粗糙的正義不是正義，只會灼燒司法的公信力。要避免錯誤一再發生，司法必須面對錯誤，揚棄陳舊落伍的辦案觀念，用嚴謹的科學方法蒐證，用證據而不用臆測推論破案。與其任由檢方事後一再上訴為無盡的程序拖延，最好的方法就是由審判者用無罪判決要求檢警依法蒐證辦案，才能正確找到真凶，還給被害者家屬以及全體社會真正的正義與公道！