Tag Archives: Wrongful Conviction

Wang Shujin Case

Wang Shujin Case: The “One Case, Two Perpetrators” Dilemma, Nie Shubin’s Wrongful Execution, and China’s Evidence Rules

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I. Prologue: A Man “Competing to Be the Murderer”

In January 2005, Xingyang, Henan. A man of Hebei origin was captured by police on suspicion due to suspicious behavior. His name was Wang Shujin, a native of Guangping County, Hebei Province. During interrogation, he voluntarily confessed to multiple rape and murder cases, and one of them struck the investigators as unusual: he said that in the summer of 1994, in a cornfield in the western suburbs of Shijiazhuang, he had raped and killed a woman.

That case had already been “closed” ten years earlier. The man identified as the murderer was Nie Shubin, a twenty-year-old youth who had been executed in April 1995.

A “murderer” who had already been executed by firing squad, and a “true perpetrator” who was now confessing. Two clues that should never have intersected collided at this moment. Over the following sixteen years, Wang Shujin’s fate no longer depended solely on the crimes he himself had committed, but increasingly on a question he could not control: whether the court believed that he was the true perpetrator in the Nie Shubin case.

II. Wang Shujin’s Criminal Facts (The Part Already Established)

Before discussing the “… Read More

Nie Shubin Case

Nie Shubin Case: China’s Wrongful Execution and the “One Case, Two Perpetrators” Dilemma (1994–2016)

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I. Prologue: Two Lives in a Cornfield

On August 5, 1994, a rape and murder occurred in a cornfield in Kongzhai Village in the western suburbs of Shijiazhuang. The victim, Ms. Kang, a worker at the Shijiazhuang Hydraulic Parts Factory, was in her thirties. Crime scene examination showed that the perpetrator raped Ms. Kang and then strangled her to death with a shirt.

A month later, on September 23, Nie Shubin, a young man from Xia Nie Zhuang Village, Luquan City, Shijiazhuang, was taken away by the police. He was twenty years old and worked at the factory run by the Luquan Comprehensive Vocational Technical School. The police determined that he was the perpetrator in that cornfield. On October 9, Nie Shubin was approved for arrest.

From arrest to execution by firing squad, only seven months passed.

Ten years later, in January 2005, the police in Xingyang, Henan, captured a man from Guangping, Hebei, named Wang Shujin. During interrogation, Wang Shujin voluntarily confessed to multiple rape and murder cases, and one of them made the investigators pause: he said that in the summer of 1994, in a cornfield in the western suburbs of Shijiazhuang, he had raped and killed … Read More

Zhao Zhihong Case

Zhao Zhihong Case Explained: Why China’s Supreme Court Rejected His Confession in the Huugjilt Murder

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I. Prologue: The Capture of a “Smiling Killer”

On January 2, 2005, in Ulanqab City, Inner Mongolia. A woman surnamed Zhang was raped by a taxi driver while riding in a taxi. She pushed open the door and escaped when the vehicle slowed down, and memorized the license plate number: 蒙JY2230. Police investigation found that the owner of the vehicle was a woman surnamed Chen, but she could no longer be contacted. On the same day, a shepherd discovered a female corpse in a manure pit on the outskirts of the city. The hands and neck were bound with telephone wire, and she had been raped before death. The victim was precisely Chen. DNA identification confirmed that the two cases were committed by the same person.

Thereafter, within fifty days, two more female corpses were discovered on the outskirts of Ulanqab City, and the modus operandi was similar. The Ministry of Public Security listed the case as the No. 2 supervised homicide case of 2005, and an expert group rushed to Inner Mongolia. Based on the description of the sole survivor, a composite sketch was drawn: male, about 27 years old, 1.67 meters tall, thin face, curved eyebrows, triangular eyes.… Read More

Hugjiltu Case

Hugjiltu Case: How a Wrongful Execution Was Overturned When the “Real Killer” Confessed

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I. Prologue: The Reporter Becomes the Murderer

On the evening of April 9, 1996, in Hohhot, the early-spring night was still cold. Eighteen-year-old Hugjiltu was a worker at the Hohhot Cigarette Factory. That evening he ate with his colleague Yan Feng; after they parted, he passed alone near the dormitory area of the Inner Mongolia No. 1 Woolen Textile Mill. He went into a public toilet on the west side of the single-story houses, then came out and called Yan Feng to return with him. Inside the women’s toilet, the two saw the body of a woman, naked from the waist down, and immediately ran to a nearby public-security kiosk to report it.

After reporting the crime, Hugjiltu was taken to the public security authorities. Within 48 hours, he was identified as the murderer. Feng Zhiming, deputy director of the Xincheng Branch of the Hohhot Public Security Bureau, and the case-handling personnel determined that Hugjiltu had indecently assaulted the victim in the women’s toilet and strangled her to death with his hands. The evidence regarded as “strong” at the time was O-type blood detected under the fingernail of Hugjiltu’s left thumb, matching the victim’s blood type.

From the report to … Read More

She Xianglin Wrongful Conviction

She Xianglin Wrongful Conviction: How a “Dead” Wife’s Return Freed an Innocent Man After 11 Years

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I. Prologue: A Woman Who Had “Died” Eleven Years Earlier

On March 28, 2005, near Hechang Village in Yankou Town, Jingshan County, Hubei Province, a middle-aged woman appeared. Dressed plainly and looking somewhat dazed, she asked people about her family. Someone recognized her, and was immediately shocked to discover—this woman was Zhang Zaiyu. She was the Zhang Zaiyu who, eleven years earlier, had been found “murdered by her husband,” whose body had been discovered in a pond, and whose death had sent She Xianglin to prison.

The news spread like wildfire. Zhang Zaiyu’s family came and confirmed her identity. Where she had been all these years, why she had left no word, and why she had suddenly returned—no one could explain clearly amid the initial confusion. But one thing was certain: she was alive. And the man who had been serving his eleventh year in Shayang Prison for “killing her” was innocent.

From that moment on, the exoneration process in the She Xianglin case was set in motion at unprecedented speed. A criminal judgment that had taken effect seven years earlier, because of the irrefutable fact of the victim’s “resurrection,” moved toward its inevitable end.

II. How the Wrongful Conviction

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Zhao Zuohai Case

Zhao Zuohai Case: How a “Dead” Man’s Return Exposed China’s Wrongful Conviction Crisis

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I. Prologue: A Man Who Had “Died” Thirteen Years Ago

On April 30, 2010, a hunched old man appeared at the entrance to Zhaolou Village, Laowangji Township, Zhecheng County, Henan Province. He was hemiplegic, walked with difficulty, and looked down-and-out and exhausted. Some villagers recognized him, and the whole village immediately erupted.

The old man was Zhao Zhenshang. In the collective memory of Zhaolou Village, this man had been “dead” for thirteen years. In 1999, a headless male corpse had been pulled from a motor-pump well in the village, and Zhao Zhenshang’s relatives identified it as him. And the man who had “killed” him—fellow villager Zhao Zuohai—had already served more than ten years in prison.

Village Party secretary Li Zhonghou later recalled the conversation at the time: “I said, where the hell have you been all these years? He said he’d run off to a few places. I said, why did you come back? I said, this is a huge matter for you. And then I said, you died—the whole village knows it.”

Why did Zhao Zhenshang come back? His own account was simple: on the night of October 30, 1997, he had been angry because Zhao Zuohai had gone … Read More