Cctv newsIn 1999, Zhou and Zheng, who lived in zhouning county, Ningde City, Fujian Province, had an injury dispute. Zhouning county People’s Court ruled that Zheng’s behavior was excessive defense. In 2000, he was sent back for retrial by Ningde Intermediate People’s Court. Subsequently, due to doubts about the injury identification, several levels of people’s procuratorial organs maintained their decision not to prosecute.
After 20 years of complaint, Zhou finally ushered in a turning point on October 31st this year, and a special public hearing was held in the Supreme People’s Procuratorate. How did the 20-year case happen? What is the crux of the case? What problems can the hearing solve?
This is the hearing scene of a criminal appeal case in Fujian Province on October 31, 2019. Zhou and Zheng are the focus of this hearing. Two people of the same age were completely changed in their lives because of a case that happened nearly 20 years ago. After many years, for the first time, they sat down and solved the problem face to face in this way. What kind of dispute happened in that year? Why did the Supreme People’s Procuratorate hold a hearing of such a scale and handle Zhou’s complaint by public examination? It starts with a dispute that happened in 1999.
Zhou helped a friend to discuss that he was hit by Zheng throwing stones.
At that time, Zhou and Zheng were both 25 years old, living in zhouning county, Ningde City, Fujian Province, and didn’t know each other. On the evening of December 4, 1999, because of the emotional breakdown with his girlfriend, Zheng went to his girlfriend’s house with his family to deal with the dispute, and had an argument with the social youth Ruan and others present, and then there was a physical conflict.
On the other hand, Zou was angry, but at about 9 o’clock that night, he called Zhou and several other friends, a total of more than 10 people, and planned to go to Zheng to discuss it.
The photos of the scene in that year showed that there were three floors in Zheng’s building, and scattered bricks could be seen on the ground of the second floor corridor. According to the police’s on-site investigation record, the wall of Zheng’s outer courtyard is 2.6 meters high, and there are traces of climbing and stepping at a distance of 2 meters from the ground. Zheng’s mother recalled that there was more than one person who climbed the wall and tried to break into her house.
Zhou said that he did not participate in climbing the wall at that time, but stood outside the door all the time. Seeing bricks falling, he hid in an alley.
That night, Zhou was treated in the county hospital and was later identified as seriously injured by the forensic doctor of the county public security bureau. In September 2000, the People’s Procuratorate of zhouning county initiated a public prosecution, accusing the defendant Zheng of intentionally injuring others’ bodies and causing serious injuries, and should be investigated for criminal responsibility for intentional injury.
The first instance ruled that Zheng had defended himself when the two appealed.
In 2000, the People’s Court of zhouning county made a judgment that Zheng’s behavior was excessive defense and he should compensate Zhou for a loss of more than 15,000 yuan. However, both of them refused to accept the verdict and continued to appeal to the court.
The judgment of the first instance of the case shows that more than 10 people, including Zou, gathered Zhou and so on, went to the defendant Zheng’s house at 9: 00 pm, threw bricks and stones into the corridor on the second floor, and climbed the wall to enter, thus committing illegal infringement. Defendant Zheng used bricks to stop and bruise Zhou’s head, which constituted serious injury. His defensive behavior obviously exceeded the necessary limit, which was excessive defense and his behavior constituted intentional injury. However, Zhou thought that he was seriously injured, and the court sentenced the defendant Zheng too low. Zheng insisted that he was a legitimate defense and should not bear criminal responsibility.
The case of doubtful evidence appraisal was sent back for retrial.
In 2000, the case came to the Intermediate People’s Court of Ningde City. After trial, the court made a decision to "revoke the original judgment and send it back for retrial". There are three reasons: first, some witnesses’ testimonies, on-site investigation photos and other evidence have not been cross-examined in court; Second, the testimony of Xiao, the main witness, was illegal, and the witness did not appear in court. The third reason why the case was sent back for retrial is that Ningde Intermediate People’s Court, after conducting a documentary review of Zhou’s injury appraisal report, considered that the medical evidence that his injury constituted a serious injury was insufficient.
At that time, no one thought that these two thin pages of injury identification would affect the direction of the whole case in the future, and even lead to the inability to continue the judicial process. In December 2000, the case was sent back for retrial, and the zhouning county People’s Procuratorate re-collected evidence to supplement it.
It is difficult to re-identify the injury with doubtful medical records.
Because the original appraisal conclusion could not be adopted, in September 2001, the People’s Procuratorate of zhouning county entrusted the First Hospital of Ningde City to re-appraise Zhou. However, after reviewing the materials, the hospital believes that "the medical record has legal effect and cannot be supplemented or changed at will afterwards" and "it is difficult to re-identify the injury in view of the doubts in the hospitalized case of the injured person".
After receiving the decision of non-prosecution from the county procuratorate, Zhou submitted a complaint to the county procuratorate, the municipal procuratorate and the provincial procuratorate in turn. The results of the review by several procuratorial organs were to maintain the original decision of non-prosecution.
The prosecutor in charge believes that Zhou’s criminal complaint case has certain complexity and particularity, and it is necessary to hold a hearing because of the strong professionalism of forensic injury identification.
Invite experts and lawyers to publicly hear the case.
On October 31, 2019, a public hearing was held in the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and forensic doctors, lawyers, legal experts and several NPC deputies were invited to attend. Conduct a public hearing on the crux of the case, Zhou’s injury identification.
At the hearing, the prosecutor combed the evidence materials with detailed pictures and texts. According to the inspection certificate made by zhouning county Public Security Bureau on December 30, 1999, "Zhou’s head was injured by blunt instrument, and there was a skull base fracture, accompanied by facial and auditory nerve injury and cerebrospinal fluid leakage, as well as epidural hematoma, subdural effusion and parietal bone fracture caused by blunt instrument injury, which constituted serious injuries." It is based on Articles 41 and 44 of the 1990 edition of the Appraisal Standard for Serious Human Injury.
Forensic experts believe that in all the medical records of Zhou, there is only a literal diagnosis conclusion of "skull base fracture", and there is no objective medical examination support, so the injury cannot be identified accordingly.
What are the flaws in medical record identification and why are the authenticity in doubt?
The prosecutor in charge of the case noticed that even the written diagnosis conclusions in the original materials were inconsistent in many places, and it was suspected that there were supplementary changes.
In addition to the suspected modification of the medical records, the more critical time of Zhou’s admission and discharge is also inconsistent in many places, and even conflicts with the time of the incident.
The transcripts of all the parties and the results of police investigations show that the time of the incident was on the evening of December 4. Why was Zhou’s admission time registered as 11 am on the 4 th in some materials?
The undertaker of the original case and the undertaker of the original review case show the evidence, and after the forensic experts express their professional opinions, the hearing officers express their opinions on the facts and evidence of the case.
Subsequently, the host announced the adjournment and the hearing officer reviewed the case. Form a hearing comment.
