The defendant/exoneree
Din Guoqin (丁国勤), born on March 16, 1978. He was twenty-two years old when he was first detained and thirty-nine years old when exonerated.
Facts
Ding Guoqing (“Ding”) and the victim surnamed Shao were in a romantic relationship and had been living together since 1999. In the evening of October 3, 2000, Shao had an argument with Ding and did not want to go back to their residence with Ding. The next morning, Shao was found dead in the community garden of a residential compound, with her purse and belongings scattered around. She appeared to die from suffocation. Ding became the prime suspect and was detained on October 4, 2000.
The victim’s wallet was missing and not located in this case.
The garden where the victim’s body was found had many zephyr lily flowers in blossom at the time. The police tested Ding’s clothing and shoes for that flower pollen but did not find any.
Ding called Shao’s beeper at 12:11 a.m. on October 4, 2000.
Procedural history
On October 4, 2000, Ding was detained and questioned by the police.
On November 10, 2000, Ding was officially arrested.
Huzhou Intermediate People’s Court (“Intermediate Court”) convicted Ding of intentional murder and sentenced him to the death penalty on March 27, 2001.
Upon Ding’s appeal, on May 10, 2001, Zhejiang High People’s Court (“High Court”) sustained the conviction but commuted the sentence to the death penalty with two-year reprieve.
Ding kept petitioning for his innocence while serving his time in prison. On July 20, 2015, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Procuratorate (“Provincial Procuratorate”) issued a prosecutorial recommendation to the Hight Court for retrial.
On October 9, 2016, Ding was released from prison after serving his time with commuted sentence.
The High Court decided to reopen the case in May, 2017 and retried the case on July 13, 2017.
On July 17, 2017, the High Court acquitted Ding on the ground of insufficient evidence and unclear facts.
Date of the conviction
March 27, 2001
Date the wrongful conviction was reversed
July 17, 2017
Days incarcerated
5,849
Why was the case reopened/reversed
Ding appealed several times during his imprisonment.
The Provincial Procuratorate officially recommended the High Court to retry the case.
The High Court decided to reopen the case two years after the prosecutorial recommendation.
Factors contributing to the wrongful conviction
False confession
Ding did not confess to the crime until the 68th day of his detention. He was interrogated by the police fifty-three times, but only thirty-eight statements were recorded. Ding defended his innocence in thirty-three of these statements, and confessed only in the last five. Furthermore, the five confessions contradicted each other and other evidence in the case. Additionally, none of the confessions matched the complete process of the crime. Ding recanted his confessions many times.
Police’s misconduct
The police did not turn in two pieces of exculpatory evidence to the prosecutor: one is the forensic testing proving that no pollen of zephyr lily was found on Ding’s shoes or pants; the other is Ding’s phone call record indicating that Ding called the victim’s beeper in the time frame when the offense was committed.
Investigators’ tunnel vision
Eyewitnesses’ statements indicated that Ding had been to the residential compound the night of the crime, but did not prove Ding had entered the community garden and committed the crime.
Forensic testing found the victim’s DNA in a DNA sample collected from Ding’s pants that he had been wearing on the night of the crime. Thus, the police used the DNA match as a key evidence to indict Ding as the assailant.
Dubious forensic evidence
The police used a sniffer dog to prove Ding was connected to the crime.
Court’s failure
Both the trial court and the appellate court failed to recognize the contradictions between Ding’s recanted confessions, forensic evidence and the prosecutor’s account. For example, Ding once confessed that he had choked the victim to death with his hands, but the evidence showed that the assailant used the victim’s purse straps to suffocate her. Another example is that the evidence indicated that the murderer muffled the victim’s mouth, clutched her neck, and tied her throat with the bag strap, and that the victim’s wallet was gone. These contradicted the characteristics of crime of passion, as argued by prosecutors during the trial court.
Other developments
In May, 2018, the High Court decided to pay RMB2.74 million to Ding as state compensation.