The defendant/exoneree
Huge Jiletu (呼格吉勒图), born in 1978; he was 18 when he was executed.
Facts
On the night of April 9, 1996, Huge heard a scream from a women’s restroom near where he worked. Huge and his friend Yan Feng went together to check out what happened. They discovered a female body, naked below the waist, on her back on top of a low wall in the women’s restroom. They reported the crime to the local police. On April 11, 1996, the police suspected that Huge was the perpetrator and detained him for interrogation. Huge was tortured by the police and finally confessed that he raped and killed the victim. Huge was convicted of hooliganism and intentional murder, and sentenced to death on May 23, 1996.
Nine years after Huge’s execution, Zhao Zhihong who was arrested for a series of rape and murder charges confessed that he was the real perpetrator in Huge’s case.
Other special facts about this case:
Huge’s case was highly publicized in 1996 as a triumph of cracking down on crimes. Some police officers, prosecutors and judges were promoted due to their work on Huge’s case.
In 1996, China was in its second “strike hard” campaign against violent crimes. The campaign required that certain types of crimes, usually violent crimes, should be punished strictly, severely and quickly. At that time, the authority to review death penalty cases was delegated to provincial high courts by the Supreme People’s Court. In Huge’s case, it was the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region High Court that reviewed his appeal and affirmed his death penalty.
Procedural history
On May 23, 1996, Huge was convicted of hooliganism and intentional murder of a woman in a public restroom and sentenced to death by the Hohhot City Intermediate Court of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
On June 5, 1996, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region High Court affirmed the judgment and Huge’s death penalty upon his appeal.
On June 10, 1996, 62 days after the crime was discovered, Huge was executed.
On October 23, 2005, Zhao Zhihong, a serial rapist and killer was arrested. Among over 20 other cases of rape and murder from 1996 to 2005, Zhao voluntarily confessed that he also committed the crime in Huge’s case.
In March 2006, the Political-Legal Committee of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region started reviewing Huge’s case and concluded in August 2006 that Huge was wrongfully convicted.
On November 28, 2006, the Hohhot City Intermediate Court heard the Zhao Zhihong case.
On November 20, 2014, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region High Court re-opened the Huge case.
On December 15, 2014, after having reviewed all case documents, and retried the case, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region High Court announced that Huge was not guilty.
Date of the conviction
May 23, 1996
Date the wrongful conviction was reversed
December 15, 2014
Days incarcerated
Executed.
Why was the case reopened/reversed
On October 23, 2005, Zhao Zhihong was arrested and confessed his crime in Huge’s case. Zhao’s confessions was voluntary and consistent. Since then, Huge’s family petitioned to re-open Huge case. Meanwhile, both cases were highly publicized by China’s news media and raised a lot of public attention. In March 2006, the Inner Mongolia Political-Legal Committee formed a review group on Huge case and preliminarily concluded that Huge was wrongfully convicted. Some news media in China kept reporting these two cases. Public opinion had a great impact on the re-opening of Huge case. On November 20, 2014, the Inner Mongolia High Court decided to re-open the case.
Factors contributing to the wrongful conviction
False confession
The police deceived Huge by telling him that the victim did not die, and that he could go home as soon as he confessed.
Huge was physically and mentally tortured during police interrogation. They did not allow Huge to use the restroom unless he confessed first. Huge was told that he had to confess in accordance with what the police had told him. His testimonies during the first police interrogation and during the prosecutors’ interrogation contested that he did not commit the crime. But the procuratorate failed to pay attention to Huge’s contesting testimony.
Flawed police investigation
In order to explain Huge’s motive of the crime, the police tried to make eyewitness Yan Feng testify that Huge watched pornography. But Yan Feng contested. Under the pressure from the police, Yan Feng had to fabricate that Huge had made dirty jokes.
Problematic forensic evidence
The police collected the sperm sample from inside of the victim’s body. But no forensic test was done.
The police in Zhao Zhihong’s case also collected Zhao’s sperm sample, but did not conduct any forensic test to identify whether the sample from the victim matched the sample from Zhao.
In Huge’s case, the alleged most powerful incriminating evidence was the forensic evidence showing that the type of blood found in Huge’s nail matches that from the victim’s cut on her neck. But the first response police officer who investigated the crime scene informed a reporter at the Xinhua Net in 2014, that the victim did not have any cut. Unfortunately, this police officer did not handle this case after he handed the first report to the police station, and did not testify for the case.
Prosecutorial errors
The procuratorate did not check the work of the police before indicting Huge.
Defense lawyer's errors/absence
Huge was represented by two lawyers, but the lawyers did not claim Huge was innocent. Instead, their defense hinged on attempting to obtain a lesser punishment and only argued that Huge was a first-time offender and a national minority.
Court's errors
Failed to exclude the illegally gathered evidence (i.e. confession extorted from torture, fabricated blood test from the victim’s neck).
Failed to admit Huge’s exculpatory testimony. Did not carefully analyze the conflicting evidence.
Other developments
It took nine years for the court to re-open the Huge case after Zhao Zhihong admitted that he was the real perpetrator in the Huge case. By that time, many of the people involved in the handling of Huge’s case had been promoted to high and important positions. A retired prosecutor who has supported the re-opening of Huge case was threatened and severely injured by anonymous people.
In December 2014, a Deputy Chief Judge of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region High Court offered an apology to Huge’s parents.
On February 3, 2015, the parents of Huge received about RMB 2.05 million of State compensation.
The president of the Supreme People’s Court Zhou Qiang mentioned this case in his 2014 annual report to the National People’s Congress, stressing “we are the one that should be deeply blamed for those wrongfully convicted, such as Huge.”
Zhao Zhihong was convicted of four counts of crime: murder, rape, robbery and theft, and was sentenced to death in 2015. He was executed on July 30, 2019. However, the court held that there was insufficient evidence to prove that Zhao was the real perpetrator in Huge’s case.
In January 2016, 11 police officers, 7 prosecutors and 8 judges were held accountable for Huge’s wrongful conviction and were punished by the Chinese Communist Party’s internal disciplines from severe disciplinary admonition to major demerit recording.