The defendant/exoneree
Lu Rongxin (卢荣新), born on August 25, 1972.
Facts
On September 10, 2012, the victim surnamed Deng went to work in her own farm field but did not return after 7 p.m. Her family went out to look for her and found her dead in the farm field with her body buried underground in the kneeing position and her head above the ground face up.
Forensic testing showed that Deng was raped and strangled to death.
Lu Rongxin (“Lu”) became the suspect because the police saw him behave abnormally among the crowd that gathered around the crime scene, and he had twenty-eight scratches and bruises on his body he could not explain.
Lu was an alcoholic and was drinking alcohol with about a dozen villagers on the day the crime occurred.
Procedural history
o Lu was detained on September 20, 2012 and arrested on September 30, 2012.
o On April 26, 2013, Lu was indicted on the charges of rape and murder.
o On June 9, 2014, Lu was convicted of rape and murder and was sentenced to death with two-year reprieve by the Xishuangbanna Intermediate People’s Court (“Intermediate Court”).
o In appeal, the Yunan High People’s Court (“High Court”) remanded on April 2, 2015 the case back to the Intermediate Court for retrial due to unclear facts and insufficient evidence.
o On December 20, 2015, the Intermediate Court retried the case with another collegial panel and convicted Lu of the two charges and sentenced him to death with two-year reprieve.
o On January 6, 2017, upon Lu’s second appeal, the High Court reheard the case and acquitted Lu.
Date of the conviction
June 9, 2014
Date the wrongful conviction was reversed
January 6, 2017
Days incarcerated
1,570
Why was the case reopened/reversed
Upon Lu’s second appeal, the High Court careful reviewed the case and found that the evidence was not sufficient to convict Lu. It excluded the illegally gathered evidence such as Lu’s confession and the DNA sample allegedly collected from the crime scene, and accepted newly discovered DNA evidence of another person.
None of Lu’s DNA was found on the victim’s body.
The real perpetrator, Hong Shuhua (“Hong”), whose DNA matched the newly discovered DNA evidence found on the victim’s underpants, was apprehended by the police on August, 2016. Hong confessed to the crime and provided details of his crime only known by him. For example, the collegial panel in the second appeal had been puzzled by the victim’s odd body position buried (knees down and face up) and thought it was out of some special religious ritual. Hong confessed that he had buried the entire body underground but forgotten to take off his pants straps from the victim’s neck. So he went back to retrieve the strap and pulled the victim’s head out of the mud.
Hong also apologized to Lu.
Factors contributing to the wrongful conviction
False confession
Lu was interrogated by the police for three consecutive days. He was tortured and deprived of water and sleep before confession. During his eight interrogations by the police, he only confessed in the seventh interrogation, 50 hours after his detention, and recanted this confession afterwards.
Details of Lu’s confessions did not match the crime scene. For example, Lu stated that the victim was wearing a flowery shirt, but the victim was actually in a blue shirt; Lu stated that he killed the victim with a hoe but the victim was strangled to death.
Faulty DNA evidence
The police claimed Lu’s DNA was found on the handle of a hoe lying at the crime scene. But the hoe had been almost entirely immersed in water for over 10 hours after heavy rain. It was unlikely that any DNA evidence, being water soluble, could be found.
The police failed to provide the chain of custody to prove the legality of their DNA evidence collection.
None of Lu’s DNA was found on the victim’s body. This was inconsistent with a normal rape case.
Flawed police investigation
The police interrogation was not properly recorded as required by the criminal procedural law. In the recording where Lu allegedly confessed, Lu was video recorded from the back without any audio track.
When Lu was brought back to the crime scene to identify the place, he was vacantly following the police instructions and hardly able to describe how the crime committed.
Other developments
Hong was under the age of 18 when the crime committed. He was convicted of rape and murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment on January 21, 2017. Hong did not appeal.
On September 13, 2017, Lu was awarded RMB 609,685.95 as state compensation and RMB 80,000 as judicial aid.