The defendants/exonerees
Zhang Gaoping (张高平), born in 1965
Zhang Hui (张辉), born in 1976
Facts
In the evening of May 18, 2003, as requested by a friend, Zhang Hui and Zhang Gaoping gave a ride to a 17-year old girl from Anhui Province to Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province while en route to deliver electric cables to one of their clients in Shanghai. The next morning, the girl was found dead and naked in a ditch in a suburb of Hangzhou. The police found the phone numbers of the Zhangs on the victim’s person and therefore detained them on May 23, 2003. On June 28, 2003, the police arrested the Zhangs. The Zhangs were convicted of rape on April 21, 2004.
Zhang Hui and Zhang Gaoping are relatives of each other. Zhang Hui is the nephew, and Zhang Gaoping is the uncle.
Other special facts about this case:
The Zhangs claimed that they dropped off the girl in Hangzhou in the early morning of May 19, 2003. They insisted that they are innocent.
Yuan Lianfang, a cellmate and the head of the Zhangs’ cell room during pretrial detention, forced them to copy out a pre-written confession letter.
Procedural history
On April 21, 2004, Zhang Gaoping and Zhang Hui were convicted of rape by the Hangzhou Intermediate Court. Zhang Hui was sentenced to death and Zhang Gaoping was sentenced to life imprisonment.
On October 19, 2004, the Zhejiang Province High Court commuted both of their sentences upon appeal. Zhang Hui was sentenced to death with two-year suspension and Zhang Gaoping was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Date of the convictions
April 21, 2004
Date the wrongful convictions were reversed
March 26, 2013
Days incarcerated
7,192 (total for two defendants)
Why was the case reopened/reversed
Zhang Gaoping, Zhang Hui and his father Zhang Gaofa, had continuously petitioned even after the convictions.
On March 18, 2005, Zhang Gaoping learned while watching TV in the prison that a man named Gou Haifeng, a former taxi driver and criminal offender was executed for murdering a young girl in a suburb of Hangzhou. Zhang Gaoping thought that Gou might be the real perpetrator in his case because of the similar victim profiles, the similar locations where the bodies were found, and the similar method of killing.
In 2008, Zhang Gaoping read an article about another case where the defendant, Ma Tingxin, was also compelled to confess by Yuan Lianfang. The Zhangs believed that Yuan is the same cellmate who beat and forced them into confession. Zhang Hui mailed this article to his father Zhang Gaofa; and Zhang Gaoping provided this article to a prosecutor named Zhang Biao (not related), who was in charge of supervising the prison where Zhang Gaoping was serving his time.
At the same time, Zhang Gaoping’s stubborn and consistent refusal to comply with prison rules attracted the attention of the local procuratorate.
Through investigation, prosecutor Zhang Biao found that Yuan Lianfang was a prisoner used by the police in multiple cases to help extort confessions from other inmates. Zhang Biao reported his finding to his supervisors and other government agencies and kept bringing this case to his supervisors’ attention till it was reopened.
Zhang Gaofa and prosecutor Zhang Biao finally found Ma Tingxin’s lawyer who agreed to provide free legal aid to Zhang Hui. The lawyer, Zhu Mingyong, later found that court documents showed that Yuan Lianfang had received sentence commutation twice when he was sent to other detention centers to assist the police in closing cases.
In 2010, lawyer Zhu started filing petitions with the court to re-open the Zhangs’ case.
On November 21, 2011, the Dongfang Daily newspaper reported on the suspicious facts in the Zhangs’ case and the identity of Yuan Lianfang. The next day, the Hangzhou police checked the DNA sample in Zhangs’ case against that of Gou Haifeng’s, who had been executed for his previous crimes, and found a match.
The media reports on this case accelerated the re-opening of this case. The police finally checked the DNA evidence they should have checked six years earlier.
On February 27, 2012, the Zhejiang Provincial High Court re-opened the case and organized a new collegial bench to rehear the case.
On March 20, 2013, the Zhejiang High Court retried the Zhangs’ case and publicly announced that the defendants are not guilty six days later.
Factors contributing to the wrongful convictions
False confessions
The Zhangs were severely tortured, both physically and mentally, by the police. They were deprived of food and sleep. The police used their cellmate Yuan Lianfang to extort false confessions from the Zhangs.
The Zhangs also underwent police interrogation for seven consecutive days and nights.
Problematic forensic evidence
The DNA sample, which was found in the victim’s finger nails, did not match the Zhangs. But the judgment explained that victim might have caught the DNA sample from somewhere else. Therefore, it did not prove that the defendants had not committed the crime.
Defense lawyer's errors/absence
None. Both defendants were represented by lawyers who maintained their innocence.
Court's errors
Did not exclude illegally obtained evidence. Failed to uphold the presumption of innocence. In the final retrial, the Zhejiang High Court finally excluded the illegally obtained evidence it had originally admitted.
Other developments
Nie Haifen, a police officer who was in charge of investigation in this case, was rewarded by the Hangzhou Police in 2006 for her extraordinary service for more than 20 years. In her promotion materials, it stated that she had “led the investigation of over 350 serious and major cases in the past five years. Her cases were 100% accurately resolved. … no wrongful convictions …”
On May 17, 2013, the Zhejiang High Court decided that the Zhangs were entitled to State compensation totaling 2.21 million RMB (last updated June 20, 2022).