The defendant/exoneree
Yang Dewu (杨德武), born on January 24, 1969. He was about thirty-one years old when he was first detained and arrested. He was about forty-seven years old when eventually acquitted.
Facts
Yang Dewu (“Yang”) was a worker at a kiln factory in Nanling County, Anhui Province. He and his daughter lived with Lv Guihua (“Lv”), his mother-in-law, while his wife left them to work in other places. On the morning of July 14, 2000, Yang, returned home after a late night work shift and found the door was locked from the inside. He broke the door and called for Lv but did not hear any response. With a neighbor, he went into Lv’s room and found Lv was dead in bed with a pillow and a bag of quilts on her head. Yang reported her death to the police.
At the crime scene, a window sash was found removed and a hole halfway through the wall next to the window.
Yang’s daughter was eight-years old at the time.
Yang had gotten along with Lv.
Other Special Facts about this Case:
The verdict in the first trial believed that on July 12, Yang intended to give his wife’s skirt to his adulteress. The following day, Yang found the skirt missing. Suspecting that his mother-in-law hid the skirt, Yang murdered her out of anger. The second trial on November 14, however, deleted this motive and changed the wording to “murdering her out of detest and anger about trivial matters in life.”
Procedural history
Yang was detained on July 16, 2000 and arrested on July 24, 2000.
On November 14, 2000, the Wuhu Intermediate People’s Court of Anhui Province convicted Yang of intentional murder and sentenced him to the death penalty with two years reprieve.
Upon Yang’s appeal, the Anhui High People’s Court (“the High Court”) upheld the judgment on February 7, 2001.
On April 20, 2015, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (“the SPP”) handed Yang’s petition to the Anhui Provincial Procuratorate after reviewing the case.
On June 30, 2015, the Anhui Provincial Procuratorate issued a prosecutorial suggestion to the High Court for reopen the case.
On November 3, 2016, the High Court acquitted Yang after retrial. Yang was released on November 11, 2016.
Date of the conviction
November 14, 2000
Date the wrongful conviction was reversed
November 3, 2016
Days incarcerated
5,963
Why was the case reopened/reversed
After the conviction, Yang had sent out 5,000 petition letters to the Anhui Provincial Procuratorate and other government agencies for his innocence, claiming that he did not have the motive to commit the crime, as well as his alibi and forced confession.
The Anhui Provincial Procuratorate had submitted three official recommendations to the High Court three times to retry the case over the years but the High Court had decided not to reopen the case after review.
Yang had petitioned to the SPP. The SPP found there may have been issues in the case, such as a false confession and the lack of corroborating evidence, and required the Anhui Provincial Procuratorate to conduct a comprehensive review and report back the SPP. During the review process, the Anhui Provincial Procuratorate again received a request from the SPP for expediting the process.
On August 8, 2016, the High Court eventually decided to reopen the case for retrial and subsequently acquitted Yang of his murder charge due to unclear facts and insufficient evidence.
Factors contributing to the wrongful conviction
False confession
Yang claimed his confession was forced. The credibility of his confession was also questionable because there were many recantations, as well as many details in his confession that did not match forensic reports and the crime scene investigation. For example, Yang confessed that he had intended to give a grey skirt to his adulteress Xu, but this confession was contradicted by Xu’s statements. The prosecutorial review report that supported reopening the case found law violations during police interrogation.
Flawed police investigation
The alleged grey skirt was not found in this case.
The police failed to verify Yang’s alibi. The forensic report indicated the victim was murdered about 2 hours after her final meal. But Yang claimed that he was working in the kiln factory at the time of the crime.
Defense lawyer’s errors/absence
None. Yang was represented by a lawyer.
Court’s errors
The unexplainable doubts in the case was ignored. For example, the judgment of the first trial stated that Yang intended to give his wife’s skirt to his adulteress, and murdered his mother-in-law because he suspected she hid the skirt. While no such skirt was collected in this case, the appellate court failed to recognize Yang’s lack of motivation to commit the crime. Instead, in its judgment, it changed Yang’s motivation to “murdering [Lv] out of detest and anger about trivial matters in life.”