The defendant/exoneree
Yang Ming (杨明) was born on August 15, 1965; he was thirty years old when arrested and fifty years old when acquitted.
Facts
On February 18, 1995, a decomposed female body was found in a catch basin at Tianzhu County in Guizhou province. The body was identified as Wang Jiafeng (Wang) by her family members.
Yang Ming (Yang) and Wang had an affair in Tianzhu County in 1993. Then Wang left for work in Guangdong Province. In November 1994, Wang came back to Tianzhu County. Yang began to date and live with another woman named Yang Xuemei (YXM) in January 1995.
Procedural history
On March 20, 1995, Yang was criminally detained.
On April 12, 1995, Yang was held in a form of custody called “sheltering for investigation” (收容审查).
On August 28, 1995, Yang was formally arrested.
On September 13, 1996, he was indicted on the charge of murder.
On November 1, 1996, after a trial at the Qiandongnan Intermediate People’s Court (Intermediate Court) and deliberation by the court’s adjudication committee, the Intermediate Court sent the case back to the Qiandongnan City People’s Procuratorate (City Procuratorate) for supplementary investigation.
On December 13, 1996, the City Procuratorate indicted Yang again without new evidence.
On December 26, 1996, Yang was convicted of murder and sentenced to the death penalty with a two-year reprieve.
On January 6, 1997, Yang appealed to the Guizhou Provincial High Court (High Court).
On March 4, 1998, the High Court upheld the conviction and sentencing. Yang was sent to prison to serve his time.
In October 2014, the Guizhou Provincial People’s Procuratorate (Provincial Procuratorate) began a post-conviction review of Yang’s case upon numerous petitions from Yang and his family.
On April 1, 2015, the Provincial Procuratorate issued a prosecutorial recommendation to the High Court for a new trial on the basis of unclear facts and insufficient evidence.
The High Court decided to reopen the case on April 21, 2015, and acquitted Yang on August 11, 2015, on the basis that there was insufficient evidence to prove his guilt.
Date of the wrongful conviction
December 26, 1996
Date the wrongful conviction was reversed
August 11, 2015
Days incarcerated
7,449
Why was the case reopened/reversed
Yang never confessed despite being badly tortured by the police.
During his more than 20 years of incarceration, Yang wrote more than 700 appeal letters, insisting that he was innocent. Yang’s family also petitioned repeatedly for provincial authorities to review the case.
On February 28, 2015, Yang’s legal aid lawyer Zhang Lei posted a letter on the internet addressing the leadership at the Provincial Procuratorate about this case. To the surprise of the lawyer and Yang’s family, the Provincial Procuratorate soon initiated a review process.
Factors contributing to the wrongful conviction
False witness testimony
The police put YXM in custody on suspicion of murdering Wang, then placed her in “sheltering for investigation” until she testified against Yang. She was detained for 50 days. The charge against her was dropped and she was released after her inculpatory statements against Yang.
Investigators’ tunnel vision
One witness had testified that she saw the victim quarreling with a man on the night the crime occurred. The witness claimed that the man was slim (Yang was heavy-built). Based on the police dossiers, two people alleged that the victim was in a poor relationship with Luo Laoliu, who had made an explicit statement that he wanted to kill the victim. However, police failed to pursue the two leads about other possible suspects.
Problematic forensic evidence
The police claimed that they found a pair of the victim’s stained red underpants at Yang’s place. However, the police did not present this evidence itself or the photo of it during the trial. In addition, the police did not obtain a DNA test to prove that the pants belonged to the victim.
The police alleged that the soil on a muddy wooden stick discovered at Yang’s place was the same as soil near the catch basin. However, the police did not run a soil PH test or any test to confirm that the soil on the stick and the soil near the catch basin were the same.
The police claimed that scratches on Yang’s face resulted from a fight between him and the victim on the night of the crime. Yang denied it and claimed YXM scratched his face. The police did not test whether the victim’s fingernails contained Yang’s DNA.
Errors on the prosecutor’s side
The prosecution had been pushing for the conviction without sufficient evidence. Despite the court’s requests for more evidence, the prosecution did not present any.
Errors on the court’s side
The court sent the case back to the prosecution for lacking sufficient evidence but convicted Yang after the second indictment without any additional evidence.
Yang contested YXM’s inculpatory statements and requested that YXM “be cross-examined in court. However, YXM did not testify in the courtroom, and her statements were accepted.
Other developments
“Sheltering for investigation” was abolished in 1996 when China amended its Criminal Procedure Law.
Yang was awarded RMB 2.03 million in state compensation on December 22, 2015.