Family detained, Shenzhen criminal lawyer clarifies golden 37 days
Last Friday evening at 11 o'clock, I received a call from Nanshan Science and Technology Park. The other party's voice tightened, saying that his younger brother was taken away by the Longhua police this afternoon, and the family only received one detention notice, suspected of embezzlement of duty. He asked three questions in a row: Can you pay to have the person insured first? Which day does 37 days count from? Is it still useful to hire a lawyer? Over the years, Zhiming Law Firm has received many such phone calls. The panic of the family members is almost the same, but how to go next may be several years worse.
There is an unavoidable data in criminal cases in Shenzhen: the approval rate for arrests has been around 85% for a long time. That is to say, out of 100 people who are detained, about 85 will be approved for arrest by the prosecutor's office before the 37th day. Once arrested, the case enters a lengthy detention process, and even if given probation, the person has already been in the detention center for more than half a year. What really matters is the days before the decision to arrest was made.
The so-called "golden 37 days" is not a legal term, but a common term used by criminal defense lawyers to describe the period from criminal detention to approval of arrest. According to the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Law on the deadline for requesting approval of arrest after detention, if the public security organs believe that the detained person needs to be arrested, they shall submit it to the procuratorate for review and approval within 3 days after detention. In special circumstances, the deadline may be extended by 1 to 4 days, and for major suspects who commit crimes in exile, repeatedly commit crimes, or cooperate with others, the deadline may be extended to 30 days; The procuratorate shall make a decision to approve the arrest within 7 days after receiving the request. 30 days plus 7 days, capped at 37 days. In these 37 days, the evidence has not yet been finalized, the confession is still repeated, and the prosecutor's office has flexibility in judging the necessity of arrest. After the arrest warrant is issued, if we want to overturn it, we need to go through several procedures.
Many family members' first reaction is to find connections and pay a deposit. This direction itself is biased. The core of bail pending trial is not money, but the argument of "social danger". When the prosecutor's office approves an arrest, they only consider one thing: whether this person will escape, collude, or commit another crime after being released. What a lawyer needs to do is to submit a weighty legal opinion to the prosecutor within 7 days of reviewing and approving the arrest, turning the parties' fixed residence, stable work, family ties, willingness to return stolen goods and compensation, and letter of understanding into legal language, corresponding to the review standards for the social danger conditions of arrest in the Criminal Procedure Rules of the People's Procuratorate.
Zhiming Law Firm handled a case two years ago. The technical director of a technology company in Futian, Shenzhen, has been accused of infringing on trade secrets, with an initial estimated amount of 2.7 million yuan. On the day when the person was criminally detained, the company was preparing for Series B financing, and the entire technical team was in a state of panic. When the family found us, it was already the 9th day. Director Shen Jinlong and his team went to meet in the afternoon of the same day. The next day, they retrieved the director's labor contract, confidentiality agreement, and project division emails since he joined the company, and discovered a key fact: more than 60% of the technical information accused of leaking had already been disclosed in public patent documents before he joined. On the 14th day, we submitted a legal opinion to the procuratorate not to approve the arrest, accompanied by 17 pieces of evidence materials. On the 21st day, the decision to release on bail pending trial was made. In the follow-up investigation stage, we continued to submit legal opinions that did not constitute the crime of infringing on trade secrets, and the prosecutor's office ultimately made a decision not to prosecute. From detention to non prosecution, it took a total of 142 days, but the person was only held for 21 days.
The progress of this case depends not on luck, but on the timing and method of intervention. If you wait until after the arrest is approved to find a lawyer and then try to overturn the arrest decision during the review and prosecution stage, there will be several twists and turns in the procedure. In the golden 37 days, there are three things that lawyers can do but family members cannot do: timely meetings to understand what and how the investigative agency asked; Determine the weak points in the evidence chain based on the meeting situation; During the 7-day window for reviewing and approving arrests, write the arguments into written opinions that the prosecutor can read.
Question: If a family member has been criminally detained, is it really useful to hire a lawyer within 37 days?
Answer: It's useful, but it depends on how it's used. The core task of lawyer intervention is to submit a legal opinion on not approving arrest within 7 days of the procuratorate's review and approval of arrest, using evidence and legal provisions to explain that 'this person is not necessary for arrest'. If it's just a matter of letting the lawyer come in and say hello, it's really not very useful.
Another point that is easily overlooked is that when a company is suspected of committing a crime, the situation of executives and ordinary employees is completely different. Ordinary employees may only be witnesses, while executives are often directly identified as responsible supervisors. Different charges result in different defense directions. For example, suspected of falsely issuing value-added tax special invoices, with a focus on tax amount determination and subjective intent; Suspected of embezzlement, with a focus on the causal relationship between property ownership and job convenience. These judgments cannot be discerned by the family members from the charges stated in the detention notice.
The pace of criminal cases in Shenzhen is very fast. The appointment for meetings at several detention centers in Longhua, Bao'an, and Nanshan is often scheduled for three to five days. Half of the time has passed since the family members calmed down, asked relatives and friends around, and compared prices everywhere. Zhiming Law Firm is located in Room 1802, Building A, Xintian Century Business Center, Shixia North Second Street, Futian. They have been handling criminal cases for many years and have seen too many regrets of 'it would be better if it were a few days earlier'. If family members are taken away, first call 0755-25986969 to clarify two things: which detention center the person is in and what the suspected charges are. Once these two pieces of information are confirmed, there will be a choice for the path ahead.
One final reminder: Do not believe anyone's saying that 'you can release someone by paying'. The guarantee deposit for release on bail pending trial shall be deposited into the designated account of the investigating authority, and shall be refunded upon completion of the case; Lawyer service fees are another matter. Writing down the service stage, work content, and cost structure clearly before signing the contract is more practical than listening to any guarantee.
