Lawyer wrongfully imprisoned for 1.5 years acquitted; joint handling of cases by public security, procuratorate, and court becomes a scourge
On September 16, 2010, lawyer Liu Shaobin of Shangtong Law Firm in Kunming, Yunnan, was arrested on suspicion of "obstruction of testimony" while handling a civil case in Yiliang County, Zhaotong City, Yunnan Province. The arrest and investigation were carried out by a "joint investigation team" coordinated by the Yiliang County Political and Legal Affairs Committee.
On July 29, 2011, the Yiliang County People's Court in Yunnan issued a first-instance verdict, finding Liu Shaobin guilty of obstruction of testimony and sentencing him to one year and six months in prison. Liu Shaobin then appealed to the Zhaotong Intermediate People's Court, which upheld the original verdict on October 31, 2011.
On February 11, 2012, after being released from prison, Liu Shaobin began appealing to various authorities, saying, "I sent materials to the Supreme Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the National People's Congress, the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, and the Ministry of Public Security." In July 2013, Liu Shaobin received a decision from the Zhaotong Intermediate Court stating that because he had appealed to the Yunnan Provincial People's Congress and the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, his case would be retried.
The case was ultimately ordered for retrial by the Zhaotong Intermediate Court on November 15, 2013. On April 28, 2014, the Zhaotong Intermediate Court issued a designation of jurisdiction, assigning the case to the Yanjin County People's Court in Yunnan Province.
On January 14, 2015, the Yanjin County People's Court opened the retrial; on March 17, the court acquitted Liu Shaobin, citing unclear facts and insufficient evidence.
Origin: A Civil Case
All of this began with a civil lawsuit. On November 11, 2007, Liu Shaobin's five-year-old nephew, Taotao (a pseudonym), accompanied by his grandfather Liu Yuqing, went to process rice at the Wujiawan processing plant in Mi'er Village, Qiaoshan Township, Yiliang County, and was injured by high-voltage electricity from a transformer.
A forensic examination by the Yunnan Provincial Public Security Judicial Appraisal Center showed that the injuries to Taotao's hands were caused by high-voltage electric shock. The only transformer near the incident site was at the Wujiawan processing plant; other transformers were farther away and separated by a river. Further forensic evaluation determined that Taotao's hands were classified as a level 5 disability.
At that time, Liu Shaobin had just passed the judicial examination. Upon learning of this, he immediately rushed back to Yiliang County. That evening, Taotao's mother approached Wu Chaobin and others who had invested in contracting the Wujiawan processing plant, and they paid 1,000 yuan on the spot as medical expenses.
According to Liu Shaobin's account to reporters, after 17 days of hospitalization in the county hospital, Taotao was transferred to the Second Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical College for further treatment, where he underwent amputation and skin graft surgery. The total medical expenses amounted to 12 yuan.
On October 27, 2008, as the two parties failed to reach an agreement on compensation, Liu Shaobin, acting on behalf of Taotao, filed a lawsuit against the 14 villagers who had invested in the processing plant.
During the trial, Liu Shaobin learned that the involved transformer was installed by Yiliang County Mierhe Power Generation Co., Ltd., so he added the power supplier, Mierhe Power Generation Company, as an additional defendant on behalf of Taotao. The judgment provided by Liu Shaobin to reporters showed that four villagers—Zhao Weiguo, Fang Shibing, Liu Yunzhong, and Yang Bigao—accepted court investigations and testified that they had encountered the grandmother and grandson on the way while Liu Yuqing was carrying Taotao to the health center, and heard Liu Yuqing recount how Taotao had been electrocuted at the processing plant.
Since there were no direct eyewitnesses to Taotao's electrocution, the indirect evidence from the four villagers, along with the forensic examination, became key evidence in the trial.
On November 3, 2009, the Yiliang County People's Court issued a first-instance judgment, ruling in favor of Taotao and ordering all defendants to jointly compensate Taotao for personal injury damages amounting to 274,156.65 yuan, and to bear the case acceptance fee of 15,022.8 yuan.
After the first-instance verdict, the defendants appealed to the Zhaotong Intermediate Court, which, after trial, issued a second-instance judgment on May 19, 2010, dismissing the appeal and upholding the original verdict.
Sudden Turn: Political and Legal Affairs Committee Intervenes, Lawyer Sentenced
A seemingly straightforward civil lawsuit appeared to have concluded, but the situation took a sharp turn.
After the second-instance judgment took effect, the defendants petitioned. A petition reception record provided by Liu Shaobin to *China Economic Weekly* reporters showed that on June 12, 2010, Peng Zegao, then Secretary of the Yiliang County Political and Legal Affairs Committee, received petitioners including Wu Chaobin, a shareholder of the Wujiawan Processing Plant. Peng immediately instructed, "Establish an investigation team according to relevant procedures, led by Zhang Renyun, Deputy Director of the Yiliang County Court. If the investigation findings align with the judgment, handle it accordingly; if the investigation reveals inaction or false findings by case handlers, strictly hold them accountable and impose serious sanctions. Also, request the assistance and cooperation of Tong, then Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the Yiliang County Court. Since the petitioners are present, please have Deputy Director Zhang form the investigation team today to conduct the investigation and gather evidence."
The petition reception record indicated that the Yiliang County Political and Legal Affairs Committee subsequently notified the local court and procuratorate to coordinate the formation of the investigation team.
Li Kun (pseudonym), then Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the Yiliang County Court, revealed in a media interview that he attended this meeting held in Peng Zegao's office.
According to his recollection, the meeting lasted about ten minutes. "Secretary Peng demanded that people be selected to form a joint investigation team. The public security and procuratorial departments each had to assign a few people. Later, the chief procurator arranged for people to go, but I did not participate. The assigned personnel were uniformly placed under the command of Zhang Renyun, the deputy director of the court." Liu Shaobin told reporters that Li Kun had once expressed to him that he did not participate because he believed the investigation team was illegal, so he refused to join. Afterwards, the chief procurator arranged for another deputy chief procurator surnamed Liu to replace him.
In fact, China's Criminal Procedure Law clearly divides and defines the work responsibilities of the public security, procuratorial, and judicial organs. Article 3 stipulates: "The investigation, detention, execution of arrests, and preliminary inquiry of criminal cases are the responsibility of the public security organs. Procuratorial work, approval of arrests, investigation of cases directly accepted by the procuratorial organs, and initiation of public prosecutions are the responsibility of the people's courts... When conducting criminal proceedings, the people's courts and public security organs must strictly comply with the relevant provisions of this law and other laws." Additionally, Article 18 states: "The investigation of criminal cases is conducted by the public security organs, except as otherwise provided by law."
According to other media reports, on July 13, 2010, Li Zixian from the Legal Policy Department of the Yiliang County Court removed the case files of the Taotao case from the court. On July 14, the joint investigation team notified the Yiliang County Court to request a retrial.
The case files provided by Liu Shaobin to a reporter from China Economic Weekly show that on July 16, 2010, three witnesses—Fang Shibing, Liu Yunzhong, and Yang Bigao—who had testified in a civil case were criminally summoned. Two days later, on July 18, the three were criminally detained. On August 12 of the same year, Zhao Weiguo and Liu Shaobin were criminally detained in Kunming. On September 16, Liu Shaobin was arrested.
On December 28, 2010, the Yiliang County Court initiated a public prosecution, alleging that in the Taotao lawsuit, Liu Shaobin instructed Zhao Weiguo, Fang Shibing, Yang Bigao, and Liu Yunzhong to give false testimony.
The judgment document shows that the prosecution alleged: "Liu Shaobin, with the aim of making the Mi'erhe Power Generation Co., Ltd. and the 14 households that invested in the Wujiawan Processing Plant compensate Taotao for economic losses, instructed Zhao Weiguo, Fang Shibing, Yang Bigao, and Liu Yunzhong to give false testimony during the trial of the case in the Yiliang County People's Court, resulting in the court's judgment that the defendants compensate Taotao for economic losses of 274,156.65 yuan and bear the case acceptance fee of 15,022.8 yuan."
The judgment also showed that four witnesses who had previously given testimony favorable to the plaintiff Taotao in the above civil lawsuit were detained and interrogated by the investigation team on charges of "aiding in the fabrication of evidence." Afterward, they recanted their earlier statements, claiming that all the testimony they gave in Taotao's civil case was coached by Liu Shaobin.
The records of the four individuals' interrogations by the investigation team were all presented as evidence during Liu Shaobin's trial.
Liu Shaobin's case files revealed that among the multiple pieces of evidence used by the prosecution to accuse Liu Shaobin, some interrogation and inquiry records were produced under the name of the "Yiliang County Political and Legal Affairs Committee Joint Investigation Team or Yiliang County People's Court." Some of these were even directly conducted by prosecutors, who signed the records. The files also showed that after the joint investigation team was established, court personnel directly participated in the arrest operations.
On July 29, 2011, the Yiliang County People's Court issued a verdict: Liu Shaobin was found guilty of obstructing testimony and sentenced to one year and six months in prison.
On October 31, 2011, the Zhaotong Intermediate People's Court upheld the original verdict in the second instance. During this period, Taotao's civil case was remanded for retrial, and the previous final judgment in his favor was overturned, resulting in a loss.
Retrial: All evidence collected by the joint investigation team was deemed illegal evidence.
On February 11, 2012, Liu Shaobin was released from prison and immediately began to appeal. "I've been to the Beijing Bureau of Letters and Calls, the People's Congress, the courts, the courts... all of them," Liu Shaobin told a reporter from *China Economic Weekly*. He has kept a thick stack of train tickets, bus tickets, and registered mail receipts from those years, along with a cabinet full of appeal materials.
In November 2013, Liu Shaobin received a ruling from the Zhaotong Intermediate Court: "The original trial deprived or restricted the party's statutory litigation rights, which may have affected the fair trial of the case. The guilty verdict against Liu Shaobin is legally revoked, and the case is remanded for retrial."
On January 14, 2015, the retrial of Liu Shaobin's case, involving the charge of obstructing testimony, began at the Yanjin County People's Court.
Liu Shaobin revealed to reporters that before the trial, the Yanjin County Court organized a pre-trial meeting with prosecutors, the defendant, and defense attorneys to exchange evidence. Both sides reached a consensus at this stage: all witness statements directly obtained under the name of the joint investigation team in this case would be excluded as illegal evidence.
At the same time, the reception record with instructions from Political and Legal Affairs Committee Secretary Peng Zegao was also submitted to the court.
According to media reports, Liu Shaobin's defense attorney, Li Chunguang, argued that this evidence proved the collaboration between the prosecution and public security authorities, the establishment of a joint investigation team by the courts, and the intervention of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee in a civil dispute case. Based on this, Li Chunguang defended, "The original prosecutors joined the investigation team during the investigative phase to exercise investigative powers, rendering the original investigation, prosecution, and trial in this case inconsistent with legal provisions."
The retrial judgment shows that the evidence for the original first and second instance rulings that Liu Shaobin constituted the crime of obstructing testimony mainly consisted of testimonies from witnesses Zhao Weiguo, Fang Shibing, Liu Yunzhong, and Yang Bigao. During this trial, Liu Yunzhong again testified in court. He confirmed that Liu Shaobin did not instruct him to give false testimony, and that he only told the public security authorities that Liu Shaobin had taught him to give false testimony out of fear of being detained.
The prosecutors present in court expressed no objections to the appeal points raised by Liu Shaobin and his defense counsel, nor to all the evidence presented in court. During the evidence presentation phase, the prosecutors stated that after Liu Shaobin's case was remanded for retrial, the investigative authorities re-investigated. Zhao Weiguo and Fang Shibing, who had previously admitted to giving false testimony, both changed their statements, and some evidence was excluded as illegal evidence. Based on this, the prosecutors believed that since the key evidence in this case had undergone significant changes, they recommended that the collegial panel comprehensively consider the matter and render a fair judgment in accordance with the law.
On March 17, 2015, the Yanjin County People's Court, after trial, declared Liu Shaobin not guilty.
The court held: "The content of the testimonies from Zhao Weiguo, Fang Shibing, and Liu Yunzhong, which were relied upon in the original judgment to determine that the original defendant Liu Shaobin instructed others to give false testimony, has changed. Through the trial, the existing evidence cannot sufficiently prove that in the Taotao case, the original defendant Liu Shaobin instructed others to give false testimony. There is insufficient evidence to establish that Liu Shaobin committed the crime of obstructing testimony. The accusation that the original defendant Liu Shaobin committed the crime of obstructing testimony is unclear in facts and insufficient in evidence, and he should be declared not guilty."
Li Chunguang stated in an interview with the media that the biggest problem exposed by Liu Shaobin's case was the illegal handling of the case by the local political and legal affairs committee, public security authorities, and procuratorial authorities. "If similar cases occur in the future, I hope power will not be allowed to act arbitrarily again. Any case handling should proceed within the framework of the rule of law." Li Chunguang believes that regarding the issue of "local political and legal affairs committees leading judicial work," Liu Shaobin's case has sample significance. "The exclusion of local political and legal affairs committees' interference in individual cases is being validated."
Follow-up: The issues behind the wrongful case are being investigated.
According to media reports, the Yunnan Provincial Court has launched an investigation into potential dereliction of duty in the Liu Shaobin case. Liu Shaobin told China Economic Weekly that the Yunnan Provincial People's Congress Legal Affairs Committee and the Provincial Political and Legal Affairs Committee had noticed possible issues behind the case, subsequently transferring it to the Yunnan Provincial Court. It is currently under investigation by the Kunming City Court, with the results still unknown.
In recent years, behind wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice that have drawn public attention, one can often find the shadow of joint case handling by the public security, procuratorate, and court under the leadership of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee. After the Zhao Zuohai wrongful conviction was overturned, Zhao Qizhong, deputy director of the Shangqiu City Court, stated: "The public security, procuratorate, and court all made mistakes. If any one link had been properly managed, the wrongful conviction would not have occurred." Tian Wenchang, a lawyer at Beijing Jingdu Law Firm and known as "China's top criminal defense lawyer," analyzed to China Economic Weekly that when the Political and Legal Affairs Committee intervenes in individual cases and the three agencies handle cases jointly, they lack mutual checks and balances, losing their independence, which easily leads to wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice.
From 2007 to 2015, Liu Shaobin described these years as "enduring all these years, winning justice but losing time." His lawyer's license was revoked due to the court's conviction of him for the crime of obstructing testimony.
Now unemployed at home, Liu Shaobin told China Economic Weekly that he plans to apply to the Bar Association to restore his lawyer's license in the near future, "to prove a point." As for whether he will continue practicing law, Liu Shaobin said he needs some time to adjust and will consider it carefully.
However, Liu Shaobin said that even if he no longer works as a lawyer, he will never forget that he was once a legal professional. He will continue to follow the progress of the rule of law and look forward to judicial advancements.
After being acquitted in the retrial, Liu Shaobin posted on his Weibo: "I hope my case can prevent more people from suffering persecution."
(China Economic Weekly)
