Handle serious crime cases well
Make sure you don't do anything wrong
Interview with Yuan Ming, Director of the Second Procuratorate of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
How to handle every felony case with high quality and efficiency? In the past year, the Second Procuratorate of the Supreme People's Procuratorate has carried out a series of measures:
Directly handled Xu Yan's drug transportation case and other protest cases.
Do a good job of guiding subordinates to hold a large lecture hall on the practice of prosecuting serious crimes.
The Supreme People's Procuratorate compiled and distributed the first batch of Guiding Cases with the theme of criminal prosecutorial appeals.
Coordinate the pilot operation of the criminal trial supervision intelligent auxiliary case-handling system in 9 procuratorates across the country.
On February 1, in an exclusive interview with reporters, Yuan Ming, director of the Second Procuratorate, reviewed the key work of the serious crime prosecution business line in 2023 and introduced the serious crime prosecution work in 2024.
Yuan Ming, director of the Second Procuratorate of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, was interviewed by reporters.
Lead by example
The verdict was later changed after protesting against Xu Yan's drug transportation case in accordance with the law
In order to implement the "Opinions of the Communist Party of China on Strengthening the Legal Supervision of Procuratorial Organs in the New Era" and the requirements of "handling every case with high quality and efficiency" put forward by the Supreme People's Procuratorate Party Group, the Second Procuratorate has taken the lead and set an example, directly handling more than 700 cases in the past year. Xu Yan's drug transportation case is one of them.
It is understood that in June 2015, after Xu Yan was arrested, he never admitted that he was rushing to transport drugs on the highway. After the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region High People's Court made a final judgment that Xu Yan did not constitute the crime of transporting drugs, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Procuratorate submitted a protest to the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
After a comprehensive review of the case, we believe that the reasons for the protest in the case are sufficient, such as the speakers containing drugs in the car involved in the case, the purchase voucher of the speakers, the mobile phone, and the bank receipts all prove that they belong to Xu Yan; Xu Yan's DNA was detected in cigarette butts and short-sleeved shirts extracted from the car, and there was no evidence that there were traces left by others in the car. However, the chain of evidence proving that the case was committed by Xu Yan has not been completely closed, so we have set up a special case handling team. Yuan Ming introduced that the case-handling team carried out supplementary investigation work with the support and cooperation of the Supreme People's Procuratorate Judicial Appraisal Center, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Procuratorate and the public security organs. After communication and coordination with the Ministry of Public Security, 6 audio recordings of the suspect before and after the card were retrieved on the night of the crime, and the voiceprint identified as Xu Yan.
With regard to the issue of whether the appraisal opinion that Xu Yan was not the driver of the vehicle involved in the case that was accepted in the original judgment was scientific and reasonable, the Supreme People's Procuratorate Judicial Appraisal Center conducted a technical evidence review and found that the appraisal opinion lacked basis. The case-handling team also commissioned the Forensic Science Research Institute to conduct an appraisal of the sample of the appraisal opinion, and came to the conclusion that the quality of the sample image was poor, the portrait reflected few features and was unstable, and it did not have the same conditions for identifying the sample, that is, it could not be determined whether the sample image was Xu Yan.
After the Supreme People's Procuratorate lodged a protest with the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Court ordered the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region High Court to retry the case. In September 2023, the court issued a retrial verdict, adopted the prosecution's accusation opinion, found that Xu Yan constituted the crime of transporting drugs, and sentenced her to death.
The reversal of the verdict in Xu Yan's drug transportation case has effectively prevented the criminals from escaping legal punishment and effectively safeguarded judicial fairness. Yuan Ming said.
Strong guidance
Give full play to the guiding role of typical cases
In the past year, the Second Procuratorate's Office has devoted itself to supervising and handling cases, insisting on not doing anything in vain and correcting mistakes, and handled protest cases such as the Chen Cang robbery case in accordance with the law, and Chen Cang's sentence was commuted from not guilty to a suspended death sentence. Persist in handling appeal cases with heart and emotion, and after filing a protest with the Supreme People's Court against the victim's relatives, Xin Long's intentional homicide case was ordered to be retried, and Xin Long's sentence was commuted from not guilty to a suspended death sentence. In a 36-year-old robbery and murder case at sea in Zhoushan, Zhejiang, it was decided to approve the prosecution in accordance with the law, and both defendants were sentenced to death.
While the Second Procuratorate has made efforts to directly handle cases, it has also done a good job of guiding subordinates to promote the improvement of the quality and efficiency of case handling in the line of serious crime prosecution. Yuan Ming introduced that in the past year, the Supreme People's Procuratorate immediately supervised, followed up and guided major sensitive cases such as the major fire accident case of Beijing Changfeng Hospital and the fire accident case of Shanxi Yongju Coal Mine, actively responded to social concerns and ensured the effectiveness of the case.
At the same time, the Second Procuratorate Office continued to strengthen operational training, and promoted exchanges, mutual learning, and common improvement among public prosecutors, procuratorates, and law handling personnel through holding a lecture hall on serious crime practice and a training course on evidence issues in serious crime cases. Organize the observation of court trials such as the "Zhejiang Zhoushan Extraordinarily Large **" and the "Shanghai Xu Yao Intentional Homicide and Dangerous Substance Case", carry out the selection of outstanding court trials, rely on the Serious Crime Evidence Research Base to demonstrate difficult and complex cases, and truly improve the level of public prosecution of serious crime prosecutors.
One case is worth a dozen documents. In strengthening guidance to subordinates, the Second Procuratorate has given full play to the guiding role of typical cases, compiled and distributed the first batch of guiding cases with the theme of criminal prosecutorial appeals of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, released six batches of typical cases such as the punishment of drug-related crimes involving the loss of control of psychotropic drugs and public hearings of serious crime cases, selected the top ten cases of national serious crime prosecution in 2023, and compiled two books, "Criminal Trial Supervision and Criminal Evidence" and "Guidelines for Handling Criminal Prosecutorial Appeals", to provide reference for the handling of serious crimes.
Improve quality and efficiency
Carry out criminal trial supervision
Pilot work on the intelligent auxiliary case-handling system
In order to strengthen legal supervision in the new era, from December 2022 to June 2023, the Second Procuratorate coordinated the pilot operation of the intelligent auxiliary case-handling system for criminal trial supervision in nine procuratorates, including the Beijing Municipal Procuratorate and the Dalian Municipal Procuratorate in Liaoning Province, and achieved remarkable results.
The primary purpose of the criminal trial supervision intelligent auxiliary case-handling system is to solve the current problem of narrow clues for criminal trial supervision and insufficient sources of protest cases. Through the pilot work, the pilot areas have expanded the source of procuratorial protests and further improved the quality and efficiency of supervision. Yuan Ming introduced that the expansion of case supervision to similar case supervision is the development direction of the intelligent auxiliary case handling system of criminal trial supervision, and it is also the long-term development goal of the pilot work.
The pilot project has also promoted the governance of litigation sources. For example, Yuan Ming said that the Shaoxing City Procuratorate in Zhejiang Province used the supervision model to sort out the common supervision clues for a period of time or a type of case, and prompted the grassroots procuratorates to follow up and supervise from the point to the point to promote the application of procedures, the application of law and other issues to be solved in a centralized and comprehensive manner.
Yuan Ming said that in the new year, the Second Procuratorate will continue to insist on paying equal attention to direct case handling and guiding case handling, and handle every serious crime prosecution case with high quality and efficiency. Resolutely maintain social stability, further improve the legal supervision of death penalty reviews, strengthen the construction of the procuratorial team for serious crimes, and serve Chinese modernization with the modernization of procuratorial work.
*: Procuratorate**, Procuratorate News Edition Text Reporter: Cui Xiaoli Photojournalist: Cheng Ding Poster: Chahuahui Creative Club Zhang Tianqi **Xu Qian, Zhao Rui, Liu Yufei, Liang Zepeng, Chen Yang, Xiang Desheng, Yuli Tuzi Ayi Rouzi).