Press Conference protesting "Faulty Forensic Appraisals Cost Lives, Control Yuan Fails to Act"

In September 2014, the Judicial Reform Foundation and the Taiwan Association for Innocence jointly petitioned the Control Yuan to investigate five major miscarriage-of-justice cases caused by expert appraisal errors: the Chiang Kuo-ching case, the Su Chien-ho case, the Hsu Tzu-chiang case, the Cheng Hsing-tse case, and the Houfeng Bridge woman falling case (see Appendix 1). Unexpectedly, in March 2015, the Control Yuan refused to investigate on procedural grounds such as the expiration of the disciplinary statute of limitations and that the cases were still in litigation. Such perfunctoriness is tantamount to condoning lethal expert appraisers to continue manufacturing wrongful convictions.

Due to erroneous expert appraisals (see Appendix 2), defendants in four of the five miscarriage-of-justice cases were (or had been) sentenced to death by the courts! Among them, two expert appraisers, forensic pathologists Hsiao Kai-ping and Hsu Cho-hsien, repeatedly made erroneous appraisals. These expert appraisers either lacked sufficient professional competence or catered to the prosecution and court's demands for conviction, producing appraisals that violated professional standards. For example, in the Chiang Kuo-ching case, the expert appraiser used a blood-testing reagent to detect seminal fluid reactions, obtaining a positive result that led to Chiang Kuo-ching's conviction; similarly, in the Hsu Tzu-chiang case, the expert appraiser used a self-made experiment to claim absurdly that "skin soaked in concentrated sulfuric acid for two hours remains intact." Furthermore, in the Su Chien-ho case, there were knife marks at different angles on the skeletal remains, and the expert appraiser created their own experiment to prove that there were three or more types of murder weapons, hinting that there was more than one perpetrator to accommodate the demand for a conviction.

Several of these five miscarriage-of-justice cases involved the death penalty, and multiple expert appraisers repeatedly committed grave negligence and professional misconduct. This fundamentally constitutes a major petition case, and the Control Yuan should handle it in accordance with the law and issue a corrective measure against the authorities to which the expert appraisers belong, for which there is a precedent (referencing the corrective measure against the intelligence personnel belonging to the Ministry of National Defense for illegal interrogation in the Chiang Kuo-ching case). In addition, pursuant to Article 12 of the "Regulations for the Control Yuan's Receipt and Processing of Petitions from Citizens," if the respondent is suspected of malfeasance or gross violation of law and dereliction of duty requiring immediate investigation, the Control Yuan shall still initiate an investigation immediately. Dismissing the investigation arbitrarily on the grounds that some cases are still in judicial proceedings is clearly an evasion of responsibility!

In response to this law-condoning and evasive behavior by the Control Yuan, the Judicial Reform Foundation and the Taiwan Association for Innocence will submit a petition letter to Control Member Fang Wan-fu, convener of the Judicial and Penitentiary Committee, at 4:00 PM on Thursday, June 18, to express protest, and call upon the Control Yuan to immediately investigate and handle the matter in accordance with the law (see Appendix 3). It is hoped that the Control Yuan can fulfill its constitutional functions and not become a "dispensable" and "inoperative" Yuan.

Appendices

1. Official Reply from the Control Yuan dated March 12, 2015
2. Summary of Appraisal Errors in Five Miscarriages of Justice
3. Joint Petition Letter Filed by the JRF and TAI

Attendees / Representatives

Co-litigant / Mother of Hsu Tzu-chiang and Wang Chi-cheng
Chairman of the Judicial Reform Foundation / Attorney Lin Yung-sung
CEO of the Taiwan Association for Innocence / Attorney Lo Szu-hsiang
Pro Bono Attorney for the Cheng Hsing-tse and Houfeng Bridge Cases / Attorney Chiu Hsien-chih

Press Contacts

Executive Secretary of the Judicial Reform Foundation, Lin Wei-ting