The Judiciary is Guilty, the Three Are Innocent—Let the Su Case Continue to "Put the Judiciary on Trial"!

After sixteen years, the highly publicized death-penalty case involving Su Chien-ho, Liu Bin-lang, and Chuang Lin-xun reached another controversial turning point. Following their first acquittal in 2003, the Criminal Division of the Taiwan High Court today, June 29, 2007, at 10:00 a.m., handed down a verdict finding all three men guilty.

The organizations that have supported the three defendants for many years—including the Judicial Reform Foundation, Taiwan Association for Human Rights, and Humanistic Education Foundation—expressed deep disappointment with the verdict and strongly protested what they regarded as a grave miscarriage of justice. They issued the following four-point statement:

1. The Three Men Are Innocent. We Will Never Compromise.

We believe that the Su Case is one of the most egregious violations of human rights in this country's history. The three defendants are victims of abuses of power by the police and prosecutors, and the judgment in the Su Case represents a particularly stark example of Taiwan's courts violating the principles of the presumption of innocence and the strict rules governing evidence. In the absence of any evidence establishing that the three defendants committed the alleged offenses, they should have been found not guilty in accordance with the law.

We will never abandon our efforts to obtain justice for these innocent defendants. Nor will we ever compromise in our demand for acquittal.

2. A Guilty Verdict—Where Is the Evidence?

A country may claim that its judicial system is “civilized,” but the Su Case remains unresolved, and three innocent defendants have once again been found guilty. For members of the legal profession, this is deeply distressing.

During the retrial proceedings, the court agreed—only after the court-appointed defense attorneys had made strenuous efforts—to invite internationally renowned forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee to testify in the Su Case. Dr. Lee presented eighteen significant new forensic findings concerning the case, each of which challenged the prosecution's evidence and inferences. Nevertheless, in its reasoning for the guilty verdict, the trial court failed to adequately consider the important evidence presented by the defense. It also failed to adhere to the fundamental principles of the presumption of innocence and adjudication based on evidence under the Code of Criminal Procedure.

3. International Appeal: A Brutal Judicial System

Even as we continue to pursue legal remedies in the Su Case, we must express the sentiment of the support organizations: “It is the justice system that is guilty—not the innocent defendants in the Su Case.”

For sixteen years, the courts have not truly been judging three innocent defendants. Rather, they have been judging a state and a judicial system that have failed to deliver justice.

We will not abandon any available legal remedy that may benefit the Su Case. However, after years of advocacy and rescue efforts, the supporting organizations have become profoundly disillusioned with the country's judicial system.

Over the past sixteen years, major international human-rights organizations—including Amnesty International (AI), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)—have taken an active and sustained interest in the case. We will therefore expand our international support network and further internationalize our efforts, including by bringing the case before the United Nations human rights system.

4. Please Continue to Stand with Su Chien-ho, Liu Bin-lang, and Chuang Lin-xun

Sixteen years have passed. We had hoped that this would be the final chapter in correcting a sixteen-year judicial miscarriage of justice, ending this wrongful imprisonment, and exonerating the three men in the Su Case. Clearly, however, we are now being forced into a seventeenth year of efforts to secure justice for them.

We call on people from all sectors of society to continue providing support and encouragement to Su Chien-ho, Liu Bin-lang, Chuang Lin-xun, and their families. The supporting organizations will continue to monitor and scrutinize the judiciary's handling of the Su Case and hope that more people will continue to care about and participate in these efforts.

We pray that our persistence will ultimately restore the three men's freedom and good name.

The justice system may have imprisoned their bodies, but it cannot destroy their spirits. History will ultimately judge the justice system and restore to these three innocent men the true freedom they deserve. If the justice system refuses to acknowledge its mistakes, then let the Su Case continue to put our judicial system itself on trial.