Observations Following the Regularization of Supreme Court Hearings: The Case of Li Hung-chi

After taking office, Judicial Yuan President Hsu Tsung-lu made the "regularization of Supreme Court hearings" the first milestone of his judicial reform initiatives. To examine the practical effectiveness of this policy, the Judicial Reform Foundation organized a Supreme Court Hearing Observation Team starting in December. In December, the Supreme Court Criminal Division issued a press release announcing three hearings, consisting of one preparatory proceeding, one evidence-investigation hearing, and one oral-argument hearing. The oral-argument hearing was for the Li Hung-chi case, in which the death penalty was recently finalized—marking the first death penalty case under the new administration.

The facts of the Li Hung-chi case are briefly as follows: The defendant was convicted and imprisoned for domestic violence, and the court subsequently granted his wife a divorce. After his release, the defendant killed his ex-wife for unclear motives and attempted suicide by burning charcoal while planning to die together with his daughter. The daughter suffered severe injuries and did not survive. The second-instance court sentenced him to life imprisonment for killing his ex-wife, and to death for killing his elder daughter. The defendant's attorney appealed the decision on his behalf.

During the oral arguments at the Supreme Court, we observed that many doubts in this case remained uninvestigated. Subjectively, we believed the case would be remanded to the High Court for retrial. However, shortly after the Supreme Court hearing concluded, we received news that the appeal was dismissed and the death penalty was finalized. This truly caught everyone off guard. As the author is neither the plaintiff's attorney nor defense counsel in this case, out of an abundance of caution, the following discussion is limited to the events that occurred during the third-instance oral argument proceedings.

A Vacant Courtroom: The Defendant's Absence from Trial Proceedings

According to the Code of Criminal Procedure, a trial cannot be conducted if the defendant fails to appear in court; otherwise, the judgment is unlawful. This demonstrates that the defendant's presence on the trial date is not only a right, but also an obligation. In an open courtroom, both parties litigate on an equal footing. The defendant's appearance to exercise the rights of defense and advocacy is constitutionally protected under due process of law. Furthermore, when the defendant is physically present, judges can form mental impressions by observing the statements and demeanor of the defendant in attendance, which aids in investigating evidence, clarifying disputed points and the truth, ensuring the court's trial procedures are proper and fair, and enhancing public trust in the judiciary.

During the Supreme Court oral argument proceedings, the judges announced that because the defendant stated he was unwilling to appear in court for trial and declined to participate in video-conferencing trials, they decided to adopt a trial procedure in the defendant's absence, with arguments conducted solely by defense counsel and the prosecutor. However, this case involves the death penalty—the most severe criminal penalty, which concerns the critical matter of depriving a person of the right to life. To ensure utmost caution, the court ought to have fulfilled the aforementioned requirement of having the defendant present at trial, rather than proceeding directly with the trial merely because the defendant was unwilling to appear, and directly dismissing the appeal without the defendant participating in the trial proceedings. The defendant's failure to appear, participate in arguments, and state opinions has infringed upon his right to due process and raises concerns of unlawfully and arbitrarily depriving him of the right to life.

The Dismissed Request for Preparatory Proceedings

The mission of preparatory proceedings is to organize facts, evidence, and legal issues so that the offense and defense of both parties can focus on the disputed points, and to allow defense counsel sufficient time to prepare defense arguments prior to formal oral arguments. If preparatory proceedings can be implemented in the third-instance procedure, it would better fulfill the requirement under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to guarantee the defendant adequate time and facilities for the preparation of a defense, and to guarantee the right to trial preparation time.

Since our Code of Criminal Procedure stipulates that third-instance procedures shall mutatis mutandis apply the provisions of first-instance procedures, it stands to reason that preparatory proceedings should be conducted prior to oral arguments. However, during the Supreme Court proceedings of this case, defense counsel repeatedly submitted requests for preparatory proceedings prior to the oral arguments—specifically, during the trial hearing—only to have them dismissed by the court on the grounds that there was no necessity to conduct preparatory proceedings. During the oral argument proceedings, the issues organized by the court were for both parties to respectively argue whether there was any illegality or impropriety in weighing life imprisonment versus the possibility of reformation regarding the killings of the wife and the child. However, observing the sentencing elements in this case—such as the defendant's criminal motive, whether the crime was premeditated, and his mental state—many doubts still remained, which the lawyer repeatedly contested during the oral argument proceedings. For the sake of caution, the court should have conducted preparatory proceedings first rather than proceeding directly to oral arguments, which caused the debate on the disputed points during the oral argument proceedings to become scattered and fail to focus, thereby lacking rigor in the trial procedure.

A Death Penalty Judgment Lacking Psychiatric Evaluation

Whether the defendant's mental state at the time of the act constituted grounds for mitigating criminal responsibility under Article 19 of the Criminal Code is a matter that the court should investigate ex officio, and defense counsel repeatedly raised this during the third-instance oral argument proceedings.

From the courtroom observations, it was found that following the incident, the defendant closed himself off, refused to discuss the case with his lawyer, and exhibited signs of seeking death. Defense counsel stated that they were not psychology experts, could not comprehend the meaning of the defendant's behavior, and did not understand what the defendant's criminal motive was; therefore, they hoped the case could be remanded to the second instance for a psychiatric evaluation. However, the court chose to ignore this, resulting in a finalized death penalty judgment rendered without conducting a psychiatric evaluation and psychological assessment of the defendant. This inevitably prompts the sigh that the procedure for sentencing the defendant to death was far too hasty, and that the judgment harbors obvious flaws.

Accelerating the Formulation of Third-Instance Oral Argument Rules

After committing the crime, the defendant apparently exhibited a phenomenon of utilizing the judiciary to seek death, waiving his right to trial and passively facing the trial proceedings. In contrast to the collegial panel's statement in its press release that "if the perpetrator knows full well that the death penalty is inescapable and actively seeks death, then the court's imposition of the death penalty is sufficient to ensure that 'neither the deceased nor I have any regrets,'" we are more inclined to reflect on what spirit the trial proceedings and judgment should manifest when a perpetrator abandons their right to life. Is it to promptly give the victims' families an account and maintain social order and stability, or is it to respect everyone's right to life and afford the defendant a fair trial opportunity through the adjudication process?

Regardless of the abolition or retention of the death penalty, depriving a person of life ought to be handled with extreme caution—a sentiment generally shared by the people of Taiwan. To ensure the gravity of the death penalty and to manifest the significance that the death penalty brings to society, the court should exhaust all means to perfect the conviction procedure. At its root, the issue raised in this article stems from the third-instance court lacking a set of oral argument rules, merely mutatis mutandis applying first-instance provisions. However, the third instance is a court of law, which is vastly different in nature from a court of fact, resulting in numerous conflicts when applying provisions mutatis mutandis. Furthermore, due to the absence of clear regulations, matters such as whether the defendant appears in court, whether preparatory proceedings should be held, and whether psychiatric evaluations must be conducted are all left to the discretionary judgment of the collegial panel, causing endless controversy. Since the President of the Judicial Yuan has made the regularization of Supreme Court hearings his judicial reform achievement, it is undoubtedly imperative—alongside requiring the Supreme Court to earnestly implement the policy of regularized hearings—to actively respond to the need for formulating third-instance oral argument rules.