Judge, A Visually Impaired Person Is Not What You Think They Are: Press Conference on Filing for Retrial in the Case of Former Handball National Team Athlete Ch'en Ching-k'ai Alleged to Have Faked Blindness to Claim Insurance

On February 14, 2018, the Taiwan High Court Kaohsiung Branch Court delivered its final verdict on the appeal of former handball national team athlete Ch'en Ching-k'ai, who was accused of faking blindness to claim insurance, sentencing him to 1 year and 2 months of imprisonment (commutable to a fine) and confiscating a massive penalty of over NT$5.22 million (Judgment Reference: Taiwan High Court Kaohsiung Branch Court 103-Su-Yi-574). Upon receiving the written judgment, the defense team discovered that the judge acknowledged Ch'en's vision was indeed impaired. The grounds for conviction were merely the judge's own life experience, concluding that completely blind individuals cannot read small text on exam papers or engage in activities such as throwing and catching a frisbee. Meanwhile, the judge dismissed multiple scientific and medical pieces of evidence in the case file that proved the defendant's severe visual impairment.

Throughout the litigation process, the defense team deeply felt the presiding judge's lack of disability awareness. Even though the adjudication attitude was earnest, the inability to eliminate sighted people's biases and discrimination against the visually impaired not only wronged Ch'en Ching-k'ai in this case, but their legal interpretations also infringe upon the human rights of more people who suffer vision loss later in life. Therefore, we have decided to seek relief by filing for a retrial pursuant to Article 421 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Below is an explanation of the important evidence that the original judgment failed to review, as argued in the retrial:

1. Surprise Ruling: The Judge Misunderstood the Actual Circumstances of the Exam Questions

   The original judgment concluded that the exam paper taken by Ch'en Ching-k'ai was densely packed with text across the entire page. If someone had a decimal visual acuity of 0.02 or less, reading, thinking, and answering would be fundamentally impossible; thus, it was concluded that Ch'en faked blindness. However, during the litigation, the judges of the Kaohsiung Branch Court did not raise questions about this to allow the defense counsel to respond, nor did they summon professors from National Changhua University of Education to understand the actual circumstances under which the exam questions were set, thereby directly rendering a surprise ruling!

   Following the judgment, the defense team urgently contacted the professors of various subjects and learned that they had prepared enlarged exam papers (A3 size) for Ch'en Ching-k'ai, which were completely different from the reduced photocopies of the exam papers seen by the judge in the case file. For some exams, professors set questions by playing videos, and the text on the exam papers merely served as supplementary instructions that were optional to read. Other professors adopted oral examinations, served as students' disability service targets, or flexibly assessed students based on listening, speaking, and classroom performance (cf. Attachments 2 and 3). The judge completely failed to understand these educators' care and dedication toward visually impaired students, and instead arbitrarily judged the matter based solely on distorted and inaccurate photocopies of exam papers in the case file, combined with their own personal exam-taking experience as a sighted person. Accordingly, this also clearly constitutes important evidence in this case that was omitted from review and capable of influencing the judgment.

2. Bias Replacing Evidence: The Judge Misjudged the Degree of the Defendant's Visual Impairment

   During the trial proceedings, the Kaohsiung Branch Court commissioned National Taiwan University to conduct examinations using state-of-the-art technology, including Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Electroencephalography (EEG), and Behavioral Assessment. These three testing methods cross-verified one another, confirming that Ch'en Ching-k'ai suffered from severe visual impairment. Furthermore, a visual electrophysiology expert from National Yang Ming University also testified in court at the Branch Court, certifying that Ch'en's visual evoked potentials and electroretinograms were both abnormal. Hospitals including Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, National Taiwan University Hospital, Cheng Hsin General Hospital, and Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital had all performed visual evoked potential and electroretinogram tests on Ch'en Ching-k'ai, all of which similarly showed abnormalities, which were verified as true by visual electrophysiology experts. In total, test reports from seven hospital ophthalmology departments consistently presented abnormal visual electrophysiology, completely black visual fields, and sluggish bilateral responses, which further echoed and aligned with the subjective and objective findings of hand-motion visual acuity recorded in the medical charts of those seven hospitals across the period before and after Ch'en applied for insurance claims. Most importantly, the aforementioned inspection reports spanned the periods both before and after Ch'en applied for insurance claims, demonstrating that Ch'en's motivation for seeking medical treatment was to obtain medical care rather than to commit insurance fraud.

   From the above, it can be seen that numerous physicians and visual science experts all issued reports presenting favorable rebutting evidence of Ch'en Ching-k'ai's severe visual impairment. If the judge were to hand down a guilty verdict, sufficient scientific evidence would be required to substantiate that Ch'en's vision was not below 0.02 on the Snellen visual acuity chart, which is the insurance claims threshold. However, an examination of the judge's verdict reveals that they discarded multiple scientific and objective medical tests, and based on a sighted person's bias and discrimination against the visually impaired—solely on the basis of photos and videos showing Ch'en being able to throw a frisbee, play table tennis, write neatly, read densely packed exam papers, and dance—convicted Ch'en of fraud by deception, while ignoring the multiple items of favorable evidence mentioned in the preceding section. This clearly constitutes an omission of important evidence that was overlooked and could have influenced the judgment of this case.

3. Eliminating Visual Impairment Bias: Recognizing the Complexity of Patients with Cortical Visual Impairment

   Director Chang of the Taiwan Foundation for the Blind and Orientation and Mobility Instructor Yeh Chao-min both personally testified in court, explaining their long-term personal experiences living and interacting with Ch'en Ching-k'ai to confirm that Ch'en's vision was severely impaired; yet, their opinions were completely rejected by the court.

   Today's press conference has invited Teacher Hsieh Man-li, project leader for the overall rehabilitation of the visually impaired at the National Teachers' Association, to explain to everyone how special education teachers train visually impaired students to read and write when dealing with Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI). She aims to clarify to the general public and even professional ophthalmologists that the manifestations of visual impairment are complex; the visually impaired do not completely lack vision, nor do they universally require the use of Braille. If visually impaired individuals have previously learned to write, through rehabilitation or self-training, they can still utilize residual vision to read and write. This capability is especially crucial nowadays in an era advanced in computers and mobile phones. However, many visually impaired individuals—and even professional ophthalmologists—miss the precious opportunity to rebuild their reading abilities due to a lack of understanding of special education (please refer to the attachment for Teacher Hsieh's spoken remarks).

Calling on the Court to Promptly Open a Retrial for This Case

Photo / Press Conference on Filing for Retrial in the Ch'en Ching-k'ai Case

Taiwanese society lacks disability awareness, and even judges tasked with adjudication cannot escape their cognitive blind spots, which—coupled with media instigation—are the reasons why Ch'en Ching-k'ai was unjustly wronged. Sighted people subjectively assume that the appearance of a visually impaired person involves squinting or sunken eyes, asymmetrical cheeks, an excessively tilted head, rolling the eyes upward to expose more whites of the eyes, and a lack of eye contact during conversation. In reality, these are caused by individual physiological factors or a lack of life rehabilitation training, and are not how all visually impaired individuals should look. Because Ch'en Ching-k'ai's appearance does not match what most people envision as a visually impaired person, it does not mean he faked blindness. The defense team calls upon the court to exercise acute discernment, promptly open a retrial for this case, restore innocence to the wrongfully accused, and safeguard the human rights of vulnerable visually impaired individuals!

Attachments

1. Understanding the Complexity of Cortical Blindness and Ch'en Ching-k'ai's Visual Impairment by Teacher Hsieh Man-li
2. Teacher Liu I-te of the Department of Physical Education at National Changhua University of Education Adopted Oral Assessment
3. Teacher Chiang I-tsun Assessed Flexibly by Serving as a Classmate's Disability Service Target or via Listening, Speaking, and Classroom Performance

Attendees

Defense Team / Attorney Yang Cheng-hua, Attorney Li Ping-hung
Project Leader for the Overall Rehabilitation of the Visually Impaired, National Teachers' Association / Teacher Hsieh Man-li
Ch'en Ching-k'ai / Defendant

Supporting Organizations

Pro Bono Defense Team for the Ch'en Ching-k'ai Case
Taiwan Foundation for the Blind
National Teachers' Association, Republic of China
Legal Aid Foundation
Taiwan Association for Criminal Jury Trials
Taiwan Blind Baseball Association
Judicial Reform Foundation