Sidelights | The Years of Rescuing the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang Case: A Transformation from Age 26 to 47

Deep Connection with the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang Case: Exploring the Journey of Wrongful Conviction Rescue and Judicial Reform

Lin Hsin-yi
Having previously worked at the JRF, she began encountering wrongful convictions. She first encountered Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang's case at the age of 25, and continued working on it for 16 years until Ch'en was successfully exonerated at age 41. Before the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang case, there were two well-known wrongful conviction cases: the Lu Cheng case and the Su Chien-ho case. Lu Cheng was executed by firing squad just as the Control Yuan was about to reopen its investigation, while the Su Chien-ho case obtained a chance for a retrial following advocacy actions (a 214-day silent march), leaving the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang case as the one causing the most concern. Capital punishment executions usually take place before the Lunar New Year, hoping to bring some comfort to the victims' families so they can properly celebrate the new year. Around the New Year every year, everyone would happily return home for the holidays, but she and the lawyers from the JRF's rescue team worried that Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang was very likely to be executed. At that time, they were still constantly holding meetings in the office to figure out ways to spare Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang from execution.

Wu Tung-mu
Having previously worked at a magazine for three months, during which the Su Chien-ho case occurred, he had the opportunity to interview the family members of the victims in the Su case and wrote an in-depth report, marking his initial exposure to wrongful convictions. He felt very fortunate to have started out working at a magazine rather than a newspaper, as magazines allowed him the opportunity to write in-depth reports (1,000 to 2,000 words), whereas newspaper articles were at most 800 to 1,000 words, or as short as 300 to 500 words, and had to be written within a day. To produce the in-depth report on the Su Chien-ho case, he interviewed Professor Lin Shan-t'ien and visited the three defendants in the Su Chien-ho case. It took him two weeks to complete, giving him ample time to visit and converse with the parties involved. Later, he collaborated with the JRF to write the section on the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang case in the book *Shadows of Justice*, allowing the public to understand these wrongful convictions through storytelling, and served as a consultant for the documentary *Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang's Exercise Book*, further advancing social discussions on the issue of wrongful convictions.

Attorney Lin Tsu-ma
Attorney Lin Tsu-ma's path to wrongful conviction rescue began through the recommendation of Professor Wang Chao-p'eng, which allowed him to intern at the Yung-hsin Law Firm and directly participate in the rescue work of the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang case. During his time at Yung-hsin Law Firm, Attorney Lin Tsu-ma drafted many legal briefs for the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang case, and even the criminal compensation brief for Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang was written by him. For him, this experience was not only professional tempering but also a reinforcement of his commitment to the path of wrongful conviction rescue.

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Interaction with Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang's Family: Profound Emotional Connection

Lin Hsin-yi
"Behind every defendant in a wrongful conviction, there are family members and relatives who firmly believe in their innocence." During the process of exonerating wrongful convictions, the people under the greatest pressure are not the advocacy groups, but the families of the wrongfully convicted. In the past when advocating for the Ch'en case, the person she contacted most often was not Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang, but Ch'en's mother. Ch'en's mother appeared at every advocacy event, yet she also bore tremendous pressure. At that time, death row inmates were executed very quickly—usually within one to two weeks, and at most a month. In the documentary *Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang's Exercise Book*, there is a scene where Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang recounts his struggling state of mind while on death row: changing into new clothes every day at 8:30 AM, waiting for the prison guards to come and take him away for execution a little after 9:00 AM, feeling on one hand a desire for early release from his ordeal, and on the other hand a reluctance to leave his family.

Wu Tung-mu
Mr. Wu Tung-mu once interviewed Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang's son, whose impression of his father changed in stages. Initially, his grandmother frequently took him to the prison to see his father; as time went on, this reduced to a few days a week, and as he grew older, to only during summer vacation. Eventually, his impression of his father was reduced to there being someone in prison named Dad. In the end, every wrongfully convicted person is assigned a compensation figure, but these figures cannot buy back lost lives, nor can they buy back the lost parent-child time shared between Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang and his son.

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Personal Impacts and Reflections from Participating in Wrongful Conviction Rescue

Lin Hsin-yi
Because of the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang case, Lin Hsin-yi deeply realized the limitations of individual case rescue and decided to found the Taiwan Association to End the Death Penalty. If you seriously want to rescue wrongful convictions, you cannot race against the Grim Reaper—you cannot outrun him unless you change the system. At that time, the JRF, the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, and the bar association all had measures targeting individual case rescue, but focusing solely on individual cases was not enough; she wanted to change the entire system. In the socio-historical context of that time, the social atmosphere of understanding and supporting the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang case as a wrongful conviction was scarce. She deeply admired Mr. Wu Tung-mu for possessing a certain level of sensitivity as a journalist back then, believing in the innocence of Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang and beginning to throw himself into advocacy. Mr. Wu Tung-mu also collaborated with other journalists to write the book *Shadows of Justice*, allowing the public to understand these wrongful convictions through storytelling.

Wu Tung-mu
Wu Tung-mu stated that his past experience reporting on the Su Chien-ho case formed his working habit of not jumping to conclusions too quickly and not relying solely on one-sided information. For example, newspaper descriptions of the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang case at the time mostly portrayed Ch'en as a criminal. He formed a different perspective after looking into the backgrounds of Ch'en and his family and conducting further interviews. He reminded everyone not to completely trust the media and to possess media literacy. Media information often originates from official sources, and the information spoon-fed by officials is frequently evasive and incomplete, requiring journalists to piece things together. Unscrupulous media outlets might fabricate stories, and even worse, some police officers might irresponsibly release unverified information.

Attorney Lin Tsu-ma
During the process of rescuing Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang, he often questioned his own decisions, wondering if anything could have been done better. For him, the greatest pressure aside from the families of the wrongfully convicted defendants stemmed from his own self-demands—fear of failing to secure the best interests for the client due to his own oversights, leading to self-doubt about not being good enough. Yet, he still felt very fortunate to have entered the Yung-hsin Law Firm, taking on many major criminal cases, tempering himself, and growing rapidly. Moreover, he was able to collaborate with outstanding senior lawyers, such as having the privilege at the time to be mentored by Attorney Yu Po-hsiang (now a Grand Justice) in drafting legal briefs.

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Speakers' Thoughts and Insights on the "Presumption of Innocence"

Wu Tung-mu
Presumption of guilt is human nature, but "the law must go against intuition for society to progress"—Professor Li Mao-sheng. Recalling his experience working in the journalism industry, Wu Tung-mu found that the police often acted on intuition while lacking rigorous evidence to support their inferences. The lack of this belief in the presumption of innocence, he suggested, might have been caused by Taiwan's past authoritarian system and insufficient legal training, though this situation has improved somewhat in recent years.

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The Drama "The Presumption of Innocence"

Attorney Lin Tsu-ma
There are three main characters in the drama: lawyer Li Cheng-shuo played by Chuang K'ai-hsun, lawyer Ch'en Chih-ch'ien played by Chung Cheng-han, and rookie lawyer Hsu Yen-ch'ing played by Tsai Huang-ju. Attorney Lin Tsu-ma believes that the prototype for lawyer Li Cheng-shuo is lawyer Lin Yung-sung, who has a more straightforward personality and speaks more directly; the prototype for lawyer Ch'en Chih-ch'ien is lawyer Yu Po-hsiang (now a Grand Justice), who has a more rational personality, maintains a calmer emotional state, and rather than shouting when angry, expresses his opinions with a firm attitude—making him a warm lawyer; the rookie lawyer Hsu Yen-ch'ing is a composite of herself and lawyer Ch'en Chien-hung. She said Hsu Yen-ch'ing is a rookie lawyer in the drama who frequently works overtime into the wee hours of the morning, reminding her of when she served as a pro bono lawyer for the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang case, often working late into the night making slide presentations to show judges at hearings, pasting materials, reviewing case files, and writing briefs, and on several occasions even returning home at dawn to sleep for two or three hours before continuing work the next day. Additionally, in the drama, Hsu Yen-ch'ing encounters workplace sexual harassment. Attorney Lin Tsu-ma was fortunate not to have encountered this herself, but she had heard of many cases where female employed lawyers were sexually harassed by firm bosses, with the most memorable one being the practice of collecting the cups used by female lawyers.

Lin Hsin-yi
There is a group in the drama called the Life Protection Alliance, which is rumored to be prototyped after the Taiwan Association to End the Death Penalty. Lin Hsin-yi felt that this name does not quite align with the public's real-life impression of the Association to End the Death Penalty, which is mostly viewed by the public as an evil league, whereas the Life Protection Alliance sounds like a more positive and benevolent image, leading her to surmise that the screenwriter likely hoped the name would narrow the distance between the Association and the public.

Wu Tung-mu
*The Presumption of Innocence* was funded by PTS Taigi and produced by CTS. CTS emphasized that the drama is adapted from the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang case and does not entirely depict it. There is a plot in the drama where a prosecutor tears up paper and scatters it like confetti in the courtroom; many people at the press conference assumed this plot was fictional, yet it was a scene that actually happened. Attorney Lin Tsu-ma supplemented this by explaining the scene back then: during a trial in a small courtroom, the prosecutor held up a piece of paper with the Chinese character for "greed" written on it, saying that Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang committed this crime simply out of "greed," and immediately after saying this, tore up the paper and scattered the pieces like flower petals. Furthermore, Wu Tung-mu noted that the journalist character in the drama was not prototyped after him.

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Target Audiences and Social Impacts of Wrongful Conviction Advocacy

It is most intuitive to assume that only legal professionals and judges can change judgment outcomes and the ecosystem of the judiciary. However, if the general public can better understand wrongful convictions and the media can report more on them, bringing cases into the public eye and generating discussion—judges are human too, and they live in society as well. When the social atmosphere becomes more friendly and the public understands the case, refraining from criticizing judges who deliver unexpected judgments as "dinosaur judges," judges will be more willing to bravely render different judgment outcomes. Beyond the general public, it is also possible to engage in dialogue with victims' families. At the time an incident occurs, victims' families only hear what prosecutors and lawyers tell them; as the case progresses, families increasingly believe what they heard initially and what they want to hear. Through advocacy, it is possible to change the families' perspectives, although this influence is not immediate, as victims' families do not have sufficient emotional bandwidth to receive these messages at the time of the incident. Taking the Su Chien-ho case and the Cheng Hsing-tse case as examples: in the Su Chien-ho case, the victim's son discovered during the documentary filming, communication with the director, and court hearings that his own understanding was inconsistent with what he heard in the courtroom, and that the evidence was insufficient to prove the three Su Chien-ho defendants were the murderers; in the Cheng Hsing-tse case, the victim's son attended retrial hearings, where he witnessed the preparations, evidence, and defense-prosecution arguments of both sides, which influenced his thinking. When Cheng Hsing-tse's documentary was screened in Taichung, the victim's son was also present at the scene. The victims' families in both cases underwent a shift in thinking regarding the case facts and evidence they originally perceived only after seeing content that differed from their initial understandings once retrials were opened.

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Preventability of Wrongful Convictions and Preventative Cases

Lin Hsin-yi
Wrongful convictions can certainly be prevented, as long as basic legal principles (the principle of legality, presumption of innocence, etc.) are observed. All past cases serve as examples of wrongful conviction prevention.

Attorney Lin Tsu-ma
He once heard the saying, "Lawyers also bear responsibility for the creation of a wrongful conviction." Attorney Lin Tsu-ma once handled a case that had already reached the second instance (appeal) when he took it over; the lawyer from the first instance had failed to conduct evidence investigations, called only a single witness, and did not cross-examine the witness during oral arguments, whereas the prosecutor actively cross-examined them. If evidence investigations are not done in the first instance, judges in the second instance may not necessarily grant them, because such investigative work should have been done during the first instance.

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Significant Impact of the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang Case on the JRF

The impact of the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang case on the JRF was that it charted the direction for wrongful conviction rescue. Throughout the process, the JRF also learned as it went, groping its way toward new advocacy methods. Taking the Cheng Hsing-tse case as an example, the reason the Cheng Hsing-tse case initially entered the public eye was that the Taiwan Association to End the Death Penalty devised a brilliant advocacy method: as long as people went out and checked in, they could tag Cheng Hsing-tse with the hashtag "#PlayingContinuouslyWithChengHsingTse" (#帶著鄭性澤一直玩一直玩), sparking widespread curiosity about Cheng Hsing-tse. The same applied to the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang case. During the 7th and 8th remands, the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang case did not receive particularly high attention; press conferences usually featured only the legal team, reporters, and JRF personnel. However, prior to the press conference for the verdict of the 9th remand, everyone wore 'I am Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang +1' T-shirts and walked from Chinan Road to the court. The reason the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang case eventually gained widespread public attention was that the JRF brought many different people into the rescue effort, such as conducting advocacy inside high schools and universities, and even having teachers join the ranks of rescue.