Lin Chun-sen Case
At around 2:30 PM on December 29, 1996, a young girl surnamed Lin was found in Huanshi 5th Street, Taichung City, with her genitals wounded by a sharpened bamboo pole, her intestines protruding from her body, and heavy bleeding from her lower body. Following the investigation, Head Prosecutor Liu indicted Hsieh O-mao a month later, seeking a 14-year prison sentence. However, after being remanded for retrial by the Supreme Court seven times, the Supreme Court ultimately acquitted Hsieh O-mao on the grounds that the evidence unfavorable to the defendant was all questionable, the bloodstains on the defendant's clothing were tested and found not to be the victim's blood, and the defendant had passed a lie detector test and other favorable proofs (Supreme Court 99 Tai-Shang No. 395 Judgment).
Thirteen years elapsed from the incident to the final judgment. The victim, the young girl surnamed Lin, had already passed away in March 2009, and the true perpetrator has yet to be apprehended. In response, United Daily News reporter Li Shun-te exclusively interviewed Control Yuan Member Kao Feng-hsien on April 13 and 14, 2010, regarding the "Lin Girl Case," reporting that the Control Yuan was expected to release its investigation report in mid-May 2010. However, on the eve of the report's release, the United Daily News broke an exclusive story on May 11, revealing text content similar to the investigation report, thereby sparking a controversy over the leakage of secrets. After the leak case (hereinafter referred to as the "Present Case") was investigated and transferred by the Control Yuan and indicted by the prosecutors' office, the Taiwan High Court ultimately concluded that Mr. Lin Chun-sen, who was serving as an investigator for the Control Yuan at the time, had committed the act of leaking secrets, sentencing him to 4 months imprisonment.
Doubts in the Present Case
But is the truth really like this? In the present case, there has never been any direct evidence showing that Lin Chun-sen leaked the contents of the investigation report to the United Daily News reporter. The court's primary basis for conviction was through the "negative elimination method," reasoning that no one else who had access to the investigation report leaked it. Through the logic of "if it wasn't you, who else could it be?", combined with the results of failing the lie detector test, Lin Chun-sen was judged guilty. What is even more absurd is that the so-called "negative elimination method" did not thoroughly investigate everyone; six individuals who had access to the report at the time—including Control Yuan members, the Deputy Secretary-General, the Vice President, and the President—were not included in the scope of investigation, and the court provided no explanation. The present case is fraught with doubts, clearly resulting in a guilty verdict rendered in the absence of evidence.
Not only did the Taiwan Association for Human Rights / Taiwan Association for Prisoners' Rights / Taiwan Association for Judicial Reform (Note: JRF) assist in applying for a retrial, but the Prosecutor-General of the Supreme Prosecutors Office also considered the present case to have violated the rules of evidence in judgments, the presumption of innocence, and the rules of experience and logic, and thus filed an extraordinary appeal (Supreme Prosecutors Office Prosecutor-General 105 Non-Shang No. 182 Extraordinary Appeal Petition), which was nonetheless dismissed by the Supreme Court. In addition, the Control Yuan also deemed the guilty verdict in this case to have major flaws, successively proposing investigation opinions and review opinions twice, pointing out numerous improprieties by the court in its investigation and use of evidence. To vindicate the present case, the JRF once again applied for a retrial with the High Court in May 2021.
Doubt 1 Before the United Daily News report, other media outlets had already published identical reports
The present case established the "fact of leaking secrets" because the content of the United Daily News report on May 11, 2010, was highly similar to the content of the unpublished investigation report of the Control Yuan.
However, in reality, the news report by The Australian on May 10, 2010, titled "(Taiwan) Control Yuan Member's Report Reveals 'Major Negligence by Prosecutors and Police in Bamboo Pole Girl Insertion Case'" had content completely identical to the aforementioned report published by the United Daily News. Therefore, there is a high probability that the news source for the United Daily News' related report came from other media reports, and had nothing to do with leaking secrets.
Doubt 2 The "negative elimination method" has major flaws and violates the presumption of innocence
In this case, setting aside whether using the "negative elimination method" to conclude Lin Chun-sen's guilt already raises doubts of violating the presumption of innocence, the operation of the "negative elimination method" was also extremely crude. This is because the court failed to conduct detailed investigations to exclude the four individuals who obtained the investigation report, namely the Control Yuan members, the Deputy Secretary-General, the Vice President, and the President. Although the court of first instance sent an official letter to inquire about the "official mobile phones" of the Control Yuan President and others, it omitted inquiries into "official telephones, home telephones, and private mobile phones," which is practically no different from conducting no investigation at all. Furthermore, the Control Yuan member who actually took charge of the investigation controlled the progress of the investigation and maintained close contact with the United Daily News reporter, yet was never investigated, which is evidently improper.
In other words, the court first applied the "negative elimination method," which violates the presumption of innocence, and subsequently committed major flaws in investigating evidence by failing to investigate every potential target who might have leaked secrets during the elimination process. This fundamentally failed to prove the possibility that anyone other than Lin Chun-sen leaked the information.
Doubt 3 The probative value of the lie detector appraisal report is questionable
One of the bases for the court's guilty verdict against Lin Chun-sen was that Lin Chun-sen failed the lie detector test. However, according to the Control Yuan 105 Nei-Diao 0080 Investigation Opinion, the lie detector appraisal conducted by the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the National Police Agency under the Ministry of Interior was peer-reviewed by three experts and scholars, who deemed the probative value of the lie detector appraisal opinion to be questionable:
The lie detector appraisal explanatory statement of the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the National Police Agency under the Ministry of Interior only listed key questions and did not list control questions, which is highly inappropriate. This is because control questions merely compared whether Lin Chun-sen had lied before the age of 56, or whether he had fabricated or leaked secrets, and did not touch upon (1) whether there would be a sensitive reaction to the applicant, or (2) whether there would also be a sensitive reaction to other secret-leaking behaviors.
As a result, the explanation for this deceptive reaction result cannot rule out that it was a sensitive reaction toward Lin Chun-sen or a sensitive reaction toward the issue of leaking secrets. Therefore, although the lie detector procedure in this case fully complied with the principle of standardization, its result showing a false reaction does not necessarily mean it stemmed from lying; it could also stem from excessive sensitivity to related people, matters, and objects. Doubts in this regard were not addressed by any exclusion actions during the post-test interview, and the probative value of the lie detector appraisal report is truly questionable.
Doubt 4 Unlawful acquisition of communication-line connection records
In this case, evidence showing that Lin Chun-sen delivered or leaked the investigation report to the United Daily News reporter has always been lacking. However, the court referred to the communication records obtained by the Control Yuan's anti-corruption investigation at the time, which showed that Lin Chun-sen had two phone calls with the United Daily News reporter on May 7, 2010, lasting 76 seconds and 27 seconds respectively (though the contents of the calls are unknown), and deemed Lin Chun-sen suspicious.
However, according to the Control Yuan's review opinion in the official letter Yuan-Tai-Nei-Zi No. 1101930027 dated January 20, 2021, the act of the Control Yuan's Anti-Corruption Office in retrieving the communication records of this case was clearly unlawful and cannot be used as evidence according to the law. Moreover, when the Control Yuan's Anti-Corruption Office investigated the incident of the investigation report leak in this case, the then-Deputy Secretary-General Hsu Hai-chuan unlawfully interfered with the neutrality and fairness of the anti-corruption administrative investigation, which clearly shows major procedural flaws. Therefore, the interview report regarding his questioning of the applicant also cannot be used as evidence according to the law. The Control Yuan's investigation process and evidence acquisition were fraught with problems, yet the court failed to review them.
The numerous problems in this case fully demonstrate issues such as the sloppy investigation of evidence in the original judgment. We hope the court can see that the facts determined by the original final judgment in this case indeed have numerous debatable points, and grant the Lin Chun-sen case a chance for a retrial!
Chronology
| Date | Content | Remarks |
| 2010/5/6 | Control Yuan produces the final investigation report on the "Lin Girl Case" | / |
| 2010/5/10 | The Australian publishes related reports | / |
| 2010/5/11 | United Daily News reports on the Control Yuan's investigation into the "Lin Girl Case," sparking a controversy over the leakage of secrets | / |
| 2013/3/25 | Taipei District Prosecutors Office files an indictment | Taiwan Taipei District Prosecutors Office 102 Zhen-Zi No. 983 Indictment |
| 2014/4/9 | First-instance judgment finds the defendant guilty | Taiwan Taipei District Court 102 Yi-Zi No. 329 Judgment |
| 2015/12/14 | Second-instance court dismisses the appeal; the case becomes final | Taiwan High Court 103 Shang-Yi-Zi No. 987 Judgment |
| 2016/9/8 | Control Yuan resolves to pass investigation opinion, recognizing new evidence such as The Australian's May 10, 2010 report and peer-review opinions on the lie detector appraisal in this case, and requests the Ministry of Justice to forward it to the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office for deliberation | Control Yuan 105 Nei-Diao 0080 Investigation Opinion |
| 2016/10/26 | Prosecutor-General deems the original judgment to be contrary to laws and regulations, and files an extraordinary appeal | Supreme Prosecutors Office Prosecutor-General 105 Non-Shang No. 182 Extraordinary Appeal Petition |
| 2016/12/14 | Supreme Court dismisses the extraordinary appeal | Supreme Court 105 Tai-Fei No. 218 Judgment |
| 2018/9/11 | Lin Chun-sen files his first application for a retrial | / |
| 2019/10/22 | High Court dismisses the first application for a retrial | Taiwan High Court 110 Sheng-Zai-Zi No. 240 Judgment |
| 2021/1/20 | Control Yuan resolves to pass review opinion, recognizing that the evidence for the guilty verdict in the original judgment involved unlawful investigation and major flaws in the investigation process | Control Yuan Official Letter Yuan-Tai-Nei-Zi No. 1101930027 |
| 2021/5/4 | Lin Chun-sen files his second application for a retrial | / |