The Economist - USA (2020-07-25)

TheEconomistJuly 25th 2020 21

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O

n a novembermorning in 2004, Wang

Zhansheng’s three- and six-year-old

sons fell suddenly and violently ill. The

older boy recovered. His little brother died

the same day. Police in their home province

of Henan, in central China, concluded that

the toddler had been murdered. Soon they

said they had caught the culprit: Wu Chun-

hong, a 34-year-old neighbour with three

children of his own. Under interrogation,

Mr Wu told police that he had quarrelled

with the boy’s father over a small debt. He

said that he had taken revenge by sneaking

into the family’s kitchen and sprinkling rat

poison into cooking ingredients.

In April this year Mr Wu was freed from

prison, his conviction quashed during a

brief hearing that was held online as a re-

sult of the covid-19 pandemic. For 16 years

Mr Wu had maintained that his confession

was false and had been obtained through

torture. He said that he had been shackled

and beaten, and that his resistance had bro-

ken when police threatened to subject his

wife to the same treatment. His case is the

most recent of more than 60 big miscar-

riages of justice that have been made public

since Xi Jinping took power in 2012, re-

searchers at New York University (nyu) cal-

culate. The overturning of these verdicts is

proof, officials say, that China’s criminal

justice system is working better.

Many wrongful convictions have come

to light after re-examination of cases relat-

ed to China’s occasional nationwide “strike

hard” campaigns against serious offences.

Big ones in 1996 and 2000-01 aimed to curb

a rise in crime that followed the disman-

tling of the old state-run economy, and the

easing of strict social controls that went

with it. Short-staffed police bureaus were

given high targets for the number of people

to be rounded up. This led to many arbi-

trary arrests, a problem compounded by

the incompetence and bias of judges and

prosecutors, who often lacked legal train-

ing. Many had simply been assigned to the

jobs after military service.

Anti-crime campaigns on such a scale

are rarer these days, but much about Chi-

na’s criminal system remains woeful. Only

30% of criminal defendants are represent-

ed by lawyers, guesses Ira Belkin of nyu.

Verdicts are almost always agreed before

trials begin, during private meetings of

judges, police and prosecutors. These offi-

cials are easily intimidated by higher-ups

seeking the swift closure of cases, or by

families of victims who threaten to protest

should suspects not be punished. Once de-

fendants reach a courtroom, the convic-

tion rate is above 99.9%.

A common cause of wrongful convic-

tion is the convention in serious cases that

suspects must confess. Police often use

force to make sure this happens. In 2018 ac-

ademics in Hong Kong and Macau analysed

141 exonerations that had taken place on

the mainland since 1982. They found that

false admissions of guilt had been a factor

in nearly 90% of them. In America, by con-

trast, false confessions are thought to con-

tribute to about a quarter of wrongful con-

victions. A more common cause there is

mistaken or deceitful testimony by wit-

nesses (a scourge in China, too).

Questioning all this was once taboo.

That changed swiftly during the 2000s, in

part because of two cases involving egre-

Miscarriages of justice

Righting wrongs

BEIJING

Officials are becoming more willing to review dodgy convictions. Not for

dissidents, though

China

22 Pickingmushrooms

23 Chaguan: A summer TV hit

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