The United States and European Union Hammer China at the Human Rights Council

Statements delivered at the Human Rights Council 36th Session; clockwise from top left: the US, China, Germany, and Estonia (representing the EU). Image Credit: UN Web TV.

At the 35th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva in June 2017, the European Union (EU) was unable to make a statement criticizing China’s human rights record under Item 4 of the Council agenda, “Human Rights Situations that Require the Council’s Attention.” The EU works under the consensus principle, meaning that all 28 member countries must agree on important foreign policy statements, and Greece, which has received massive investments and aid from China (China Cosco Shipping owns a controlling stake in the Greek port of Piraeus), refused to endorse the EU’s statement, effectively killing the initiative.

Diplomats and representatives of human rights groups were outraged. Rubbing salt into the wound, China thanked Greece. The German foreign minister accused China of trying to undermine “One Europe.”

Media coverage was intense. In one of many articles in American and European media that covered the debacle, The Washington Post, in an article entitled “Europe divided, China gratified, as Greece blocks EU statement over human rights,” wrote that “Money really can buy love, and in China’s case, it appears to be helping to keep the EU divided and ineffective.”

In a stunning reversal, the EU made an Item 4 statement at the 36th session of the HRC that ended in Geneva on September 29. The EU statement was accompanied by Item 4 statements by Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Czech Republic. (Switzerland, which is not a member state of the EU, made a statement on Liu Xia, the widow of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, under Item 2 of the agenda.) The EU regretted the death in prison of Liu Xiaobo and called on Beijing to lift restrictions on Liu Xia. It expressed concern over the lack of transparency and respect for due process in the cases of detained human rights lawyers and called on China to ensure fair trials for individuals detained for their human rights activities, including Jiang Tianyong, Wang Quanzhang, Tashi Wangchuk, and Wu Gan. It also called on China to respect cultural diversity and freedom of religion in Tibet and Xinjiang.

Germany expressed deep worries over widespread human rights abuses in China, especially in Tibet and Xinjiang. It cited infringements on the freedom of religion witnessed at the Larung Gar monastery in Sichuan Province, and urged China to immediately release all human rights defenders, including Jiang Tianyong, Wang Quanzhang, Wu Gan, Liu Feiyue, Huang Qi, Li Tingyu, Lu Yuyu, and Tashi Wangchuk. It asked China to allow visits of the UN Special Procedures.

The United Kingdom (UK) registered sadness over the death of Liu Xiaobo, and concern over the handling of his case. It too called for the lifting of all restrictions on Liu Xia.

Dui Hua has failed to find a single media article on the EU’s about-face. Nor has the foundation received an explanation of how it came about. The final decision was said to have been reached by foreign ministers in New York for the United Nations General Assembly meeting. It was also claimed that the final decision was reached in Brussels hours before the statement was delivered. One European diplomat said that Germany in particular was incensed by the Greek scuttling of the EU statement at the 35th session of the HRC, and let Greece know “which side of their bread was being buttered by whom,” a reference to the bailout of cash-strapped Greece by the European Commission and EU member states. Another official cited widespread disappointment with the bilateral human rights dialogue held between China and the EU on June 22-23, 2017. Despite questions by the EU on Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese side said nothing in reply, even though it has emerged that the Chinese side was aware at the time that Liu was gravely ill.

The statements under Item 4 by the EU, Germany, and the UK could impact the holding of future bilateral human rights dialogues between the countries and China. Prior to the June 22-23, 2017 dialogue, China warned the EU that the dialogue would be cancelled if it made an Item 4 statement at the 35th session of the HRC. Now that the EU, Germany, and the UK have defied China, it may well turn out that sessions of human rights dialogues expected to be held in 2018 will not take place, dealing a fatal blow to the practice of holding human rights dialogues with China.

The United States Issues Sharp Criticisms at HRC 36

As if to challenge the narrative, advanced by critics, that the Trump administration does not care about human rights abuses in China, the US Mission in Geneva made three statements that sharply criticized aspects of China’s human rights behavior. Statements were made under Items 3 (“disappearances”), 4 (“situations requiring attention”), and 5 (“human rights bodies and mechanisms.”) No other country made three critical statements.

The Item 4 statement accuses China of arbitrary detentions, torture, and forced confessions on state media of lawyers and activists. Both Item 4 and Item 5 cite retaliations against family members and others who cooperate with UN Special Procedures. Item 4 says that conditions in Tibet and Xinjiang are akin to martial law.

Of particular note is language on Hong Kong in the U.S. Item 4 statement: “We are concerned by the decision of the Hong Kong authorities to seek tougher sentences for activists after they served their original sentences.” This is a rare instance of U.S. criticism of Hong Kong at a session of the HRC.

Another first for the U.S. was the issuance of a statement under Item 3 of the agenda. The statement criticized China for detaining the Hong Kong Causeway Bay booksellers in 2015, and the alleged kidnapping by Chinese security agents of billionaire businessman Xiao Jianhua in a Hong Kong hotel earlier this year. The US Item 3 statement registered concern over enforced disappearances in only two countries, China and Syria, in that order.

China Reacts

China’s mission in Geneva issued furious rebuttals to the US and EU Item 4 statements, accusing the countries of widespread and serious human rights abuses. It singled out racism and white supremacism in the United States and the rise of neo-Nazis and xenophobia in Germany. The UK was called out for “the phenomenon of modern slavery in which tens of thousands of migrant household workers suffer ill treatment.”

China was especially angered by the US statement under Item 3. Not only did the Americans criticize Chinese actions involving Hong Kong, the Chinese side was given only 20 minutes to craft a reply. In one respect, however, the Chinese government was relieved by the action in Geneva. It had been rumored that another joint statement like the one made by the United States and 11 "like-minded countries" under Item 2 at the 31st session of the Human Rights Council would be delivered at the 36th session. It appears that the strategy by Western countries has shifted from making joint statements to making individual statements. Whether this strategy holds going forward remains to be seen.

The Importance of Mental Health Evaluations in Juvenile Cases (Part 2 of 2)

Juvenile Justice Information Exchange Illustration by Kathy McCarthy.

Continuing from Part 1, Part 2 of “The Importance of Mental Health Evaluations in Juvenile Cases” explores how the states of California and South Dakota apply or fail to apply juvenile competency laws when it comes to violent crimes committed by young juveniles.

California: Mid-High Incarceration Rate (173-366.5 per 100,000)

Facts: A female defendant, Sarah Weeden, who was 14 at the time of the crime, was arrested, convicted, and sentenced for the killing of Navnil Chand, who was killed by gunshot in a robbery by 23-year-old Sertice Melonson. The crime occurred in August 2005 and Weeden’s trial was in 2008. In April 2017, the 9th US Circuit Court of appeals reversed Weeden’s conviction and remanded for a new trial, finding that Weeden’s trial attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to have Weeden evaluated by a psychologist to determine Weeden’s capacity to form criminal intent. Weeden might be re-tried in juvenile court.

California on Juvenile Mental Health/Competency: According to the Youth Law Center based in San Francisco, California case law has held, since 1978, that children must be competent to stand trial, but the California legislature only passed a juvenile competence statute in 2010 (i.e., after Weeden’s trial). Since then, the legislative framework provides that if a juvenile case presents evidence that the defendant might not be competent to stand trial, the courts have a variety of informal and formal options to determine competency.

Defendants Evaluated for Mental Health/Competency Before Conviction? Weeden was never evaluated for competency by the Sacramento District Attorney’s Office, and Weeden’s attorney did not request a psychological evaluation, forming the basis for the reversal of Weeden’s conviction. In reversing the conviction, the 9th Circuit opinion criticized Weeden’s trial attorney “for not seeking a psychological evaluation on Weeden to determine the effect of her youth on her mental state and whether she could form the intent to rob.”

South Dakota: High Rate of Juvenile Incarceration (366.5-560 per 100,000)

Facts: In 2000, a jury convicted Daniel Charles of first-degree murder in 2000 in the sniper killing of his stepfather, Duane Ingalls. Charles was 14 at the time of the crime. Charles was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole (LWOP), but such sentences were largely ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in 2012. Charles was resentenced to a 92-year sentence, a decision that was upheld by the South Dakota Supreme Court in March 2017.

South Dakota on Juvenile Mental Health/Competency: The South Dakota legislature passed a juvenile competency statute in 2013, giving trial courts wide latitude to order psychological evaluations to determine a juvenile defendant’s competency to stand trial, with the evaluation to occur within 30 days of the court’s order. This law was passed well after Charles was convicted and sentenced for killing his stepfather.

Defendants Evaluated for Mental Health Before Conviction? Extant accounts of the killing and the trial give no indication that mental health of Charles was considered, as the defense theory was based purely on the claim that Charles accidently shot the victim.

Why mental health evaluations are critical for juvenile justice

Among the four violent criminal cases examined, the only one in which the defendant was given a psychological evaluation before adjudication was in Wisconsin, a state that had an existing statute covering juvenile competency hearings. Juvenile incarceration rate was not associated with a greater tendency to conduct mental health evaluations— in the Massachusetts case, the defendant was not evaluated despite presenting significant mental health concerns. These findings support appeals by proponents to implement juvenile competency legislation so that courts follow clear procedures regarding when and how juvenile defendants should receive mental health evaluations. This growing trend is especially important given the complicated mental health issues facing adolescents and questions about criminal culpability that arise from scientific findings about the juvenile brain. Although these cases are a small sample, they suggest that if state legislatures provide statutory guidance on juvenile competency, it becomes more likely that juvenile defendants will receive a professional evaluation before they are sentenced to a lengthy term of confinement. With a mental health evaluation, youth in conflict with the law have a better chance of accessing the necessary mental healthcare and community services that they need to recover and live a better life.

If the mental health problems of more juveniles are identified and early intervention is prioritized in case handling, more juveniles and communities would also benefit from the policy advances being made in juvenile mental healthcare programs. A 2016 NCBI/NIH study on mental health and juvenile crime examined the effectiveness of various intervention and treatment programs/approaches, finding that treatment models including Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions (CBI) and Functional Family Therapy (FFT) are effective treatment frameworks for juvenile offenders. These models share two major features: integrated systems of care (education, child protection, family participation, and mental healthcare) that intervene in juvenile cases in a collaborative manner to meet the interrelated needs of each individual youth; and an approach to rehabilitation that emphasizes an effective screening and assessment process.

If we don’t identify mental health issues in juveniles prior to conviction, we run the risk of allowing the carceral system to be the site where juvenile mental health disorders are identified and treated, or worse yet further ignored. Prisons have repeatedly proven to worsen inmate’s mental health and contribute to their recidivism. According to the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice, the timing of mental health intervention is critical:

“Youths who immediately receive a mental health screening are more likely to have their problems identified and treated. Often, however, screening and assessment take place only after a juvenile has been adjudicated and placed in a correctional facility. A prompt mental assessment of juveniles at initial court intake allows the information gained to be used in making diversion or other dispositional decisions.”

Reforms in Nevada are consistent with these findings, as they have appropriated funding and mandated the implementation of mental health evaluations and programs before a youth is convicted and punished. At Mendota Juvenile Facility in Madison, Wisconsin, results from a program to treat psychopathology among violent juvenile offenders are promising. The study finds that even among violent juvenile offenders who exhibit psychopathological traits, interventions focused on positive reinforcement and constant staff presence produced much lower rates of general and violent recidivism 4.5 years after offenders were released compared to recidivism rates among juveniles released from ordinary (non-psychopathology specialist) detention centers.

Despite the tragic circumstances behind these cases, hopefully they can buoy a growing trend towards juvenile competency statutes in the United States that grant better treatment for juvenile offenders and an overall reduction in juvenile incarceration.

The Importance of Mental Health Evaluations in Juvenile Cases (Part 1 of 2)

Girls detained at a Santa Clarita detention facility in Los Angeles. Image Credit: LA Times.

According to a National Conference of State Legislatures report, approximately 70 percent—or 2 million—juveniles arrested each year in the United States suffer from a mental health disorder. One in five “suffer from a mental illness so severe as to impair their ability to function,” and in addition, juvenile offenders often suffer multiple disorders at once, substance abuse being the most common co-occurrence with mental illness. Dui Hua has previously pointed out that girls in conflict with the law are more likely than boys to attempt suicide and to self-mutilate. And the disproportionately high rate of girls who are also victims of sexual abuse places them at even greater risk of suffering from multiple mental health illnesses.

Perhaps the most famous recent criminal case in the United States involving mental health concerns and very young female defendants is the “Slender Man” incident in Wisconsin, in which two 12-year-old female defendants stabbed a classmate repeatedly and were charged with attempted homicide. This unusual case reflects the complex intersection between mental health, crime, and juvenile justice policy and suggests that the growing trend toward juvenile competency statutes in certain US states might be a path towards more humane and sensible treatment of juvenile offenders.

This article is another installment in Dui Hua’s investigation of how different states approach high profile felonies committed by juveniles 15 and younger. In a similar vein to earlier installments, two case studies involve female juvenile defendants and two involve males, and the states chosen represent a variety of juvenile incarceration rates and juvenile policies. See here for a broad survey of each state’s rate of juvenile confinement. State juvenile policy works best when the lowest possible proportion of the juvenile population is confined in a detention facility. Selecting states with varying juvenile incarceration rates and juvenile justice policies is instructive for analyzing juvenile justice trends in the United States.

This article compares different state-level policy on juvenile competency hearings and applies these policies to the specific facts of each case, inquiring whether the defendants in each case were provided a psychological or mental health exam before adjudication and sentencing. Competency refers to the minor’s ability to understand the proceeding against them and to assist in his or her own defense. Competency evaluations can uncover not just mental health issues facing defendants, but also substance abuse and developmental problems that often co-occur among adolescents.

This section presents serious crimes committed by juveniles in four states. Part 1 investigates the states of Massachusetts and Wisconsin representing states with relatively low juvenile incarceration rates. Part 2 examines the states of California and South Dakota, representing states with higher juvenile incarceration rates.

Massachusetts: Low Incarceration Rate (46-109.5 per 100,000 juveniles)

Facts: Mathew Borges is accused of stabbing Viloria Paulino, his Lawrence High School classmate on November 18, 2016, decapitating him and mutilating his body. Borges was 15 at the time of the crime.

Massachusetts on Juvenile Mental Health/Competency: A Massachusetts bill that would create a juvenile-specific competence law in Massachusetts has been pending in the legislature for years. In general, juvenile defendants should be briefly evaluated by a court clinician; a more comprehensive evaluation may be conducted in an inpatient setting, but many of juveniles cannot easily be seen in the short same-day time frame created by the initial triage stage.

Defendants Evaluated for Mental Health Before Conviction? The defendant does not appear to have been evaluated for mental illness since his arrest, despite mental health concerns noted in media reports. Classmates described Borges as a quiet teenager with anger issues, with one classmate saying “He was scary,” and that “He was negative to be around. He seemed mad at the world.” Another classmate stated that Borges was frequently involved in fights.

Wisconsin: Mid-Low Incarceration Rate (109.5-173 per 100,000)

Facts: In May 2014, two 12-year-old girls stabbed another girl of the same age 19 times to impress the fictional “Slender Man” horror character; the case has received extensive media attention and separate trials for the two defendants are currently pending. One of the girls, now 15-years-old, pleaded guilty but claimed that she could not be held responsible for her actions on grounds of insanity; she will be placed in a mental hospital for three years. The trial for the second girl is scheduled to begin on October 9.

Wisconsin on Juvenile Mental Health/Competency: Wisconsin appears to be among a minority of US states that have passed laws providing for mental health screening of juvenile offenders via competency hearings, which occur before juvenile defendants can be sentenced to confinement. Wisconsin has had this provision on its books since 1995; under Wis. Stat. 938.295(2)(a), in cases where “there is probable cause to believe that the juvenile has committed the alleged offense and if there is reason to doubt the juvenile’s competency to proceed, the court is required to order the juvenile to be examined by a psychiatrist or licensed psychologist.

Defendants Evaluated for Mental Health Before Conviction? Both defendants in the Slender Man case were assessed in 2014 for their competence to stand trial. Since then, one defendant was diagnosed with schizophrenia and both defendants have pled not guilty by reason of mental disease.

Continue reading Part 2...

How Transparency in Death Penalty Cases Can Reduce Wrongful Convictions

He Jiahong (right) speaking on a forum at the "World Day Against Death Penalty", October 2014.

He Jiahong is a special kind of Chinese legal expert. He is a well-known legal scholar at Renmin University Law School in Beijing, where he specializes in criminal justice and the issue of wrongful convictions. He is also the author of detective novels and writes prolifically on legal subjects for popular audiences. He reportedly likes to describe himself as: “I am not only a jurist but a novelist, so I often have novel ideas about law.”

One of the ways in which He Jiahong expresses those ideas is through his public WeChat channel—a blog distributed to anyone who subscribes via the social media platform. Recently, he posted a piece with the rather provocative title: “The Number of Executions Should be Made Public.”

In China’s criminal justice discourse, public calls for greater transparency around the use of the death penalty are not unheard of but are nevertheless eye-catching when they do appear, especially from well-known legal experts such as He. Information related to the death penalty, including the number of executions carried out each year, continue to be treated as a closely guarded “state secret.” This is despite the fact that there are many indications that China has significantly reduced its use of capital punishment over the past decade—though it is still generally believed to be the world’s top executioner—and continues to face pressure from NGOs and United Nations human rights bodies to be more transparent about its use of the death penalty.

Changsha Court public announcement of death sentences. Source: Hu Guiyun.

He Jiahong raises some familiar arguments in support of greater transparency about capital punishment in China, including the importance of preventing wrongful executions, demonstrating the progress made in reducing the use of the death penalty, and the value of facilitating public discussion about the future of capital punishment. He clearly believes that openness and greater transparency will help build public trust in the judiciary and show respect for the public’s right to access such information.

He notes that the trend towards online publicization of court documents is making secrecy about capital punishment irrelevant. On this point, he is perhaps overly optimistic. Dui Hua and other organizations that have tried to use online platforms like the Supreme People’s Court’s national database of court judgments have found it seriously lacking when it comes to information about cases involving the death penalty and other “sensitive” subjects.

This suggests that the trend toward judicial transparency is already bound by pre-set limits on what information is considered “appropriate” for public disclosure. If the Chinese government were to do as He Jiahong recommends and make data about capital punishment public, it would first have to make the top-down decision to lift secrecy restrictions. The hope of a shortcut to judicial transparency through the release of court data is unlikely given such secrecy restrictions.

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The Number of Executions Should be Made Public

He Jiahong

He Jiahong, professor at Renmin University School of Law. Source: Financial Times.

On April 27, 1987, a dismembered female corpse was found in the Mianjiang River of Mayang County, Hunan. After searching missing-person’s reports, identification by family members, and blood-type analysis, the police confirmed that the deceased was a woman from Guizhou named Shi Xiaorong who had been missing for a month after working at a local hotel.

After several months of investigation, police determined, based on the manner in which the culprit had dismembered the corpse that the killer was a butcher named Teng Xingshan… On December 6, police placed Teng Xingshan under custody and investigation. Following continuous interrogation, Teng finally “confessed.” On December 13, 1988, the Huaihua Prefecture Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Teng Xingshan to death. On January 19, 1989, the Hunan Higher People’s Court rejected Teng’s appeal, upheld the original verdict, and approved his death sentence.

In order to ensure that the death penalty is applied impartially and correctly, Chinese law mandates a special review and ratification procedure for death penalty cases, on the principle of a two-stage judicial process of trial and appeal. According to the provisions of the 1979 Criminal Procedure Law, death sentences with two-year reprieve were to be reviewed by high people’s courts and death sentences with immediate execution were to be reviewed by the Supreme People’s Court. Regardless of whether or not the defendant filed an appeal, cases involving the death penalty would all be subject to an automatic review process. In 1983, in an effort to “strike hard and fast” against criminal acts that seriously endangered public security and social order, the Supreme People’s Court delegated the power to review death sentences for homicide, rape, robbery, setting explosions, and other serious crimes to high people’s courts. To a certain degree, this led to a loosening of the review and control procedures over the death penalty. Since high people’s courts in provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions were generally the courts hearing appeals in death penalty cases, delegation of the power to review these cases meant that the same court became responsible for hearing the appeal and carrying out the final review. The review and ratification process that had been originally intended as a way to strictly control use of the death penalty became effectively meaningless.

Teng Xingshan’s case was handled under the combined “two-in-one” process of appeal trial and death sentence approval that existed during that particular period of Chinese law. On January 28, 1989, Teng Xingshan was executed by gunshot. However, that wasn’t the end of the case, because the so-called “victim” was still alive and would later “come back to life.”

In 1993, Shi Xiaorong finally made it home to Guizhou after having been abducted and trafficked to Shandong. When she heard about the Teng Xingshan case, she said that she didn’t even know Teng, and certainly did not have any “dubious relationship” with him. She even wrote to the Hunan court, asking it to revoke its mistaken judgment that she had “dubious relations” with Teng Xingshan, had been “murdered” by him, and demanded compensation for her reputation damage. But there was no response from the court. Shi now has a new life and no longer cares about an old case that has nothing to do with her.

News that the “dead had come back to life” eventually reached Teng Xingshan’s family. Teng’s parents had both died not long after their son had been executed. His brother figured that because their family was poor and ordinary they should not oppose the government. Not wanting to make trouble for himself, he decided not to mention the matter to anyone outside the family. In 2004, Teng Xingshan’s daughter Teng Yan had already grown up and worked as a migrant laborer for many years. After she learned the truth about what had happened, she and her younger brother Teng Hui, with help from a lawyer, filed a motion for appeal with the Hunan Provincial Procuratorate and Hunan High People’s Court. On October 25, 2005, the Hunan Higher People’s Court ordered a retrial in Teng Xingshan’s homicide trial and formally acquitted him of the charges. Teng Yan and Teng Hui received state and other compensations in the amount of 666,660 yuan (approximately US$85,000 at the time).

At the time, the National People’s Congress Legislative Affairs Commission was organizing experts and scholars to study ways of reforming the Criminal Procedure Law, and the death penalty review procedure was one of the areas that everyone was paying close attention to. There’s no question that the Teng Xingshan case played a role in pushing forward reform of the death penalty review system. The Supreme People’s Court decided from January 1, 2007, to take back the authority to review death sentences in all cases.

It’s now been 10 years since the reform of the death penalty review system. I was recently asked how I’d evaluate this reform. I said that it’s certainly been very positive, but I would have a hard time saying for sure. I believe that, since the power to review death sentences was returned to the Supreme People’s Court, the death penalty has definitely been applied with much greater strictness, in greater accordance with the rules, and in a more uniform manner. And the number of executions has certainly also decreased by a great deal. But because I don’t know the specific details, it’s impossible to comment in an objective and precise way.

In China, the number of executions seems to be treated as a kind of “state secret”. Those in the know remain tight-lipped on the subject, while those on the outside let their imaginations run wild. In my opinion, there’s no reason to treat the number of executions as a “state secret.” All death sentences in China are handed down and executed openly and in accordance with the law. It’s all perfectly open and aboveboard—executions are not carried out in secret or indiscriminately. Why does the government choose to be so secretive and why is it afraid of keeping the public informed? Disclosing the number of executions will not stain the reputation of the judicial organs or lead to social unrest. Tempered by their experience of numerous wars and disasters, Chinese people surely are psychologically resilient enough to face up to the number of executions!

On this point, policymakers ought to abandon their antiquated ideas of closed-door justice and embrace the modern judicial norms of transparency. Practical experience shows that openness is the best publicity and offers the best route to foster public trust. Publishing execution numbers also demonstrates judicial organs’ respect for citizens’ right to access information (zhiqingquan).

Actually, the Chinese judiciary has already made progress on this front, as court verdicts have begun to be published online! As a technical matter, when court verdicts are all online it won’t be that difficult to use “big data” technology to tally up the number of executions. Even if officials don’t make it public, the public can still find out. Therefore, I recommend that the Supreme People’s Court choose the right moment to begin publishing the number of executions. This can demonstrate the Chinese government’s resolve and sincerity in facing up to capital punishment and promoting civilized justice.

At the present time, there are more than 140 countries and regions in the world that have abolished the death penalty either by law or in practice. This shows that abolishing the death penalty is the general trend of human society because it is in line with the general spirit of humanitarianism and civilized justice. Furthermore, abolishing the death penalty is an effective way to prevent wrongful executions of innocent people. For judicial personnel, “no unjust treatment, no indulging wrongdoings” is but a beautiful tale/lore. Police, prosecutors and judges aren’t supernatural beings, and making the incorrect decisions when evidence is lacking is something that cannot be entirely avoided. Therefore, to prevent further miscarriages of justice in which innocent people are mistakenly put to death, we should seriously consider abolishing capital punishment.

I am deeply aware that China cannot abolish the death penalty at the current time, but we should have an earnest discussion about the issue and, through our efforts, make more of our fellow Chinese understand that the death penalty is not perfectly justified. Our government ought to make a solemn pledge to the world that China will make an effort to abolish the death penalty and that it will start by making the number of executions public so that the world can see the progress of China’s death penalty policies. After several years of continued hard work, China will go from “executing fewer” to “no executions” to full abolition of capital punishment, once again making China one of the most civilized, humane, and harmonious countries in the world!

Violent Crime and Juvenile Justice: Lessons for China and the United States (Part 2 of 2)

Following “Violent Crime and Juvenile Justice: Lessons for China and the United States Part I,” Part II explores the states of California and South Dakota, characterized by their “mid-high” to “high” juvenile confinement rates. Do lower juvenile confinement rates guarantee more lenient policies regarding juvenile waiver into adult court?

Number of Inmates Serving Life-Without-Parole Sentences for Crimes Committed as Juveniles

Data taken from July 2015 study “No Hope: Re-Examining Lifetime Sentences for Juvenile Offenders.” Source: Philips Black.

The US is also dealing with the issue of violent crimes committed by juveniles 15 and under, with perhaps the most famous case being the “Slender Man” incident in Wisconsin, in which two 12-year-old female defendants stabbed a classmate repeatedly and were charged with attempted homicide. Because these cases are highly complex, this article conducts in-depth case studies comparing different state approaches to high profile felonies committed by juveniles 15 and younger, similar to the Slender Man case. Two case studies involve female juvenile defendants, and two involve males. Chinese officials considering policy reforms aimed at curbing violence among very young juveniles might draw important lessons from these state-level US cases.

California: Mid-High Confinement Rate (173-366.5 per 100,000)

Facts: Female defendant, Sarah Weeden, who was 14 at the time of the crime, was arrested, convicted, and sentenced for the murder of Navnil Chand, killed by gunshot by 23-year-old Sertice Melonson. The crime occurred in August 2005. According to testimony at Weeden’s 2008 trial, Weeden agreed to meet Chand at a park for a date and directed him there by cellphone. When he arrived, Melonson waited to rob him. During the robbery, Melonson shot and killed Chand. In April 2017, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Weeden’s conviction and remanded her for a new trial, finding that Weeden’s trial attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to have Weeden evaluated by a psychologist to determine her capacity to form criminal intent. Weeden might be re-tried in juvenile court.

Law and Policies: California has three ways that juveniles can be prosecuted as adults:

1. Statutory Exclusion: California has a list of offenses, which if committed by a youth aged 14 or older, require that the youth be criminally prosecuted as an adult. Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 602(b);
2. Discretionary Judicial Waiver: The juvenile court has original jurisdiction over most juvenile cases, but in certain delineated cases where the child is at least 16 years old at the time of the offense, the state may request that the juvenile court transfer jurisdiction to adult criminal court. The juvenile court must conduct a hearing and consider statutorily listed factors to determine whether to transfer jurisdiction. Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 707;
3. Once an Adult, Always an Adult: California has a set procedure by which if a juvenile has been adjudicated, and certain criteria are met, all future charges against them will be automatically prosecuted in adult criminal court. Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 707.01.

Defendants Waived Into Adult Court? Weeden appears to have been processed automatically in adult trial court pursuant to the “statutory exclusion” provisions above. Weeden’s appellate attorney notes that prosecutors filed directly in Superior Court (i.e., “adult court”) because it was a murder case, without consideration of factors such as Weeden’s age, maturity level, or mental health. Jurors found Weeden guilty of first-degree murder as an aider and abettor to Melonson, and Sacramento Superior Court Judge Maryanne G. Gilliard sentenced her to 27 years to life in prison.

South Dakota: High Rate of Juvenile Confinement (366.5-560 per 100,000)

Violent Crime and Juvenile Justice: Lessons for China and the United States (Part 1 of 2)

In May 2014, two twelve year-old girls were charged with attempted homicide in Wisconsin. Image Credit: Newsweek.

Recently, stories of violent crimes committed by juveniles, particularly girls, have featured widely in Chinese media. Stories include the case of a 14 year old girl in Yunnan who was charged with homicide in cooperation with her much older boyfriend and a 12 year old in Hunan who is suspected of having fatally poisoned two other primary school girls. Dui Hua’s 2014 Women in Prison symposium also features research exploring violent crimes committed by juvenile girls in Beijing courts. It found that the percentage of violent crimes committed by juvenile girls has been increasing over the past several years.

The US is also dealing with the issue of violent crimes committed by juveniles 15 and under, with perhaps the most famous case being the “Slender Man” incident in Wisconsin, in which two 12-year-old female defendants stabbed a classmate repeatedly and were charged with attempted homicide. Because these cases are highly complex, this article conducts in-depth case studies comparing different state approaches to high profile felonies committed by juveniles 15 and younger, similar to the Slender Man case. Two case studies involve female juvenile defendants, and two involve males. Chinese officials considering policy reforms aimed at curbing violence among very young juveniles might draw important lessons from these state-level US cases.

Putting the Case Studies in Perspective

To better understand these case studies on violent juvenile crime, this section provides a survey of each state’s rate of juvenile confinement. State juvenile policy works best when the lowest possible proportion of the juvenile population is confined in a detention facility.

Understanding each state’s juvenile confinement rate will then allow for the selection of state-level case studies that reflect the variation in juvenile justice policy across the United States. Using the map below, we hope to identify what conditions are operating in states that do a good job of keeping juveniles out of adult prisons.

The data and maps used in this article come from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), which collects comprehensive data for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The following map is based on the most recent available data from 2013. [1]

In the map above, it appears that in general, lower confinement rates are found in the Northeast and in some states in the South. (The raw data for 2013 can be found here.)

State-Level Case Studies of Violent Crimes Committed by Young Juveniles

Based on this map of juvenile confinement rates, case studies were selected from different states to get a sense of the variations in juvenile justice performance across the country. The case studies focus on violent crimes committed by juveniles in four states: Massachusetts, Wisconsin, California, and South Dakota, each with varying juvenile confinement rates. Massachusetts has a “low” confinement rate, Wisconsin has a “mid-low” rate, California has a “mid-high” rate, and South Dakota has a “high” rate.

This case selection is intended to gain a better understanding of the spectrum of regional variations in juvenile justice performance across the US, even though the cases themselves likely represent a small number of recent violent juvenile crimes committed in the US.

Massachusetts: Low Confinement Rate (46-109.5 per 100,000 juveniles)

Facts: Fifteen year-old Mathew Borges is accused of stabbing Viloria Paulino, his Lawrence High School classmate on November 18, 2016, decapitating him and mutilating his body.

Laws and Policies: Massachusetts has one way that juveniles can be prosecuted as adults: “Statutory exclusion: [adult court original jurisdiction is] mandatory for youth 14 and older charged with first-degree or second-degree murder. Mass. Gen. Laws Ann. ch. 119, § 72B.”

Defendants Waived Into Adult Court? The defendant was automatically processed in adult court based on the severity of the charges: “Borges will be arraigned in Lawrence District Court…as an adult on a count of first degree murder.”

Wisconsin: Mid-Low Confinement Rate (109.5-173 per 100,000)

Facts: In May 2014, two 12-year-old girls stabbed another girl of the same age 19 times to impress the fictional “Slender Man” horror character; the case has received extensive media attention and the trial is now pending in adult court.

Laws and Policies: In the “Slender Man” case, the adult court assumed mandatory “original jurisdiction” over the case, even though the defendants were 12 years-old, because under Wis. Stat. Sec. 938.183(1), “adult courts have exclusive original jurisdiction over first degree intentional homicide, attempted first degree intentional homicide, first degree reckless homicide, second degree intentional homicide.” According to the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, “Wisconsin’s lowest age of automatic adult court jurisdiction (age 10) is the lowest in the nation,” and “Wisconsin is one of only 7 states remaining in which youth under 18 are automatically considered adults.” For less serious offenses, Wisconsin youth ages 15 and 16 can still be waived into adult court for any delinquent offense, and for a few serious offenses youth as young as 14 may be waived. Wis. Stat. Sec. 938.18(1).

Defendants Waived Into Adult Court? The defendants were automatically placed into adult court, as mandated by law, and appealed their placement in adult court. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals upheld the placement of defendants in adult court, and denied a related motion for “reverse waiver” that would have placed defendants back in juvenile court: “Wisconsin law requires children as young as 10 to be charged as adults for the most serious crimes, but allows them to seek transfer back to juvenile court, as was recently tried, unsuccessfully, by the two 12-year-old Waukesha girls charged with trying to kill a sixth grade classmate last year to please Slender Man.”

Continued in Part II...

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1. OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book. “The information in this table is based on the state where the offense was committed. However, the state of offense is not always reported. Youth for whom state of offense was unknown are included in U.S. totals (3,401 in 1997). These instances are not evenly distributed across states. As such, users should exercise caution when examining state-level trends or comparing states. Visit the EZACJRP methods section for more information. U.S. total excludes youth in tribal facilities. The residential placement rate is the number of juvenile offenders in residential placement per 100,000 juveniles age 10 through the upper age of original juvenile court jurisdiction in each state. To preserve the privacy of the juvenile residents, state cell counts have been rounded to the nearest multiple of three. Detail may not add to total because of rounding. Rates and percentages presented are also based on rounded totals. More information on this rounding rule is available on the EZACJRP Web site.” Return to article

The “Hidden Rules” of China’s Criminal Justice System

Rule of Law was a centerpiece of the Fourth Plenum meeting of the Central Committee of the CCP in October 2014. Image Credit: Getty Images.

Xi Jinping made judicial reform a priority item on his agenda after fully taking power in 2013. He promised to “construct a rule-of-law country” and repeatedly emphasized the need for governing with respect to Chinese law and the constitution. Legal institutions were the focus of the “Fourth Plenum” meeting of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in October 2014, which pledged to “strive to let the popular masses feel justice in every court case.” Since then, efforts have been undertaken to “deepen” reform of the country’s legal institutions and officials have been served notice to achieve their reform targets before the upcoming 19th Party Congress later this year.

In the run up to the 19th Party Congress, we should expect to hear more talk of the great achievements and successful reforms of China’s judicial system. In February, the Supreme People’s Court released a white paper on judicial reform describing its progress in improving the efficiency, accountability, and transparency of the judicial system and declaring that 63 of the 65 reform goals it had set for itself to achieve by 2018 had already been basically accomplished by the end of 2016.

The reform of China’s law-enforcement and judicial institutions has certainly made some progress in recent years, but are there problems in the country’s legal system that remain untouched by these reforms and continue to undermine the ability of those institutions to deliver justice?

According to Professor Chen Ruihua, an expert on criminal procedure law at Peking University Law School, the answer is a resounding yes. In a recent blog post, widely circulated online, Chen observes that there are 17 “hidden rules” that govern how the Chinese criminal justice system “really” operates. These rules describe a system of collusion between institutions intended to check each other’s powers, courts that are fundamentally biased against defendants, and a coordinated effort to limit the impact of defense lawyers.

A list like this is clearly not meant to be analytical, though Chen has spoken and written quite frankly and at length on the flaws he observes in China’s criminal justice system. At a time of renewed ideological attacks against judicial independence and separation of powers, it takes courage to even raise the possibility that the progress of Chinese legal reform is not everything it’s made out to be.

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17 “Hidden Rules” of China’s Criminal Justice System

In the Chinese criminal justice system, the “gong-jian-fa” institutions (public security, procuratorate, and courts) follow a set of “hidden rules” outside of the formal legal system. These “hidden rules” have great vitality and have operated over a long period of time, making it difficult to change them despite revisions to the criminal procedure law or even judicial reforms. Professor Chen Ruihua sums up these “hidden rules” as follows:

1. The investigative organs will only file a case for investigation when that case has already been solved.
2. Most of the public security organ’s criminal investigation activity is completed before issuing the decision to arrest.
3. The vast majority of cases are only solved after obtaining a confession of guilt by the suspect.
4. If it were not for the purposeful restriction of the rights of defense lawyers and the extralegal detention measures against suspects, solving criminal cases would be extremely difficult for the majority of investigative organs.
5. Compared to plaintiffs in civil trials, the public prosecutor in a criminal trial has a far stronger appetite for “winning”.
6. When a case lacks clear facts or evidence, the procuratorate would rather withdraw the prosecution than allow the court to acquit the defendant.
7. Almost all police and procurators treat defense lawyers with a certain degree of hostility.
8. When a case lacks clear facts or evidence, courts will generally issue decisions that “give lenient punishment when there is doubt” or “remand for retrial;” the “presumption of innocence” is an extremely rare exception.
9. Nearly all first-instance trials proceed by reading the record of criminal investigation aloud.
10. In cases where the defendant hasn’t put forward enough exculpatory evidence, the court’s judgement is basically a kind of process to affirm the conclusions of the investigators and prosecutors.
11. The vast majority of criminal judges lean toward the side of prosecution and will do everything they can to avoid allowing a “guilty” defendant to escape justice.
12. Judgments in the vast majority of cases are reached outside of the trial process.
13. The vast majority of judges turn a blind eye to procedural violations of law made by police, procurators, and first-instance trial judges.
14. When a defendant refuses to admit guilt during the investigation or trial phases, it becomes a significant basis for the court to impose a more severe punishment.
15. In the vast majority of cases it is a “responsible” judge that makes the judgement decision.
16. Judges would rather write extremely detailed “trial conclusion reports” than provide detailed reasoning for their judgments.
17. Whether it is the individual police, procurator, judge, or the “gong-jian-fa” organs, each has a direct interest in how criminal cases are decided.