1. Mainland China Police Mistaken Story of an Innocent Chinese Peasant
According to an recent report by the Beijing Youth Daily dated 20th December 2007, a Chinese peasant named HAO, Jinan(“HAO”) from Henan province has freshly been found innocent after having mistakenly served 8-year-long jails in Fenyang city of Shanxi province for the so-called killing count. Poor HAO, who is seemingly over 50 or 60 something in the newspaper photo, seems to have no feelings of happiness and bitterness but numbness in front of his relative sad hugs, he is currently released on probation, for he has to wait for the official retrial by the Shanxi High People's Court to legally declare him innocent, roughly scheduled on 10th January 2008, even though the true killers have been found.
It is reported that in the late evening of 19th January 1998, a mine worker named LIU, Yinhe from Henan province then working at the Quan Wan Zi coal mine of Xiangning county of Shanxi province where HAO also worked was stab-killed to death. HAO was taken away by the police 5 days later on 24th January 1998, meanwhile, the police found in HAO's room a pair of shoes matching the footprints at the criminal scene and also found a shirt with dotted blood. HAO excused to the police that he had purchased the shoes and shirt for RMB20 from his hometown fellows of NIU(“NIU”) and YANG(“YANG”), and the two things belonged to the two persons. The police, however, did not corroborate on the important clues, but criminally detained him without hesitations. HAO was later prosecuted and given by the Linfeng Intermediate People's Court 2-year-long-suspended death sentence, his appeal was accepted but was not considered being established by the Shangxi High People's Court in late 1998. HAO stated that while in jails, he wrote countless petition letters reiterating that he is innocent but no one have ever taken notices of them or made any replies. HAO has never given up, for he believes he is truly innocent. In additions, HAO stated while he was taken away by the police 8 years ago, he was then beaten black and blue and one kidney even had to be immediately cut away, right after the police put him in custody house, where the house staff had to arrange for him to see doctors. HAO repeated that he had told the policemen in charge over and over again he is innocent, but they never made further investigations into his statement and clues, “I was strongly built then, without wife, no one to worry about in terms of finance, why should I go to rob things or kill anyone ?”
The sad story truth was accidentally disclosed for another criminal case. In 2006, the Yiyang county of Henan province police were out on their beat and caught a criminal suspect of the aforesaid NIU. According to NIU, he once robbed things and killed somebody in Linfeng city of Shanxi province, which has luckily resulted in revealing of the miserable story of HAO. The other killer of the aforesaid YANG has recently be caught as well.
The Shanxi High People's Court is scheduled to declare HAO's innocence by law earlier next year, for the time being he is temporarily on probation for medical examinations and treatment. In additions, his case files have completely been frozen, for once he is to be declared innocent by the court, no one may doubt about that, the authorities concerned will immediately be commencing the responsibility system and will make investigations into the responsible men. What is more tough or may arouse public attentions in the near futures is how much money the 8-year-long jailed truly innocent Chinese peasant will be compensated by the Chinese law.
2. The United State Police Mistaken Story of an innocent Laid-off Machine Operator Family with 6 Kids
Almost at the same time, another innocent laid-off worker house with wife and 6 kids in the United Stated was also reported to be wrongly raided by the Minneapolis police. According to the Hong Kong based Weekend Standard of 21th December 2007, with husband of Vang Khang and six kids tucked into bed, wife of Yee Moua watching TV in her living room just after midnight, Moua heard voices-faint at first, then louder, then came the sound of a window shattering.
Moua bolted upstairs, where her husband grabbed his shotgun(note: no license is required to own a shotgun in Minnesota) from a closet, knelt and fired a warning shot through his doorway as he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. He let loose with two more blasts. Twenty-two bullets were fired back at him, by the family's count. Then things suddenly became clear. “It is the police ! Police !” his sons yelled. Khang, a Hmong immigrant with shaky command of English, set down his gun, raised his hands and was soon on the ground, an officer's boot on his neck.
The gunmen, it turned out, were members of a police commando unit that had raided the wrong address because of bad information from an informant-a mistake that some critics say happens all too frequently around the United States and gets innocent people killed.
“I have six kids, and only one mistake almost took my kids,” said Moua, 29. “We will never forget this.” Luckily, no one was hurt in the raid, conducted by a task force that fight drugs and gangs, though two police officers were hit by the shotgun blasts and narrowly escaped injury because they were wearing bulletproof vests.
No charges were brought against Khang. Police apologized and sent the seven officers on leave while it investigates. Such mistakes are a fact of police work, some experts said. “Does going to the wrong address happen from time to time ? Yes” said John Gnagey, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association. “ Do you corroborate as best as you can the information the informant gives you ? Absolutely. But still from time to time mistakes are made.”
3. How are the different cultures of innocent countrymen to be actually compensated in the two big nations ?
Given that the United States applies common law and precedents, punitive damages are also occasionally imposed for fairness and justice, there will be no big surprises if the laid-off American machine operator families might hugely be compensated.
Given that Mainland China applies the statutory law and no punitive damages may have ever been applied in any of the Chinese civil or criminal or administrative cases, what is more, the known Chinese state compensation cases in recent years have proved that only humble compensation fees, subject to the local workers' averaged salaries per day to be normally multiplied by the innocent guy's imprisonment days, are paid to the innocent persons, poor HAO or his relatives should not have high expectations over his state compensation fees, needless to say satisfactory or not, for the humble state compensation fees will have to “meet provisions of law or judicial interpretations or state policies”.
Should HAO's sad story impossibly be avoided in Mainland China or in the United States in the near futures, the responsible policemen for HAO's case 8 years ago, however, should not only be investigated into, but also be sentenced for years of imprisonments, together with their personal compensations, which have seemingly never be applied in China so far. Under such circumstances, the sad stories of HAO's kind may happen less and less in the most populous developing country of Mainland China or in the developed country of the United States.
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