The High People's Court in Jiangxi Province is expected to announce the final judgment on Thursday in the retrial of a case involving the killing and dismembering of a man and a woman in May 2000 in Leping, media reported.
The case was reviewed because a serial killer allegedly claimed that he was the "real murderer" in October 2013, news site thepaper.cn reported on Monday. The four defendants were sentenced to death with a reprieve in 2006.
The retrial is one of many cases suspected of wrongful convictions that are being re-examined following the recent judgment by China's top court to clear Nie Shubin, a young man in North China's Hebei Province, who was executed 21 years ago.
After the Supreme People's Court on December 2 revoked Nie's conviction on the grounds of insufficient evidence and unclear facts, the case prompted the authorities and public to re-examine the relationship between law enforcement and judicial organs, which has always been the main reason behind wrongful convictions, Mao Lixin, a Beijing-based lawyer, told the Global Times.
"The judicial organs including procuratorates and courts in China do not perform their investigative duties well but always act as a partner of the police," said Mao, explaining that courts should not accept prosecutors' cases when there are doubts about the case, as the Constitution stipulates.
Mao is also the attorney for a corpse dissection case in Ningde, South China's Fujian Province in which five people from the same family allegedly cut and disposed a woman's body 13 years ago.
The High People's Court in Fujian has reviewed the case in June after four trials since May 2004, according to Mao.
Mao said although the defendants were obviously tortured and induced by public security bureau to confess during interrogation, the courts in Fujian put those five on trial. It is certain that they will be acquitted and the final judgment is expected around the Chinese New Year, he added.
