Huugjilt was found guilty of raping and murdering a woman in a public toilet in Hohhot on April 9, 1996. He was sentenced to death and executed in June 1996 at the age of 18. However, in 2005, another alleged serial rapist and murderer, Zhao Zhihong, confessed to the murder after being arrested. In Dec. 15, 2014, Inner Mongolia’s higher court decided Huugjilt was innocent after reviewing the case and apologized to his parents who have been seeking for the review for almost two decades.
A similar case emerged around the same time. Nie Shubin, a farmer in Hebei Province, was executed in 1995 for the rape and murder of a rural woman. Ten years later, however, his conviction came under scrutiny due to the arrival of a new suspect called Wang Shujin. Now, almost two decades after his death, justice may finally be served for Nie’s family.
In the year of 2014, two doubtful cases became the focus of the public and the media. Two people were wrongly executed while they were not the murderers. It is not hard to understand the landslide of rebuke of the people involved in the investigation of the cases, from the Public Security to the court, some of whom are punished for their wrongdoings. It is said justice delayed but never denied. However, the delayed justice is costly and heartbreaking.
The arrival of the truth is not only a comfort to families of those who are wrongly executed. More importantly, it should ring the bells for the judicial system. Inadequate judicial independence makes justice hard to achieve. It’s more important to clarify what reasons cause these judicial mistakes and how to effectively discover the errors, to avoid similar tragedies and enhance possibilities of prevention. Death sentence is the severest punishment to criminals while acquittal is the cruelest vindication to the innocent.
