The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the death sentence for Cheng Chieh (鄭捷), who was convicted of stabbing four people to death and injuring 22 in a May 21, 2014, attack in the Taipei MRT rail system.
The verdict is final and cannot be appealed.
The court’s ruling said it upheld the death penalty because there was clear evidence that the defendant had committed an act defined as one of the most severe crimes by the UN’s International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The New Taipei City District Court on March 6 last year convicted Cheng of four counts of murder and 22 counts of attempted manslaughter, handing down the death sentence for each murder charge and prison sentences ranging from five to eight years for a total of 144 years on the manslaughter charges.
It also ordered him to pay NT$30.91 million (US$956,078) in compensation to his victims, as well as NT$8.55 million to the families of the four dead.
The Taiwan High Court in October last year upheld the convictions, but ordered Cheng to pay NT$61.39 million in compensation to his victims and the relatives of those slain.
Photo: CNA
Cheng’s defense appealed that verdict to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court said the four death sentences were “commensurate with the crimes committed,” adding that the rulings handed down by the courts must be based on the laws of the nation, which still include capital punishment.
The justices also said that Cheng was of sound mind and in control of his actions at the time of the attack, and there was no indication of a psychiatric disorder or loss of mental faculties.
They said that even if an appraisal by experts indicated the defendant had a minor psychological disturbance, it still would not affect their decision.
Liang Chia-ying (梁家贏), one of Cheng’s defense lawyers, said the verdict was regrettable.
“The courts did not fully investigate Cheng’s motives, nor did they attempt to determine if his mental state was affected by illness,” Liang said.
Cheng is currently the 43rd death row inmate.
Minister of Justice Luo Ying-shay (羅瑩雪) denied a media report that top judiciary officials had met in the afternoon to determine when to execute Cheng.
“We have not received the official documents of the judgment, and we did not discuss this issue. We do not have a schedule for the execution,” she said.
The father of Chang Cheng-han (張正翰), one of the four slain, said that he hopes the execution can be carried out soon.
“The ruling provides justice for society. The murderer must pay with his life for his crimes,” he said. “We still see random killings in our society. The sooner Cheng Chieh is executed, the sooner it will serve as a warning to people and prevent such killings from happening again.”
Chiu Mu-sen (邱木森), husband of Pan Pi-chu (潘碧珠), another slain victim, said he thought justice had been served.
Chiu, who had been married to Pan for more than 40 years, said “a fair verdict had been handed down for her murder.”
Additional reporting by CNA
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
RSS