The High Court on Wednesday commuted to life imprisonment the death sentence of a man found guilty of arson that resulted in the deaths of eight family members in June 2022, saying he had shown remorse by voluntarily surrendering to authorities.
The decision can still be appealed.
The Hsinchu District Court in 2022 handed the death penalty to Chen Yen-hsiang (陳彥翔), who set fire to his home in Hsinchu in 2022, resulting in the death of eight people, including his mother, wife and three children.
is pictured in an undated photograph. Photo: Yang Kuo-wen, Taipei Times
It is the first such commutation since the Constitutional Court issued ruling No. 8, which says the death penalty was only partially constitutional and should therefore only be used in the most extreme cases.
The High Court considered the fire that killed Chen’s mother and family members to be morally reprehensible and the murders particularly cruel, High Court spokesman Wang Ping-hsia (王屏夏) said.
It concluded that this was the most serious of crimes and should be punished with the death penalty, he said.
However, evidence showed that Chen felt remorse and blamed himself when he surrendered to the authorities, even indicating that he could commit suicide, Wang said, adding that Chen turned himself in and not because he thought it would secure him a reduced sentence.
In accordance with the provisions of Article 62 of the Criminal Code on surrender and commutation, his death sentence was therefore reduced to life imprisonment, Wang said.
Information provided by the High Court showed that Chen admitted that he had committed arson, but denied that he had intended to kill his family members.
Evidence presented in court showed that Chen was plagued by work and family issues, as well as mounting debts. He also often argued with his parents, with whom he resided and ran a tire shop in Hsinchu City.
On the evening of June 15, 2022, Chen left home after quarreling with his parents and returned with 20 liters of gasoline, which he splattered across the tire shop on the ground floor of a two-story building where the extended family lived, before igniting a fire using a lighter and tissues. The fire quickly spread to the second floor,
However, considering that Chen did not quarrel with other family members before the incident and begged firefighters to put out the fire to save his wife and children, the High Court determined that he had no criminal motive for killing his family.
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