The Taichung branch of the High Court today overturned Yang Hung-ju’s (楊鴻儒) death penalty and sentenced him to life in prison for double homicide.
Yang was found guilty of murdering two friends and stuffing their bodies into iron drums before disposing of them in Hualien County, stemming from his jealousy over his friend’s girlfriend and suspected gambling debts.
In the first and second trials, the Taichung District Court and the Taichung branch of the High Court found that Yang was unremorseful and not likely to be rehabilitated, and sentenced him to the death penalty.
Photo courtesy of the National Police Agency via CNA
Yang appealed the case to the Supreme Court, which in September 2023 found that the first trial’s investigation was incomplete and ordered a new trial at the Taichung branch of the High Court.
Given the eight years between the trials, the court invoked Article 7 of the Criminal Speedy Trial Act (刑事妥速審判法) to reduce his sentence to life imprisonment.
The retrial also found that given Yang’s advanced age, he is unlikely to reoffend, even if he is one day released from prison.
Yang can still appeal the verdict, which in addition to life imprisonment, also deprives him of his civil rights for life.
In the first case, Yang murdered a friend, surnamed Chen (陳), after deciding to pursue Chen’s girlfriend due to her wealth, the courts found.
Yang lured Chen to Nantou County on June 27, 2015, under false pretenses before drugging and sedating him, then stuffing him in a barrel and abandoning it in a valley along a highway in Hualien, they said.
A gambling dispute with another friend, surnamed Lai (賴), who threatened to report him to police, led to Yang commit a similar murder, judges said.
He drugged Lai in a car on the way to Taitung County on July 12, 2015, and stuffed his body into a barrel, which he also abandoned near his first victim, they said.
Both men died from suffocating inside the barrels.
In September last year, the Constitutional Court ruled that the death penalty should only be applied in the “most serious” of cases.
On Thursday last week, a death row inmate was executed for the first time since the decision.
The Ministry of Justice said it was in line with the Constitutional Court’s ruling.
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