Tag Archives: miscarriages of justice

The success of Taiwan’s developing Innocence Movement was recently celebrated at the Taiwan Association for Innocence‘s annual conference, held August 27-28. TAFI sent out the following announcement about the event, also providing case updates. We here at the Wrongful Convictions Blog wanted to share the information to highlight the great work being done over in Taiwan.

The annual conference of Taiwan Association for Innocence took place on August 27-28 in Taipei, Taiwan. About 200 people participated in the conference, including Mr. Cheng Hsing-Tse, who was a death roll inmate recently released from prison awaiting for retrial. Unlike most of our cases, Mr. Cheng’s successful retrial petition was filed by the prosecutor’s office. The court granted retrial in May and set him free after 14 years of imprisonment. The success of this case echoes with one of the themes of the Innocence Network conference in San Antonio this past April. It reminds us that prosecutors should be involved in the innocence movement. To promote this idea, we invited Ms. Inger Chandler from Harris County DA Office to share how the conviction integrity unit operates. Ms. Chandler gave two speeches at our annual conference, and was also invited to talk about CIUs at the Ministry of Justice with local prosecutors.

In addition to Ms. Chandler, another highlight of the conference was a speech by a prosecutor in Taiwan who requested a retrial for Mr. Lu Chieh-Min. Mr. Lu was convicted of murder and sentenced to 13 years of prison. He was exonerated by new DNA evidence last December.

The cases of Mr. Cheng and Mr. Lu show us the possibility of working with prosecutors to exonerate the innocent. Despite the difficulties, we will continue to help those who have been wrongfully convicted.

Best regards,

Shih-Hsiang

Yu-Ning

Taiwan Association for Innocence

Vietnam: Government debates problem of wrongful convictions

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Carole McCartney | Leave a comment

In yet another encouraging sign the the ‘problem’ of miscarriages of justice is starting to be taken more seriously globally – the National Assembly of Vietnam has this week been debating the issue of wrongful convictions. In a courageous move, a standing committee looking at wrongful convictions and compensation, admitted that while most investigations and prosecutions were carried out in adherence with rules and upheld human rights, there were some ‘weaknesses and shortcomings’. The report states that between October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2014, there were 71 wrongful convictions – a rate of 0.02 per cent. Although a ‘small’ number, they admitted: “Some serious cases created extreme anxiety among the public, eroding many people’s confidence in our justice system and damaging the prestige of our law enforcement agencies.”. However, with 80% of trials in Vietnam taking place with NO defence counsel, and the country still reportedly ‘trying hard’ to eradicate torture and coerced confessions, it may be questionable how the figure of 71 was reached… and it’s accuracy. Despite this scepticism, it is still heartening that such reports are being published. Read more here…