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Rare petition to spare a college murderer and end death penalty creates uproar
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A PETITION by 177 Fudan University students pleading for clemency for a student convicted of murdering his roommate has dropped a bombshell and created an uproar.
The petition dated May 7 was addressed to the Shanghai Higher People’s Court, three months after 28-year-old medical student Lin Senhao was sentenced to death for poisoning his roommate Huang Yang over a trivial dispute. Lin has appealed the verdict.
The petitioners begged the judges to spare Lin and cited what they perceived as mitigating circumstances.
They said Lin should repent his crime and make amends by caring for the bereaved parents.
Lin’s parents should exhaust every possible means to financially compensate the victim’s parents and to seek forgiveness, they said.
To demonstrate that Lin isn’t a monster, the petitioners said that he was keen on charitable activities despite his modest financial means.
They hope their petition might save Lin from execution and that he might instead be sentenced to life in prison.
They also called for phasing out the death penalty.
The letter is undeniably sincere, and the students were remarkably courageous in rallying to the defense of a young man who committed the worst possible crime, considering the indignation that the petition created from the public and the victim’s family. Lin’s father has rejected the petition.
Critics accuse the petitioners of interfering with due legal process, since their appeal could influence the trial of the second instance.
Worse, they accuse the petitioners, in showing sympathy for a murderer, to be seemingly oblivious to the agony of the victim’s parents.
Some observers called the clemency-seekers ethically corrupt.
I doubt the letter is a sign of corrupt ethics and believe the judges are not that susceptible to the views of a very small minority.
Still, the petition is tragically irrelevant, if not counterproductive.
Lin may not be a devious person; indeed, he may even be charitable in some ways, but we don’t know what was happening behind the scenes, and there is no denying that he murdered a roommate in cold blood.
The amount of n-nitrosodimethylamine, the toxic chemical placed in a water dispenser to poison Huang in April last year could have killed an elephant. This strongly indicates a lethal intention, premeditated murder, rather than a crime of passion or some “April Fool’s Day trick gone wrong,” as Lin claimed in his defense.
The well-meaning petitioners are not helping matters because they are acting simply out of wishful thinking, and are naive to think that forgiveness is easy to come by. So far, Huang’s distraught parents have rejected any gesture of penitence or financial compensation from Lin’s family. Without their forgiveness, the petition cannot get very far.
Capital punishment
The petitioners are right to point out that the tragedy that befell Huang Yang’s family would befall Lin’s if the death sentence is upheld.
But they went too far in calling for phasing out the death penalty. I don’t rejoice in the death of anyone, even if it is justified by law. But today, capital punishment is a necessary evil, since conditions are not ripe for doing away with the ultimate punishment in China. The students’ case against the death penalty seems to be the exploitation of a perceived righteous case just to save Lin’s life.
In fact, the number of executions in China is falling, as authorities exercising greater restraint in sentencing.
Compared with many criminals, Lin might not strike us as being the most villainous, but everyone is supposed to be equal before the law.
The idea that a pardoned Lin would devote the rest of his life to caring for Huang’s parents is comforting, but it is too idealistic and insensitive to the feelings of the victim’s family.
This reminds us of a case in 2000 in which a German family of four, including Pfrang Jurgen Hermann, his wife, son and daughter, were brutally murdered by four young burglars in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province.
To the surprise of most Chinese, the mother of the slain Pfrang Hermann petitioned Chinese judges, pleading for leniency. They were executed nonetheless.
While we can admire the German mother for her magnanimity, it must be noted that it is premature to waive the death sentence in China.
Lin will stand before an appeals court before long, the date to be decided.
Whether the judges uphold the original sentence or commute it to life imprisonment, Lin’s destiny will have a lasting effect on two broken families.
The petitioners may have been naive in publicizing their appeal, but their action has at least one merit: it will remind judges to tread with greater care in balancing the thirst for vengeance with the concern for human life.
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