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Foreword

Yang Niu Hua, a trafficked Guizhou girl, personally brought her traffickers to court 28 years after being abducted.

“This was the first time I saw her hanging her head and shaking her hands, she didn't raise her head for the whole trial, I could feel that she was scared and felt fear in her heart. Other than that, she didn't express anything, didn't apologize, and didn't admit fault.” -- Yang Niu Hua.

01Recap of Facts

Yu Huaying, born in 1963 in Yunnan Province, was working in her 20s when she met her lover Gong Xianliang. During the period of cohabitation, Yu Huaying gave birth to a boy. They sold their own flesh and blood through an intermediary to Handan, Hebei Province, in exchange for 5,000 yuan of stolen money, and from then on, the two opened the child abduction and trafficking of the evil journey.

Since 1993, Yu Huaying, together with her husband Wang Jiawen or lover Gong Xianliang, abducted and sold at least 17 children. The children were trafficked from the southwest to Handan, Hebei province. They came from 12 families, five of which had two children abducted at a time by Yu Huaying, and some of the children were abandoned halfway through her abduction.

On July 14, 2023, the Guiyang Intermediate People's Court held a public hearing on Yu Huaying's suspected child abduction and trafficking case.On September 18, the Guiyang Intermediate Court ruled that Yu Huaying had committed the crime of abducting and trafficking in children, and sentenced Yu Huaying to death and deprived of her political rights for life. Yu Huaying appealed to the Guizhou Higher People's Court. During the second trial, it was found that Yu Huaying was also suspected of abducting and selling other children, and that there were omissions that had not been dealt with, so the Guizhou Provincial Higher People's Court ruled that the case should be remanded for retrial.

On October 25, 2024, the Guiyang Intermediate People's Court publicly pronounced its verdict on Yu Huaying's case: the defendant Yu Huaying was guilty of abducting and selling children, and was sentenced to death, deprived of his political rights for life, and confiscated all of his personal property. Guiyang City Intermediate People's Court held that Yu Huaying, in order to seek illegal benefits, repeatedly abducted and sold a total of 17 children, the subjective malice is extremely deep, the circumstances of the crime are particularly bad, and the consequences of the crime and its seriousness should be severely punished, although confessed, but not enough to mitigate the punishment.

02Legal Interpretation

1. Whether Yu Huaying's sale of her own children constitutes a crime

There is no doubt that this constitutes a crime. The “selling” of one's own children and the act of giving them up for adoption are very different, and the key to distinguishing between them is whether they have the purpose of making illegal profits, which can be judged through a comprehensive review.

In this case, Yu Huaying sold his own flesh and blood through an intermediary for 5,000 yuan, objectively committing the act of selling and subjectively having the purpose of selling the child and illegally making a profit, which should be recognized as a crime.

2. Whether it was appropriate to sentence Yu Huaying to death

The act of child abduction and sale is so bad that it is a felony in the criminal law itself. According to Article 240 of the Criminal Law of China, abducting and selling more than three children is punishable by more than ten years of imprisonment or life imprisonment. In particularly serious cases, the penalty is death. In the case of Yu Huaying, both in terms of the number of abducted and trafficked children and the impact on the families of the abducted and trafficked children, the circumstances were particularly serious, and at the time of the original trial, there was no problem with the court's decision to impose the death penalty. During the remand period, the number of children recognized as trafficked rose rather than fell, and the death penalty was upheld as a foregone conclusion; even on appeal, the probability is very high that the original sentence will still be upheld.

The author thinks that, from the public information, there are at least two reasons why Yu Huaying's behavior was found to be particularly serious.

First, the number of children abducted and sold was large. Just on April 27 last year, the sensational social crime of child abduction and trafficking of Zhang Weiping came to an end. The Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court followed the execution order issued by the Supreme People's Court and executed Zhang Weiping. In such a sensational case of child abduction and trafficking, the main culprit, Zhang Weiping, was found guilty of abducting and selling nine children, which already falls under the criminal law's description of “particularly serious circumstances”. As of the current judicial process, the number of children Yu Huaying may be found guilty of abducting and selling is already as high as 17, and this single circumstance alone is sufficient to sentence Yu Huaying to death.

Secondly, the death of the relatives of the trafficked children is a serious consequence. Yang Nuihua, who brought Yu Huaying to court, was abducted in 1995, and her parents passed away within the next three years because they couldn't take the shock. According to Article 240 (7) of the Criminal Law, even if the abducted child is only one person, if the abducted child's relatives are seriously injured or killed or other serious consequences, it is still “particularly serious circumstances” and should be sentenced to death.

“I've fantasized many times that after I was lost, my mom and dad may have had relationship problems, divorced, and had their own families, so they didn't look for me. Another possibility is that they gave birth to a boy and had two children, so they didn't look for me as hard as they could. Or maybe I was indeed sold, I thought about all of these.” The only possibility Yang Niu Hua hadn't thought about or prepared for was that her mom and dad had passed away because of her loss. (As reported by CCTV.com)

Behind every child abducted and sold by Yu Huaying corresponds to a shattered family, and one destroyed life after another. In the author's opinion, the time between the death of Yang Niu Hua's parents and the time when the child was abducted and sold is very short, although there is no evidence in the case, but I believe that this and the child's abduction and sale must have an inseparable relationship. Even from this perspective, it is sufficient to sentence Yu Huaying to death.

3. Why was the sentence of death handed down in the first trial remanded for retrial in the second trial?

The law punishes crime and protects human rights. There are two main reasons for remanding the original second trial, one is that the second trial found that Yu Huaying had “remaining crimes”, i.e., the original verdict omitted other facts of Yu Huaying's child abduction and trafficking, and in order to find out all the facts of Yu Huaying's crimes, a retrial should be conducted, which is for the purpose of better punishing the crime; and the other reason is to ensure that the defendant enjoys the right to appeal according to the law, which is a manifestation of the protection of human rights under the law. This is also the embodiment of the legal protection of human rights. If the court of second instance directly changed the sentence, there would only be one chance to hear the newly discovered “omissions”, and this right would not be remedied due to the system of the final trial of the second instance. The case was remanded to give the defendant a chance to appeal against this part of the “omission”, which is more conducive to the realization of the unity of substantive justice and procedural justice.

In my opinion, even if Yu Huaying is such an evil person, the law of the land will protect her litigation rights. This is a reflection of the progress of judicial civilization in our country.

4. After this retrial, if Yu Huaying expresses an appeal, can the court of second instance remand the case for retrial again?

No, it will not. According to Article 236 of the Criminal Procedure Law, if the People's Court of Second Instance decides to set aside the original verdict and remand the case to the People's Court of First Instance for retrial, and after the People's Court of First Instance has issued a new verdict, and if the defendant appeals again or if the people's procuratorate lodges a counter-appeal, the People's Court of Second Instance shall issue a judgment or ruling according to the law, and shall not remand the case to the People's Court of First Instance for retrial.

In this case, the court of second instance remanded the case for retrial on the basis of some unclear facts, and after the court of first instance made a new judgment, Yu Huaying appealed in court. According to the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Law, the court of second instance shall render a judgment in accordance with the law and shall not remand again. This provision is constructed to save judicial costs and eliminate circular trials; otherwise, unlimited remanding of cases will lead to a serious waste of judicial resources and unlimited postponement of the trial process.

03 Conclusion

Mr. Luo Xiang of the China University of Political Science and Law once said, “Perhaps it is unrealistic and inappropriate to ask the law to change hearts and minds. But the law should at least make a difference, and if it cannot be a lighthouse that shines into the darkness, then it should at least emit the faint light of guarding human rights.”

The social impact of the abduction and trafficking of women and children is extremely bad, is a serious violation of human rights, how many families have been broken up as a result, and how many parents have lifelong regrets as a result. To combat trafficking in women and children, we need to increase the punishment, Yu Huaying such typical cases should be “heavy”, “special”, in the community to form a deterrent. Only let the people of the country in a pile of one piece of judicial cases to feel the power of the law, in order to truly establish the authority of the law, inspire potential criminals to the fear of the law.

Special Announcement:

This article by JAVY law firm lawyers original, only on behalf of the author's own views, shall not be regarded as JAVY law firm or its lawyers issued formal legal advice or recommendations. If you need to reproduce or quote any content of this article, please indicate the source.