Supreme Court rejects retrial request from death row inmate

Taipei, Aug. 5 (CNA) Taiwan's Supreme Court has rejected a request for a retrial from death row inmate Lu Wen-sheng (呂文昇), ruling that a lower court's decision to dismiss the petition was procedurally sound and legally valid.

The ruling affirms an earlier decision by the Taichung Branch of the Taiwan High Court, which had found that Lu's request should have been filed with the Supreme Court, not a second-instance court, because his case had already gone through a third-instance trial.

The court in Taichung also ruled that Lu failed to provide any new evidence that would meet the criteria for a retrial, such as evidence that the original sentencing did not consider key factors related to the death penalty.

Lu had based his request on Constitutional Judgment No. 8 of Sept. 20, 2024, which declared the death penalty conditionally constitutional.

The defendant had argued that the original ruling did not fully evaluate whether his actions met the threshold of "most serious crimes," and that it failed to consider his potential for rehabilitation, reform, or reintegration into society.

Lu was sentenced to death in 2006 for the robbery and murder of an elderly couple in Taichung. His co-defendant, Wu Ching-lu (吳慶陸), died in prison in 2019.

There are currently 36 death row inmates in Taiwan.

Constitutional Judgment No. 8 permits extraordinary appeals in death penalty cases under specific conditions, such as when the crime does not meet the "most serious" standard, the third-instance trial lacked a defense attorney or oral arguments, or the death sentence was not unanimously decided.

The constitutional judgment also allows defendants to petition the prosecutor-general to file an extraordinary appeal.