Top prosecutor files first posthumous appeal in death penalty case

Taipei, April 22 (CNA) Taiwan's top prosecutor has filed an extraordinary appeal concerning a death row inmate who died of illness in January, marking the country's first ever posthumous attempt at legal remedy, CNA has learned.

Prosecutor-General Hsing Tai-chao (邢泰釗) made the appeal earlier this month, citing flaws in how the death penalty sentence of Ouyang Jung (歐陽榕) was reached by the Supreme Court in 2011, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The decision by the Supreme Court was called into question because it was made without oral argument and without the agreement of all judges, the sources said.

Ouyang died in January from a condition prosecutors overseeing the autopsy determined to be diabetic ketoacidosis, likely caused by failing to take his medication on time, a finding his family did not dispute. He was 70.

Taiwan's Constitutional Court issued a judgment in 2024 setting out conditions that must be met to impose the death penalty, including a unanimous decision by judges at all levels of court, while affirming that the punishment itself is constitutional.

The ruling applied to all 37 death row inmates in Taiwan at the time and the Prosecutor-General's appeal in this case is based on the validity of the death penalty and not the guilty verdict in the original trial.

Following the 2024 Constitutional Court ruling, Hsing has filed extraordinary appeals in four cases prior to the one involving Ouyang.

Ouyang was sentenced in connection with a homicide on April 21, 2003, in which a woman surnamed Lu from whom he had rented a space for a coffee shop since 1999, was killed and dismembered after she stopped lending him money, according to the court ruling.