【Case details】

At around 9:55 pm on October 25, 2006, Zhang, while driving a small ordinary truck from his workplace under the influence of alcohol, collided with a human tricycle ridden by Wang A from west to east on Provincial Highway 75 in Jiaojiang District, Taizhou City. The passenger in the rear compartment of the tricycle was Wang B. This caused a traffic accident where Wang A was injured and Wang B was seriously injured and died on the way to the hospital for rescue. After the accident, Zhang did not stop to check and drove directly away from the scene. The next morning, the public security organs arrested the defendant Zhang through investigation. It has been determined that Zhang is fully responsible for this accident.

【Trial】

The first instance court held that the defendant Zhang, who disregarded road traffic management regulations and drove under the influence of alcohol, caused one person's death, and fled the scene while driving after the accident. Zhang's behavior was directly related to the death consequences of the victim Wang Fumei, and his behavior constituted a traffic accident crime. He was sentenced to three years and six months in prison.

The defendant Zhang, who disagrees with the first instance judgment, entrusted me to serve as his second instance defense. He appealed on the grounds that the original judgment was unclear and the evidence of escape after the incident was determined to be insufficient. He requested the second instance court to change the judgment in accordance with the law,

After a trial, the second instance court found that the fact that Zhang was found guilty of traffic accident in the original judgment was unclear, and ruled to revoke the first instance judgment and remand it for retrial.

The first instance court reopened the trial and fully adopted my defense view that there was insufficient evidence for Zhang's escape after causing a traffic accident. Zhang was sentenced to a suspended sentence.

【Evaluation and Analysis】

The main difference between the first and second trials of this case lies in whether Zhang's behavior belongs to "traffic accident escape". The following is an analysis of this issue from two aspects:

Article 133 of the Criminal Law stipulates that anyone who violates traffic management regulations and causes a major accident, resulting in serious injury, death, or significant loss of public or private property, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention; Those who escape after a traffic accident or have other particularly serious circumstances shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years; If a person dies due to escape, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than seven years.

1、 Misunderstanding of Escape in Traffic Accidents in Judicial Practice

In judicial practice, some people often consider the situation of driving away from the scene in traffic accident crimes as a traffic accident escape, which is a distortion of the legislative spirit and judicial interpretation. From the perspective of the standard and derivative relationship between the crime of traffic accident and the crime of traffic accident escape, we can see that there are many similarities in the criminal composition of the two. The subject and object of the two are the same, and there are also some overlap in objective aspects. The difference between the two lies in the subjective aspect. Generally, the subjective aspect of a traffic accident crime is negligence, and some of them are similar to those who escape and drive away from the scene in a traffic accident, that is, they leave without knowing that a traffic accident has occurred. According to Article 3 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Specific Application of Law in the Trial of Criminal Cases of Traffic Accidents, "traffic accident escape" refers to the behavior of the perpetrator who, in one of the circumstances specified in Article 2 (1) and Article 2 (1) to (5) of the interpretation, escapes to evade legal investigation after a traffic accident. It is based on the subjective intention to evade legal investigation. Therefore, when the objective performance of both is consistent, it depends on whether their subjective determination belongs to the characteristics of traffic accident escape. Therefore, the determination of escape must meet the following two requirements: 1. Objectively, the behavior of the perpetrator in violation of traffic management regulations has caused a major traffic accident, rather than a general traffic accident, which constitutes a traffic accident crime; 2. The perpetrator has subjectively realized that their violation of transportation management regulations has caused a traffic accident and has the intention to evade legal action.

2、 How to determine whether the perpetrator subjectively has the intention to evade legal investigation

The subjective determination of the subjective aspect of the traffic accident crime is related to whether the perpetrator has the intention to evade legal investigation. The subjective aspect of crime refers to the subjective psychological state of the perpetrator towards the consequences of endangering society. Generally, when examining the subjective aspect of a crime, we often rely on the defendant's confession. However, some defendants who have committed criminal acts, for various reasons, such as having a lucky mentality, may not be able to truthfully confess or refuse to confess. Therefore, when examining the subjective aspects of the criminal constitution during the process of handling cases, we must comprehensively analyze the defendant's confession in conjunction with other evidence. We cannot assume that there has been a confession, nor can we assume that there is no confession. In this case, Zhang's confession is that although he knew of the accident at the time, he only believed that his car had collided with an obstacle and did not see anyone. So how do we judge whether their confession is true? For this reason, I conducted a comprehensive analysis based on the scene of the crime, the time of the crime, the road conditions, the actions taken after the crime, and the vehicle insurance situation. I believe that Zhang's confession has objective authenticity, and therefore cannot be determined to have intentionally evaded legal action subjectively. In the end, the court adopted my viewpoint and found that Zhang had found insufficient evidence to have collided with the victim at that time, and the suspension of sentence was appropriate.

【Defense process】

At the first instance of this case, Zhang did not entrust a defender to defend him. He waited until he received the judgment before believing that the first instance court had determined that he had made a mistake in escaping after causing a traffic accident and sentenced him to three years and six months in prison, which was too heavy a sentence. He was preparing to hire a lawyer to file a lawsuit for him. According to the feedback from the family afterwards, in order to appeal, it took a full three days to find a lawyer. During these three days, many law firms were consulted and many lawyers were consulted. After roughly understanding the case, these lawyers believed that the possibility of an appeal and a change of judgment in this case was basically zero. At this point, the mood of the family members fell to the bottom, and they were full of confusion about the path of appeal.

Finally, after being introduced, my family found me. After reading the verdict in the first instance, I also found it difficult to change the verdict in the second instance. However, seeing the helpless face of his family, I decided to take a step forward to understand the case, so I went to the detention center for free to meet him. During the meeting, Zhang stated throughout that he did not find any pedestrians or the human tricycles ridden by his victims on the road. He only thought that his car had collided with an obstacle and left the scene directly. He described some of the situation and road conditions at the time of the crime to me and asked me to help him. After returning, I consulted a lot of information and related cases online, and also analyzed this case with my colleagues. I felt that there was still some hope in this case, and if there was hope, there was motivation. This sparked my interest in this case, so I began my defense for Zhang.

During the defense process, I focused on whether the parties involved had subjective intent to evade legal investigation, taking into account the road conditions at the time of the incident, the weather, the driving route and location of the accident vehicle, the impact area of the vehicle, the insurance situation of the accident vehicle, any abnormal behavior after returning home, and whether the human tricycle driven by the victim had reflective devices and whether the clothes they wore had reflective materials, A total of eleven reasons were listed to demonstrate that the parties did not indeed discover that they had collided with the victim and their vehicle at the time, and a pre-trial defense opinion was written based on the evidence in this case, which was submitted to the second instance court and the attending prosecutor for their reference. In order to be responsible to the parties involved, I also drove to the scene of the crime at night to conduct on-site inspections. After the trial, the court of second instance found that the fact that the original verdict was guilty of traffic accident crime was unclear, and sent it back for retrial, bringing dawn to the case. During the retrial process, the judge also conducted a thorough and comprehensive analysis of the case, and ultimately adopted my defense viewpoint. He believed that the evidence for the alleged escape after a traffic accident was insufficient, and sentenced him to a suspended sentence.

When his probation was announced, Zhang and his family cried on the spot. Seeing this situation, I almost shed tears at the time. I don't know why. I haven't been so excited about winning a lawsuit for the party before, perhaps because the case was not easily changed.

【 Reflection 】

1. When handling criminal cases, it is crucial for lawyers to have a detailed and comprehensive understanding of the case and conduct theoretical analysis, in order to reflect the role played by lawyers in the middle. Generally, legal provisions only require the opening of legal provisions to know. So I believe that a lawyer with a sense of responsibility, the ability to think for the client's needs, and the urgency of the client is a good lawyer when proficient in business.

2. The shortage of judicial workers. As far as I know, there are currently a large number of cases and few personnel in the relevant judicial organs at the grassroots level. It is common for a judicial worker to handle seven, eight, or even more cases within a week, which inevitably leads to errors. In such cases, it often makes people numb, and the work is done according to the schedule, making it difficult to ensure the quality of cases. In this situation, it is necessary for lawyers to handle the case seriously and identify key points and doubts to discuss with relevant judicial staff, in order to ensure the maximum possible outcome of the case.