King&Capital Law Firm's Peng Jiyue and Sun Yanhui team of lawyers represented Wang Mou who was accused of fraud and job misappropriation, the second trial came to an end, and the defendant was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment instead of 18 years in the first trial, which was a significant reduction in the sentence. Although not fully realize the purpose of the defense, but the sentence was reduced by 1/3, the lawyer's work has won the client's high praise.
A, a “hundred thousand urgent” commission, the last hope on the shoulders of King&Capital lawyer
Defendant wang mou is a northeastern city bus group chairman, the nineties of last century, the local bus group mismanagement, serious losses. Already in the business world, Wang Mou in line with the idea of hometown to make a contribution to the acquisition of the shares of the bus group, to take over the operation. After drastic reforms and efforts to operate, the bus group's operations gradually on track, the city's bus face is also a new look, buses gradually become more and more, bigger and newer, in recent years also added a lot of new energy vehicles.
Because of the public nature of public transportation, the state will give subsidies every year. The amount of subsidy is calculated according to the number of days of bus operation, mileage, fuel or electricity consumption. Because of the bus group cost expenditure, tens of millions of dollars of ticket subsidies have not been issued in place, resulting in the company's finances have been relatively tense, and even overall in the red, Wang also posted a lot of their other companies from the proceeds to the bus group.
In this context, the bus group in order to get more subsidies, but also out of industry practice, in the declaration of data in accordance with the principle of the higher not lower up 10% to declare. A few years down, the bus group total more than 30 million yuan of subsidies. Therefore, Wang was charged with fraud.
Wang frankly admitted that he made a mistake, but also said that it was really helpless. Moreover, he was also out of the public interest, more subsidies for the company to buy electric buses, and did not enrich themselves. Wang felt that he and those for personal gain and crime is not the same, if he was labeled a fraud, the heart or a few aggrieved.
When Wang's wife found King&Capital Law Firm, the first trial had already been pronounced and Wang was sentenced to 18 years in prison. The second trial was about to start in a week, and Wang's wife's decision to appoint King&Capital Law Firm's lawyers was to a large extent a “desperate attempt” by herself, after all, there were still different voices within the family.
Peng and Sun lawyers listen to Wang's wife after the case, keen to capture the core of the case: the bus group declared subsidy data, although false, but the subsidy is ultimately used for public transportation, the social purpose of the national subsidy policy has not been defeated. Moreover, in the case of the defendant did not personally profit, the case does not meet the subjective elements of the crime of fraud for the purpose of illegal possession. Therefore, the conclusion of the first instance judgment is still questionable. However, out of the attitude of responsibility for the client, Mr. Peng and Mr. Sun still said that the case is really time-critical, and asked the family to consider it carefully. In the end, after several discussions of the family, they agreed to entrust King&Capital lawyers to do the last fight. Tense and orderly defense work began ......
Second, Peking University, the National People's Congress, China University of Political Science and Law of legal experts for the case to express pertinent opinions
The social purpose of the case did not fail the crime of fraud is established? This issue does have some disagreement in practice. The defense subconsciously associated the case of Zhang Wenzhong of Wumai, Wumai company that year also because of irregularities in the application for subsidies, but the subsidy money was indeed used for the purpose of the policy, but Zhang Wenzhong was still convicted of constituting the crime of fraud. Eventually, in 2018, more than a decade after the guilty verdict, Zhang Wenzhong was finally acquitted instead.
In order to strengthen its persuasive power, the defense urgently contacted several renowned legal scholars from Peking University, Renmin University of China, and China University of Political Science and Law to organize a team of experts to conduct a special argumentation on the controversial issues of the case. After in-depth study, the participating experts unanimously agreed that the state subsidy behavior has the characteristics of unilateral payment, as long as the purpose of subsidies did not fall through, it is not appropriate to identify the crime of fraud, and issued a detailed expert argumentation opinion. This greatly increased the bottom line of this case!
Third, overnight, the city's public transportation system employees are aware of Wang's defense counsel
The case as scheduled, before the hearing of the judge of the defendant on the approach to change the lawyer's practice is puzzled, even the defendant's mother, although support for King&Capital lawyers appear in court, but afterward, said that before the hearing only 30% of the bottom of the heart, after all, the time is too tight.
In the trial, King&Capital lawyers only around the controversial focus of the debate. On the one hand, from the theoretical combination of the elements of fraud, the purpose of the criminal law of fraud; On the other hand, the defense from the file dig out a lot of details, from the policy requirements, the attitude of the government personnel concerned, the province of other bus company practices and other perspectives, revealing a certain degree of existence within the industry of the common phenomenon and the relevant departments of such acts of the handling measures, pointing out that this case can be completely through the It was pointed out that this case could be regulated by administrative means such as confiscation of subsidies and disqualification from declaring subsidies, and that it was inappropriate to solve the problem by criminal means.
The trial lasted from the morning to the afternoon, after sometimes spilling, sometimes rapid and intense debate, not only the families, dozens of public transport company spectators nodded frequently, even the seven or eight co-defendants were also excited, the defense said into their hearts. Happily, the case of the second instance verdict of other defendants have been reduced to varying degrees, some of the defendants sentenced directly to “reimbursement”, and no longer into the prison, of which individuals also entrusted the case of king&Capital's family to convey the gratitude of the lawyers.
After the court, a judge on the bench jokingly said to the defense spoke forcefully, interlocking, logical, express the views can let everyone listen to, let her think of their own an old dean, is also the same style of speech, always let people can concentrate on listening to his speech. After the court, the defendant's mother was very excited to hold the lawyer's hand, said: “really should be early to ask you to come, if you can intervene in the first trial of this case how good, please you spend how much it is worth ......”!
Fourth, the same case different judgment, judicial practice, a hidden pain
Unfortunately, the second trial still believes that the crime of fraud was established, although the sentence was reduced from 18 years to 12 years, the expectation is still discounted. For the defense, in addition to the regret of the individual case, but also deeply feel the same case different sentence to the judicial practice of confusion. The defense submitted to the court of the case of Wumi Zhang Wenzhong, submitted to the other provinces of the innocent cases and not recognized as a crime of local regulations and other opinions, but still did not change the conclusion that this case is guilty. After all, the judicial officers may think that our country is not a case law country and there are no two identical cases in the world. However, the controversial focus of the case and the logic of the analysis are not fundamentally different in many cases. Comparison with others is a universal human psychology, and it is also the most intuitive way of whether the parties can feel the fairness. The same type of case, innocent in the South and guilty in the North, can hardly be said to have achieved justice. Fortunately, in recent years, the Supreme People's Court has also begun to emphasize the unity of the scale of judicial decisions, and initiated the construction of the People's Court case database. With the emergence of more classic cases and the accumulation of more high-quality refereeing resources, we believe that the consistency and fairness of the viewpoints of judicial decisions will be gradually improved.
