In a cybercrime case, four defendants stood in the dock, with the defendant receiving the harshest sentence—two years and ten months in prison—just one step shy of the statutory maximum of three years for this offense. When sentencing approaches its peak and the room for defense seems to have been squeezed to its limit, the real battle has only just begun.

Recently, a court in Region A issued a retrial verdict in the case involving Shen Zhou (a pseudonym) and others suspected of cybercrimes: they were exempted from criminal punishment. Attorneys Xu Wei and He Shunqi of Beijing King&Capital Law Firm served as Shen Zhou’s defense counsel. After six years and three trials, they gradually steered this case—which had nearly reached the maximum sentencing threshold—back to where it rightfully belonged.

Unraveling the Case: Facing the Complex Maze of Six Years and Three Trials

The defendant, Shen Zhou, had worked in the cybersecurity field for thirteen years and had been honored as an “Advanced Individual in Maintaining National Security.” After leaving his previous job, he founded an internet technology company that provided server hosting and internet access services to thousands of clients.

In August 2020, Shen Zhou was taken into custody and subsequently arrested on suspicion that a client’s website was involved in criminal activities. In 2024, the court in Region A handed down its first-instance verdict, sentencing all four defendants in the case; among them, Shen Zhou received the harshest sentence—two years and ten months in prison. The company he founded was forced to dissolve, and more than fifty employees lost their jobs.

The scale of the investigation into this case far exceeded that of ordinary criminal cases. The level of resources mobilized during the investigation and review phases, as well as the multiple series of expert opinions issued by national-level professional appraisal institutions, all signaled that this would be an uphill battle. Every step of the defense was bound to be exceptionally difficult.

After accepting the case, attorneys Xu Wei and He Shunqi reviewed the entire case file volume by volume and discovered significant doubts regarding both the evidence and procedural aspects of the case. In September 2024, the appellate court accepted the defense’s arguments and, citing unclear facts and insufficient evidence, ruled to overturn the original verdict and remand the case for retrial.

Precision Defense:

A Professional Strategy Combining Procedural and Substantive Approaches to Break the Deadlock

1

Procedural Defense: Fully Exercising Every Procedural Right

The defense counsel successively submitted multiple legal documents, including an “Application to Exclude Illegally Obtained Evidence,” an “Application for the Recusal of the Prosecutor,” an “Application for the Recusal of the Presiding Judge,” and an “Application to Dismiss the Indictment.” Regarding specific indications of coerced confessions, enticement, and threats during the three interrogations, the defense counsel listed each instance individually and demanded a legal review.

The retrial lasted twenty-three months, during which the investigating authorities conducted multiple rounds of forensic examinations and evidence collection; however, the case file contained no record of any decision to extend the trial or any formalities for supplementary investigation. The hard drive—a key piece of evidence introduced during the supplementary forensic examination—lacked any records of seizure, transfer, or sealing, and its origin remained unclear; furthermore, the evidence showed that system logs continued for several months after the system’s last normal shutdown, a contradiction that was never explained. The defense counsel presented these issues one by one to the court during cross-examination and in written submissions.

2

The Debate Over Legal Characterization: Logs Do Not Equate to a Website; Access Does Not Equate to Aiding and Abetting

The core evidentiary gap in this case lies with the application server. For users to log in to the website in question, support from an application server is required; however, there is no evidence in the entire case proving that this application server was located at the defendant’s company. The prosecutor who appeared in the original second-instance trial explicitly pointed out in court that the existing evidence cannot prove that the defendant’s company provided comprehensive services for the operation of the website in question. This gap is precisely one of the direct reasons the case was remanded for retrial.

The series of expert appraisals supplemented during the retrial all identified only log files and static data. Access logs merely indicate that someone has visited a specific path; they do not equate to a fully operational illegal website. The fact that the records in question account for less than one-thousandth of the total logs—numbering in the millions—clearly demonstrates that the vast majority of the server’s traffic originated from legitimate services.

3

The “Knowledge” Defense: Industry Common Knowledge Cannot Be Equated with Criminal Intent

The original judgment presumed the company’s knowledge based on the fact that evidence was subpoenaed from it more than twenty times. The defense counsel pointed out that cooperating with evidence subpoenas is a legal obligation of internet service providers, and the number of subpoenas does not fall under the circumstances for presuming knowledge listed in the judicial interpretation. On the contrary, the evidence on record demonstrates that this was a company that proactively complied with regulations: it assigned dedicated personnel to submit monthly lists of suspicious domain names to the cyber security department in Region B; upon receiving shutdown orders, it first suspended the services and then notified users; it proactively proposed inviting police officers to the company to provide training; and its service fees were fully consistent with industry standards.

Crucially, the cyber police department had explicitly instructed that, in the event of a case, investigations should take priority and servers should not be shut down without authorization. The defense counsel highlighted the logical contradiction in court: the investigating authorities cannot, on the one hand, instruct against shutting down servers, while on the other hand using the failure to do so as grounds for conviction.

4

Argument on the Circumstances: The “Objects” Are Not Websites; the Amount Must Be Accurately Calculated

The phrase “providing assistance to three or more objects” as defined in the judicial interpretation refers to the operating entities. The evidence on record does not rule out the possibility that multiple websites are operated by the same entity; substituting the number of websites for the number of objects is not legally valid.

The reference to “six obscene websites” in the reasoning section of the judgment was linked to the defendant based solely on an oral response—one lacking an expert’s signature or a recorded phone conversation—and this content exceeded the scope of the charges. As for the illicit gains, the defendant’s company billed individually by IP address; the billing basis corresponding to the accused entities could be precisely calculated using the account statements on file, yet the original judgment failed to calculate or determine this amount.

The Dust Has Settled for Now: From a Sentence Nearing the Maximum to Exemption from Criminal Punishment

In September 2026, the retrial court issued a judgment, commuting Shen Zhou’s sentence from two years and ten months’ imprisonment to exemption from criminal punishment.

From a situation where all four defendants were sentenced—with the harshest sentence nearly reaching the maximum—to the complete exemption from all criminal penalties, the scales of justice have swung substantially back. By overturning the original verdict, the retrial court addressed the core concerns raised in the defense’s arguments; this courage and sense of responsibility in correcting the error deserve recognition. The ordeal endured by the defendant—who had been detained for nearly three years—has finally received a positive response at the judicial level.

At the same time, we must clearly recognize that exemption from criminal punishment is premised on a finding of guilt, and thus still falls short of the defense’s goal of securing an acquittal in this case. The court has recognized the errors in the case and made corrections to the best of its ability, but the final step has not yet been taken.

Currently, attorneys Xu Wei and He Shunqi have filed an appeal on behalf of the defendant in accordance with the law and will continue to present their arguments regarding the question of guilt or innocence to the appellate court. The defense team will not rest until the defendant’s complete exoneration is secured.

This reversal of the original verdict represents a milestone in the defense attorneys’ six years of continuous efforts. From the first-instance trial, through the second-instance trial, to the remand for retrial—and from each procedural motion to every round of cross-examination in court—Attorneys Xu Wei and He Shunqi have demonstrated through their solid professional work that even in high-profile, highly complex cases, the voice of expertise can still be heard.

Perseverance can carve through even the hardest stone. The value of criminal defense lies not in bold declarations that settle matters once and for all, but in vigorously arguing the case at every procedural juncture. Correcting errors is worth cherishing, but justice must still be served. King&Capital Lawyers will continue to accompany our clients every step of the way in defending their rights in accordance with the law, guided by professionalism and tenacity.