Recently, the first-instance verdict was handed down in a bribery case involving a deputy department-level official, with attorneys Zhang Wenwei and He Shunqi of Beijing King&Capital Law Firm serving as defense counsel. The case involved nearly one million yuan; there were no standard mitigating circumstances for official misconduct, such as voluntary surrender or meritorious service, and the defendant had previously been sentenced to detention for the crime of dangerous driving, making the defense particularly challenging. Throughout the proceedings, the attorneys employed a series of defense strategies, including providing professional guidance to plan restitution in phases, reviewing case files during the prosecution review stage to uncover key elements of the defendant’s full confession, identifying core defense points such as the suspended or attempted nature of certain offenses, and engaging in vigorous cross-examination during the trial regarding disputed criminal classifications. Ultimately, the court accepted multiple defense arguments regarding mitigating circumstances, and the defendant was sentenced to only three years and three months in prison.
I. Case Summary
This case arose when a bribe-giver was investigated and detained for other illegal or criminal activities. While in custody, the bribe-giver voluntarily confessed to and disclosed the fact that he had bribed the client in this case, prompting the supervisory authorities to launch an investigation. After the client was taken into custody, in addition to the facts corresponding to the bribery lead already in the possession of the supervisory authorities, the client voluntarily confessed to multiple other similar acts of bribery—the vast majority of which were not yet known to the supervisory authorities—with the total amount of bribes received amounting to nearly one million RMB.
II. Defense Process
As the supervisory investigation neared its conclusion, the client’s family members received multiple notifications from the supervisory authorities requesting their cooperation with questioning and the full restitution of all ill-gotten gains involved in the case. Faced with an urgent need for professional legal guidance, the family retained Attorney Zhang Wenwei to provide preliminary consultation regarding the restitution plan and the case’s future prospects. Based on the information available to the family, the defense attorney accurately predicted that the supervisory investigation would conclude solely on the charge of bribery, thereby completely alleviating the family’s anxiety regarding the possibility that the client might be charged with the crime of unexplained sources of substantial assets. At the same time, in response to the supervisory authorities’ requirement that the family cooperate in fully returning the ill-gotten gains involved in the case, the defense attorney—drawing on the rules governing the handling of official misconduct cases—developed a phased, installment-based repayment plan focusing on the scope, timing, and amount of the repayment. This rationally planned the repayment schedule to avoid the adverse outcome of blindly paying the full amount, which could have resulted in the loss of both money and reputation. Under the lawyer’s guidance, the family first completed the repayment of a portion of the funds, thereby laying a solid objective foundation for a plea bargain in subsequent sentencing proceedings.
Upon entering the prosecution review stage, the defense attorney immediately began reviewing the case files and swiftly identified key defense arguments: that the client had made a substantial confession; that some offenses constituted suspended or attempted crimes; that the client’s prior conviction for dangerous driving had resulted in a suspended sentence of detention; and that the client did not qualify as a repeat offender. At the same time, the attorney carefully distinguished between proceeds of crime and funds derived from disciplinary violations, further guiding the family to make up the remaining balance to achieve full restitution of the ill-gotten gains involved in the case. Subsequently, the defense counsel submitted written defense arguments to the procuratorate, focusing on the argument that substantial confession should warrant a lighter sentence. At the same time, the defense fully articulated its views on the legal classification of crimes involving property-related benefits—specifically, whether they constituted abandonment or attempted offenses—and clarified that the client’s prior conviction carried a sentence of detention (suspended) and did not constitute a recidivist offense; rather, it could only be considered a discretionary aggravating circumstance. These points served as the core foundation for negotiating a plea agreement and sentencing recommendations with the procuratorate.
Upon entering the trial phase, and particularly during the court proceedings, the defense counsel addressed the situation where the prosecutor merely stated objective facts while avoiding a legal assessment of whether certain acts of bribery constituted criminal abandonment or attempted crime. The defense counsel thoroughly debated this key issue, prompting the presiding judge to require the prosecutor to clarify the criminal nature of those specific facts on the spot, thereby compelling the prosecutor to explicitly acknowledge that some of the crimes constituted attempted crimes. Ultimately, the court comprehensively considered mitigating factors—including substantial confession, partial attempted crimes, admission of guilt and acceptance of punishment, and full restitution—while also taking into account the aggravating factor of a prior criminal record, and rendered the aforementioned judgment.
III. Conclusion
When facing complex official misconduct cases with no statutory mitigating factors and a prior criminal record, a blind approach often yields minimal results despite significant effort. The experience gained from this case demonstrates that—from planning restitution during the supervisory investigation phase, to identifying statutory mitigating factors during the review and prosecution phase, to vigorously contesting the nature of the offense during the trial—only by strictly adhering to the boundaries of legal application and implementing precise defense strategies throughout the entire process can one maximize the chances of securing a lenient sentence. The final ruling in this case once again confirms the pivotal role of professional, systematic, and forward-looking criminal defense in complex cases.
