In accordance with the death penalty order issued by the Supreme People’s Court, the Kunming Intermediate People’s Court of Yunnan Province executed the death penalty on the offender Xiaoguo Sun on Feb 20th.
Sun was sentenced to three years in prison by the Panlong District People’s Court in Kunming, Yunnan Province in December 1995 for the crime of rape. After the verdict came into effect, Sun’s parents helped him illegally to seek medical treatment by falsifying the medical records, resulting in Sun’s imprisonment after being sentenced.
During his illegal medical treatment, Xiaoguo Sun also committed the crimes of rape, forced insult to women, intentional injury, and provocation in April-November 1997. Kunming Intermediate People’s Court first sentenced Sun to multiple crimes in February 1998 and decided to execute the death penalty and deprive him of political rights for life. After a second trial, the Yunnan Higher People’s Court issued a revised sentence in March 1999, sentenced Sun to death, suspended his execution for two years, and deprived him of political rights for life. After the verdict came into effect, the Higher People’s Court of Yunnan Province issued a retrial decision in September 2007 and sentenced Sun Xiaoguo to 20 years in prison.
Due to the fact that the judges were suspected of accepting bribes and favoritism during the original trial of the case, the legal validity of the judgment and the fact that the applicable law had been found to be wrong, the Yunnan Higher People’s Court made a retrial decision on July 18, 2019. The original trial defendant Sun Xiaoguo’s criminal part was re-tried, and the case was opened for trial on October 14, the same year.
During the retrial of the case, the Intermediate People’s Court of Yuxi City, Yunnan Province decided in the first instance that Sun Xiaoguo was guilty of organizing, leading a criminal underworld organization, the crime of causing provocation, illegal detention, intentional injury, obstruction after being released from prison in April 2010, the crime of giving testimony, bribery, multiple penalties, and decision to carry out 25 years in prison, to deprive political rights of five years, and to confiscate all personal property. After the sentence was pronounced, Sun Xiaoguo refused to accept and appealed.
The Yunnan Higher People’s Court upheld the conviction and sentence of Sun after the second trial. The Yunnan Higher People’s Court publicly pronounced a sentence on December 23, 2019, to maintain the conviction and sentence of Sun in the 1998 First Trial Judgment of the Kunming Intermediate People’s Court, combined with the sentence imposed by Sun’s new crime, and decided to execute the death penalty and deprive political rights, all personal property shall be confiscated and reported to the Supreme People’s Court for approval according to law.
After a review, the Supreme People’s Court issued a ruling on February 12, 2020, approving the Yunnan Higher People’s Court’s decision to execute Sun’s death sentence, deprive him of his political rights for life, and imposed a criminal sentence for the confiscation of all personal property.
The Supreme People’s Court reviewed that Sun Xiaoguo had particularly serious circumstances such as rape many women, rape young girls, hijacking in public places, rape underage women, illegal restrictions on personal liberty, rape publicly, recidivism of rape, etc. Sun Xiaoguo’s criminal methods are extremely cruel, the crimes are extremely bad, the consequences of the crime are extremely serious, the subjective viciousness is extremely deep, and the personal danger is extremely great. He should be severely punished according to law. The facts found in the retrial decision of the Yunnan Provincial Higher People’s Court are clear, the evidence is firm and sufficient, the conviction is accurate, the sentencing is appropriate, the trial procedure is legal, and it is not inappropriate to combine the penalty imposed by the new crime.
Before the execution of the death penalty, the Kunming Intermediate People’s Court arranged for the offender Sun Xiaoguo to meet close relatives in accordance with the law, which fully protected the legal rights of the executed offender.
