Chapter 891: Chapter 347: The Surprise Appearance of the Prison-Bound Beast
Only if they won this trial...
would they not have to bear criminal liability, would they not have to go to jail.
Especially...
for Qi Lianglei, whose son was in the middle of taking the civil service exam.
If he suddenly got sentenced at this particular juncture...
the relationship between father and son would completely collapse!
"Well, damn, who’d have thought these seven actually had a decent tongue on them, they’re talking more than the lawyer."
"What’s the use? They don’t even know the most basic legal concepts. No matter how much they say, it’s useless. They can’t even compare to that one sentence from Qin Mu."
"I remember, anyone who stands in that spot never seems to end well."
"That said, I remember in criminal cases, when the facts being determined are vague and can’t be confirmed, a judgment should be made that favors the defendant..."
"..."
On the spectator benches.
The onlooking rubberneckers, seeing this scene, all showed strange expressions.
They couldn’t help leaning toward each other, whispering.
Old-timers like Zhang Qingyuan and Song Tiancheng often attended hearings, and had long since developed the habit of keeping their mouths shut.
But for this batch of people, who were attending a trial for the first time...
in the end they couldn’t hold back and started discussing among themselves.
For a moment.
The whole courtroom became a bit noisy.
The court bailiffs saw this and immediately walked over to the gallery.
They gave the crowd a stern scolding and reiterated courtroom discipline.
Only then did the situation calm back down.
"Dong—"
Zhou Quanmin took a deep breath and struck the gavel.
After thinking for a moment.
He stared at Qi Lianglei and the others and said, "In this case, there is indeed a dispute over the ownership of the fish."
This was also...
the most crucial point of the case.
But it couldn’t be denied that what Qi Lianglei and the others had just said did make some sense.
In criminal cases.
The biggest taboo is unclear fact-finding; all the logic must be laid out clearly before a conviction can be made.
According to the principles for examining evidence in criminal cases.
The facts of a case must be proved by evidence.
The chain of evidence constitutes the facts; without evidence there are no facts; lacking evidence means no chain of evidence can be formed; evidence that cannot form a chain of evidence is insufficient evidence, and insufficient evidence means the facts are unclear.
Any case with unclear facts cannot be called an ironclad case and cannot lead to a conviction.
Therefore, for the court to accurately establish the facts of a case, it must individually examine and assess the relevance, legality, and objective authenticity of each piece of evidence; only then can a fair judgment be made.
"For the plaintiff, the evidence your side has listed just now is indeed insufficient."
After briefly conferring with the jurors next to him, Zhou Quanmin turned back to Qin Mu: "Please present as complete a set of evidence as possible, so as to form a complete chain of evidence."
Although Qin Mu had put forward quite a lot of evidence earlier.
There were still gaps when it came to establishing the facts.
As for those fish now...
they had all been taken away by Qi Lianglei and the others; it was impossible to prove how many of them had been released in the ritual and how many had ’accidentally gone missing.’
In such a situation.
The criminal law could not logically infer and impose punishment on the seven of them.
Otherwise...
it would be bordering on a "trumped-up charge."
"Well..."
Hearing Zhou Quanmin’s words, Qin Mu’s brows knit slightly.
He hadn’t expected...
that the opposing lawyer would cause him no trouble, while a few stray sentences from Qi Lianglei and the others would instead attract the attention of the collegial panel.
Indeed.
He wasn’t afraid of debating with them over the ownership of the fish; what worried him was the evidentiary side!
Criminal convictions require a complete chain of evidence—ironclad proof!
If there is no ironclad proof...
then the facts are deemed unclearly established, there are doubts; under the principle of in dubio pro reo, the seven will not bear criminal liability.
And that little self-defense speech just now by the seven...
had happened to catch the full attention of the panel.
"Our side requests that the court retrieve the video evidence from the law enforcement recorder used when the officers arrived at the scene."
Qin Mu took a deep breath and said this solemnly.
This piece of evidence...
had recorded the entire process.
Compared with the videos shot by the onlookers at the time, it was more complete.
Moreover.
At the time, all seven of them, including Qi Lianglei, had personally acknowledged the ownership of the fish on the law enforcement recorder.
After hearing Qin Mu’s request.
Zhou Quanmin thought for a moment.
Then he instructed the bailiff to retrieve the relevant footage from the law enforcement recorder.
Ten minutes later.
The footage from the recorder was played in open court.
The voices of Qi Lianglei, Zhang Chunhua and the others...
echoed quietly through the courtroom.
"Who said these fish of ours are native fish from the Jin River? We only netted the ones that were released upstream!"
"With a handheld net like ours, how could we possibly catch wild fish?"
"These fish were all released by them; they’re not from the Jin River."
"Officer, you have to see clearly—we didn’t intentionally engage in illegal fishing of aquatic products."
The seven of them directly admitted the ownership of the fish in front of the officers.
They claimed...
that every fish among them had been released by Li Weiguo.
And as the law enforcement footage played.
Beside the defendant’s dock, Miao Hang’s face turned rather unpleasant.
He couldn’t help staring at Qi Lianglei, gritting his teeth as he asked, "You guys... why didn’t you tell me before that the cops had come by?"
Even though he was a legal aid lawyer working for free.
After taking on the case of Qi Lianglei and the others, he had still prepared diligently.
He had even specifically gone to see them and asked about the course of events.
The result was...
Qi Lianglei and the others hadn’t even told him that the police had shown up.
"Uh... does that really matter?"
Qi Lianglei blinked, looking totally unconcerned.
The cops had come by, sure.
But the problem had already been dealt with, and it had nothing to do with this trial whatsoever.
Besides.
How were they supposed to have the nerve to run around telling people about something like that.
"So you all just kept me in the dark?"
Miao Hang’s mouth twitched; he snapped back, annoyed.
Stuck with "clients" like these, all he felt was bone-deep exhaustion.
It was a case with almost no hope to begin with...
and now he had a bunch of pig teammates dragging him down.
"Dong—"
Right at that moment.
Zhou Quanmin and the members of the collegial panel finished watching the video, looked over at Qi Lianglei, and asked, "The words in the bodycam footage, were those said by you personally?"
Qi Lianglei swallowed.
He hurried to defend himself: "We said them, but that was because Qin Mu called the police saying he was going to have us arrested; to avoid getting caught, we lied that all the fish had been caught by Li Weiguo..."
"Then these fish... what exactly is going on with them?"
Zhou Quanmin frowned and asked again.
This kind of case about "trying" fish...
was a first for him too. The amount of money involved might not be big, but getting to the bottom of the truth was still very tricky.
"These fish... some of them were released fish, and some were fish we scooped up from the Jin River."
Being pressed like this, Qi Lianglei blurted it out in a panic.
Zhang Chunhua and the others quickly chimed in: "Some of those fish were ones we accidentally scooped up from the Jin River, some were fish Li Weiguo set free, and some were ones that ran off when he was changing the water..."
"Your Honor, you’ve got to see this clearly; we wouldn’t lie over just a few fish, right?"
"Aren’t released fish supposed to belong to whoever picks them up?"
"Most of what we caught were released fish, plus wild fish from the Jin River..."
The seven of them stared at Zhou Quanmin with pleading eyes.
Faces full of innocent looks.
Zhou Quanmin: "..."
After hearing the seven of them out, he just felt his headache getting worse.
First of all.
This case involved multiple fish, not a single item.
They needed to determine the ownership of these fish, as well as their value, before they could render a verdict and sentence.
But once Qi Lianglei and Qin Mu started confronting each other...
the case had only gotten more and more tangled.
Fortunately...
the bodycam footage included close-ups of the fish in the buckets.
From what he could roughly make out, there were about ninety-four fish in total.
Most of them were crucian carp or carp.
But which ones were the fish Li Weiguo claimed had been "lost," and which ones were deliberately "released," that was a headache all its own.
And on top of that...
if they wanted to close the case, all of this had to be clarified; there couldn’t be any fuzzy areas.
"Huh?"
All of a sudden.
Looking at the footage from the bodycam, Zhou Quanmin noticed that one fish in the bucket looked different from the regular crucian carp and carp.
It looked kind of... cute.
"This one... kind of looks like a Chinese giant salamander, doesn’t it?"
Zhou Quanmin frowned and glanced over at the jurors beside him.
He’d handled quite a few cases involving harm to endangered wild flora and fauna.
Animals like this...
were not unfamiliar to him.
One of the fish in the bucket looked very much like a Chinese giant salamander, a national second-class protected animal.
"It really does look a bit like one."
The other jurors leaned in and couldn’t help nodding.
In the middle of a pile of crucian carp and carp...
the giant salamander stood out.
Once they’d confirmed it.
Zhou Quanmin frowned, banged the gavel, and said, "In the evidence presented today, a new criminal clue has been discovered—there appears to be a Chinese giant salamander—meaning a new criminal fact has emerged. Today’s hearing is hereby concluded."
"Once the public security and procuratorate authorities have ascertained the facts of the case, we will reconvene for trial."
Having said that.
He led the members of the collegial panel, along with the relevant evidence from the bodycam, and left the courtroom.
At the same time.
The court police...
after receiving instructions, walked straight toward Qi Lianglei and the other six.
The seven of them didn’t react in time at all.
Before they knew it, they were being escorted out by the court police.
"Wait, why are you arresting us? What giant salamander? What’s that got to do with us? On what grounds are you arresting us?"
Qi Lianglei kept yelling, trying to break free from the bailiffs’ restraint.
But it was no use.
The court police didn’t bother explaining much to him and directly took him out of the courtroom.
Leaving behind...
the audience in the gallery staring at each other.
"What’s going on? How did a giant salamander get involved? Did the Judgment Chief just say there was a giant salamander among the fish they caught?"
"Tsk!! Damn, talk about a plot twist—turns out there was a ’rot-in-jail beast’ mixed in that bucket?"
"Their luck is insane—they actually scooped up a giant salamander?"
"That’s a national second-class protected aquatic animal, with a huge economic value; how much does one of those go for?"
"..."
The onlooking rubberneckers had all at least heard of the giant salamander by name.
They all looked stunned.
This sudden twist in the courtroom...
was really too abrupt.
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