Taipei: The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court's decision to commute the death sentence for a man found guilty of arson that led to the deaths of eight of his family members in June 2022 to life in prison. The ruling is final.
According to Focus Taiwan, the Taiwan High Court had initially commuted the death sentence handed down by the Hsinchu District Court to Chen Yen-hsiang last December. This commutation to life imprisonment came after Chen showed remorse by surrendering to the authorities, as noted in a court statement at the time.
It marked the first commutation since Taiwan's Constitutional Court issued its ruling in the Death Penalty Constitutionality Interpretation Case (Constitutional Court ruling No. 8, 2024), which stated that the death penalty was only partially constitutional and should be reserved for the most extreme cases.
Chen had set fire to his home in Hsinchu in 2022, which resulted in the deaths of eight people, including his mother, wife, and three children.
In its December ruling, the High Court described the act of starting the fire as morally reprehensible and the murders as particularly cruel. Initially, the crime was deemed the most serious, warranting the death penalty, as stated by High Court spokesman Wang Ping-hsia.
However, due to the remorse Chen showed, the possibility of him attempting suicide, and his voluntary confession, it was decided that his sentence should be commuted to life in prison, in accordance with Article 62 of the Criminal Code, Wang added.
Prosecutors had subsequently filed an appeal against the December ruling, arguing that Chen had an intent to kill, but this was rejected by the Supreme Court on Thursday.
The Supreme Court ruled that Chen's crime qualifies as the most serious offense under two United Nations human rights covenants and last year's Constitutional Court Judgment No. 8.
Case files further reveal that when police arrived at the scene, there was no direct evidence linking Chen to the arson. Instead, Chen voluntarily confessed to his actions, leading to his immediate arrest. This behavior fulfilled the surrender requirement under the Criminal Code, resulting in a sentence reduction in accordance with the law.
