Support Ching Shieh

8/5/12 Taipei Times: "Shieh says case against him was to discredit DPP"

After being declared not guilty after a years-long corruption trial, the case against former National Science Council official Shieh Ching-jyh (謝清志) is now considered closed after prosecutors on Friday said they would not appeal the sentence with the Supreme Court.

Click here to go to read the article

NOT GUILTY x 3 = Finally Free!

UPDATE: On August 1, 2012 Dr. Shieh received official notice that the prosecution would not seek a third appeal. The case is officially over.

News Release for the Final Verdict of Ching Jyh Shieh

At 10:30AM, July 11, 2012, the Tainan Branch of the Higher Court of Taiwan released a statement upholding the “not guilty” verdict for Dr. Shieh and Mr. Hon Chang Sheu, officially ending the case against them, which has dragged on for more than six years.

This statement ended the Taiwan Prosecution Bureau’s attack on Dr. Shieh, bringing to a legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court—Taiwan’s highest court. What began with dubious accusations of corruption, a 59-day long extra-judicial detention of Dr. Shieh, was followed by a trial that ended in a verdict of “not-guilty.” The Prosecution Bureau struck back twice with appeals,* the second of which was made to the Supreme Court. These appeals resulted in two additional trials. Both times, the High Court of Taiwan conducted a period of review and cross-examination, only to reject the Prosecutors’ appeals and uphold the original “not-guilty” verdict. In six years, Dr. Shieh’s was forced to defend his innocence three times in court.**

The final rejection of the Prosecution’s appeals by the High Court indicates that the presiding judges were well convinced and made the unanimous decision that the case should be closed and that all defendants were to be considered innocent and free.

Of note is a new law that passed and came into effect at the beginning of this year which blocks the Prosecution Bureau from appealing any case that has already been acquitted twice. This is meant to protect a defendant from continuous, repeated, and possibly, never-ending, prosecution once he or she has been twice declared “not-guilty.” This law was not passed in time to affect Dr. Shieh’s case, but had it been, his case would have been resolved much earlier, without going on to the Supreme Court.

*A number of other countries legally protect people from “double jeopardy,” or a second prosecution for the same offense. For example, this is provided for in the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

**The second appeal was made by the Prosecution Bureau on July 19, 2011, which launched an indeterminate period of review. During the review period, defendants receive notice to appear in court for preparatory hearings, but they are given no indication of how long the review will last and when the actual court date where both sides will be present to present their arguments and for cross-examination; no details of the procedure are disclosed and the members of the Supreme Court review panel are kept strictly secret. In November 2011 and February 2012, Dr. Shieh was summoned to court for preparatory proceedings. Ten months after the second appeal, Dr. Shieh was finally served a summons to appear at the Tainan High Court on May 30, 2012 for a formal presentation of arguments from both sides. This trial had been ordered by the Supreme Court to “clarify some issues that were unclear to the judges of the higher court, as requested by the Prosecution Bureau.” In this last trial, the defense lawyers argued the issues in question and supplemented their presentation with written submittals. 

 

10/12 Taipei Times reports on case and book launch

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/10/12/2003425702

Former defendants accuse politicians and media of bias

By Loa Iok-Sin
STAFF REPORTER
Sunday, Oct 12, 2008, Page 2

The former defendants in a corruption scandal involving a former National Science Council (NSC) deputy minister and the nation’s leading rocket scientist accused the media and politicians yesterday of manipulating the case.

Yesterday marked the launching of a new book by scientist Shieh Ching-jyh’s (謝清志), who wrote about the long judicial process from 2006 to the middle of this year and shared some stories from his personal life.

The 10 defendants, including Shieh, members of an NSC bidding review committee and Sheus Technologies Corp owner Hsu Hung-chang (許鴻章), were indicted in 2006 after legislators and a rival bidder accused them of rigging the bid on a construction tender to reduce vibrations caused by the high speed rail as it passes through the Southern Taiwan Science Park.

High-tech companies operating in the park, such as chip manufacturers, are extremely sensitive to vibrations above 48 decibels.

Prosecutors recommended a 15-year sentence and a fine of NT$30 million (US$925,400) for Shieh when the indictment was submitted on Dec. 25, 2006. Nine of the defendants — with the exception of Hsu — were acquitted by the Tainan District Court at the end of July.

“Politicians manipulated the issue for their own gains, while the media followed by exaggerating the case,” Lin Tsung-yi (林聰意), one of the defendants and an NSC review committee member told the audience at the book launching.

“What’s worse is prosecutors handled the case based mostly on media reports, not on their own investigations,” he said.

Shieh, who expressed his gratitude to friends and family for their warm support during the trial, echoed Lin’s view in his book.

“I brought a lot of documents with me and prepared a PowerPoint presentation just like I did when I taught at universities to try to explain to legislators why the methodology Sheus employed was better than those offered by its rivals and which is why we picked Sheus,” Shieh wrote in the book. “But [the legislators] just wouldn’t listen to me.”

10/08 Dr. Shieh's book is published

Dr. Shieh has been working very hard on his memoirs over the last couple of years.  These writings began while he was in detention--in part a way to stay psychologically strong in the face of such injustice and a way to speak directly to his wife and children, from whom he was forcefully isolated.  In detention, writing allowed Dr. Shieh to painstakingly itemize his experience, carefully reconstructing the events that led to this disaster, such that he would be able to make completely clear to himself and slowly convince himself that he did not succumb to an inadvertent lack of judgment. 

 

This process has continued beyond the jail cell and the the story has been expanded to Dr. Shieh's broader life--his journey Taiwan to the United States and back to Taiwan, following the desire to return and, as Taiwanese Nobel Laureate Y.T. Lee has said of this particular group of Taiwanese, work to make our own home a better place to live [造好我們的家園]. 

Pacific Times: Shieh Family Reaction to Verdict

On August 4, Pacific Times (L.A.-based Mandarin Language Newspaper) contacted the Shieh Family for their response to the verdict.  The following was released by Dr. Shieh's son, Dr. Perry Shieh.  It is originally in English, but was translated into Mandarin for publication, which we will post as soon as we can get a copy of it.

Although we welcome the acquittal, we feel that this has been long overdue. It is unbelievable that this straightforward case would have taken two and a half years to go from investigation to verdict.  Many other cases have taken only a few months.  Although the public now recognizes that the judicial system finds no convincing evidence to suggest any crime has taken place, anyone who looks at the "evidence" and the details of the case will see that the case was based solely on conjecture and shaky evidence, and the indictment was absurd from the very beginning.

The case has taken a tremendous emotional and financial toll on our family the past two years as we have struggled to achieve some semblance of normal life in the extraordinary legal storm they have thrown upon us.  It is clear now in retrospect that the investigating  prosecutors overreacted when they detained him, and although they found no evidence to support their case, they were in too deep to back out of the case; thus they indicted him based on far-fetched conspiracy theories.  In the U.S., this case would never have gone to indictment; unfortunately, in Taiwan, the prosecutors have too much power, obviously a vestige of the old dictatorship regime of Chiang Kai-Shek.

Even as the court has made their final verdict on this case, the investigating prosecutor, Kao feng-chi, has sworn that the prosecution will appeal.  We will see if the court prosecutor, Chien Kuang Chang, honors Mr. Kao's threat.  It is also unclear on what grounds Mr. Kao believes the prosecution should appeal;  I would like to point out that in the Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, India, Japan, and the U.S. (5th amendment of the U.S. Constitution), the law of double jeopardy would prevent the prosecution from appealing.  Regardless, we are thus saddened to see a prosecutor in Taiwan allow his political biases and his pride to interfere with his ability enforce the law in an objective and neutral fashion.

7/30/2008 verdict: NOT GUILTY

JULY 30, 2008

verdict announced: NOT GUILTY

The Tainan Disctrict Court announced today that it finds all the defendants in the "Tainan Science Park Vibration Mitigation" case not guilty. 

According to Central News Agency (CNA) in Taiwan, the presiding judge supported his verdict on two main points.  The first was that Dr. Shieh, former Deputy Minister of the National Science Council, could not be held solely responsible for the project due to the fact that both the Minister and the Prime Minister both officially approved and oversaw project.  The second point was that the physical evidence presented to support the accusations was wrongly represented: one of the main pieces of evidence was a document that the prosecution claimed was confidentially and that Dr. Shieh purposely leaked it to the winning bidder.  In fact, the document in question was from the beginning a publicly circulated, non-confidential document that was available to everyone involved on the project.

A note from Dr. Shieh:

I would like to express my comfort and deep appreciation for all the support and encouragement from all over the world.  I would also like to say that the "Tainan Science Park Vibration Mitigation" project was an example of a pioneering and great achievement in vibration mitigation engineering in the world. Since the project was completed on October 31st of 2006, it has been working effectively to enable the continuation of work at the Tainan Science Park, which contributes several hundred of billions, even trillions of NT to Taiwan's economy.

Of course, the damage and insults that have occurred in the past two years cannot be erased. The results from the first phase have only been to show the innocence of all the defendants in this case. If justice still exists in Taiwan, I appeal to you to applaud to all people who participated in this project.

following from CNA:

【謝清志部落格新聞稿】2008/7/30
清白無罪  謝清志感欣慰

台南地方法院今日（卅日）就「南科高鐵減振工程案」一審宣判所有被告無罪。對此，被告前國科會副主委謝清志表示欣慰，並感謝各界二年來的支持與鼓勵。

謝清志表示，南科高鐵減振工程是世界創舉，也是世界減振工程上的成就，二○○六年十月卅一日完工後，目前正發揮功效，確保了南科數千億上看兆元的年產值。

謝清志認為，過去二年來「傷害」與「委屈」已造成，今日一審宣判結果，只是還所有被告一個清白；如果台灣社會還有「公道」，請不吝給予所有團隊成員應有的「掌聲」。 

 

UPDATE: July 15, 2008

Below is a recent picture of Dr. Shieh at Snow Mountain in Taiwan.  Dr. Shieh and his young friend behind him have a combined age of 101!

TRIAL UPDATE!! (From Dr. Shieh)

It has been a long time since the last update of my criminal case trial in Taiwan.  The lengthy trial procedure is finally over and I think it is a good moment to give another update before the formal announcement of the verdict, which is scheduled for July 30—the end of this month.

The trial consisted of three main parts.  The first part of the trial consisted in 14 sessions of preparatory procedures during which all the material cited as evidence by the prosecutor in the written indictment was reviewed and refuted in court by all accused parties, three on-site judges and approximately 15 attorneys representing 10 defendants.  This part, held monthly, lasted 13 months (from March 2007 through March 2008), with each session lasting approximately 2 to 3 hours.

The second part of the trial was allotted for cross-examination.  There were 5 sessions of cross-examination, held weekly, from April 8, 2008 through May 7, 2008. In the course of these 5 sessions, 15 witnesses were called to the stand to answer questions raised by the judges, the prosecutor and the attorneys. There were about 3 to 4 witnesses summoned for inquiry each time, and the court was in session for an entire day each time--from 10am to 6pm.

UPDATE: January 12, 2008

A reminder: Dr. Shieh's detention began  May 25, 2006,  and he was released 59 days later on July 22.  Charges were filed by the investigator on December 25, 2006.

Christmas Day, 2007 marked 1 year and 7 months since detainment and exactly one year since charges were filed against Dr. Shieh, accusing him of "Favoritism."

Dr. Shieh is still restricted from traveling outside of Taiwan.
Preparatory court proceedings have been ongoing since March, 2006; the formal trial has NOT begun.

On Wednesday, December 26, the whole family attended one of Dr. Shieh's preparatory court hearings in Tainan. One judge, seated at an elevated bench, presided over the court, while to either side, the prosecutor and defending attorneys sit at tables.  Only Dr. Shieh and the HongHua Contractor were required to attend this meeting, so they sat in chairs directly facing the judge, and between the lawyers.  As room is limited, HongHua's three lawyers sat at the designated table, whereas Dr. Shieh's lawyers sat behind the bar, with the family and audience. The proceedings lasted about 2 hours total.  The defendants spoke only at the beginning to identify themselves and to give their addresses.  The defendants spent the rest of the time sitting quietly while the judge and lawyers discussed the case.   

During that court meeting, a following court date was set for Friday, January 11, where all 10 defendants and their respective lawyers will be required to attend. Update on Jan 11 court date coming soon...

Happy Holidays from the Shieh Family

Dear Friends,

Happy new year to everyone!  As Dr. Shieh is still restricted from traveling outside of Taiwan, the whole Shieh family gathered in Taiwan this year to celebrate the holidays together.  Connie flew in from Fountain Valley, Perry from Los Angeles and Rosalyne from New York.  Dr. Shieh likes to say that since this whole thing has occurred, the globe has turned back upon itself and begun to rotate the other way: where he used to have to fly to the U.S. several times a year to see and spend time with his family, now everyone must come to him!

Thank you for your continued support and the Shieh Family wishes you the very best for the new year!

www.SupportChing.com

UPDATE: July 30, 2007

July 30, 2007: UPDATE

Court Sessions (to date)

                          participants

March 14              All parties
June 6, June 12    Evaluation Committee Members
May 30, June 27   Dr. Shieh
May 16, June 27   Hong Hua (Construction Company)

While each participant only attends the dates specifically assigned to him, transcripts of the sessions are made available to all participants after each session.  Information about the sessions of the other defendants have been acquired from these documents.

OVERVIEW

Right now, the court proceedings are still in a state of preparation.  What that means is that the judge presiding over the case opens the court for a series of sessions in which all parties come to a clearer understanding of the case, where the indictment is scrutinized, charges clarified, and evidence and witnesses are carefully vetted.  Preparatory trial proceedings began on March 14, 2007 in Tainan, with all parties present (the prosecution team, presiding judge, and all 10 defendants and their respective lawyers). 

At the end of the court session on March 14, the judge asked the prosecutor to rewrite the indictment.  The original indictment was approximately 14,000 characters, 24 pages.  The judge asked that the prosecutor clarify the charges and suggested that the indictment could be substantially reduced.  Statements in the indictment included such phrases as "masterminded by the Deputy Minister," "project was manufactured and unnecessary," and "intended to create the project in order to benefit the contractor."  The judge called the style of the indictment "unorthodox" and suggested that 2 pages would probably be enough.  The original indictment document counted 70 charges against Dr. Shieh.

On May 30, the prosecutor returned with a rewritten indictment at 8,000 characters, 14 pages.  In the rewritten indictment document the number of charges against Dr. Shieh dropped dramatically to 30.

On May 30, Dr. Shieh's lawyers proposed that each defense team take the indictment paper and list line-by-line all disputes each team would like to raise against the stated point.  These line-by-line disputes would be compiled and then given to the prosecutor such that the prosecutor can prepare their witnesses and evidence to support their claims.

The judge agreed to this method and asked all 10 defendants to prepare their own documents.  The judge then asked the prosecution how long it would take for them to prepare a response to these documents, and the prosecution answered that it would take 2 months. 

On June 27, Dr. Shieh's legal team submitted their 95 disputes to the indictment.  Based on the prosecution's time estimate, it will be at least the end of August before the court opens again.

HongHua submitted their disputes on July 18, and all evaluators have received notice to prepare similar documents relevant to their individual cases.