Has this gotten any media coverage at all?
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After our initial argument they waited for me for two hours while I was having a surfing session. They hided in the bushes waiting for me to leave the water and after I did, they all came running to ambush me and attack me all 4 at the same time. These 2 is the time they did their planning.
The cowards to date have never apologized but they kept changing their lies to the end. I would have given them the hardest sentence because I believe they meet all requirements for it.
I am alive, but I don´t wish anyone else to go for what I went and this is why I believe that a harder sentence will help better achieve this.
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Just at the beginning when nothing was clear.
I think you just answered the question yourself.
Having an argument at a beach. Out of curiosity, what was the actual story behind it, what did make them so furious ?
They waited for you in the bush.
So, do you seriously think they on purpose wanted to kill you ? They wanted to harm you that seriously to even take your death into account ?
You say so, they denied, one of them admitting to mayhem. So ?
I am not defending them at all, but the situation you just described above … bottom line is for me this is officially “only” mayhem with a severe outcome.
Kind of crazy, especially with those tools they used.
And by the way (even that comparison is kind of stupid and useless).
I am pretty sure in Spain or any other civilized european country the verdict for such a crime would be as severe as the given one here in Taiwan.
Cross my mind came this man, who for no reason from behind kicked a woman down the stairs in a german mrt station. He got 35 months jailtime.
A stub wound to the heart (3 cm deep, 1 cm from the heart) makes it attempted murder because I didn´t die. If it goes 1 cm I die and then it would have been murder. Mayhem would have been if they don´t stab me.
Why they wanted to kill me? I cut one of their fishing lines because they threw it on top of the people surfing and this posed a threat to them. Before I cut it I went to talk to them to ask them to move it themselves because it was a threat; someone translated that they were looking for trouble.
Yes one admitted that he wanted to hurt, excusing his partners in crime.
In the US they would have gone to state prison for a very long time. In Europe probably like here. The only difference from Europe to here is that in Europe the police would have done a better job and the media would have been more fair and investigative.
What I lived belongs to a different category that if someone would have pushed me down some stairs.
It seems you still dont get my point …
It was 4 against 1 in a fight where everyone was moving around. There is no way they (one of them) wanted to stab your heart. This rules out “murdering” and even “attempting murdering”. But ok, i get it that you already disagree with this.
Of course it was no mayhem either. Even if one of those cowards admitted to that.
For me it is clearly an attempting homicide crime. The simple problem is the lack of prove WHO has committed the crime, as everyone is denying …
As far as I know there is NO general combined punishment. The court can not punish everybody for the heart-stabbing what apparently just one of the offenders did cause to you. This is the law, whether you like it or not !
It also seems the other stabbing wounds were not life-threatening as you always refer to that one specific one close to your heart.
Therefor the homicide is unfortunately off the table too. But the prosecution got them all for mayhem as there was no way to deny this as well and thanx to the witnesses.
I dont know what the actual punishment-range for mayhem is in Taiwan, but 3+ years seems to be in the upper level.
I am very sure, if you were into “this” with just 1 person, he/she would have gotten a much higher sentence.
It (sadly) was the group activity who basically saved them from a higher sentencing.
If that guy who spoke out would be silent I am sure he would have gotten those 3+ years as well. I still dont understand why he got some extra-time, i can only assume he has an unknown CCR as well. Otherwise it makes no sense to me.
Of course I understand your anger and dissapointment in all of this. Well, it is YOUR right as well to appeal, so make a gofunding campaign, get a lawyer and fight for your right on the next court-level.
By the way, as an offender it is quite normal not to apologize and to use every tactic possible to “play down” the situation.
I still do think it is a good verdict.
Keep the emotions out and hopefully you will agree.
Whatever the court papers are saying :
It sounds like a conviction for grivous bodily harm. And the original prosecution charge was attempting murder, which should have been attempting homicide.
I don´t if you realize that they got convicted for attempted murder, that is what it says on the court´s website and what they told my wife on the phone, but you keep talking about mayhem… I think that the one missing the point is you. And they all got convicted, so yes the Court convicted them in group which it can as it did. I dont know why you say if I like it or not, I really liked this!
They threw over 50 strikes and besides the heart wound I had a broken rib, and numerous stitches and contusions all over my body. They went for the head with 80% of their strikes, but because I was alert and their weapons were around 2 kilograms each I was able to block 95% of them. The stubbing went for the chest and even if it is on another part of the chest it could have been lethal. Now, when we were done I was pleased that I protected my head so well, because if not chances of me having brain damage for the rest of my life (or death) were very high.
Attempted murder was their crime and conviction, I am pleased with this. As for the time they got for this I will need to see the paper that they will send to me.
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This is objectively false. We can split hairs about whether the best translation for 殺人 is murder or homicide (the latter makes sense when it’s used as an umbrella term), but it’s definitely not mayhem. The official (non-binding) translation on the MOJ’s website says homicide, and murder does not occur anywhere in it. Neither does mayhem.
(My earlier summary of the homicide chapter of the CC, Art. 271 to 276, is not meant to be a full, technically accurate translation. For example, I called 當場…殺人 second degree murder because that’s a term English speakers are likely to understand, and it seems close enough in meaning, whereas the official translation kills others on the scene is confusing. I would welcome comments by anyone with specialized knowledge of these matters.)
I am not defending them at all
Could have fooled me. 
The court can not punish everybody for the heart-stabbing what apparently just one of the offenders did cause to you. This is the law, whether you like it or not !
See Art. 28, whether you like it or not.
That’s the point! Knowing that dangerous criminals are not roaming freely is a good reason to live somewhere. It’s not rocket science. 
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The law uses the term 殺人 (kill + person), which Google Translate seems to translate as murder. But in my 1991 Major Laws of the Republic of China on Taiwan, Chapter XXII of the Criminal Code, which deals with these kinds of offenses, is called “Offences of Homicide,” and I note that @yyy refers to that chapter as “the ‘homicide’ chapter.”
Here’s an English translation of Article 271 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of China:
https://mojlaw.moj.gov.tw/LawContentE.aspx?LSID=FL001424
Here’s the same article in Chinese:
https://mojlaw.moj.gov.tw/LawContentExtent.aspx?lsid=FL001424&LawNo=271
A translation of Article 28 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of China reads:
Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute site has a legal dictionary called Wex. In defining murder, Wex mentions “the Pennsylvania Method,” which it calls “a catch-all term for systems of classifying murder by degree.” According to Wex, this method classified certain specific acts as first-degree murder:
Originally, the acts listed above carried the death penalty, according to Wex, and “[a]ll other types of murder were second-degree murder, which did not carry the death penalty.”
By the above definition of murder, premeditation seems to be a requirement for first-degree murder, but not for second-degree murder.
Here’s the 1962 American Law Institute Model Penal Code’s definition of murder:
In the above definition, I note the word or between “purposely or knowingly” and “recklessly.”
According to the judgment summary provided by @yyy, all three defendants were convicted of “殺人未遂罪.”
Word-by-word:
殺 = kill
人 = person
未 = not
遂 = fulfill
罪 = crime
That looks like attempted homicide to me. I noticed, though, that when I plug 殺人未遂罪 into Google Translate, I get Murder attempt.
I don’t know whether England and Wales have abolished common-law mayhem, but somebody over there seems to want to abolish it, according to a document called Reform of Offenses Against the Person:
I don’t think the above is the law yet, but I’m not sure.
As to the crime of mayhem in the U. S., I found a few examples (boldface added by me):
Wisconsin:
https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/940/II/21
https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIV/TitleI/Chapter265/Section14
California:
Whatever “殺人未遂罪” may mean, I don’t think it means maiming someone.
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I would think that a group of people that would lie in wait in a bush to attack someone would likely have killing them in mind.
It would be different if they confronted each other immediately on the beach and punches were thrown and someone got hurt.
And telling him to be thankful they got such a small punishment and to go out and enjoy Taiwan… well maybe one day they will want revenge on any foreigner and they will be out there waiting for you someday, will you feel that they deserved to be walking around free after such a violent attack?
Animals like that should be permanently locked away and they should all be liable for the same crime no matter who did it IMO.
The only thing I wouldn’t have done is cut some persons line because I know how violent some of those Taike people can get. And you never know which one is gonna call up his buddies and start a brawl. But still no excuse for those guys.
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I tried to google the book but couldn’t find it, where can I buy it(preferably updated version)
殺人未遂 means “attempted murder”. It’s a fixed expression.
殺人未遂罪 means “the crime of attempted murder”.
I don’t think Mandarin makes any meaningful distinction between homicide and murder (happy to be corrected).
Well, going through this thread some people were worried the offenders would walk out from this freely.
Instead they all got prison time and you consider 3+ years as “small” …
It will be interesting to see the complete written court papers focusing particulary on its reasons.
Lets hope the OP is willing to share that information with us ~ until then it is pure speculation.
I wish I could help you, but it’s been so long that I don’t remember exactly how I found it. If I had to guess, I’d guess that maybe I walked around “Book Street,” which I think is Chongqing South Road in Taipei. And I would also guess that I had something written down to show somebody in a bookstore, like the title “Major Laws of the Republic of China on Taiwan.”
The Chinese title seems to be 大法全書, and the publisher seems to be 大偉書局印行. It’s a two-volume set.
I guess this is it on worldcat.org:
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They probably have that book in the bigger libraries (National or the main branch of Taipei Municipal), but I suspect it’s mostly the same as the MOJ’s online translation, apart from any amendments.
He already shared the case number with us, so we just need to wait for the full text to be published. Then anyone with an internet connection and fluency in Chinese legalese can read it.
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i don’t really understand the defensiveness here. stabbing objects were used. he was stabbed, almost to death. when are stabbing objects used just to only rough someone up? thats not the point of them.
if they used punches, kicks or baseball bats you might have a case but for what happened? no.
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And one of the stabs came within 1cm of the OP’s heart. For fuck’s sake, the criminals were lucky the OP’s own body provided the 1cm of cushion to prevent a puncture of his heart and (given where they were) his death. Everybody in that melee was lucky.
Whole thing is very disturbing to read about. Pretty easy to get wound up the more I learn.
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Easy for you to say, you didn’t get stabbed to within an inch of your life.
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Unless I’m very much mistaken (always a possibility, since I don’t know Chinese), this appears to be the judgment in the criminal matter (below this criminal judgment, I’ve pasted what appears to be a document pertaining to a suit for damages):
This document appears to have something to do with a suit for damages:
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