To be honest, I bet if he woke up, noticed the damage to the car and immediately went to report it to the police, chances are we would still be having this discussion today.
To them, it would be a guy that is only reporting it to save his own skin.
[quote=“zender”]
Anyway, it’s a fascinating case. We know the KTV driver started that drive, and we know Dean finished the trip, but we don’t know who was driving when it hit the poor man.[/quote]
Only the KTV driver knows the truth and if you are soooo drunk that you miss someone is wrecking your car… 
you might aswell be too drunk to remember you were driving. And how accurate are the cameras timed actually? They can easily be off by 10-20 minutes if not more?
@ deveraux
Yeah precisely, the case against Dean was not well managed by the prosecutors and rather then turning this case into another HsinChu Trio 3 ring circus, where there was a crime but no real evidence, many trials with different verdicts resulting in final acquital. The TW govt as a whole would rather Dean just disappear and not reappear in Taiwan is my simple view.
Seems that, without evidence later becoming available that show otherwise,there is insufficient proof to state that Dean was the one driving when the motorcycle was hit.
In a proper court of law, insufficient evidence to convict means the accused goes free, even if he really did the crime.
Saw a movie purportedly based on a real murder case in France where the detective on the case tried to prove on a timeline the woman murdered her husband, but couldnt. She got off.
And after he retired he still went to visit her to try to elicit a confession (privately) because he just wanted to know.
Apparently she never confessed and there was no real proof.
So sometimes, it is unclear and remains unclear if someone is innocent or guilty.
And yes, if not proven guilty, one must be considered to be innocent.
I dont think the UK govt has an extradition agreement with the ROC govt on Taiwan. And as such, the UK govt is free of any obligation to even consider returning Dean back to the rock.
Me thinks:
- Dean should just resign himself to the fact that this phase of his life (him living in Taiwan ) is over. He needs to get himself established somewhere else and avoid visiting China (whos govt would love to send him to Taiwan ) and territories under Chinese control such as HK and Macau.
Otherwise he will be safe pretty much anywhere else (Singapore is iffy because they have strong ties with Taiwan).
He really should not try to get another passport and go back to Taiwan. He will be caught and this time he likely will be retried with added circumstances (fleeing the country) added on and sentence lengthened. Doubt the courts will feel he is innocent and instead just layer on the time.
- the bike rider is dead, there is no bringing him back.
- hopefully the family will receive some compensation from the TW govt for their bungling.
- it remains unclear if Dean is guilty to many and even if more think he is, if he is not proven guilty without evidence beyond reasonable doubt, then we must consider him innocent. And if he really is guilty and we have to accept he is innocent then yes he got away with it. But thats the way it goes.
Innocent until proven guilty (applies even if actually guilty).
Well, no.
-
Taiwan does not apply the beyond a reasonable doubt standard for conviction. Rather, Taiwan precedents have established a standard referred to as 蓋然的確實, which roughly translates to certain probability (probable certainty?) needed for criminal conviction.
-
If the prosecutor cannot submit evidence sufficient to prove guilt, or to satisfy the 蓋然的確實 standard, the defendant will be acquitted. Acquittal does not equal innocent.
To be honest, I bet if he woke up, noticed the damage to the car and immediately went to report it to the police, chances are we would still be having this discussion today.
To them, it would be a guy that is only reporting it to save his own skin.[/quote]
Maybe. But the law is the law. How can someone complain about how corrupt the legal system is if he actively subverts it before he was even charged? And with that I must say that I do not know or feel I know what actually happened. But any legal process has to do the best it can with the available evidence, within an imperfect criminal justice system. The behavior of the suspect after the actual crime is real, empirical evidence.
Fessing up may not have saved him, but could well (conjecture or course) have avoided the increased sentence on appeal. I think it was noted all along in the proceedings that ZD “showed no remorse”. If he had just said “I don’t remember - I was too drunk” and was able to show that he had acted in good faith after the accident, then that would have counted for something in sentencing. His claim that he didn’t know what actually happened would have been supported. 
Even though I don’t think this kind of reasoning is very wise, how about this:
Trying to destroy evidence by leaving it out on a busy street for everyone to see, and finally agreeing to sell it instead of having it destroyed immediately, certainly don’t appear to be the actions of a guilty man - at least if he’s not stupid beyond words. There you go, proven innocent :discodance: (I’m joking by the way, I have no reliable info that would prove the court’s decision wrong)
The second trial has clear all charges of ZD and his girl friend of trying to destroy the evidence based on the repair shop owner as a witness.
I guess I have figured out parts this morning:
- go to jirs.judicial.gov.tw/FJUD/ didn’t allow me to translate, probably because of some frame or something)
- use google translate or chrome to translate, or use the following info:
- In the drop down menu, you chose the court. If you know what you are looking for, but not which court, simply do one search for each.
The possible choices for the court are:
"司法院-刑事補償 Judicial Yuan - Criminal Compensation
"司法院-訴願決定"> Judicial Yuan - an appeal decision
"司法院職務法庭"> Judicial Yuan duties the court
"最高法院"> Supreme Court
"最高行政法院"> Supreme Administrative Court
"公務員懲戒委員會"> Committee on the Discipline
"臺灣高等法院"> Taiwan High Court
"臺灣高等法院-訴願決定"> Taiwan High Court - appeal decision
"臺北高等行政法院"> Taipei High Administrative Court
"臺中高等行政法院"> Taichung High Administrative Court
"高雄高等行政法院"> Kaohsiung High Administrative Court
"智慧財產法院"> Intellectual Property Court
"臺灣高等法院臺中分院"> Taichung branch of the Taiwan High Court
"臺灣高等法院臺南分院"> Tainan Branch of the Taiwan High Court
"臺灣高等法院高雄分院"> Kaohsiung branch of the Taiwan High Court
"臺灣高等法院花蓮分院"> Taiwan High Court the Hualien branch
"臺灣臺北地方法院"> Taipei District Court, Taiwan
"臺灣士林地方法院"> Taiwan Shihlin District Court
"臺灣新北地方法院"> Taiwan new North District Court
"臺灣宜蘭地方法院"> Ilan District Court
"臺灣基隆地方法院"> Taiwan Keelung District Court
"臺灣桃園地方法院"> Taiwan Taoyuan District Court
"臺灣新竹地方法院"> Hsinchu District Court in Taiwan
"臺灣苗栗地方法院"> Taiwan, Miaoli District Court
"臺灣臺中地方法院"> Taichung District
"臺灣彰化地方法院"> Taiwan's Changhua District Court
"臺灣南投地方法院"> Taiwan's Nantou District Court
"臺灣雲林地方法院"> Taiwan Yunlin District Court
"臺灣嘉義地方法院"> Taiwan Chiayi District Court
"臺灣臺南地方法院"> Taiwan Tainan District Court
"臺灣高雄地方法院"> Taiwan Kaohsiung District Court
"臺灣花蓮地方法院"> Taiwan Hualien District Court
"臺灣臺東地方法院"> Taitung, Taiwan District Court
"臺灣屏東地方法院"> Taiwan Pingtung District Court
"臺灣澎湖地方法院"> the Taiwan Penghu District Court
"福建高等法院金門分院"> Fujian High Court, Kinmen branch
"福建金門地方法院"> Fujian Kinmen District Court
"福建連江地方法院"> Fujian Lianjiang District Court
"臺灣高雄少年及家事法院"> Taiwan Kaohsiung Youth and Family Court
-
The radio buttons below select the kind of case: first is criminal, second is civil, others I didn’t care
-
Below that you can enter details if you already know the year (first field) and number of the case (last field). The middle field, which can be filled by the dropdown menu, selects the category, like Complaint, Marriage, Insurance, etc. If you just look around generally, leave everything here blank.
-
fourth row is I guess the topic of the judgement, I would also leave it open, or put the “public danger” in there if you look for ZD
-
5th row is interesting: Here you put year, month date of start and end of a search. i just put 80 1 1 102 1 1 to see all recent cases. Caution: This seems to be not the date of the judgement, but the date of publishing! Almost made me miss the newest judgement on ZD, when I put 101-1-1 as end date.
-
Last row is the full text search. I used “Khaled” and “Zain” as well as his company’s name in Chinese to find the judgements so far. Since you want to search for other cases with possible videos from the streets (which is smart, in case the police and judge really said/believed all the cams where out of order as claimed by ZD), maybe try the involved street names in Chinese, while also limiting the dates to a reasonable time.
Apart from that I kinda feel understanding the judgement completely would be a big prerequisite to going any further. I hope I can provide the translated version in a few weeks… if anyone has specific questions that should be clarified regarding the judgement, please send me a PM or comment in that thread.
Hint: If you want to post a link to anything you found, I think the “printer friendly view” is the one working best. Simply when viewing the judgement, click the uppermost rightmost link, it will open a new windows with a black and white version. Copying the link of that resulting page seems to work.
Dan:
[quote]I notice a lot of new accounts being open for the purposes of commenting on the case.
No, you are not fooling everyone to think that everyone agrees with you just because there are 10 new usernames supporting each other. Just quit it[/quote]
I’m sure there is a job waiting for you with Taiwan’s finest. They often work on assumptions without gathering enough evidence. You’d feel right at home.
Monkey:
[quote]Being drunk doesn’t free you from your obligations under the law, in any country, as far as I know.
Nor is it a valid defense against any prosecution.[/quote]
You are quite correct. However, being drunk and unconscious would render you incapacitated, and as such, there is very little you could do if you were in an accident. If all the passengers on a night bus are sleeping and the bus knocks a rider off his scooter, killing him, and none of the passengers are aware of the accident, if the bus driver chooses not to stop and gambles on non of the passengers seeing the event, should the passengers be implicated?
Zain was under the care of the KTV driver who was provided to make sure he got home safely due to the very reason that he was drunk and this, again, if what Zain says is true, should have been considered by the court.
Kea:
A bit dim, so be it. The fact is that the court should provide the necessary evidence to secure a conviction. it should in the courts very best interest to find the evidence necessary to find out what happened and securely convict the correct person. I don’t give a monkey’s if Zain Dean is a simpleton, because under the rule of law, simpletons should be protected and defended in a court of law as much as the next person. My point is about what the court. The prosecutors and the police should have done, but didn’t do. It is not about the IQ of Zain Dean.
Your missing the point. The police shouldn’t be trying to hide, erase and destroy evidence in the first place. This is clearly wrong. Again, it should be up to the police to be transparent enough for the public to be able to trust them to actually do their job and do what they are supposed to do, which in this case was to investugate a possible case of hit and run, record the details and submit an impartial report on what they have discovered to the prosecutor, to the best of their ability.
They didn’t do this, which means that they are corrupt.
Well, no.
-
Taiwan does not apply the beyond a reasonable doubt standard for conviction. Rather, Taiwan precedents have established a standard referred to as 蓋然的確實, which roughly translates to certain probability (probable certainty?) needed for criminal conviction.
-
If the prosecutor cannot submit evidence sufficient to prove guilt, or to satisfy the 蓋然的確實 standard, the defendant will be acquitted. Acquittal does not equal innocent.[/quote]
er… ok, I have to admit I am not that familiar with the laws of this island of which I was born to, most of my law knowledge comes from watching American procedural/court TV series.
But it would seem to me 蓋然的確實 is literally another way of saying beyond reasonable doubt. As a matter of fact, when googling 蓋然的確實, full phrases like “求不容有合理懷疑之蓋然確實心證” equates 蓋然確實 with beyond reasonable doubt.
Also, I know Taiwan’s legal system is full of KMT bullshit in practice, but on the surface it at least pretends to be sound, and innocent until proven guilty means acquittal is innocent until proven otherwise.
[quote=“Devereaux”]Kea:
A bit dim, so be it. The fact is that the court should provide the necessary evidence to secure a conviction. it should in the courts very best interest to find the evidence necessary to find out what happened and securely convict the correct person. I don’t give a monkey’s if Zain Dean is a simpleton, because under the rule of law, simpletons should be protected and defended in a court of law as much as the next person. My point is about what the court. The prosecutors and the police should have done, but didn’t do. It is not about the IQ of Zain Dean.
[/quote]
I was referring to your argument, not ZD, as dim. ZD had a 10 day period, approximately, to ensure that the video evidence to show his innocence, if he is in fact innocent, was secured. He made no effort to do that. This is the reality.
…to save space, I won’t quote your second point, just a quick reply. Of course, everything you wrote is simple and ideal and would that it applied in Taiwan. However, if you’ve actually had any experience living in Taiwan you’d know that everything you wrote is also superfluous and a bit pointless to this case. No worries, we’re referring to different things-you to the way things should be, me to the situation as it really was. 
OK Kea, point taken and on this point can certainly agree on where you are coming from.
Well, no.
-
Taiwan does not apply the beyond a reasonable doubt standard for conviction. Rather, Taiwan precedents have established a standard referred to as 蓋然的確實, which roughly translates to certain probability (probable certainty?) needed for criminal conviction.
-
If the prosecutor cannot submit evidence sufficient to prove guilt, or to satisfy the 蓋然的確實 standard, the defendant will be acquitted. Acquittal does not equal innocent.[/quote]
Well yes thats a good point. Number 2. Lack of evidence doesnt mean he is NOT guilty, but perhaps just means he cant be punished for it (yet) .
I guess I have figured out parts this morning:
- go to jirs.judicial.gov.tw/FJUD/ didn’t allow me to translate, probably because of some frame or something)
- use google translate or chrome to translate, or use the following info:
- In the drop down menu, you chose the court. If you know what you are looking for, but not which court, simply do one search for each.
The possible choices for the court are:
"司法院-刑事補償 Judicial Yuan - Criminal Compensation
"司法院-訴願決定"> Judicial Yuan - an appeal decision
"司法院職務法庭"> Judicial Yuan duties the court
"最高法院"> Supreme Court
"最高行政法院"> Supreme Administrative Court
"公務員懲戒委員會"> Committee on the Discipline
"臺灣高等法院"> Taiwan High Court
"臺灣高等法院-訴願決定"> Taiwan High Court - appeal decision
"臺北高等行政法院"> Taipei High Administrative Court
"臺中高等行政法院"> Taichung High Administrative Court
"高雄高等行政法院"> Kaohsiung High Administrative Court
"智慧財產法院"> Intellectual Property Court
"臺灣高等法院臺中分院"> Taichung branch of the Taiwan High Court
"臺灣高等法院臺南分院"> Tainan Branch of the Taiwan High Court
"臺灣高等法院高雄分院"> Kaohsiung branch of the Taiwan High Court
"臺灣高等法院花蓮分院"> Taiwan High Court the Hualian branch
"臺灣臺北地方法院"> Taipei District Court, Taiwan
"臺灣士林地方法院"> Taiwan Shilin District Court
"臺灣新北地方法院"> Taiwan new North District Court
"臺灣宜蘭地方法院"> Yilan District Court
"臺灣基隆地方法院"> Taiwan Keelung (Jilong) District Court
"臺灣桃園地方法院"> Taiwan Taoyuan District Court
"臺灣新竹地方法院"> Hsinchu District Court in Taiwan
"臺灣苗栗地方法院"> Taiwan, Miaoli District Court
"臺灣臺中地方法院"> Taichung District
"臺灣彰化地方法院"> Taiwan's Zhanghua District Court
"臺灣南投地方法院"> Taiwan's Nantou District Court
"臺灣雲林地方法院"> Taiwan Yunlin District Court
"臺灣嘉義地方法院"> Taiwan Jiayi District Court
"臺灣臺南地方法院"> Taiwan Tainan District Court
"臺灣高雄地方法院"> Taiwan Kaohsiung District Court
"臺灣花蓮地方法院"> Taiwan Hualian District Court
"臺灣臺東地方法院"> Taidong, Taiwan District Court
"臺灣屏東地方法院"> Taiwan Pingdong District Court
"臺灣澎湖地方法院"> the Taiwan Penghu District Court
"福建高等法院金門分院"> Fujian High Court, Kinmen (Jinmen) branch
"福建金門地方法院"> Fujian Kinmen (Jinmen) District Court
"福建連江地方法院"> Fujian Lianjiang District Court
"臺灣高雄少年及家事法院"> Taiwan Kaohsiung Youth and Family Court
-
The radio buttons below select the kind of case: first is criminal, second is civil, others I didn’t care
-
Below that you can enter details if you already know the year (first field) and number of the case (last field). The middle field, which can be filled by the dropdown menu, selects the category, like Complaint, Marriage, Insurance, etc. If you just look around generally, leave everything here blank.
-
fourth row is I guess the topic of the judgement, I would also leave it open, or put the “public danger” in there if you look for ZD
-
5th row is interesting: Here you put year, month date of start and end of a search. i just put 80 1 1 102 1 1 to see all recent cases. Caution: This seems to be not the date of the judgement, but the date of publishing! Almost made me miss the newest judgement on ZD, when I put 101-1-1 as end date.
-
Last row is the full text search. I used “Khaled” and “Zain” as well as his company’s name in Chinese to find the judgements so far. Since you want to search for other cases with possible videos from the streets (which is smart, in case the police and judge really said/believed all the cams where out of order as claimed by ZD), maybe try the involved street names in Chinese, while also limiting the dates to a reasonable time.
Apart from that I kinda feel understanding the judgement completely would be a big prerequisite to going any further. I hope I can provide the translated version in a few weeks… if anyone has specific questions that should be clarified regarding the judgement, please send me a PM or comment in that thread.
Hint: If you want to post a link to anything you found, I think the “printer friendly view” is the one working best. Simply when viewing the judgement, click the uppermost rightmost link, it will open a new windows with a black and white version. Copying the link of that resulting page seems to work.[/quote]
Whoa, good job, olm, and thanks for that!
I just noticed that the links you made elsewhere are to the actual locations of the cases on the Judicial Yuan website itself. If I recall correctly, whatever it was I did before, I don’t think I could link to the actual location of the cases on the website. Being able to link that way is great. I don’t know why I couldn’t do that, but as I recall, I couldn’t.
[quote=“Devereaux”]
Priest:
Just because a lawyer does not have an answer to a question does not give a judge the right to convict. What a mad and unjust world it would be if people were convicted on a whim because nobody knew what happened. If there was a possibility that either one or another person was driving a car at the time of an accident, a normal court, at being unable to get to the bottom of who was driving, would absolutely not convict as it is the safest option.[/quote]
But it’s the million dollar question. When the evidence points to the accused being the driver of a car involved in a fatal accident he’d better come up with a pretty good alibi otherwise any normal court will convict him. As far as the police were concerned they had got to the bottom of it. They found the car waiting to be scrapped, traced the owner, found he was drinking heavily the night of the crash, got witnesses that he was driving directly before and after the crash, and got an alibi for the other possible suspect. Case closed.
[quote=“Charlie Jack”]Whoa, good job, olm, and thanks for that!
I just noticed that the links you made elsewhere are to the actual locations of the cases on the Judicial Yuan website itself. If I recall correctly, whatever it was I did before, I don’t think I could link to the actual location of the cases on the website. Being able to link that way is great. I don’t know why I couldn’t do that, but as I recall, I couldn’t.[/quote]
Very welcome. Maybe this comes in handy later for totally unrelated cases, for example if someone wants to check the background of her/his SO haha.
Yep, the search result’s URLs don’t seem to work for linking. I had toclick “printer friendly version” first, the resulting link is usable. Should have called it “linking friendly version”…
[quote=“bigduke6”][quote=“Priest”]Let’s get to the point. This case comes down to one thing: “Who was driving the car when it hit Mr. Huang?” Video evidence from the KTV shows Zain getting into the passenger seat and a valet driving the car away. The same video shows the valet coming back a few minutes later - too soon to crash into Huang and then get back to the KTV in time.
So what’s more likely? (1) The prosecutor’s story that Zain kicked the valet out of the car a few minutes after leaving the KTV, and drove himself home in a drunken state, hitting Huang on the way? Or (2) Zain’s story, which involves a complex conspiracy between the authorities, the KTV staff, and the media, to tamper with video evidence and frame him with the crime?
I was at one of Zain’s court hearings, and I have to admit there were gaping holes in the police case, the KTV staffs’ statements, and Zain’s defense as well. Yet through all that bullshit, the prosecutor asked the key question, which I borrowed above: “Who was driving the car when it hit Mr. Huang?” Zain’s lawyer didn’t have an answer to that question, and that’s why the judge convicted him. I think almost any judge/jury almost anywhere in the world would do the same.[/quote]
This is unfortunately, a lot of crap. Due process is required to be followed. In this case, it certainly looks like it wasn’t. ZD, regardless of whether he was guilty or not, has certain rights. It seems he was denied many of these rights.
Most Judges or courts in the world would probably have thrown this case out due to the inconsistencies on the part of the prosecution. You have admitted the gaping holes yourself. Remember, it is not up to ZD to prove his innocence. It is up to the prosecution to prove his guilt. Again, the gaping inconsistencies, you yourself mentioned, would not proved his guilt beyond reasonable doubt. There were enough technicalities in this case to get it thrown out 100 times over.[/quote]
I agree with 90% of what you say. Due process does need to be followed, and Zain was treated very badly - especially by the media. The prosecutor admitted that much of the evidence collected by the police was unreliable and rejected it. He also rejected or ignored the testimonies from the KTV staff. He only used the KTV video evidence - and the corroborating evidence of Zain trying to scrap the car.
I also agree that if Zain had a better lawyer perhaps he could have got the case thrown out, but it would have been a 1/100 chance. Even Johnnie Cochran would have had trouble answering that key question. Let me put it another way: If Zain wasn’t driving the car, who was?
@ those new accounts: Just out of curiosity… how come you just chime in now? Reading for a long time but not replied yet? Or… is maybe this thread the hot topic on some Taiwan BBS, newsboard, forum etc., where thousands of Taiwanese laugh at how the Laowei fight each other over such a simple and clear case, where the truth is already known from the media? 
That’s interesting - I hope that with the translated trial document this becomes clear. Funny that Taiwan news still seem to refer to him trying to destroy evidence (and at the same time condemning cross cultural romance LOL)… for example in the news linked as reference #7 on ZD’s very own Taiwan Wikipedia page.
That’s great. Also, it sure would be nice if there were scanned copies online of those documents he mentioned, but especially the one that he says mentions video having to do with Xinyi Road Section 5 and Songren Road, stored in a USB thumb drive. It would also be nice if that document, which he describes as a note, had a stamp, chop, letterhead, or something else indicating the source, or at least a source.
If Mr. Dean’s description of that note is accurate, that note might be about a video showing that Mercedes and showing someone getting out of it, etc. Of course, as it now stands, there’s no way of knowing what the video shows, or even if it still exists, and of course, it’s entirely possible we’ll never know. Still, it would be nice to see a scanned copy of that note.
Pardon my nosiness, olm, but are you planning to get someone who translates legal documents? Of course, if you don’t want to answer that, I’ll understand.
As a final note, tonight I did some tinkering with that Judicial Yuan search function, and came away with the sneaking suspicion that for me, finding mention in other cases of cameras or videos having to do with the streets involved in this case, and in a relevant time frame, might end up being a challenge on the order of converting lead to gold or finding the Holy Grail.