In re Hsu Chung-Wei
Facts: Son killed in
fight. Father accepted money settlement to avoid going through
litigation. Pays off coroner to hide wounds on body. Brother reports
that son was killed but then runs away b/c it’s a crime to go against
his father. Cousin later reports too b/c he needed money. So magistrate
checked into it and found out that son really was killed.
One-stop shopping – criminal, commercial, etc issues all being handled in one place.
All the actors are male.
Governor sent decision down – politics mixed w/ judicial system.
There’s a statute designed exactly for this – father privately settling homicide of his son – 80 blows of heavy bamboo!
Brother tried to game
legal rules by accusation against magistrate filing a false report
rather than implicating his father + brother’s friend (Ts’ao) gave him
this legal advice.
Sentencing: (1) middleman trying to profit off stuff had to wear cangue (wooden block with holes for head and arms)…
Top of p.9 – “paramount
goal of educating the people and enlightening them on the purpose of
punishments” – greater good of social order.
Bottom of p.8 - b/c/o father-son r’ship, need to have “compassion” (i.e. li), so this trumps the law (fa). No
punishment for voluntary surrender & when relative does it it’s
considered as though he himself surrendered. Where family junior accuses
senior, junior & punished & senior exempted (even if accusation
is true). So brother did the right thing re: dead brother, but not
towards father (“especially serious”). Therefore sentence swap – brother
gets the 100 blows & 3 yrs penal servitude.
Ts’ao was a “habitual
litigation tricksters who stir up trouble among ignorant country folk
and practice intimidation and fraud” so got military banishment to “most
distant malarial regions.”
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