Caijing Online, 2009-06-16
After a two hour trial in which her defense attorney argued for her innocence based on self-defense, the Dandong County (Hubei Province) People's Court found Deng Yuqiao guilty of “the crime of intentional injury” in the death of Deng Guida (no relation) but exempted her from criminal punishment because of three mitigating circumstances: her actions constituted self-defense—albeit with excessive force, hence her guilt—her cooperation with police qualified as voluntary surrender, and the forensic psychiatric diagnosis of her bipolar mood disorder determined her to have “partial limited criminal responsibility.” It is not clear if Deng's lawyers suggested Deng Guida was attempting to rape her. The court's judgment describes Huang Dezhi—who Deng also stabbed but survived, and whose injuries were not included in the prosecution's indictment of Deng—and Deng Guida's actions toward Deng as “unreasonable badgering, pushing, pulling and shoving, spoken insults, and other unlawful infringements.” In an interview, Deng's two attorneys, whose integrity have been questioned after they replaced the Beijing lawyers Deng's mother mysteriously fired and their background as legal advisers to the Hubei government was revealed, stated they did not know if Deng planned to appeal the conviction. They also declined to offer their opinion of the verdict.
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