2009-07-25

China's First Death Sentence for Causing Automobile Accident

为什么判死刑 全国首起因交通事故被判极刑案释疑

Xinhua News, 2009-07-24

The Chengdu (Sichuan Province) Intermediate Court found 30-year-old Sun Weiming guilty of “endangering public safety through dangerous means” and sentenced him to death. Sun, who pledged he would appeal the sentence, crashed head-on into oncoming traffic, resulting in four deaths, as he allegedly attempted to pass in a double-yellow-line, no-pass zone while driving extremely intoxicated and over the speed limit (134-138kph in a 60kph zone), all while fleeing the scene of an earlier accident. Sun did not have a driver's license and had been cited for six moving violations—including speeding and failure to stop at a traffic light—in the seven months preceding the accident. The court described the circumstances of Sun's acts as “especially egregious and the results especially serious.” Because Sun “ignored the safety of the lives, health and property of an unqualified majority of people and the results of his reckless endangerment, [the element of] objective intent is extremely obvious.”

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