Insanity pleas to get more scrutiny

Prosecutors have been ordered to be more thorough in cases involving criminal defendants who plead insanity, to prevent people faking mental illness to escape justice.

Convicts diagnosed with mental health issues in China sometimes receive compulsory treatment rather than prison sentences. They serve their time at a mental health institution and can be released when they are cured.

However, legal experts say defendants are prone to faking insanity in the hope of securing what they believe is a lighter punishment.

The Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the nation’s top prosecuting authority, issued the directive on Monday to prevent criminal suspects from abusing the system.

The directive requires prosecutors nationwide to work more closely with police, experts and attorneys to distinguish between genuine and false claims of mental illness. They also are to interview victims and the defendant’s relatives to gain a more rounded picture.

Prosecutors must review court rulings involving compulsory treatment orders and provide advice if a convict’s psychological assessment later proves to have been carried out by an unqualified organization or was in breach of judicial procedures, according to an SPP document.

Zhao Li, a criminal lawyer based in Beijing, said the move “reinforces the role of prosecutors in supervising police investigations and court decisions in cases involving suspects with possible mental illness”.

He said he is handling a homicide case in which a husband is accused of killing his wife over a minor dispute. “At first, the police said it wasn’t necessary to conduct a psychological assessment, but later the local procuratorate asked for one,” he said. “In the end, the assessment showed the suspect was mentally ill. As a result, his sentence could be reduced and his human rights are protected in the process.”

Compulsory treatment orders were written into China’s revised Criminal Procedure Law, which took effect in 2013.

National data on how many orders have been issued is not available, but in December, according to research published by the Jilin Provincial High People’s Court, 141 people had received treatment orders.