Nie Shubin Case

In August 1994, Kang Juhua was raped and murdered in a cornfield in Shijiazhuang, Hebei. Nie Shubin, a young worker, was arrested and convicted based on a confession and limited evidence. He was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad on April 27, 1995. A decade later, serial offender Wang Shujin confessed to the same crime while in custody for other murders. Wang's detailed and consistent confessions prompted a review. After prolonged appeals by Nie's family and public pressure, the Supreme People's Court retried the case. On December 2, 2016, it overturned the original verdict and declared Nie Shubin innocent, citing coerced confessions, insufficient evidence, and procedural violations.

The Supreme People's Court retried the case in 2016, revoked the 1995 guilty verdict and death sentence, and acquitted Nie Shubin posthumously.

Whether Nie Shubin's confession was extracted through torture; whether the chain of physical evidence was complete and conclusive; the credibility and significance of Wang Shujin's confessions as the actual perpetrator; and the failure to apply the principle of presumption of innocence.

The case became a symbol of judicial injustice in China, intensifying public demand for the abolition of the death penalty and strict adherence to the rule of law. It directly accelerated criminal justice reforms, including the mandatory exclusion of evidence obtained through torture, the reinforcement of "beyond reasonable doubt" standards, and strengthened death penalty review procedures. It also prompted a wave of re-examinations of old wrongful convictions.