Hunan Criminal Case Sparks Controversy: Questionable Personal Advance Commissioning of Forensic Injury Assessment

Hunan Criminal Case Sparks Controversy: Questionable Personal Advance Commissioning of Forensic Injury Assessment

According to China's judicial appraisal rules and evidence legality judicial practices, forensic injury assessments can only be commissioned by case-handling agencies, and parties involved have no right to initiate such assessments in the context of criminal proceedings.

Article 11 of the "Provisions on Judicial Appraisal Procedures" clearly states that judicial appraisal institutions should uniformly accept commissions from case-handling agencies. According to China's judicial appraisal rules and evidence legality judicial practices, forensic injury assessments can only be commissioned by case-handling agencies, and parties involved have no right to initiate such assessments in the context of criminal proceedings.

Article 20, paragraph 2 of the "Provisions on Judicial Appraisal Procedures" states: "Judicial appraisers who have previously participated in the appraisal of the same matter, or have provided consulting opinions as experts, or have been hired as persons with specialized knowledge to participate in the court debate of the same appraisal matter, should recuse themselves."

Forensic injury assessments are a statutory evidence-gathering behavior conducted by investigative agencies to ascertain the facts of a crime, and are core evidence for distinguishing between guilt and innocence. The purpose is to determine whether the standards for criminal liability are met, and such assessments cannot be privately commissioned by parties involved in the case beforehand, nor can they be directly commissioned by the parties involved, even if commissioned, it can only be considered as expert consulting opinions, and cannot be directly used as appraisal evidence obtained by the case-handling agency in accordance with the law.

However, a case of intentional injury currently being tried in Shimen County, Changde, Hunan Province, has raised multiple procedural doubts regarding a key forensic appraisal opinion: the victim, on the day after the incident, personally consulted and underwent an examination at the same appraisal institution, and the public security organ's formal commission was later than the personal consultation; the appraisal opinion exceeded the scope of the public security organ's commission; the appraisal fee was paid by the victim; and the commissioning document was filled out by the victim himself. This appraisal document, which directly relates to the defendant's criminal responsibility, is being questioned in court regarding its procedures and professionalism.

I. Personal examination on the day after the incident, public security commission six days later

The case involves Zhu Haibo, who is suspected of intentional injury. The victim, Xu Mouqian, was injured on January 29,

1. According to the judicial appraisal opinion (Xiang Chang Yi Tian Judicial Appraisal (2025) Lin Jian Zi No. 47), on January 30, 2025, the day after the incident, Xu Mouqian had already undergone a personal consultation and examination at the Changde Yi Tian Judicial Appraisal Institution, which recorded signs of injury such as chest compression and pain.

The Shimen County Public Security Bureau's official appraisal commission on February 5, 2025, was also to the same appraisal institution, and the appraiser was also Huang Xianyao, which was six days after the personal consultation and examination. The appraisal document even described the public security organ's commission as a "re-examination", rather than an original appraisal.

The defense submitted a re-appraisal application, questioning the fact that the victim had bypassed the case-handling agency and undergone an examination beforehand, and that the appraisal institution had already contacted the victim and fixed the injury records before the official commission, which buried potential risks to the impartiality of the appraisal, and the public security organ's commission was merely a post facto endorsement of the personal examination.

More noteworthy is the detail of the commissioning procedure: the appraisal fee of 1,550 yuan was paid by the victim Xu Mouqian; the appraisal commissioning document was filled out by the victim himself, with the victim's personal information as the contact address and phone number.

The statutory expenses for forensic injury assessments should be borne by the case-handling agency. The appraisal fee being paid directly by the party involved in the case, and the commissioning document being filled out by the victim, is a rare occurrence in the practice of forensic injury assessments, raising reasonable suspicions about whether the appraisal institution has a biased interest.

II. Exceeding the scope of commission, adding "three-phase appraisal" without authorization, named as public security commission but actually commissioned by the victim

The Shimen County Public Security Bureau's "Appraisal Commissioning Letter" clearly stated that only the injury (degree of injury) was to be appraised for the purpose of determining whether a crime had been committed, and did not commission an appraisal of the period of disability, nursing period, or nutritional period.

However, the final appraisal opinion added the "three-phase appraisal" without authorization, which is a specialized appraisal project for civil compensation, and must be commissioned by the parties involved. The investigative agency did not commission the "three-phase appraisal", and combined with the fact that Xu Mouqian had undergone a personal consultation and examination beforehand, and that the appraisal fee was paid by Xu Mouqian, and Xu Mouqian specifically handled the appraisal, it is suspected that the appraisal institution added the appraisal project according to Xu Mouqian's personal requirements, which further increased the suspicion that the appraisal opinion was named as a public security commission but actually commissioned by the victim Xu Mouqian.

This appraisal opinion does not conform to the procedural norms and evidence neutrality requirements of injury assessments, and can only be used as an appraisal opinion for civil compensation.

III. Multiple recusal doubts: appraiser's prior involvement in medical examination, even participating in the creation of key medical records

The case materials revealed a more acute recusal controversy: the appraiser Huang Xianyao, before the public security organ's commission, not only accepted the victim's personal consultation and examination but also, as a doctor in the hospital's disability assessment clinic, applied for and generated the key medical imaging examination (MRI) for Xu Mouqian, which is the key basis for the appraisal opinion's determination of a fresh rib fracture.

In simple terms, the appraiser first applied for and generated the key medical imaging materials as a clinic doctor and then, as a judicial appraiser, reviewed the examination report he had applied for and, based on this, drew the conclusion of a second-degree minor injury. The defense believes that this formed a "self-application, self-review, self-conclusion" loop, which is a statutory recusal situation.

In addition, according to the parties' statements, during the appraisal process and before the appraisal document was issued, the victim privately contacted the appraiser by phone to consult on the injury and hospitalization-related issues. The appraisal procedure emphasizes procedural closure, and the appraiser's private communication with one party involved further amplifies public doubts about the impartiality of the appraisal.

At the same time, the defense raised substantial doubts about the professional qualifications of the two appraisers: Huang Xianyao's registered title is a chief physician of clinical medicine, not a forensic medical title sequence; another appraiser, Ding Sixi, was pointed out in a complaint response to have made a conceptual mistake in reading the core indicators of the bone density report

• misinterpreting the "total bone density variation coefficient" used to measure the precision of the detection instrument as a diagnostic indicator of the patient's bone quantity.

The medical report shows that Xu Mouqian's examination results indicated a T-value of -3.2, belonging to severe osteoporosis, with a high risk of fracture. Severe osteoporosis can significantly lower the threshold for rib fracture, and minor external forces can cause fractures. This raises the core professional controversy: is the consequence of the fracture mainly caused by external forces or by the combined action of external injury and severe osteoporosis?

The "Standards for Appraising the Degree of Injury" clearly states the rules for handling the relationship between injury and disease: when the effects of injury and disease are equivalent, the degree of injury should be lowered, and minor injuries should be lowered to slight injuries. Although the original appraisal opinion quoted the examination results of severe osteoporosis, it did not fully conduct an analysis of the relationship between injury and disease and did not distinguish between the respective forces of external forces and the disease, directly determining that external forces were the main cause and evaluating it as a second-degree minor injury. The defense believes that this appraisal did not follow the industry guidelines for determining the causal relationship between injury and disease, and the scientificity of the appraisal conclusion is questionable.

IV. Core inquiry: How to safeguard the bottom line of judicial justice when key criminal evidence is questionable

In cases of intentional injury, the appraisal opinion on the degree of injury is the core evidence that determines the direction of the entire case. Once the second-degree minor injury is established, the defendant will have to bear criminal responsibility; if the appraisal is overturned as a slight injury, the nature of the case will undergo a fundamental change.

For an appraisal opinion to be used as evidence for a criminal verdict, not only must the final conclusion be scientific, but the commissioning process, recusal rules, evidence collection, and appraisal scope must all strictly follow legal procedures. If the procedure has loopholes, the evidentiary basis of the appraisal opinion will be shaken.

The case is currently in the court trial stage, and the defense has formally submitted a "Re-appraisal Application" to the Shimen County People's Court, raising all the above doubts and applying for the court to commission a new, neutral institution to re-conduct the injury appraisal.

The controversy in this case is not only about the fate of the defendant in this individual case but also reflects the underlying logic of the judicial appraisal system: the reason why forensic injury assessments are mandatory for case-handling agencies to commission, and parties involved are prohibited from unilaterally initiating them, is to isolate the interference of interests and safeguard the objective impartiality of forensic appraisals. When the commissioning, payment, prior examination, creation of key medical records, and appraisal conclusions are all intervened by the party involved, can the appraisal conclusion withstand the double test of law and medicine? This awaits further court examination.