Mental illness defense denied for university student who killed mother

Wu Xieyu, a student from a prestigious university who was sentenced to death for killing his mother, was "fully capable" of identifying and controlling his own behavior, therefore there was no need for an evaluation of his mental state when he committed the crime, according to the court that handed down the sentence, news website ThePaper.cn reported on Wednesday.

The Fujian High People's Court on May 31 upheld a death sentence handed down to Wu, 28, formerly a student at Peking University, for intentional homicide, fraud and the illegal purchase of identity cards.

According to the full court verdict that the news website obtained, during a hearing for Wu's appeal on May 19, prosecutors and Wu's lawyers extensively debated his mental state during the crimes.

Wu's lawyers said they felt he couldn't concentrate during their discussions and often indulged in fantasizing, adding that Wu's two aunts have mental or intellectual diseases, so Wu may have inherited mental illnesses from the family.

In addition, the lawyers said they entrusted three groups of experts to identify Wu's mental state during the crimes, and they came to the conclusion that Wu had serious mental issues and severe depression, which led to a hampered capability to control his behavior.

However, the court did not find those arguments admissible. It came to the conclusion that while committing the crimes, Wu was fully capable of controlling his behavior, and there was no fact or evidence that supported the necessity of a judicial identification of his mental state.

According to the verdict, the two aunts that Wu's lawyer said had mental or intellectual issues developed these due to illness and external factors and were not genetic. In fact, there was no family history of mental illness and Wu's relatives, neighbors, classmates and girlfriend all attested his mental state was normal.

The court found that Wu confessed that he believed his mother, Xie Tianqin, had no goal in life after Wu's father had died of an illness. Wu also confessed that he wanted to take his own life because he felt it was imperfect, but that would disappoint his mother if he died before her, so he decided to kill her.

Wu carefully premeditated the killing, arranging tools, means and the cleaning of the crime scene, which indicated that Wu fully understood the nature and consequences of his actions.

After killing his mother, Wu spent a long time eliminating evidence at the scene, and created an illusion among Xie's friends and relatives that she was still alive by mimicking her handwriting, talking on instant message tools on her behalf, which showed that he was consciously protecting himself, the verdict said, adding that he used skills to avoid investigations well enough to break his SIM card and purchase false identity cards.

According to China's Criminal Law, all death sentences handed out by local courts need to be reviewed by the Supreme People's Court, China's top court, before they can be carried out.