At dawn, the county commandant in charge of public security rushed to the Wei family investigation site to solve the case. David was stabbed more than ten times, but most of them were minor injuries, not fatal. The only serious injury was that when he was blocking the knife, his finger collided with the blade and one finger was cut off. The county commandant asked Wei Dahe's neighbors and learned that David was ugly and few people wanted to associate with him. He doesn't have any enemies. Scouting the scene, from the footprints in front of the door and the power of the knife, the county commandant judged that the murderer was a young woman, a woman? There is only one woman related to this old bachelor, and that is David's fiancee,/kloc-a girl of 0/3 years old-Ayun!
The county commandant asked his men to summon the suspect Ayun to the county government. The county commandant said to the delicate and touching young girl, tell me what you did last night. If you lie, be careful of being punished. After his parents died, Ayun, who was sold to others by his uncle with several loads of grain as a dowry, was desperate and had to describe his crimes in detail. It took only a few hours to solve an attempted murder case, and the county commandant and others could not help but congratulate each other. Soon, the county magistrate made a judgment in accordance with the written law of the Song Dynasty "Song Punishment System". Ayun's crime of killing her husband is heinous, that is, the so-called heinous crime, which is punishable by death. The next step is to plead guilty and sign a letter of guarantee. However, the law of the Song Dynasty also stipulated that the death penalty could not be executed by local governments, but should be reported step by step and approved by Dali Temple, the highest judicial institution. This rule can be said to be very advanced. In recent years, China's contemporary government has introduced this legal system. Therefore, there is a saying in history that "the Song Dynasty is like today". According to the regulations, this judgment was first presented to Xu Zun, the most senior official in the region, who knew the situation in Dengzhou.
Since ancient times, the people of China have only one word for evaluating outstanding officials: honest officials. The so-called honest official does not just mean honest official.
Cheap also means that an official has clear thinking and strong execution ability, otherwise even if he is clean, he is just a mediocre official. And Xu Zun, this person, should be the honest official that the people say. He is an official sent by Dali Temple, the central judicial organ, to work in the local area. Such people usually go to the local gold plating. Even if they don't make any achievements, they will be promoted when they return to the central area. Xu Zun is not such a mediocre official. He didn't hand over the case to his superiors according to the procedure. Seeing this case, he sympathized with Ayun's unfortunate experience and thought that judicial cadres for many years thought Ayun's crime was not worthy of death. When he reported the case to Dali Temple, he changed the verdict of this case.
Xu Zun believes that Ayun was married to the Wei family by her uncle before her mother's funeral expired. According to the law, engagement during funeral is not only invalid, but also illegal. Not only the client but also the matchmaker will be sentenced to three years' imprisonment. But it also shows that Ayun's identity is not David's daughter-in-law. To David, she is just an ordinary person, so there is no such unforgivable capital crime as killing her husband.
The case was submitted to the trial court and Dali Temple. These two superior judicial institutions legally recognized that "the killer is distorted", saying that Ayun is an ordinary person even if he is not David's daughter-in-law, but such a crime of attempted murder but wounding is the same capital crime, and Ayun should be sentenced to hanging.
Ayun doesn't know what happened in his last life. Xu Zun, an official who has never met before, has made up his mind to give her legal aid, be her lawyer and fight this lawsuit for her to the end. When Xu Zun rummaged through the legal provisions, he found that shortly after the Ayun case, the court issued a supplementary legal provision in the form of an imperial edict, "If the murder has been injured, surrender if required, and the murder will be reduced by two levels." In other words, if an attempted murderer surrenders, the crime of homicide will be reduced to the second level, which is almost a letter tailored for Ayun's case. If this clause is applied to the case, Ayun will be sentenced to decades of imprisonment at most.
Xu Zun continued to appeal to the highest judicial department, the punishments department, but the punishments department also upheld the original judgment. At this time, Xu Zun got a promotion order, and he was promoted to the minister of Dali Temple, so that Xu Zun could change his sentence by taking advantage of his position. Ayun's life seems to have changed for the better. But soon, as the examiner of the discipline inspection department, he impeached Xu Zun in the name of perverting the law by taking advantage of his position and asked him to take the blame and resign. Xu Zun refuses to accept it. He explained the ins and outs of the case to Song Shenzong in court and invited him to publish the case for discussion by Hanlin scholars. The emperor is mortal, and Song Shenzong is a man who was "born in the palace and grew up with women". Such people are often weak in character. Judging from the future development of things, Song Shenzong must be very sympathetic to Ayun's experience at this time. He adopted Xu Zun's suggestion and invited Wang Anshi and Sima Guang, two famous scholars of Hanlin, to discuss the case. A small criminal case escalated quietly.
Wang Anshi and Sima Guang are sworn enemies in political views, and they are also incompatible in the discussion of such a criminal case. Wang Anshi agreed with Xu Zun's judgment, and Sima Guang agreed with the judgment of the punishments. At that time, two people in the court often quarreled for their own views. The emperor really can't stand this endless quarrel and debate. He asked the Imperial Academy and several related departments to form a temporary working group, which was reorganized by Lv Gongzhu and other officials to discuss the verdict. The final result of the discussion is. The emperor finally breathed a sigh of relief and approved another word on this matter, "but." Things seemed to be over, but the next day, several officials, including Qi Hui, who was in charge of the judiciary, signed up again and asked the emperor to take back the order. They wanted to continue arguing with Wang Anshi, so the emperor had to agree. At that time, the name of Ayun, a humble girl, echoed in the resplendent court, and her life and death became the most enthusiastic thing for emperors, ministers and officials.
Do those gentlemen really care about her life and death? No, they are. This is just a confrontation between two forces in North Korea. The focus of the case is mainly on whether Ayun turned himself in. Furthermore, the sentencing after her surrender should be in accordance with the provisions of the law or the imperial edict. If the law is big, then after the law requires surrender, she just doesn't pursue the crimes that cause harm, such as burglary being discovered by the householder and thieves hurting the householder. If the thief turns himself in, he is only exempted from theft, while Ayun hurts people to kill people, and there is no crime for no reason.
Wang Anshi believes that since the emperor has written that criminals who hurt people can reduce their sentences as long as they surrender. The new interpretation of surrender in the imperial edict shows its effectiveness. Wang Anshi regarded imperial power as the most important in the imperial edict. The emperor's orders are written in gold and jade, and imperial power is the power above the law. The emperor can make and repeal any laws and regulations, and has the final right to interpret the laws. Sima Guang and others believe that law is the supreme power of the country. Even if the emperor wants to amend the law, he should consult with the literati class, and he should not amend it at will to undermine the seriousness of the law. This is the so-called "legal dispute". Sima Guang and others seem to have a little modern legal spirit at first glance, but they are not. What he wants to maintain is the power of the old-school literati class. What he advocates is that the law cannot be changed, that is, the system cannot be reformed. He wanted to limit the reform that Wang Anshi wanted to carry out. This is also the so-called "party struggle." At the same time, in the eyes of Sima Guang and others, this case is suspected of murdering her husband. This kind of disobedience, like killing your father and regicide, is intolerable to defenders like them.
The debate is still going on, and the Privy Council and Zhongshu Province are also involved, that is, the highest decision-making level of the government is involved in this debate. During this period, Song Shenzong wanted to reinterpret the definition and sentencing of the suspect's surrender. As soon as imperial academy was handed over to Zhongshu Province, the imperial edict was recalled in the name of breaking the law. Who says China people obey the imperial power, who says China people have no democratic tradition, and who says China people have no legal consciousness since ancient times? People who say such things. I just saw the Qing Dynasty.
The emperor finally lost patience, and democracy needed centralization. Song Shenzong finally supported the opinions of Xu Zun and Wang Anshi, personally wrote a letter to pardon Ayun's capital crime, and changed it to fixed-term imprisonment for labor reform. Soon, Ayun met with Amnesty from all over the world and soon regained her freedom. Later, she remarried and had children. This story seems to be coming to an end. However, after 17 years, Song Zhezong succeeded to the throne and Sima Guang regained power. After he came to power, he brought up the past and continued to pester the matter. He arrested Ayun for murdering her husband and beheaded him soon.