A man who killed eight people in 2022, including his own wife and children, has had his death sentence commuted to life in prison. It's the first such reduction since Taiwan's Constitutional Court ruled in September that the death penalty was only partially constitutional and should only be used in the most extreme cases.
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00:00Two years after killing 8 people, including his own wife and children, one man has escaped
00:05a death sentence, which has instead been commuted to a life in prison, a major turn in one of
00:10Taiwan's most high-profile murder cases.
00:15The man set fire to a tire store in Hsinchu back in 2022, killing 8 people, and initially
00:21was sentenced to death for the crime.
00:24His sentence was reduced today, after judges ruled that he's since shown remorse for
00:28his crime, even attempting to take his own life while in custody.
00:32Family members of the victims gathered outside the court today to express their disdain over
00:36the court's decision in an extremely emotional press conference.
00:46The question raised by that relative of the victims, about when is appropriate to use
00:50a death sentence, is a question that's been raised by others in Taiwan recently.
00:55In September this year, Taiwan's then 37 death row inmates brought the topic of capital
01:00punishment before the courts, arguing the right to life was enshrined in the constitution.
01:05The courts ruled that the death penalty was partially constitutional, but that its scope
01:09should be narrowed, and only used in the most serious cases.
01:13Today's ruling appears to be a narrowing of that scope, and while there are voices
01:18on both sides of the debate, surveys show that 80 percent of Taiwan's public is in
01:22support of the death penalty.
01:24But despite its popularity, it seems it may start to be implemented less than before.
01:29Alex Chen, Joseph Wu, Reese Ayers, and Keynes Cuaranta for Taiwan Plus.