Chapter 162 - 105: Classic Case Selection, Newspaper

The second appeal...

Prosecutors and lawyers are different.

Lawyers follow the contract; prosecutors follow the case.

Once the first trial ended, Xu De’s contract was fulfilled. Even if a second appeal was filed, Xu De wouldn’t need to follow it.

Why?

Because he’s a civil litigation lawyer, representing the plaintiff for civil compensation in a criminal case with an attached civil suit. Liu Jingqi would never appeal that part, so naturally, he wouldn’t follow the case to the High Court.

But Huang Shi was different.

Even if a second appeal were truly filed, the prosecutor wouldn’t let go. He would follow the case to the High Court and continue to participate in the second trial.

As for whether they would lose the second appeal...

"You don’t have to worry about that."

"The people at the High Court aren’t so stubborn that they would overturn a reasonable verdict."

Huang Shi said.

He was a prosecutor from the municipal procuratorate, second only to Hu Guang, and had gone to the High Court to participate in second appeals many times. He had a solid understanding of the Qingwu Province High Court.

From his perspective,

the verdict in Liu Jingqi’s case was just a bit ’aggressive’, but it was still within the bounds of reasonable sentencing.

It fell under a ’judge’s discretionary sentencing power’!

The High Court wouldn’t pursue this point harshly; otherwise, it couldn’t be called ’discretionary’.

"You’d be better off worrying about the Supreme Court."

Huang Shi chuckled, teasing him casually.

"Even if the second appeal upholds the death sentence, if the Supreme Court doesn’t approve it, all our previous efforts will be for nothing."

Xu De, however, wasn’t concerned in the slightest. He said casually,

"If it passes both the first and second trials, why wouldn’t the Supreme Court approve it, assuming everything is reasonable?"

The other man was the prosecutor, the first person who would be held responsible.

If the Supreme Court really didn’t approve it, Huang Shi would be the first to face the consequences. If that were a real possibility, he wouldn’t be in the mood to be eating here.

"Alright, since there’s no problem with the High Court, I’ll be going then."

Xu De nodded.

He wasn’t very familiar with the Qingwu Province High Court’s attitude toward sentencing, which was why he had come to ask. Since there were no issues, he had no reason to stay.

However...

"Wait a second."

Huang Shi suddenly spoke up, stopping him.

Xu De paused, a suspicious look on his face. He looked at the other man. "What is it?"

Huang Shi didn’t rush to speak. He just looked Xu De up and down, and after a moment of thought, he raised an eyebrow and said,

"The Provincial High Court’s competition for model cases is coming up. Doesn’t Lawyer Xu have any thoughts on that?"

Model cases?

Xu De paused for a moment, a sharp glint in his eyes. He said,

"Tell me more."

"It’s exactly what it sounds like."

A smile appeared on Huang Shi’s face. He then looked at Xu De with a sigh, shaking his head as he spoke.

"Every year, Qingwu Province selects its model cases in January or February. The cases are all recommended by the lower municipal courts."

"Today is January 4th. If you calculate the time... perhaps the High Court could finish hearing the 18th High School case before the selection."

"Not to mention, you also handled the defense for the Li Family Village case."

"So, Lawyer Xu, you really don’t have any ideas?"

What are model cases?

Exactly what the name implies!

Every year, the Provincial High Court holds a competition for model cases that have occurred within its jurisdiction, selecting and announcing the ones with the greatest impact and fairest trials.

Qingwu Province is a large province with a population of one hundred million.

You have to understand, in Qingwu Province alone, there are two thousand registered law firms and tens of thousands of practicing lawyers!

Factoring in the cases brought to Qingwu Province by people from out of town, the base number of cases produced each year is astronomical.

How many?

With over a dozen major cities, the number of criminal cases handled each year is well over ten thousand. Civil cases number in the hundreds of thousands!

Adding all the cases together, in a single year, there are a total of...

350,000 adjudicated cases!!!

From all these cases, an initial batch is selected, which is then reported to the Provincial High Court.

Finally, after being evaluated by the High Court...

How many slots are there for the annual list of model cases?

Ten!!!

Most likely ten. Not ten criminal cases, but ten cases in total selected from the 350,000 cases across four categories: criminal, civil, administrative, and economic!

In a situation like this...

In this process, which can only be described as a ’Gu’ ritual...

What kind of person, what kind of law firm, could possibly secure a spot with one of their cases?

"Although the verdict came a little late, I feel like it’s still worth a shot."

Huang Shi spoke slowly, not even noticing that the food in his hands had already gone cold.

This is comparable to publishing papers in academic journals.

For a lawyer in the legal world, having a case selected as a Provincial High Court model case is basically equivalent to getting published in a top-tier journal in academia.

Since it’s so prestigious, the difficulty and the rewards are naturally immense.

After all, across four categories of cases, with tens of thousands of local lawyers, thousands of Gold Medal Lawyers, and nearly 350,000 cases, they fight to produce just ten model cases...

It’s a pure ’Gu’ ritual!

But then again, the one that survives to the end of a ’Gu’ ritual is crowned the ’Gu King’.

It’s the same with model cases. As long as you have just one such case under your belt... you can basically stand at the pinnacle of the entire legal profession and look down on your peers!

Afterward, the law firm’s reputation and the lawyer’s own prestige will see a terrifying boost!

"How many model cases does Qingwu Province have?"

"Are there ten?"

Xu De frowned and pressed for an answer.

"There should be."

Huang Shi replied.

The procuratorate has its own quota, but those are for prosecutors. For lawyers, it’s the courts’ list that matters. And last year, the courts’ quota was...

"Eight," Huang Shi said.

"How many of those were criminal cases?" Xu De asked again.

Hearing this, Huang Shi smiled. He gave Xu De a meaningful look and replied,

"Two criminal cases."

For the entire year of 2002, out of all the criminal cases among the 350,000 total cases, the High Court selected only two...

You could no longer call those odds small; they were finer than a strand of hair!