DPRU Q&As: Essen Lee, Lawyer, Taiwan: Part One

In the latest instalment of the DPRU's Q&A series with death penalty litigators, DPRU Project Manager Daniel Cullen speaks to Essen Lee, a Taiwanese lawyer, about his legal practice, his work on a recent constitutional challenge to the death penalty, his journey to working on capital cases, and the motivations and inspirations behind his work.

As a legal practitioner in Taiwan, how does litigation on death penalty cases fit within your current practice? 

I am a criminal litigation lawyer in Taiwan, where the legal system still includes the death penalty. However, in Taiwan, few lawyers focus on death penalty cases as a core part of their work. Given the limited defence resources, the death penalty defence has naturally become a significant part of my work. I work alongside many like-minded colleagues to prevent unconstitutional death sentences from being imposed. In criminal defence, our primary approaches are to avoid the imposition of the death penalty and to seek constitutional review of laws through procedures to suspend death penalty executions.

I started working on death penalty cases for two reasons. First, I studied criminal law during my undergraduate and graduate studies, and it was natural to have more opportunities to take on cases where the defendant might face the death penalty when I began practicing law. Second, many of my law school classmates work in NGOs, so my legal career has been closely linked with NGOs from the start. I have had the honour to work with abolitionist organizations like the Legal Aid Foundation, Judicial Reform Foundation, Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP), Taiwan Innocence Project and Taiwan Association for Human Rights

Thanks to the tireless efforts of NGOs and many lawyers, significant progress was made in 2023. On 23 April 2024, the Constitutional Court held an oral hearing on the constitutionality of the death penalty. The hearing focused on two main issues: first, whether the death penalty violates the right to life and other fundamental human rights guaranteed by the Constitution; and second, even if the death penalty is deemed constitutional, whether there should be other substantive or procedural limitations. We expect the Constitutional Court to deliver a ruling on the constitutionality of the death penalty by 22 September. This has been one of my core tasks in 2024.

How did you come to be working on capital cases? Was this something you envisaged when beginning your legal training?

When I was a 16-year-old in my first year of high school, my grandmother, who had taken care of me since childhood, was assaulted by robbers, resulting in severe intracranial haemorrhage and brain death. Because the perpetrator was not caught, the case never entered the court process. By chance, I entered the law department to better understand criminal law, and as a result, I read criminology theory books and audited courses. This gave me the opportunity to think deeply and repeatedly about the causes of crime, long-term support and protection for victims, and whether the death penalty should be used as a form of punishment.

I transitioned from supporting the death penalty to supporting its abolition. The original anger from not being able to find the perpetrator—the void I initially thought was a curse—illustrates the interdependence of good and bad. Under the guidance of predecessors' knowledge and experience at the national university, I gradually moved away from anger, hoping to attain new values.

For this reason, when I first began practicing law, handling death penalty cases seemed like a very natural thing.

Perhaps after years of practice, struggling until this year when the Constitutional Court is reviewing whether the death penalty is unconstitutional, I truly have the opportunity to give a new meaning to my grandmother’s passing. What meaning? It is whether the nation and its people, as a whole, have the opportunity to truly recognise from numerous experiences of criminal trauma that what we should pursue is identifying and preventing the causes of crime, providing close, long-term support for victims, and a correctional system genuinely aimed at 'social reintegration'. This would allow the nation and its citizens to abandon the death penalty, move towards civilization and embrace everyone in the country with equality.

Can you tell us about one of the most notable capital cases that you have dealt with in recent years? 

One case that I would highlight is the capital case of Mr. Hung. Mr. Hung was separated from his wife and was solely responsible for taking care of their two children. He was originally a software engineer who embraced a simple rural lifestyle. He was very devoted to his family and children and had no prior criminal record. He was also very active in his community, so much so that after the incident occurred, even the village chief testified in court to his good character.

After a long separation, Mr. Hung and his wife decided to divorce following a court-mediated settlement. During the mediation, his ex-wife was accompanied by Attorney Huang.

As Mr. Hung was leaving the courthouse, he saw his ex-wife and the lawyer walking ahead of him on the left side of his driveway. It appears that, out of frustration and to express his dissatisfaction with the mediation, Mr. Hung turned the steering wheel in their direction. However, according to video footage, his small truck struck both victims head on, and they were later pronounced dead.

Aside from the questions of whether Mr. Hung’s actions were intentional and whether he confessed, the most important issue in this case was the well-being of Mr. Hung’s two children and how the state’s punishment of their father would impact them. The case initially did not proceed smoothly, as it fell within the jurisdiction of the local court, where judges, prosecutors and members of the bar association were all deeply outraged. Mr. Hung himself was also filled with guilt; although he strongly insisted that he did not intentionally commit murder, he initially refused the legal assistance offered by the Legal Aid Foundation and even attempted to dismiss his defence attorney in court.

After affirmation of a death sentence at several levels, the case was eventually remanded by the Supreme Court to the High Court. The new judges at the High Court, referencing General Comment No. 36 on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), commissioned an interdisciplinary team of experts to assess the impact of the death penalty on children and to consider the opinions of the children of the victims regarding the punishment.

The case ultimately concluded with a life sentence. After the final verdict, arrangements were made, in collaboration with a member of Parliament, for Mr. Hung’s children to meet him in prison. Through the glass window, I sensed some unexpected emotional fluctuations. I realized that it had been three years since the children were able to be alone with their father and freely express their emotions.

Their mother died because of their father’s actions, and if the state were to execute their father, creating ‘state-manufactured orphans’ would be unacceptable. Fortunately, a group of judges that values the CRC and the ICCPR stepped in and made the right decision just in time.

What motivates you to continue working on capital cases? 

I consider myself extremely fortunate, despite having made many mistakes, to still have received a lot of care and support. I like to think of it as the blessing of heaven and my grandmother’s protection.

When I first started practicing law, I met many like-minded friends in various NGOs (the ones mentioned earlier) and many lawyer friends. They have been the driving force behind my continued discovery of the fire within me, and I have always been supported, cared for and tolerated by everyone along the way. Although the income from handling these cases is minimal, my family’s support has mostly been expressed through verbal complaints, but they never actively or forcefully prevented me from pursuing this path. My wife has always supported me without any complaints, and for that, I am deeply grateful.

What advice would you give to aspiring lawyers who would like to work on capital cases?

Taking care of yourself should be the first priority; carefully consider what is right and wrong; thoughtfully decide which cases you want to handle; keep your eyes on the goals and values you have set for yourself, and stay focused; there will often be setbacks, but find safe ways to comfort and balance yourself; endurance is the true mark of a hero—only by taking a steady, long-term approach can you go far and walk the path firmly. 

This is the first part of a two-part interview with Essen. The second part is available here, covering the death penalty situation in Taiwan, conditions for death row prisoners, the decline in executions over recent decades, efforts towards abolition and the challenges faced by lawyers working on capital cases.

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Essen Lee is a Taiwanese lawyer with experience of representing defendants in capital cases and bringing a 2024 challenge to the constitutionality of the death penalty. He is a Member of the Executive Committees of Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) and Taiwan Association for Human Rights, and was formerly Vice Chairperson of Amnesty International Taiwan (2014-16). He holds a Master’s in Criminal Law from Soochow University and a Master’s in Law (LLM) from Northwestern University.