Lawyers have also argued that their role in each of the trial stages is restricted by the lack of disclosure by the procuratorate and the tendency of judges not to accept defence arguments. Although in law, defence lawyers should have access to all the prosecution evidence prior to the trial this does not always happen in practice. Xu Youchen was executed on 15 November 2018, for killing a police officer while he was being forcibly removed from petitioning the authorities the demolition of his home. He said that he had intended to injure the police officer but did not intend to kill him. His lawyers stated that there was insufficient evidence to determine that he had killed intentionally, and there were a number of problems with the evidence collected. As the authorities had cremated the body of the policeman just four days after he had died there was no way to re-examine the exact time and cause of death. Xu stated, during his appeal trial, that he was tortured by police, during his detention in 2014, into a statement “confessing”. There were inconsistencies in his statement. His lawyer requested to exclude this illegally obtained evidence, but the higher court used his statement as evidence to convict him of intentional killing. Defence counsel had also requested to view a copy of the CCTV footage of the scene of the murder and footage from the interrogations, but these were rejected by the court at first trial and at appeal in the higher court. The images from a bodycam worn by the police were also unavailable to the defence. Witnesses Eyewitness accounts are still considered important in capital cases. As is common in civil-law oriented legal systems written witness statements are provided at police stations or to procurators prior to trial. The Criminal Procedure Law states that a witness statement may only be used as the basis for deciding a case once it has been cross-examined in court by both sides and verified. In the 2012 revision of the Criminal Procedure Law new emphasis was placed on the participation of witnesses. Article 187 sets out the conditions for witnesses appearing at court to testify and article 188 states the rules encouraging witnesses to attend the trial. The new amendments also provide greater protections to witnesses appearing in court as well as financial reimbursement. However, according to some empirical studies there has been no significant increase in expert witnesses attending hearings.25 Identity parades as a method of authenticating eyewitness accounts are also not common in China. Lawyers report that witnesses rarely appear in court and, where they do, judges are often unwilling to cross-examine either witnesses or experts. Forensic Evidence The use of forensic evidence in criminal trials in China remains relatively low although there has been a growing awareness of the importance of forensic evidence in the Chinese legal system in recent years.26 In 2005, the NPCSC issued the Decision on Administration of Forensic Identification which 25 Private communication with authors. Qiao, Cong Rui. ‘Emerging Role of Expert Opinions in Chinese Criminal Justice.’ Forensic Res Criminal Int J. 2017;4(6):192193. DOI: 10.15406/frcij.2017.04.00137 26 30