Lawyer's character

Looking at Huang Mao disappearing in the elevator, Wu Qinghui suddenly thought of something and said to himself: This guy won't fool me, forget it, it's only a thousand yuan. If you come, I can make some extra money; if you don’t come, I have a clean ear, so I won’t lose anything!

Wu Qinghui's ears were destined not to be clean. The next afternoon he received a call from Huang Mao. The client would come to Fang Yi's law office the next morning.

A pair of mother and son came to see Fang Yi. The mother, Jiang Lan, was in her forties, wearing gold and silver, with a big droopy face, full of sorrow, and faint tears in her eyes; the son, Xu Chen, was about twenty-seven. She is eight years old, her skin is better maintained than that of older girls, she is well-dressed in brand-name clothes, her hair is parted, and she looks a bit slutty. The living conditions of this family should be good.

"Ms. Jiang, have you brought the verdict?" Fang Yi asked after saying a few words.

"Bring it with me." Before Jiang Lan could speak, his son Xu Chen took out a criminal verdict from the leather bag he carried with him.

Fang Yi took the verdict and asked the mother and son opposite him while reading it, basically understanding what happened.

The Xu family is not in this city, but in Xujia Village, below the next city. Xu Chen’s father, Xu Qiguo, the defendant in this case, is the director of the village committee of Xujia Village.

In mid-June of the year before last, a training school in the county was preparing to expand its scale. When it was worried about having no money to develop, it was heard that Xujiacun had received a lot of demolition money due to land acquisition and demolition for road construction in the city. The general manager and legal representative of the training school Tang Jianyao met Xu Qiguo, the village director of Xujia Village, through his friends.

Subsequently, Tang Jianyao proposed to village director Xu Qiguo that he wanted to borrow RMB 2 million from the Xujia Village Committee where Xu Qiguo was located, with an annual interest rate of 10% (simple interest), citing the lack of funds for the development of the training school.

Without discussing with other members of the village committee, Xu Qiguo arranged for the village committee accountant to lend the village's land acquisition compensation totaling 2 million yuan to the training school in two installments, with an agreed annual interest rate of 10% (single payment). profit).

After Tang Jianyao received the loan, he began to expand the rental space of the training school, advertise, increase office supplies, recruit teachers, etc. However, he found that the budget was small and the money on hand was not enough. In the future, the operation of the training school will also require expenses. , so he found Xu Qiguo again.

This time, Tang Jianyao proposed to Xu Qiguo a loan of 6 million yuan from the Xujia Village Committee. The 6 million yuan included the 2 million yuan that had been loaned before.

Xu Qiguo felt that the training school borrowed too much money this time and could not make the decision himself, so he convened a village committee meeting in early September of that year to discuss whether to borrow money from the county training school.

During this meeting, Xu Qiguo did not tell the village committee members attending the meeting that he had previously loaned two million yuan to the training school.

After some discussion, everyone felt that the income of the training school was okay, there were many students, and repayment was not a problem. The interest rate for the village’s demolition compensation money was too low in the bank account, so they unanimously agreed to lend 6 million yuan of the demolition money to training school in the county and signed the meeting resolution.

After the meeting, the Xujia Village Committee and the training school signed a loan contract of 6 million yuan, with an annual interest rate of 8% and a loan period of 12 months.

After the loan contract was signed, the Xujiacun Village Committee paid a total of 5.5 million yuan to the training school in three installments, including the 2 million yuan previously lent to the training school. As of August last year, the training school had returned $2.4 million.

Later, someone reported him and Xu Qiguo was arrested by the public security organs. The outstanding amount at the time of the incident was 3.1 million yuan, and most of the money was later recovered through judicial procedures.

Afterwards, the county procuratorate filed a public prosecution in the county people's court for defendant Xu Qiguo's crime of misappropriation of public funds.

The People's Court held that the criminal facts charged by the public prosecution against defendant Xu Qiguo were clear, the evidence was reliable, and the crime was found guilty. As the director of the village committee, Xu Qiguo, while assisting the government in the management of land acquisition compensation fees, exceeded the scope of his duties and misappropriated 2 million yuan of public funds to others in his own name without collective discussion by the village committee. The amount was huge and the circumstances were serious, and his behavior constituted the crime of misappropriation of public funds.

After the incident, most of the money embezzled by the defendant has been recovered, and he may be given a lighter punishment as appropriate. In accordance with the provisions of Paragraph 2 of Article 384 of the Criminal Law, the verdict was that the defendant Xu Qiguo was guilty of embezzlement of public funds and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

After the first instance verdict was pronounced, Xu Qiguo refused to accept the verdict and lodged an appeal. The reason for the appeal is: He borrowed 2 million yuan from the county training school, and the village committee has ratified it afterwards. The loan was a collective act, and during the borrowing process, he himself did not make a profit. He requested that the sentence be changed to not guilty in accordance with the law.

"Mr. Xu, your father's case has been appealed, right?" Fang Yi looked away from the judgment and looked at Xu Chen opposite.

"I filed an appeal. It was the appeal written by the previous lawyer according to my father's wishes. This is the appeal. Please take a look." Xu Chen took out another appeal from his bag and handed it over. past.

Fang Yi looked at it and found that the appeal was simple and generally acceptable.

"Do you know whether the case is now in the county court or transferred to the intermediate court?" Fang Yi asked.

"It seems that it was transferred to the intermediate hospital yesterday. Yes, it was yesterday.

Lawyer Fang, Lawyer Zhang said before that my father is not a state employee or a quasi-state employee, so he is not the subject of the crime of embezzlement of public funds. The lawyer defended the case in the same way at that time.

However, the court convicted my father of embezzlement of public funds. Is there something wrong with this verdict? "Xu Chen looked at Fang Yi and asked when he saw him putting down the appeal.

"Well, there are indeed problems with the verdict of this case.

Under normal circumstances, the village director is not a state employee, nor a quasi-state employee, and should not be the subject of the crime of misappropriation of public funds.

However, in this case, your father Xu Qiguo's behavior in managing land acquisition compensation funds belongs to the administrative work of village grassroots organization personnel assisting the people's government in the management and distribution of land acquisition compensation fees, and he is a person engaged in official duties.

To put it bluntly, although your father is not a civil servant, he is assisting the people's government in performing its duties, so what he does is what a public servant does, so your father can be the subject of the crime of misappropriation of public funds. "Fang Yi explained.

"Then...according to your opinion, there is no hope of changing the verdict of my father's case." Xu Chen's heart skipped a beat and he asked hurriedly.

Jiang Lan also moved forward nervously, sitting half-assed on the chair, listening to Fang Yi's explanation.

"It cannot be said that although your father can be the subject of the crime of embezzlement of public funds, judging from the current circumstances of the case, your father does not necessarily constitute a crime.

Of course, we need to read the case file and meet with your father to determine all the facts of the case and defense plan. "Fang Yi said.