Fudan case
In April 2013, a former Fudan University student Lin Senhao was charged with intentional homicide for the killing of his roommate Huang Yang, which almost surprised the whole country. At present, Lin Senhao has been sentenced to death at Shanghai No 2 Intermediate People's Court.
However, the judgement of the People's Court causes a debate because some people think that Lin Senhao should not be sentenced to death. According to prosecutors, Huang died as a result of drinking water from a dispenser that had been poisoned with N-Nitrosodimethylamine. Lin stole the highly toxic chemical from a lab at Shanghai Zhongshan Hospital, and then threw it into the dispenser. So prosecutors think Lin's behavior is intentional homicide. However, Lin said that he just wanted to make a joke because the next day was the April Fool's Day.
Then, the problem becomes. If Lin did such thing deliberately, he should be sentenced to death; if Lin did it just as a joke, he should not be sentenced to death because his behavior does not belong to intentional homicide.
In my opinion, Lin did such thing deliberately. However, those who insist that Lin should not be sentenced to death think that Lin was not deliberate. They have there reasons. First is Lin's motivation. Lin said that his relationship with Hunag is general, they did not have any direct contradiction which could let him to kill Huang, so Lin didn't cause Huang's death deliberately. Second is Lin's purpose. Lin said that he just wanted to make a joke on Huang, but this result was out of his expect, he was not deliberate.Third is Lin said that he had done some experiment on mouses, but the mouses had not died.
But I don not agree with such ideas. If Lin did not have any direct contradiction with Huang Yang, and he did not want to kill Huang deliberately, why not telling doctors truth. Huang Yang had stayed in hospital for almost 15 days, during this time, Lin must have known that Huang Yang's condition was bad. If Lin could tell the poison which he put to the doctors in time, he might have the chance to save Huang Yang's life. But Lin did nothing, so I think Lin was deliberate.
Besides, the medicine professor in the Fudan university said that although the chemical like N-Nitrosodimethylamine is very dangerous, only enough amount of it can lead to people's death. And the students in the university also proved that it's hard to get enough N-Nitrosodimethylamine. If Lin was not deliberate, there were various kinds of chemials in the lab, why he chose such a dangerous one? If Lin was not deliberate, where can he found such amount of chemical?
In addition, the experiment on the mouses can not prove anything. Man's body is different from mouse, as a undergraduate of medicine major, Lin must know this. So why he still chose to do such thing? So I think Lin was deliberate. What's more, even though Lin just wanted to play a joke, what Lin did has a negative influence of the society. He is a bad sample, and maybe other students will imitate his behaior, which may causes serious social consequences.
In conclusion, I think what Lin Senhao did is deliberate, so he should be sentenced to death.
