'Economic misbehavior'

At the end of October, a session of the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, discussed abolishing the death penalty for nine crimes, five of which relate to "economic misbehavior", including illegal fundraising.

According to Yi Shenghua, a criminal lawyer in Beijing, the reduction in the number of crimes subject to capital punishment has become a trend as China's lawmakers revise the criminal law. He said most of the calls for abolition relate to economic, non-violent crimes.

Under the law as it stands, 55 crimes are subject to the death penalty, a reduction from the 68 on the statute books before a 2011 amendment cut the number by 13.

Yi described Zeng Chengjie's case as the catalyst that accelerated the process of abolishing the death penalty for illegal fundraising, which most legal professionals consider a sensible and humane policy.

"Zeng Chengjie should be the last person to be sentenced to death for illegal fundraising," he said. "In reality, though, very few people are sentenced to death for this crime. Usually, the sentence is only handed down to people whose misdemeanors are particularly serious, such as raising a huge amount of money, or whose actions cause mass disturbances or damage social stability."

In 2012, Wu Ying, 32, an entrepreneur from Wenzhou in Zhejiang province, was sentenced to death after being convicted of illegally raising 770 million yuan between 2005 and 2007, and then failing to pay back the investors.

However, the Supreme People's Court stepped in and overruled the local court. Wu's death sentence was suspended for two years, and was later commuted to a lengthy prison term, which she is still serving.

Court officials said Zeng Chengjie's case was far more serious than Wu's because it led to three episodes of mass disturbance, and also resulted in an investor committing suicide by setting himself on fire.

Yi said depriving someone of their life is too high a price to pay for infringing other people's financial interests: "Capital punishment for economic misbehavior is not equitable to the crime. After all, life is the most precious thing, and the death penalty is irreversible. It isn't possible to reverse an execution in the event that we discover errors in the investigations or trials."