Xianiezhuang Village, China (CNN) — On most days, Zhang Huanzhi doesn’t look the part of a fighter for justice. Whenever she catches a break between tending the cornfield and feeding livestock, the 67-year-old farmer from northern China goes to court.

“I bike to the closest bus stop and then take a two-hour ride to the Hebei provincial high court,” Zhang said, as she thrashed sorghum in her courtyard one afternoon, her disabled husband sitting nearby.

“I’ve been doing this for the past six years — and as long as I can still move, I’m not giving up.”

Her only son, Nie Shubin, was executed in 1995 — when he was 20 — for raping and killing a woman. A decade later, another man confessed to the same crimes.

Since then Zhang has made countless journeys to the courthouse in the provincial capital of Shijiazhuang — 320 kilometers (200 miles) southwest of Beijing — with one simple yet futile appeal: retry the case to exonerate her son.

With more details emerging from domestic news coverage, many have viewed Zhang’s plight — and Nie’s case — as an egregious example of the flaws in the Chinese criminal justice system, including the use of torture, deficient due process and lax review of death sentences.

Zhang is now back in the public spotlight, as the government proposes major revisions to its criminal code — the first in 15 years — ostensibly aimed at better protecting its citizens and preventing a recurrence of situations like what happened her son.

Her fight nevertheless continues to hit a wall and even the People’s Daily — the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party — ran a scathing commentary in September that asked: “In a case where someone was clearly wronged, why has it been so difficult to make it right?”

“Rehabilitation means little to the dead, but it means a lot to his surviving family and all other citizens,” it added. “We can no longer afford to let Nie’s case drag on.”

A mother’s dogged pursuit

Zhang now seals her most treasured possessions in a Ziploc bag: two old photos and several legal documents.

“He was about 19 and it was taken right here in our courtyard,” she recalled, pointing to the fading color prints of her shy stuttering son — a square-faced teenager wearing a blue tank top in one picture and shirtless in the other — beaming for the camera.

Nie was taken into custody not long after the photos were taken and would never see his mother again. Zhang said local police, during their several visits to question the family and search the house, never told her why they had detained her son. Court documents cited “tips from local residents” but did not elaborate.

Authorities tried Nie behind closed doors and barred the parents from the courtroom, but Nie told a lawyer hired by his family that he was beaten into a confession on his sixth day in jail. Zhang was convinced that Nie was a victim of torture, after seeing her normally healthy son walk with a limp into the courthouse before the first trial.

Seven months after he was first detained, the government executed Nie in April 1995 — without notifying his parents. After the initial shock, Zhang had to endure more agony to locate her son’s remains and deal with a failed suicide attempt and subsequent half-paralysis of her husband, who was crushed by Nie’s execution.

Living off her husband’s monthly pension of $150, Zhang learned to take care of the family by herself. Her daily routine, however, was disrupted in 2005 by a sudden influx of Chinese reporters, who revealed to her that a man named Wang Shujin had just confessed to the same crimes Nie was executed for a decade earlier.

Carefully laying the contents from her Ziploc bag on a table, Zhang described each legal document as she recounted her six-year lone quest for justice: a copy of the verdict against Nie that detailed his “crimes;” a 2007 letter from the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing, in which the nation’s highest court instructed the Hebei high court to “process” her appeal; and most importantly, a printout of a written statement by Wang’s lawyer on his client’s confession.

The lawyer, Zhu Aimin, confirmed to CNN that Wang has admitted to the crimes Nie was convicted of — with corroborative details. Ironically Wang, sentenced to death for four other murder and rape cases, is now receiving a reprieve, as his connection to the Nie case has delayed the completion of his second trial.

Officials from the Hebei high court in Shijiazhuang and the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing never responded to CNN’s requests for comment despite repeated phone calls and faxes.

“The cold reality doesn’t offer us ordinary people much hope — so why do I keep pursuing?” Zhang said. “I don’t want to hold anyone responsible, I don’t want government compensation, and I don’t want the judge to bring back my son alive — but one thing I must have is his innocence.”

New law, old problems

In recent years, state media have exposed an increasing number of wrongful convictions in China. At least five death row inmates — most reportedly tortured during police interrogation — were set free, either because their “victims” turned up alive years after the alleged murders, or the real perpetrators were caught.

Such cases could be prevented if the new Criminal Procedure Law takes effect next March as scheduled, the Chinese government has argued, because the proposed changes strengthen the rights of defense lawyers while barring the practices of forcing suspects to incriminate themselves or coercing their families to testify against them.

The current draft also incorporates earlier government pronouncements, including those making evidence obtained through torture inadmissible in court and limiting the use of the death penalty. China executes more people than all other countries combined, according to the London-based Amnesty International human rights group, which estimated the figure — considered a state secret — to be in the thousands last year.

Many lawyers and legal scholars call the revisions mere window dressing. With the government more concerned about maintaining social stability in the wake of the Arab Spring unrest, they depict an increasingly repressive environment for ordinary citizens and lawyers alike.

“The authorities do whatever they want — detention, surveillance and harassment — it’s just too arbitrary,” said Zhang Sizhi, a prominent lawyer in Beijing who was once assigned by the government to defend Chairman Mao Zedong’s widow.

He and others note the draft law does not include the long-proposed right to silence for suspects or abolition of forced labor camps. Yet it does include a clause authorizing police to detain citizens for up to six months in certain cases without having to inform their families.

One aspect the revisions largely ignore is the appeals process, experts say, leaving ordinary people — like Zhang Huanzhi — who are trying to overturn a court ruling trapped in the legal labyrinth.

“They have nowhere to go — who will listen to them?” said Jerome Cohen, a New York University law professor and an internationally recognized authority in Chinese law. “It requires far more reform than this draft to address these issues.”

During the just-ended month-long public comment period on the draft, the government received more than 72,000 responses. Cohen says enough negative feedback may prompt the authorities to shelve this version and start anew later.

Back in Xianiezhuang Village, Zhang has heard about the proposed new criminal code and simply wishes the government would do whatever it takes to protect other families from the kind of anguish she has suffered.

As she sat on a stool to winnow grains, her husband started wailing uncontrollably while reading a newspaper profile on her titled, “A Mother’s Race Against Time.”

“I’ve talked to my son several times on his grave,” she said, wiping tears. “I told him: Son, you have to fight for justice in your world and mom will keep fighting for you in mine.”

“He would thank me because he knows a mother can’t live without her son.”

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By WARREN E. BUFFETT

OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.

While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors.

These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places.

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot.

To understand why, you need to examine the sources of government revenue. Last year about 80 percent of these revenues came from personal income taxes and payroll taxes. The mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 percent on most of their earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes. It’s a different story for the middle class: typically, they fall into the 15 percent and 25 percent income tax brackets, and then are hit with heavy payroll taxes to boot.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, tax rates for the rich were far higher, and my percentage rate was in the middle of the pack. According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends.

I didn’t refuse, nor did others. I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.

Since 1992, the I.R.S. has compiled data from the returns of the 400 Americans reporting the largest income. In 1992, the top 400 had aggregate taxable income of $16.9 billion and paid federal taxes of 29.2 percent on that sum. In 2008, the aggregate income of the highest 400 had soared to $90.9 billion — a staggering $227.4 million on average — but the rate paid had fallen to 21.5 percent.

The taxes I refer to here include only federal income tax, but you can be sure that any payroll tax for the 400 was inconsequential compared to income. In fact, 88 of the 400 in 2008 reported no wages at all, though every one of them reported capital gains. Some of my brethren may shun work but they all like to invest. (I can relate to that.)

I know well many of the mega-rich and, by and large, they are very decent people. They love America and appreciate the opportunity this country has given them. Many have joined the Giving Pledge, promising to give most of their wealth to philanthropy. Most wouldn’t mind being told to pay more in taxes as well, particularly when so many of their fellow citizens are truly suffering.

Twelve members of Congress will soon take on the crucial job of rearranging our country’s finances. They’ve been instructed to devise a plan that reduces the 10-year deficit by at least $1.5 trillion. It’s vital, however, that they achieve far more than that. Americans are rapidly losing faith in the ability of Congress to deal with our country’s fiscal problems. Only action that is immediate, real and very substantial will prevent that doubt from morphing into hopelessness. That feeling can create its own reality.

Job one for the 12 is to pare down some future promises that even a rich America can’t fulfill. Big money must be saved here. The 12 should then turn to the issue of revenues. I would leave rates for 99.7 percent of taxpayers unchanged and continue the current 2-percentage-point reduction in the employee contribution to the payroll tax. This cut helps the poor and the middle class, who need every break they can get.

But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate.

My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Desperation apparently drove a North Carolina man to commit a bank robbery last week. What made him sit down and wait for police to arrive to arrest him, is another story.

“I’m sort of a logical person and that was my logic, what I came up with,” James Verone said.

Verone says he came to the decision to rob the RBC Bank on Thursday of last week. He had no gun but handed the teller a rather unusual note.

“The note said this is a bank robbery. please only give me one dollar,” Verone said.

Then he did the strangest thing of all.

“I started to walk away from the teller then I went back and said, ‘I’ll be sitting right over there in the chair waiting for the police,” he said.

And that is what he did. So why did he did he do everything he could to get arrested?

“I wanted to make it known that this wasn’t for monetary reasons, but for medical reasons,” he said.

That’s right James Verone says he has no medical insurance. He has a growth of some sort on his chest, two ruptured disks and a problem with his left foot. He is 59 years old and with no job and a depleted bank account. He thought jail was the best place he could go for medical care and a roof over his head. Verone is hoping for a three-year sentence. 
He’d then be able to collect social security when he got out, and says he’d head for the beach.

“I’ve already looked at a condominium. I’ve spoken to a realtor, on Myrtle Beach,” he said.

He admits his story is unusual and says he wouldn’t recommend anyone else do what he did, but James Verone says he has no regrets. He says he is getting good medical care now, but the jail doctor accused him of manipulating the system.

“If it is called manipulation, then out of necessity because I need medical care then I guess I am manipulating the courts to get medical care,” he said.