fifteen legal experts petitioned a Chinese court

fifteen legal experts petitioned a Chinese court to overturn a death sentence on a man convicted of threatening to shoot a policeman but not actually pulling the trigger.
"We must stop the high court from implementing the death penalty on Sun Yanhua. The crime he committed does not deserve capital punishment," said Hou Guoyun, a law professor in Beijing and the author of the petition.
Sun was condemned to die by an intermediate court in Suzhou city in September 2004, with the petiton lodged at the provincial high court in eastern Jiangsu province.
Such a petition, by 15 respected university legal scholars, is uncommon in China and was seen as part of a growing movement in the country to place more restrictions on the use of the death penalty.
Sun was arrested by police just after he and two accomplices committed an armed attack in December 2003 and after he had tried to escape with a hand gun, according to the petition.
According to two police witnesses, Sun had threatened one officer with the gun, but other witnesses contested this testimony, the petition said.
"As he tried to escape, Sun would have had the chance to kill, but he did not, he did not cross that line," the petition, which urged the high court to commute Sun's sentence to life in prison, said.