A Kaohsiung man who took three drugs, drove the wrong way and killed a motorcyclist before fleeing the scene has been sentenced to 20 years in prison — a rare heavy penalty from Taiwan's citizen judge court.

• He had used heroin, meth and etomidate ("zombie vapes") the night before driving into oncoming traffic, killing a motorcyclist.
• Instead of calling for help, he abandoned his car and ran; the victim was found hours later in a roadside field and died before reaching hospital.
• The Ciaotou court gave 13.5 years for causing death while driving on drugs and 9.5 years for the hit-and-run, combining to 20 years.
• The panel of three professional judges and six citizen judges treated him as a repeat offender, since he had driven on drugs before and had finished a drug sentence within the past five years.
• He confessed but never reached a settlement with the family or won their forgiveness, so no leniency was granted.

Outlook: The sentence signals that Taiwan's citizen judge system is willing to hand down harsh punishment for drug-driving deaths, especially where the driver flees.