Law experts have said that a lawyer may have tampered with judicial independence when he suggested that Fudan University students write a petition to a court pleading for leniency for Lin Senhao.

Lin, a former graduate student at the Shanghai university's medical school, was sentenced to death on Feb 18 for killing his dorm roommate, Huang Yang, in April 2013.

More than 170 students, mainly from the university's law and medical schools, signed a petition to reduce Lin's sentence and sent it to the Shanghai High People's Court on April 20.