Dr Xiao was prosecuted with a wrong crime. He will take advantage of this and try to get off the hook via appeal. If you were Xiao's lawyer, and able to design the whole process, this would be your dream - you have the best chance to succeed in an appeal and you have the best fallback position: the lightest possible sentence. Assuming one wants to influence the final outcome, having a team of good lawyers and a lot of intelligence may help.