Researches On The Death Penalty Procedures Of The United States

In recent years, the Death Penalty has been highlighted with widesocial concerns due to the great controversy on several capital cases. Thereform of capital case procedures has become the hot topic in theacademics and the jurisdiction capital cases. To resist the amount andassure the quality of perfecting the procedures has been universallyrecognized. In this situation, analyzing and studying the advancedtheories and experiences abroad concerning legislation and legislativeadministration, and probing the mechanism of their Death Penaltysystems, are endowed with the great value in theory and practice. This isthe thought that guides the author of the present dissertation in studyingthe Procedures of Capital Cases in the United States and trying to gainsome beneficial insights.This dissertation has taken the Capital Cases Procedures of theUnited States as the topic, the reason being as follows. Firstly, among thelegally advanced countries in the world, the United States is the mostdistinct and dynamic in its Death Penalty system. Facing the trend in theWestern countries that the Death Penalty is repealed or effectivelyabolished, the Death Penalty system in America has been operatedeffectively except for a short interval of 4 years in 1970s.The amount ofCapital sentences as well as the amount of actual execution endow thissystem with significant position and influence that cannot be neglected inAmerican criminal jurisdiction. This situation contrasts distinctly withmany western countries which either repeal Death Penalty completely(such as the European countries), or reserve it but seldom carry out ineffect (such as Japan). The Second reason is the complexity of AmericanDeath Penalty system. Due to the duality of Federal and state jurisdiction,which means that each state can make its own options in specificoperation, as long as the options do not contradict with the Constitution,the multi-cultural influences leave deep marks on the Death Penaltysystems of different states. Its direct manifestation is the differences andcharacteristics of the Federal legislation and 38 states which reserveDeath Penalty. There exist significant differences, more often than not, inmany details of the Death Penalty procedures. The diversity andcomplexity in system make the Death Penalty system of the United Statesabundant in research samples and highly valuable in terms of theoreticalresearch. To the research of Death Penalty system, this is a very richmineral resource. Lastly, the Death Penalty system of the United States, atthe same time, is a mineral resource that is largely undiscovered. At themoment, the research on the American Death Penalty system at home isstill in the primitive phase;the present achievements are small in amount,and diverse in direction, without any monographs giving this subject asystematic and through analysis and study. Due to the above reasons, thepresent author, with the dedicate supervision of his supervisor Prof. ChenGuangzhong, chooses the American Death Penalty Procedures as theresearch question of the dissertation.This dissertation includes 5 parts. Chapter I is a survey on the DeathPenalty in the United States. The first part briefly introduces the originsand status quo of the Death Penalty in the United States. First of all, withthe duality of American jurisdiction, this part recounts the tortuouschanges of the Capital Penalty's reserve and repeal;and analyzes thereason why Death Penalty disappears in those countries with political andcultural heritages similar to the United States, while remains deep-rootedin the United States itself. Second, this part analyzes the problem ofmisjudged cases, commenting on their causes, influences, and legislativeand judicial countermeasures. At the end of this part, the present Capitalcrimes are briefly introduced so that we can have some basic backgroundknowledge of entity law in the research of procedures. The second sectionrecount the whole process of the Capital cases in the United States, whichis divided into four parts: Pretrial procedures, First Trial procedures,Review procedures, and Execution procedures. The Pretrial Proceduresinclude 9 procedures, namely, Booking procedure, Initial Appearance,Indictment, Notice of Intent to Seek Death, Appointment Counsel,Arraignment, Proof Presentation, Pretrial Motions, Jury Organization.The First Trial procedures include Conviction and Sentence. Convictionincludes 8 phases. While in the Sentence procedure, the most importantparts are the confirmation of mitigating or aggravating circumstances。The Review procedures include three levels, namely Direct Appeal, StatePost-conviction Proceedings, and Federal Habeas Corpus Review. Thisarticle takes the Supreme Court as an example in introducing the detailedoperations of the Capital cases' review procedures by the American courts.The Execution procedures mainly include the execution methods andPardon and Commutation.In fact the Death Penalty procedures of the United States involveall procedures of American criminal lawsuits. This chapter, due to itsspace, cannot probe into details in every aspect;instead, it can onlyelaborate on the procedures that are central and specific to Capital cases.Therefore the present author puts his effort mainly on the five procedures,namely, Jury Organization, Sentence, Habeas Corpus, Acquirement ofCounsel Rescue, and Execution and Pardon.chapter Ⅱ is on the Sentencing Phase of Capital Case. TheSentencing Phase is a part with distinctive features in the procedures ofAmerican Capital cases, its distinctiveness lies in the independence ofthis Phase, as well as the evaluation of the jury's position in sentencing.In all the states that reserves Capital Penalty, the jury's position inConviction phase is that same, that is, the jury alone can rule whether theaccused is guilty in the Capital Cases. But these states vary a lot on thisissue in the Sentencing phase, mainly in that whether the sentence of thejury is a recommendation to the judge or an obligatory rule. This paperdivides the Supreme Court's viewpoints on the jury's position inSentencing into three phases. In the first phase, it introduces Proffitt Case,Spaziano Case, Hildwin Case, Harris Case, Cabana Case, and ClemonsCase, and analyzes the application of Proffitt-Spaziano rule. In this phase,the Supreme Court had supported the sentence power of the judge, i.e. thejudge's Capital sentence neglecting the jury's opinion is not consideredunconstitutional. In the second phase, marked by Jones Case, theSupreme Court turned to restrict the sentencing power of the judge. In thethird phase, after the Ring Case, the Supreme Court has established thejury's irreplaceable legal position in the sentencing, i.e., the aggravatingcircumstances should be confirmed by the jury, not by the judge. RingCase is a milestone case in the history of American Capital Casesentencing system, which carries the stress of this chapter. This partintroduces in detail the background information of and legal controversyover this case, and completely analyzes its great influence on thejudge-alone-sentencing states and mixed-procedured states, and theresponses of the legislation.The third chapter includes the focal points of this dissertation,which is on Federal Habeas Corpus Review. It traces back the origin ofthe Corpus Review, and emphasizes that this procedure is important as areview system in protecting the rights of the people under criminalaccusation and form a critical way for the capital criminal in the state toseek the remedy of the Federal Courts. Section I of this chapter mainlydiscusses the application restriction of Habeas Corpus, and analyzes theSupreme Court contradicting attitudes and dilemma on this program.Section II mainly introduces the significant reforms on the Federal writ ofHabeas Corpus brought about by The Anti-Terrorism and Effective DeathPenalty Act of 1996. These reforms include "Opt-in" in Chapter 154, timelimit of application, and Proof Hearing rules. The Opt-in procedure is "aprocedure of Habeas Corpus specially set for Capital case" whose aim isto urge the states to "accelerate" the Habeas Corpus under the premises ofhigher assurance for Capital cases. The time limit on Habeas Corpus isunprecedented, which is practically effective in diminishing abuse ofappealing, but subject to suspicions of human rights assurance. This paperpoints out the regulation decline on the basis of collected evidence. As tothe Proof Hearing rules, the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death PenaltyAct of 1996 has exerted more restrictions, and set the "Cause andInnocent Exception" as the review standard of fact confirmation for thestate courts. With adequate and authentic materials, the presentdissertation has revealed the delicate changes of the American HabeasCorpus and undergoes their influences. Section III makes detaileddiscussion on the Federal Principle of Exhaustion of State Remedies. Itmainly analyzes and elaborates the formal requirements of right petition,mixed petition, and forfeit of the states.Chapter IV is on the acquirement of rescue from the counsel. Up tonow, the right of acquiring rescue from the counsel laid down by the SixthAmendment of the United States Constitution is still one of the mostcontroversial issues. This is not only due to the fact that there are bothConviction Phase and Sentence Phase in Capital cases, and they mayinvolve such complex issues as pardon and so on, but also that the rightof acquiring rescue from the counsel is regarded as holding the centralposition among all the rights of the defendant who are facing DeathPenalty. On the basis of sorting out the whole process of capital cases, theauthor discusses the special professional knowledge background that oneCapital Case Counsel should have, and elaborates the professionalrequirements to Capital Case Counsels in dealing with their cases. Then,the paper analyzes the constitutional standard of effective counsel rescue.It fully elaborates the specific content of the Strickland Standard, andprobes into the development and evolution of the standard in the judicialpractice through the analysis on Darden Case, Burger Case, WilliamsCase, and Chandler Case. The third section mainly discusses the right ofacquiring counsel rescue in the Review procedure. The fourth section,through specific examples and data, introduces the sources of thecounsels in the American Capital cases, their payment, their training, andthe professional pressure they are faced with. It reveals many age-oldmalpractices and undeniable problems in the process. Section Five alsoreveals the political pressure that the judges face when appointingcounsels, and the malpractices in the appointment, through which we canhave a full and deep understanding of the real situations of the right ofacquiring counsel rescue in the judicial practice of America.Chapter V is on the Execution and Clemency procedures. Atpresent, there are five types of execution in the United States, namely,Hanging, Firing Squad, Electric Chair, Gas Chamber, and Lethal Injection.This part of the paper introduces in detail the operating process of eachtype;and taking McVeigh Case as a typical case, describes in detail theexecuting steps and operating process. Section 1 of this chapter puts itsemphasis on analyzing the openness of the Execution and the abortion ofExecution. The stress of this chapter is in the second section, which isabout the Pardon of Death Penalty. This section first introduces thevarieties and origins of Pardon, and comments on the theoreticalcontroversies over Pardon. Then it describes the detailed operatingprocess of the pardon procedures, revealing the malpractice andcontroversy in it. At last, on the basis of large amount of first-hand data,the author analyses and sorts out the various practices taken by differentCapital-Penalty-reserved states in dealing with the problems in pardonsystem, and divides these states into 3 types, namely, pardon rule by theCommittee and Consulting organizations, restraining recommendation tothe Governor by the Committee and Consulting organizations, andGovernor as the member of pardon ruling committee;and puts forwardhis own opinion and appraisal on the strong and weak points of the threepractices.In the conclusion, the author summarizes the whole dissertationand makes his own proposition on the reference significance of theAmerican Death Penalty Procedures to the reform of the Death Penaltysystem of China. Since the author has always believed that the regulationsand laws of each country is specific to their own soil and environment,and that the so-called transplantation or even track connection is liable tofall into the pit of superficial imitation which lacks practical effects, hedeliberately avoids prolonged so-called legislative suggestions orproposals for perfection, while only briefly comments on some key issueson the ideological and spiritual level.