Research On Theoretic Nature And Inevitability Of Death Penalty Of Non-violent Crimes In China

The death penalty, the most severe penalty of depriving a criminal of his life, has been the core of the penalty system since the legal records in the human history. However the disputes on maintenance or revocation of death penalty has existed for about 200 years from the time 1764, the Italia criminal jurist Becaria put forward the idea of abolishing the capital punishment for the fist time in his becoming famous book Of Crimes and Punishments. In the recent decades, with the improvement of the idea of human rights and the promotion of the international organizations led by the United Nations, the death penalty has been abolished by 71% nations in the world, and even the limitation and abolition of death penalty has become a fashion and tendency. Hence the maintenance or revocation of death penalty has becoming a heated topic in China's criminal rule of law: the abolitionists and maintainers have exercised omni-directional and multi- prospective research and discussion from theoretical demonstration to empirical study, from perceptual observation to rational thinking. And the focus of the disputes is fixed to the abolition of the death penalty for non-violent crimes.Some scholars propose that the death penalty for non-violent crimes should be abolished because of its invalidity and cruelty, however, their proposal is not only unrecognized by the administrative decision level and people, but also is heavily opposed. The paper tends to propose the theoretic nature and inevitability of the death penalty for non-violent crimes by holding the rational and practical attitude and on the basis of the full consideration of China's practical conditions. It holds the opinion that the abolition of the death penalty for non-violent crimes has become an inevitable tendency regardless of abroad or at home in terms of its theoretic nature. It is doubtless to abolish the death penalty for non-violent crimes in the recent future's China:it is the evident tendency of human legal development, the necessary result of building the harmonious Socialism, the certain demand of observing to the international tendency and fulfilling its obligations, the inevitable choice of reasonable disposition of death penalty, and the necessary result of multiple deficiencies. While from the prospective of inevitability, China's social and spiritual conditions are not qualified to abolish the death penalty for non-violent crimes due to China's particular situation, idea and tradition of attaching significance to it and the imperfection of legal system, therefore, the abolition of the death penalty for non-violent crimes should be exercised in stages. At present, the priority should be put to the restrictive access and put forward to the outline conception and exposition in terms of the exercise of the death penalty for non-violent crimes in legislation and judicature to decrease the exercise of death penalty step by step. In this way, it sets the stage for the complete abolition of the death penalty of non-violent crimes, and makes full research and analysis on the gradual abolition, which contributes to the development of China's criminal rule of law.