Rethought And Innovation: Examination And Prospect On The Judicial Procedure For Review Of Death Penalty

Death penalty is the most severely criminal punishment to deprive one's life. However, the right to life is the carrier of all human values, so decreasing and abolishing death penalty become a world wide trend. In China, the criminal procedural law sets the "judicial procedure for review of death penalty", and it becomes the exception of our "system of final judgment through two level courts". It means, although the death penalty judgment passes through the first instance and second instance, it still cannot take effect automatically; it must pass another special "review" procedure in the supreme court and be authorized to execute the death penalty by the chief justice, then could we put the defendant to death legally. So, the legislation has indicated the prudential attitude to the execution of death penalty.But actually, through twice transferring the death penalty reviewing power to the lower court, now most death penalty cases have be ruled be each province high court itself, and this condition makes the punishment to death lose its uniform standards. Even some province high courts make the second instance trial procedure instead of the reviewing, as a result, the final safeguard exists in name only. Now, the supreme court has decided to call back the power of death penalty reviewing, because the transferring practice didn't work well as we expect, and the academia criticize the transferring fiercely more and more.In such a historical background, the research on the system of death penalty reviewing is much more important than any other time. Through the re-examining and analysis on the related systems in history, this article narrates and estimates the function and justness of the actual death penalty reviewing procedure, demonstrates the present reforming project in order to depict the future of the reform. Thus, it can be helpful to the supreme court's innovation.