A Study On The Death Penalty For Drug Crime

Nowadays, there is few countries who adopts death penalty to drug crime in the world. However, China not only uses death penalty to drug crime, but also made the highest death penalty adoption percentage in drug crime cases. Meanwhile, the death penalty application for drug crime is still showing a raising trend. Therefore, it is not only a necessary theoretical discussion but also with much special and emergent practical meaning to analyze the rationality of the drug crime death penalty and the future trend of China's drug crime death penalty. Based on summarizing the realities of drug crime death penalty in foreign countries, this thesis emphatically analyzed the rationality of adopting death penalty for drug crime, then, it come to the conclusion that it is not ration to adopt death penalty for drug crime. Hereby, this thesis took deep introspection to the realities and problems of China's death penalty adoption in drug crime, and by combining with the China's present situation and reality, it demonstrates the necessity and feasibility of abolishing drug crime death penalty in China. Lastly, it put forward the tentative idea of strictly restrain the death penalty application in drug crime before the law of abolishing death penalty in drug crime is come into being.This thesis is divided into four parts and about 40 thousand words.The first part: rational thought on applying death penalty for drug crime. After summarized the situation of death penalty application in drug crime in other countries, this part emphatically studied the rationality of applying death penalty to drug crime. Firstly, it proposed the equivalent standard and the necessity standard of rationally applying death penalty according to the two basic functions of criminal punishment as retribution and utility. Then, it analyzed the rationality of applying death penalty for drug crime on the basis of the above two standards, on the one hand, the thesis believes that to apply death penalty for drug crime do not accord with the equivalent standard form the angle of drug crime's nature and characteristic; on the other hand, the thesis believes that it do not accord with the necessity standard from the angle of death penalty's deterrent power and the ineffectiveness of death penalty in the drug crime prevention process. Consequently, the thesis come into the basic conclusion that to apply death penalty for drug crime is not rational.The second part: deep introspection for China's applying death penalty for drug crime. This part mainly deeply introspected the reasons of China's overabundance death penalty application in drug crime in view of China's huge number and growing proportion of death penalty application in drug crime, and it found out that the main reason lies in three aspects as legislation, jurisdiction and criminal policy. Firstly, the legislation reason is that the drug crime trend to apply death penalty. Secondly, the jurisdiction reason is because of the severe punishment tendency in judicial interpretation and the 'only amount theory' in judicial practice. Thirdly, the criminal policy reason comes from the influence towards death penalty application roused by 'strike-hard' jurisdiction criminal policy.The third part: the inevitable trend of drug crime death penalty. On the one hand, the thesis illuminated the necessity of abolishing drug crime death penalty in China, for it accord with China's 'killing a little and killing carefully' criminal policy and the obligatory requirement of international convention to abolish drug crime death penalty, and it complies with the development trend of law all over the world. On the other hand, this thesis discussed the feasibility of abolishing drug crime death penalty in China form the aspect of human right, rule of law and public opinion. Firstly, 'guarantee the human right' enter into the constitution, and enhancement of the public's human right conception. Secondly, the bad effect of the application of drug crime death penalty broke the superstition of the death penalty's deterrent power. Thirdly, drug crime does not harm the individual's life safety directly, it may be easily accepted by the public if the death penalty in drug crime is abolished.The fourth part: the choice of China's drug crime death penalty. As the drug crime death penalty has not been abolished in today's China, it surely judicial choice is to restrain the application of drug crime death penalty. Therefore, the judicial restrain is mainly depends on the substance appliance restriction and formal process restriction, for the first one, we should strengthen control from four aspects, namely, strengthen the law's actual application, eliminate the influence of 'only amount theory', strictly control the death penalty application for crime of drug transportation and use reprieve to reduce the immediately execution of death penalty; for the second one, the thesis proposed four aspects of requirements, namely, the death penalty should be applied only if the collegiate bench and the trail committee come to the same opinion, carrying out the regulation of 'second instance should hold a court', stick to the proving standard of law confirmation and implement the principle of direct and verbal trial. The judicial control is not a forced helpless action, but a great measure of advancing China's drug crime death penalty from restriction to abolishment. Only by strictly handle the judicial restriction of the drug crime could compress the death penalty application to the lowest level and shorten the process of legislative abolishment.