The Influence Of Public Anger On Punishment

Popular indignation on criminal justice, especially the impact on the judgment of penalty is common in all countries. As long as there is judiciary, popular indignation will stumble with judicial justice, influence each other, and present a relation of unity and opposite. Because popular indignation contains public opinion, which reflects the demands of citizens about justice, so that judiciary can’t completely turn a deaf ear to the popular indignation. But the popular indignation is often irrational, and even is used by others, so the judiciary can not be trapped by the popular indignation. In fact, on one hand, popular indignation has positive effect on judicial fairness, supervising the judiciary; on the other hand, popular indignation also may produce negative effect on judicial fairness, kidnapping judiciary. Therefore, it seems particularly urgent and important to explore the nature of popular indignation, reasonably control the influence of popular indignation on the judgment of penalty, for making judicial personnel competent to correctly apply the criminal law, sentence justly, and not be trapped by the popular indignation. The judicial practice should be reasonable to treat the popular indignation, respect the popular indignation, but should not be completely conforms to the popular indignation, guide the unreasonable and irrational part, not be trapped by the popular indignation, to realize the true judicial fairness, to achieve the unity of social effect and legal effect. A good judicial system must reflect the reasonable public opinion of the popular indignation by the due process; must attach importance to and be kind to the popular indignation, filter and identify the popular indignation, absorb and reflect the reasonable public opinion of the popular indignation, so that respond and lead the public opinion.From the dual effect of popular indignation on the judgment of penalty and the consideration of typical cases, this article analyzes the principle and path of the consideration of the judgment of penalty about the popular indignation and proposes the specific recommendations about reasonably controlling the influence of popular indignation on the judgment of penalty. This paper is divided into four parts:The first part mainly elucidates the prevue of popular indignation. Popular indignation is moral condemnation of the public about the criminal behaviors or criminals, resentful psychology that urge the judicial organ to punish the criminals strictly, as well as discontented with the judicial results. Actually, as an irrational and emotional phenomenon, the effect of popular indignation on the judgment of penalty has its inherent reasons, such as social and historical reasons and revenge mental. Popular indignation includes rational public opinion and irrational anger. The judicial practice should respect the popular indignation, but should not be completely conforms to the popular indignation; furthermore, distinguish the real public opinion from the popular indignation.The second part is about the positive influence of the popular indignation on the judgment of penalty. The popular indignation is not useless, if people can absorb the rational public opinion from it, it will be helpful of supervising the work of judicial organs, striking crimes, curbing judicial corruption, safeguarding judicial authority, realizing judicial justice, and achieving the unity of legal effect and social effect.The third part mainly introduces the negative influence of the popular indignation on the judgment of penalty. Popular indignation is a "double-edged sword", it benefits openness and fairness of the justice. At the same time, it may be a threat to judicial independence, kidnap justice, and be harmful to the protection of the legitimate rights of the accused.The fourth part reaches the concrete system construction that how the judgment of penalty considers the popular indignation, especially how to reasonably control the influence of popular indignation on the judgment of penalty, from the analysis and discussion of above problems and the successful foreign experience. In judicial practice, we should adhere to the facts and the laws, discriminate between popular indignation and public opinion correctly, accord with the basic principles of criminal law and criminal policy, consider popular indignation through reasonable path, at the same time, perfect the judicial publicity, cultivate the citizen’s legal consciousness, guide popular indignation effectively, standardize the supervision and reports of news media. It is the necessary requirement of judicial rationality, also the inevitable conclusion to achieve justice.