On Plea Bargaining System Introduced In China

In 1970, the Supreme Court of America established the system of plea bargaining officially through the case of Brady V. United States. After that, the system spread to all the states of America, and even developing from the U. S. to Canada and other countries. The amendment of the "Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure" in 1974 stipulated the plea bargaining system comprehensively. During criminal procedure, when the Prosecution can not exclude all reasonable doubts about the suspect, and the Prosecution does not want to release the suspect without any punishment, the Prosecution will prefer to lessen the penalty by exchanging with the suspect only if the suspects plead guilty.There is no rule of plea bargaining in China, and the similar practices do not happen between the prosecution and the defense. The practice is usually a crime and punishment trading without any legal effect. This can not protect rights of the suspects who plead guilty. It is also harmful to our criminal procedure.The first part of this paper is about origination and development of plea bargaining system and the author also describes the advantage of this system. In the second part, the author explains the necessity of importing the plea bargaining system through analyzing the current situation in China, such as arising of the criminal percent, serious shortage of justice resource, the risk of losing case and so on. The third part points out the possible obstacles during the transportation after reviewing the cultural background and the justice practices. The author also emphasizes the favorable situation in importing the plea bargaining system. At last, some suggestions are proposed on how to construct the plea bargaining system in China.