Discussion And Analysis Of The Standardizing Sentencing Renovation

The fair-minded Sentencing is an important part of judicial justice, which is a new requirement and new expectation for criminal justice raised by the public. The China government required to standardize the discretion and include the sentencing in the trial procedure of the court, which has been determined as a major project for judicial renovation. It is also the main point in the third"five-year reform program"of the People's Court and the focus and hot topic in the renovation of current criminal trail. In this paper, I described the practice of the standardizing sentencing conducted by District Court and summarize the issues noted during the practices in order to seek the problem-solving approach. I hope these identified issues and the problem-solving approaches may help to develop the renovation of standardizing sentencing.This paper includes three parts.The first part is that"the Overview of standardizing sentencing renovation". This section elaborates the background, the process and the pilot result of the China's sentencing renovation. In addition, this section also briefly describes the main elements of standardized sentencing. Therefore, the standardizing sentencing renovation came into being and experienced four major stages, that are brewing and the proposed, research and demonstration and document drafting, pilot testing and modification and comprehensive trial. After a period of trial, it mainly obtained results in the following four major areas: (1) Gradually change of the concept and basically unified the understanding through the pilot testing; (2) Improve the understanding of the sentencing methods and the sentencing process; (3) Summarize the experience, revise and improve the pilot file, and eventually conclude two "views"; (4) Make the sentencing process more transparent and open and prevent the court suits manipulated by human relationship, human connection and money. Sentencing reform with a qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis method of a combination of sentencing, sentencing procedures and clearly divided into three steps, namely, according to the basic facts of the crime to determine the starting point, constitute a crime under other facts affecting punishment baseline, adjusted according to sentencing benchmarks derived declared criminal punishment. The standardizing sentencing renovation combined with a qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis method and clearly defined that the sentencing procedures include three steps, which are determining the staring points according to the basic facts of the crime, identifying the punishment base according to other facts which may have impact on the constitution of the crime, and finally, concluding the criminal punishment according to sentencing benchmarks.The second part is that"the difficulties and problems in the practice of sentencing renovation". It mainly analyzing some matters raised from the substantive law and procedural law. I provide many samples noted in the substantive law, including identifying benchmark, applying to the sentencing and conclude declared criminal. For examples: (1) How to distinguish between sentencing and the impact of crime? (2) Whether the benchmark sentence punishment can break the maximum level of legal crime? (3) The range of the sentencing punishment is too large and not specific. (4) The statutory sentencing is not exhaustive and the discretionary sentencing can not be exhaustive. (5) How to control the 10% discretion of the Judge? (6) How to apply for the life imprisonment? The Procedure Law primarily focuses on the problems existed in police, prosecution and judge. (1) The investigation evidence is not sufficient and timely; (2) The prosecution system is imperfect; (3) the inequality between prosecution and defense in the court. (4) The issue for the description of the sentencing reasons in the statement. In addition, I discuss the practice difficulties to the sentencing requirement in two aspects: the e-sentencing and key area of social security.The third part is that"deal with the several relationships during standardizing sentencing renovation." This part is to provide the recommendations regarding how to improve the standardization of sentencing based on the discussion of the second part. (1) Correctly understand and handle the relationship between innovation and traditional heritage. Further improve and develop the methods and procedures of sentencing based on the summary of the experience. For examples, establishment of the practical guidance in order to further open the sentencing method and standards. (2) Correctly understand and handle the relationship between standardization of sentencing and discretion. Considering taking the different ways to limit the discretion at the different stages of renovation. It is recommended that in early stages of renovation, the criteria of the sentencing should be more specific, which is easy to follow in the practice. Meanwhile, it should give the judge a considerable degree of discretion to correct the results. (3) Correctly understand and handle the relationship between quantitative and qualitative. Respect for the judge's initiative based on quantitative analysis. Demonstrate the advantage of the qualitative analysis and suggest involving e-sentencing as an assistance but it should not give burden to the judge. (4) Correctly understand and deal with the relationship among the police, prosecution and judge. Raise recommendations in the aspects of strengthen the evidence in the sentencing, improvement the sentencing recommendation system and expanding the scope of designated defense.