The Influence Of Public Opinion On The Criminal Trial

On march31,2008, Xu Ting was sentenced five years imprisonment and a fine of twenty thousand yuan for thieving the170thousand yuan by Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court. While the "Xu Ting case" caused by a broad national concern was ended, the impact of this case to the judicial is far from over and various "Xu Ting case" have emerged. In recent years, public opinion has more and more impaction on criminal trials and its negative effects are increasingly revealed with the development of the Chinese media technology and the diversification of the media means. In the opinion of the author, supervision by public opinion is an integral part of judicial supervision of Chinese system, but there are also some disadvantages. Therefore, the author tried to think the special relationship between the public opinion and the sword of the criminal trials in order to find a balance of them, which really let the public opinion supervision protect and promote the independence of the criminal trial and, ultimately, judicial impartiality.There are foure parts of the paper. According to analyzing the "Xu Ting case" in part one, getting the important impacts of public opinion on criminal trial, which are included positive and negative impacts. The positive effects include improving the transparency of the judicial process to reduce opportunities for corruption in the judiciary, improving the professionalism of the judicial officers which increases the efficiency and quality of judicial work, and the characters of low cost and quick effects of the public opinion supervision. The negative effects include the influence on the legitimate rights of the defendant, the judges to exercise the Criminal discretion, violations of the independence of the criminal trial, contrary to the principle of the legality and responsibility and punishment compatible, deformation of the society tolerant mentality. The second part analyzes the reasons why the public opinion affects the criminal trial, including the emphasis on public opinion in the traditional judicial culture, declination of the judiciary’s credibility, not fully independent of the judiciary, not yet fully open of the trial, and the people own reasons. The third part is the most important one of this article. The author will build a harmonious balance of public opinion and criminal trials, so that the public opinion plays a positive role, and avoids their negative effects. Specifically, the followed measures can be taken:to further strengthen the independence of the judiciary, to perfect the rationality of the judgment, to build the major case response mechanisms, to strengthen the supervision of the news media.