On The Paradox Of Public Opinion And The Abolition Of The Death Penalty

With the progress of the process of the rule of law, abolishing thedeath penalty is not just the development trend of the internationalcommunity, but also the essential demand of building a harmonioussociety as well as practicing the scientific concept of development forcontemporary China. Defenders of the death penalty take "people’sdissent" as a major reason to insist on the death penalty. Based onthis starting point, this paper refutes the view that the abolition of thedeath penalty needs to obtain the public consent first; instead, itestablishes another point of view: the death penalty is subject tolegislative policy, and the abolition of the death penalty is determined bythe social elites.By comprehensively probing into the past and present situation ofthe death penalty field, as well as analyzing the status quo of the deathpenalty in the United States, European Union, Hong Kong, this paperforms a new perspective in the fourth part of the article: Whether in thecountries where the death penalty is preserved or in the countries wherethe death penalty is abolished, the death penalty is not preserved forpublic support, or abolished for public dissent. Abolition of the deathpenalty has complex and profound political, historical, cultural and other factors, but essentially a country’s death penalty policy and social elitesplay the major roles.From a practical point of view, public opinion on the abolition ofthe death penalty does have influence, and public support for the deathrate is relatively high. But from an objective, rational perspective, publicopinion of the death penalty is subject to lag and irrationality, whichmakes itself less justified as the basis for supporting the death penalty.So in light of the changeability of public opinion of the death penalty,the last part of this article puts forward corresponding measures to guidepublic opinion, and offer a clear direction for the death penalty reform inpublic opinion.