Research On Judicial Sentence Commutation Limit

A limited situation of stay system is that for felons prosecuted for murder, rape,robbery, and kidnap, arson etc, capital punishment would be excessive but Reprieve ofDeath Sentence could not meet the standards of Legally prescribed punishment for aspecified crime. So the people’s court may sentence a capital penalty with asuspended period but set a limit to commutation in accordance with the specificcircumstances of such felony and its social risk. The《the amendment VIII to thecriminal law of PRC》 and《regulations In relation to limited situation of stay fordeath penalty cases》enacted by the supreme people’s court of the PRC have set up thepremise of application for the limited situation of stay system. A temper justice withmercy is the policy basis of the limited situation of stay system and the felon’spersonal dangerousness is the substantial condition of the limited situation of staysystem. Since the system has been officially enacted in May2011, the courts all overChina have made the judgment accordingly. The research on the mentioned precedentjudicial practices would have big significance and make a great difference for thefuture perfection of the limited situation of stay system.Moreover, with the analysis ofthe limited situation of stay system applicable charges, combination of the type ofrecidivism, grounds of the sentence reprieve, limited situation of stay systemretroactivity, the applicable restrictions problems of the limited situation of staysystem substantive conditions, such as wrong charges, differences in applicablestandards, and a variety of grounds for the limited situation of stay system, whichleads to over application of limited situation of stay system in practices. Causes ofthese problems are: the scope of application for limited situation of stay system israther narrow; the substantive conditions for this system are too vague, which isinconvenient for practice; the judges’ power in discretion is out of control. To solvethese problems, first of all, we should detail the vague regulations with judicialinterpretation and set appropriate limits to the judge’s discretion. Moreover, it isnecessary to detail substantive conditions of the limited situation of stay system andget more advises from the prosecution.