The Research Of The Death Penalty In Song Dynasty

The death penalty is the severest punishment to deprive person’s life, it still in use after thousands of years, with human society through barbarism to civilization. The history of the death penalty with the instruments of torture are horrible, its imagination and creation are unbelievable. Those bloody records can’t let us only know of humans were savage and cruel, on the contrary, when the rulers have learned to use the law to regulate the people’s behavior and use the penalties to punish criminals, the punishment’s immobilization and standardization not only deny the unlimited killing each other but also mark the humans separate from the savage and cruel. To limit and regulate the punishment is an embodiment of a nation towards civilization. Based on this, this paper takes the historical data to support, on the basis of previous studies, start from the aspects of substance and judicial procedure, law and law enforcement, through multi-angle research the implementation and the characteristics of death penalty system in the Song Dynasty, to deeply understand the Chinese death penalty system evolve from barbarism to civilization by systematically study the death penalty in Song Dynasty, to grasp the evolution of the Chinese ancient law. In this paper, besides the abstract, the main text consists of three parts, the main contents and viewpoints are as follows:PART I. Research the sorts of death penalty and the methods of execution in the Song Dynasty with its historical evolution as a clue, the longitudinal comparison find that the death penalty in Song Dynasty are based on Sui and Tang Dynasties, abolish the cruel punishment only keep the Hanging and the Behead, then add a new punishment that beating to death with wooden staves replace the Hanging and the Behead. Furthermore, use Ling Chi(death by a thousand cuts) as a mandatory death penalty in the Southern Song Dynasty.PART II. Through investigate the applicable procedure of the death penalty in Song Dynasty, I find that although the penalties are cruel in Song Dynasty, but the rulers mostly respect human life instead of use the cruel penalties, each emperor through love their people as a core to govern the country. To prevent the injustice penalty occur, the rulers of Song Dynasty establish a strictly judicial procedure promote the officer deal the case achieve the objective and fair. Strictly regulate and supervise the death penalty executive procedure could give the prisoners right to lodge an appeal and via a series of commutations to alleviate punishment of death row prisoners, which reflect the rulers of Song Dynasty respect human life and are merciful.PART III. Through investigate the historical data and the documents were collected by the current scholars,research the sorts of death penalty and procedures and implementations in Song Dynasty, I summarize the characteristics of the Death Penalty System in Song Dynasty. Combined with the particular social background of that era and the attitude of the Song Dynasty rulers to death penalty, I find that the death penalty system of the Song Dynasty still have many appreciations. Although the execution of the death penalty is crueler than the other dynasties, it’s not in contradiction with the policy of loose punishment. The rulers use a series of benevolent policies to alleviate the cruel punishment and relieve social contradiction.