Plea Bargain And Cooperation Agreement In The Investigation Stage

The investigation is in a very fatal position which sometimes influence the final judgment in a duty crime case.Therefore,establishing a confrontational,balanced and constraint relationship between investigator and defendant is very important.Particularly,in a duty crime,if the investigation branch has trouble having testimony,the investigation branch will choose to reach a deal with the defendant in exchange for a favored testimony,for example using tainted witness to testify on a investigation stage.In many cases,this kind of deals all exist and play an important role in finding the breakthrough of a case.From the legislation perspective,although China has not clearly established such deals between investigator and defendant,it still exists in some degree.For example,the Criminal Law provides several clauses like if a defendant confesses,or makes contribution to the case,the court will consider to reduce the criminal punishment.This kind of regulations not only presents China's criminal policy of “Leniency to Those Who Confess Their Crimes” but also indicates that in Chinese criminal law,the plea bargain is allowed.For example,according to Criminal Law Section 390 and 392,Any briber or person who introduces a bribe voluntarily confesses his act may be given a mitigated punishment or exempted from punishment.Although these clauses do not sufficiently present that a “tainted witness” system is established in China,neither do these criminal designs bears all the functionality of such system,there is still a close relationship with “stained witness” system.Therefore,this article will discuss the plea bargain in duty crime cases based on Chinese criminal judicial practice.This article is divided into four parts.The first parts is introduction of plea bargain between investigators and defendants.This part primarily introduce the basic structure of plea bargain from the duty crime's perspective.The plea bargain means that the investigation branch offers to reduce the punishment in order to exchange for defendant to confess.The investigation branch will conduct a negotiation with defendant's attorney in exchange for the confession or acquire this defendant's cooperation when investigating other defendant's criminal conduct.The plea bargain between investigators and defendants and the plea bargain between attorney general and defendants construct the entire plea bargain system.The plea bargain system has its value in increasing efficiency and protecting human rights and procedural justice.It is important to discuss the legitimacy of establishing plea bargain in duty crime cases' investigation.The second part will analyze the current situation of plea bargain in China.This part will primarily focus on the practical situation of plea bargain between investigators and defendants based on some classical cases.This part will also discuss the troubles that plea bargain system is facing.For example,the lack of legal basis,lack trusts,the doubt for lacking justice,the lack of supervising system.The third part will compare the plea bargain in duty crime investigations in other foreign jurisdictions.Currently in China,the studies on plea bargain system in Japan are very rare and insufficient,therefore,this part will majorly introduce the judicial bargains in Japan systematically and describes the definition and characteristics of plea bargain system in Japan.This part will start from the famous Lockheed case,and presents the situation of plea bargain system in order to provide a reference for establishing such system in China.The Last part will provide a detailed design for establishing plea bargain system in China.This part will follow the four-part-discussion: applying condition;functioning principle;procedure design and supervising system.Finally,this article will analyze the important issues in establishing plea bargain system in duty crime cases.