Application And Improvement Of Death Sentence With A Reprieve

Death sentence with a reprieve is a kind of important system of Chinese death penalty system.Reprieve system was upgraded from policy document to criminal basic system in Criminal Law in 1979,and to Amendment to Criminal law(VIII)where commutation system of reprieve restriction was established creatively,and then to Amendment to Criminal Law(IX)where immediate execution of reprieve was improved and life imprisonment of major reprieve prisoners on bribery and corruption was pinpointed.Reprieve system of death penalty was continually improved in judicial improvement again and again.As an important system restricting immediate execution,clear definition on applicable standards of reprieve helps it to exert its functions.In recent years,application of strictly controlling immediate execution with reprieve not only has conformed to present condition of China,but also it has matched international trend,and it can lay the public opinion foundation for abolishing the death penalty.However,due to partial deficiencies and shortcomings of law,many uncertainties of application of reprieve occur in juridical practice,thus leading to that reprieve cannot exert its due functions.Meanwhile,it is very important to pinpoint applicable standards of reprieve system,discuss deficiencies of its application,and conduct purposeful judicial improvement on present reprieve system to exert its maximum value to finally offer a system buffering of more operability for abolishing death penalty.In this paper,more than 30000 words,theoretical structure is divided into four chapters,specific as follows:Content of Chapter I is reprieve overview,and the essence of reprieve system in China as well as applicable meaning of reprieve are briefly introduced from the background in China of restricting immediate execution.Content of Chapter II is the applicable conditions of reprieve are stated and analyzed in details from the perspective of judicial applicability of reprieve system.According to provisions of plaintext in present Criminal Law,there are two applicable conditions for reprieve,namely precondition “should be sentenced to death penalty” and material condition “not needed to be immediately executed”.Initial analysis of this part on “should be sentenced to death penalty” is applicable conditions of death penalty,including applicable standards of death penalty and forbidden applicable objects.And explanation of “not needed to be immediately executed” is mainly concentrated on understanding of its meaning,and it is discussed in positive and negative aspects.Content of Chapter III is relationship of reprieve applicability and application of immediate execution.Entry point of this part is integration of both sides on execution way for death penalty,and reprieve applicability rejected by applicability of immediate execution is briefly analyzed,while reprieve can change into immediate execution on certain conditions.Basic condition of reprieve changed into immediate execution is “calculated crime,wicked circumstances”,and this condition is analyzed on emphasis in this part to pinpoint its conception to achieve the purpose of enhancing operability that reprieve is changed into death penalty.Content of Chapter IV is main problem possibly occurring in reprieve applicability.Reprieve system is an original creation in China,and it is suitable for Chinese present conditions,but problems still occur in its applicability.For example,there are unclear judicial provisions in abstract,and specifically main problems are: unclear applicable conditions easily leading to unclear applicability of criminal punishment;blurred position of criminal law for reprieve system weakening applicability of reprieve system;there is difference between circumstance in restricted commutation of reprieve and circumstance of “not needing to be immediately executed”,thus how the circumstances can be applied is to be determined;unclear standards of “calculated crime,wicked circumstances” leading to relatively great discretionary power for judges;there are certain disadvantages of applying life imprisonment to reprieve prisoners of major bribery and corruption,thus improvement is needed.