Voluntary Protection Of Defendants In Cases Of Confession And Punishment

Judicial reform and perfection has been a long pursued objective,of which establishing a system of imposing lenient punishments on those pleading guilty of their crimes and accepting punishments(hereinafter referred to as “Plea-Leniency System”)is key.Establishment of a Plea-Leniency System will contribute to the implementation of the policy of “tempering criminal policy with leniency”,and optimize the allocation of judicial resources,leading to improved efficiency and addressing the long-existing issue of insufficient judicial personnel.During the course of reform,it is important to launch pilot programs,proactively promote the Plea-Leniency System,and most importantly guarantee the voluntariness of the defendant's plea of guilty and acceptance of punishments.After all,conservation of judicial resources shall not compromise substantive justice.In the current system,it is specifically emphasized that judicial proof standards shall be strictly adhered to,that the procurator shall not shift the burden of proof to the defendant,and that procedural violations such as negotiation with the suspect during investigation is forbidden.As reasonable as these specifications to guarantee substantive justice are,proper examination of the defendant's voluntariness to plead guilty and accept punishments is neglected in the existing Plea-Leniency System.The defendant's voluntariness is an important standard in many countries evaluating whether the confession is admissible or not.Guaranteeing the defendant's voluntariness of confession not only consolidates the admissibility of the confession,but also safeguards the suspect's basic human rights and fits the requirements for perfected,legitimate judicial procedures.To develop and perfect the Plea-Leniency System,it is important that the defendant's voluntariness remain the core and prerequisite;however,there is no denial to the tension between voluntary confession and Plea-Leniency System in nature.The prerequisite to effect Plea-Leniency System is that the defendant plead guilty and accept punishments in exchange for lenient punishment,which putsforward a choice that the defendant has to make – if 1)the defendant takes the initiative to plead guilty and accept punishments,mitigated punishments will be imposed;if 2)the defendant chooses not to plead guilty,he/she shall not be granted the benefit of mitigated punishments.In a pessimistic perspective,option one encourages and incentivizes the defendant with leniency,option two coerces the defendant with not granting leniency.Therefore,pleading guilty and accepting punishments can never be decided on an utterly voluntary basis;the voluntariness of the matter is an institutionalized,legal concept.As people's legal awareness grow in the modern society,the number of cases accepted by court constantly increases.Naturally,improving judicial efficiency becomes one of the major themes of judicature.How to address the growingly outstanding contradiction between limited judicial resources and growing legal demand has become an issue requiring immediate solution.To mitigate the tension between limited judicial resources and the considerable amount of cases was the initial purpose to establish a Plea-Leniency System,the value of which lies in streamlining judicial procedures through negotiation between the procurator and the defendant so as to improve judicial efficiency,with guaranteed justice as a prerequisite.Streamlining procedure shall never compromise justice.It is of vital importance when sentencing a criminal case to verify whether the defendant genuinely and voluntarily confesses to the crime and accepts punishments,upon which justice and fairness is secured.The Plea-Leniency System shall be bound by both substantive law and procedural law,therefore to verify the defendant's voluntariness in pleading guilty and accepting punishments,it is necessary to discuss the different meanings of voluntariness in substantive and procedural senses.In judicial practice,the definition of voluntariness to in substantive sense and procedural sense are often misused,taking the verification of voluntariness to extremes.Voluntariness is in nature a mentality issue.Acts can be inferred from evidences,but verification of motivation sees technical difficulties.As the importance of evidences is highly emphasized in China,it takes us to the wrong impression that judges shall remain absolutely rational.It is required that weacknowledge the unavoidable subjectivity of human behaviors,and therefore the legitimacy of subjective judgement,especially judgement for motivation of pleas,which is difficult to prove with physical evidences.It is only necessary that we attach legitimate value to the subjective judgment made by the judge instead of denying it once and for all.The neglect of subjective judgment has caused in practice the obstacle against verifying voluntariness of the defendant's pleading guilty and accepting punishments.Regarding psychological activities that cannot be proven with evidence,judges often tend to stop at brief discussion without any conclusion,or even avoid mentioning them at all.There are even cases where voluntary plea of guilty and acceptance of punishments are established simply on the defendant's oral confession to have committed the crime.Therefore,how to verify and evaluate the voluntariness,which factors to be included in a evaluation system for voluntariness,the mechanism to guarantee voluntariness in each and every link of the procedure,as well as relevant legislations and practices in other countries are all topics worth in-depth discussion.