By Xinhua writers Bai Xu, Jiang Shiqiang and Ji Shaoting
BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- To the young farmer, the decision came too late.
If China's Supreme People's Court had retrieved the right to review death penalty earlier, 20-year-old Nie Shubin, who was executed as a scapegoat, might still be alive, farming in the fields and serving his gray-haired parents.
In an autumn day in 1994, the young man from north China's Hebei Province was tossed from home by police for "raping and murdering" a woman in the crop field.
Dubbed as a "ferocious demon", he was sentenced to death and executed half a year later, too soon for the stammering boy to tell his tearful mother what really happened during their only and last two-minute meeting.
Days and years passed. His name seemed to have been forgotten until January 2005, when another defendant confessed to Nie's crime. By then reticent Nie had rested in the tomb for nearly a dozen years.
Heated debate was touched off by the unexpected development of the case. The innocent man's execution stormed newspapers and magazines as a frontpage sensation. Experts and common people pushed for centralizing the severest criminal punishment.
A decision finally came out last year, when the Supreme People's Court announced to review all death penalty rulings made by lower courts beginning Jan. 1, 2007, ending a 24-year power of lower courts to issue death sentences and execute criminals without the approval of the supreme court.
PUNISHING THE MISCREANT, SPARING THE INNOCENT
"Death penalty shall be exercised more cautiously for only a small number of extremely serious offenders with hard evidence," said Xiao Yang, president of the Supreme People's Court, while explaining the retrieval of power to review death penalty rulings.
The reform has been viewed by many people as an effective way to reduce capital punishment and avoid wrong verdicts.
Although Xiao Yang declared that the retrieval did not mean lax crackdown on crimes, experts estimated the number of people put to death would drop by 20 percent.
"It shows an enhanced respect for human rights," said Suo Weidong, a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC) and chief procurator of the People's Procuratorate of Jilin Province. "Defendants will be given one more chance to have their voices heard and miscarriages can be diminished," he said.
"The goal of penalty is prevention and education," said Liu Laiping, another NPC deputy from the Intermediate People's Court of Shenzhen in south China's Guangdong Province. "They should be taught rather than killed."
Former security guard She Xianglin in central China had similar experience, but he was fortunate to survive 11 years of imprisonment. "The retrieval helps avoid blunders in execution," She said, recalling his bitter days behind bars.
"People are really vulnerable and helpless when sentenced to death without favorable evidence," said She, who was given death sentence in October 1994 by a city court in Hubei Province for killing his wife in January that year. However, the woman turned up safe and sound in March 2005.
DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD, NOT CATHOLICON
In China, death penalty is imposed on more than 70 offenses, including non-violent crimes. However, the authorities do not release the exact annual number of death penalty.
The Supreme People's Court loosened its control over death penalty review in 1983, amid social unrests following the decade-long Cultural Revolution.
When social order was gradually restored, problems cropped up.
One of them was that the judges in different areas might handle similar cases in varied ways. In similar cases, a defendant sentenced to death in one province might be jailed for life in another.
"Such difference led to injustice," said professor Chen Zhonglin with the Chongqing-based Southwest University of Political Science and Law, who was the first NPC deputy appealing for the retrieval in 2003.
Another problem was mis-conviction caused by weak supervision, as happened to Nie. Confessions were sometimes extracted through torture by the police. In 2006, prosecutors made 11,368 suggestions against the obtaining of evidences and confessions with illegal means.
At that time, the Supreme People's Court reviewed less than ten percent of death sentences, mostly economic and graft crimes as well as those in connection with national security.
Improper use of death penalty could incur dissatisfaction even hatred from relatives of the executed, said Tian Wenchang, a lawyer with the Jingdu Law Firm in Beijing. In other words, this would jeopardize social stability.
LONG AND WINDING ROAD STILL AHEAD
Optimistic about the eventual abolition of death penalty in China, Chen denied that it is coming soon.
"Two preconditions are needed for the abolition of death penalty -- serious criminal offenses falling to a rather low point and harsh criminal punishment no longer a main resort to stifle crimes," he said, adding that the timing and conditions are not ripe yet in a country still grappling with serious crimes.
The year 2006 saw 889,042 suspects prosecuted nationwide, according to statistics released by the Supreme People's Court on Tuesday.
Among the convicts, 340,715 people committed serious violent crimes, such as murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping, or taking parts in gang activities, according to the statistics.
Sharing Chen's view, Tian Wenchang, the lawyer, said that civilians are not ready to accept the abolition of death penalty at present.
"An important effect of death penalty is to meet people's psychological need," said Tian. "For thousands of years, Chinese people have been cherishing a simple sentiment -- a debtor must pay with money and a murderer with life."
Without death penalty, lynch would prevail, the lawyer worried.
To ensure the cautious use of death penalty, Liu Laiping from Shenzhen underscored the independence of police, procuratorates and courts. "It is important to improve the capability of staff in these units and raise their sense of responsibility," he said.
The Supreme People's Procuratorate has embarked on a campaign to clean up illegal interrogations. In 2006, a total of 2,987 judicial staff were investigated for abuse of power and graft.
Video and audio recordings have been adopted nationwide during interrogations in major cases like murder and gang crime, as well as white-collar crimes such as corruption, bribery and dereliction of duty, in a bid to stamp out confessions extracted by torture.
Xinhua writers Zhu Wei and Wei Wu also contributed to the story.
