美国司法中死刑的适用及其问题

死刑的保留和适用,不但在美国本上引起颇多争议,而且也受到了欧美国家和"世界人权观察”、"大赦国际”等国际组织的密切关注和尖锐的批评.本文将简要介绍美国适用死刑的基本情况及严重违反人权的问题,或许有助于我们认识美国"司法公正”的真相.     

Taking Capital Punishment Seriously

Although Asia is the most important region of the world when it comes to capital punishment, it is also one of the most understudied. This article identifies four research questions that deserve attention from students and scholars who believe taking capital punishment seriously requires studying Asia seriously too. What are the empirical contours of capital punishment in contemporary Asia? What are the histories of capital punishment in Asia? Can Western theories of capital punishment explain patterns and changes in Asia? And what is the future of capital punishment in Asia? If researchers take the trouble to explore these questions, the death penalty will not only become an interesting window into law and society in Asia, but Asia will prove to be an instructive window into the death penalty—the gravest real-life problem in the law.     

赦宥在中国古代死刑适用中的作用

赦宥作为一种特殊的制度,在中国古代死刑制度运作中具有重要的作用和影响。赦宥制度在中国古代法律制度中的存在具有自己特殊的文化语境。中国古代赦宥制度经历了从司法原则转变成政策的历程。报应观是中国古代赦宥制度中司法适用原则转变成政策的主要原因。中国古代统治者为了达到"威慑"与"自利"的目的,在赦宥的具体适用中演变出了复杂的制度设置和种类。从客观上看,此制度的出现使中国古代死刑适用在一定程度上减少了专制带来的司法专横,同时也使中国古代死刑制度的运行更加具有自身的特色。     

国际人权与死刑──以国际人权法为线索的分析兼及中国的应对

国际人权法对死刑的态度经历了由放任到限制再到废除的转变。《世界人权宣言》对死刑以沉默显示放任;《公民权利与政治权利国际公约》等对死刑转向了限制;《旨在废除死刑的〈公民权利与政治权利国际公约〉第二议定书》等对死刑明令废除。中国现行死刑制度与国际人权法的要求尚存较大距离,应该采取必要的应对措施尽快缩短这一距离。     

Desert, Justice and Capital Punishment

Our purpose in this paper is to consider a procedural objection to the death penalty. According to this objection, even if the death penalty is deemed, substantively speaking, a morally acceptable punishment for at least some murderers, since only a small proportion of those guilty of aggravated murder are sentenced to death and executed, while the majority of murderers escape capital punishment as a result of arbitrariness and discrimination, capital punishment should be abolished. Our targets in this paper are two recent attempts, by Thomas Hurka and Michael Cholbi respectively, to defend the view that ‘levelling down’ (that is, reducing the punishment imposed on a criminal from the punishment he absolutely deserves to a less severe punishment in order to achieve proportionality relative to the criminals who have escaped the punishment they absolutely deserve) is, in the context of capital punishment, morally permissible. We argue that both Hurka and Cholbi fail to show why the arbitrariness and discrimination objection impugns the death penalty.

慎用死刑的程序保障——对我国现行死刑复核制度的检讨及完善建言

死刑复核制度具有限制死刑的功能,也是“慎用死刑”的程序保障。现行死刑复核体制存在诸多弊端,应当将死刑复核权全部收归最高人民法院行使,如此可以有利于在全国范围内统一死刑的适用标准,有利于对被判决死刑(立即执行)的人的权利进行救济,也有利于最大限度地贯彻“少杀,慎杀”的死刑刑事政政策。为解决处理死刑复核案件的效率问题,可在全国设立若干最高人民法院分院负责这类案件的审理工作;同时还应当大力完善这一制度的具体规范,以保障其功能的充分发挥。     

Considering Capital Punishment as a Human Interaction

This paper contributes to the normative debate over capital punishment by looking at whether the role of executioner is one in which it is possible and proper to take pride. The answer to the latter question turns on the kind of justification the agent can give for what she does in carrying out the role. So our inquiry concerns whether the justifications available to an executioner could provide him with the kind of justification necessary for him to take pride in what he does. If they cannot, I argue, this sheds some light on their adequacy as justifications. The main argument of the paper is that social control arguments for the death penalty fail to provide an adequate justification. I also give some consideration to retributive justifications. The argument is developed through close attention to the depiction of Albert Pierrepoint in the film, Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman.     

死刑不引渡原则探讨--以中国的有关立法与实务为主要视角

我国引渡法应明确规定死刑不引渡原则,以利于中国刑事司法权的行使.同时应注意:其一,未来的死刑不引渡原则应采取部分拒绝的立法方式,即附条件引渡;其二,应注意彻底废除中国刑法中的绝对死刑;其三,在主动引渡中,我们要充分运用刑罚的转换;其四,不损害中华人民共和国主权、国家利益、公共利益.     

抢劫犯罪死刑适用实证研究

在我国短时间内废除死刑并不现实,当务之急是规范死刑适用。抢劫犯罪的死刑主要适用于致人重伤、死亡的抢劫犯罪和其他情节极为恶劣的抢劫犯罪。在认定主要刑事责任人时应全面考察罪中、罪后、罪前等多方面情节。自首、立功等法定从宽处罚情节一般只及一罪;"先杀后抢"、"先抢后杀"的宣告刑应基本一致;在抢劫犯罪中一般不存在被害人有过错的情形;"赔偿免死"的前提是犯罪分子真诚悔罪。酌定从宽情节的适用亟待规范。     

Belief and Death: Capital Punishment and the Competence-for-Execution Requirement

A curious and comparatively neglected element of death penalty jurisprudence in America is my target in this paper. That element concerns the circumstances under which severely mentally disabled persons, incarcerated on death row, may have their sentences carried out. Those circumstances are expressed in a part of the law which turns out to be indefensible. This legal doctrine—competence-for-execution (CFE)—holds that a condemned, death-row inmate may not be killed if, at the time of his scheduled execution, he lacks an awareness of his impending death or the reasons for it. I argue that the law of CFE should be abandoned, along with the notion that it is permissible to kill the deeply disturbed just so long as they meet some narrow test of readiness to die. By adopting CFE, the courts have been forced to give independent conceptual and moral significance to a standard for competence that simply cannot bear the weight placed upon it. To be executable, CFE requires that a condemned prisoner meet a standard demonstrating an awareness of certain facts about his death. Yet this standard both leads to confusing and counter-intuitive results and is unsupported either by the reasons advanced by the courts on its behalf or by any of the standard theoretical justifications of criminal punishment. If executing the profoundly psychotic or delusional is wrong the law needs a better account of the wrong done when prisoners like Ford are killed. I suggest wherein that wrong might be located.     

Prison Conditions, Capital Punishment, and Deterrence

Previous research has attempted to identify a deterrent effectof capital punishment. We argue that the quality of life inprison is likely to have a greater impact on criminal behaviorthan the death penalty. Using state-level panel data coveringthe period 1950–90, we demonstrate that the death rateamong prisoners (the best available proxy for prison conditions)is negatively correlated with crime rates, consistent with deterrence.This finding is shown to be quite robust. In contrast, thereis little systematic evidence that the execution rate influencescrime rates in this time period.     

简论沈家本的废除死刑观

近代著名法学家沈家本在他主持的清末法制改革中,针对中国古代刑罚的残酷、繁多,主张刑罚趋轻、废除酷刑,并形成了自己颇具特色的废除死刑观。沈家本认为,要在中国废除死刑,必须结合中国的国情,走二步废除论之路,即首先减省死刑、死刑惟一;然后在此基础上谋教养、讲道德、废死刑。     

Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Understanding Disparate Results

Objectives

Investigate how different model assumptions have driven the conflicting findings in the literature on the deterrence effect of capital punishment.

Methods

The deterrence effect of capital punishment is estimated across different models that reflect the following sources of model uncertainty: (1) the uncertainty about the probability model generating the aggregate murder rate equation, (2) the uncertainty about the determinants of an individual’s choice of committing a murder or not, (3) the uncertainty about state level heterogeneity, and (4) the uncertainty about the exchangeability between observations with zero murder case and those with positive murder cases.

Results

First, the estimated deterrence effects exhibit great dispersion across models. Second, a particular subset of models—linear models with constant coefficients—always predict a positive deterrence effect. All other models predict negative deterrence effects. Third, the magnitudes of the point estimates of deterrence effects differ mainly because of the choice of linear versus logistic specifications.

Conclusions

The question about the deterrence effect of capital punishment cannot be answered independently from substantive assumptions on what determines individual behavior. The need for judgment cannot be escaped in empirical work.     

The Ethics of Care and (Capital?) Punishment

Law and Philosophy -     

死刑存废的立场

死刑作为一个国家的伦理文化积淀 ,其存废不能脱离某一国家特定时期的具体国情。当代中国之死刑需要在理性与感性的互动过程中渐入现代化之路 ,绝不能人为地强行废止 ;现实的妥当举措乃顺沿一般之强化、限制再到废止之轨迹 ,通过立法与司法双重限制之机制 ,达于最终废止之目的。     

对我国经济犯罪死刑废除的分析

经济犯罪与市场经济形影相随,经济犯罪行为虽然侵犯了国家的整体经济利益,但并不具有暴力侵犯人身的特点。经济犯罪属于法定犯,其主观方面应受谴责的程度逊于自然犯,故其刑罚自应轻于自然犯。对经济犯罪适用死刑违反了刑法谦抑性原则,有悖于刑法平等与刑罚均衡的原则,不利于我国国际和区际刑事司法合作。随着中国人权观念逐步深入人心和最高人民法院死刑复核权的收回,废除经济犯罪死刑不会引起高发案率,也符合我国已经签署的《公民权利和政治权利国际公约》的基本要求,并有利于扼制国有资产的大量流失,经济犯罪死刑废除的时机已经成熟。     

Class, Status, and the Punishment of White-Collar Criminals

The treatment of white-collar offenders by the criminal justice system has been a central concern since the concept of white-collar crime was first introduced In general, it has been assumed that those higher up the social hierarchy have an advantage in every part of the legal process, including the punishment they receive as white-collar criminals. In a controversial study of white-collar crime sentencing in the federal district courts, Wheeler, Weisburd, and Bode contradicted this assumption when they found that those of higher status were more likely to be imprisoned and, when sentenced to prison, were likely to receive longer prison terms than comparable offenders of lower status. While they argued that results were consistent with "what those who do the sentencing often say about it," their analyses failed to control for the role of social class in the sentencing process. In this article we reanalyze the Wheeler et al sentencing data, including both measures of socioeconomic status and class position. Our findings show that class position does have an independent influence on judicial sentencing behavior. But this effect does not demand revision in the major findings reported in the earlier study.     

构建和谐社会背景下中国死刑政策的调整

死刑复核问题是当前中国司法界的热点问题.2006年10月31日,全国人大常委会通过了《关于修改〈中华人民共和国人民法院组织法〉的决定》,根据这一修改,从2007年1月1日起,所有死刑案件的核准权将收归最高人民法院统一行使,省一级的高级人民法院将不再拥有核准死刑的权力.