死刑:一种残酷的刑罚

残酷刑罚是不尊重罪犯尊严和人格,或者剥夺或限制罪犯不应剥夺或限制的权利,或者无助于实现使罪犯成为新人要求的,或者造成罪犯肉体或精神上极度痛苦的不必要的刑罚。残酷刑罚的认定有绝对性和相对性两个标准。无论从绝对性还是相对性标准看,死刑都是一种残酷的刑罚。     

美国死刑案件有罪答辩自愿性探微

在美国,享有不被强迫自证其罪的权利是保障被告人认罪自愿性的基础。在死刑案件中,被告人作有罪答辩时得到了有效而合格的律师帮助、具有与其律师交流的能力、在知晓指控的性质和答辩有罪的后果是被告人自愿认罪的标志,选择陪审团审判而可能被判处死刑并不是强迫被告人认罪的必然因素。     

The Impact on Juror Verdicts of Judicial Instruction to Disregard Inadmissible Evidence: A Meta-Analysis

The effect on juror verdicts of judicial instructions to disregard inadmissible evidence was evaluated using meta-analysis. One hundred seventy-five hypothesis tests from 48 studies with a combined 8,474 participants were examined. Results revealed that inadmissible evidence (IE) has a reliable effect on verdicts consistent with the content of the IE. Judicial instruction to ignore the inadmissible evidence does not effectively eliminate IE impact. However, if judges provide a rationale for a ruling of inadmissibility, juror compliance may be increased. Contested evidence ruled admissible accentuates that information, resulting in a significant impact on verdicts. Suggestions for how the courts may mitigate the impact of inadmissible evidence more effectively are discussed.     

何为实体“从宽”:基于认罪认罚从宽制度顶层设计的解读

何为实体"从宽",是困扰认罪认罚从宽制度试点实践,并影响相应程序制度设计与改革目标实现的关键问题。既有试点实践基于"提高诉讼效率、节省司法资源"的顶层设计,将其视为一个新的量刑情节的理解和做法,是该制度在当前推行中出现诸多问题、遇到诸多困境的重要症结所在。事实上,基于党政国策背景,本制度在顶层设计上不仅要"提高诉讼效率、节省司法资源",而且还要承载缓解社会矛盾、转型重刑主义刑罚观念、避免短期自由刑适用弊端、提升犯罪人回归社会效果等时代使命。由此,"认罪认罚从宽"在实体方面并非一个独立的量刑情节,而是对接刑法中相应定罪量刑制度并需有实体立法突破的激励性从宽处罚制度。     

日本死刑若干问题思考

前言法国著名作家、哲学家阿尔伯特·加缪 1 957年发表《断头台的反思》①一文 ,讲述他父亲的一则故事。加缪虽没有见过父亲 ,但这则轶闻不但使他了解了父亲 ,而且痛感死刑的荒诞性。文章要义如下 :第一次世界大战后不久 ,在阿尔及尔发生一起耸人听闻的案件 :一个村民的全家包括父母和孩童全部被人残忍地杀死 ,财物也全部被掳走。凶手也是一个村民 ,被阿尔及尔法庭判处死刑。人们说 ,即使把这个恶魔斩首 ,也太轻饶他了。加缪的父亲也这样认为 ,并为那些被杀害的幼小孩童深深痛惜。因此 ,他平生里第一次决定去亲睹处决凶手的现场。他半夜起来…     

The Death Penalty: An Unusual Punishment America is Inflicting Upon Itself

The United States is the only Western, industrialized nation still executing criminal offenders. The Constitutional provision that is most often used to call the appropriateness of capital punishment in the United States into question is the 8th Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Opponents of capital punishment have often argued various reasons why the death penalty is a cruel punishment, but the Supreme Court of the United States has not agreed. A new approach to abolition advocacy is needed. Since the death penalty has not been determined cruel, I submit a new legal argument based on the unusual nature of capital punishment. Utilizing systems theory, I posit the death penalty is an unusual criminal punishment due to the extraordinary range of persons beyond merely the defendant who are negatively impacted by executions.     

论刑事司法对死刑适用的影响

死刑的限制与全面废除并不完全取决于民意的走向,也不是哪位政治家一夜的梦想就能够实现的。死刑作为一种既古老而又严厉的刑罚已经在不同的社会、不同的时期因为其特殊的功能而形成一种深深的历史印迹,洗刷这种印迹同样需要一个漫长、艰难的过程,需要一个司法检验立法的过程,以及立法自身完善的过程。     

Some further Reflections on Guilt and Punishment

Law and Philosophy -     

批判的学问——《关于惩罚的哲学——刑罚根据论》前言

学术需要批判。学术批判是一种极其严肃的事业、一种建设性的事业与一种承先启后的事业。     

该当与危险:新型刑罚目的对量刑的影响

立基于再犯危险性预测的剥夺犯罪能力是由犯罪学派首先提出的刑罚理论,并广泛应用于保安处分之中,但是新近作为刑罚目的在量刑中的适用却引起了极大的争论。无论是类型化剥夺犯罪能力还是选择性剥夺犯罪能力,在一种有序列的、并合主义的量刑理论中,都可以找到立足之地,并发挥更加重要的作用,将有限的司法资源集中到最需要控制的危险犯罪类型和犯罪人之上,不但为"宽严相济的刑事政策"填补具体内容提供路径与方法,同时能够最大限度地为刑法赢得道德信誉。     

Construing Motive in Videotaped Killings: The Role of Jurors' Attitudes Toward the Death Penalty

Death-qualified jurors are generally able to impose the death penalty, whereas excludable jurors are generally either unable or unwilling to do so. A long line of research studies has shown that the former are more likely than the latter to convict criminal defendants. Ellsworth (1993) argues that jurors' attitudes toward the death penalty predict verdicts because they are embedded in a cluster of beliefs and theories about the criminal justice system. Her studies show that jurors interpret ambiguous conduct based on these belief structures. The present study examines the possibility that death penalty attitudes also influence jurors' conceptions of criminal intent. We showed mock jurors the filmed murder of a convenience store clerk and examined the inferences they drew from this evidence. Jurors who favored the death penalty tended to read criminal intent into the defendant's actions and jurors who opposed the death penalty were less likely to do so. These data provide further explanation of the conviction-proneness of death-qualified jurors.     

美国死刑制度评述──以俄勒冈州的死刑制度为例

本文以美国俄勒冈州死刑制度为背景,介绍了美国死刑的制度的发展史、死刑制度的具体运作、普通美国人对死刑制度的看法与观点、全美死刑的概况以及美国死刑制度的发展趋势。     

刑罚人道主义与死刑制度检讨

本文简要论述了刑罚人道主义兴起的原因和思想内涵,并以此为视角检讨我国的死刑制度。     

毒品犯罪死刑问题研究

出于现实中打击毒品犯罪的需要,我国现行刑法的毒品犯罪仍然保留了死刑。但是,从司法实践角度看,我们应当严格限制毒品犯罪死刑的适用;从立法论角度看,出于对人权的保护和尊重,以及受到毒品合法化等因素的影响,我们应当力争废除我国刑法中毒品犯罪保留的死刑。     

Race and the Death Penalty

Abstract

Scholars have learned a great deal about race and the death penalty. Yet the field has limitations: (1) prior research focuses on African Americans and Hispanics but ignores Asian Americans; (2) researchers have not explored Donald Black's (1989) plan to eliminate discrimination called the “desocialization of law.” Black notes that jurors who do not know the race of the offender and victim cannot discriminate. Black then outlines proposals aimed at removing race information from trials, while still providing jurors with relevant legal information. We address both issues through an experiment in which mock jurors (N = 1,233 students) recommended a sentence in a capital murder trial consisting of four conditions: (1) Asian American-white; (2) white-Asian American; (3) African American-white; (4) race of offender and victim unknown. The results suggest that Asian Americans are treated the same as whites, while African Americans continue to suffer from discrimination. Here, we consider the potential role of social status in such outcomes. The results also suggest that African American offenders and unknown offenders face the same odds of a death sentence. Here, we consider two potential interpretations. On one hand, jurors in the unknown condition could have seen an African American offender and a white victim in their “mind's eye,” effectively merging the conditions. On the other hand, death sentences could be the same in the conditions for distinct reasons: Death sentences could be high in the unknown condition because of relational distance between the juror and offender, while death sentences could be high in the African American-white condition because of discrimination. We conclude by considering the theoretical and public policy implications of both the central findings.     

国际公约废除死刑适用之我见

自1764年意大利刑法学家贝卡里亚倡导废除死刑200多年来,在对待公民生命权的态度上,国际社会已经不再单纯强调生命权的重要性与平等性,开始对于严重暴力犯罪的死刑适用问题逐渐加以限制,直至最终废除死刑的适用,这些理念充分体现了国际公约保障人权的基本精神。在这种精神的影响下,一些国家逐步废除了死刑。