Capital Punishment with a Two-Year Suspension: China’s Gateway to Fewer Executions?

Capital Punishment with a Two-Year Suspension: China’s Gateway to Fewer Executions?

China is the world’s leading country in criminal execution. There has been a growing concern in the global community about China’s capital punishment policy and practice. This paper offers a new angle in restricting China’s high execution rate – by expanding the application of a special statute called “capital punishment with two-year suspension” (CPTYS) with a “threshold mechanism.” Currently almost all of CPTYS cases were commuted to life sentences after two years. Though it is being actively utilized, the proportion of CPTYS cases only reaches a minority of all capital cases. A sample of 104 death cases transcripts from 12 courts is used to draw a modern sentencing picture that has not been documented before. Based on available information, the paper discusses the evaluation of mitigating and aggravating circumstances and how to develop a threshold for the combination of these factors to reach a CPTYS decision. By raising the threshold, the courts are able to apply a wider use of CPTYS and reduce the number of executions.