| Death sentence with reprieve | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Simplified Chinese | 死刑缓期执行 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 死刑緩期執行 | ||||||||||||||||||
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| (Abbreviation) | |||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 死缓 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 死緩 | ||||||||||||||||||
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Death sentence with reprieve (Chinese:死刑缓期执行,abbr:死缓) is acriminal punishment found in chapter 5 (death penalty), sections 48, 50 and 51 of the criminallaw of the People's Republic of China. It is a two-yearsuspended sentence where theexecution is only carried out if the convicted commits further crimes during the suspension period. After the period the sentence is automatically reduced tolife imprisonment, or to a fixed-term based on meritorious behavior.[1] The reprieve is integrated into the sentence, unlike apardon which occurs after the sentence.
Chinese courts hand down this form of sentencing more often than actual death sentences.[2] The sentence emphasizes the severity of the crime and the mercy of the court, and comes from traditional Chinese jurisprudence.[3] According to researchers, the post-2007 death penalty reforms resulted in a larger proportion of death sentences becoming suspended.[4] Based on the 2024 sentencing ofYang Hengjun to death with reprieve for espionage charges, Ryan Mitchell, a law professor at theUniversity of Hong Kong, stated that death with reprieve was used in recent years to reduce the rate of executions without abolishing capital punishment. He also stated that such sentences were typically reserved for serious crimes with potentially serious social consequences, and that they were rarely commuted to fixed-term imprisonment.[5]
The 2015 criminal law amendment allowed sentences to restrict commutation to only life imprisonment without possibility of parole for convictions of bribery or "plundering the public treasury".[6] This was the case withBai Enpei andFu Zhenghua.[7][8]
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