Death sentence with reprieve (Chinese: 死刑缓期执行, abbr: 死缓) is a criminal punishment of the criminal law of the People's Republic of China. It is a two-year suspended sentence where the execution is only carried out if the convicted commits further crimes during the suspension period. The convicted remains incarcerated during the entire suspension period. After that period, the sentence is automatically reduced to life imprisonment, or to a 25-year prison sentence based on meritorious behavior.[1] The reprieve is integrated into the sentence, unlike a pardon which occurs after the sentence.[2] The punishment is found in chapter 5 (death penalty), sections 48, 50 and 51.[1]

History and usage

The sentence emphasizes the severity of the crime and the mercy of the court, and comes from traditional Chinese jurisprudence.[3] Although it was only in 1979 that the sentence was included in modern Chinese criminal law. The recipient who was convicted of "heinous crime" was then subjected to two years of labour. After this two year period, if the recipient showed "true repentance", the sentence would be commuted to life imprisonment. If they also “performed meritorious service”, their sentence would be commuted to 15-20 years. However if they “resisted reform in a flagrant manner”, they would be executed by firing squad. The resistance however had to be shown to be particularly serious.[4]

A 1997 update to the law, amended the sentence to be for "extremely serious" crimes, if an intentional crime was not committed during the two year period, the sentence was then commuted to life imprisonment, which could be further commuted to at least 25 years. If the recipient performed “great meritorious service”, it would be commuted to 20-25 years. Although if the original sentence had been for corruption in embezzling "especially large" sums of money, a sentence could only be commuted to life imprisonment with no chance of parole.[4]

Chinese courts hand down this form of sentencing more often than actual death sentences.[2] According to researchers, the post-2007 death penalty reforms resulted in a larger proportion of death sentences becoming suspended.[5] Based on the 2024 sentencing of Yang Hengjun to death with reprieve for espionage charges, Ryan Mitchell, a law professor at the University 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.[6]

The 2015 criminal law amendment allowed sentences to restrict commutation to only life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for convictions of bribery or "plundering the public treasury".[7] This was the case with Bai Enpei and Fu Zhenghua.[8][9]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Gazette of the State Council of the People's Republic of China" (PDF) (in Chinese). No. 10. Government of the People's Republic of China. 4 April 1997. Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 June 2013. Retrieved 20 August 2012.
  2. 1 2 Trevaskes, Susan (May–June 2008). "The Death Penalty in China Today: Kill Fewer, Kill Cautiously". Asian Survey. 48 (3): 393–413. doi:10.1525/as.2008.48.3.393. hdl:10072/26121. JSTOR 10.1525/as.2008.48.3.393.
  3. ↑ Scobell, Andrew (September 1990). "The Death Penalty in Post-Mao China". China Quarterly. 123 (123): 503–520. doi:10.1017/S0305741000018890. JSTOR 654154. S2CID 154380257.
  4. 1 2 Seet, Matthew (April 2017). "China's Suspended Death Sentence with a Two-Year Re- prieve: Humanitarian Reprieve or Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Punishment?" (PDF). NUS Working Paper 2017/006. Singapore: National University of Singapore: 5–7.
  5. ↑ Miao, Michelle (2016). "Two Years between Life and Death: A Critical Analysis of the Suspended Death Penalty in China". International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice. 45 (3): 26–43. doi:10.1016/j.ijlcj.2015.10.003.
  6. ↑ "What is China's suspended death sentence verdict?". The Straits Times. Singapore. Reuters. 5 February 2024. Archived from the original on 2024-02-17.
  7. ↑ 二十大前夕 公安高官傅政华孙力军被判终身监禁意味着什么. BBC News (in Simplified Chinese). 2022-09-27.
  8. ↑ "Former senior legislator sentenced to death with reprieve". Xinhua News Agency. 2016-10-09. Retrieved 2019-01-29.
  9. ↑ "China's former senior official Fu Zhenghua sentenced to death with reprieve". Xinhua News Agency. 2022-09-22. Retrieved 16 May 2025.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_sentence_with_reprieve