The Research Of Invalid Defense System Of Death Penalty Cases

With the continuous development of criminal defense system in China, the problem of the invalid defense of death penalty cases has attracted the attention of the law professions. Despite the current law of our country has established a series of rules on lawyers’ qualification, lawyers’ professional ethics, lawyers conducting criminal defenses by accepting commissions, legal aid and other issues, which makes the defense system gradually move towards the stage of perfection, in those death penalty cases, lawyers’ defenses do not necessarily reach the due effect-- because our country’s threshold for lawyer’s professional admittance is not very high, lawyers’ legal qualities are not universally secured, meanwhile, generally lawyers engaging in criminal cases take full payment of the practice in advance, the control by principals on lawyers is not strong, therefore the lawyers are always lack of responsibility and abuse duties. As for the right of defense, the recent amendment of criminal procedure law has focused more on protecting the suspects’ right to accept defense, but to establish an equal litigation structure between prosecution and suspects becomes very urgent. There are continuous explorations on how to exercise the right of defense by lawyers in criminal cases theoretically and practically. New opinions like paying more and more attention to the quality standard of defense and relief issues have been raised. How to ensure the validity of the defense in death penalty cases and how to judge whether the defense in death penalty cases is invalid correctly is an urgent matter. In criminal cases, as the freedom of defendants is restricted, lawyers are on duty of assisting the suspects engaging in the procedures, and the assistance should be effective. Especially in death penalty cases, lawyers’ effective defense is very significant to maintain the rights and interests of the defendants. However, in the practice of defense in death penalty cases of our country, no specialized access mechanism for death penalty defense lawyers has been set up, so some incompetent defense lawyers entered the field of death penalty defense, and the legitimate rights and interests of defendants will not be fully maintained. And in the cases of deathpenalty, the lawyer should provide effective defense, but in our country, there’s not any unified evaluation mechanism, so whether lawyers provide a valid defense or not is not clarified. Based on the practical consideration, we need to establish comprehensive evaluation criteria on the validity for death penalty cases. In America,the Federal Court of Appeals is in charge of hearing the cases of reviewing whether the defense of death penalty cases is invalid raised by defendants. However, in our country, the regulation subject of defense lawyers are mainly lawyers associations.Generally speaking, if defendants consider the defense of their lawyers is inappropriate, they can make complaints to lawyers associations themselves. In addition, the court may also explain the situation to lawyers associations. To improve China’s death penalty defense system, promote the protection of human rights, China should formulate unified standard on lawyers’ defense of death penalty cases. As self-discipline organizations, lawyers associations can absolutely conduct self-government and unified regulation authorized by related departments. In the proceedings of procedure, the court may also supervise whether the defenses by lawyers are competent, meanwhile, the court should be entitled the right of reviewing invalid defense under authority. This is in favor of forming a unified and conductive standard on death penalty cases defense. Stipulating the court have the right to review the quality of defense by lawyers in death penalty cases by law can also promote lawyers’ conscience to fulfill their obligations, improve the public trust to court, and can also clarify the routines of relief for defendants.