An Empirical Study On Judicial Determination Of Obviously Inappropriate Sentencing Recommendations

Although Article 201 of the "Criminal Procedure Law" stipulates the court’s determination and handling of apparently inappropriate sentencing recommendations in cases of guilty plea and punishment,from the perspective of practice,there is currently no effective consensus on the determination standard and handling mode of obviously inappropriate sentencing recommendations.There are different or even conflicting views within the court,between the procuratorate and the court,and within the court.Although the existing research has also responded to this kind of confusion in practice,most of the existing research is based on the normative level,lacking real attention to practical cases,and limited to the impact of research perspectives,and has not carried out this issue in detail.In view of the legalization and practice of admitting guilt and accepting punishment,it has become an urgent problem for the theoretical and practical circles to further clarify the connotation boundaries of obviously inappropriate sentencing recommendations.Through the empirical analysis of 1,324 adjudication cases,it is found that the judicial determinations of obviously inappropriate sentencing recommendations include errors in the application of principal or additional penalties,abnormally heavy or light or unbalanced fines,and improper determination of basic facts.The determinations are not uniform.There are significant regional differences,range differences,and departmental differences in the determination of the deviation range of sentencing recommendations.Different regions have inconsistent determination of the deviation standard of sentencing recommendations.There are differences in the deviation range within the same court.disagreement.There is a certain degree of procedural objection in the preadjustment procedure,there are diverse understandings of the legal effect of the same procedural norm,and the specific implementation methods are not unified.There are insufficient and nonstandard issues in judicial determination of reasoning,and there are multiple phenomena of adjustment objections,circumstance objections,and document reasoning objections in the secondinstance determination of obviously inappropriate sentencing recommendations.Putting the problem in the context of the reform of the litigation system centered on trial,the reasons behind the problem are mainly reflected in the following aspects:on the one hand,the imperfection of relevant legal norms has caused problems to a certain extent,and the current sentencing standards are relatively vague and Sentencing methods are relatively extensive,inappropriate and obviously inappropriate judgment standards are not clear,the reasoning system of judgment documents and supporting systems such as probation and fines are not perfect.On the other hand,the unreasonable exercise of the sentencing suggestion power of some prosecutors is also the reason behind the problem.At the same time,the mode of judicial review of some judges and the relevant specific content are inconsistent,and the lack of smooth communication mechanisms between the procuratorate and the court,between the procuratorate and the victim,and between the procuratorate and the defender is an important reason behind the problem.In order to solve the above-mentioned problems,it is necessary to reasonably construct a judicial determination path of "obviously inappropriate" for sentencing recommendations.On the one hand,it is necessary to improve the relevant norms for admitting guilt and accepting punishment,clarifying the sentencing standards and optimizing the sentencing methods to a certain extent,clarifying the"obvious inappropriate" judgment standards,standardizing the reasoning system of court judgments,and improving supporting systems such as fines and social investigation reports.On the other hand,it is necessary to optimize the prosecutor’s sentencing recommendation power,and improve the prosecutor’s sentencing recommendation ability by means of systematic training and learning of prosecutors,optimizing the responsibility mechanism,and applying intelligent systems.At the same time,the mode and standard of judicial review by judges should be optimized,the review standards for obviously inappropriate sentencing recommendations should be strictly enforced,and the content of review should be improved.Finally,the multi-party communication mechanism should be unblocked,the communication and consultation mechanism between the procuratorate and the court should be strengthened,the victim’s right to participate in sentencing recommendations should be respected,and the role of the defense should be strengthened.