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What are the main differences between death sentences in China and the US?

The death sentence conferred on the British alleged drug trafficker Akmal Shaikh has once again brought the issue of the Chinese death penalty into the spotlight. Shaikh has been sentenced to death by gunshot for allegedly carrying a quantity of drugs into the country, but lawyers argue that he is suffering from a mental disorder which makes the death penalty wholly inappropriate. Nevertheless, the Chinese government has so far refused to reduce the sentence, even in the face of international calls to at least commute it to the so-called 'death sentence with probation', whereby individuals are given two years' probation following the pronouncement of a death sentence and, if they do not re-offend during that period, are given life imprisonment instead of death. China is a prolific enforcer of the death penalty, executing more people per capita than any other country in the world, yet a number of recent changes to the procedure - including the establishment of a two-stage appeals process (one of which is mandatory) - have been seen by many as an attempt to mitigate foreign criticism of the Chinese death sentence. Nevertheless, there remain significant differences between the death sentence in China and the United States.

Chinese death sentences are carried out with relative haste, usually immediately after the conclusion of the double appeals process. In some cases, the sentence can be carried out within an hour of the final decision being announced by the Supreme People's Court. This is a stark contrast to the US policy, which can involve inmates remaining on Death Row for many decades, while long and complex legal appeals are played out in a succession of courts. The reason for the haste in China is a desire to avoid such drawn out appeals; since less than 15% of death sentences are overturned in China, many in the country believe it to be fundamentally cruel to prolong the expectation of death. However, others have argued that the speed of the execution process gives little room for effective appeals, and note that in the US there have been a number of cases where innocent people have been sentenced to death before being found innocent after many years on Death Row. The Chinese process, with its three stage judicial legislature, is specifically designed to weed out such incorrect verdicts.

Another key difference concerns the method of execution. Traditionally, the sentence is carried out with a single bullet shot to the back of the head. This is considered by many in China to be the most humane, and the quickest, method of ensuring instant death. However, in recent years the country's judicial system has begun to experiment with using the US-style lethal injection process; although it takes longer to produce death, the lethal injection is widely regarded as being more humane since it allows the individual to pass away gradually, as if falling asleep. Alan King notes that there has been significant controversy concerning the use of the lethal injection, which has so far primarily been used only in cases involving high-level politicians (King, 2008); many in China believe that this creates, in effect, a two-tier death sentence system in which favoured individuals are allowed to take the more human lethal injection method, while poorer people are executed using the gunshot method. Arguably compounding this is the so-called 'bullet fee', which is a traditional fee paid by the relatives of the condemned, to cover the cost of the execution. This is rarely used in modern China, and is for the most part a historical curiosity.

Ultimately, therefore, it can be seen that executions in China are very different to those in the United States, both in terms of the procedural complexities that precede them and the actual manner of their enforcement. In particular, the use of public policy to shape the death sentence in China has been heavily criticised for allegedly leading to a lack of consistency in terms of which crimes merit execution; the use of the death penalty for inchoate crimes, i.e. those which have been attempted but not fully carried out, is particularly controversial, since it appears to many to represent a form of social engineering on the part of the Chinese government, executing repeat criminals regardless of the nature of their crime. In such cases, the principal cause of the execution is the recidivism of the criminal, who is believed to have demonstrated a determination to consistently commit such offences. China is acutely aware of its position in the international spotlight, and human rights abuses in the country are regularly highlighted both by foreign governments, and by non-governmental organisations and charities. International pressure is unlikely to persuade the Chinese to abandon the death penalty, and instead focuses on attempts to persuade the Chinese government to bring its use of the penalty in line with the international norm, which is closely aligned with that of the United States. However, there remain clear differences between China and the United States in terms of both the cultural acceptance, and the implementation, of the death penalty.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

King, Alan (2008). 'Red Republic: Justice in China'. London: Harrow-Lang Press

Reiman, Jeffrey & Louis Pojman (1998). 'The Death Penalty: For and Against'. London: Financial Times / Prentice Hall

Schabas, William (2008). 'War Crimes and Human Rights: Essays on the Death Penalty, Justice and Accountability'. London: John Wiley & Sons

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