Legal basis: People's Republic of China (PRC) Criminal Law.
Article 48 The death penalty is only applicable to criminals who have committed extremely serious crimes. For criminals who should be sentenced to death, if they do not have to be executed immediately, they can be sentenced to death with a two-year suspension.
The death penalty shall be submitted to the Supreme People's Court for approval, except for those sentenced by the Supreme People's Court according to law. If the death penalty is suspended, it may be decided or approved by a higher people's court.
Article 49 People under the age of 18 at the time of committing a crime and women who are pregnant at the time of trial are not subject to the death penalty.
The death penalty does not apply to people who have reached the age of 75 at the time of trial, except those who cause death by particularly cruel means.
Article 50 If the death penalty is suspended, and there is no intentional crime during the suspended period, it shall be commuted to life imprisonment after the expiration of two years; If there is indeed a significant meritorious service, after the expiration of two years, it will be reduced to 25 years in prison; If the crime is intentional and the circumstances are bad, the death penalty shall be executed after being reported to the Supreme People's Court for approval; If the death penalty is not executed due to intentional crime, the suspended execution period of death penalty shall be recalculated and reported to the Supreme People's Court for the record.
The people's court may, according to the circumstances of the crime, at the same time decide to limit or reduce the punishment for recidivists sentenced to death with a suspended execution and criminals sentenced to death with a suspended execution for intentional homicide, rape, robbery, kidnapping, arson, explosion, throwing dangerous substances or organized violent crimes.
Article 51 The period of suspension of execution of a death sentence shall be counted from the date when the judgment is determined. Sentences commuted with a suspension of execution of death penalty shall be counted from the date when the suspension of execution of death penalty expires.