First, according to the provisions of Article 225 of the Criminal Procedure Law, although the sentence can be directly changed, remanding for retrial is more in line with the value orientation of protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the defendant in the Criminal Procedure Law. In China, criminal proceedings are based on the system of second instance and final adjudication. If a person is found guilty in the first instance, he will be given a lighter sentence. If new criminal facts and evidence are found in the second trial, the sentence can be directly changed. However, if the sentence is changed in the second instance and the sentence is aggravated, such a sentence actually has only one trial level, which actually deprives him of the right to apply for retrial in disguise. Therefore, the original judgment should be revoked and sent back for retrial.
Second, remanding for retrial is conducive to protecting the defendant's legitimate rights and interests such as the right to appeal and the right to defense. If the court of second instance directly accepts the new evidence, revokes the original judgment and makes an effective guilty judgment, and increases the defendant's punishment according to the revised judgment, it will lead to the defendant losing the opportunity to appeal against the aggravated offender's judgment based on the new evidence, which in fact deprives the defendant of the right of appeal and defense against the criminal judgment in disguise.
Article 225 of the Criminal Procedure Law stipulates that the people's court of second instance shall handle cases of appeal or protest against the judgment of first instance according to the following circumstances:
(a) the original judgment found the facts and applicable laws correct, and the sentence was appropriate, so the appeal or protest was rejected and the original judgment was upheld;
(two) the original judgment found that the facts were not wrong, but the applicable law was wrong, or the sentence was improper, and the judgment should be revised;
(3) If the facts in the original judgment are unclear or the evidence is insufficient, the judgment may be revised after the facts are ascertained; You can also make a ruling to revoke the original judgment and send it back to the people's court that originally tried it for a new trial.
If the defendant appeals or the people's procuratorate protests after the people's court of first instance has made a judgment on the case sent back for retrial in accordance with the provisions of the third paragraph of the preceding paragraph, the people's court of second instance shall make a judgment or ruling according to law and will not send it back to the people's court of first instance for retrial.