Generally speaking, pleading guilty means that the defendant admits the criminal charges against him. However, in the sense of procedural law, confession is a legal act, which can cause the occurrence, change or termination of certain procedures in criminal proceedings. Therefore, it is necessary to further explore its constitutive conditions and legal significance. The author believes that the oral supply in procedural law has the following elements:
First, pleading guilty refers to the self-admission behavior in the pre-trial stage when the criminal case has been prosecuted and the evidence has been shown, which is the time requirement for pleading guilty. In criminal proceedings, it is possible for criminal suspects and defendants to admit their criminal charges throughout the proceedings. However, the confession behavior of criminal suspects in the investigation or prosecution stage should not be given the meaning of procedural law, so it does not belong to the confession mentioned in procedural law. The main reasons for excluding the confession behavior of criminal suspects in the investigation, examination and prosecution stage are as follows: on the one hand, it is necessary to prevent criminal suspects from confessing a misdemeanor in order to escape a felony before finding out the facts of the crime, so as to avoid punishment; On the other hand, it is also necessary to prevent investigation organs or procuratorial organs from inducing criminal suspects to make confessions of guilt or felony without ascertaining the facts of the crime; More importantly, because the confession in procedural law will affect the process and form of litigation, it can only be based on the premise that the investigation, examination and prosecution have ended and the investigation of crimes has ended, so that the confession will not affect the investigation of the facts of the case. Therefore, it should be clear that the confession in the sense of procedural law only refers to the confession in the pre-trial stage, and the confession of criminal facts by criminal suspects in the investigation, examination and prosecution stage cannot be used as the basis for starting or changing criminal proceedings, so it is not a confession in the sense of procedural law.
Second, confession is a confession made by the defendant based on evidence display, and it is an essential element of confession. The purpose of evidence display is to make both parties know each other's litigation evidence, so as to better participate in litigation and improve the efficiency of finding out the facts of the case through litigation. For the defendant, the presentation of evidence can make him make a more accurate judgment on the degree of proof of the facts of the case by the prosecution, which has a fundamental impact on his litigation behavior. In the process of presenting evidence, the defendant can comprehensively and fully evaluate and weigh the prosecution's evidence with the help of his lawyer. If he thinks that the prosecution's evidence is not enough to prove his crime, he will choose strict trial procedures in order to get acquitted. If you think that the prosecution's evidence is sufficient to prove or may prove that it is guilty, you will consider giving up the strict trial procedure in exchange for a quick procedure to reduce the burden of litigation and obtain the commutation of the substantive judgment. The purpose of establishing guilty plea system in criminal proceedings is to make the simplification of proceedings legal by urging the defendant to plead guilty. When the defendant comprehensively weighed the prosecution's evidence through evidence presentation and made a guilty plea decision on this basis, it not only recognized the probative force of the prosecution's evidence, but also recognized the legitimacy of hearing the case according to the summary procedure. Therefore, it is an essential element for the defendant to know all the evidence of the prosecution through evidence display and decide whether to admit the crime on this basis.
Thirdly, pleading guilty is an admission made by the defendant before the judge in the presence of his defense lawyer, which is a formal requirement of pleading guilty. In criminal proceedings, criminal suspects and defendants are usually in an extremely unfavorable litigation position. Not only do they lack the necessary legal knowledge, so they can't effectively protect their legal rights, but they are also vulnerable to the influence of the surrounding environment and make decisions against their will because they lose their personal freedom. In order to ensure that the defendant's guilty plea decision is made on the basis of fully and effectively weighing the prosecution's evidence and his own interests, a lawyer is needed to provide him with legal help, so that he can face a neutral judge and make a decision with as little external influence as possible. Therefore, the presence of the defense lawyer and facing the judge are the formal elements of the confession.
Reforming the trial procedure of guilty plea cases is conducive to improving litigation efficiency and saving litigation costs, which is of great significance to the diversion of cases. In the face of increasing case pressure year by year, applying summary procedure and ordinary procedure to simplify trial procedure to try cases where the facts of the case are clear and the defendant pleads guilty can make prosecutors and judges devote more time and energy to major, difficult, complex and influential cases, which is of positive significance for relieving case pressure, improving litigation efficiency, effectively ensuring case quality and truly realizing rational allocation of judicial resources. Procuratorial organs that apply summary procedure to hear cases can not send personnel to appear in court, which saves court time and handling time. For cases with simplified trial procedures, the trial time is shortened to less than 1 hour, which greatly saves the trial time, because the interrogation, proof and court debate of the defendant are simplified.
Reforming the trial procedure of guilty plea cases is of certain significance to the education of guilty plea of criminal suspects and defendants. The defendant's confession can reveal his remorse psychology, thus to some extent, indicating the reduction of his subjective malignancy. Applying summary procedure and ordinary procedure to simplify the trial procedure to hear the case of the defendant's confession, and giving the defendant a lighter punishment according to law is not only the affirmation and encouragement of his voluntary confession, but also the education of the criminal suspect and the defendant's attitude of pleading guilty. Taking the stage of examination and prosecution as an example, when the prosecutor interrogates a criminal suspect, he will explain the relevant legal provisions and specific legal consequences of applying summary procedure to the criminal suspect in detail according to the specific case. Some criminal suspects who did not plead guilty in the investigation stage confessed to the facts of the crime in the examination and prosecution stage. Therefore, the trial procedure of guilty plea cases fully respects the subjective status of criminal suspects and defendants, and the legal consequences of lighter punishment according to law are also the education of criminal suspects and defendants to plead guilty to a certain extent.
1. Criminal suspects, defendants and their defenders have the right to start the trial procedure of guilty plea cases.
According to the provisions of relevant documents, criminal suspects, defendants and their defenders do not enjoy the right to apply summary procedures and ordinary procedures to simplify the trial, but only enjoy the right to disagree with the application. Giving criminal suspects, defendants and their defenders the right to plead guilty and admit punishment is not only a manifestation of respecting and protecting the status of criminal suspects and defendants as the subject of litigation, but also a manifestation of encouraging criminal suspects and defendants to plead guilty voluntarily and punish them lightly according to law. Therefore, regarding the subject of filing a case, we should reform the current regulations and give the criminal suspect, the defendant and their defense lawyers the right to apply the procedure of handling guilty plea cases. Criminal suspects, defendants and their defenders have the right to apply for initiating the procedures for handling plea cases. Procuratorial organs and people's courts should give full consideration to the applications of criminal suspects, defendants and their defenders when suggesting or deciding whether to apply summary procedures or ordinary procedures to simplify trials.
Second, simplify the pretrial procedure-fast transfer procedure.
In the setting of quick cutting procedure, we can use it for reference and reform boldly. In our country, we can set up a special procedure, which can be completed in a few days or weeks from on-the-spot detention to transfer to court for trial. This needs to be reformed in the following aspects: (1) The time limit for handling cases is shorter than that of ordinary cases. Because the flagrante delicto who was detained or turned over on the spot, plus his guilty confession, decided that the evidence of the case was basically available, and it was not necessary to spend more time to solve the case or collect evidence, which laid the foundation for the rapid investigation and review of the case. Therefore, it is possible and feasible to complete the task of handling a case in a short time, which can be reduced by at least 50% within the statutory time limit of ordinary procedures. (two) in the production of litigation documents, it should be simplified and omitted, especially the case-filing report and closing report within the case-handling organ can be omitted, and some can be merged. (3) simplify the examination authority and working methods. The person in charge of the public security organ at or above the county level or the procurator-general may authorize the person in charge of the specific case-handling department to examine and approve some procedural decisions to be made in the case of guilty plea, so as to reduce the turnover link and examination and approval time; The division of labor within the public security and procuratorial organs can also be appropriately merged or simplified, such as the merger of filing a case for investigation, the merger of examination and arrest, and the merger of examination and prosecution. This kind of merger can be the merger of several working procedures, or several working procedures can be undertaken continuously by the same case handler, so as to reduce workload and manpower expenditure and achieve the requirements of rapidity and low cost.
Third, give the procuratorial organs the right to suggest sentencing.
The procuratorial organ's right to suggest sentencing, also known as the right to request punishment, refers to the right of the procuratorial organ to make more specific requests to the people's court for opinions on the punishment suffered by the defendant while accusing the defendant of committing a crime. Some scholars have proposed to build a Chinese plea bargaining system. The main content of plea bargaining is the scope of the defendant's confession and voluntary acceptance of sentencing, including voluntary acceptance of probation in case of conviction. A practical significance of applying ordinary procedures to simplify the trial of the defendant's confession is to give the procuratorial organ the right to suggest sentencing, which is conducive to the procuratorial organ to supervise whether the people's court will punish the defendant who pleaded guilty lightly according to law and protect the legitimate rights and interests of the defendant according to law.
Four, the introduction of "plea bargaining" in the simplification of pretrial procedure is in the stage of examination and prosecution.
We can transform the "plea bargaining" in the west into a "plea bargaining" system with China characteristics, thus forming a supporting system for fast procedures. In the stage of examination and prosecution, the cases accepted by the procuratorial organs can be cases that have been confessed by criminal suspects in the stage of public security investigation. In the stage of examination and prosecution, if the criminal suspect still makes a confession, the procuratorial organ may directly simplify the handling according to the procedure of rapid transfer of guilty cases. Another possibility is that the suspect made a confession in the investigation stage, but retracted his confession in the examination and prosecution stage; Another possibility is that the suspect does not plead guilty in the investigation stage and does not plead guilty in the examination and prosecution stage. For the latter two cases, the procuratorial organ can not apply the fast transfer procedure of guilty plea cases, but it may as well use plea bargaining to turn them into guilty plea cases. According to the seriousness of the crime, the difficulty of obtaining evidence and other specific circumstances, the procuratorial organ can make the criminal suspect make a confession under the conditions of lenient treatment, including greatly reducing the punishment, or even under the condition of discretionary non-prosecution. In a case closed through plea bargaining or plea negotiation, the prosecution and the defense should reach a certain written agreement to determine the specific sentencing opinions, and can enter the fast transfer procedure and submit it to the court for confirmation in a simple way.
Verb (abbreviation of verb) simplifies court investigation in summary procedure.
In the case of applying summary procedure, the influence of the defendant's confession on the litigation procedure is firstly manifested in the simplification of court investigation. The purpose of court investigation is to find out the facts of the case through the confrontation between the prosecution and the defense. Because the defendant pleaded guilty, there was no dispute between the prosecution and the defense about the alleged facts, thus losing the basis of confrontation and the court investigation was meaningless. Considering the efficiency of litigation, it should be simplified. However, there are many forms for defendants to plead guilty, so the simplification of court investigation procedures should also be restricted. As a general principle, the simplification of court investigation can only reach the part of the defendant's confession. For charges other than confession, the court must provide the defendant with sufficient opportunities to confront each other in court, otherwise the legitimacy of the procedure cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, for complete confessions, the court investigation procedure can be completely simplified or even ignored, while for the other three types of confessions, court investigation is not only necessary, but also can not simplify the procedure when investigating facts other than confessions. When the defendant admits some charges, the court's investigation of other charges should be completed. Even if the defendant admits all the charges and only disagrees with the circumstances of sentencing, the court should conduct a complete court investigation on the circumstances involving sentencing. In this process, the defendant's litigation rights should be fully guaranteed.
In a word, the procedure after pleading guilty is a complex problem, which should be reasonably constructed on the basis of distinguishing different types of pleading guilty. The key to its rationality lies in ensuring the legitimacy of the guilty plea procedure and fully respecting the litigation rights of the parties. Only on this basis can the summary procedure help to achieve the two major litigation goals of justice and efficiency.