From the public security organs to the people's courts, there has never been any qualification to ask our citizens to plead guilty without reason. A small number of suspects may know through lawyers that the court made them plead guilty. Generally speaking, the court has obtained sufficient evidence of this practice. But the parties may not understand what it means to plead guilty in our court.
1. What does it mean to plead guilty in our court?
The court took the initiative to contact the client's lawyer and let the client plead guilty. It may be that the court has enough evidence to prove that the parties are indeed suspected of committing crimes. Surrender can be treated as surrender when sentencing, and the punishment can be lightened or mitigated.
Criminal procedure law
Article 50 Judges, prosecutors and investigators must, in accordance with legal procedures, collect all kinds of evidence that can prove the guilt or innocence of criminal suspects and defendants and the seriousness of crimes. It is strictly forbidden to extort confessions by torture and to collect evidence by threats, seduction, deception or other illegal methods, and it is also not allowed.
Forcing anyone to prove their guilt. It is necessary to ensure that all citizens who are related to or know the case have the conditions to provide evidence objectively and fully, and they can be hired to assist in the investigation except in special circumstances.
Article 51 When a public security organ approves an arrest, a people's procuratorate brings a suit and a people's court makes a judgment, it must be faithful to the facts. Anyone who intentionally conceals the truth shall be investigated for responsibility.
Second, if you plead guilty, what is the impact on sentencing?
Generally speaking, "how to measure the penalty after confession" refers to the criminal's confession or confession, which explicitly or implicitly admits that he has committed some bad criminal behavior. It includes two requirements:
First, the criminal subjectively realized the mistake of his behavior and sincerely repented.
Second, objectively, criminals have confessed their crimes. There are two interpretations of the meaning of "attitude" in Modern Chinese Dictionary: one refers to people's manners and expressions; The second refers to people's views on things and actions taken. (p 1320) Social psychology defines "attitude" as an individual's stable psychological tendency towards a particular thing, idea or others, which consists of three components: cognition, emotion and behavioral tendency. Although Modern Chinese Dictionary and Social Psychology are different in expression and dimension, their essence is the same, that is, attitude consists of two core elements: cognition (positive or negative evaluation of things) and behavior (prepared response caused by cognition). The attitude of pleading guilty belongs to the category of attitude, which is only a special expression of attitude. Therefore, we might as well take "confession" and "attitude" as the logical starting point and define "confession attitude" in combination with the characteristics of criminal offences. "Guilty attitude" refers to the degree of awareness and behavioral response of the perpetrator to his crime after committing the crime and before the people's court makes an effective judgment, out of repentance or confession.
Third, the "guilty attitude" is located in the disadvantages of discretionary sentencing circumstances.
According to the general theory, the so-called discretionary sentencing circumstances refer to the discretionary circumstances that are not expressly stipulated in the criminal law, but are summarized from the trial practice experience so as to be flexibly grasped when sentencing. When discussing the scope of discretionary sentencing circumstances, most scholars summarize it as the following seven aspects:
(1) criminal motive;
(2) criminal means;
(3) The environment and conditions at the time of committing the crime;
(4) the severity of the damage caused by the crime;
(5) the object of criminal infringement;
(6) the consistent performance of the offender;
(7) Attitude after committing a crime. It can be seen that the traditional criminal law theory and judicial practice in China consider the "guilty attitude" in discretionary sentencing circumstances. Due to the flexibility in the application of discretionary sentencing circumstances, a series of problems such as vague understanding of "guilty attitude" in judicial practice and serious disparity in the influence of "guilty attitude" on sentencing have been caused.
First of all, the court can save judicial resources by asking the suspect to plead guilty himself. Secondly, the parties can get such an opportunity to be given a lighter punishment after surrendering themselves. However, if you obviously haven't done such a thing, the court can ask for a higher level of judicial relief, which is absolutely illegal.