An empirical study of the application of death penalty

摘要

“” : This empirical study of legal interpretation takes as its sample all “capital crimes” from among the Supreme Court's exemplary cases. The study finds significant variations in which crimes are construed as being capital crimes, which capital crimes carry the death penalty, and whether the death sentence is carried out immediately. Based on these findings, the author concludes that legal interpretation involves both normative and autonomous judgments, and that the law itself should be clarified to the maximum extent possible so as to bring about a greater degree of standardization in the application of the death penalty.