Coercion to Plead Guilty and the Role of the Prosecutor in the People's Republic of China: An Empirical Account

Abstract

The guilty plea process in China is inherently coercive and fraught with oppression and manipulation. Drawing upon my empirical research, this article examines how the guilty plea procedure has been facilitated in the socio-political context of China and the role of the prosecutor within that. Driven by crime-control values and the allied relationship with the police, the prosecutor strives officiously to pursue the conviction of the accused, rather than being an impartial supervisor of the investigation. In the absence of legal advisers or any effective safeguards to protect the suspect during the vulnerable and crucial process of prosecutorial interrogation, overbearing tactics were used and statements were falsified, by the prosecutor, to obtain the guilty plea that secures conviction. Lacking any voluntary elements in the alternative procedural arrangement, the Chinese guilty plea procedure embodies the innermost feature within the Chinese criminal justice system – the urgency to punish.