Abstract
In 1994, China passed its first State Compensation Law (SCL) for wrongfully convicted individuals who can file claims for loss of life or freedom, physical injury, and property loss due to illegal state actions in administrative and criminal cases. The 2010 amended SCL added mental damage compensation and mandated and prioritized a negotiation procedure. The current study used 144 capital exonerees to examine whether and how state compensation was claimed by and/or awarded to these exonerees in China. Our analyses revealed that almost all of the state compensation claims received compensation, and the amount claimed and the amount awarded had increased exponentially over time. In addition, after mental damage compensation was permitted in 2010, capital exonerees had successfully obtained such awards. However, despite of the increased compensation amounts over the years, the winning rates across almost all categories (e.g., mental damage, life/physical injury claims) decreased over time, and the standard of national daily average salary played a more important role on the increased amounts claimed and awarded than the SCL based on results of multivariate analyses. Policy recommendations were discussed to help improve the state compensation system in China.
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Xiong, M., Zheng, A. State Compensation of Exonerees in Capital Cases: the Chinese Experience. Asian J Criminol 17 (Suppl 1), 121–145 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11417-022-09387-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11417-022-09387-2