Research on the Construction of Criminal Character Evidence Rules in China

Abstract

Although the current criminal law does not specifically regulate character evi-dence, its application is quite common in judicial practice. In the Lao Rongzhi case, the defendant presented character evidence to the first-instance court, stating, "I have never killed a chicken or a duck in my life," to prove her kind and caring character, asserting that she could not have committed the crime. In the second instance, the defense lawyer even submitted an interview with a friend of Lao Rongzhi, in which the interviewee stated, "In my impression, Lao Rongzhi was kind and not vain." The procuratorial organ recognized the above character evaluations and personality descriptions as character evidence, deeming them irrelevant to the case. The Supreme People's Procuratorate clear-ly stated in the Guidelines for People's Procuratorates on Carrying out Sentenc-ing Recommendation Work in Cases of Pleading Guilty and Accepting Punish-ment issued in 2021 that evidence involving character traits should not be used as the basis for conviction in principle. However, if such character is related to the crime, it should be comprehensively considered as a discretionary sentenc-ing circumstance. These evidences involving moral and character aspects, alt-hough they cannot be the basis for conviction in the litigation process, can still strive for leniency opportunities for the defendant. Based on the characteristics of China's legal system and judicial practice, this paper analyzes the basic theory of character evidence rules, draws on the expe-rience of foreign legal systems, analyzes the application status of character evi-dence in China's practice, explores the feasibility of applying character evidence rules and the problems existing in the application process, and puts forward countermeasure suggestions for constructing character evidence rules.