Synopsis
In 18 major Chinese cities, a trial waiver system was put into place and tested between 2016 and 2018. This study examines how defense attorneys hired privately versus those assigned by the government fare in plea negotiations under the tested system. The purpose of the comparison is to evaluate how much they participated in each stage of the plea negotiating process and the case results. The evaluation was carried out using information gathered from a sample of defense attorneys from one of the major cities. According to the data, attorneys who were appointed by the government participated in all phases of the plea negotiating to a substantially lesser extent than attorneys who were retained by private clients. There is no discernible difference in the case results between defense attorneys hired privately and those chosen by the government. These discoveries’ ramifications are examined.
Remarks
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