Convicting the Innocent: What Causes Wrongful Convictions in China?

In the past decade, China has promptly taken a series of reform measures to respond the frequent occurrence of wrongfully convicting the innocent even in death penalty cases. A shining case study in China reveals the leading causes of such wrongful convictions, including both the immediate reasons and root causes of them in China’s practice. China shares the same or similar ones of criminal injustices with many countries or jurisdictions, such as torture, illegal or passive misconduct, and inadequate representative. In addition, the injustice in the She Xianglin case also originated from causes that are characteristic in China such as institutional restraints, cultural collectivism, and attitudinal biases. This article argues that typical wrongful conviction cases in China result more from institutional, cultural, and attitudinal factors than they do from immediate causes. What are most needed to further prevent them would be judicial independence and more transparency.