Alienation and Return of the Trial Mode of Criminal Second Instance in China

Under the trial-level framework of two tiered system, the trial mode, as an important part of the criminal second instance procedure, plays an important role in correcting the wrong judgment and safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of the parties concerned. After the development process from legislative blank to continuous refinement, the trial of criminal second instance in our country should become a principle. However, judging from the current judicial practice, the trial rate of criminal second instance is still not ideal, and there are problems such as retrial cases without trials and heavy cases without trials. In order to reverse this trend of alienation, this paper summarized four factors and two levels that affect the trial mode of criminal second instance by measuring the value orientation of criminal second trial and the rights protection of the parties, defined the scope of the trial, and then constructed diverse forms of trial mode. Even for the cases which can skip the trial process based on the actual situation and judicial resources, multiple guarantees should be built on the existing basis, and supervision and supporting mechanism should be improved, so as to realize the return of procedural justice in the trial mode of criminal second instance in our country.