Ouyang Xiu wrote in "Takioka Table" that "if you want to live but can't, then the deceased and I have no hatred", this sentence in the contemporary context should mean the criminal policy of killing less and killing carefully, behind which is the basic principle of never suspecting a crime. The absence of guilt in doubt is not an abstract principle in trial practice, but is based on the rules of evidence adjudication. Specifically, from the perspective of the review and judgment of a single piece of evidence, the key evidence on which the verdict is based must be legal, authentic and relevant, otherwise the key facts of the case will be doubtful. If the case-handling organs can strictly review the three natures of a single piece of evidence, especially the legality of confessions, then the occurrence of unjust, false and wrongly decided cases will be greatly reduced; Judging from the comprehensive evidence in the entire case, where there are contradictions between the evidence in the case that cannot be corroborated, it should be insisted that there is no doubt about the guilt.
Corroborative proof is the main mode of evidence analysis and identification in China's judicial practice, which requires that there are at least two or more pieces of evidence to determine the facts of the case, and the content of the evidence has the same direction, eliminating its own contradictions and contradictions between them, thus forming a stable and reliable proof structure. The application of the corroboration rule is premised on the probative ability of the evidence and the independence of the evidence, but at present, there are the following two issues with respect to the corroboration rule: first, the judge rejected the defender's application for exclusion of non-compliance on the grounds that the evidence corroborates each other, indicating that the cancer of emphasizing substance over procedure still exists, and the soil for extorting confessions by torture is still there; Second, the mechanical understanding and application of corroboration rules one-sidedly attach importance to the quantitative advantage of evidence while ignoring the quality requirements of evidence. In particular, when the amount of evidence of guilt is dominant and the evidence of innocence is at a disadvantage, there is a lack of awareness of common sense and common sense comprehensive judgment of evidence, and only a simple quantitative comparison is conducted. If the corroboration rule is not applied accurately, it may fall into circular interpretation, thus neglecting the examination of individual pieces of evidence.
On July 2, 2019, the Supreme People's Court approved the death penalty in Zhao Zhihong's case, but did not confirm the facts of his four crimes, because "Zhao Zhihong voluntarily confessed to the four crimes, and the time, place, scene situation, and criminal methods of the confession can be corroborated to varying degrees with evidence such as on-site investigation records and corpse appraisal opinions, but there are also many inconsistencies between Zhao Zhihong's confession and between other evidence. In some important circumstances, there are still inexplicable contradictions between his confession and other evidence." This is a reaffirmation of the strict application of the corroboration rule. From the point of view of beyond reasonable doubt, if the judge is unable to form an inner conviction, he should insist that there is no doubt of guilt. In some cases, even if the evidence of the whole case can corroborate each other, it cannot be ruled out that there are other possibilities of the case, and the corroboration proof is a positive and positive construction of the case proof system, and the use of the method of eliminating reasonable doubt is to verify and verify the contradictions and doubts of the evidence in the whole case, and it is a negative and negative deconstruction of the whole case proof system.
At present, many unjust, false and wrongly decided cases are rehabilitated because of "the return of the deceased" or "the arrest of the real culprit"; at this time, justice that is delayed is based on the blood and tears of those who have been wronged, and the cause of unjust, false and wrongly decided cases is often not the application of law, but the examination of evidence. The story of Li Li's sword is recorded in "Historical Records: The Biography of the Officials": Li Li said: "There is a law, if you lose your sentence, you will be punished, and if you lose your death, you will die." The public thinks that the ministers can listen to the slightest doubts, so it is reasonable. If you hear about murder, you deserve to die. So he was not ordered, and died with his sword. Although this practice of making mistakes and dying with a sword is not worth advocating, this kind of cautious and prudent spirit is still worth emulating.