Judicial Pragmatism under Stability Pressure: The Functional Equivalence of Compensation and Forgiveness in Chinese Appellate Capital Sentencing

This study investigates the pragmatic governance logic underlying capital sentencing in China, specifically focusing on the functional equivalence of financial compensation and victim forgiveness. Utilizing a comprehensive dataset of second-instance intentional homicide verdicts since 2011, we employ binary logistic and linear regression models with two-way fixed effects to analyze sentencing disparities. Our findings reveal a tiered sentencing logic: while the "compensation-plus-forgiveness" bundle yields the maximum leniency, financial compensation alone and victim forgiveness alone demonstrate statistically equivalent effects in mitigating death sentences. This "equivalence" challenges traditional restorative justice paradigms that prioritize emotional repair(King, 2008; Mok & Wong, 2013). Instead, we argue that under the dual pressures of stability maintenance (weiwen) and bureaucratic performance evaluation, Chinese judges pragmatically utilize these tools to hedge against the risk of petitioning (xinfang). Ultimately, capital sentencing in China has evolved into a sophisticated socio-legal exchange where judicial leniency is traded for the cessation of litigation, reflecting a shift from pure legalism to a governance-oriented judicial pragmatism.