Computers decide on Death Sentence!

In a bid to stop corrupt judges, the Daily Mail reports that Chinese courts are using computers to decide who should face death sentences! Computers equipped with a large legal database of Chinese law and case precedents and a program, dubbed the 'penalty calculator', are being used by judges to determinine sentences for 100 different crimes including murder, rape, stealing petrol, tax evasion and stealing state secrets which are punishable by death by firing squad in the communist nation. According to the Daily Mail report, over the past two years the system has been used to determine sentences in 1,500 cases in a trial run in China's eastern Shandong province. The program is now being extended to other provincial courts and may eventually be used in courtrooms across the nation of 1.3 billion, where more criminals are put to death than anywhere else in the world. Chief judge Wang Hongmei said: 'The software can avoid abuse of the discretionary power of judges as a result of corruption or trial training.'