American Law Newsletter · Issue 4

Author: Lin Xiaoyun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-12-01
Features: To meet the needs of domestic readers to understand the evolution of the U.S. judicial system during the current judicial reform, this series continues to serialize Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's best-selling book Grand Strategies: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice (The Judiciary Act of 1789 and the U.S. Judicial Tradition). In line with the ongoing debate on the death penalty in both countries' legal communities, we are publishing here for the first time the remarks delivered by Judge Helen J. Kimmett Beatty, an expert on the U.S. death penalty issue, at Peking University in September 2004. The independent yet interdependent judges, lawyers, and juries can be considered the "iron triangle" that sustains the U.S. judicial system, with all its procedural systems built upon this "trilateral mechanism." Currently, both China and the U.S. are engaged in lively public debates on the role of judges in national life and the professional ethics, duties, and rights of lawyers. Around these topics, the "Judicial Briefs" and "Lawyer Standards" columns have published two sets of briefs.