Abstract: Since the Eighteenth National Congress of the CPC, the death sentence with a reprieve has substituted the immediate execution of the death sentence and become the harshest punishment for the most serious bribery acceptance. The death sentence with a reprieve also has a transitional and coordinating effect in abolishing the death penalty in bribery cases. As an execution way of death penalty, the reprieve sentence should first satisfy the circumstances of death penalty, and then has certain attenuating circumstances. At present, there are some stable juridical laws of identifying the attenuating circumstances in the crime of accepting bribes, but the death circumstances of accepting bribes expressed in criminal law and relevant judicial interpretations are not practical. As a consequence, the discretion of death sentence with a reprieve becomes disordered. Judicial interpretation should make the death circumstances more concrete and easy for proof in bribery cases. In this way, we can use the death sentence with a reprieve to punish the most serious crimes of accepting bribes accurately.

Key words: judicial proof, crime of accepting bribes, death sentence with a reprieve, sentence circumstances