The San Francisco Chronicle has a fascinating, informative, human-interest type article profiling a Chinese lawyer who represents death row clients in China with unusual success.

According to Amnesty International, there were "4,015 death sentences and 2, 468 executions in China last year, accounting for about 80 percent of executions worldwide." Amnesty believes that the actual number of executions in China is probably much higher.

Lawyer Li Yunlong has represented 16 of these death row inmates, winning reprieves for 12 of them. Sometimes his only pay is a basket of eggs.

Li doesn't get a lot of time to prepare his cases. "The appeals process sometimes lasts just weeks or even days. Sentences are carried out swiftly, often by a bullet to the back of the head soon after the verdict is read, in a public place, such as a stadium. "

His inspiration to defend death row inmates resulted from his having witnessed an immediate execution as a child.

Defense lawyers in China are a relatively new additon to their system.

"It has only been five years since China adopted the "lawyer's law," which created the role of a genuine defense lawyer for the first time in Chinese courts. Before that, the verdict and punishment were decided at a secret Communist Party meeting, and a lawyer's principal duty was to encourage the defendant to confess and acknowledge the correctness of the party's will."

"Even now, defense lawyers are sometimes arrested for attempting to thwart the authorities if they plead their cases too vigorously."

There is so much more to this article, you really should read it for yourselves--particularly on the history of the death penalty in China and the effect of other nations trying to reduce its use as a punishment, particularly for non-violent crimes. Pressure from other nations is having an effect on China, just as it will, we predict, have that effect here in the not too distant future.

Lawyer Li puts it this way: "My family taught me that one should walk without killing the ants," he said. "Killing is not the right way to solve problems."