作者：杨大鹏
去罗德岛悼念卡普里奥法官，对我而言，也是一次回望。这位曾在普罗维登斯市法院工作的老人，于2025年8月20日离世。他留给许多人的记忆，是法庭上的温和、耐心，以及对普通人处境的体谅。罗德岛州政府在悼念声明中，也特别提到了他的温暖与同情心。（罗德岛州政府悼念声明链接https://governor.ri.gov/press-releases/governor-mckee-issues-statement-passing-judge-frank-caprio。）我平时看过很多他的视频，隔着屏幕，我常常感到暖心：一个人走进法庭，面对掌握裁决权的法官，仍然可以得到尊重；生活中的窘迫，可以被耐心听见；法律的严肃，也可以通过平静而有分寸的方式表达。真正打动我的，是他愿意把当事人当作一个完整的人来看待。案卷和罚单之外，每个人还有自己的生活，有需要承担的责任，也有难以对外人说清的艰辛。可每当这种温暖涌上心头，我又会想到自己曾经生活过的中国，想到那片土地上关于司法的种种沉重词语：有案不立、久押不决、人情案、关系案。一个人究竟要经历多少失望，才会觉得，能够在法庭上把话说完，已经是一种难得的幸运？
法院的大门，为什么会成为一道门槛
司法应当为受侵害的人提供救济。发生纠纷，可以寻求裁判；遭到指控，可以进行辩护；受到错误处理，可以要求纠正。这些本应是公民能够依法行使的权利。然而，有案不立使人连争取裁判的机会都难以获得。材料可以一再准备，窗口可以一再往返，时间和积蓄却经不起无限消耗。当一个人被挡在程序之外，他所承受的伤害，也会因为缺少救济而继续扩大。久押不决则使等待本身成为惩罚。在判决作出之前，一个人的工作、家庭关系与生活秩序，就可能已经遭到严重破坏。即使后来获得纠正，那些失去的日子也无法原样归还。办案机关眼中的一段流程，落到具体的人身上，就是不可重来的生命。人情案、关系案、金钱案更进一步侵蚀了司法的根基。证据与规则一旦让位于关系、利益或者上级的意志，普通人便不得不面对一种令人屈辱的现实：能否得到公正，似乎取决于自己认识谁、能够找到谁。当人们遇到纠纷，首先想到的是“找关系”，司法的公信力就已经受到了伤害。
这些问题也并非仅仅来自外部批评。最高人民法院2024年的相关报告明确提出整治人情案、关系案、金钱案；官方公布的政法干警禁令，也列出了有案不立、压案不查等行为。这至少说明，这些弊病是官方自己承认需要面对的问题。（点击查看最高人民法院相关报告、政法干警“十个严禁”）
比个别贪腐更需要追问的，是权力如何受到约束
批判中共治下的司法腐败，不能停留在要求查处几个收钱办案的人。受贿当然应该追究，但司法遭到扭曲，也可能发生在没有金钱交易的时候。一个电话、一项内部要求、一种需要法官揣摩的政治意图，都可能对裁判形成压力。因此，更根本的问题是：当权力试图影响案件时，法官能否拒绝？当案件涉及有势力的人或机构时，当事人能否获得同等的程序保障？当司法机关自己犯错时，纠错能否免于内部利益的阻碍？中共的政法体系强调党的绝对领导。官方的政法干警要求中，也明确表达了对西方式“司法独立”的否定立场（参见最高人民法院公布的相关要求）。这使一个矛盾无法回避：当政治领导的要求与具体案件中依法裁判的要求发生冲突时，究竟由什么机制确保公民权利不被牺牲？我认为，对这一问题的回答，不能只有纪律教育、内部监督和整治口号。公众需要能够实际使用的保障：立案有明确规则，羁押受到有效审查，辩护能够充分进行，裁判说明理由，干预司法能够被追究。缺少这些约束，公正就容易变成一种依赖个人品格的偶然。一个好法官或许能帮助一些人，却难以独自抵挡整个权力结构带来的压力。
我们需要善良的法官，也需要可靠的制度
我知道，网上传播的庭审片段，无法代表美国司法的全部。一位令人敬重的法官，也不能证明一个国家的司法已经没有不公。我同样不会因为批判中国的司法问题，就否认其中存在认真办案、愿意维护当事人权利的法律工作者。恰恰是这些人的存在，让制度上的问题更加值得追问：他们坚持原则时，究竟得到多少支持，又需要承担多少压力？卡普里奥带给我的启发，在于权力可以怎样对待一个普通人。法官的权威，不必靠羞辱当事人来建立；法律的尊严，也不必靠漠视人的困境来维持。当然，司法中的体谅也应当有规则和理由。同样处境的人，应当获得同样的尊重；没有镜头记录的人，也应当享有完整的权利。我们期待的公正，必须超越某位法官一时的善意，成为每个人都能够要求、也能够追索的制度承诺。一个人不该因为贫穷而失去被听见的机会，不该因为没有关系而被挡在门外，更不该因为质疑权力，就失去法律的保护。
悼念，也是对故土的一种牵挂
去罗德岛悼念卡普里奥，我心里有敬意，也有悲凉。敬意来自他让许多人看见了司法温暖的一面。悲凉则来自对故土的牵挂：为什么那些原本朴素的期待，在一些人那里，会变成耗尽多年人生也难以实现的愿望？我批判中共司法体系中的腐败与权力干预，因为每一种抽象弊病背后，都可能是一个正在受苦的人。所谓久拖不决，是有人一天天等不到答案；所谓关系办案，是有人拿着证据，却抵不过别人背后的势力；所谓纠错困难，是有人明明已经承受了伤害，还必须继续证明自己的伤害值得被承认。这些人的命运，不应该被一句“情况复杂”轻轻带过。纪念一位法官，最终也让我重新思考：我们应该怎样衡量司法的文明程度？在我看来，要看一个最缺乏资源的人走进法院时，能否得到认真回应；看一个被指控的人，能否充分为自己辩护；看一个没有背景的人与权势发生冲突时，法律能否仍然站稳。卡普里奥法官已经离去。但他带给我的那份温暖，仍然提醒我，人可以期待一种更有尊严的生活。我也愿那片曾经生活过的土地上，人们有一天不必先打听关系，不必把自由耗在无尽的等待里，不必把得到公正寄托于偶然遇见一位好人。他们能够坦然走进法院，相信自己的证据会被审视，自己的声音会被听见，自己的权利值得受到保护。
编辑：黄吉洲 校对：孔祥庆 翻译：沈美花
Mourning a Judge in Rhode Island, Reflecting on the Judicial Pain of My Homeland
Author: Yang Dapeng
Mourning Judge Caprio in Rhode Island is, for me, also a journey of looking back. This elderly man, who once served in the Providence Municipal Court, passed away on August 20, 2025. The memory he left for many is one of gentleness, patience, and empathy for the plight of ordinary people in his courtroom. The Rhode Island state government also particularly highlighted his warmth and compassion in its official statement of condolence. (Link to the Rhode Island State Government Condolence Statement: https://governor.ri.gov/press-releases/governor-mckee-issues-statement-passing-judge-frank-caprio.)
I used to watch many of his videos. Across the screen, I often felt a sense of heart-warming solace: a person stepping into a courtroom, facing a judge holding the power of adjudication, could still receive respect; the hardships of daily life could be patiently heard; and the solemnity of the law could be expressed in a calm, measured manner. What truly moved me was his willingness to view litigants as complete human beings. Beyond case files and traffic tickets, everyone has their own life, responsibilities to bear, and hardships that are difficult to explain to outsiders.
Yet, whenever this warmth welling up in my heart, I would think of China, where I once lived, and the heavy terminology surrounding the judiciary on that land: failure to register cases, prolonged detention without trial, cases decided by personal favors, and cases influenced by connections. How much disappointment must a person experience before they consider simply being allowed to finish speaking in a courtroom a rare stroke of luck?
Why Has the Door of the Court Become an Impassable Threshold?
The judiciary should provide remedies for those whose rights have been infringed upon. When disputes occur, one can seek adjudication; when accused, one can present a defense; when handled erroneously, one can demand correction. These should be rights that citizens can exercise according to the law.
However, the failure to register cases deprives people of even the opportunity to strive for a verdict. Application materials can be prepared repeatedly, window counters visited over and over, while time and savings are drained beyond endless endurance. When a person is blocked outside legal procedures, the harm they suffer continues to expand due to the lack of legal remedy.
Prolonged detention without trial, on the other hand, turns waiting itself into a punishment. Before a verdict is even rendered, a person’s job, family relationships, and life order may already be severely shattered. Even if corrected later, those lost days can never be restored as they were. What is merely a procedure in the eyes of law enforcement agencies is, for a concrete individual, an unrepeatable life.
Cases based on personal favors, connections, and money erode the very foundation of justice even further. Once evidence and rules yield to personal relationships, financial interests, or the will of superiors, ordinary people are forced to face a humiliating reality: whether one receives justice seems to depend on whom one knows and whom one can find. When people encounter disputes and their first thought is to “seek personal connections” (zhao guanxi), the public credibility of the judiciary has already been harmed.
These problems are by no means just external criticisms. Relevant reports from the Supreme People’s Court in 2024 explicitly proposed rectifying cases influenced by personal favors, connections, and money; official prohibitions issued for political-legal cadres also explicitly listed behaviors such as failing to register cases and suppressing cases without investigation. This proves, at the very least, that these malaises are problems the authorities themselves acknowledge the need to face. (Click to view relevant reports from the Supreme People’s Court and the “Ten Strict Prohibitions” for Political-Legal Staff.)
What Demands Questioning Even More Than Individual Corruption Is How Power Is Restrained
Criticism of judicial corruption under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cannot stop at demanding the investigation and punishment of a few individuals who accept bribes to handle cases. Accepting bribes should naturally be prosecuted, but the distortion of justice can also occur in the absence of monetary transactions. A phone call, an internal demand, or a political intention that judges are expected to figure out and accommodate—all can exert pressure on adjudications.
Therefore, the more fundamental questions are: When power attempts to influence a case, can a judge refuse? When a case involves powerful individuals or institutions, can the litigant obtain equal procedural guarantees? When judicial organs make mistakes themselves, can the correction of errors be freed from internal institutional resistance?
The CCP’s political-legal system emphasizes the Party’s absolute leadership. The official requirements for political-legal cadres also explicitly state a position rejecting Western-style “judicial independence” (see relevant requirements published by the Supreme People’s Court). This makes an unavoidable contradiction: when political leadership requirements conflict with the requirement for lawful adjudication in a specific case, what mechanism ensures that citizens’ rights are not sacrificed?
In my view, the answer to this question cannot rely solely on disciplinary education, internal supervision, and rectification slogans. The public needs guarantees they can actually use: clear rules for case registration, effective review of detention, full ability to present a defense, reasoned judicial opinions, and accountability for interfering with justice. Lacking these constraints, justice easily becomes an accident dependent on individual character. A good judge might help a few people, but can hardly stand alone against the pressure brought by the entire power structure.
We Need Good-Natured Judges, but We Also Need Reliable Institutions
I know that the courtroom footage circulated on the internet cannot represent the entirety of American justice. A single respectable judge cannot prove that a country’s judiciary is free of injustice. Similarly, I will not, simply because I criticize China’s judicial problems, deny that there are legal workers within it who handle cases conscientiously and are willing to defend the rights of litigants. It is precisely the existence of these individuals that makes institutional issues even more worthy of questioning: when they uphold principles, how much support do they actually receive, and how much pressure must they endure?
The inspiration Judge Caprio brought me lies in how power can treat an ordinary person. A judge’s authority does not need to be established by humiliating litigants; the dignity of the law does not need to be maintained by disregarding human hardship. Of course, judicial empathy should also be bounded by rules and reasons. People in similar situations should receive equal respect; those without cameras recording them should also enjoy full rights.
The justice we hope for must transcend the temporary goodwill of a particular judge and become an institutional promise that everyone can demand and pursue. A person should not lose the chance to be heard because of poverty, should not be kept outside the door because they lack connections, and, even less, should not lose the protection of the law because they question power.
Mourning Is Also a Solicitude for My Homeland
Going to Rhode Island to mourn Judge Caprio, I carried both respect and sorrow in my heart. Respect came from his ability to let many people see the warm side of justice. Sorrow came from my solicitude for my homeland: why do those inherently simple expectations become, for some people, wishes that are difficult to achieve even after exhausting years of their lives?
I criticize corruption and political intervention in the CCP’s judicial system because behind every abstract institutional defect, there may be a real human being suffering. So-called “prolonged delay without trial” means someone waits day after day without an answer; so-called “adjudication based on connections” means someone holds evidence, yet cannot prevail against the powerful backing of others; so-called “difficulty in correcting errors” means someone who has clearly suffered harm must still continue proving that their harm deserves to be acknowledged. The fates of these people should not be lightly brushed aside with the phrase “the situation is complex.”
Commemorating a judge ultimately leads me to reflect once more: How should we measure the level of civilization in a judicial system? In my view, it depends on whether the most resource-deprived person receives a conscientious response upon entering a court; whether an accused person can fully defend themselves; and whether, when a person without a background conflicts with the powerful, the law can still stand firm.
Judge Caprio has passed away. But the warmth he brought me still serves as a reminder that human beings can aspire to a life of greater dignity. I also wish that on the land where I once lived, people will one day not need to inquire about connections first, not need to waste their freedom in endless waiting, and not need to pin the attainment of justice on the chance encounter with a good person. May they step into a court with peace of mind, confident that their evidence will be scrutinized, their voices will be heard, and their rights are worthy of protection.
Editor: Huang Jizhou
Proofreader: Kong Xiangqing
Translator: Shen Meihua
