2006 for a contract murder. Legal procedure After a first trial conducted by an intermediate people's court concludes with a death sentence, a double appeals process must follow. The first appeal is conducted by a high people's court if the condemned appealed to it, and since 2007, another appeal is conducted automatically (even if the condemned waived the first appeal) by the Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China (SPC) in Beijing, to prevent the circumstances in which the defendant is proved innocent after the death penalty – an obviously irrevocable punishment – has been administered. When a case involving the death penalty is sent to the SPC for mandatory review, the case is delivered to one of the court's five divisions according to the geographic origin of the case or, in some cases, the type of crime involved. The SPC's second criminal division is dedicated to handling review of some of the most sensitive cases. Each case is then assigned to a panel of three judges, one of whom is designated as the principal case manager. Since 2012, judges are also required to interview defendants before deciding whether or not to confirm a death sentence. The judges write reports summarizing the case, discuss the case, and then report the decision to the division head, SPC vice president, and finally the SPC president. If the lower court death sentence is upheld, the execution is carried out shortly thereafter. As a result of its reforms, the PRC's government claims, the Supreme People's Court overturned about 15 percent of the death sentences handed down by high courts in the first half of 2008. In a brief report in May 2008, Xinhua quoted anonymous sources as saying Chinese courts handed down 30 percent fewer death sentences in 2007 compared with 2006. The cases of Li Yan (2014) and Wu Ying (2012) are two examples in which the Supreme People's Court reversed a death sentence pronounced by lower courts. Chinese courts hand down the sentence of "death sentence with two years' probation" () as frequently as, or more often than, they do actual death sentences. This unique sentence is used to emphasize the seriousness of the crime and the mercy of the court, and has a centuries-old history in Chinese jurisprudence. It is almost always reduced to life or 10 to 15 years imprisonment if no new crime is intentionally committed during