As early as the Northern Wei Dynasty, the death penalty review system was formally established as a legal system. The Han dynasty only reviewed some cases, and it has not yet formed a universal system for all death penalty cases nationwide. As for the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the system developed to a very perfect level. According to Shu Wei's Criminal Records, during the Northern Wei Dynasty, Emperor Wu stipulated: "In case of the deceased, the case must be tried. Because the dead can't be resurrected, I'm afraid the prison officials can't be even, and all the prison achievements are presented. The emperor asked himself, no different from complaining, but absolutely impossible. The great king of the country reported it first, but he implemented it. " Academic circles have different understandings of this record in Shu Wei's Criminal Records. Some think it is abuse of death penalty playback, and some think it is the performance of death penalty review [4]. The author believes that this can not be generalized, but should be understood by accurately analyzing its basic meaning. Here, "the deceased" refers to the person who should be sentenced to death, and refers to the object to which the death penalty review should be applied; "Case report" refers to the intermediate link or procedure that must be followed in the review of death penalty after the case is requested by the relevant central competent authority. "Fear of unequal supervision" refers to why death penalty review is needed, or the purpose of death penalty review; "All prisoners submit", that is, all cases to be sentenced to death shall be submitted to the emperor after trial and deliberation, which obviously refers to the time and scope of death penalty review; "The emperor asked himself" refers to the specific way of death penalty review; "No complaints, same words", that is, the prisoner can be sentenced to death only after he has been questioned and said that he has completely pleaded guilty, and there is no complaint or disagreement. This is a requirement for the degree of review of death penalty. It can be seen that this historical document, which is recorded in the Chronicle of Crimes in Shu Wei, fully shows the specific situation of the application of the death penalty review system at that time from the aspects of application object, procedure, reason, purpose, time, scope, method and degree. Therefore, we can definitely say that the Northern Wei Dynasty established the death penalty review system for the first time in the legal history of China, which had a far-reaching impact on later generations. Since then, every dynasty has increased profits and losses as appropriate, making this system more complete and detailed.