In the death penalty review procedure in China, the lack of legal aid, the difficulty of exercising the right to defend, the lack of attention to defense opinions, the lack of legal regulations and the poor operability are urgently needed to be improved. Taking the full coverage of criminal defense legal aid as an opportunity to improve the death penalty review procedure, the main path is to construct a mandatory defense system for the death penalty review procedure in China and speed up the legal revision of mandatory defense, to clarify the legal consequences of procedure violation, the requirements of reasoning in judicial documents, the protection of lawyer's practice right, the exercise of opposition rights and other matters, and provide guidance on relevant operational litigation rules.