A verdict of not guilty? A verdict of guilty? Or something third?

Occupation: Chief researcher of the Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Affiliation: Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Address: Russian Federation, Moscow

Journal name

Gosudarstvo i pravo

Edition

Issue 12

Pages

7-15

Abstract

The author posing the problem considers the situation when the judge is at the final stage of the criminal trial and there is insufficient evidence to convict as well as there are no grounds for acquitting the verdict, because the judge is not internally convinced that the defendant did not commit the act incriminated to him. Moreover, the author draws attention to the fact that the current criminal procedure legislation does not provide the justification by evidence that the accused is not guilty in the acquittal. At the same time, the law obliges the judge to have a lawful, reasonable and fair verdict, which cannot be achieved in the indicated situation. The recharacterization of the charges to a milder one, as well as the reduction of the verdict “to a mandatory minimum” and even “less than the statutory mandatory minimum” in such situation will not meet the principle of justice. However, the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire of 1857 provided such type of criminal verdict as “leaving under suspicion”, which was widely used in judicial practice. The author suggests returning to the three options types of verdicts filling the third type with the content relevant for present realities.

Keywords

a verdict of not guilty, a verdict of guilty, equity in justice, dichotomous approach, lack of evidence, type of verdict as “leaving under suspicion”

Received

06.12.2019

Publication date

23.12.2019

Number of characters

30626

Cite

GOST	Kleandrov M. A verdict of not guilty? A verdict of guilty? Or something third? // Gosudarstvo i pravo – 2019. – Issue 12 C. 7-15 [Electronic resource]. URL: https://gospravo-journal.ru/S013207690007813-6-1 (circulation date: 26.04.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S013207690007813-6
MLA	Kleandrov, Mikhail I "A verdict of not guilty? A verdict of guilty? Or something third?." Gosudarstvo i pravo 12 (2019):7-15. DOI: 10.31857/S013207690007813-6
APA	Kleandrov M. (2019). A verdict of not guilty? A verdict of guilty? Or something third?. Gosudarstvo i pravo (12), pp.7-15 DOI: 10.31857/S013207690007813-6

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