Being one of the most immoral acts, murder is in the area of attention and criminal legislation. Various articles and paragraphs of articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation discuss not only general rules, but also the subtleties of qualification and punishment for certain types of this crime. In each specific case, murder must be considered according to its own rules. Let's see what the law and judicial practice specifically say regarding those murders in which the victims were minors, as well as how many years they usually give for such crimes.
Types of aggravating circumstances
During the investigation process, the murder is classified according to general characteristics or aggravating ones. It depends on the circumstances, the intentions of the defendant, and the totality of his actions. The list of aggravating circumstances is described in the second part of Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. From the point of view of the law, it is considered exhaustive, which means that the court or law enforcement agencies cannot supplement it with other signs at their discretion in order to tighten the punishment for the offender.
Murder of two or more persons
Such a crime involves several murders committed at the same time or with a short break. A characteristic feature of this circumstance is that the murders are united by one criminal intent.
The murder of one person and the attempted murder of another, committed by one criminal, does not fit this criterion of aggravating circumstances. But if an attacker killed two people at different times and for different reasons, then this will be characterized as multiple murder, which is also an aggravating feature.
Killing a person because of his official activities
Aggravating circumstances include the deprivation of life not only of an official, but also of his close people, for example, members of his family and friends. The purpose of such a crime is revenge or obstruction of the lawful implementation of duties that are assigned to a citizen by his service.
Official activities mean those actions of a person that are aimed at fulfilling a public duty or satisfying the interests of certain individuals. For example, these could be law enforcement informants.
Murder of a minor or helpless person involving abduction
According to this paragraph, people taken hostage are also treated as persons in a helpless state, because they lose the opportunity to fight for their lives. In other cases, the state is assessed as helpless, when the victim does not have the opportunity to defend himself due to psychological, physical or other circumstances. At the same time, the attacker understands the fact that the victim is limited during the murder.
Set of acts
A set of offenses is one of the types of multiplicity of atrocities : the commission of several crimes that, according to their qualification characteristics, belong to different articles (or parts thereof) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Article 17 of the Criminal Code). An important condition is the absence of a previous conviction for one of these acts. Exceptions may be:
- criminal actions related to the Special Part of the Criminal Code and involving more severe punishment (Part 1);
- one act in which signs of offenses specified in several articles of the Criminal Code are visible (Part 2).
If a set of crimes is established, the culprit is responsible for each of them under the relevant article. Characteristic features of the set of crimes:
- Committing several separate crimes. At the same time, there should be no single intent in the incidents, actions are aimed at different objects, and the objective side is different.
- Offenses can be homogeneous (related to one article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) or heterogeneous (related to different articles of the Criminal Code).
- They differ in the stages of committing the offense.
- The defendant has not been convicted of any of the crimes previously. Moreover, the presence of a criminal record occurs immediately after the announcement of the court verdict (Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated December 22, 2015 N 58). If the first sentence has not yet entered into force, the actions of the defendant may be considered based on the totality of crimes (Article 70 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
The murder of two or more persons can be considered as a combination of crimes if the intent to commit a crime arose at different times. If the actions of the attacker were committed at the same time and had a single intent behind them, then they should be classified as a single crime.
General sentences for murder
Murder is the violent taking of another person's life for any reason.
The law especially emphasizes that this concept refers to another person, that is, suicide is not murder, although it leads to death. Killing animals does not include this.
In current Russian legislation, the intentional deprivation of the life of another citizen is considered in article number 105 of the Criminal Code of Russia. It provides for a minimum sentence of 5 years in prison, a maximum of 16.
The sentences can increase to 20 years, and in some situations life imprisonment or the death penalty may apply. This will happen if the murder poses a great public danger. This includes the following points:
- Double or group murder of several people.
- Deprivation of the life of a citizen because of religious, national or other similar motives, as well as because of revenge.
- Murder of a policeman.
- Committing a premeditated crime with particular cruelty: using an explosion, gas, etc. This also includes the activities of serial maniacs, dismemberment and mass murder.
- Participation in extortion and robbery.
- Contract murder.
In addition to the aggravating factors mentioned above, there are also separate articles, which will be discussed below. They imply other penalties, often more lenient, since the perpetrator is not dangerous to society, and the crime is unintentional.
Sources
- Citizen and Law No. 01/2014 / Absent. - Moscow: Russian State University for the Humanities, 2014. - 166 p.
- Kaia Alev Prefer an employment contract; Lights - Moscow, 2010. - 794 p.
- Miloslavskaya E. G. Copyright. Crib. Tutorial; Prospect - M., 2000. - 164 p.
- Sofya Viktorovna Vorontsova Criminal law ensuring the security of bank lending and settlements. Monograph; Prospect - M., 1980. - 341 p.
- Igor, Andreevich Isaev Solidarity as an imaginary political and legal state / Igor Andreevich Isaev. - M.: Prospekt, 2022. - 583 p.
Corpus delicti
The subject of a crime in the deprivation of life of two or more persons (Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, paragraph “a”) is an individual over fourteen years of age.
The subjective side of a crime lies in the presence of guilt in the form of intent (direct or indirect). This means that the criminal understands the threats that his actions will entail. The perpetrator consciously assumes the subsequent occurrence of death of certain persons, desires it, or is indifferent to the specified outcome of events and allows them.
The object of the crime provided for in Article 105 paragraph “a” of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is the interaction of persons that violates the right to life of certain people (Article 20 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).
The object of the crime can be:
- generic - the interaction of persons in society, guaranteeing natural human rights enshrined in law; in this case – the right to life;
- species - social relations involving the protection of the right to life;
- direct – the right to life of a certain person.
Simply put, this is what is harmed - the life of a person (people).
The objective side of this issue is an illegal action or inaction that directly leads to the death of two, three or more people. A murder can be considered completed only when the actions of the accused are followed by the death of people.
Examples from judicial practice
Studying how murder with extreme cruelty is described in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, it is difficult for an ordinary person to understand how people can commit such a crime. However, those who work under the auspices of Themis (especially if they have many years of experience behind them) know firsthand how cynical people can be.
- The sister scolded her brother for drinking. In response, he threw the girl off the bed and began hitting her with a rolling pin. Then he took a rope, tied one end of it around his sister’s neck, and tied the other to the handle. Opening and closing the door, he first loosened and then tightened the rope again. As a result of asphyxia (suffocation), the girl died. The court sentenced the man to 9 years in prison.
- A man and woman in a civil marriage were drinking alcoholic beverages. During the conversation, he began to suspect his partner of infidelity. The man began to strike his common-law wife multiple times with his feet, hands and various objects. The woman died from a traumatic brain injury. The court found this murder committed with particular cruelty, since the mother was beaten in front of her young children. Moreover, the woman suffered from the blows inflicted.
- A husband and wife, who often drank alcohol, once again decided to punish their six-year-old son for disobedience. The mother took the boy by the legs and hit him on the floor. The father then took the child, carried him out onto the veranda and continued beating him. The boy died as a result of his injuries.
Unfortunately, there are an awful lot of such examples. But it cannot even be said that they differ in the level of cruelty. After all, this level as such cannot exist. But there is cruelty in any case. But is she special?
When can there not be an assassination attempt?
In some situations, for crimes classified by law as murder, there cannot be an attempt, i.e. Article 30 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation does not apply to such compositions. This:
- causing death as a result of careless actions (Article 109 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
In this situation, there is no intent, which is the main qualifying feature for attempted murder;
- a murder that was committed due to excess of self-defense.
In such cases, there is no unfinished crime, which is also the main sign of an attempt. When qualifying a crime under Art. 108 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation requires proof that self-defense was necessary. If this is indeed the case, then the actions of the perpetrator of the crime cannot be regarded as attempted murder, since in self-defense it is impossible to plot something, the main goal is to repel the attack and save your life. If during the trial it is not proven that self-defense was required in this case, then the crime will be classified either as ordinary murder (for which an attempt is provided) or as infliction of bodily harm;
- an attempt to kill a law enforcement officer.
This crime is qualified under Art. 317 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Even if it was not completed due to circumstances beyond the control of the offender, liability will still occur in accordance with Art. 317 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
Contradictions in the classification of assassination attempts
The murder of two or more persons is considered as one criminal act and does not form a set of crimes. At the same time, in accordance with the changes in paragraph. 2 clause 5 of the Supreme Court Resolution No. 1 of January 27, 1999, the deprivation of life of one person and the unfinished murder of a second (attempt) cannot be attributed to the deprivation of life of two or more persons. In this situation, the offense should be considered, regardless of the intentions and timing of the act, as part 1, 2 of Art. 105, part 3 art. 30 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
The difficulty of qualification lies in the presence of contradictions. On the one hand, taking the lives of several people should be considered as one crime. On the other hand, when at least one murder attempt ends unsuccessfully, the event can be regarded as both one unfinished crime and as a set of such.
This contradiction can be resolved in one of two ways: either by recognizing the deprivation of life of one person and the attempt on the life of the second as an unfinished, ongoing offense, or by applying to such situations the interpretation of both multiple murder and aggregation of crimes.
The latter consideration of the issue presupposes double standards that are unacceptable in legislation from a position of fairness. The first option corresponds to the provisions of Part 1 of Article 17, Article 30, paragraph “a” of Part 2 of Art. 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, but violates the procedure for independent examination of each illegal action (Part 1 of Article 17 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
The heat of passion
However, there are exceptions here too. This is murder in the heat of passion. It is a sudden, intense emotional disturbance that could result from violence, serious insult, bullying or other immoral acts on the part of the victim. The accused is charged with Art. 107 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Punishment in this case is imposed as correctional labor, restriction or imprisonment for up to three years.
