What is a crime and its composition? Subjective and objective signs and their combination, established by criminal law, which characterize a criminal act dangerous to society, determine the main meaning. The corpus delicti serves as the basis for criminal liability. The criminal legislation of the Russian Federation does not disclose the concept itself, nevertheless, it is widely used by investigative and judicial practice, the theory of law, the CPC and the Criminal Code.
Elements and their meaning
The corpus delicti consists of only four elements:
a) the object of the crime to which the encroachment is directed (benefits, values, public relations, which the criminal law should protect);
b) the objective side (that is, the dangerous act itself, its external side, consequences dangerous to society and the obvious connection between the crime and the consequences; tools, means, means, time, situation, the place where the crime was committed);
c) the subjective side (that is, what is inside the crime: mental state, the attitude of the offender to the crime and its consequences: intent or negligence, purpose and motive, emotional state at the time the act was committed);
d) the subject of the crime (a sane person at the age of criminal responsibility).
For any type of legal activity, each of the above elements is crucial.
The corpus delicti also has the characteristics that characterize these elements, they are also four groups:
a) those signs that characterize directly the object, subject of the crime and the victim;
b) the characteristic of the objective side (the act and consequences of the crime, the causal relationship established between them, time, situation, means, method, tools and place);
c) the subjective side also has its own characteristics: guilt, motive, emotions, purpose;
d) the characteristics of the subject (the sanity of an individual, the existence of an age at which criminal liability is possible).
The attributes of each of the four elements are also fundamental. The corpus delicti has mandatory and optional elements.
Mandatory and optional
Mandatory elements must be available, and the absence of at least one of them means a complete lack of composition. The value of the mandatory signs of a crime, including their objective side, must be composed of:
- Object of crime.
- Inaction or action, harmful consequences directly related to inaction or action, and the connection must be causal.
- Regarding the subject, the elements must have signs of a physically sane person and a certain age of him.
- Guilt as intent or negligence.
The significance of the elements of a crime is enormous, only they can determine the legality of a criminal prosecution.
Optional elements are needed to design the corpus delicti as additional to the main ones; they can become obligatory for the investigated corpus and optional for the rest. For example:
a) regarding the object: the victim and objects;
b) on the objective side - the place, situation, time, method, tools;
c) in relation to the subject - a special subject;
d) on the subjective side - the emotional state, purpose and motive.
The significance of the elements of a crime is truly great, since their presence will be the only argument for criminal liability.
Classification: degrees of community and social danger
The elements of the crime are significantly different from each other; by similar signs, they can also be divided into four parts. It is with the accuracy of the definitions that the meaning of the corpus delicti is clarified. Their views are as follows.
1. The degree of community in the systemic signs of crime: general, generic, species and specific composition.
- The first consists of a combination of signs and elements that are present in all compositions, they are characterized by criminal acts.
- The second is a generalization of the characteristics of the same crimes, which indicates the signs inherent in a group of attacks on the same section of the Criminal Code.
- The third part is the legislative characteristic of the crimes of certain groups.
- Fourth - cumulative evidence of a crime of a specific norm of criminal law.
2. The degree of public danger of the crime under investigation indicates the main, privileged and qualified staff.
- The first - the main one - contains a complete set of basic (mandatory) subjective and objective features of this composition, where the crime is clearly distinguishable and does not contain any aggravating or mitigating circumstances.
- The second composition is privileged, that is, containing mitigating signs that indicate a lesser danger to the society of this act and serve as the basis for reducing the size of punishment in comparison with punishments for crimes of the main composition.
- Qualified composition is an act with aggravating circumstances, supplemented with specific signs of a crime, which indicate a greater danger to the society of this act, and therefore entail a more severe punishment in comparison with the punishment of the main composition.
The signs of the first two types show how great the significance of the corpus delicti. Their types precisely delimit the degree of punishment for committed crimes.
Classification: description method and design features
There are three types of methods for describing in the laws signs of corpus delicti: simple, complex and alternative. The first composition gives all subjective and objective signs once, the complex contains additional signs or elements in quantitative terms, the alternative composition is a kind of complex, and its peculiarity is that there is an indication of the options for a criminal action or mode of action, which are all at the same time or individually determine the corpus delicti. Thus, this or that value of objective signs of corpus delicti is manifested.
Design features of the features of the object and its objective side - at the time of completion, the compositions can be material, formal or truncated. In the first convocations, along with the act, a sign of a corpus delicti, there are consequences without fail, and the crimes themselves can be considered completed as soon as dangerous consequences for the society ensured by laws. The formal composition has an indication of a purely dangerous action for society or inaction, which serves as the basis for responsibility, and it does not depend on the onset of the consequences of the act. The truncated corpus delicti (concept, meaning, signs) has such a structure that the crime is considered completed at an earlier stage - from the moment the act was committed, from the attempt or from preparation for a criminally punishable act, and this does not depend on the completion of the plan.
Definitions
For a very long time, the category of corpus delicti was used exclusively widely in practice, however, until recently, the criminal law did not use this definition. The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation finally fixed the decisive role of such a concept, although it did not give a clear definition. But this gap was filled by the theory of law.
This means that the corpus delicti is the subjective and objective elements (signs) appearing in the system provided for in hypotheses and dispositions of the criminal legal norm and characterizing a specific socially dangerous act as a crime. Here is the main definition: a system in which elements (signs) - the meaning of the crime. It was already indicated above that there are four subsystems in the crime: the object and its objective side, the subject and its subjective side. The significance of the elements of the offense is that they are all grounds for criminal liability. If at least one element is missing, criminal liability is not expected. For example, if the crime was committed by an insane person - this is the absence of the subject of the crime.
Concept of legislation
Legislatively formulated offenses in the Criminal Code are based on the study of current situations and the commission of certain acts of people who have begun to show growth trends, are undesirable and harmful from the point of view of the public. The criminal legal significance of the offense is a code that is adequately structured and faithfully reflects the whole system of relations taking shape in society, their distortions are especially dangerous, inhibiting socially useful activities and undermining justice.
The legislator is like a natural scientist who does not produce laws and does not invent them, but merely formulates who tries to express internal laws in spiritual laws regarding spiritual relations. So the significance of the corpus delicti in criminal law is expressed in the Criminal Code (Special Part), where one crime can be distinguished from another. For example, theft from extortion, robbery from hooliganism are distinguished only by different signs of the composition of these crimes.
In Russia
First, a little about Roman and English law. In ancient Rome, theft was understood as a violated property right, including unpaid debt. English criminal law considers theft as a variety of methods of encroachment on someone else's property, even if a person appropriated something found or cheated with electricity. And in Russia, criminal law concludes specific offenses, the list of which is exhaustive.
And this means that only behavior that coincides with the characteristics of this particular composition can be criminally punished and recognized as a crime. The legal values of the offense in the Criminal Code are reflected in the form of not all consecutive factual signs, but the most significant and typical subjective and objective, in the aggregate characterizing this act as socially dangerous.
Unfinished and completed corpus delicti
Separate articles (Special Part of the Criminal Code) describe the signs of purely completed corpus delicti that the perpetrators committed together with the co-executors or alone. Nevertheless, the General part of the Criminal Code contains provisions on unfinished crimes, which include preparation or attempted crime.
The significance of the subjective side of the corpus delicti is that the General Part describes signs of both individual and all crimes inherent. When a person performed, for example, the functions of an instigator, organizer or accomplice and did not personally perform the actions of a crime, then the composition of the organization, incitement or aiding is considered in the act. For every criminal step has corresponding signs.
Any crime can be characterized by a variety of subjective and objective signs, features and traits inherent only to it. Articles of the Criminal Code (Special Part) indicate only the most structurally stable elements and their constituent features: the object, the parties to the criminal act - both subjective and objective, after which the act is determined or not defined as a crime throughout the system. The significance of the objective side of the corpus delicti is important precisely because it considers inaction or action, a dangerous consequence for the society, circumstances of the place and time, causal connections, the situation, means and methods, tools for committing the crime - that is, the signs determining the composition of the crime.
Model
Only by summarizing the persistent features that are characteristic of each crime structure, it is possible to create a certain scientific abstraction that makes up the general concept, which includes the above characteristics, all four of their groups (also called parties to the composition or its elements). They characterize the object, its objective side, the subjective side and the subject of the crime. This model (concept) is usually used in educational institutions and has great methodological significance. Since each side of the corpus delicti has its own specific characteristics, each corpus is specific and unique in its own way.
In the general corpus delicti are necessary, that is, mandatory for any composition, signs, as well as a number of individual, uncharacteristic, optional. For example, the place, time, means, instrument, methods of committing a crime, its consequences and the environment in which all this happens are far from being included in a certain corpus delicti each time, but inaction and action are the objective side, and its signs are simply required for each composition. However, the elements of crimes do not specifically spell out mandatory or optional features in the Criminal Code (Special Part). The signs of such a plan are evaluative or formally defined, as described by verbal means - specific legal terms, concepts, well-known words.
Examples
There are several criteria, that is, the grounds by which the elements of crimes are classified in the Criminal Code (Special Part). The number of mandatory signs of the objective side and the design of the corpus delicti indicate a subsection: material is the composition, formal or truncated. Example of material composition: negligence (Part 1 of Article 293 of the Criminal Code), in which there are no aggravating circumstances. Here it is necessary to establish as a criminal consequence the damage caused on a large scale, the substantial violation of the legitimate interests and rights of organizations or citizens or the interests of society, the state, protected by law. If aggravating circumstances are present (part 2 of the same article), this means causing grievous bodily harm or even death of a person caused by negligence. If there are especially aggravating circumstances (part 3 of the same article) - causing death to two or more people by negligence.
An example of a formal composition does not indicate specific consequences; there is enough inaction or action provided for in the article of the Criminal Code. The consequences are usually outside of this corpus delicti, and if they do exist, they are taken into account when sentencing. For example, the composition of the obstruction of suffrage or the obstruction of the work of election commissions. Truncated compositions are a form of formal, just the end of the act is transferred to the early stage of the crime. For example, robbery (Article 162) is formulated as an attack to steal property where violence is used that is dangerous to health and life, or a threat of such violence. Robbery is a complete crime from the first moment of the attack. The ending of it by the law was postponed to the time of the assassination attempt, when the possession of other people's property has not yet taken place.