Author

Kornakova S.V., Gaikov D.G.

Title of article

Establishing motives for committing crimes: criminalistic possibilities and criminal procedure expediency

Section

Criminal рrocedural review

Issue, year

4 (30) 2014

Abstract

The lack of unanimity on the motive understanding by psychologists studying the motivation of goal-oriented behavior and lawyers analyzing the crime causes and mechanisms is stated. The possibility of unconscious motives of criminal behavior is admitted. The practical problems of es-tablishing and proving the motives for specific crimes, which can be judged only presumably, by studying actus reus and perpetrator’s testimony, are shown.  Establishing the motive for crime is complicated by the fact that the guilty person is often not aware of it, conceals or distorts it. The authors acknowledge that crime is impossible without a motive (talking about mentally healthy person). Consequently, they state the inevitable difficulties in establishing any motive and the lack of objective need for its establishing to find a person guilty of committing a crime. The expediency of establishing cognition limits of crime psychology by the subject of proof is argued. It’s concluded that the preliminary investigation bodies and courts must fully, comprehensively and objectively investigate the circumstances that determine the conclusion about the presence or absence of guilty motive in perpetrator’s actions. They must justify this conclusion in the indictment and sentence by bringing evidence only in case if this motive is provided by criminal law as element of crime. It’s argued that the list of circumstances to be proved in every criminal case, provided by article 73 of the RF Criminal Procedure Code, can’t be considered satisfactory, if practical possibilities of their establishing aren’t taken into account. It’s proposed to exclude the motives for crime from this list.

Keywords

mens rea, motive for crime, circumstances to be proved.

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