Objective side of the crime

The concept of the objective side of a crime and its criminal legal significance

A mandatory sign for the objective side of all crimes is a socially dangerous act, since without a description of its signs it is impossible to establish a specific crime. The remaining signs of the objective side are optional, since in some cases they are included in the content of the objective side and in this case are mandatory for specific crimes, in others they are not included and do not affect the qualification of crimes. For example, for all elements of theft (Articles 158–162, 164 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), in addition to the act, the mandatory features are consequences and, therefore, the presence of a causal connection. For the majority of crimes provided for by the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the place where the crimes were committed is legally indifferent. However, this sign is required for liability for illegal placement in a psychiatric hospital (Article 128 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The situation is similar with other optional features (method, instrument, means, time and situation of committing a crime).

At the same time, optional signs of the objective side, even if they do not affect the qualification of the crime, have important criminal legal and criminal procedural significance. In particular, they are taken into account when assigning punishment, acting as circumstances mitigating or aggravating the responsibility of the perpetrator (Articles 60–64 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). In criminal proceedings, a crime cannot be considered investigated and proven if the place and time of its commission are not established, even if they are not specified in the disposition of the relevant criminal law norm.

Thus, the value of the objective side is determined under the following conditions: firstly, as an element of the crime is included in the basis of criminal liability; secondly, it is the legal basis for the classification of crimes; thirdly, it allows you to distinguish between crimes that are similar to each other in other elements and characteristics of the composition; fourthly, it contains criteria for distinguishing crimes from other offenses; fifthly, it serves as a justification for assigning a fair punishment to the guilty. The above conditions fully determine the significance of the objective side of the crime for law enforcement activities.

Elements of the crime

The corpus delicti of any crime consists of four groups of characteristics, which are called elements of the crime. These include:

object of crime;
the objective side of the crime;
the subjective side of the crime;
subject of the crime.

The first two elements of the crime are formed by objective signs that characterize the external aspect of the crime. Subjective signs characterize the internal side of the crime, i.e. its subjective side and subject.

Socially dangerous act and its criminal legal characteristics

The central place among the signs of the objective side of a crime is occupied by a socially dangerous act. As already noted, this is a mandatory sign of the objective side. The concept and content of this feature is based on a set of properties of a criminal law nature. Russian criminal law does not provide for criminal liability for the thoughts, views, intentions of a person or the characteristics of his personality. Only the commission of an act in the form of action or inaction gives grounds to raise the question of the possibility of criminal prosecution.

An act that constitutes the objective side of a crime differs from other human actions in a number of ways. In particular, the act must be socially dangerous, unlawful, conscious and volitional; it can be complex or simple, specific in content. Some of these signs (for example, public danger and illegality) are directly indicated in the criminal law as signs of a crime (Part 1 of Article 14 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), others, for example, the awareness and volitional nature of the act, are mediated through such a sign of a crime as guilt. Since these signs are discussed in sufficient detail in the chapter devoted to the concept of a crime, we will pay attention only to the main provisions in relation to the issue under consideration.

The most significant among the above-mentioned signs of an act is public danger. The content of social danger is that the act causes harm to legally protected relations, benefits, values and interests or creates a real threat of causing such harm. Therefore, an action (inaction) is not a crime, although formally it contains signs of any act provided for by the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, but due to its insignificance it does not pose a public danger (Part 2 of Article 14 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

Criminal liability can only result from a socially dangerous act that is expressly provided for by criminal law. This means the criminal wrongfulness (illegality) of an act, which is determined by the fact that a specific act is prohibited by law under threat of punishment and the commission of such an act always violates a norm (article) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

A criminal act must have a conscious and volitional nature. A person’s behavior, if it was not conscious of him and was not an expression of his will, cannot be considered a crime, regardless of the consequences. This means that the consciousness of a person committing a specific act must embrace the social danger of this act, including the nature and degree of social danger, as well as the anticipation of criminal consequences (harm).

A criminal act must be not only conscious, but also volitional. This means that criminal liability occurs only in cases where the offender could and should have not acted or, conversely, acted in a certain way. Therefore, it is necessary to establish the actual possibility of refraining from a criminal act or performing the required action in order to prevent harmful consequences. A subject, deprived in a specific situation of the actual opportunity to express his will and act in a certain way, in the criminal legal sense cannot be held responsible for either action or inaction. Such situations can arise under the influence of force majeure, physical and mental coercion, when the will of a person is paralyzed. Force majeure is a general legal concept. It is understood as an emergency and unpreventable event under given specific conditions, for example, a natural disaster (earthquake, flood, fire, epidemic, etc.). This can be a social phenomenon (civil war, external military attack, state of emergency, etc.) or a condition caused by the influence of other people (crash, accident, etc.). An act committed by a person under the influence of force majeure has no criminal consequences and does not entail criminal liability. Thus, a delivery driver who, due to a flood, did not deliver the goods to their intended destination, as a result of which the goods became unusable and suffered major damage to the owner, is not liable. Excludes criminal liability for committing a socially dangerous act and irresistible physical coercion, provided that it completely paralyzes the will of the person and deprives him of the opportunity to choose behavior. For example, the driver of a vehicle cannot be held criminally liable if, during a fight with a criminal who attacked him, he lost control and caused an accident, as a result of which people were injured. At the same time, if physical coercion did not exclude the possibility for a person to act of his own free will, then he is not exempt from criminal liability.

The legislator has defined a similar approach for mental coercion. Mental coercion is understood as the threat of causing any harm, including physical, in order to force a person to commit a certain socially dangerous act. Such coercion most often does not exclude the punishability of a person who committed such an act under the influence of mental violence; mental coercion can exclude the criminal liability of a person acting under its influence only when he was in a state of extreme necessity. For example, a parking lot attendant who, under the threat of gunfire, allowed criminals to take possession of an expensive car, cannot be prosecuted because he acted under conditions of extreme necessity. At the same time, it should be noted that both physical and mental coercion, if it is not recognized as a circumstance excluding the criminality of the act, can be considered as a circumstance mitigating responsibility when imposing punishment (clause “e” of Article 61 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

A socially dangerous act can also be committed under the influence of hypnosis. In this regard, we must agree that hypnosis is a special form of mental coercion that can completely paralyze the will of a person who has committed a socially dangerous act in a state of hypnotic suggestion. Therefore, an act committed in such a state cannot be considered volitional and, therefore, criminally punishable.

The specific content of a socially dangerous act presupposes an accurate description in the disposition of the criminal law norm and the establishment of the signs of this act in the process of proof. In other words, it is necessary to find out and indicate exactly what actions (inactions) provided for by a specific crime were committed and what exactly this criminal act was expressed in.

Having characterized the characteristics that make up the concept and content of a socially dangerous act, one should distinguish between the forms in which this act is carried out. The criminal law (Article 14 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) provides for two forms of action: active behavior - action and passive behavior - inaction. Most often, crimes are committed in the form of an action. A significant number of criminal acts can be committed both in the form of action and in the form of inaction. Most rarely (about 10% of the total) crimes are committed in the form of inaction.

Action is active behavior that is not reduced to the usual reflexive, instinctive body movement of a person, and, as already mentioned, includes conscious volitional acts, actions, including processes directed by a person’s consciousness, namely: the actions of other persons ( minors, the mentally ill), the behavior of animals (most often dogs), the operation of mechanisms (vehicles, computer equipment, etc.).

In most cases, the action is expressed in physical impact on objects of the material world (people, animals, property, etc.). Some crimes can be expressed verbally or in writing (for example, slander, threats to kill, falsification of election documents, entering of knowingly false information into official documents, etc.). Less commonly, the action may be expressed by a gesture (for example, a death threat).

Inaction is the passive behavior of a person, which in the criminal legal sense represents a socially dangerous unlawful conscious and volitional failure by a person to fulfill the obligation assigned to him to act in a certain way. In this regard, it is necessary to distinguish between the physical and social characteristics of passive behavior. In the physical sense, a person can behave very actively, but if he did not fulfill a certain duty, violating a criminal law prohibition, there is a criminal inaction. For example, refusal to testify as a witness (Article 308 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) while actively working in another field at that time.

A person’s obligation to act in a certain way may arise for various reasons:

a) due to the requirements of the law or regulations (for example, the obligation of adult children to provide assistance to disabled parents, and parents to support minor children);

b) from the obligations assumed under the contract (for example, the forwarder’s obligation to preserve and deliver the cargo to its destination);

c) due to official position, official or professional requirements (for example, the duty of a police officer to suppress detected crimes, the duty of a doctor to provide assistance to a patient);

d) from the previous behavior of a person or as a result of voluntarily assumed obligations (for example, a climber or just a tourist, having agreed to go on a hike as part of a group, must fulfill the obligations assumed and provide assistance in critical situations);

e) based on the moral norms and rules of the community (for example, the duty of a person either to provide assistance to a person in a life-threatening condition, or to inform the competent authorities about the need to provide such assistance).

A prerequisite for criminal legal inaction is that, along with establishing the obligation to act in a certain way, it is necessary to find out whether the person had a real opportunity to perform the required actions. In criminal law, there are different types of criminal inaction: pure inaction and mixed inaction. Pure inaction consists of failure to fulfill duties that a person should and could have performed regardless of the occurrence of any consequences (for example, evasion of conscription for military service - Article 328 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Mixed inaction consists of failure to fulfill obligations, with which the law associates the occurrence of certain harmful consequences (for example, negligence - Article 293 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). In cases of mixed inaction, a person does not fulfill all the duties assigned to him, but only part of them, and does not prevent the onset of harmful consequences, although he should have and could have prevented them. The current Criminal Code of the Russian Federation provides for liability in most cases specifically for mixed inaction.

Taking into account the nature of the action (inaction), the theory of criminal law distinguishes the following types of crimes: single (simple) and single compound (complex), ongoing and ongoing.

A single crime is considered to be one in which one action is committed that encroaches on one object (for example, theft - Article 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). In this case, a single crime is considered completed at the moment of execution of the action (for formal crimes) or the onset of harmful consequences (for material crimes). In the case of the commission of several homogeneous individual crimes, each of them is considered and qualified as independent.

Compound (complex) crimes are those in which criminal acts consisting of two or more acts of encroachment on different objects are combined by the legislator into one crime (for example, robbery, in which there is an encroachment on someone else’s property and person - Article 162 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ).

A continuing crime is an act that maintains a criminal state from the moment of its commission until the moment of its detection - arrest or surrender (for example, desertion - Article 338 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

A continuing crime consists of homogeneous criminal actions separated by short periods of time, aimed at a common goal and collectively constituting a single crime (for example, torture of a victim - Article 117 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

Unlike a continuing crime, a continuing crime does not occur continuously, but consists of separate actions separated in time. The beginning of a continuing crime should be considered the commission of the first action from among several similar ones that make up a single crime, and the end should be considered the moment of commission of the last criminal action in this chain.

There are other options for classifying crimes. In particular, G.V. Timeiko suggests, depending on the length of the criminal act in time, to distinguish the following crimes:

one-time;
multi-moment;
continued;
lasting;
actions with long-term results.

The above classification is certainly interesting and deserves attention.

Socially dangerous consequence and its criminal legal assessment

The commission of any socially dangerous act causes negative changes in objective reality, causes harm to objects protected by law, or creates a threat of causing such harm. The nature and extent of the harm caused determines, first of all, the degree of public danger of the crime itself. A socially dangerous consequence is a real harm (damage) provided for by criminal law, caused to the object of criminal legal protection as a result of the commission of a criminal act (action or inaction).

Based on this definition, the consequences of a crime cannot include the threat of harm. The possibility of harm characterizes the socially dangerous act itself, and not its consequences.

Harmful consequences in most cases occur as a result of socially dangerous actions. At the same time, they can also occur as a result of criminal inaction. Socially dangerous consequences can be divided into two types: material and intangible.

Material consequences are of a physical, tangible nature, which can be accurately established, recorded, calculated, which is essential in proving and qualifying crimes. In turn, material consequences can be divided into personal, physical (causing death, bodily injury) and property (theft, destruction or damage to property).

Intangible consequences arise as a result of actions aimed at objects (subjects) of an intangible nature. Such consequences may occur as a result of an attack on the honor and dignity of citizens, on their constitutional, political, labor and personal non-property rights, on the normal activities of political and public organizations and institutions. In this regard, it can be argued that when committing a crime, there will always be harm caused to an object protected by law (moral, political, etc.), although in such cases it is impossible to determine specific damage.

When characterizing socially dangerous consequences, it should be noted that, on the one hand, outwardly similar criminal acts can lead to harmful consequences of varying severity, since the nature of the resulting consequences depends not only on the content and nature of the act, but also on the specific conditions in which this act is committed. On the other hand, criminal consequences influence the resolution of the issue of criminal liability not only by their content (material or intangible), but also by their degree of severity.

Every crime causes certain socially dangerous consequences, but they are not always specified in the criminal law. In this regard, the conditional division of elements of a crime according to their design into formal and material, adopted in criminal law, is important for characterizing the objective side of the crime in general and for socially dangerous consequences, in particular.

In the literature, proposals are made to distinguish as relatively independent:

a) hazards involving the possibility (threat) of socially dangerous consequences;

b) alternative (formal and material) compositions, providing in one part only for the commission of an act, in the other – along with the act and the occurrence of certain consequences.

In reality, any crimes, including formal offenses, always entail harmful changes in the surrounding world, in objects protected by criminal law. The law does not require the establishment of this harm in all cases, because sometimes it is obvious, and sometimes it can have long-term consequences or cannot be specifically calculated. Taking this into account, we can say that, in principle, there are no and cannot be crimes without consequences. The essence of the issue is the criminal legal assessment of these consequences.

Crimes with a truncated composition

This is a crime in which the offense is considered completed from the moment of preliminary criminal activity, that is, at the stage of preparation or attempt. The definition immediately makes it clear why the formal and truncated elements of the crime are combined into one. Because in both cases there are no consequences as a mandatory feature.

Crimes with formal elements include, for example, encroachment on the life of a statesman or public figure, robbery, the formation of a criminal organization, banditry, and others.

Causation in criminal law

A necessary condition for criminal liability for socially dangerous consequences is the existence of a causal connection between the socially dangerous act of the perpetrator and its consequences. Causality is one of the mandatory signs of the objective side of crimes with a material composition. This means that for criminal liability to occur, it is necessary to establish that the criminal consequences were caused by the action (inaction) of the guilty person and are in a causal relationship with each other.

The criminal law, and the law in general, do not disclose the concept and content of causation. This category is considered in materialistic philosophy as an objectively existing connection. The understanding of causality in criminal law is based on the dialectical doctrine of causality, which is based on the philosophical categories of cause and effect. In accordance with it, a causal relationship is understood as a relationship between phenomena in which one (cause) naturally gives rise to another (effect). In philosophy, a phenomenon (process, event) is called the cause of another phenomenon (process, event) if the first precedes the second in time; is a necessary condition, prerequisite or basis for the emergence, change or development of the second, i.e. if the first gives rise to the second. The dialectical interaction of the categories of cause and effect means not only their natural connection with each other, but also the fact that a phenomenon that acts as a consequence in one case, in another, itself becomes the cause of other consequences. The causal connections are manifold. One cause can cause a variety of consequences, just as the same effect can be generated by different causes or a combination of causes. At the same time, some circumstances are decisive, main, others are auxiliary, secondary. Inequality of causes is a general property of any causal relationship. Therefore, to analyze the causes of a particular phenomenon, it is necessary to isolate them from the general connection and consider them separately, independently.

The criminal legal study of the causal relationship consists of considering the existence of one between a socially dangerous act (action or inaction) and those harmful consequences (results) that occurred as a result of the behavior of the perpetrator. The objective nature of the causal connection in criminal law means that the preliminary investigation authorities and the court in the course of their activities establish not some abstract, imaginary connection between an act and its consequences, but a very specific, objectively existing causal connection between them. However, the process of establishing causation is not always straightforward. In some cases, such a connection between a criminal act and the harmful consequences that occur is obvious and does not require special proof (for example, a stab in the chest - the immediate death of the victim). In other cases, when there is a certain period of time between the act and its consequences, during which there was the intervention of additional factors (actions of other persons, the victim himself, forces of nature, mechanisms), in order to establish a causal relationship, there is a need for careful proof. In particular, such proof is required by circumstances related to the death of the victim, which occurred on the way to the hospital when the ambulance team was unable to deliver the patient in a timely manner due to technical problems with the car.

Causality in criminal law is characterized by a number of features. Since causation is a process that occurs over time, then:

The first sign of connection is temporary. It means that for there to be a causal connection between a socially dangerous act and harmful consequences, it is necessary to establish that this act preceded in time the consequences that occurred. However, mere sequence in time does not create causation;

the second sign of causation is the real possibility of consequences as a result of the commission of this act. In other words, a person’s actions are the cause of harm in those cases where they create a real possibility of the consequences provided for by a specific criminal law;

the third sign of causation is the inevitability of the consequences provided for by criminal law as a result of the commission of the act. For the existence of a causal connection, it is required that among all the circumstances that contributed to the onset of specific socially dangerous consequences, the committed act was decisive (the main one) and inevitably caused the onset of this particular criminal result. Thus, recognizing an act as the direct cause of a socially dangerous consequence will allow us to establish the existence of a consequence (consequences). As a general rule, a causal relationship is established in crimes with a material element. However, in the opinion of the authors of this textbook, it is also worthy of attention that a causal relationship can be established in some crimes with a formal composition, in which a sign of the objective side is the creation by a person of a real threat of corresponding harm (for example, when threatening to kill or inflict a serious crime). harm to health – Article 119 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). If the criminal result occurred as a result of random circumstances that do not naturally follow from the nature of the act, then it cannot be considered its cause.

Similarly to the above, the issue of establishing a causal connection between inaction and a criminal result is resolved. However, the specific features of inaction as passive human behavior determine the uniqueness of the causal relationship in this case. The commission of a crime and, therefore, the existence of a causal connection can be asserted only when the person had a special obligation to perform specific actions. In some cases, a causal link must be established between the acts of several individuals and the overall criminal result. This applies, in particular, to the facts of committing crimes with material complicity, which necessitates the establishment of a causal relationship between the socially dangerous consequences that occurred and the actions of each person who took part in the commission of this crime.

Thus, a causal connection in criminal law should be considered an objectively existing connection between a socially dangerous act and the harmful consequences that occur, provided that the act precedes the consequence in time, creates a real possibility of its occurrence, is a necessary and only condition for such a result, and the consequence is inevitably natural stems precisely from this act.

Crimes with material content

This is a crime in which the crime is completed from the moment when socially dangerous consequences occur. That is, consequences are a mandatory condition, without which the offense committed will be interpreted differently.

Crimes with material elements include, for example, murder, theft, bodily harm of varying degrees, fraud, and more.

Optional signs of the objective side and their criminal legal significance

Every crime is committed under certain specific conditions (circumstances), which are associated with place and time, situation, means and instruments, as well as the method of committing the crime. Along with socially dangerous consequences and causation, these circumstances relate to the optional signs of the objective side of the crime. However, if they are included in the disposition of the criminal law norm of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, these signs are mandatory for a specific crime, which must be taken into account when qualifying crimes. In other cases, these circumstances, as optional signs of the objective side, are taken into account when assigning punishment, since they influence the nature and degree of social danger of the crime committed.

In addition, the place, time and method of committing a crime in accordance with the requirements of the criminal procedure law are included in the subject of evidence in each criminal case. As a rule, within the framework of a criminal case, the situation, means and instruments of the crime are also established, since they characterize other circumstances of the case. In this regard, it should be said that optional features cannot be interpreted as optional or secondary. These signs are not necessary only for a generalized description of the objective side of the crime. However, as already mentioned, they may be mandatory for specific crimes.

Moreover, these features are essential for the differentiation and individualization of responsibility and sentencing for a specific crime, since the concept of “crime” has a much richer content than the concept of “corpus delicti” and its constituent elements, which capture only the minimum necessary for typical characteristics signs of a crime. We can say that the specification (individual characteristics) of the crime event itself and the guilt of the person who committed this crime depends on establishing the place, time, situation, means and instruments, as well as the method of committing the crime.

The crime scene is a certain territory, the space in which the crime occurs. They can be recognized as the continental shelf (Article 253 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), the open sea (Article 256 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), the state border of the Russian Federation (Articles 322, 323 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), and other types of territory and space. The territory of the state in which the crime was committed has important criminal legal significance, since this raises the question of which state’s criminal law should be applied to the perpetrator.

The time of commission of a crime is a certain time period (interval, segment) during which the crime occurs. The criminal law mentions the time of disaster at sea (Article 270 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), the period of preliminary investigation (Article 307 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), and the period of armed conflict (Article 356 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). It should be noted that the current criminal legislation relatively rarely indicates the time of commission of the crime as a constructive sign of the objective party. More often, this sign is implied in cases where we are talking about crimes committed during military service, serving a sentence or in other similar situations.

The situation in which a crime was committed is a specific situation, the conditions in which a specific crime occurs. It is characterized by circumstances mitigating and aggravating punishment (for example, committing a crime due to difficult life circumstances or motivated by compassion - paragraph “e” of Article 61 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation; in violation of the conditions of legality of necessary defense, detention of the person who committed the crime, extreme necessity, reasonable risk, execution of an order or instruction - clause "g" of Article 61 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation; in conditions of a state of emergency, natural or other public disaster, as well as during mass riots - clause "l" of Article 63 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Less often, an indication of the circumstances in which a crime was committed is contained in the norms of the Special Part of the Criminal Law (in particular, the conditions of publicity for slander are discussed in Article 128.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

Instruments and means of crime are those objects, devices, substances, vehicles with the help of which crimes are committed. In particular, these include weapons, poisons, explosives, chemical reagents, documents, various master keys, cars, computers, etc. The difference between a weapon and a means of crime is that the first is used to perform the objective side and, therefore, in the direct commission of a crime (for example, knives, sharpeners, brass knuckles, chains and similar objects during hooliganism - clause “a”, part 1 of article 213 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation); the second – contributes to the commission of a crime, facilitates its commission (for example, ropes, with the help of which the person who committed the burglary entered the balcony of the apartment and then left it).

As a rule, instruments and means of committing crimes increase the degree of public danger of crimes and therefore act as qualifying criteria (for example, robbery committed with the use of weapons or objects used as weapons entails qualification under Part 2 of Article 162 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) or as circumstances aggravating punishment (clause “k” of Article 63 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

Age of the subject of the crime

The Criminal Code establishes the age at which a person can be considered a subject of a crime. Article 20 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation defines two age criteria:

sixteen years;
fourteen years old.

According to the general rule, criminal liability begins when a person reaches the age of sixteen (Part 1 of Article 20 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). This criterion is determined by the psychophysiological characteristics of a person who has reached the specified age. It is believed that he is at a level of intellectual development and social maturity that allows him to adequately assess the social significance of his actions and choose the right course of action. The ability to make informed decisions also presupposes the ability of a person to bear responsibility for them.

An exception to the general rule is the establishment of a second age criterion - fourteen years . The list of crimes for which responsibility occurs upon reaching the specified age is given in Part 2 of Art. 20 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. It covers acts that constitute the main crime of minors aged 14 to 16 years. Their social orientation and social danger for teenagers is obvious and easy to understand. The crimes contained in the list are directed against life, health, sexual freedom, property, public safety and public order. Almost all of them are intentional (the exception is rendering vehicles or means of communication unusable - Article 267 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). This list is exhaustive and is not subject to broad interpretation.

More details

If a person who has reached the age of 14 takes part in the commission of a crime for which responsibility begins at the age of 16, his actions either do not form a crime at all and, therefore, he cannot be held criminally liable, or he is liable only for the act the subject of which is recognized as a person at this age. For example, the subject of banditry (Article 206 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), mass riots (Article 212 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) is a person who has reached 16 years of age. However, these crimes may include intentional destruction or damage to property, murder, rape, etc., responsibility for which begins at the age of 14. A teenager who has reached the specified age should be held accountable only for those crimes committed as part of a gang or during mass riots, for which responsibility is provided from the age of 14. It must be borne in mind that a significant number of norms of the Special Part provide for liability for acts that may occur when a person reaches an older age than 16 years. Thus, the subject of involving a minor in the commission of a crime (Article 150 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and in the commission of antisocial actions (Article 151 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), violation of traffic safety rules and operation of railway, air and water transport (Article 263 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), etc. crimes may be committed by a person over 18 years of age.

A person is considered to have reached the age at which criminal liability begins, not on his birthday, but after the day on which this day falls, i.e. from zero o'clock the next day. When establishing age by a forensic medical examination, his birthday is considered the last day of the year that is named by experts, and when determining age, the minimum and maximum number of years should be based on the minimum age of such a person proposed by experts.

There are no maximum age limits established in the Criminal Code. Consequently, a person who committed a crime in old age or even old age is recognized as the subject of a crime. However, it must be borne in mind that in relation to such a person there are restrictions on the application of certain types of punishment (for example, the death penalty cannot be imposed on men who have reached 65 years of age at the time the court pronounces the verdict - Article 59 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

In accordance with Part 3 of Art. 20 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, if a minor has reached the age specified in the law, but due to mental retardation not associated with a mental disorder, during the commission of a socially dangerous act, he could not fully understand the actual nature and social danger of his actions (inaction) or direct by them, he is not subject to criminal liability. age-related insanity occurs , i.e. discrepancy between the mental development of a teenager and his actual age. It is characterized by three features:

retardation in mental development, not associated with a mental disorder, but due to individual age-related characteristics of the intellectual-volitional sphere;
limited opportunity, i.e. the inability of a person to fully understand the actual nature and social danger of his actions (inaction) or to manage them;
temporary (temporal), meaning that it was at the moment of committing a socially dangerous act that the specified developmental delay and limited ability influenced the behavior of the minor.

Optional signs of the objective side and their criminal legal significance

At the same time, the instruments and means of committing a crime should not be confused with the subject of the crime. For example, a car, when stolen or stolen, is the subject of a crime, and when used to destroy a brick wall of a store and subsequent transportation of stolen property, the same car acts respectively as an instrument and means of committing a crime.

The method of committing a crime is the form, techniques and methods that the guilty person uses to commit a socially dangerous attack. The method is an important criminal law feature of the objective side, since it may include in its content one or more optional features, for example, a generally dangerous method of murder or causing grievous harm to health (clause “e”, part 2 of article 105, clause “c” Part 2 of Article 111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) is characterized by the place, time, situation, weapon and means of committing a crime. The method of committing a crime can be a criterion for distinguishing similar homogeneous crimes, for example, it is by the method that forms of theft are distinguished: theft, robbery, robbery, fraud, embezzlement or embezzlement (Articles 158 - 162 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and extortion is distinguished from them (Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The method of committing a socially dangerous act, if it is not a constructive or qualifying feature of a crime, may be recognized as an aggravating circumstance (for example, committing a crime with particular cruelty, sadism, bullying, as well as torture for the victim - paragraph “and” of Article 63 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

Based on the current criminal legislation and law enforcement practice, the most common methods of committing criminal acts are violence against a person or the threat of such violence (violent crimes); secret and open theft of property, deception or breach of trust, extortion (property crimes); abuse of power, official forgery, bribery (malfeasance).

Thus, the criminal legal significance of the considered optional signs of the objective side of the crime is that they can act as: firstly, mandatory (constructive) signs of a specific crime; secondly, qualifying characteristics; thirdly, mitigating or aggravating circumstances that are taken into account when assigning punishment for the crime committed.

Common and distinctive features

Along the way, we found out that the formal and material elements of a crime are types that have common objects and subjects, but the objective and subjective sides are completely different. They have different mandatory characteristics of these sides, so it is quite difficult to confuse these two types.

As for the truncated composition, it also has common features with the formal and material. They are united by social relations protected by law and the individual committing the crime. However, the objective side of this offense has common features with only one. This has been mentioned several times above - the formal corpus delicti does not define the consequences as a mandatory feature, as in the truncated one.

What's different? For the formal one, it is enough to commit criminal acts, but for the truncated one, preliminary criminal activity is important.