In the presence of a set of crimes, the guilty person bears criminal liability for each of them, provided for by law. Since he is condemned immediately by several articles of the Criminal Code, the question arises of the rules and procedure for the appointment of punishment by a court. The answer is in Art. 69 of the Criminal Code.
What is meant by aggregate?
The legislator defines the totality of crimes as the commission of two or more criminal acts for which a person was not held accountable. The exception is cases directly provided for by the criminal law of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in its Special Part.
In the aggregate of criminal acts, it is necessary to punish each of them individually (part 1 of article 69 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). This requirement is based on the principle of individualization of punishment.
Collective punishment: principles of appointment
There are three principles that are used by the courts in imposing sentences for cumulative criminal acts. They apply to both basic and additional types of sanctions.
The first is the principle of absorption. When using it, a stricter sanction absorbs a less severe one, that is, the latter is not actually taken into account and does not affect the overall size or term of punishment.
The second principle is a partial summation of the sanctions imposed by the court. In this case, a more severe punishment is attached to a less severe, but not completely, but partially.
The third principle is expressed in the total addition of all assigned sentences. However, the final term should not exceed more than half the maximum possible punishment for the most serious of the total crimes.
It should be noted that modern legislation has undergone significant changes in terms of the provisions governing the imposition of sentences on aggregate crimes. Current edition of Art. 69 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation indicates their dependence on which category of severity a particular criminal act belongs to.
Part 2 of article 69 of the Criminal Code
If all aggregate crimes are assessed as acts of minor gravity or medium, or there has been a preparation or attempt to commit a serious criminal act or especially serious, the final punishment may be imposed according to any of the three above principles. That is, it can be absorption or addition (partial or total). Part 2, Art. 69 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation requires that the final amount or term be less than or equal to half the maximum possible punishment for the gravest of crimes committed by the perpetrator.
Absorption is carried out in accordance with the hierarchy of types of sanctions, an exhaustive list of which is presented in Art. 44 of the Criminal Code. Of all the possible penalties, the penalty is the mildest, therefore it is always absorbed.
Part 3, Art. 69 of the Criminal Code
The third part of the norm establishes the rules for determining the size and term of punishment, applicable when at least one of the crimes qualifies as especially serious or serious. The final term in this case is determined by the principle of addition (partial or full). It is important that in the end, the punishment should not be more than half the maximum possible term of imprisonment for the gravest of crimes committed by the perpetrator.
The rule, however, has an exception. In cases where the maximum possible term of imprisonment for the most serious of crimes is 20 years, you cannot assign the final punishment for a total of 30 years. Such an approach would conflict with Art. 56 of the Criminal Code. It refers to the fact that the maximum possible term of imprisonment is no more than twenty-five years.
Part 4, Art. 69 of the Criminal Code: additional sanctions
When a person is found guilty of several criminal acts, the operative part of the sentence must contain the type and amount of the punishment assigned to him (primary and secondary). Moreover, it indicates not only the final period, determined in the aggregate, but also a separate one for each episode.
According to the requirements of Part 4 of Art. 69 of the Criminal Code, in respect of additional punishment, the same rules of appointment apply as for the main one. So, it can not exceed the maximum possible size or period provided for by the legislation for this type of sanction with partial or full addition.
Punishment under Part 5 of Article 69 of the Criminal Code
Special attention should be paid to the issue of sentencing in cases where information on the commission of one or more crimes was obtained after the sentencing in the first case. At the same time, the time for the commission of the newly identified criminal offense in chronology must precede the announcement of the decision by the court. For example, a person was convicted of theft and assigned a certain type of punishment. After some time, it turned out that six months before the court sentenced another episode of theft of another's property took place.
In accordance with the comments to Art. 69 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in this situation, two important circumstances are provided for at the legislative level. Firstly, despite the fact that there will actually be two sentences, the punishment (final) is imposed on the totality of criminal acts. Secondly, the term already served (executed) by the convict on the first sentence shall be counted.
The situation when a convicted person commits a second offense before atonement for the first crime speaks of the insufficient strength of the originally assigned punishment. On the other hand, it is also a confirmation that a criminal who has not embarked on the path of correction poses an increased danger to society. In this regard, the legislator did not provide for the possibility of setting a deadline on the principle of absorption by a more severe punishment of less severe.
When sentencing for the commission of aggregate crimes, the court must always take into account the age of the perpetrator at the time all episodes were committed. In judicial practice, you can often find situations where the first criminal act was committed before the age of 18, and the second after. In this case, the punishment for a crime committed before coming of age must be imposed within the boundaries established by Art. 88 of the Criminal Code.