Author

Bugera N.N.

Title of article

Criminal legal assessment of the employment of weapons or items used as weapons

Section

Section 3. Criminal Law

Issue, year

3 (33) 2015

Abstract

In the doctrine and judicial practice there is no unified interpretation of such classifying feature of crimes as “employment of weapons or items used as weapons” stipulated by the criminal law. The efficient resolutions of the RF Supreme Court’s Plenum, providing its official interpretation, are analyzed. It’s argued that weapons’ demonstration and actions aiming at weapons’ use or indicating the intention to use them, cannot be considered as weapons’ employment. It’s proved that demonstration (threat of use) of suitable and worthless weapons or stick (if a person doesn’t intend to use these items for causing bodily injuries dangerous to life and health) should be considered as threat of using violence (not as its using) in corpora delicti containing the feature “threat of using violence”, since victims interpret these items as real threat to their life or health. The rules for classifying robbery and hooliganism according to the analyzed feature are formulated. The correlation of the concepts “use” and “employment” is conducted. Corpora delicti stipulated by the Articles 203 and 286 of the RF Criminal Code, where in some cases the classifying feature is considered as “use of weapons or special means” and in others as “employment of weapons or special means”, are analyzed. It’s stated that use of weapons not for its intended purpose, but for striking or imposing mental constraint is absorbed by the Clause “a”, Section 2, Article 286 of the RF Criminal Code. It’s concluded that using the unified terminology allows to avoid numerous law-enforcement mistakes.

Keywords

employment of weapons, items used as weapons, use, demonstration, threat of using violence.

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