Criminally Relevant Psycho-Emotional States of Individual: Problems of Consideration when Assigning Punishment

The paper reviews the problems related to the assessment of criminal law significance of the psychoemotional states of an individual at the time of committing crimes.
An analysis of forensic practice and judicial statistics allowed the author to focus attention on the increase in both the total number of persons referred to forensic psychiatric examination and the number of identified insane and partially sane persons. This has made several issues more urgent. It is important for the court to consider if the guilty party is limited in sanity; when sentencing the guilty party, the nature of their behavior in the period immediately preceding the commission of the crime; the psycho-emotional state of the subject when implementing the principle of guilt in crimes committed negligently.
The problems that cause the greatest difficulties in law enforcement practice and disagreements in the doctrine of criminal law are identified. The most promising ways to solve them have been outlined. According to the author, the adoption by the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of special explanation on the issues of considering criminally relevant psycho-emotional states should contribute to the removal of these problems. The document must, in particular, clearly spell out the options for considering the limited sanity of the perpetrator when assigning a sentence, as well as the nature of his behavior in the period immediately preceding the commission of the crime.
The author also advocates for expanding, at the legislative level, the grounds for recognizing an act as committed innocently.

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