Приговор при свечах / Judgment in candlelight - Владимир Анатольевич Арсентьев

Law and conscience are the fundamental guiding principles of criminal procedure. Legal relations are built on that basis in a democratic state that exists at the expense of the society and articulates its will. Therefore, civil society is to control the results of investigative and judicial activities, because the associated officials represent the authority of the state. If they resolve the social conflict in a just manner that corresponds to the existing social relations, the society accepts their activities by upholding the law. In other cases, however, the society is capable of disobedience. Thus, the moral and legal controller of social relations is indended to direct the personal efforts of the investigator and the judge working on a criminal case.

For example, to successfully counter illicit entrepreneurship, one should rely on the systemic character of the law. The legislator cannot determine the principles of criminal law in an arbitrary fashion. That is why intellectual intuition, based on free will and creative experience, is necessary for correctly applying criminal law in line with the principles of criminal process, including the presumption of innocence. Free will, in turn, is required for critical thinking, without which there is no way to discover the truth in a criminal case.

Unique investigative experience can be gained in any place of human activity because people leave traces as proof of their criminal acts. To collect evidence in a money forgery case, the investigator didn’t stay in his office or go to his boss’s office but visited the place where he expected to find traces.

The investigator found that a man named Gruzdev had been printing five-ruble[194] USSR treasury bills of the 1961 model and paying in these bills on the territory of the Soviet Union. After all the necessary investigative activities, the investigator passed the hefty two-volume criminal case to the central investigations directorate of the MVD USSR for further inquiry. He discovered, recorded, and confiscated several parts of the printing machine, a handmade body worn waistband for transporting counterfeit bills, the counterfeit bills themselves, and other material evidence. All of those objects helped establish Gruzdev’s guilt in the crime and deliver justice accordingly.

There was an amusing incident, too. The investigator accidentally learned that Gruzdev’s wife took the trash out of the apartment where he had just committed his search. She threw the trash in the second closest dumpster to the house.

The investigator had already scanned the ground in Gruzdev’s vegetable garden with a metal detector in search of the printing machine and printing plate. What was there to suspect? The body worn waistband with compartments for counterfeit bills was found in the family’s summer house, stashed behind wood paneling in the basement. Perhaps the accomplice wife, who had prior record of using counterfeit bills, disposed of the main piece of evidence – the five-ruble printing plate – by putting it in the garbage. Without further ado, the investigator took the public transport to the scene – in Soviet times, a personal car was a luxury, not a means of transportation, so he didn’t own one.

Using his intellectual intuition, the investigator identified the dumpster on the scene from afar and scanned its contents. There was nothing interesting or inspiring inside. Another case came to mind – one of an escaped inmate who climbed inside a similar dumpster to get out of a city penal colony ahead of time.

The investigator thought back of how the dumpsters were checked on their way out of that colony. He looked around for long sharp objects that could pass as a probe to poke through the dumpster contents. Nothing was of use. Besides, that high security method of dumpster checking, when used in the courtyard of an apartment building, could attract the attention of watchful citizens. It looked like no one had rummaged through that particular container since that morning. The investigator could not afford to fail, so he acted at his own peril and risk.

Gambling on the success of his operation, he arranged for garbage disposal. As the garbage truck pulled in to the enclosure, he ordered to pick up the object of his interest and drive it to an empty lot. The driver did not understand what his passenger wanted to accomplish, but carried out the instructions without a word. Looking at the pile of trash, the investigator scratched his head. He managed to draw the interest of a passerby and offered him a compensation for going through the pile, but the precious item was nowhere to be found. This was when the investigator became frustrated. A little upset, he returned to his office without the reward that never found its champion.

However, the valiant officer was met with celebrations in another place. Tired and grim on the outside, the male-only population of the special penal colony for former law enforcement personnel happened to be friendly and warm on the inside, despite the bleak autumn season. It was the eve of the main USSR holiday commemorating the Great October Revolution, and the investigator was coming from a ceremonial inspection of the regiment, wearing his shiny new grey and red natural fabric uniform and a white muffler. His outfit was completed by a tote bag full of interrogation forms and documents. While he was walking with the head of operations through the premises to the inner office, inmates were standing lined up in the yard for evening inspection.

Silence fell as the MVD USSR officer’s new military fatigues were effectively presented to the prison public. Suddenly, a young voice that still had a ringing quality about it asked with glee, “Why didn’t you have him change his clothes?” Roaring laughter burst out from every throat, echoing through the night city. Everyone was laughing! Such a welcome eased up both parties and facilitated the interrogations. The investigator exceeded his target number of interviews. Admittedly, as secretary of the local Komsomol organization, he usually took over