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In Russia, Trying Times for Trial by Jury
Vladislav Kozachenko, charged with a double murder, was acquitted by a jury for the third time this month. Prosecutors vowed to try him a fourth time. One said of the jury system, "I would abolish it."
(By Sergei Duvanov)
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The second acquittal, in April, was overturned because of errors in the judge's written charge to the jury, which had been unanimous in finding Kozachenko not guilty.
After the 8 to 4 vote in favor of the defendant this month, Kalikanova, the lead prosecutor, said she discovered that some jurors on the panel "concealed certain information about themselves, criminal records and previous service in the police." The post-trial discovery of such information is frequently invoked in appeals to the Supreme Court.
"When a not-guilty verdict is passed, the prosecutors begin to dig around," said Judge Nina Stus of the Krasnodar regional court, who has presided over more than 100 jury trials. "It's a card prosecutors keep up their sleeve in case there is a not-guilty verdict."
Some of her colleagues on the bench "categorically refuse to participate in jury trials" because they are "unpredictable," Stus said.
At the same time, pressure is mounting to limit those eligible for a jury trial. The Supreme Court, exercising its prerogative to propose legislation, recently called for a law restricting jury trials to murder cases.
According to Nasonov, the criminal law professor, the Supreme Court is already using its rulings to steadily narrow jurors' ability to assess evidence in an effort to make juries more "manageable."
Nasonov argues that enforcement of the principles of presumption of innocence and proof beyond a reasonable doubt are key to restoring Russians' faith in their legal system. The system is now widely seen as entirely predictable -- a railroad to prison even when hard evidence is clearly lacking.
Mara Polyakova, a former prosecutor and chairwoman of the Independent Council of Legal Experts, said she recalled prosecutors showing up on the first day of a trial without having read the case material, because, she said, they were so confident the court would simply accede to their demand for a guilty verdict.
"Prosecutors are simply not used to the fact that decisions are being passed which they don't control," said Polyakova, who worked in a prosecutor's office for 27 years. "In front of a jury, they have to work harder."
The jury system was introduced in Russia in 1864 but abolished by the Bolsheviks in 1922, even though they had almost always opted for jury trials when they were charged with sedition before the 1917 revolution.
In 1993, two years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, jury trials were reintroduced in nine of Russia's 89 regions, including Krasnodar, for defendants facing charges carrying penalties of more than 10 years in prison.
In theory, the change was supposed to usher in an adversarial model with prosecutors and defense attorneys on a more equal footing and impartial judges overseeing the process. The system was extended to the rest of the country, with the exception of war-torn Chechnya, in 2003.
