In Russia, Trying Times for Trial by Jury

Acquittals suddenly became commonplace. Today, defendants such as Kozachenko seize on their right to avoid a bench trial. "The jury trial was my only hope," said Kozachenko, who returned to court last week to hear a judge officially confirm the jury's verdict.

Kozachenko was accused of stabbing to death Larisa Bezrukavaya, the operator of a prostitution ring, and her lover, Alexei Krylov, in Bezrukavaya's apartment on the morning of Feb. 16, 2004, with a motive of theft. At first, the case against him looked overwhelming. He confessed to investigators, and two of Bezrukavaya's prostitutes said they witnessed both killings.

Kozachenko had worked for Bezrukavaya as a driver. According to prosecutors, he came to her apartment when she, her boyfriend and the two witnesses were all present. He immediately stabbed Bezrukavaya in the stomach, prosecutors said. She retreated to the kitchen and then a balcony, where the two witnesses testified they also cowered in fear.

Meanwhile, the witnesses said, Kozachenko and Krylov struggled in a narrow hallway. Krylov eventually was stabbed 13 times. As he lay dying, Kozachenko came out to the balcony, where the witnesses said he stabbed Bezrukavaya three more times in front of them.

Kozachenko then stole jewelry and cash and paid the two prostitutes money they said the dead woman owed them, prosecutors charged, in an attempt to implicate them in the crime. The three then left the scene.

But the prosecution's case was not watertight. It depended mainly on the confession and the two women's accounts. There were no fingerprints or other physical evidence tying Kozachenko to the crime scene, and blood work suggested that the murders did not occur in the manner recounted by the two witnesses, according to the defendant's attorney, Valery Okhotnikov.

During the trial that ended with the third not-guilty verdict, the lawyer told the jury that the failure to produce even a single fiber linked to Kozachenko was "indisputable proof of his innocence." And Kozachenko denied the murders.

In his final argument, Okhotnikov pointed out that the stories of the two witnesses conflicted. He slyly exploited their profession to cast doubt on their credibility, drawing a rebuke from Judge Vyacheslav Plotnikov.

Because of previous Supreme Court rulings, Okhotnikov was unable to directly challenge his client's confession in front of the jury. (Outside the courtroom, he said it was coerced.)

"I leave the confession business without comment," Okhotnikov told the jurors in his final statement, "but we all remember 1937 and confessions" -- a reference to the Great Terror of dictator Joseph Stalin in which millions of Soviet citizens were killed or sent to prison camps, often on the basis of forced confessions.

The comment drew another rebuke from the judge, but some on the jury nodded knowingly as Okhotnikov spoke.