Accusatory Prosecutorial Bias in Russian Criminal Proceedings and Contradictions with Scientific Forensic Means

Abstract

The paper analyzes the problems of criminal proceedings in Russia associated with the phenomenon of the so-called “accusatory bias” as a type of illegal actions of individual police officers and other law enforcement agencies. The purpose of the study is not so much practical as theoretical. The paper proposes a new approach to developing scientific provisions and applied recommendations in the framework of science and the academic discipline “forensic science,” aimed at overcoming the accusatory bias. Using the comparative jurisprudence (comparison with sources from the United States), statistical, sociological, and other methods, we carried out an analysis and generalization based on the materials of criminal cases on corruption crimes, completed by convictions and acquittals of Russian courts. The study's primary results are the first formulated conclusions about the need to introduce a special principle of the formation of scientific provisions and applied recommendations in forensic science—the principle of the inadmissibility of accusatory bias. Its application by a scientist, a criminologist-developer, includes six elements, including the development and implementation of recommendations on common facts and typical situations of illegal prosecution, non-criminal acts in a particular field of activity, the prevention of typical mistakes and violations of the law, the investigation of crimes committed by law enforcement officers as manifestations of an accusatory bias.