Peculiarities of qualification and punishment for intentional murder committed by a group of persons in prior conspiracy

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of certain issues of qualification and punishment for intentional murder committed by a group of persons in advance of a conspiracy, and to the formulation of proposals for improving the criminal legislation of Ukraine in this regard. The use of the historical research method made it possible to establish that the regulatory legal acts in force in Ukraine, in particular, during the Soviet period, did not differentiate criminal liability for intentional murder depending on such types of complicity as its commission by a group of persons, a group of persons in prior conspiracy, an organized group or a criminal organization. Liability for intentional murder is not differentiated according to this criterion in the current Criminal Code of Ukraine. It is justified that such an approach does not contribute to the same qualification of all cases of group deprivation of the life of another person. The lack of a differentiated approach to the criminalization of group premeditated murder led to the impossibility of taking into account the severity of each type of complicity when determining the punishment for the act under investigation. The article proposes an author's approach to the criminalization and penalization of intentional homicide, improving the system of circumstances that aggravate punishment. It is proposed to provide for three parts in Article 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and to distinguish between qualified and especially qualified elements of intentional murder. The expediency of classifying the commission of premeditated murder by an organized group and a criminal organization as particularly aggravating circumstances for premeditated murder, with the provision for such acts of an unalternative sanction in the form of life imprisonment, is substantiated. It is proposed to include the commission of a criminal offense by an organized group or criminal organization as aggravating circumstances.