A. Koni - an outstanding master of judicial speech and theorist of oratory

(1844-1927)

A.F. Koni is a prominent lawyer and public figure, writer, honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, an excellent teacher and practitioner. Particularly famous were his public speeches in the jury trial, notes of a judicial figure and memoirs. These works amounted to 5 volumes of collections under the general title "On the path of life" (1912-1929). Speaking about the significance of the literary and oratorical heritage of A.F. Koni, one should keep in mind not only his works, but also his brilliant talent as a judicial orator and lecturer. A.F. Koni always strictly adhered to professional ethics, was a principled lawyer both as a prosecutor and as a chairman of the court, a senator, a member of the State Council.

By the way, his brilliant career ended in disgrace precisely because of the professionalism and integrity of A.F. Koni as the chairman of the court: he allowed the terrorist Vera Zasulich, who attempted on the life of an influential police official, to be acquitted. The tsar and his government were extremely dissatisfied with this decision of the jury; from that moment on, A.F. The horse has gone downhill.

Even the contemporaries of this lawyer put together the following aphorism: "These speeches cannot be imitated, but you can learn from them." Characteristic of the entire collection of speeches of the speaker is the variety of speeches, the plurality of forms and the breadth of content. The well-known lawyer K. K. Arseniev wrote that the gift of psychological analysis in A. F. Koni was connected with the temperament of the artist. Contemporaries noted that A.F. Koni did not have a sonorous voice, catchy appearance, acting data, but he conquered with logic and clarity of reasoning. This prosecutor did not put pressure on the judge and the jury, did not accuse the defendant of all mortal sins, but skillfully presented the history of the issue, summed up the legislative base, grouped evidence, analyzed the crime, eliminated possible doubts with the help of indisputable facts and logical conclusions. His accusatory speech, word by word, fact by fact, proved the guilt of the defendant. The guilt of the offender became obvious and indisputable.

A.F. Koni had a creative attitude to the legislative framework and precedents related to the case under consideration. He always opposed the mechanical application of the articles of the law, he considered it necessary to carefully study each case. In the address of the Imperial Academy of Sciences on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of A. F. Koni's service and social activities, it was noted that this outstanding lawyer brought the work of a teacher into judicial activity: a teacher of justice, a teacher of deep psychological analysis, without which it is unthinkable to understand human actions, a teacher of philanthropy , without which the right judgment is unthinkable, the teacher of that true eloquence, which finds simple but real words that penetrate the heart and mind of a person.

His accusatory speeches in criminal cases remain masterpieces of Russian judicial eloquence. These performances to a certain extent resemble an action-packed novel or a psychological story. In defensive and accusatory speeches by P. A. Alexandrov. AF Koni and many others are brilliant connoisseurs of human psychology.

In the case of V. Protopopov on charges of abuse of power, A. F. Koni presents a brief, accurate and exhaustive description of the main character in the criminal drama. Having found out the main "spring" of V. Protopopov's abuses - power - A.F. Koni in a simple colloquial style draws us a firm and malicious character of the accused, reflects on the causes of abuses and their psychological background.

“Power has a lot of attractive things in itself. It gives the person clothed with it the consciousness of strength, it distinguishes him from the environment of powerless people, it creates for him a position that must be reckoned with. It is tempting for pride to be able to order, to decide, to carry out one's will and, at least in a very narrow sphere, to punish and pardon; for vain doubt, the sight of restrained anxiety, poorly concealed apprehension, searching and bewildered glances is gratifying ... Therefore, people who are serious about the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bpower, receiving this power in their hands, handle it carefully, and those called to manifest it in noble embarrassment call on themselves to memory not only of their rights, but also of their duties and moral tasks. But there are other people too. Seduced first of all by the contemplation of themselves in the full armor of the power they have separated, they only think and care about it and are excited from the consciousness of their relative strength. For them, power turns into a sweet drink, which quickly causes intoxication harmful to power. The wine of power rushed into Protopopov's head as well. We do not know what he thought of his new position when the possibility of obtaining it first rose before him, nor do we know how he prepared for it from the time of appointment to the day of entry, but he entered, obviously, with a firm idea that he it is necessary to show power by the simplest and, in his opinion, not arousing any doubt, means.

Useful for a modern speaker will be "Advice to Lecturers" by A.F. Koni, in which he managed to state the basics of rhetoric in a concise, elegant and accessible form. In these "Councils" A.F. Koni tells a young speaker about preparing a speech (collecting material, drawing up a plan, writing a speech), a speech plan must be mentally run through before every performance. The fear of the audience of listeners for a young speaker can be compensated by the thoroughness of the preliminary preparation. A.F. Koni wrote that the speaker should speak loudly, clearly, distinctly and rhythmically, it is desirable to have good diction.

A.F. Koni paid special attention to the sound of speech, the moment of the action. It is necessary to periodically change the tone of speech, it should not be monotonous and irritated. It must be either raised or lowered, it can be changed: thoughtful to peppy, sincere to semi-official. Gesticulation enlivens speech, but it must be used carefully, gestures must correspond to the meaning, and not distract from the speech itself.

All speech must be original and varied. You can choose a group of listeners and say specifically to her: the listeners look at the lecturer, they are pleased if the lecturer also looks at them - this wins the favor of the audience, the main thing is that this look is unobtrusive.

The speaker needs excerpt and ability to focus , no interference can bring him down. He is removed from the rustling of newspapers, industrial noise, camera flashes, crying children and other interference.

The form of speech should be simple and understandable, foreign words are acceptable, but explained if necessary. Lyrics can be in speech, but they should be few and they should be sincere, like all speech. Element touching, compassionate may be in speech, but touching must be spoken in a dry protocol tone, coldly, impassively, otherwise the listeners will not touched.

The secrets of a successful oratory, according to A. F. Koni, are as follows:

1) win the attention of listeners;

2) keep your attention until the end of the speech.

You can capture the initial attention of the audience with a simple, interesting and dynamic story, the content of which would be close and would evoke a feeling of empathy.

You can keep your attention:

1) brevity of speech - the absence of everything superfluous;

2) a quick movement of thought so that there are few words, but many thoughts and feelings;

3) brief refreshing and explanatory digressions (examples, stories).

The end of the speech should harmoniously complete the speech, that is, a connection with the beginning is possible, so that it is clear not only by the content, but also by the voice of the lecturer, there is nothing more to say.

Already in retirement, in the eighth decade, A.F. Koni found his new vocation - he began to engage in teaching and lecturer educational activities. Libraries and hospitals, plants and factories, Proletkult and the Baltic Fleet - wherever he spoke, he was listened to with the greatest interest. Lectures were on a variety of topics: about A. Pushkin, L. Tolstoy, A. Pirogov, about raising children. And a common feature of all the speeches of A.F. Koni was the popularization of the ideas of humanism. The poems of A. F. Koni were just as enlightening:

I want to admonish the young generation.

Protect minds and hearts from darkness and dirt.

Like the ancient rhetoricians, A.F. Koni insisted on the obligation for a lecturer and lawyer of high morality and an active civic position of the orator. In addition, according to A.F. Koni, a lawyer must be a well-educated person, and not just a specialist in the field of jurisprudence.

2. P. S. Porokhovshchikov (P. Sergeich)

(18 - 19)

The outstanding orator and major theoretician of the art of eloquence, P. S. Porohovshchikov, created an excellent, relevant guide for a young legal speaker called The Art of Speech in Court (1910), which is still relevant today.

This book is distinguished by its rich content and brightness of expressive form. A. F. Koni called the book of P. Sergeich “an excellent, systematic guide to judicial eloquence, an essay where the author, using numerous examples, teaches not only how to speak, but even more how not to speak.”

“What is the immediate, immediate goal of any judicial speech, - P. Sergeyevich begins the second paragraph of his book, in order to be understood by those to whom it is addressed. Every word of the speaker must be understood by the listeners exactly as the speaker understands it. To speak well, one must be able to speak. The ability to speak requires compliance with two external conditions: the "purity" and accuracy of words and two internal ones: knowledge of the subject and knowledge of the language.

P. Sergeich was opposed to the use of foreign borrowing words in Russian speech, the equivalent of which was already in the language. He noted: “... instead of “fictitious” they say “fictitious”, instead of “inspire” –« inspire", instead of "prevailing" – « dominant”, etc.”. However, it should be noted that most of the above words have taken their place in the scientific, business and journalistic styles of speech.

It helps to avoid these shortcomings. richness of the speaker's vocabulary. This is a necessary condition for every well-prepared speech. An educated person must freely dispose of this wealth, select synonyms and antonyms, be sure to know the meaning of all the terms that he uses.

"Test yourself: separate famous you words from habitual, those. those that you not only know, but also use in conversation: you will be amazed at your poverty. We are often careless with words in conversation, but care too much about them in the podium. This betrays the artificiality of speech when its naturalness is needed.

Learn the richness of words from the great poets, each word of them is chosen consciously. If in the original version about the death of Lensky Pushkin wrote: “The fire on the altar went out”, then, after rereading the manuscript, he would replace the word “extinguished” with the word “extinguished”, although, in principle, this is the same thing ”

An important quality for a good speaker is an excellent knowledge of the subject of speech and the problems associated with it. Try to familiarize yourself with the subject of speech comprehensively, get comfortable with it. This will prompt you for the right expressions while giving a speech. Only knowledge gives accuracy in the statement. Uncertainty and fuzziness are usually a sign of unclear thinking. Always keep in mind Schopenhauer's aphorism: "He who thinks clearly, he expresses clearly."

P. Sergeyevich advises the young judicial orator, first of all, to draw up a plan for his speech, and for this to clarify three questions:

1. What happened and why did it happen?

2. What do you need to prove to the jury?

3. How can you influence their decisions?

Finding the main idea of ​​the speech is not enough to compose the speech itself. “In order to prepare an accusatory or defensive speech, it is necessary creation speaker. The accuser must show them everything that exposes the defendant, the defender - everything that proves his immunity to the case or excuses his crime. For this, of course, the raw material of the case must be subjected to a certain processing on the part of the speaker, it is also necessary that the judges (and listeners) can easily follow his thoughts, assimilate them and remember them. The content of the accusation or defense should be conveyed in elegant and strong words, and the speech itself should be delivered with outward expressiveness and beauty ... For this, – writes P. Sergeich, – along with reflections (about the case), one must also think about pictures, and if they are not there, one must compose them: you are talking about arson – depict the owner-arsonist during the day at his cash desk for bills and books, and at night at the same cash desk with a wick and matches in his hands: in the first picture, add all his calculations about the benefits of arson; in the second - compare the disturbed and carefully carried away gold with the residents of neighboring apartments, peacefully sleeping next to the creeping flames ... "

P. Sergeyevich advises to write each separate position of the speech on a separate sheet, and then, as the thoughts progress, add several lines to each sheet. Masterfully prepared speeches, behind the seeming simplicity and ease of transitions and logical conclusions, are in fact the fruit of painstaking work multiplied by erudition and talent. Good speech is the result of knowing the subject and problem, reflecting on them, and experiencing "hard work on every single case."

A young speaker needs to take into account logical and psychological factors when composing a speech. In particular, he must be consistent and not clearly show his emotions, but, on the contrary, try to evoke them in the listeners.

P. Sergeich's book "The Art of Speech in Court" is an excellent guide for a novice speaker: difficult questions, any subtleties of rhetoric - everything is considered, discussed, weighed, evaluated. This work has become a real encyclopedia of Russian oratory.

ORATORY A.F. KONY

Introduction

A brief history of the life and work of A.F. Horses

1 Legal activity

2 Scientific and pedagogical activity

3 Cases of A.F. Horses of historical importance

The power of oratory A.F. Horses

1 The image of a court speaker

2 Features of judicial speech

3 Characteristic techniques of expressiveness of speech

4 Typical techniques for preparing and constructing speech

Conclusion

Introduction

In the context of the strengthening of Russian statehood, fundamental changes in the legal consciousness of citizens, reform of the judicial system, radical changes in the content and methods of lawyers, the revival and study of the traditions of the school of Russian (domestic) judicial eloquence is of particular importance.

In this regard, it is necessary to note such brilliant judicial orators as A.F. Koni, K.K. Arseniev, F.N. Plevako, V.D. Spasovich and many others, who possessed enormous power of influence, riveted the attention of the general public.

The purpose of this work is to identify the meaningful features of the domestic rhetorical ideal on the example of A.F. Koni, who shows his gift of persuasion, both in accusatory speeches and when considering cases as a presiding judge.

In accordance with the goal set, the following tasks have been identified:

presentation of personal characteristics of A.F. Koni, revealing the historical significance of his activities, by tracing the main events of the life and behavioral attitudes of the famous judicial figure;

description of the image of a court speaker, disclosure of the meaning of morality in legal proceedings, based on the scientific works of A.F. horses;

revealing the secret of success A.F. Horses in the field of judicial eloquence, demonstrating the special nature of his speeches;

presentation of the main artistic methods of expressiveness of speeches by A.F. Koni, as well as demonstrating his special approach to their preparation and direct speech in the courtroom.

To reveal the content of each of the tasks set, the general literature on rhetoric, literary sources devoted to the biography, selected works and speeches of A.F. Koni, as well as some periodicals devoted to the effectiveness of public prosecution.

1. A brief history of the life and work of A.F. Horses

A.F. Koni (1844-1927) was born on February 9, 1844 in St. Petersburg in the family of a literary and theatrical figure and history teacher F.A. Horses and actresses I.S. Yurieva. Until the age of 12 he was brought up at home, then in the German school of St. Anna, from where he moved to the Second Gymnasium; from the 6th grade of the gymnasium in May 1861, he took an exam for admission to St. Petersburg University in the mathematical department, and after the closure of this university, he moved to the 2nd year of the law faculty of Moscow University, which he graduated in 1865 with a candidate's degree.

1.1 Legal activities

Anatoly Fedorovich Koni (1844-1927) occupies a special place among the great Russian judicial orators, whose activity falls on the period of the middle and end of the 19th century. He began his path in society in the "epoch of reforms" of the 60s of the XIX century. and completed it during the years of Soviet power.

In 1864-1865. in connection with the abolition of serfdom, a progressive Judicial reform was carried out, the statutes of legal proceedings were adopted, and new judicial institutions were created. A.F. Koni was first appointed to the post of secretary of the St. Petersburg Court of Justice (April 18, 1866), then - secretary of the Moscow Prosecutor's Office (December 23, 1866).

In the autumn of 1867, A.F. Koni was sent to Kharkov to the post of assistant prosecutor of the district court, in 1870 he was transferred to St. Petersburg, then he was sent - with a promotion - to the provincial prosecutor to Samara, and then the prosecutor of the district court to Kazan . A year later, at the age of twenty-seven, he returns to St. Petersburg to assume the duties of the prosecutor of the capital district. In these posts, as in Kharkov, A.F. Koni fearlessly pursued the "powerful of this world" who had broken the law.

In the summer of 1875, Minister Count K.I. judicial supervision, leadership of the prosecutor's office, etc. Over time, the relationship between A.F. Koni and K.I. Palen, which reached its peak on July 13, 1877 during the events in the house of preliminary detention. The center of these events was the imprisoned student A.S. Bogolyubov, who was subjected to a flogging by the St. Petersburg mayor, General F.F. Trepov, because of not worshiping this person a second time, which was accompanied by beatings of other prisoners who expressed their indignation on this occasion, by the hefty policemen. All these events were approved by K.I. Palen. A.F. Koni, who was absent during the described events in St. Petersburg and learned about them upon his return, declared to his minister that the unjustified violence he had allowed was an illegal thing, a political mistake that would have terrible consequences.

January 1878 A.F. Koni was appointed chairman of the St. Petersburg District Court. And at the same time, the events that began with the incident with Bogolyubov entered a new stage of development, which consisted in an attempt on the life of F.F. Trepova by a certain woman who introduced herself as Kozlova (later, as it turned out, V.I. Zasulich), who was driven by a desire to avenge Bogolyubov's section. The case of V.I. Zasulich was considered by a jury. As a result, the decision of the jury on the innocence of V.I. Zasulich was unanimous.

After this case, the name of A.F. Koni sounded not only in Soviet periodicals, but also in all newspapers in Western Europe and the USA. Publicists discussed the role of A.F. Horses in justification V.I. Zasulich, expressing opinions about his participation in the selection of jurors and pushing them to an acquittal.

Responding to the attacks from the “right”, A.F. Koni, referring to his summary, published in all the newspapers, wrote: "... Those who reproach have not read it or viciously distort its meaning." And further Koni A.F. rather focuses on its accusatory tone: "It is necessary to admit guilt in inflicting a wound and give leniency." As you can see, indeed, A.F. Koni "bent" to the recognition of V.I. Zasulich guilty, but deserving of indulgence. And the jury acquitted V.I. Zasulich because the factors of dissatisfaction with the foreign and domestic policy of the tsarist administration, admiration for the heroic deed of V.I. Zasulich, as well as the excellent skill of the lawyer P.A. Aleksandrov, worked.

However, after the failure of the prosecution in the case of V.I. Zasulich, A.F. Koni was subjected to four years of persecution by officials (first during the reign of Alexander II, then his son Alexander III). These persecutions had a particular effect on his teaching at the School of Law, which he had to stop in connection with the agitation of the pupils of the school against him. Despite all these provocations, A.F. Koni stood his ground in the name of the principle of the irremovability of judges as a guarantee of their independence, without which there is no true justice, no fairness in court. The chairman of the district court entered the battle for the highest, in his opinion, social values, which, however, did not matter to the tsar and his ministers.

A turn for the better was outlined when I.K. Palena, Minister D.N. Nabokov, having overcome the initial prejudice inspired by ministerial officials, from personal observations formed an opinion about A.F. Koni, appreciated his honesty, deep knowledge and ardent devotion to the cause. And in the autumn of 1881 A.F. Koni was appointed to the post of chairman of the department of the St. Petersburg Court of Justice. However, A.F. The horses were nevertheless withdrawn “from the army in the field”, since it was not about the criminal, but about the civil department. Due to the lack of experience of A.F. Koni studied lectures, educational and scientific literature, civil law for several months and, finally, confidently began to consider very complex civil cases.

A.F. Koni headed the civil department of the Judicial Chamber for more than three years, after which, despite the memorable case of V.I. Zasulich was appointed Chief Prosecutor of the Criminal Cassation Department of the Senate. This position was one of the highest, if not the highest position in the criminal justice system, since the Senate at that time was the highest judicial body, overseeing the activities of all judicial institutions. Chief Prosecutor, and then Senator A.F. Koni served in the Criminal Cassation Department for sixteen years - from February 1885 to 1900. Many cases considered in the Senate with the participation of A.F. Horses entered the annals of Russian legal proceedings.

In 1900, A.F. Koni was elected an Honorary Member of the Academy of Sciences and left judicial activity, although he continued to serve as a senator in the general meeting of the Senate, and since 1907 also a member of the State Council. But during these years he paid more attention to scientific and literary, as well as social activities. After the October Revolution, A.F. Koni remained out of public service, because he could not accept the new social system, it was difficult to adapt to a meager, hungry, cold life in a devastated country.

Thus, A.F. Koni played an important role in the formation and development of Russian (Soviet) legal proceedings, based on the principles of publicity and oral communication, putting judicial figures face to face with a living person. And in this field A.F. Koni, despite all the complexity and insidiousness of the situations that fell to his lot, remained a lawyer to the marrow of his bones and always acted as a fighter for justice, fundamentally defending the most humane and democratic ideas.

1.2 Scientific and pedagogical activity

A. F. Koni's interest in science was awakened while still a student. Lectures on the disciplines of the criminal cycle at the university did not satisfy him, and A.F. Koni began to study criminal law on his own, getting acquainted with foreign and poor domestic literature at that time. So the idea arose to write a Ph.D. thesis on the right of necessary defense. And in the future, having entered the civil service, A.F. Koni continued to engage in scientific work.

Since 1865, he has been publishing articles on criminal law and criminal proceedings in the Journal of the Ministry of Justice, in the Moscow Legal Bulletin. During the life of A.F. Koni, which falls at the beginning of the 20th century, new editions of Judicial Speeches, a collection of materials about the life and work of progressive Russian lawyers Fathers and Sons of Judicial Reform, the first volumes of the collected works On the Path of Life, commented on the Charter of Criminal Proceedings, are published. The developments of A.F. Koni in the field of judicial ethics are especially significant. Suffered by many years of judicial and prosecutorial work, his provisions on the moral foundations of legal proceedings and criminal policy largely retain their theoretical and practical significance today. A historical and biographical essay by A.F. Koni about the great philanthropist of the 19th century, the Moscow prison doctor Fyodor Petrovich Gaaz, also adjoins this direction. In 1924, the work of A.F. Koni "Techniques and tasks of the prosecutor's office (from the memoirs of a judicial figure)", which served as a practical guide for employees of the young Soviet prosecutor's office.

In addition, during the period of life at the beginning of the 20th century, A.F. Koni also devoted a lot of time to teaching criminal justice at the Alexander Lyceum and gives a course of public lectures at the St. Petersburg People's University (Tenishev courses). He showed particular enthusiasm for his teaching activities in the last years of his life (1919-1927). He taught courses on "applied ethics", "history and theory of the art of speech" (at the Institute of the Living Word), "criminal justice" (at Moscow University), "ethics of the hostel" (at the "Railway Institute"). In addition, he gave a series of lectures at the Museum of the City and occasionally spoke publicly for charitable purposes. The activity of A.F. Koni at that time was a real feat in the name of love for his people.

In January 1924, the Academy of Sciences celebrated the 80th anniversary of A.F. Koni with a solemn meeting. To commemorate this event, a commemorative collection was published. And having stepped into the ninth decade, A.F. Koni tirelessly continued his literary and educational activities: he prepared his unique memoirs for publication, gave lectures. In the spring of 1927, while giving a lecture in a cold, unheated auditorium, A.F. Koni caught a cold and fell ill with pneumonia. They couldn't cure him. September 17, 1927 A.F. The horse was gone.

Thus, the scientific activity of A.F. Koni is of exceptional importance for enlightenment, education and upbringing in beginners and even experienced judicial figures of the moral and psychological principles of legal proceedings. His works, devoted to the importance and fundamentals of judicial technique, forensic psychology and judicial ethics, to this day serve to strengthen the rule of law, develop legal culture, and protect individual rights.

1.3 Cases of A.F. Horses of historical importance

One of the first cases in which A.F. Koni acted as a prosecutor in Kharkov, there was a case of beatings by the provincial secretary Doroshenko to the tradesman Severin, which caused the death of the latter. The murder of Severin took place on the eve of the introduction of the Judicial Reform of 1864. Doroshenko, using his official position, tried to prevent the further course of events, however, due to publicity in the newspapers and in connection with the complaint of Severin's widow in 1868, a criminal case was nevertheless initiated. Despite the unfavorable situation created in connection with this case by certain circles in Kharkov, A.F. Koni boldly pursued his investigation and firmly set aside his findings during the prosecution. As a result, the jurors found Doroshenko guilty.

Later, A.F. Koni just as selflessly conducted and considered cases, most of which fell on the period of his service as chief prosecutor and senator in the criminal cassation department (1885-1900). Among them, one can single out the case of Vasily Protopopov, the zemstvo head of the Kharkov district, a candidate for rights, who, taking advantage of the dual nature of his power (the police service and the court), enshrined in the law of July 12, 1889, committed incredible arbitrariness among subordinates and peasants. An attempt by Protopopov to appeal against the verdict of the court, which was rather lenient (dismissal), was stopped by A.F. Koni, who left no shadow of doubt that the holder of the title "candidate of rights" actually turned out to be a "candidate of lawlessness". This was the first case of malfeasance by a Zemstvo chief. Public attention to it and responses in the press went far beyond its scope and declared a natural result of the anti-people policy of the administration. The Ministry of Internal Affairs drew its own conclusions: not a single case against the Zemstvo chief was initiated after that.

The case of the so-called Multan sacrifice was also of historical importance. Eleven peasants of the village "Old Multan", Udmurts by nationality, were prosecuted on charges of murder in order to sacrifice to pagan gods. One of them died during the investigation. The court, which considered the case for the first time, acquitted three defendants and found seven guilty. The conviction was overturned. When the case was retried, the same seven were convicted again. And again, according to the complaints of the defenders, the case was heard in the Senate. Despite the external pressure caused by the interest in the triumph of Orthodoxy over the pagans, A.F. Koni scrupulously checked the case and revealed a number of serious procedural violations committed by the court. A.F. Koni drew special attention of the senators to the fact that the very fact of the existence of the custom of human sacrifice among the Udmurts, disputed by ethnographers and other scientists, did not receive reliable confirmation in the case materials. The statement of such a custom by an authoritative verdict of the court would mean the creation of a dangerous precedent. Having persuaded the majority of the Senate to repeal the sentence, A.F. Koni not only protected the defendants from unlawful punishment, but also protected the small oppressed people from conjectures that attributed terrible bloody customs to them. The case was considered for the third time by the court of first instance, which acquitted all the defendants.

In cases inaccessible to A.F. Koni, he used his connections to achieve an acquittal or mitigation of the fate of the convicts (for example, the case of the old man Kiryukhin, the case of Chicherin, etc.). In some cases, the actions of A.F. Koni in this direction are striking in their fearlessness. At the end of the 19th century, in the Baltic states, tsarist Russifier officials, in alliance with Orthodox churchmen, launched a campaign against Protestant pastors. They were charged with "seduction into heterodoxy", entailing exile to Siberia with the deprivation of all rights of state. The first such accusation was against the elderly Pastor Grimm, after which 55 more such cases were to follow. Having considered the case in the first instance, the pastor was condemned accordingly. After this, his actions, not without the participation of A.F. The horses were reclassified on appeal under another much more lenient article, providing for the first case of temporary removal from the place of service, and for the second - deprivation of dignity and return to police supervision. However, against this decision, the Prosecutor of the Judicial Chamber A.M. Kuzminsky submitted a protest to the Senate. A.F. Koni was convinced of the correctness of the decision of the Judicial Chamber, and, despite the doubts of the Minister of Justice N.A. Manasein, without waiting for the king's resolution to his letter with the rationale for the above decision, spoke with his conclusion at the hearings of the case and the majority of senators, after a heated discussion, accepted his point of view. As a result, the protest in the Grimm case was dismissed, which was subsequently approved by the Tsar. Thus, A.F. Kony prevented the political consequences of turning pastors into martyrs for the faith, as well as the expression of violent indignation against the government on the part of the local population, which would certainly have turned all their sympathies to the persecuted. One more thing should be noted - the case of the collapse of the royal train in Borki, which occurred on October 18, 1888. The leadership of the investigation of this case was entrusted to A.F. Koni, despite the fact that his competence did not include supervision of the preliminary investigation. And here, tirelessly striving for the truth, A.F. Koni did not miss the opportunity to make influential enemies. He concluded that the main culprits of the disaster were major railway officials and members of the board of the joint-stock company that owned the railway. The king pardoned the guilty. But the number of enemies in the court environment did not decrease with A.F. Koni. Thus, all the cases investigated and supported by the prosecution in the person of A. F. Koni testify to his principled position, consistency of beliefs and actions. Defending the principles of justice, humanity, freedom of conscience, religious tolerance and other democratic principles dictated by a high level of morality, and neglecting any goals other than ensuring the rule of law, A.F. Koni acted without looking back and did not pay any attention to pressure from officials and other interested parties.

2. The power of oratory A.F. Horses

2.1 Image of a court speaker

Since ancient times, theorists and practitioners of oratory, communication specialists have attached and attach great importance to the moral position of the speaker. A.F. Koni attaches particular importance to moral principles in the activities of a judicial orator, which is the subject of his article "Moral Principles in Criminal Procedure". The main idea of ​​this article lies in the adversarial beginning of the process, which nominates the accuser and the defender as necessary assistants to the judge in the study of the truth, the combined efforts of which highlight different, opposite sides of the case and facilitate the assessment of its details. At the same time, A.F. Koni focuses on the moral foundations of permissible (inadmissible) behavior in judicial debate, the measure of which is the achievement of the high goals of the just protection of society and, at the same time, the protection of the individual from unfair accusation by exclusively moral methods and techniques.

In his article, A.F. Koni highlights such basic ethical norms that regulate the behavior of a judicial speaker in judicial debates and, accordingly, make up his image, such as a respectful and conscientious attitude towards the court, respect for the procedural opponent, as well as a correct attitude towards all other participants in the process, including the victim. and the defendant. This is evidenced, first of all, by the following statement by A.F. Koni: “Judicial statutes give the prosecutor lofty instructions, pointing out to him that in his speech he should neither present the case in a unilateral form, extracting from it only the circumstances that incriminate the defendant, nor exaggerate the significance of evidence and evidence or the importance of the crime ... ".

In other words, the prosecutor does not have the right to always and under any circumstances accuse at all costs. The law and professional ethics require the prosecutor to drop the accusation if it has not been confirmed by the judicial investigation.

In emphasizing the special significance of the rule of conscientious attitude to the court in the defense speech of the lawyer Koni A.F. notes such characteristics of the defender as "armed with knowledge and deep honesty, moderate in methods, disinterested in material terms, independent in convictions, steadfast in his solidarity with comrades." At the same time, A.F. Koni emphasizes that the defender “... is not a servant of his client... He is a friend, he is an adviser to a person who, in his sincere conviction, is not at all guilty or not at all guilty of what he is accused of. Not being a servant of the client, he, however, in his public service, is a servant of the state ... ". In other words, the rights and legitimate interests of the client are above all for the lawyer, but strict adherence to the norms of professional ethics should keep him from trying to deceive the court. Defending the legitimate interests of the client, the lawyer is obliged to act by legal means and to ensure that his client behaves properly.

It should also be noted that A.F. Koni in his article, emphasizing the practical significance of the service of the prosecutor-prosecutor to the most important state task of protecting society, relying on the words of the famous Moscow Metropolitan Filaret about Christian love and indulgence towards the criminal, notes: “... if this should be the attitude towards the convicted criminal, which is one of the most beautiful moral traits of the Russian people, then there is no reason to treat the defendant differently. And this should inevitably be reflected in the forms and methods of the accusatory speech, without in the least weakening its legal and factual evidence.

To the main features of the typical image of a judicial orator (in the person of the prosecutor-prosecutor) A.F. Koni attributes "calmness, the absence of personal anger against the defendant, the neatness of the prosecution's methods, which are alien to both the arousal of passions and the distortion of the facts of the case, and, finally, which is very important, the complete absence of hypocrisy in voice, in gesture and in the way of bearing oneself in court." Complementing this image, A.F. Koni emphasizes: “To this we must add the simplicity of the language, free, in most cases, from pretentiousness or loud and “pathetic” words. The best of our judicial orators have understood that in the pursuit of truth, the deepest thoughts always merge with the simplest word.

It is interesting to note the fact that the image of the current judicial orator, to put it mildly, is far from ideal. Employees who own oratory, without exception, both in district and regional prosecutor's offices.

In this regard, the issue of conducting educational and methodological work in relation to state prosecutors is relevant, in the solution of which the works of A.F. Horses devoted to the principle of competition in the Russian (Soviet) criminal process.

Thus, the image of the court speaker according to A.F. Koni is determined by his central position in the conflicts of law and morality, and incorporates such characteristics as the guardian of the law, a highly moral person, a model of citizenship and morality for everyone with whom he has to communicate, and, accordingly, moral and social responsibility, honesty, competence and decency. Legality and morality - this is the spiritual atmosphere in which a judicial orator (lawyer) must act.

2.2 Features of judicial speech

To the Russian Society Koni A.F. known in particular as a judicial orator, whose art he mastered during his prosecutorial activities. Courtrooms where A.F. The horses, as an accuser, were filled to overflowing with the public, and the content of his speeches was so logical and conclusive that the court most often took his side. The reason for this success is Koni A.F. due to his personal qualities.

In this regard, it should be noted the statement of Academician S.F. Platonov, with which he characterized A.F. Koni on his 80th birthday. “Nature,” he said, addressing the hero of the day, “gave you a special ability to build speeches beautifully and powerfully, and a broad, exceptionally broad education enriched this speech with images of poetry and sparks of philosophical thought, one might say, of the whole world. But the inner strength of the educational edification hidden in your word did not suffer from this elegant attire, but only increased the mental pleasure that people endured from communicating with you. Those who happened to listen to A.F. Koni, noted the originality of his speeches, the absence of a template.

In the personal archive of A.F. Koni preserved many different notes on oratory, on the problems of which he worked all his life. So, in the note “Content of Speech in Form and Methods” (1927), the following separate phrases are noted: “logic is a premise. Thesis”, “consistency, stiffness of the listener and the speaker”, “images. Independent creativity”, “inspiration”, “external instrument of speech. Facial expression and gesture. Signal and symptom of mental movements. Children's gesture. The contagiousness of the gesture for the crowd ... ". “You don’t have to swing very much, as if you are rowing with an oar, or clench your hands in fists, or rest against your sides.”

Regarding the court speeches by A.F. It was customary for horses to say: "These speeches cannot be imitated, but one must learn from them." It is also noteworthy that he, the prosecutor, does not put pressure on the judge, does not smash the defendant, but only skillfully groups the evidence, analyzes it, eliminates possible doubts, and from his convincing speech the guilt of the defendant gradually becomes obvious and indisputable.

Speeches of Koni A.F. always distinguished by a high psychological interest, developed on the basis of a comprehensive study of the individual circumstances of each given case. He assessed the character of a person who carried out his will in a crime not only from the side of external layers, but also took into account the special psychological elements that make up the “I” of a person. A.F. Kony found out the influence of these elements on the emergence of a given will, carefully noting the degree of participation of favorable or unfavorable conditions in the life of a given person, thereby finding the most optimal material for a correct judgment about the case.

The power of oratory A.F. Koni manifested itself in the fact that he was able to show not only what is, but also how it was formed. This is one of the strengths and noteworthy aspects of his talent as a judicial orator.

Speeches of Koni A.F. have always been simple and alien to rhetorical embellishments. His word justifies the accuracy of Pascal's saying that true eloquence laughs at eloquence as an art that develops according to the rules of rhetoric. In his speeches Koni A.F. did not follow the methods of ancient orators who sought to influence the judge through flattery, intimidation, and generally arousal of passions. His moderation, however, did not exclude the use of caustic irony and harsh evaluation, which made an indelible impression, especially on the persons who called them up. The sense of proportion expressed in his words and methods finds its explanation in the fact that in him, according to the fair remark of K. K. Arsenyev, the gift of psychological analysis is combined with the temperament of the artist.

Thus it is judicial speech Koni A.F. was built on the basis of a thorough comprehensive analysis of the everyday situation and personality of the defendant, a truly humane attitude towards him and, accordingly, had clarity, logic, accuracy, expressiveness, conciseness, relevance, sincerity. The abundance in his speeches of images, comparisons, generalizations and well-aimed remarks that gave them life and beauty, the original manner of expressing his thoughts expressively, in relief and gracefully, determine the aesthetically perfect style of A.F. Koni, allowing him to turn his speech into a mesmerizing work of art every time.

The most important communicative quality of A.F. Horses are their expressiveness, the most common means of which are speech tropes (epithets, metaphors, comparisons) and figures (repetition, inversion, antithesis, gradation).

Consider their application on the example of the case of drawing up a false spiritual will on behalf of the deceased captain of the guard Sedkov (1875). So, in the introductory part of his speech, A.F. Koni notes: “... The case in which you have to pronounce the verdict has some characteristic features. It is the fruit of the life of a big city with a huge and diverse population, it is the creation of St. Petersburg, where a certain layer of people has developed ... ". In this case, his favorite metaphor “fruit” is used, which is a means of emotional impact on listeners, a means of revealing the meaning, a means of accurate, capacious and concise transmission of the speaker’s thoughts.

And further A.F. Koni continues: "Not only the defendants belong to this layer, but also the late Sedkov - this experienced and honored usurer ... and even some witnesses." This statement contains such an epithet as "honored usurer", which serves as an evaluative definition that conveys the attitude of the speaker to the person in question.

In the main part of his speech, A.F. Koni notes: “Each crime committed by several persons by prior agreement is a whole living organism that has hands, a heart, and a head. You have to determine who in this matter played the role of obedient hands, who represented the greedy heart and the head that planned and calculated everything. In this part of speech, a figurative comparison is used (“crime ... a living organism”), through which the speaker conveys his feeling, mood, expressive assessment of the subject of thought, expresses the perception of the world and attitude towards people.

The most common rhetorical figure in the speeches of A.F. Koni is repetition, which gives speech dynamism and rhythm. Its most common form in the accusatory speeches of A.F. Koni is an anaphora (repeats at the beginning of a phrase). So, in the main part of the speech under consideration, A.F. Koni notes: "He alone carried the menial work, he alone had the right to everything that was acquired by him after the wedding."

Very characteristic of A.F. Koni is the use of such a speech figure as inversion, first of all, as a way of emphasizing an important meaning for the speaker. So, in the introductory part of his speech on the case of the forgery of a receipt of 35 thousand rubles in silver on behalf of Princess Shcherbatova A.F. Koni notes: "... Crimes belonging to the category of diverse forgeries are distinguished ... by one sharp characteristic feature: ... the accused become more or less in a clearly hostile attitude towards the person of the victim." In this case, the inversion is presented as a permutation of the definition and the word being defined inside a simple sentence (“to face the victim”).

In the speeches of A.F. Koni is widely used antithesis (opposition of compared concepts) to characterize any phenomena, provisions, the criminal act itself. So, in the case of drawing up a false spiritual will on behalf of the deceased captain of the guard Sedkov, in the introductory part of his speech, A.F. Koni notes: “All of them ... are not deprived of the means and ways of honest labor to defend themselves from the dock ... And all of them were brought to the dock by greed for other people's, unearned money.” In this case, by means of antithesis, the possibility of the defendants to earn money by honest labor and self-interest in other people's, unearned money is opposed.

Gradation, a stylistic device consisting of two or more units, placed according to increasing intensity of action or quality, has great expressive power. This allows you to recreate events, actions, thoughts and feelings in development. In the speech of A.F. Horses in the case of the drowning of a peasant woman Emelyanova by her husband, the gradation creates a characterization of Yegor Emelyanov’s wife: “So, this is what kind of person: quiet, submissive, lethargic and boring, most importantly, boring.”

It should also be noted that A.F. Horses are dramatization techniques based on various ways of dialogizing speech (question constructions, quoting, etc.). So, in the main part of his speech on the case of the murder of Hieromonk Hilarion, A.F. Koni notes: “Why, if he wanted to see Father Hilarion, did he not go to him as soon as he left the railway? Why did he go exactly at 6 o'clock, when there was no one in the corridor and could not be? I think because he needed to find Father Hilarion alone. In this case, A.F. Koni dialogized using a question-answer construction. In the main part of his speech on the case of the drowning of the peasant woman Emelyanova by her husband A.F. Koni focuses on the words of the defendant: “Are you going?” - he shouts at his wife, calling her with him; “Hey, come out,” he knocks on the window, “come out,” he shouts authoritatively to Agrafena. After that A.F. Koni concludes: "This is a man who is accustomed to rule and command those who submit to him." In this case, Koni A.F. creates the exact characteristics of the defendant, using quotation, reproducing exactly those of his words, in which the most significant features of his personality are clearly manifested.

Thus, the artistic techniques used by A.F. Horses are based on the optimal combination of figurative means (comparisons, metaphors, etc.) and rhetorical figures (antitheses, repetitions, etc.), due to which his speech is sufficiently and coherently developed in all its parts (introduction, main part, conclusion). All this contributes to their denunciation as truly works of art, thereby providing an effective solution to the problems associated with the process of persuasion.

2.4 Typical techniques for preparing and constructing speech

Judicial speech by the nature of the preparation is distinguished by the possibility of pre-recording. On this occasion, A.F. Kony spoke as follows: “I, who have never written speeches in advance, allow myself, as an old judicial figure, to say to young figures: do not write speeches in advance, do not waste time, do not rely on the help of these lines composed in the silence of the cabinet.” A.F. Kony did not advise writing down the entire text, since the case in court could change and the written speech would be unusable from beginning to end.

Here is what A.F. Koni: “Having familiarized myself with the case, I proceeded ... to the mental construction of the defense, putting forward in front of me sharply and definitely all the doubts that arise and may arise in the case, and decided to support the prosecution only in those cases when these doubts were destroyed by intense reflection and in ruins. they had a firm conviction of guilt ... After ... I began to think in images ... ".

Based on the texts of speeches by A.F. Horses, given in accordance with 2.3, one can note a number of his characteristic techniques used in the course of direct speech in the courtroom.

In the introductory part (in the course of establishing contact with the audience, creating favorable conditions for the perception of speech, accepting the main provisions and conclusions of the speaker), A.F. Koni used such an effective technique as drawing attention to the characteristic features of the case (its distinctive features that make it possible to immediately update the problem, emphasize the complexity of the case, and set the listeners in a certain way).

In addition, A.F. Koni resorted to a direct description of the picture of the crime, which facilitated the transition to the main part and made it possible to immediately state the controversial point. For comparison, we can cite the techniques used by other speakers in their opening remarks: an assessment of the moral and ethical significance of the case, the presentation of the speech program, etc.

2 When describing the main part (in the course of presenting the facts of the case, analyzing and evaluating the collected evidence, characterizing the personality of the defendant and the victim, substantiating the qualification of the crime, etc.), the following characteristic techniques should be noted:

a mixed method of presenting the circumstances of the case with elements of chronology (indicating the way to clarify the circumstances) and systematization (description of the circumstances in the order in which they are presented to the prosecution);

critical analysis of evidence based on the difference between the concepts of “made” and “guilty”, providing for consideration of the everyday side of the matter, the practical conditions of the hostel, dominant views, the influence of the environment, etc., a description of the moral environment in which the personality of the defendant was formed;

description of the psychological portrait of the victim, the victim and another person related to the case, for the most prominent characterization of the defendant

In the final part (summing up the results of the trial) A.F. Koni uses such a characteristic technique as the logical (close) connection of his final part of the speech with other parts of the accusatory speech.

Thus, A.F. Koni, in preparing his speech, first, through intense reflection from logical, everyday and psychological positions, determined for himself the indisputable guilt of a person and, accordingly, possible extenuating circumstances, calculating for himself the possible scenarios for the development of events in the courtroom. And then, directly during the consideration of the case, being capable and disposed to improvise, he defended his position using "favorite" and original techniques.

court session horses speech

Conclusion

Guided by the goals and objectives set at the beginning of this work, we can draw the following conclusions:

Personal portrait of A.F. Horses are his broad education, a strong analytical mind, meticulousness and painstakingness, a sensitive, always restless conscience, a particularly picturesque and imaginative sense of the world. All this served him as a reliable support in his struggle for justice and truth, and throughout his life allowed him to defend the sanctity of the law in the highest sense of the word and fair justice.

All the scientific and literary work of A.F. was permeated with aspirations for legality and justice. Horses. In his writings, he attached particular importance to the principle of competitiveness, based on the positions of morality and equality of the rights of the parties to defend their opinions before the court. This principle determines the image of a rhetorical ideal, the most important features of which are a special tact and restraint, a fair and humane attitude towards all participants in the process.

A.F. Koni had an impeccable command of the word, shone with the grace of the syllable, knew the value of the spoken word. His speeches were of an improvising nature and were based on a deep comprehensive analysis of the situation and the psychological background of its occurrence, thanks to which they possessed exceptional clarity and intelligibility, special artistic expressiveness and poetry. A.F. Horses with their speeches not so much captivated those to whom they were addressed, but mastered them.

Thus, the power of oratory A.F. Horses are his outstanding personal qualities, focused on the highest moral ideals, according to which he fought the contradictions of arbitrariness and legality, immorality and morality, violence and individual rights, etc. Such contradictions are also inherent in our time, and overcoming them is one of the most important tasks of our time, in the solution of which the spiritual heritage of A.F. Horses can play an invaluable role.

List of used sources and literature

1. Smolyarchuk V.I. Anatoly Fedorovich Koni. - M.: Publishing house "Nauka", 1981. - 216 p.

Russian Judicial Orators in Famous Criminal Trials of the 19th Century Compiled by I. Potapchuk. - Tula: Publishing house "Autograph", 1997. - 816 p.

Koni A.F. Selected works and speeches. - Tula: Publishing house "Autograph", 2000. - 550 p.

Vvedenskaya L.A. Rhetoric for Lawyers: Study Guide L.A. Vvedenskaya, L.G. Ed. 5th. - Rostov n / a: Phoenix, 2006. - 576 p.

Koni A.F. Selected works: In 2 vols. Vol.1. - M., 1959. - 78 p.

Demidov V., Saninsky R. Efficiency of public prosecution / V. Demidov, R. Saninsky // Legality. - 2004. - No. 8. - S. 19-21.

Fundamentals of judicial eloquence (rhetoric for lawyers): Textbook N.N. Ivakin. Ed. 2nd. - M.: Jurist, 2007. - 464 p.

Koni A.F. Collected works: In 8 volumes. T.3. - M., 1967. - 355 p.

Koni A.F. Collected works: In 8 volumes. T.4. - M., 1967. - 543 p.

Smolyarchuk V.I. A.F. Koni and his entourage: Essays. - M.: Legal literature, 1990. - 400 p.

During his long life, A.F. Koni won fame not only as an outstanding judicial figure and a first-class speaker, a talented writer and a major public figure, but also as an outstanding legal scholar.

Ero talent is multifaceted, scientific interests are versatile. He made a great contribution to the field of criminal law, criminal procedure and the judiciary. Among the universally recognized criminologists of pre-revolutionary Russia, his name occupies one of the first places.

Already in his youth, A.F. Koni wrote his first scientific work - a candidate's discourse on the right of necessary defense, published in Moscow University News in 1866. This work aroused great interest not only in the future numerous admirers of his extraordinary talent, but also in the state censorship represented by the Main Directorate for Press Affairs. Ero bold for that time thoughts about the justice and expediency of allowing the necessary defense against unlawful actions of the authorities and, in particular, against illegal arrest, that “every citizen who has the duty to comply with the law also has the right to prevent illegal actions”, about organic The connections between the right of necessary defense and the principle of equality between people immediately characterized A.F. Koni as a fighter for progressive and democratic ideas in law, which he remained until the end of his days. To was a bold challenge by a young scientist who fundamentally and courageously defended his views and beliefs.

The scientific talent of A.F. Koni was immediately noticed, and, on the recommendation of the Law Faculty of Moscow University, he had to take a place at the Department of Criminal Law and Procedure. However, A.F. Koni voluntarily abandoned his scientific career and devoted almost his entire life to judicial activities. He firmly entered science with a great delay in time, but enriched with many years of experience in judicial and prosecutorial activities. Perhaps, because his scientific conclusions and provisions are so weighty and significant, they are reliably and firmly based on generalizations and analysis of extensive practice, on the personal experience of a prominent judicial figure and therefore arouse unflagging interest in our days.

It would be a mistake to think that the legal views of A.F. Koni are expressed only in his scientific works, which form the main content of this volume of his works. They run like a red thread through all his accusatory speeches and cassation reports, guiding parting words to jurors and cassation reports, his speeches at meetings of lawyers and memories of the past.

A.F. Koni is rightfully considered the founder of judicial ethics - a science that has not yet taken the place it deserves. His views on this issue are stated in "Moral Principles in the Criminal Process (General Features of Judicial Ethics)".

A.F. Koni assigned a prominent place to moral principles in the administration of justice. Not particularly believing, apparently, in the possibility of their implementation in the courts of tsarist Russia, he argued that the moral principles "belong in the future to play a leading role in the study of the conditions and conditions of the criminal process." He hoped that next to the “refining of technology” in the criminal process there should be “the development of true and broad philanthropy at the court, equally far from the mechanical leveling of individual individuals, and from the callousness of methods, and from the flabbiness of the will alien to true kindness in protecting the public law and order".

He hoped that "the center of gravity of the doctrine of legal proceedings will be transferred from the course of the process to the ethical and social-legal activities of the judge in all its ramifications."

A.F. Koni has always assigned a central place in the judicial activity to the personality of the judge. No matter how good the rules of action may be, they can lose their force and value in inexperienced, rude or dishonest hands, and the most considered and just criminal law is reduced to nothing by a bad administration of justice. Proceeding from this, A.F. Koni believed that the study of legal proceedings in that part of it that relates to judicial activity should have as its subject not only the properties and conditions of this activity, HO and “the behavior of a judge in relation to persons with whom OH comes into contact as a result of its activity.

A.F. Koni pays much attention to the problem of the inner conviction of a judge. He traces how, in historical development, the freedom of the inner conviction of the ancient judge is replaced by the bias of the inner conviction of the feudal judge in the criminal process, where there is no protection and there are silence, writing and clerical secrets, and the latter, in turn, is replaced by the bondage of the inner conviction of the judge during the dominance of the system of formal evidence. . He welcomes the return to the freedom of inner conviction of the judge associated with the judicial reform of 1864.

The judge, according to A. ®. Koni, must strain all his mental strength to find the truth in the case, when sentencing, he should not be a prisoner of "a fleeting opinion inspired by a fit of feeling or a prejudiced look", he has no right to decide cases on the principle: "I want it that way." Ero motto should be: "I can not do otherwise." The basis of the court sentence should be based not only on logical inevitability, but also on moral obligation.

The process of forming the judge's inner conviction is connected with the continuous resolution of emerging doubts. AF Koni owns the definition of the concept of "doubt" and ways to overcome it. “A beneficent and reasonable custom, which has turned into an almost unwritten law, prescribes any doubt to be interpreted in favor of the defendant. What kind of doubt is this? Of course, not fleeting, unverified and seductive by a solution easily achieved through its mediation, which is not the fruit of the sluggish work of a lazy mind and sleepy conscience, but remains after a long, careful and comprehensive assessment of each evidence separately and all of them in the aggregate, in connection with the personality and the everyday situation of the accused ^ You must fight doubt - and defeat it or be defeated by it, so that in the end, without hesitation and without embarrassment, say the decisive word - "guilty" or "not" .... In this theoretical position, there is an urgent call for intense, intensive and fruitful activity of judges, outside of which the special and general preventive effect of the trial, and especially the judicial verdict, cannot be achieved.

A.F. Koni highly valued judicial independence as one of the most important conditions for ensuring the correct sentence. He considered it necessary to protect judges from any encroachment on their independence, from conditions that give grounds for the development in them of "cowardice and forced obsequiousness."

In this regard, he positively assessed the principle of the irremovability of judges, which, as it seemed to him, "gives the opportunity to calmly and fearlessly carry out their judicial activities." Overestimation of the importance of the irremovability of judges as a guarantee of judicial independence is one of the misconceptions of A.F. Koni. Lenin's assessment of the principle of the irremovability of judges, which makes it impossible to replace unfit judges, is well known. That is why Soviet legislation did not accept this principle.

Deserve to be noted are the judgments of A.F. Koni on the influence of judges of public opinion. He highly valued the public opinion of progressive Russia. At the same time, he warned against substituting "public passions" for genuine public opinion. “Under the guise of “public opinion,” he wrote, “sometimes only the voice of “public passion” is pointed out to the judge, to follow which in a court case is always dangerous and often unworthy.”

A.F. Koni very clearly showed how public opinion sometimes negatively affects the court when it is unsteady, unstable, immature. In his accusatory speech in the case of Alexander and Ivan Myasnikov, which had been under investigation for 14 years and aroused a lot of talk, he said:

“Public opinion leaned ... TO one, TO the other ~ side, and the court of public opinion had this case several times, and in the most opposite way, it was resolved. The Myasnikovs were sometimes recognized as hardened criminals, sometimes as victims of judicial blindness. But the court of public opinion is not a correct court, it is not a court free from hobbies; public opinion is often blind; Therefore, the verdicts of public opinion in this case cannot and should not matter to you.”

These considerations are relevant today.

To jurors, “drawn from the public sea and returning to it again,” he always inspired that they should not come to court with an opinion already formed in advance. In them he saw representatives of the public conscience. .

Drawing the attention of judges to the inadmissibility of the automatic application of the law, to the need to penetrate the thought of the legislator, A.F. Koni at the same time objected to introducing his personal tastes, sympathies and antipathies into the interpretation of the law, which could put personal discretion and arbitrariness in the place of the law. “Legislative activity,” he wrote, “in its thoughtful and slow, in its very essence, work, is likened to old age, about which the poet said that she “walks cautiously and looks suspiciously.” Variegated manifestations and new needs, past the fleeting life, overtake the law with its heavy tread. It is easy and excusable for the judge to be carried away by the idea of ​​the new, which should have been in the place of the existing old, and to try to squeeze the supposed dictates of the desired future into the framework of the present. This method of applying the law ... however, threatens justice with the danger of extreme instability and chance ... ".

Thus, A.F. Koni opposed the correction of laws by judges in accordance with the needs of practice and changed living conditions. Thus, the idea of ​​the independence of judges was supplemented by the idea of ​​legality, constituting a dual formula of one of the most important pillars of justice.

Highly appreciating the law, A.F. Koni nevertheless emphasized that it outlines only the official duties of a judge. Ho, along with official duty, there is a moral duty. Therefore, legal and moral requirements must merge in the activities of a judge; in every judicial action, along with the question of what should be done, there is an equally important question of how to do it. The moral duty of the judge A.F. Koni saw first of all in respect for human dignity and in a fair attitude towards a person. “Justice cannot be separated from justice,” wrote A.F. Koni, “and the latter does not consist at all in one lawful application of the punitive definitions of the law to a proven act. The judiciary, in all his manner of actions in relation to people, to whose deeds he is called upon to apply his mind, labor and power, must strive to implement the moral law.

In a number of provisions of the criminal procedure law, A.F. Koni saw the requirements of morality (the right of close relatives and the spouse of the accused to refrain from testifying about him, the exclusion from the testimony of the defense counsel regarding the confession made to him by the accused during the proceedings, the right of the accused to remain silent and the inadmissibility of accepting this silence as an admission of his guilt, etc.).

A.F. Koni sought to instill moral sensitivity in the judge, to develop in him the desire not only to appear, but also to be fair. The judge should never forget that the defendant is almost never in a calm state, that one should always take into account the state of the victim, insulted in his best feelings, as well as the state of the witnesses, most of whom are lost in the unusual, solemn atmosphere of the court, and therefore one must be able to "return calmness and self-control alone, began in the criminal process”: “Ideals gradually began to be obscured, and moral tasks began to fade into the background. The service of justice is gradually beginning to turn into a service in the judiciary, which differs from many others only in its severity and relatively weak material reward.

A. F. Koni dreamed that the course of criminal proceedings included a department of judicial ethics in addition to the history and dogma of the process. His repeated attempts to get the opportunity to teach such a course at the university were unsuccessful. But his dream was bold and daring: to establish and implement moral principles in criminal justice, albeit in post-reform, but autocratic Russia.

The essay "History of the development of criminal procedural legislation in Russia" included in the fourth volume is of great scientific value. Laws on legal proceedings, A.F. Koni emphasized, in addition to their purpose to regulate the administration of justice, have historical, political and ethical significance.

Aptly and figuratively A.F. Koni characterizes the old pre-reform court, in which “a kind of justice triumphed, among the organs of which sometimes power without education flooded small islands of education without power”.

Red tape and the exceptional slowness of proceedings were indispensable companions of this trial. The work provides a vivid example of such red tape: the case of the theft of a copper coin from the Moscow district treasury, which arose in 1844, was completed ONLY in 1865, i.e. after 21 years. There were many such cases.

A.F. Koni dedicated the incriminating lines to the times when “consciousness must be obtained at all costs, not by persuasion, but by fear, not by fear, the captivity of pre-established, formal evidence with their "sworn" and "unsworn" testimonies, with the superiority of the testimony of the noble over the ignoble, the spiritual over the secular, the man over the woman, the scientist over the unlearned.

A. F. Koni also showed the unattractive role of legal science. “The blatant shortcomings of this order of things,” he wrote, “for a long time did not attract the attention of the legislator and were of little interest to science, which, disgustedly turning away from reality, went back centuries, excelling in research on kuns and virs according to Russian Pravda or slavishly singing praises to our judiciary”.

And if individual attempts were made to at least comment on the current legislation, they ran into opposition from censorship. The essay contains a verdict with the “Practical Guide to Russian Criminal Procedure”, written by N. I. Stoyanovskiy in 1850 and recognized by the censorship as superfluous on the motive: it?, and if it contains something that is not in the Code, then it is useless, and therefore not needed; ..”,

The reader will find in this work a lot of enthusiastic lines dedicated to the period preceding the judicial reform and associated with its implementation - the period of "judicial renewal of Russia", "the awakening of legal feeling and legal thought."

The discussions that took place at that time on the introduction of a jury trial, the admission of the defense of the accused during the preliminary investigation, and publicity during the preliminary investigation are very carefully shown in this * work.

A.F. Koni was sympathetic to the opinion that “such publicity seems to be the most effective means in the sense of protecting a person who has been persecuted from the abuses and hobbies of an investigator”, it is also needed “to eliminate unfair criticism of conscientious investigators and to prevent the possibility of an unfounded refusal defendants from their confession of the crime. As for the admission of the defense to the preliminary investigation, it is "equally useful not only for the involved, HO, and for the investigator himself."

A.F. Koni sympathetically cites the arguments of the editorial commission against granting the right to the sole justice of the peace to apply arrest: “Arrest is the deprivation of liberty - the greatest blessing of every citizen, the disposal of which cannot be given to the sole justice of the peace, capable, like any person, of being carried away by passions and addictions . In the event of the injustice of this punishment, it is no longer possible to reward the evil done by him. Arrest is a deduction from life, which no human power is able to replenish. There is no way to present such an irrevocable, irreparable punishment to the arbitrariness of one judge. The order to them can be submitted only to the collegiate court, but not to one judge. Civil liberty is such a great right that must be protected by the most effective guarantees.

Quite remarkable is the judgment of A.F. Koni about the royal prison - "this school of mutual teaching of idleness to vice, debauchery and crime."

A.F. Koni was a constant admirer of the judicial reform carried out in Russia in 1864. He believed that a lawyer would find in the history of judicial reform a broad and brilliant picture of a radical change in the forms and conditions of justice, which is one of the most important aspects of life. The patrimonial court left the scene with its reprisal in its naked form, the estate character of the court was lost. The later unfulfilled hope was connected with the judicial reform that Russia, which “in the courts is full of black lies,” will go into the past.

In the work “Judicial Reform and Jury Trial”, A.F. Koni traces the process of the birth of new beginnings in legal proceedings. At first, even before the reform, the police search was separated from the judicial investigation. The judicial investigators are coming to replace the police ranks. The doors of the courtrooms are gradually beginning to open, and not only the petitioner, but also the “listener and spectator” enters them. However, these were only patches on old clothes. The theory of formal evidence continued to dominate in court, and written proceedings prevailed. “The compilers of the Judicial Statutes,” wrote A.F. Koni, “understood that a Korean reform was needed, that no matter how they propped up, repaired and plastered the old building, it would still be impossible to live in it for a long time.”

Judicial reform replaced the theory of formal evidence with a free assessment of evidence, and instead of written proceedings, it proclaimed the beginnings of publicity, orality, immediacy and competitiveness. There was a jury trial. “A living person,” wrote A.F. Koni, “is summoned by them at all stages of the process before the face of the court and, at the decisive moments of the final discussion of his guilt, is placed in conditions of free competition.”

A. F. Koni notes with sadness many times that the implementation of the basic principles of the Judicial Charters in life has caused sharp and ever-increasing attacks on these principles. Democratic principles and institutions could not let coria into the soil of tsarist Russia (AF, Koni far from always understood this). Their fate was sad. "The World Institute, - states A.F. Koni, - judicial investigators, prosecutors, lawyers and jurors were subjected to merciless and, for the most part, extremely one-sided criticism."

A.F. Koni was indignant at the injustice of the groundless accusations of the establishment of the bar, “inextricably linked with the fundamental beginning of the new court - the competition of the parties”, and noted the heavy and disinterested assistance “provided by the bar to the administration of justice in the mass of criminal, sometimes very long processes.”

He resolutely fought off all attacks on the jury and defended the need to preserve it. In jurors, he saw representatives of society, spokesmen for the public conscience, he pointed out the abyss that separated them from representatives of the estates. “Jurors,” wrote A.F. Koni, “decide cases by inner conviction, which develops freely and independently, in accordance with what they see and hear in court. This is a fundamental property of the jury.

As you know, the jury was criticized at that time mainly for the fact that he delivered a significant number of acquittals. This criticism reached particular strength when an acquittal was passed in the case of Vera Zasulich, in which A.F. Koni presided (as a punishment for this, he was “demoted” to the civilists and sent to the St. Petersburg Judicial Chamber to consider civil cases). A.F. Koni spent a lot of effort and energy on "to reveal the real reasons for the acquittals handed down by jurors. He pointed out that the jury is asked about whether the defendant committed a criminal act, and whether he is guilty of that he committed it. And therefore, they often, having established the fact that the defendant committed a crime and not finding his personal guilt in this, pass a verdict of not guilty. He considered the numerous statements about the weak repression of the jury as exaggerated.

A.F. Koni argued that one can disagree with one or another acquittal by a jury, but it can always be understood and explained.

The acquittals of the jury in many cases contained criticism of the laws in force at that time, with which the legal consciousness of the jurors could not be reconciled. Therefore, A.F. Koni emphasized that the systematically repeated acquittals "served the legislature by pointing out to it the contradiction of life with the requirements of the law."

A.F. Koni came to the conclusion that the correct solution of the issue lies not in the adoption of proposals for the abolition of the jury, but in the implementation of measures to improve the practice of its activities. “The court of life,” he wrote about the jury, “having an ennobling effect on people’s morality, serving as a conductor of people’s legal consciousness, should not recede into the realm of legends, but become stronger in our life.”

“The jury of Russia,” A.F. Koni said on November 28, 1880 in the St. Petersburg Legal Society, “is like an expensive and useful plant. An experienced and knowledgeable gardener, in the person of the compilers of the Judicial Statutes, transferred it from foreign lands to our soil, quite suitable for it, and then conceded to others the growth of this plant. Until it takes deep roots and blooms in all its strength, it is necessary not to leave it to the mercy of fate, but to carefully monitor it, protect it from bad weather, protect it from bad external influences, dig in and protect it in such a way that there are no reasons and opportunities to cut off the bark from it or break off its branches.

In the judgments of A.F. Koni about the jury trial in tsarist Russia, there were many misconceptions and, most importantly, excessive idealization of this institution. Some of his suggestions for improving the jury were wrong. He incorrectly, for example, believed that one of the reasons for the shortcomings in the activities of the jury is the involvement of extremely poor people in their composition. Noting in the work “On a jury trial and on a court with class representatives” a low property qualification for inclusion in the lists of jurors (200 rubles of gross income or salary per year) and proposing to increase this qualification, A. F. Koni wrote: “... any court, not excluding the trial by jury, should consist of people independent of need and the passions it generates. In connection with this, he considered it right to exclude from the jury of 1887 People who fell into extreme poverty and domestic servants and raised the question of the possibility of excluding from them “... such representatives of the service professions who, being broken in their lives, nor are they distorted in the sobriety of their views by continuous mechanical labor for a piece of bread, then they bring painful one-sidedness to the jury box. He complained about "... calling for jury duty, for several years in a row, the same persons from among the very insufficient peasants, while in the same areas there are many persons of the noble and merchant classes ...".

Paying tribute to the judicial reform, A.F. Koni nevertheless sometimes soberly understood that if there are people for its implementation in life, then there will be no conditions for the activities of these people. In a speech at the annual meeting of the Law Society at St. Petersburg University on January 26, 1892, “New Furs and New Wine,” he said: “We often complain that there are “no people,” when in essence there are not people, but conditions for their activities. Conditions appear - they appear from nowhere, from the unknown darkness of the alleged impersonality, and the figures are cheerful and kind ... ".

In August 1913, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Judicial Statutes, A.F. Koni wrote: “Fifty years will soon pass from November 20, 1864 ... The goddess’s harmonic features have changed, wrinkles covered her forehead - the fruit of bitter losses and hard trials, but ® for those who recognized her half a century ago, who followed her life path with love and anxiety, her inner beauty remained unchanged, and the belief lives in their souls that everything is superficial, temporary, accidental, caused by the “spite of the day” and serving the last , with the further development of Russian legal life, "it will fall off like decrepit scales", revealing the unfading features of the original image.

The democratic principles of justice and the ideals in which A.F. Koni believed and served were, however, an unrealizable dream in the conditions of tsarist Russia. He was destined to live and see their triumph after October 1917 in Soviet Russia, where a real judicial renewal took place as an integral part of the general renewal of economic, social and political life ..

A.F. Koni was a constant adherent of the democratic principles of the criminal process. Publicity, orality, immediacy and free evaluation of evidence, he considered the fundamental principles of justice.

He highly valued the principle of adversarialism and believed> that “it is unlikely that humanity ... will soon find it possible to do without an adversarial principle”, since it is in judicial competition that “arguments are mutually created and destroyed and new and not always expected points of view are established not only on the law , but also on the personality of the defendant, taken not abstractly, but snatched from life with all its roots and branches.

“Publicity and orality,” he wrote, “introduced into judicial proceedings the beginning of direct perception of material for judgment. They stirred up and scattered around that heap of papers, reports, protocols, drafts, resolutions, etc., under which a living person was buried, becoming only the number of the case. He got up from under this pile of written work, which erased his personal colors, and appeared before the judge, along with his actual accusers and intercessors-witnesses.

The democratic principles of justice are well disclosed by A.F. Koni in his work “The final debate of the parties in the criminal process”. Here, in particular, it is pointed out that the adversarial principle in the process puts forward as necessary assistants to the judge in the study of truth - the accuser and the defender, whose combined efforts illuminate different and opposite sides of the case.

A. F. Koni emphasized, first of all, the moral duties of the prosecutor-prosecutor, who is called upon to protect “the interests of society and the human dignity of the individual” with equal sensitivity and zeal.

“The measure of the permissibility of methods of jurisprudence,” he wrote, “should be the consideration that the end cannot justify the means and that the lofty task of the just protection of society and, at the same time, the protection of the individual from unfair accusation, must be achieved in ways that do not run counter to moral feeling.”

Very interesting are the judgments of A.F. Koni about the nature, content and subject of the debate of the parties. One cannot but agree with his assertion that the debate is the most lively, mobile, variable in content and volume part of the judicial competition. The debate should not touch on issues that have nothing to do with the case, but at the same time, according to Koni, they may relate to circumstances that were not the subject of a judicial investigation (for example, the question of the application of criminal law, penalties, indications of well-known truths, not requiring forensic evidence, etc.).

Concerning the question of the burdensomeness for the court of participation in the case of several defenders on the side of one defendant, A.F. Koni wittily notes that considerations of practical convenience should not be taken into account and that the numerical inequality of forces does not matter, only their quality is important. “Considered from the point of view of the talent of knowledge,” he writes, “several ordinary defenders cannot constitute a proper counterbalance to one talented accuser, and three or four ordinary prosecutors cannot be compared with one richly gifted defender whose ardent word is driven by a deep inner conviction” .

In contrast to many scientists and judicial speakers, A.F. Koni categorically objected to the drafting of the text of the accusatory and defense speeches of the parties and their announcement in judicial debates. He himself never resorted to this, acting as an accuser in courts, since this “would undermine the impression that they should give, and would weaken the immediacy of perception of their content, focusing much less attention on itself than verbal explanations ...” . Elsewhere he writes: “The spoken word is always more fruitful

written: it lives the listener and the speaker. He reports that the Senate declared inadmissible the utterance of closing speeches on drafts prepared in advance, allowing only "look" into the notes in cases where memory fails. A. F. Koni was a supporter of a lively, figurative and bright word in court, personally showing all the accusers the inexhaustible talent of a first-class judicial orator.

To confirm his position on this issue, A.F. Koni cites the statement of the Moscow prosecutor Gromnitsky regarding pre-made speeches: “They are smooth and slender, but pale, lifeless, and do not make the proper impression; it is brilliance, but not light and heat; it is a beautiful bouquet of artificial flowers, but with the smell of paper and glue.”

In the well-known work “Methods and Tasks of the Prosecutor's Office”, A.F. Koni shows not only what the prosecutor has the right and obligation to do, but also how he should do it. Here, first of all, he draws attention to the difficulties associated with the activities of the accuser “in an atmosphere of public clash and exchange of convinced views, and not in the quiet of a “presence”. The prosecutor should not accuse BO by all means and allow "myopic or blind one-sidedness." In the prosecutor's speech there should be no swagger and ridicule of the defendant. Koni recalls a case when one of the prosecutor’s comrades, pac-: having said about the outcome of the accusation that he supported, told him: “Well, even though I lost, I smeared his whole face with a boot, - will be satisfied. A.F. Koni immediately removed this "judicial figure" from speaking as a prosecutor at the trial.

A.F. Koni demanded special tact from the prosecutor in relation to the court and to his procedural opponent - the defense counsel. He opposed any kind of attacks and personal insults to the defender, against the generalization of individual shortcomings of the legal profession and indiscriminate denigration of its activities. “It would be, however, highly unfair,” wrote A.F. Koni, “to generalize these cases and, on the basis of such a generalization, maintain an unfavorable and often even hostile view of such a necessary vital attribute of the competitive process as defense.”

A. F. Koni considered it impossible to give any advice, the implementation of which can make a person eloquent. It is important to be able to speak in public, and this ability is due, in his opinion, to an exhaustive knowledge of the subject you are talking about, a good knowledge of the language you speak, the ability to use all the richness of the language, and, finally, the truthfulness of what you are talking about. According to A.F. Koni, judicial eloquence is based on the need to prove and convince, i.e. e. in other words, the need to persuade listeners to join their opinion.

He very strongly condemned A.F. Koni the practice that appeared in the mid-eighties, when a person in respect of whom enough evidence was collected to be put in the position of an accused remained as a suspect throughout almost the entire preliminary investigation, which was grossly violated the right of the accused to defense. “The investigator and the prosecutor’s office,” wrote A. F. Koni, “in these cases were guided by the desire to achieve success in the prosecution by depriving the suspected of the opportunity to defend himself, silently and helplessly seeing and feeling how a whole chain of evidence and evidence was being forged against him, timely to refute or otherwise highlight which he is deprived of the opportunity.

With indignation, A.F. Koni spoke of the illegal practice when the future undoubted accused, against whom there were already quite sufficient data, was interrogated as a witness, sometimes several times during the investigation. “It is easy to imagine,” wrote A.F. Koni, “what such a pseudo-witness experienced, what false and dangerous steps he took,“ deafened by the noise of inner anxiety ”and exhausted by this investigative game“ cat and mouse ”.

One more recommendation contained in the "Methods and Tasks of the Prosecutor's Office" deserves attention. We are talking about the use of the consciousness of the defendant in the accusatory speech at the trial. “During the accusations at the trial,” wrote A.F. Koni, “both I and some of my comrades tried not to rely on the defendant’s own consciousness, even made at the trial, and build their speech, as if there were no consciousness at all, drawing from case, objective evidence and evidence that does not depend on this or that mood of the defendant - on his depression, nervousness, desire to take on someone else's guilt or mitigate his own, confessing to less than what he is accused of ... ".

Among the works on forensic psychology, the article "Memory and Attention" occupies a prominent place. And although it is provided by the author with a very modest subtitle “From the memoirs of a judicial figure,” scientific generalizations and conclusions are made in it that are important for the development of a new and still young science at the present time - forensic psychology.

"Memory and Attention" is a deep and thorough study of one of the most important problems of forensic psychology - the psychology of testimonies.

A.F. Koni rightly points out that the ability of a person to stop his attention on the environment and what is happening, the properties and nature of memory with ec modifications under the influence of time and the personality of the narrator are of great importance for the formation and testimony. Therefore, the problem of attention and memory of those who testify is the key to verifying the assessment of the reliability of these testimonies.

A.F. Koni resolutely opposes the teachings of the classical school, which entangled “life with its doctrine of evil will and its manifestations”, against the then emerging tendency to replace the jury trial with the court of “specialist doctors, for which, by its very essence, publicity is not needed, protection, appeal, the possibility of pardon. He draws attention to the fact that "these are all shaky conditions for the search for truth in the case, and not for positive and solid knowledge about it given by science", that this can only reduce the punitive activities of the state "to the hunt for a person using the scientific methods of anthropometry". All these trends could not but have a negative impact not only on criminal law and the judiciary, but also on the criminal process, which, according to the apt remark of A.F. Koni, "is more in touch with life and its ever-new demands."

Almost no criminal case can do without witness testimony. Therefore, the role of witness testimony in shaping the inner convictions of investigators and judges is enormous. Fighting abuses by interrogators alone is not enough to ensure that correct testimony is obtained. “In the witness himself,” A.F. Koni wrote, “there may be elements that deviate his testimony from the truth, obscure and distort its strictly factual source.”

If the attention of each witness were drawn to all aspects of the perceived phenomenon, and the memory retained everything perceived, then with a correct and complete perception? in the work of what we perceive, we would always receive reliable testimony. But attention is not drawn to everything, and memory does not hold everything. This complicates the work of the investigator and the judge in assessing the evidence. “This kind of “shrinkage and leakage” of memory causes it to unconsciously restore the resulting gaps - and thus, little by little, fiction and self-deception creep into the transmission of what is seen and heard. Thus, inside almost every testimony there is a kind of ulcer, poisoning little by little the entire organism of the testimony, not only against the will, but also without the consciousness of the witness himself. This is the kind of material the judge has to deal with…”

Here A.F. Koni raises an important question about subjectively conscientious, but objectively false testimony, the question of the need to distinguish between knowingly false testimony of a witness, entailing criminal liability of a perjurer, from an unconscious and involuntary lie, not entailing the responsibility of a witness, but nevertheless equally obscuring the truth blocking her path.

Pointing out the difficulties associated with the evaluation of testimonies, A.F. Koni did not go, however, on the wrong path of refusing these testimonies altogether as a source of evidence, he mobilizes judges to overcome these difficulties, in particular, by studying the foundations of forensic psychology. For this purpose, he proposed introducing the teaching of psychology and psychopathology at the Faculty of Law.

At the same time, A.F. Koni spoke out against the psychological examination of the testimonies of witnesses, proposed by a number of scientists (Stern, Vreschner, and others). He made an exception for the psychological examination of the testimonies of children, who are easily subjected to self-hypnosis and therefore pose a danger to justice.

“... From the point of view of the judiciary,” wrote A.F. Koni, “recognition of the admissibility and even essential need for examination of attention and memory is connected, in official language, with the “fluctuation of the foundations”, both of the court in general and of the jury in particular ... It would not be more consistent in this case to transform the court according to the dreams of criminal psychology, replacing both professional and elected public judges with a mixed board of doctors, psychiatrists, anthropologists and psychologists, leaving those who now bear the undeserved name of judges with only the wording the opinions of this board.

A. F. Koni traces in detail and carefully the connection between the testimony of a witness and his temperament of feeling (sanguine and melancholic), the temperament of activity (choleric and phlegmatic), gender, age, physical disabilities, household and tribal characteristics, profession, education, etc. * He subjects various types of attention to deep analysis (concentrated and scattered, centripetal and centrifugal, hyperaesthetic (acute) and anesthetic (compulsory), etc.). Bright lines are devoted to egoistic memory, reflecting all events and phenomena through the prism of one’s own “ I", to witnesses with a "leaky" memory.

A.F. Koni comes to the correct conclusion that the contradictions between the testimonies of various witnesses are often explained not by the fact that some of them gave truthful testimonies, while others gave false ones, but most often by different properties of the attention and memory of the persons who testified. “Thus,” concludes A.F. Koni, “very often about an event that emerges from a series or a sharp collision, about a tragic situation or a gloomy incident, several testimonies of different people are created, standing in the same external way in relation to them and showing each incompletely, but all together, in their totality, giving a completely complete and true picture.

A.F. Koni makes a special emphasis on the exaggeration of the circumstances and actions observed by the victims of the crime, which they observe. “A simple stick turns out to be a cudgel, a finger threat is a fist raised, a raised voice is a scream, the first step forward is an attack, a sob is a sob, and the words “terrible”, “violent”, “deafening”, “unbearable” - sprinkle the description of what what happened or could happen to the victim. The judges are mistaken, who perceive this natural exaggeration, easily explained by the fact that “fear has big eyes”, as a deliberate lie.

“Before the court, - wrote A.F. Horses are not a dead photographic mechanism, but a living and receptive human organism. This complicates judicial activity, makes the path to the truth thorny and zigzag, but in no way makes it impossible to reveal and achieve the truth in a criminal case. Deep penetration into the psychology of testimonies does not disarm, but, on the contrary, arms investigators and judges in their hard work to establish objective truth. This is the optimistic conclusion that follows from the work "Memory and Attention". There is no doubt that the forensic psychology that is developing today cannot ignore this interesting and remarkable work.

The circle of scientific interests of AF Koni was wide and versatile. He turned to the study of various problems that had social and legal significance. One of them was the problem of suicide, to which he devoted a special work "Suicide in law and life."

A.F. Koni considered the increase in the number of suicides as a social phenomenon. “The black wing of violent death from one’s own hand,” he wrote, “is spreading more and more over humanity, attracting under its gloomy shadow not only people who seem to have suffered B life, HO and tender youth, but also those who lived to a close already graves. He cites data on the growth of suicides in St. Petersburg, Germany and the USA and objects to those who tried to explain suicides only by a state of insanity and drunkenness or inclinations transmitted by virtue of atavism. “... An accidental circumstance or event, which in itself does not have a particularly gloomy nature, is only the last drop in a cup overflowing with worldly suffering, forcing its content to overflow.”

Analyzing the issue of punitive measures against suicide, A.F. Koni considered them cruel and inappropriate, believing that they "hit the shaft, not the horse." Therefore, he welcomed the rejection in Soviet criminal law of the punishment for suicide and attempted suicide.

Concerning the reasons for suicide, A.F. Koni pointed to the collapse of the family and the destruction of its internal harmony, and the socio-political reasons associated with the loss of hope in the “long period of reaction”, to the intensified struggle for existence, causing “extreme need and unemployment”, on “the overcrowding of the population in cities, huddled in huge numbers in the most unhealthy environment, without light and clean air”, on the pernicious effect of cinema, which, instead of scientific, instructive and educational pictures, shows “the methodology of crimes and scenes of suicides, acting contagiously on the young generation”, to the cult of suicide inherent in many works of literature, to bad education in the family and school, which results in the formation of egoists, etc.

The “eternal” question of whether suicide is a manifestation of cowardice or, conversely, strength of character and firm determination, A.F. Koni resolves in such a way that both take place here: the very thought of suicide is a manifestation of cowardice. But the realization of this idea, which is contrary to the natural sense of self-preservation, "requires a strong effort of the will ..."

A.F. Koni also thought about the problem of effectively combating drunkenness as a great social evil that leads to many crimes. He saw the root of evil in the government sale of vodka and alcohol. The prohibition of this sale, caused by the war, led, in his opinion, to the fact that “order and tranquility in the countryside, an obvious and rapid decrease in crime throughout the country, a weakening of hooliganism and an influx of contributions to savings banks, striking in comparison with previous years - serve as brilliant evidence of the beneficence of this measure.

Meanwhile, A.F. Koni pointed out, the finance ministers defended the wine monopoly, since it brought in 700 million rubles. income per year, of which only 28 thousand rubles were spent on the maintenance of hospitals for alcoholics in 1908. A. F. Koni critically assessed the assumption that in connection with the introduction of the state-owned sale of wine, the tavern would cease to exist. “But it was an illusion, and the tavern did not die, but only crawled into the family, introducing corruption into it and accustoming wives and even children to drink vodka. Having officially descended from the face of the earth, the tavern went underground, underground for the secret sale of vodka, becoming even more dangerous from this.

A.F. Koni actively participated in the development and discussion of a number of important bills. Ero speeches testify to his unchanging democratic and progressive aspirations. He objected to those who opposed the passage of the parole bill, citing dissatisfaction with the weakness of repression. “From this point of view,” he said, “the feelings and impressions of the victim of a crime, dissatisfied with the weakness of criminal repression, never, despite the personal examples given here, can and should not serve as a directive for the legislator.”

In his speech, A. F. Koni expressed a number of interesting judgments on the issue of crime and punishment. “Now the idea has been abandoned that criminal punishment can be applied to one common measure, considering that a criminal act is the result of the criminal will of an individual who has developed it in himself, completely independent of everything that OH comes into contact with in life and how this life affects him ... Crime ... is created by a multitude of circumstances and conditions surrounding a person, and to him, standing in the center of this circle, those conditions, being in which, he committed a violation of the law, stretch with radii.

It is this approach to crime that provides the necessary individualization and the imposition of a just punishment, and most importantly, the application of not only punishment for the crime committed, but also the fight against the causes and conditions that contributed to it.

Concerning the theoretical substantiation of the need for conditional early release, A.F. Koni rightly notes: “... We must not forget that a crime subject to court consideration contains both statics and dynamics. Static is the act done and the punishment imposed for it, while dynamics is the application and effect of the punishment. At the same time, we are not talking about the impact of retribution, in which there are no moral foundations, not about the impact of intimidation, but about the impact of correction, for which a number of active measures are needed in terms of dynamics, including such a measure as conditional early release.

A.F. Koni considers conditional early release as an incentive for the speedy correction of the convict. This stimulus cannot be in the convict, the conscious. “that no matter how he behaves, he will not shorten his term of detention, but when he is released, he will meet face to face with alienation and distrust of the prison inmate. This is how passivity develops in him and self-activity freezes. It is necessary to arouse activity in him, to make him in some respects the master of his position, to instill in him that the reduction of the period of his maintenance depends on him ... "

A.F. Koni objected to not extending conditional early release to convicts held in the fortress, since one cannot “hold on to an external sign and make the resolution of the issue depending not on the act, but on the building, believing that correction is possible only in within the prison with traditional towers, and not behind the fortress fence, which in reality in the vast majority of cases does not surround the convict.

A.F. Koni has always emphasized that true humanism in criminal proceedings is achieved not as a result of “forgiveness” and acquittal of the guilty, but as a result of the appointment of a fair punishment and its proper execution.

He spoke in defense of a bill to admit women to the bar. Here, first of all, he argued with the Minister of Justice, who objected to the adoption of this bill. Ero the argument that, being elected to the board of attorneys at law, women will receive disciplinary power over their comrades, A.F. Koni refutes by referring to the speech of the minister himself, in which he divided women “into those who force themselves to obey and who do not know how to obey” “So why should women of the first category,” A.F. Koni asked, “not participate in the adoption of disciplinary measures?” In the opinion of A.F. Koni, the assertion that there is no urgent need to admit women to the legal profession is also false, since there is no shortage of lawyers in most urban areas. Ho law, Koni noted, should not be based on such a need, but be the result of a calmly recognized need of society. And there is a need to admit women to the bar. “For whom is the secret,” A.F. Koni asked, “that life has become extremely expensive? Who does not feel that living conditions have changed tremendously over the past 50 years?.. It is necessary for many who have lived carelessly to go and earn their own bread. It is necessary to personally enter into the struggle for existence, i.e. for a piece of bread. And as a result of this, there is a need for a possible expansion of the areas of honest and shameless activity ... how can the state not come to the aid of this situation and open a new field of activity, open a new way for a woman to earn money?

A. F. Koni reveals the contradiction between the law of 1911, which allowed women to receive higher legal education, and attempts to prevent women from entering the bar. This is a contradiction between the "expanded horizon of knowledge" and "their extremely narrowed application to business." A.F. Koni sharply criticized objections to the admission of women to the bar with reference to the special physical and spiritual properties of female nature.

“How can a woman, we are told, be charged with the duties of a lawyer? Throwing them on a woman, you want to force her to scour business, resort to tricks, circumvent the law, hire false witnesses and, in general, engage in all sorts of nasty things. Ho, gentlemen, if the legal profession sometimes represented some undesirable sides, since it is too large a collection of people, with a motley moral development, then one cannot say that the entire legal profession is only engaged in this ... one cannot characterize the advocacy so sweepingly. .

A.F. Koni critically analyzes two more arguments that contradict each other: 1) “women will have a dangerous and invisible influence on judges” and 2) “women’s modesty must be spared.” “Here lies the hypocrisy, which I allowed myself to speak. The woman will have a dangerous, invisible influence on the judges, this is the siren, the temptress Eve, who will not disdain anything to influence the judge. And right there, nearby, they say that it is necessary to protect her bashfulness, to save her nerves. But one must be consistent: if she is a seductress who does not disdain any tricks, then it is in vain to look for shame in her.

A. F. Koki concludes his brilliant polemical speech with the words: “I think that a woman lawyer will indeed bring some improvement in morals to the bar ..., she will support and strengthen them with her presence, because very often a woman strengthens a person in good intentions. ., oia will bring ennoblement to completely different places ... A woman will not sit in taverns, she will not write half-literate petitions in the back streets. She will come with a legal education, which private intercessors do not have, and she will raise this advocacy closest to the people technically and morally. That is why I am in favor of the draft State Duma and will vote in accordance with it.

Speaking in 1902 at the anniversary meeting of the St. Petersburg Law Society in connection with its 25th anniversary, A.F. Koni highly raised the role and importance of legal science. He pointed out that by merging scientific principles with everyday experience, the legal needs of society are revealed and the right legal consciousness develops in it, that in the presence of three sources that feed the Legal Society - science, legislation and judicial practice - science plays an important role . “Scientific provisions,” said A.F. Koni, “refracted in the legislative prism into a rainbow of individual measures, are embodied in everyday life through judicial practice.”

At the same time, A.F. Koni rightly noted that the alienation of science from practice and its obsequiousness make the influence of science on legislation and judicial practice absolutely insignificant. In the same way, the law, sharply torn off from the people's sense of justice, is doomed to constant circumvention or to application, "violent in methods and fruitless in moral results."

A.F. Koni considered one of the important tasks of legal science to be the development of legal issues caused by life, with the goal of preparing valuable materials for the legislator. “Differently and peculiarly,” said A.F. Koni, “requests, urgent needs and aspirations of life flow, until they fall into the deep river of legislation. Some, falling from the height of the ideal, crushing, foaming and breaking on the stones of worldly prose, then scattering into small and fast streams, then merging together again, quickly and with a murmur rush along; others, obeying the immutable law of history, calmly but inevitably flow down an inclined plane; still others, overflowing the stagnant waters of selfish isolation, flow in musty and slow streams towards the same river. And she takes everyone into herself and, having turned into herself, rolls her waters, laying a channel for herself.

So figuratively and wisely, a great scientist drew a difficult path of transforming scientific proposals into legal norms.

To Anatoly Fedorovich Koni, the words he said in relation to the first chairman of the Moscow District Court E.E. Luminarsky are quite applicable: “He was a real judge”, “a judge from head to toe”. We can add to this: he was "a scientist from head to toe."

A.F. Koni posed and solved scientific problems relevant to the time in which OH lived and worked. Ho B TOM is the scientific strength and value of the works of a great scientist that they do not lose their significance many years later. The theoretical provisions and conclusions of A. F. Koni are relevant even now.

“The right to a fruitful future,” said A.F. Koni, “gives a clear understanding of one's past and respect for what was good and worthy in it. Only before that tomorrow is clearly and definitely drawn, who has not forgotten the lessons, examples and precepts of yesterday.

Soviet jurists carefully and persistently study the works of their talented predecessor, they have retained respect for what was good and worthy in these works. They do not forget the lessons, examples, and covenants he gave yesterday. And that is why the future of Soviet legal science is portrayed as clear and definite, enriched by the achievements of yesterday. Much credit goes to Anatoly Fedorovich Koni for these achievements.