Figure of the day: Themis in Russia justifies officials 12 times more often than ordinary citizens

Themis in 2021 has become even more caring for the bureaucracy, the Media.Equality channel notes. Although 63% of officials were convicted under grave and especially grave articles (among all persons - 29%), they:

– 12 times more likely to justify (2.6% versus 0.21%);

– they stopped cases more often (28% versus 22%);

– negligence was more often recognized (7% vs. 2%);

– were less often deprived of liberty (15% versus 28%).

Experts explain these figures as follows:

“In 2020, the courts acquitted 2.4% of civil servants in a general manner. If there is a combo (an official, a businessman, a millionaire, etc.), then the chances of freedom are even higher.

So, the Kamchatka ex-deputy from the United Russia, Igor Redkin , was given 9 months. restrictions on freedom for the murder of 30-year-old Andrey Tolstopyatov, whom he confused with a bear. The accusation proved that the official was drunk and preyed on people. But the court, of course, could not believe such incredible nonsense, although it recognized the illegality of hunting. You will have to sit in a mansion and pay 60,000 rubles, which is very detrimental for a rich man with 716 million rubles.”

How we thought

1. Source of information - data of the Judicial Department under the RF Armed Forces for 2021.
2. Among the defendants in 2021 (total 739,632 persons), those who walked in the general order were taken into account. The adoption of a special order or a deal with the investigation (in the amount of 162,501 persons) presupposes an admission of guilt, which makes it impossible for the defendant to be acquitted.
3. Private prosecution (8124 defendants) is also excluded, which accounts for the lion's share of those acquitted (1393 out of 2319 persons). These are cases of minor gravity for minor bodily harm, beatings and slander, which can go directly to the Magistrate's Court, bypassing the investigation stage, which affects the frequency of acquittals. In addition, they rarely affect officials.
4. Acquitted - those defendants who were acquitted by the court or whose case was dismissed on exonerating grounds.
5. Termination of a case on non-rehabilitating grounds is more often associated with reconciliation with the victim, active repentance, or a judicial fine.
6. Most often, civil servants were tried for fraud, bribes and embezzlement. Among all those convicted under these articles, 0.51% were acquitted, that is, 5 times less often than officials.
7. The average term of imprisonment is calculated as a weighted average. The average term of imprisonment per 1 defendant is the same value, but multiplied by the probability of getting a real term.
8. Restrictions. The data obtained on the percentage of those acquitted is much lower than the real probability of being acquitted in case of complete disagreement with the charges. Most of the defendants plead guilty in part and at the same time do not take or cannot take a special order - in this case, they also cannot count on an acquittal. If we also exclude this category of persons, consider those who file a complaint against the annulment of the sentence as completely denying the guilt and attribute the number of acquitted to them, then the chances of acquittal in district courts will be about 3.6% instead of 0.48%. Officials' chances of justification will also increase significantly, although the gap is likely to narrow. But for calculations using this more accurate approach for different social groups, there is not enough data in open sources.