Opening Statements by Parties to Jury in the Context of a Trial Practices

The article is devoted to the problems of the form and content of the opening statement of the parties in a trial with the participation of jurors. The criminal procedure law generally regulates the procedure for participants in proceedings to make an opening statement, when the state prosecutor sets out the essence of the charge, the defense attorney expresses a position agreed with the defendant on this issue, and both parties discuss the procedure for examining the evidence. The legislator has not proposed detailed regulation related to the system of duties, restrictions and prohibitions. The framework resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation does not fill these gaps. In this regard, during the administration of justice, questions often arise regarding the application of the provisions of Article 335 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. It seems that the answers to most of them have been developed by judicial practice. Drawing on decisions of courts of appeal and cassation, including the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, the author offers a typology of errors that are often made by participants in the process, by studying which one can avoid difficulties of a purely practical nature and thereby improve the quality of justice. Such errors include discussing the procedural side of a criminal case (including reliability, relevance and admissibility, as well as the content of evidence that has not yet been examined), disclosing information about the identity of participants in the process (which does not relate to the factual side of the case), assessing the quality of work law enforcement agencies, as well as the use of schemes, plans and various types of technical means. The above errors are revealed by the author in the work, taking into account the prospect of appealing the final court decision.