On the Objective Side and Qualification of Group Assault with Intent to Rob, Which Arose as an Excess in the Commission of Theft or Robbery

The work is devoted to the analysis of the objective side and qualification of assault with intent to rob, committed by a group of persons by prior agreement, when the accomplices had previously agreed on theft or robbery, but one of them went beyond the agreement and committed assault with intent to rob (excess), while others, without using violence, continued the theft or robbery. The introduction of the work provides a description of the objective side of the aforementioned assault with intent to rob, committed by a group of persons by prior agreement (pt. 2 of Art. 162 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation of 1996) and sets the task of clarifying the latter for the purposes of proper qualification. The work used the theoretical provisions on complicity in a crime, fixed in the norms of Chapter 7 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the provisions of paragraph 2 of Art. 14.1 of the resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation 2002 No. 29 to solve the problem of describing the objective side of the named assault with intent to rob, committed by a group of persons by prior agreement. For this purpose, the methods of empirical research and theoretical knowledge were used in the work. The objective side of the above-mentioned assault with intent to rob, committed by a group of persons by prior agreement, is violence on the part of one accomplice during his excess (assault with intent to rob) and the use of this violence by other accomplices – but only in the form of awareness (observation) of its application to a living victim and the continuation of the theft of property. Only under such circumstances is it possible to qualify the actions of all accomplices as assault with intent to rob committed by a group of persons by prior agreement (under pt. 2 of Art. 162 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The present study can be used in the practice of applying the norm of pt. 2 of Art. 162 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on assault with intent to rob, committed by a group of persons by prior agreement. The study may be the basis for the development of the concept of “using violence”, which in reality was committed by only one of the accomplices. The study can be used in a radically different way – to exclude the possibility of joining an assault with intent to rob without any violent actions. This will simplify the qualification of accomplices based only on their actual joint violent actions. Especially in the situation under study, when the accomplices of the theft (robbery) had a preliminary conspiracy only to steal (robbery), then one of them committed an assault with intent to rob (excess), and the rest saw this violence (but did not use any violence themselves), only continued to steal property.