Experts estimate that during the years of Soviet rule,
between 30 and 55 million people were executed, died in prison camps, or in
exile, and while being transported between camps etc. Between 1962 and 1990 in
the USSR, 24,500 people received the death penalty
and more than 21,000 were executed (about 730 executions
per year). We can compare this with the period of 80 years between 1826 and
1906, when in Russia 612 people were sentenced to death (7 people per year) and
not more than 170 people executed (or 2 people per year).
At the end of 1995, SIZOs
housed 710 inmates sentenced to death whose destiny has not yet been decided.
From 1989 to 1991, in Russia 470 people were given the death sentence and 228
were executed. Between 1993 and 1995, the number of executions reduced to 10 per
year. This became possible in part due to legislative changes stipulating the
possibility of commuting exchange the death penalty to life imprisonment.
In 1995, the President pardoned only 5 people out of 91
prisoners sentenced to death who petitioned for clemency.
From "Scaffolds", by Alexander Mikhlin:
"...By the end of 1990s, there were
over 30 crimes punishable by death in accordance with Russian legislation.
During the period when the 1960 Criminal
Code of the Russian Federation was in force, the greatest number of death
sentences was given in early the 1960s. Thus, in 1960, 1,880 people were
sentenced to death and in 1961 — 2,159. Then the number of those
sentenced to death reduced (1965—1970 — 379—577 per year). During
perestroyka their number continued to decline (in 1986 — 407; 1989 —
100). Later, due to a sharp growth in crime the number of people given the death
penalty increased to 160—200 people...
A convicted person should be explained his
rights to appeal his sentence and to apply for clemency to the President. If a
prisoner refuses to appeal or apply for clemency, The Supreme Court, the
Procuracy General and the Presidential Administration are notified about it.
In any case, the files of death raw
prisoners are considered by these bodies.
An appeal or a petition of clemency
suspends execution until an answer is received.
Prison administration must inform the
Presidential administration what body the appeal in question is in, about new
important circumstances such as death or serious disease of a convict, a change
or abolition of the court's decision, committing a new crime etc.
Bodies carrying out executions act in
accordance with secret instructions.
In Russia, prisoners sentenced to death are
executed by a firing squad.
Before execution, a prisoner is identified
once again and examined by a psychiatrist.. If a death row prisoner is found
mentally disturbed, a commission of three doctors examines him and makes
necessary records in a protocol. If he is found mentally ill and is unable to
control himself, the execution is suspended and the protocol is sent to the
court which sentenced him. Executions in Russia are not public, if it is
necessary to execute several people each of them is executed separately.
A procurator, a director of the institution
where the execution is taking place, and a doctor are present at the execution.
The doctor certifies death and all three sign a protocol concerning it. The law
does not regulate a term of execution. Much time, sometimes even several years,
passes from the moment a sentence comes in force until execution.
The administration of the institution which
carried out the execution informs the court that delivered the sentence and
close relatives of the executed prisoner. The dead body is not delivered to the
family and no information about the place of burial is given".
Point of view Anatoly
Pristavkin, Russian Presidential Clemency Commission Chairman:
In 1991, Sergey Kovalev asked me to become a member of an
independent commission that was supposed to examine all death sentences in
Russia. Many candidates refused to participate in it and Kovalev just attacked
me... Finally, he persuaded me, saying that I will only have to begin this work,
which is so important for Russia. Since that time I have been working in it...
Since I know how much the destiny of these miserable people
depends on other people's help, I accepted Kovalev's proposal but under the
condition that I myself would chose members of the commission — people
who would be independent, incorruptible and respected.
An idea to establish such a commission is not new, it is the
membership of the commission that is unusual. During the Stalin era peopled were
killed without second thoughts. The same was true under Khruschev and
Brezhnev... Sometimes people were pardoned. But how? This was decided in a close
circle.
I organized a team of the incorruptible. 13 is a magic
number. One half of them is for the death penalty, the other half is against it.
We consider the cases of all people sentenced to death
regardless of whether they apply for clemency or not.
In 1992, when we began, the Commission pardoned 55 of 56
death row inmates; in 1993, 149 out of 153; and in 1994, 124 out of 137. There
were only three penalties for serious crimes in Russian then: 20 years, 15 years
or death. But sometimes it is not enough to give 20 years or too much to
sentence to death. We presented a draft law on the introduction of the life
sentence to the Supreme Council.
The worst thing in Russia is the high number of judicial
errors. Law enforcement bodies act extremely rudely and extract confessions even
from the innocent. Heaving headed the Commission, I asked for a month to study
all questionable sentences of the last years. Unjust sentences, when innocent
people were executed for crimes committed by others, were everywhere — in
Vitebsk, Smolensk, Irkutsk, Yekaterinburg. Let alone the last executed woman.
She bribed high ranking officials in Sochi with food products. After the death
sentence was pronounced she lost her mind in prison, she did not recognize her
daughter and was crying all the time. But in spite of this, she was executed...
Our conclusions, of course, are only a base for the
President's decision. Yeltsin himself does not read our conclusions, all the
papers go through his advisers. I remember only two cases where he wrote with
his own hand: "reject". In summer of 1994, the Presidential
administration examined our work and found it "not professional
enough", that there were too few lawyers among its members and decisions
were "not objective enough". The Commission, allegedly, spoils
"the President's reputation as a humane, strong and just state
leader". But will you tell me: what does professionalism have to do with
clemency? Why should the President be considered just only if he sends to death
as many of his countrymen as possible? These people are afraid that Boris
Yeltsin does not look like a strong fighter against crime, that is why we feel
pressure from the Kremlin and are advised to be more merciless...
We believed that after the communist era we would make first step toward
common agreement and begin to build a new society. Now it turns out that we are
deep down in the old. We have to fight again and again. I am rara avis here. Our
Commission is not just a group of ordinary bureaucrats. It is a stillborn fetus,
ichthyosaurs, relic of the democratic breakthrough of 1991. That is why we won't
stay long. It is completely evident for me".
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Point
of view Anatoly Pristavkin, Russian Presidential Clemency Commission
Chairman