Приговор при свечах / Judgment in candlelight - Владимир Анатольевич Арсентьев

warden heard a splash, she must have imagined that a ghost of a monk blindly plunged his mug into the pail. The monk then retreated to his cell with a mugful of rainwater. Before sunrise, the writer’s alpha rhythm quietly turned into a nap on the table.

The proceedings continued at the appointed time in the morning. Initially, Sukhaya was charged with particularly grave offenses, namely attempted murder of two persons – Tyapkin and Potapova – and an attempt on the life of a police officer, Volkov. As requested by the parties, the court heard additional witnesses, clarified the testimonies of the victims and the defendant, and resolved motions. Then the court proceeded to the arguments. The state prosecuting attorney – the prosecutor of a remote northern area of East Siberia – expressed a point of view that was based on the results of the proceedings and aligned with the judge’s night project (which remained a secret for the time being). The court asked the defendant if she had any last words and retired to the chambers. Then, the presiding judge signed the verdict and announced it.

According to the verdict,[160] the court found that Sukhaya deliberately inflicted grievous bodily injury in Tyapkin and threatened Potapova and Volkov with murder under the following circumstances:

On April 18, at about eleven o’clock in the morning, a drunk Sukhaya stabbed her partner Tyapkin in the stomach with a kitchen knife during an altercation on a stairway landing. Doing that out of personal hostility, she intentionally inflicted grievous bodily injury in Tyapkin that endangered his life. She gave him a stab and slash wound on the right side of his anterior abdominal wall, which penetrated the abdomen, damaging his common bile duct and gall bladder and provoking bile peritonitis.

Around the same time, in the same place, Sukhaya started an altercation with her daughter Potapova and Volkov, who was visiting Potapova, and threatened out of personal hostility to kill both with the same knife.

Both had good grounds to fear that Sukhaya would carry out her threat, as she tried to stab Potapova in the stomach and later – after wounding Tyapkin – to stab Volkov in the groin. At that point, Volkov managed to snatch the knife from her hand.

During the court session, Sukhaya explained that she stabbed Tyapkin in the stomach with her knife during a morning altercation because she had been drunk at the time of the event.

The defendant did not deny having a conflict with Potapova and Volkov. She believed that Volkov took the knife from her on the same spot where she had wounded Tyapkin.

The judicial panel heard the defendant, questioned the victims and witnesses, checked the case file, and examined the evidence. After that, the court found the defendant guilty, as substantiated by the following:

Victim Tyapkin testified that on the night of April 17, he and Sukhaya had an altercation that escalated into a fight and continued on the next morning. He did not want to have a row with Sukhaya, who was drinking alcohol in her apartment, so he went to Potapova, her daughter who lived next door. Sukhaya barged in twice, quarreled with everyone in Potapova’s apartment, insulting them, and even broke a window. While Tyapkin was escorting Sukhaya out of Potapova’s apartment, Sukhaya stabbed him in the stomach on the stairway landing, which made him fall unconscious.

According to victim Potapova’s testimony, Potapov and Kosolapov were drinking alcohol in her apartment, when Volkov came to visit, and then Tyapkin arrived. After that, her mother Sukhaya barged in twice, insulting everyone with profanities, starting a row and breaking a window glass. The second time Sukhaya came with a knife, threatened Potapova with murder, which threat she believed, and tried to stab her in the stomach. Then Sukhaya stabbed Tyapkin in the stomach with the same knife on the stairway landing. In doing so, she used her free hand to grab him by his clothes, pulled them over his head, thereby making him lean forward, and stabbed him using her other hand. While standing on the same spot, Sukhaya threatened to kill Volkov and tried to stab him in the groin. Volkov managed to snatch the knife from her hand, and Potapova called the police and the ambulance.

Victim Volkov confirmed Potapova’s testimony that Sukhaya attacked her with a knife, threatening to kill her, and then attacked Tyapkin, grabbing him by his clothes, pulling them over his head, and stabbing him in the stomach.

Then Volkov testified that at the same place, at the same time, Sukhaya threatened to kill him, too, which threat he took quite seriously, and that she insulted him and tried to stab him in the groin with the knife he managed to snatch from her.

The testimonies of witnesses Potapov and Kosolapov confirmed the story above: in their presence, Sukhaya attacked Potapova, then Tyapkin, whom she injured, and then Volkov with the same knife.

According to the record of seizure and the following examination, a kitchen knife was found and seized in Sukhaya’s apartment. The knife had a wooden handle and a 170-mm blade with stains looking like blood.

The defendant confirmed that it was the very knife she used to inflict grievous bodily injury on Tyapkin by stabbing him in the stomach.

The forensic medical examination showed that Tyapkin suffered grievous bodily injury that endangered his life, namely a stab and slash wound on the right side of his anterior abdominal wall, which penetrated the abdomen, damaging his common bile duct and gall bladder and provoking bile peritonitis. The wound was inflicted by the knife submitted as forensic evidence.

Having considered the aggregate evidence, the court found the defendant guilty.

With all of the above taken into account, the judicial panel qualified Sukhaya’s acts under Article 111 Section 1 of the CC RF – intentional infliction of grave bodily injury causing an impairment of Tyapkin’s health, and Article 119 of the CC RF –