The Supreme Court has banned the refusal to unlock a phone from being considered evidence of guilt

The refusal of the accused to voluntarily provide the law enforcement agency with mobile phone passwords cannot be interpreted against him and serve as confirmation of his guilt. To this conclusion came Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.

The court considered a cassation appeal in the case of a resident of Volgograd Kasenkov, whom the court of first instance found guilty of attempted sale of drugs on a large scale (part 3 of Art. 4 of Art. 228 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. maximum security colonies. According to the definition, Kasenkov was detained with packages of drugs in December 2020 on the territory of a former cannery, where, according to operatives, the stashes were made.

The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation notes that the courts of the first and appellate instances, refuting the defense’s arguments about Kasenkov’s lack of intent to sell drugs and about the incorrect qualification of his actions, referred to his refusal to voluntarily provide passwords for the mobile phones seized from him. Due to this, experts were unable to access the information on the phone.

“Meanwhile, the refusal of the accused to testify cannot be interpreted against him or even be an indirect confirmation of guilt. According to the presumption of innocence, the accused is not obliged to prove his innocence, and the burden of proving the accusation and refuting the arguments brought in defense of the accused lies with the prosecution,” follows from the definition.

The highest authority emphasizes that it is unacceptable to regard this method of defense as confirmation of the guilt of the accused. In addition, the courts’ conclusion is based on the assumption of possible information in Kasenkov’s phone.

It follows from the definition that the testimony of witnesses does not confirm that Kasenkov took active steps to arrange the stashes, and the police officers do not have any specific information that he intended to carry out illegal sales, since the convict was detained only because that he was in a problem area. Kosenkov himself said that he purchased drugs for personal use.

In this regard, the RF Armed Forces decided to reclassify the charge to a less serious article – Part 2 of Art. 228 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (purchase or possession of narcotic substances on a large scale) and commuted his sentence to three years and three months in a general regime colony.