Methods of fixing the results of checking testimony on the spot: criminal procedural and forensic aspects

The practice of investigating crimes at the beginning of human history relied on communicative investigative actions, then search actions appeared, and, as a top of the investigative art, a variety of experimental investigative actions became an integral element of the practice of criminal investigation of the previous century, the latest of them was checking testimony on the spot. The value of checking testimony on the spot consists in the possibility to obtain information under proper circumstances during a communicative investigative action. Checking testimony on the spot developed from interrogation. At present it is closest to the investigative action of an investigative experiment. Checking testimony on the spot is an investigative action based on the possibilities of using the knowledge of the nature of associative connections and methods of working with them. New variations of this investigative action and a higher organizational tactical level of its conduct will contribute to its efficiency. When investigating certain types of crimes, the high cognitive value of checking testimony and its considerable evidentiary potential make it a most common and, at the same time, complex activity in organizational and tactical terms. The legislator fixed three conceptual components of checking in the criminal procedure law: reproduction of the situation; indication of objects; demonstration of actions. Based on the essence of the checking of testimony, the author assumes that only reproduction of the situation and indication of objects constitute the conceptual side of checking testimony on the spot. The exclusion of demonstration of actions from the content of this investigative action will make it possible to clearly delineate it from the investigative experiment. Checking testimony on the spot can be divided into types based on different criteria: the purpose of checking testimony on the spot; the veracity of the position of the checked person; the priority of the main task. The author believes that the purpose of checking testimony on the spot as "establishing new circumstances relevant to the case" fixed in Art. 194 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation is not entirely correct, but it is also not correct to conduct it only to check the evidence already available, since it can turn checking testimony on the spot into a simultaneous examination of the area and questioning without any attempt to prove or disprove the reliability of testimony.

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