Giving Oneself Up

the act of voluntarily declaring to a judge, procurator, or investigator that one has committed a crime. The declaration must be made in either oral or written form by a citizen before he has been arrested or interrogated as a suspect or guilty party. An oral declaration must be recorded in a document signed by the person making the statement and by the official to whom it is made (Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR,art. 111).

Giving oneself up may be viewed as a circumstance mitigating guilt, depending on the completeness and truthfulness of the statement and on the motive for making it (Criminal Code of the RSFSR, art. 38, par. 9). In certain situations the law provides that a person who gives himself up is freed from criminal responsibility; for example, a person who gave a bribe and then voluntarily told what had happened would be freed.