Spasovich, Vladimir Danilovich

Spasovich, Vladimir Danilovich 

(in Polish, Wlodzimierz Spasowicz). Born Jan. 16, 1829, in the city of Re-chitsa, in what is now Gomel’ Oblast; died Oct. 26, 1906, in Warsaw. Russian lawyer; specialist in criminal law.

Spasovich became a professor at the University of St. Petersburg in 1857 and later at the School of Jurisprudence. After the judicial reform of 1864, he became one of the first prisiazhnye poverennye (sworn attorneys) and took part in many well-known trials, including that of the Nechaevtsy. Spasovich wrote numerous works on criminal law and criminal procedure, in which he proposed revising the archaic Russian legal system in order to adapt new bourgeois relations. He was opposed to especially severe forms of punishment, particularly the death penalty. Spasovich also worked in the fields of legal history, copyright law, and excise law.

WORKS

O teorii sudebno-ugotovnykh dokazatel’stv v sviazi s sudoustroistvom i sudoproizvodstvom. St. Petersburg, 1861.
Uchebnik ugolovnogoprava, vol. 1, fases. 1–2. St. Petersburg, 1863.