Currently one of the promising directions of criminology is the development of forensic guidelines for public prosecutors and judges with a view to their use in court. This area is still not sufficiently developed; the forensic science emphasizes the view about the limitation of the subject matter of criminology exclusively in the framework of the preliminary investigation. The article presents the points of view of leading Soviet and Russian scientists-criminalists made at different times about the possibility and the need to use forensic expertise in court. The article considers criminalistic description of judicial investigation, as the third basic component in building of forensic techniques of preliminary and judicial investigation on criminal cases about the murders. The author proposes the definition of the criminalistic characteristics, distinguishes its structural elements. The formulation is given to the concept and classification is offered of the situations of judicial investigation as the central element of criminalistic characteristics of a judicial investigation of criminal cases about murders.