RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Tuesday, September 29th, the 1st Panel of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) upheld the acquittal of a man who tried to stab his ex-wife to death on suspicion of marriage betrayal by his partner.
In the jury trial held in 2017, the defense argued that the attack had been based on “self-defense of honor,” an argument that garnered unanimous support from the jury at the time. A majority of the STF justices understood that the jury’s decision is sovereign and may not be altered.
The vote ended 3-2 in favor of upholding the acquittal, with favorable votes from rapporteur Marco Aurélio Mello and Justices Dias Toffoli and Rosa Weber. Justices Alexandre de Moraes and Luis Roberto Barroso dissented. The Minas Gerais Court of Appeals (TJ-MG) and the Federal Superior Court (STJ) had ruled that acquittal was contrary to the evidence gathered in the case and ordered a new jury trial, but the STF ruling means the defendant is a free man.
In Brazil, intentional crimes against life, such as murder and attempted murder, are tried by a jury of seven people (who cannot be lawyers). They hear the arguments presented by the prosecution and defense and vote to acquit or convict the defendants. This jury decision is considered sovereign, that is, it may not be altered, as the STF has confirmed in recent cases.
In 2017, a jury trial was held in a city near Belo Horizonte to try the man who in May 2016 stabbed his ex-partner from whom he had separated the previous week.
He escaped after the attack, but was arrested afterwards. He confessed to the police and the court that he suspected the woman was having an affair with another man. “It got out of control” was how he described the moment, reporting that the suspicion against the victim “took over his mind” until the day he attacked her near a church, striking her with a serrated knife that injured the woman in the back and head. “I stabbed my ex three times, because I saw several romantic chats on her cell phone, I’m a worker and I absolutely can’t accept such a humiliating situation,” he told the police officer who arrested him after the attack, according to the officer’s statement to the courts. The assailant remained in custody until the trial.
At the trial, his defense focused on the “legitimate defense of honor” argument. “She was his wife and she was messing with him. She did not have to do that. But she did. But she was dressed at the hospital and went home. It’s a husband and wife story,” said attorney José Ramos Guedes. “I pleaded legitimate defense of honor. The man trusts her and she goes out to do something. He was annoyed, he felt dishonored,” added the attorney.
Guedes’ argument garnered unanimous support among the jury. The defendant was acquitted and released after the trial. The Prosecutor’s Office appealed to the Minas Gerais Appellate Court to have the jury decision overturned. The Court annulled the jury’s decision as contrary to the facts and ordered a new trial, a decision upheld by the STJ, but overturned by the STF.
Supreme Court
To argue his vote in favor of upholding the defendant’s acquittal, STF rapporteur Marco Aurélio Mello based his opinion on the Federal Constitution. “The higher law ensures the sovereignty of verdicts. What is a jury trial? It is a trial by ones peers, it is a trial by laymen, based on this constitutional provision,” he said.
Justice Dias Toffoli echoed this approach, noting that the jury has sovereignty over its verdicts for either conviction or acquittal. “The jury court is an anachronistic institution, we have a homicide epidemic in Brazil, violence against women is a part of this epidemic, one of the most serious, not only women, but also children, adolescents, homosexuals, we know that and the Court has provided very emphatic responses on this matter. As a justice, as a magistrate, I cannot avoid what is established in the constitution, article 5, item 38”.
Justice Rosa Weber also stressed that the case is very “delicate”, but that she would vote with the understanding that “the constitutional rule prevails”.
The opposing votes discussed the feasibility of overturning the jury verdict, as well as the weight of the argument of defense of honor long contested by experts.
For Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who voted against upholding the acquittal, it is constitutionally possible for a new trial to be held by the jury’s court and it should not become an “indisputable, unlimited power, without any possibility of reexamination”.
For his part, Justice Barroso pointed out that he would not like to live in a country where men could kill women out of jealousy and go unpunished. “If we endorse the acquittal of such a serious femicide, it seems we are conveying the message that a man, by feeling betrayed, can stab his wife, trying to kill her in legitimate defense of honor or whatever his argument may be. It doesn’t seem that such an argument can be sustained in the 21st century,” he reasoned, but he was ultimately defeated.
Source: Estadão Conteúdo