THE CORUMBIARA CASE

• POLICE INVESTIGATION

When an act, defined as a penal infraction is practiced, there appears for the State-judge the right to punish that can only be established through judicial process. In order to propose criminal procedure, however, it is necessary that there is a minimum of probatory elements that indicate the occurrence of a penal infraction and its authorship, it being that it is most commonly obtained with a police investigation (in the terms of the 4th and 5th articles of the Code of Penal Process).
It is not the “process” investigative, but administrative-informative procedure destined to provide the organ of the accusation with the minimum of necessary elements to propose the criminal procedure. In other words, police investigation is the set of data - testimonial, expertise and in document - gathered by the Police and taken to the Prosecutor, so that the said can promote the criminal procedure.

• ACCUSATION - [summary] [full] [up page]
  
  The accusation - article 24 of the Code of Penal Process - constitutes a piece of the judiciary process where the titular of the criminal action minutely describes the anti-juridical conduct, the specification of the penal type and, requests the repressing performance of the State, culminating with the application of the sanction pre-established in the legislation. Commonly, the accusation is a communication that the Public Ministry makes to the Judge of Justice, demonstrating and giving proof that the act or acts practiced by one or more persons constitute a crime and, in the end, he asks that these offenders be properly reprehended for the damages caused.

 

• PRELIMINARY DEFENSE - [summary] [full] [up page]  

Preliminary allegations, also calls for preliminary defense, it is a stated faculty in article 395 of the Code of Penal Process. It is the argument in which the accused will deduce that which he intends to develop as defense in the criminal instruction. It constitutes an exhibition of the fact and the right that is destined to demonstrate that “the criminal fact did not take place, that a fact does not constitute a crime, or that the indicated person was not the one who practiced it.”

• FINAL ALLEGATIONS - [summary - accusation, defense] - [full - accusation, defense] [up page]

  Both the Public Ministry and the legal defender of the defendant have period of five days for their deductions, according to article 406 of the Code of Penal Process.
  Having completed the instructions of the fact, both parties (the Promoter of Justice and the defendant's lawyer) must make their final arguments, in the period of time that precedes the proffering of the sentence on the charges. In this phase the accusation tries to demonstrate to, and to convince the pronouncing judge of the sentence to uphold the charges against the defendant, so that the said is judged before the Court of Jury for the crimes imputed to him. The defense in its turn will try to demonstrate the opposite, obviously.

• SENTENCE OF PRONUNCIATION - [summary] [full] [up page]
  

  As it is stated in article 408 of Code of Penal Process, it is a sentence in the formal sense and not in the substancial sense. The pronunciation is a sentence in a judicial process of declaratory content, in which the judge proclaims the accusation acceptable, so that the said is decided in the Plenary of the Jury. That is to say: it is an act by the Judge of Judge on his own, in which he before the presence of evidences and indications of the authorship of a certain crime, declares to the society that a certain person or certain people will be judged before the Court of Jury.

• RECOURSE IN STRICT SENSE - [summary] [full of accusation, of sentence] [up page]

  Listed in the article 581 of the Code of Penal Process are the passive decisions of being refuted by the recourse in the strict sense, among them, the register of the sentences of the charges (pronounce) or withdrawal of charges (inpronounce).
  In the resource in strict sense, the re-examining of the decision of the judge proceeds, in matters specified in law, allowing a new pronouncement before the trial in a superior instance. It applies in the sentences, in strict sense, as well as in rulings, permitting their promulgator to oppose the trial by the court with the retraction of the refuted decision. It is, simply, of a writing and formal manifestation, from the party who so felt and was damaged in his interests by an act practiced by the judge, during the instruction of the penal process.

   

• BILL OF INDICTMENT – ACCUSATORY CRIME - [summary] [full] [up page]
  
  The bill of indictment – accusatory crime is the act of a judicial process for the postulation of the accusation, as stated in article 417 of the Code of Penal Process.
  It is the written and articulated exposition of the criminal fact and of its circumstances, deduced one by one, in simple and clear proposition, only containing what is indispensable for the comprehension of them.

 

• REQUEST OF CHANGE OF JURISDICTION - [summary] [full] [up page]

  It is stated in article 424 of the Code of Penal Process, that: “If, in the interest of public order it is requested, or there is doubt of the impartiality of the jury or of the personal safety of the defendant, the Court of Appeal, on the solicitation of any of the parties or by way of representation by the judge, and always consulting the general prosecutor, can change the jurisdiction of the trial to another judicial district or term, where these reasons do not subsist, after the information from the Judge of Justice, if the measure has not been requested, “ex-officio”, by him.
  It is for this reason that the changing of jurisdiction is the displacement of the competence of the jury for the nearest judicial district, whenever there is interest in public order, doubt of the impartiality of the jury, or risk of security in relation to the defendant, or when, one (01) year has elapsed from the receiving of the bill of indictment, the trial has not been accomplished.

• SENTENCE OF SUPERIOR COURTS (ACÓRDÃO) - [summary - acórdão of the request for change of jurisdiction, resource in strict sense] [full acórdão og the request for change of jurisdction, resource in strict sense] [up page]

An act referring to judicial processes, prescribed in article 425 and others to follow, of the Internal Regiment of this Court. This is constituted in a decision uttered by the superior courts (District, State and Federal) judging, preliminarily or meritoriously, matters proposed for analysis, by means of interposition of their own recourses described in the legislation and respective Regiments.