The Supreme Court of Justice This Thursday, a Cassation ruling was finalized in which the unconstitutionality of life imprisonment was declared in a specific case. The decision was signed by judges Carlos Rosenkrantz, Juan Carlos Maqueda and Horacio Rosatti and was not accompanied by Ricardo Lorenzetti.
The National Chamber of Cassation in Criminal and Correctional Matters of Federal Capital had declared the unconstitutionality of a rule which excludes the possibility of granting conditional release when certain crimes are committed, applied in a sentence of life imprisonment for homicide “criminis causae” against Sebastian Alejandro Guerra.
The Prosecutor’s Office presented a extraordinary resource where he questioned the Cassation ruling, because he considered that it was not the procedural moment of examining the validity of that norm because The convicted person had not served the minimum sentence required for the evaluation of the granting of, for example, conditional release.
Cassation granted the extraordinary appeal to the Prosecutor’s Office and elevated it to the Supreme Court, but it rejected it. He considered that the prosecution “did not refute the arguments of the chamber ruling.”
Although the Cassation decision was not reversed, the highest court avoided ruling on the underlying issue. In his ruling he clarified “that it is pertinent to specify that in the case The constitutional validity of the sentence of life imprisonment is not disputed. In effect, what the appellant alleges is the lack of a specific and current grievance for the convicted person that justifies the declaration of unconstitutionality of article 14 of the CP, since he has not complied with the minimum time necessary to request access to conditional freedom. “says recital 9 of the ruling.
The case in question
In the case on which the Supreme Court ruled, the Oral Court of Minors No. 2 of the Federal Capital had sentenced Sebastián Alejandro Guerra to life imprisonment for “criminis causae” homicide reiterated on two occasions, one of them attempted.
War murdered Maria Luján Campilongo (Federal Police corporal), 34 years old, shot with a firearm and wounded his partner, Diego Hernán Ghiglione28 years old.
The defense of War He had requested the unconstitutionality of the truly life-long prison sentence, due to the impossibility of accessing conditional release and assisted release, among other benefits.
As the Court rejected the defense’s request, the defense appealed to Cassation.instance in which that request was granted. In this case, it was the Prosecutor’s Office who appealed the decision and requested an extraordinary appeal to take the case to the Supreme Court, which rejected it this Thursday.
Source: Ambito
