This text belongs to ‘Dossier Negro’, a newsletter inspired by the podcast of the same name, which Enrique Figueredo will send on Wednesdays on a biweekly basis. If you want to receive it, sign up here.
The institution of the jury is already assimilated into the Spanish administration of justice. This does not mean that lawyers prefer that certain matters go before a professional court and others, by one of citizens chosen by lot. Within the legal world you hear everything. There are lawyers who hate hearings in which the nuances of the criminal system must be explained to an unlearned court and that decisions must be made to the extent that there is or is not a reasonable doubt about the authorship of a certain person. crime. On the other hand, those who are endowed with good oratory skills, if not seduction, lean towards a jury of strangers to convince of the guilt or innocence of an accused. Juries are sometimes the subject of controversy and are even attacked by parties who have not seen their clients’ interests satisfied. Thus, in the latest installment of Dossier Negro it is made clear that disappointment with the outcome of a trial can lead to criticism, even stark, of the figure of the popular jury.
The jury law was approved in Spain in 1995. It was a decision by then-president Felipe González during his last term, but it can be said that that restorative initiative – the country had already had laws referring to popular courts since the Cortes of Cádiz – was a stubbornness of Juan Alberto Belloch, at the time Minister of Justice and Interior.
Makeover. Rodrigo Lanza is the example that there are those who truly believe that appearances are deceiving. Coming from the anti-establishment world, he decided to radically change his alternative aesthetic when he faced a murder trial. The normalized image of him seemed to help him at first, however, the court ordered that the trial be repeated and he was finally convicted.
Kill a thief. A retiree was acquitted of the crime of having shot and killed a thief who entered his home. In this case, the jury’s decision did not have sufficient quorum to declare him guilty and it was the magistrate in the case who, in application of the in dubio pro reo principle, decreed the acquittal of the accused.
Avoid the righteous. There are cases in which those accused of a certain crime decide to agree to confess guilt. They avoid trial by popular jury and get a somewhat more lenient punishment. The son-in-law of the Tous jewelers, who shot and killed a thief, accepted a homicide with serious recklessness and did not go to prison.
The otherness. Getting the jury, even for a moment, to put themselves in the place of the accused is a tool that can be effective if one defends a person accused of homicide as happens in the movie A Time to Kill. Having juries deliberate, as in Twelve Men Without Mercy, can lead to judicial success.