A new ruling resolved to aggravate the sentence that fell on Marcos Abdala, who faced a trial for kicking the dog Byron to death in Roca. The case turned around in the Río Negro Challenge Court, an organization that once once more seemed it lacks legal security due to the disparity in its resolutions.
While the Judiciary makes a formidable effort to get closer to the citizenry, cCertain organisms generate confusion in ordinary people. This is the case of the Court of Appeal which, once once more, reached a conclusion almost at the opposite pole.
Marcos Abdala had been sentenced last year in Roca for kick Byron the dog. The crime was classified as animal abuse and he was given a suspended sentence of four months. The defense filed an appeal and the first Appeal Court acquitted him but before a second appeal, the same body – with another integration – He not only ordered to condemn him but to aggravate his sentence for acts of animal cruelty.
National Law 14,346 provides penalties ranging from fifteen days to one year for those who commit mistreatment or acts of cruelty to animals. He distinguishes, for example, not feeding as mistreatment, and perversity as an act of cruelty. The latter was one of the points that was settled in dissimilar arguments between the two integrations of judges and judges.
The Court of Appeal was created for the criminal procedure reform of 2017 and It is made up of three judges and one female judge. Consolidated the new criminal justice administration system, the body became the exegete of the code, although its rulings are not part of binding legal doctrine.
Six years following the reform, the profiles are well defined: the gender perspective, the absolute guarantee, excessive proceduralism and the votes that are drawn up according to what society asks for.
In any case, sometimes it is inexplicable for the public how cases enter a “loop” within the court itself and are reviewed ad nauseam with different conclusions reaching diametrically opposed solutions. Phone for legislators or a patch for the procedural code.
In the Byron case, a Roca judge first convicted Abdala of acts of mistreatment, then the Court of Appeal acquitted him in a split ruling. Faced with a second appeal, the same Court of Appeal but with another integration returned to fail divided and He sent the case to Roca so that the sentence for acts of animal cruelty be aggravated. It is disputed whether Abdala kicked Byron once or twice and whether one of those blows ruptured his liver. Was there abuse or was there cruelty?
In the last sentence, Judge Adrián Zimmermann voted not to open the appeal to the prosecution and the complaint because they had not challenged the original ruling. Judges Guillermo Bustamante and Marcelo Chironi apologized for reaching a different conclusion from the first vote. Throughout the text, Zimmermann is referred to as the “distinguished colleague” four times. A lot of formalism, but they organized a majority and the cause returns to Roca.
“The icing on the cake” of this ping pong in the review body is that the two magistrates who decided to forward the ruling to the first instance judge were subrogating two of the judges who had failed in the first integration of the body. They are two judges from Viedma.
This is what happens every time the Court reviews a case for the second time, it needs subrogations to rule. The fact that the Court of Appeal has a conformation of four people causes this effect: resolutions sometimes resemble the lottery.
First TI ruling also by majority
The first review was made up of judges Carlos Mohamed Mussi, Miguel Ángel Cardella and judge María Rita Custet Llambí and they resolved to acquit the accused. These are three organic members of the court.
For Cardella and Custet, the fact did not constitute the crime of animal cruelty. They argued that beyond the fraud, it was not proven that the defendant had a special motivation: “to kill for the mere spirit of perversity.” For Mussi, on the other hand, the “deliberate” hit led to the crime of animal abuse.
Why did the same body deal with the same case twice?
not that it comes from a procedural guarantee that arises from international conventions. Technically it is called horizontal review and it is used in cases in which the body revokes a decision. Lawyers who litigate in criminal courts explained that in these cases the TI must guarantee a “double conform” for the party that “suffered” the revocation.
Since the body is made up of three judges and one female judge, for each second review it is necessary to add at least two more magistrates, as happened in this case. The lawyers consulted stated that it is logical, depending on the results, to raise a great question regarding the performance of the reviewing body. It is not the first time that the resolutions take different legal arguments to pay completely different sentences.
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