What can we learn from the first cases of the Innocence Project Brazil (VI)
the Cleber Case
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20276229Keywords:
criminal evidence, evaluation of evidence, eyewitness identification, presumption of innocence, learning from errorsAbstract
The article analyzes the Cleber case, critically examining the first- and second-instance judgments that resulted in his conviction for sexual abuse of a vulnerable person, identifying flaws in the decisional and justificatory reasoning, particularly regarding: the uncritical acceptance of the victim’s testimony without any epistemic monitoring of the declarant’s honesty, perceptual accuracy, and mnemonic reliability; the distortion of the case record evidence; the disregard of alibi evidence; and the absence of genuine engagement with the issues raised by the defense throughout the proceedings. The study concludes by mapping the factors that likely contributed to the error: automatic admissibility of charges, the ordering and maintenance of pretrial detention, inadequate evaluation of memory-dependent evidence, the absence of a structured decision-making method, and a misunderstanding of the criminal judge’s role.
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