Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Recently, the Brazilian Journal of Criminal Procedure has changed its editorial policies to allow and encourage the submission of manuscripts in preprint and postprint servers, in accordance with guidelines from COPE and Scielo. The goal of this modification is to improve the publicity, transparency and celerity of scientific results communication. Based on bibliographical review, the current editorial aims to analyze some aspects of this scientific practice, such as its origin, definition, benefits and problems, focusing on the Legal Sciences – especially the Criminal Sciences. The conclusion is that the increased use of preprints provides new perspectives to the scientific production and editing, contributing to the consolidation of open science practices. The risks and benefits must be carefully weighted, but the potential advantages of preprints – such as faster dissemination of results and the possibility of wider debate and research improvement before the definitive publication – prevail.

Usually, according to the grammar of the modern political-constitutional systems of civil law, the places of politics are the Parliament and the government; judges and courts are governed by other principles, those of merit ascertained impartially and under conditions of equality. On the one hand, the elective principle, on the other, the selective principle. Judges are connected to politics only indirectly, through the law, which the Judiciary must obey. Parliament and government are the places of democracy, the other is the home of the best, or of technicians, or of competence. However, dogmas and concepts that once signaled the distinction between what pertains to the judiciary and what, on the other hand, escapes its dominion, become in turn elusive, and to overcome many difficulties that derive from these ambiguities, it is now silently headed to a hybrid figure of the "political magistrate". Passing through the myth of the "strong man", powered by the anti-elitist spirit and some social bitterness, up to the current absence of gravitas in the management of collective decisions, to the ways of forming public opinion and its influence on political decisions , in this editorial the Authors reflect on the interpretative frameworks of the transformations we are experiencing - widely discussed in the Italian criminal procedure system – aiming to stimulate the debate on the theme of the "fight against corruption", both from a general perspective, and, more specifically, in its relations with the principle of criminal legality.

The paper analyzes the role assigned by the legislator to the entity in the fight against corruption, paying attention to the provision contained in paragraph 5-bis of art. 25 (bribery, undue induction to give or promise benefits and corruption) d. lgs. June 8, 2001, n. 231. The essay highlights the practical application criticalities of this provision and their main causes, among which the growing tendency to overload the institution with insufficiently rewarded cooperative burdens, which, even according to a constitutionally oriented reading, should, at the very least, to be equally shared with public authorities. The solution proposed is the one recommended by the B20 summit in Los Cabos (Mexico) on 17 June 2012: developing a clear and concrete reference framework that exactly disciplines conditions, terms and advantages of the institution’s cooperation in the judicial authority investigations, so as to guarantee an equilibrated and acceptable balance between preventive-repressive efficiency and freedom needs for the institution and within the institution. 

The gradual implementation of a precedent model in the Brazilian legal system was not formally inserted in the Code of Criminal Procedure (CPP). Nevertheless, it is important to debate whether the effects of this new paradigm are also (or will be) being felt in the criminal procedure. Beyond all the topics that could be discussed from this perspective, in this article we will specifically face the modifications of the of the criminal appeals to the superior courts admissibility, due to the advent of the Civil procedure Code (CPC 2015). This is a discussion which should the criminal process take place, considering its very important applications and practical developments for the parties in Superior Courts criminal proceedings, as well as for their Judging bodies. The hypothesis of which we depart is that there have been effective changes in the way criminal appeals to the superior courts should be elaborated and judged due to the CPC 2015. To reach that, we will present the results of the analysis carried out of the applicable legislation, the jurisprudence that has been produced on the subject, and we will present the contributions of authors who have already studied this theme.

The research seeks to solve the problem of the lack of an adequate model to base the decisions that deal with pretrial detentions in view of its inadequate practical application. It is used as hypothesis an argumentative model based on proportionality and presented in the form of axioms, which would be able to solve the problem of reasoning, because linked to the preservation of fundamental rights. The objective is, then, to establish a model for the foundation of court decisions dealing with precautionary arrests with a view to reducing discretion. To achieve the objective of the study, the deductive method was employed, in addition to the electronic and bibliographic research means. The research took place through general and specific doctrines on the subject, as well as scientific articles. The theoretical framework uses the doctrine of Robert Alexy, of Luigi Ferrajoli, as well as the hermeneutic critique of Lenio Streck's. It is concluded by the necessary use of proportionality from a reading of philosophical hermeneutics by the decision that decrees or maintains pretrial detentions, being always necessary to pay attention to the gravity of the imposed measure and the end that it seeks to protect. Inadequate, unnecessary or extremely serious measures must not be admitted, and the concrete circumstances of the fact must be observed, being the generic and abstract motives inadmissible.

The question that drives this article is: can the North American plea bargaining originate by means considered by contemporary doctrine as predominantly "inquisitorial"? If so, and considering that 95% of the cases in that country are resolved by plea bargaining, does it make sense to continue saying that the criminal procedure system in the United States of America is "adversarial"? And more: deconstructed the labels that predominate in the doctrine around this theme, does it make sense to insist on the use of the dichotomy of criminal procedural systems, in adversarial versus inquisitorial, notably in the discussion of the adoption of procedural models inspired by the American plea bargaining? These questions are intended to be answered based on the historical reconstruction of plea bargaining in the United States, which goes back to its Puritan colonization, its attachment to economic disputes and the practices introduced in the 17th century, whose primitive expression is found in the famous judgment of the “witches of Salem” in Massachusetts. The article then explores how things went in this case, identifying the similarity between the methods used in the Salem witches' trial and the modern plea bargaining. Physical and psychological torture, linked to the possibility of harsh penalties, which frightened those accused of heresy in the processes of the medieval inquisition, as well as their limited possibility of defense, were also found in the Salem witch trials. Thus, what can be seen is that a criminal justice model perpetuated as "inquisitorial" by cultural transmission has been perpetuated, as a medieval heritage in parts of the North American criminal process. This shows that there is no conceptual rigidity about criminal procedural systems, contradicting a significant part of contemporary doctrine that continues to cling to the inquisitorial versus adversarial dichotomy. And it allows us to move forward, detaching ourselves from this doctrinal dichotomous tie, which is typical of the pretensions of scientific organization of the 19th century in Europe, and which has since promoted a dualist vision and which does not accept to see anything beyond the antagonistic labels of inquisitorial or adversarial, to inquire whether it is convenient or not and in what terms, in light of the 1988 Constitution, to adopt models inspired by the American bargaining model in Brazil.

This article analyzes the permanence of the Inquisitory culture in Latin America and the weight of the Inquisitory mentality within the Brazilian criminal process, especially in the preliminary phase, which deals with the main nucleus of the probative formation used by the judge in the sentence, in order to answer the following problem: what are the main obstacles in the Brazilian criminal process today so that there is an effectively contradictory judgment? For this purpose, it is evaluated through the study of classical and contemporary criminal process doctrines the implications on the legitimacy admitted by the Brazilian criminal process, mainly through the “dirty game” brought by the breach of article 155 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which contaminates the magistrate with the police inquiry and in conjunction with signifiers such as “free conviction” and “real truth” serve as obstacles to judgment based solely on contradictory acts and the participation of all parties involved in the process.

Forensic clinical assessment is an ethical-technical-scientific process that investigates the psychological processes (emotional, cognitive and behavioral) of one or more individuals involved in an offense, aiming to satisfy a demand of the legal context. This article aimed to bring up the current situation of psychological evaluation in the Brazilian forensic context, focusing on "sexual offenders". To this end, a narrative review of the national scientific literature was carried out through articles and book chapters, with attention to the methodological components of psychological assessment (interview and psychological testing itself) on the assessment of personality, risk of violence and violence. criminal recidivism, aggressiveness, psychopathy and impulsivity, variables involved in this context. In addition, the legal basis for the forensic psychologist's work was observed in the areas governed by the Penal Code, the Penal Procedural Code and the Law on Criminal Execution. The results point to a national scientific and methodological scarcity about the evaluation of sexual offenders. However, the studies developed are moving towards bridging this gap, so that the more experience in the legal context, the better the forensic psychologist will be able to satisfy the legal demands.

The following paper is based on the analysis of three different procedural systems, all of them which coexist in Argentina: the reformed inquisitorial (applicable at federal and national justice), the first (Provincia de Buenos Aires) and second generation adversarial (Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires). In the incoming lines, I’ll intend to review the similarities and differences that exist in relation to the defendant’s right of introducing proof during the investigation stage of the process. In order to do this, I’ll try to look up how this constitutional right is regulated in each jurisdiction, for then finding out if there is any kind of legacy of the inquisitorial model in adversarial systems.

The aim of the present essay is to analyze the Provision 188/2018 of the Brazilian Bar Association’s Federal Council and its possible implications in the corporate internal investigations, which despite their importance, still need regulation. For that we will initially study separately the fundamentals, goals and procedures of defensive and internal investigations, demonstrating that the proximity between these institutes allows us to identify between them a genus-species relationship. From these considerations, we will ascertain in the last topic the possible application of these provisions also to the internal investigations, corroborating the thesis that this regulation is not only applicable to these procedures that are already existent in Brazil, but also represents an important step in the scope of the regulation of their concrete instruments and limits.