The Court of Justice of Paraíba upheld the conviction of a woman who, according to a complaint, used the social network Facebook to publish racially motivated insults.
The sentence, handed down by judge Frederico Martinho da Nóbrega Coutinho, denied the appeal of the convicted woman, who sought acquittal and extinction of the sentence.
The sentence imposed by the first instance – and now confirmed in the second instance – was one year and four months in prison in an open regime. She was also ordered to pay a fine.
The defendant’s defense argued that she had no intention of offending the victim’s honor. She maintained that the message, although sent from her telephone, was not written by her.
The lawyers argued that the defendant’s sister had used her smartphone to respond to insults that the victim had made outside of social media. However, the judge pointed out that “at no time in the case was there any effective evidence that there was reciprocity in the insults, to justify the insults against her.”
uttered”.
One fact highlighted by the judge was the fact that the profile that made the insults belonged to the defendant’s son. The judge said that “the content of the racial insults against the victim, published on the Facebook profile of the defendant’s son, who at the time of the events, was 3 (three) years old, incapable of making certain statements”, he highlighted in the sentence.
Crime occurred before the law that equates insult with racism
In the sentence, the judge highlights that the convicted woman “offended the dignity and decorum of the victim using elements related to skin color, thus fully characterizing the crime provided for in art. 140, §3, of the Penal Code, as amended prior to Law No. 14,532/2023, since the events occurred in 2018”, warning of the impossibility of applying the sanctions provided for in the legislation that classifies racial injury as the crime of racism.
The Brazilian constitution, in its article 5, ensures that “all are equal before the law, without distinction of any nature”, and reinforces in its section XL that “criminal law shall not be retroactive, except to benefit the defendant”.
Source: CNN Brasil
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