Luiz Estevão asks for pardon based on Bolsonaro’s decree – 01/23/2023 – Power

Businessman and impeached senator Luiz Estevão requested pardon of his sentence based on the Christmas decree issued by Jair Bolsonaro (PL) days before leaving the Presidency of the Republic, in December.

The decree brought two atypical articles that were used by Estevão. In 2016, he began serving 26 years in prison for embezzling public funds earmarked for the construction of the São Paulo Labor Forum.

THE Sheet analyzed the pardon decrees of recent years, in addition to listening to scholars on the subject.

In the wording of the 2022 Christmas pardon, Bolsonaro contradicted the logic he had been adopting in previous years, when the content of the measure was restrictive to the benefit and sought to privilege almost always the military and police class.

The December text provides for the granting of pardons to prisoners over 70 who have served at least one third of their sentence, even if the conviction was for active corruption and embezzlement.

In 2016 Estevão, who is now 73 years old, was denied his last appeals by the STF (Federal Supreme Court) and began serving his sentence in Brasília for active corruption, embezzlement and embezzlement. In 2019, he moved to the semi-open regime and, in 2021, to the open one, under house arrest.

In general terms, Bolsonaro applied wording in the decrees of 2019, 2020 and 2021 that was relatively consistent with his punitive public discourse in relation to public security, reducing the scope of the pardon —almost always with the exception of prisoners from the police forces or the Armed Forces.

In 2022, for example, one of the most criticized points of his decree were unpublished articles that granted pardons to all military police officers convicted of the Carandiru massacre, which took place in 1992 in São Paulo.

At the request of the Attorney General’s Office, the president of the Federal Supreme Court, Rosa Weber, temporarily suspended these points.

The text signed last year by Bolsonaro and the then Minister of Justice Anderson Torres also brought two articles that did not exist in the previous ones.

Article 4 says that “a Christmas pardon will be granted to persons over 70 years of age, sentenced to deprivation of liberty, who have served at least one third of the sentence”.

The document establishes, however, that prisoners convicted of a series of crimes, including those of corruption, will not have the benefit – this lock that started to be used in Bolsonaro’s pardons, initially due to pressure from the former judge and then Minister of Justice, Sergio Moro. , which he held from 2019 to 2020.

It turns out that just ahead in the 2022 text there is the exception that for people over 70 years of age, conviction for corruption and embezzlement, among other crimes, will not be an impediment to obtaining a pardon.

In the case of Estevão, who owns the Metrópoles news portal, he meets the three requirements to obtain a pardon: he is over 70 years old, his convictions do not represent an impediment and he has already served a third of his sentence.

In a telephone contact on Wednesday (18), lawyer Marcelo Bessa, who represents Estevão, stated that he had not yet carried out an analysis of the effects of the pardon on his client’s case and that any assessment in this regard would be made by the Public Ministry and the Justice of the Federal District.

The Criminal Execution Court of the Federal District, however, stated that the defense of the impeached businessman and senator manifested itself in the records on December 26, that is, four days after the government issued the norm, “claiming the granting of the said pardon, based on Presidential Decree No. 11,302 of December 22, 2022”.

THE Sheet contacted the lawyer again, who confirmed that he had signed the petition in partnership with another lawyer, but only reaffirmed that any analysis of whether Estevão meets the requirements for the pardon will be carried out by the Public Ministry and the Justice.

According to the Execution Court, the Public Prosecutor’s Office manifested itself on the last 10th, requesting an opinion from the Penitentiary Council, which has not yet occurred.

THE Sheet failed to speak with former President Bolsonaro. Questions were forwarded to Anderson Torres’ attorney, but there was no response. The former minister is under arrest as a result of the coup attacks that vandalized the three Powers in Brasília on January 8th.

The report also questioned the Ministry of Justice about the technical reasons for including the articles used by Estevão, but there was no response either.

In administrations prior to Bolsonaro, the Christmas pardon for elderly prisoners was common, but with conditions and more restrictive depending on the crimes committed, according to experts heard who asked not to have their names published.

Bolsonaro’s last Christmas pardon also brought an article that generally forgives crimes with less offensive power, by providing that “Christmas pardon will be granted to people convicted of crimes whose maximum deprivation of liberty, in abstract, does not exceed five years.” .

According to experts, this embraces crimes such as simple theft, embezzlement, reception and illegal carrying of firearms.

The pardon —forgiveness of the sentence, or “clemency”—means that those convicted of these crimes will not need to serve the punishments for which they were sentenced, although the conviction remains on the defendant’s file.

Provided for both in the Constitution and in criminal law, they are generally collective and benefit several convicts who meet objective requirements, such as prison time.