STF has 4 votes against acquitting drug dealer approached for alleged racism

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) resumed this Wednesday (8) the judgment of an action that seeks to annul the conviction, for drug trafficking, of a man who, according to his defense, was approached by the police for the sole reason of being black. In the session, the fourth negative vote was given, by Minister Kassio Marques, who, like three other colleagues, considered that the so-called “racial profiling” did not occur in this case.

For this, it took into account the testimony of the police officer who caught the act. When passing through Rua Santa Teresa, block 4, he saw in the distance a black individual who was in a typical scene of drug trafficking, since he was standing next to the curb of the public road and a vehicle was parked next to him as if selling/buying something; that the individual, upon noticing the approach of the police vehicle, changed his face and walked away sneakily throwing something on the ground”, reported the policeman.

The place, in Bauru (SP), was a well-known point of sale of drugs and the car that was parked next to the man suddenly took off. In the same week, other drug dealers had been arrested red-handed on the same street. The approached man had five cocaine pins in a pants pocket; in the other, there were R$80. Other pins opened on the ground near him – according to the other policeman, it was the one he had thrown on the ground when he saw the police car.

Marques highlighted that the conviction handed down in the first instance was maintained in two other superiors. “There is no way to conclude, date venia, that the well-founded suspicion for carrying out the personal search on the patient would have been, originally, the color of his skin, but rather the inseparable set of objective circumstances that make up the scene in which he was caught. The mention of the patient’s skin color had a purely descriptive purpose, in order to allow its identification and recognition”.

In previous sessions, ministers André Mendonça, Alexandre de Moraes and Dias Toffoli had already voted against the annulment of the conviction, for the same reasons. The only one to vote in favor of the man was the rapporteur, Edson Fachin. “What differentiated this from so many other approaches was the skin color and the location and nothing else. Had it been a white individual in the same context elsewhere in São Paulo, most likely this scene would not have attracted the attention of the police,” he said.

In the session, Minister Luiz Fux, who would be the next to vote, asked for the case to be reviewed, and promised to bring the process back to resume the trial next Wednesday (15). The result of the judgment should form a parameter for similar cases.