Summaries of the Legal Proceedings
Fueled by the desire to provide means for more detailed and productive research within the BNM Digit@l collection, the Federal Prosecution Service coordinated the work of reading, compilation, and classification of relevant information for each of the 710 cases and organized them in a summary form. Various details of the Summary provide links to the page of the case from which they have been drawn, facilitating access to the original source. The Summary is divided in six informational groups: General Information, First Phase of the Proceeding, Appeal to the Superior Military Court, “Habeas Corpus” in the Federal Supreme Court, Appeal to the Federal Supreme Court, and Amnesty.
The group concerning General Information consists of the following fields:
Organization/party or social sector affected: Name and acronym of organization, political party, or social sector with which the accused were affiliated, according to the original BNM classification [Table 8 - BNM Report].
Those accused by the Military Prosecution Service: Name of the people accused by the Military Prosecution Service, as stated in the criminal complaint presented, as well as any eventual amendments.
Object of the indictment: Within this field the rubrics of the crimes, for which the accused were charged, are described, with the record of any later amendments adopted in the judgment and decisions of the Superior Military Court and the Federal Supreme Court.
The rubrics used are not contained within the law. The Federal Prosecutor’s technical team developed this nomenclature from the classification of all of the crimes laid down in Law No. 1.802/53 and 6.620/78 and Decree-Law No. 314/67, 510/69 and 898/69 (National Security Laws).
Legal Basis of the Accusation: Legal provisions in which the conduct of the accused were framed, according to the accusation, additions, judgment, and decisions of the Superior Military Court and the Federal Supreme Court.
The second group – called First Phase of the Proceeding – provides information about the processing of the case at the first instance of Military Justice, namely:
Date of the criminal complaint: Day on which the Military Prosecution Service presented the criminal complaint. If there is a reference to more than one date, it means an amendment was provided to the initial complaint.
Military Justice: Federal body, military court and the city in which the case was judged.
Date of sentencing: Day on which the military court handed down the sentence. If there is a reference to more than one date, it means there is more than one substantive decision.
Outcome of the trial: Conclusion of the initial jurisdiction sentencing, indicating whether there was conviction or acquittal, as well as the length of the punishment given to the accused. Situations that prevented a judgment on merits are cited, such as exclusion from the proceedings by virtue of age, “habeas corpus”, termination of criminal liability due to the death of the accused or the statute of limitations, recognition that the accused had been tried for the same alleged crime in another court, dismissal of the case due to banishment or expulsion of the accused from the national territory.
The third group - Appeal to the Superior Military Court (STM) – indicates if appeals were filed against the initial sentencing and provides details of the trial of these appeals in the STM.
Applicant: Indication of the appeals presented, with links to the petition of intervention and their reasons.
Date of trial: Date on which the action was dismissed. If there is a reference to more than one date, it means that there is more than one judgment or decision.
Outcome of the trial: Description of the Court’s decision regarding whether or not the sentence was upheld, indicating the new penalties, where applicable.
In some cases, research identified that lawyers requested “habeas corpus” in the Federal Supreme Court to free the defendants or to stop the case. Such interventions occurred mainly before December 1968, after which Institutional Act No. 5 suspended “habeas corpus”. Information relating to these procurements was consolidated in the fourth group, called “Habeas Corpus” in the Federal Supreme Court.
Registration: Identification of the accused on behalf of those who requested “habeas corpus”.
Date of Verdict: Day of the verdict. If there is a reference to more than one date, it means that there is more than one decision.
Outcome of the trial: Reports the outcome of the trial.
After the appeals hearing in the Superior Military Court indicated in the third group, in some cases there was the introduction of ordinary or extraordinary appeals to the Federal Supreme Court. The data collected for this procedure are compiled in the fifth informational group, called the Appeal to the Federal Supreme Court.
Applicant: Indication of the existence of the appeal, with the applicant's name and links to the petition for filing an appeal and reasons for doing so.
Date of judgment: Day on verdict of the appeal. If there is reference to more than one date, it means that there is more than one decision.
Outcome of the trial: Reports the result of the judgment, indicating the new penalties, where applicable.
Finally, the Federal Prosecutors’ team identified legal proceedings with judicial decrees in relation to the recognition of the extinction of criminal liability under the amnesty provided for in Law No. 6.683/79. In such cases, the information was consolidated under the title Amnesty, indicating the name of the recipient, the date on which the judgment was given, and the judicial body that issued the decree.
This work was an extensive and complex task, since in addition to the inherent difficulties with the quality of some of the images in the archive, the judicial proceedings sometimes contained incongruent and incomplete facts.
We emphasize that the data summaries are unofficial and therefore they do not take the place of nor do they change what is recorded in the legal proceedings. We have prepared them in order to facilitate research and understanding of the legal language. Since it is an initiative still under development, we encourage you to identify any inaccuracy by sending a message to mpf-bnmd@mpf.mp.br Unfortunately, all the information is in Portuguese only.
Good luck!
