STF’s 1st Panel Unanimously Rejects Bolsonaro’s Appeal, Keeping 27-Year Sentence Intact

Overview

• All four sitting justices of the Supreme Court’s 1st Panel—Alexandre de Moraes, Flávio Dino, Cristiano Zanin and Cármen Lúcia—voted to deny Bolsonaro’s embargos de declaração in the virtual session running through November 14.
• Embargos de declaração only address alleged omissions or contradictions and typically do not alter the merits, and Moraes said the defense showed mere inconformity rather than concrete flaws.
• Justice Luiz Fux, who cast the lone dissent in September’s conviction, transferred to the 2nd Panel and did not vote, leaving the bench at four members for this phase.
• The same majority also rejected appeals by other convicted figures from the ‘núcleo 1,’ including Walter Braga Netto, Anderson Torres, Alexandre Ramagem, Almir Garnier, Paulo Sérgio Nogueira and Augusto Heleno; Mauro Cid did not appeal and already serves a two-year open regime sentence.
• Bolsonaro’s lawyers plan further filings, including a second set of declaratory embargos and possibly embargos infringentes, though a 2018 STF precedent requiring at least two dissenting votes makes the latter unlikely before any move to execute the sentence.