Overview
- On Saturday the Sala Penal Permanente of the Corte Suprema granted the Fiscalía’s cassation, annulled the October 2022 appellate acquittal and sent the case back for a new second-instance trial before a different superior panel.
- The high court found two insubsanable procedural defects in the appeals ruling: the panel reassigned probative weight to a psychological exam without summoning the psychologist in second instance, violating Article 425 of the Código Procesal Penal.
- The court also faulted the appellate judges for omitting key parts of the medico-legal expert’s clarification that the absence of paragenital injuries does not by itself rule out sexual abuse, noting only about 20 percent of victims show such lesions.
- The ruling requires the new tribunal to apply a mandatory gender perspective when evaluating the alleged victim’s partial retraction, citing how pressure, fear or dependence can shape testimony, and it bars the magistrates who issued the earlier acquittal from taking part in the retrial.
- The Fiscalía is seeking reexamination of the original 20-year sentence for sexual violation, a retrial outcome that could either restore the prior conviction or reaffirm the acquittal, and the decision may set precedent on how appeals courts may revalue personal and expert evidence.