Overview

• The First Panel is reviewing an embargo de declaração filed by Sergio Moro’s defense seeking to revisit the 2024 decision that made him a criminal defendant.
• Ministers Cármen Lúcia, Alexandre de Moraes, Flávio Dino, and Cristiano Zanin voted to deny the filing, keeping the prosecution for alleged calumny active.
• The case stems from a video that circulated in 2023 in which Moro joked about buying a habeas corpus from Justice Gilmar Mendes, prompting a complaint from the Prosecutor-General’s Office.
• The panel is deciding the matter in the STF’s virtual plenary, where ministers record votes online without real-time oral debate.
• Moro apologized and calls the remark an unfortunate joke, but the majority held the remedy cannot be used to reargue the merits, and no date is set for a trial on the substance of the charge.