Brazil's anti-crime law goes into effect and maximum penalty goes to 40 years

Legislation was approved by the National Congress and sanctioned by President Jair Bolsonaro in December last year

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On Thursday (23), the Anti-crime Law (Law No. 13,964/2019), which improves the country's criminal law and criminal procedural law. The law was sent to Congress by the Minister of Justice, Sérgio Moro, approved by Congress and sanctioned by President Jair Bolsonaro in December of last year.

The main highlights of the new legislation are the increase in the maximum conviction period from 30 to 40 years and the extension of the length of stay in federal prisons from 360 days to three years, renewable for another three. New rules for plea bargains and the provision for immediate imprisonment after conviction by jury court.

The law also prohibits the right to temporary release for convicts who commit heinous crimes that result in death, and makes the granting of parole more rigorous. In addition, it increases the sentence for those who illegally sell weapons from four to eight years to six to 12 years, plus a fine. It also increases the penalty for robbery when a knife is used.

The current text brings together part of the proposal headed by Supreme Court Justice (STF) Alexandre de Moraes and part of the so-called Anticrime Package, of the Minister of Justice and Public Safety, Sergio Moro.

In his personal Twitter account, Sergio Moro talked about the important advances in the new legislation.

Moro also cited some of the points of the new law that comes into effect:

• Extended confiscation for professional criminals;
• stiffening of the penalty progression regime and the federal prison regime;
• new rules for suspending the statute of limitations;
• immediate execution of jury court verdicts;
• improvement of the national bank of genetic profiles;
• prohibition of temporary exits for those convicted of heinous crimes that result in death;
• and clearer rules for undercover agents to buy drugs and weapons to reveal criminal organizations.

Judge of guarantees

The minister and vice president of the Supreme Court, Luiz Fux, decided on Wednesday (22), suspend the application of the mechanism of the judge of guarantees. The decision overturns the injunction granted by the president of the Supreme Court, Minister Dias Toffoli, who last week suspended the application of the rules for six months.

The guarantee judge must, among other duties, receive immediate notification of arrest and decide on requests for provisional arrest or other precautionary measures and on requests for telephone interception and the lifting of banking secrecy. The addition of the judge of guarantees would prevent the judge who is involved in the investigation from being the same judge who will later judge the defendant.

With information from Agência Senado