The jury and the failure of the sentencing council to give reasons for its decisions: the ideal of justice in a substantial democracy

Abstract

Contextualization: The Jury Court represents one of the most sensitive arenas for the exercise of State punitive power, as it adjudicates, as a rule, intentional crimes against life, which carry the most severe penalties in the legal system. In this context, the central issue arises: if the reasoning of decisions is mandatory for professional judges, what would justify dispensing with it in the case of lay judges? Shouldn’t the same requirement apply in such circumstances? The absence of motivation in the decisions of the Jury Panel, traditionally justified by the secrecy of the ballots, constitutes an obstacle to the rights of defense, to the adversarial principle, and to the ideal of justice that underpins democracy, thereby justifying a deeper critical examination of the matter.

Objectives: The general objective is to critically examine the prohibition of reasoning in the decisions rendered by the Jury Panel, assessing its compatibility with the democratic ideal and with the constitutional guarantees of criminal procedure. The specific objectives are: (i) to identify the historical and normative reasons that underpin the current decision-making dynamics; (ii) to demonstrate the anachronism of such premises in light of the constitutional paradigm established in 1988; and (iii) to propose theoretical and procedural alternatives capable of reconciling voting secrecy with minimum requirements of motivation.

Methodology: A qualitative approach was adopted, under a hypothetico-deductive method, guided by theoretical-dogmatic analysis of the democratic criminal process. The research is primarily bibliographical and normative, including a review of specialized national literature, critical examination of the Federal Constitution and the Code of Criminal Procedure, and selective analysis of foreign experiences relevant to understanding the limits of reasoning in jury verdicts. This methodological choice is grounded in the need to examine the coherence between the jury’s decision-making model and the constitutional foundations that structure due criminal process.

Results: The findings indicate that the absence of reasoning in verdicts weakens democratic control over punitive power, compromises the exercise of defense rights, and increases the risk of decisions based on extraprocedural factors, such as appearance, external pressures, performative elements, and unconscious biases. It is demonstrated that voting secrecy does not technically preclude the development of mechanisms capable of recording the grounds of decisions without revealing jurors’ identities, including through technological means. The study concludes that maintaining the current model is incompatible with a substantive conception of democracy and that requiring reasoned decisions is essential to ensuring rationality, transparency, and legitimacy in jury adjudication.