The Criminal Procedure in the State of Santa Catarina between the First Republic and the Vargas Era

• Main Authors: Diego Nunes, Bárbara Madruga da Cunha, Mayessa Costa
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Instituto Brasileiro de Direito Processual Penal 2021-08-01
• Series: Revista Brasileira de Direito Processual Penal
• Subjects: história do direito; justiça criminal; codificação; federalismo; santa catarina (brasil).
• Online Access: http://www.ibraspp.com.br/revista/index.php/RBDPP/article/view/580

This article aims to analyze the formation and development of criminal procedure in the State of Santa Catarina (Brazil) between the Federal Constitution of 1891 and the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1941, when the states had the legislative competence on procedural law. For this, we analyzed the legislation, departing from the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1832, enforced up to the elaboration of the Catarinense Judiciary Code of 1925, passing through its reforms until the reunification of criminal procedural law by the codification enacted by the Estado Novo regime. We analyzed journalistic and academic sources from that time as well, to better contextualize and understand the local legislative options, besides historiographical literature on the subject. As results, we noted the relative indifference by the State of Santa Catarina about the criminal procedural legislation during a major part of the First Republic, even in political crises that the Santa Catarina Judiciary suffered. However, in the final part of this period two codifications and a reform act were made, which progressively restricted the number of crimes judged by jury, even if there were still more than the present number of the Estado Novo’s code.