Statements alone, not accompanied by evidence, may not be sufficient to prove the commission of a crime. With this understanding, judge Cynthia Maria Sabino Bezerra Camurri, from the 8th Criminal Court of the state of São Paulo (SP), decided to acquit, due to lack of evidence, a woman accused of the crime of racial insult.
Episode took place in 2022. With the dissemination of the media and social networks, it gained public knowledge
The episode took place inside the subway, in the capital of São Paulo, during the Covid-19 epidemic. The accused reported that she was sitting when she felt someone’s hair touching her and then asked the person to move away, as the hair could transmit the Covid-19 virus.
She, who is foreign, said she did not see that the other passenger was a black woman, and stated that she was misunderstood.
The victim, in turn, claimed that he sat close to the accused — back to back — and that, shortly after, the woman asked him to move away because her hair could “give disease”.
According to the decision, the statements taken in court did not demonstrate, reliably and without doubt, the presence of intent to offend in the conduct attributed to the defendant.
The judge states that the reports collected are a reflection of personal interpretations and that they do not authorize, in themselves, the attribution of a crime of racial insult, requiring proof of specific intent in the defendant’s conduct.
Still in the judge’s understanding, in a normalized context, the expression used by the accused could take on a pejorative connotation, indicating that the victim’s hair, due to her Afro-descendant characteristics, could transmit some illness to her, “in a clear derogatory and discriminatory character” , but the situation occurred at the height of the pandemic, with there still being legitimate concerns about the transmissibility of the disease that was ravaging the country and the world.
“In this sense, there is no way to dissociate the sentence said by the accused from the context in which the facts occurred, so this analysis should not be limited solely to the interpretation of the facts as perceived by the victim, about the offended party’s speech and the feeling experienced by her”, states the judge.
It was also highlighted the fact that the repercussion of an episode and the social outcry, as was the case, cannot compel the State Judge to decide in the way that public opinion expects, which did not have direct contact with the evidence produced in the procedural sphere. .
Therefore, the case was dismissed and the defendant was acquitted of the charge. The accused was advised by the lawyer Rafael Leite Mentoni Pacheco.
