Criminal defendants should be accorded reasonable bail. However, social prejudices lead judges to release offenders in wife-murder cases far more often than in other homicide cases, even when there is a legal basis for their detention. According to several defense attorneys and judges interviewed by Human Rights Watch, an estimated 90 percent of the defendants who areconvicted in wife-murder cases pursue their case without ever spending a night in custody until they are finally sentenced, which is often years later. In the An bal Abreu e Silva case discussed above, the prosecution requested the preventive detention of the accused on the grounds that he had fled the scene of the crime and retained ample means to flee the country. The judge denied the prosecution's request, leaving Anibal to pursue his case while at liberty, a status which benefits the accused in several ways, which includes exacerbating the judicial system's already chronic delay.
Society begins to forget.
Moreover, according to judges and prosecutors with whom we spoke, offenders in wife-murder cases often take advantage of their freedom to flee, thereby rendering prosecution which in Brazil requires the presence of the accused practically impossible. First-offender benefits are also invoked after conviction. We don't even watch him. The benefits of provisional liberty for deserving candidates should be preserved, but judges should weigh such liberty against the gravity of the crime, the desirability of speedy justice, and the potential for injustice resulting from flight and should not allow social prejudice about the crime to influence their judgment. The Brazilian government is not per se responsible for deeply rooted social prejudices which underlie the honor defense, misapplication of the violent emotion defense, unwarranted reduction of charges in wife-murders and preferential treatment of offenders.