President of
Costa Rica's
Supreme Court
Considers 50
Year Prison
Sentence
Unreasonable
The president of
the Corte
Suprema de
Justicia
(Supreme Court),
Luis Paulino
Mora Mora,
considers that a
sentence of 50
years in prison
"is a life
imprisonment"
and, moreover,
is contrary "for
the purposes of
rehabilitation
and social
reintegration".
Mora delivered
his opinion to
save his vote to
an action of
unconstitutionality
against Articles
51 and 76 of the
Código Penal
(Penal Code),
which raised the
maximum prison
sentence of 35
to 50 years. The
other six judges
of the
Constitutional
Court dismissed
the action.
Luis Paulino
Mora said, "What
I do is a
mathematical
operation. A
Costa Rican has
an average life
of 80 years. A
person starts to
be held
criminally
responsible at
18 years of age
and begins
committing
crimes between
the age of 25
and 30 and if we
add 50 years in
prison, is 80
years old. That
is a life
imprisonment".
"There's no
rationale, and
if what you want
is to remove a
person's social
cluster, that is
another thing,"
said President
of the Court.
The action of
unconstitutionality
brought was
filed in
September 2008
by Alexánder
Vargas Rojas who
was sentenced to
173 years in
prison (reduced
to a maximum of
50 years) for
committing a
triple murder in
1995.
For Mora, a 50
years prison
sentence does
not allow a
prisoner to
rejoin his
family, access
to decent work
or socialize
with society.
Mora said that
he considers 25
years a
reasonable
maximum prison
sentence.
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