UM DIREITO “PTOLEMAICO” E A REVOLUÇÃO COPERNICANA QUE NUNCA ACONTECEU: A pena de morte na atualidade

Abstract

The execution, by the State, of people who have committed a crime has been used since the first civilizations, passing through almost all societies and punishing a very diverse range of crimes. Today, the world is still on a slow march towards the abolition of the death penalty. In Brazil, this punishment was constitutionally prohibited, for the first time, in 1891 and, since then, it has entered and left our legal system several times. Even when it was not legally assumed, the state found ways to still kill its citizens independently of the formal rules. Although, currently, the death penalty prohibition is a constitutional fundamental clause, researches show that the agreement to the punitive measure and the desire for its return remain at high levels in Brazil. For this reason, this work will attend the need to discuss it and keep it on the agenda, conducting a critical reflection on the death penalty in a broad way, from the judicial to the extrajudicial spectrum. Researches that reveal that the endorsement by the penalty is justified, many times, by arguments of retributive and meritocratic justice and even of revenge will be presented. Taking advantage of interdisciplinarity, the psychosociological aspects behind the support of this punishment will also be discussed. Socioeconomic factors, such as belonging to a ruling class, can favor the development of individualistic, authoritarian values and a strong hegemonic belief in a just world that lead to the support of the punishment. The adherence to individualizing perspectives of the problems inhibits the necessary consideration of the issue of criminality and penalties as a social issue, the case in Brazil. In Brazil, in recent years, the number of people killed in police interventions has increased, while the number of police killed in interventions has gradually decreased. Violent deaths affect mainly young black men, making it impossible to deny the racial bias of violence in Brazil, the most powerful face of racism in our country. It is argued that the Brazilian State has acted, for a long time, from a necropolitical perspective, a true technology of production and management of death in contemporary times. It is concluded that despite the death penalty for common crimes is officially banned by our Constitution, an extrajudicial death penalty already exists in Brazil, which, whether in the hands of the police or militias, exterminates hundreds of black poor brazilians every day.