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| Supreme Court of Justice of Catamarca J. María Fernanda Rosales (center). J. Martel (left) y J. Saldaño (right). |
In a decision of major institutional significance for the jurisprudence of Argentina and Latin America, the Catamarca Supreme Court (CSC) unanimously reaffirmed -through a remarkable and highly sophisticated ruling- that the prosecution (whether public or private) cannot appeal a jury’s not guilty verdict in order to seek a new trial, as doing so violates the principles of res judicata (finality) and double jeopardy.
While respect for the finality of jury verdicts of not guilty may seem fundamental in common law countries, Argentina and almost every civil law country in the world always allow for reversal of convictions or acquittals. But the implementation of trial by jury in 2011 came along with provincial bills firmly adopting the finality of the verdicts of the jury.
For that reason, the Court upheld the constitutionality of section 89 of Law 5719, which forbids any appeal against an acquittal.
DOWNLOAD RULING
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| Alberto Binder |
The ruling, brilliantly authored by Justice María Fernanda Rosales and joined by J. Néstor Hernán Martel and J. Rita Verónica Saldaño, marks a firm and progressive step in the consolidation of trial by jury in Argentina.
As we have often remarked, jury trials depend on the constant support of the lower and higher courts to safeguard their essential features and ensure their proper functioning. The CSC honoured that role with this extraordinary ruling.
Although jury trials are mandated by the 1853 Constitution, 300 years of the inquisitorial system have left an indelible mark on the minds of judges, prosecutors and lawyers.
The first jury trial in Argentina took place in 2014 and, since then, has faced multiple challenges against many of its defining features; the general verdict with no reasons, unanimity, the hung jury and finality. It was expectable, since Alberto Binder notes that the jury is and has always been the inquisitorial system’s worst enemy.
In January 2025, the CSC upheld the unanimity requirement for jury verdicts. Today, it has set a new precedent on another indispensable aspect without which juries lose all meaning: the finality of the not guilty verdict.
This time, the CSC rejected an appeal filed by both the private and public prosecutors, and it confirmed the acquittal rendered by the jury, stating that the right to appeal is a conventional guarantee belonging exclusively to the convicted person.
One of the ruling’s stellar passages states:
“It must be emphasized that it is the accused who holds the constitutional right to seek review of a conviction, not the prosecutor.
The prosecution does not enjoy a constitutional right to appeal an acquittal. This follows both from the American Convention on Human Rights (art. 8.2(h)) and from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (art. 14.5)
The right of access to justice and victim protection must not be confused with a right to appeal a jury’s acquittal.
Therefore, an acquittal derived from a not-guilty verdict of the jury cannot be challenged on appeal, as doing so would violate the constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy and undermine the sovereign nature of the jury’s decision.”
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| Justices Rosales, Martel and Saldaño. |
THE CASE
R.W.M. had been accused of sexually abusing two minors within his family environment. The trial, conducted under Law 5719, concluded with a unanimous not guilty verdict. The private prosecution – acting on behalf of the alleged victims – and the prosecutor filled an appeal, claiming that one juror had ties to the defendant and that this compromised the impartiality of the process.
The CSC dismissed the appeal. First, it held that section 89 prevents both the private prosecution and the public prosecutor from appealing an acquittal. This does not violate the right to have access to justice, because the right to appeal belongs exclusively to the defendant under international human rights instruments (s. 8.2(h) ACHR and s. 14.5 ICCPR).
It is further noted that the argument of the complainant — raised only after the verdict has been rendered — that a juror was apparently known to the defendant, was nothing but a predictable tactic employed by the losing parties (see U.S. Supreme Court cases Tanner v. United States (1984) and Warger v. Shauers (2014)).
The Court stressed that even though this issue had emerged during voir dire, neither side challenged the juror. Neither for cause nor peremptorily.
Consequently, raising the issue after losing the case was simply a poor excuse. Had the prosecution truly believed there was a serious ground for suspicion, it should have exercised its challenges or at least informed the judge during trial so the juror could be replaced by an alternate. None of this occurred.
The ruling highlight this: “the private prosecutor acknowledged knowing that one juror had once been her neighbor — whom she had not seen in years — and that he had sold her a motorcycle and/or ran a convenience store she used to visit. Why did she not challenge him then? Plainly, it was a last-ditch maneuver with no evidentiary support”.
The Court recall that judicial review of an acquittal (fraudulent res judicata) is permissible only in the face of corrupt or unlawful misconduct of the defendant and/or the defense attorney, such as bribery, coercion or threats of jurors or witnesses, or other serious misconducts, and that neither the alleged connection nor references to victims’ rights sufficed to invalidate the verdict.
The Court’s message aligns with worldwide jurisprudence: the appropriate forum for resolving such issues is voir dire.
By reaffirming that the jury’s verdict is “sacred and unappealable,” the CSC protects a core element of democracy: that the final word in criminal matters should always rest within the public, as mandated by section 118 of the National Constitution.
LEGAL ARGUMENTS
The prosecution and the victims advanced worn-out arguments repeatedly rejected by the State Supreme Courts of Buenos Aires, Chaco, and Entre Ríos.
They argued — by invoking vague notions of “reinforced due diligence,” the Belém do Pará Convention, Campo Algodonero ICHR ruling, and the “best interests of the child” — that international treaties place victims’ rights on an equal footing with those of the accused, and that when the two interests conflict, the child’s rights must prevail.
The CSC restored doctrinal clarity and dismantled this excessive argument.
As Binder warns: “One must recognize the deep colonial mindset embedded in the inquisitorial tradition. Dismantling those mental frameworks is our primary task.”
Nothing could be more accurate. Rulings such as this are intended to bury the inquisitorial culture that constantly reinvents itself — sometimes under a pseudo-progressive veneer.
The liberal tradition of criminal law and the accusatorial system did not arise to balance the rights of the accused and their accusers, but to protect the individual from the power of the State. If the verdict of the jury could be easily reviewed on appeal whenever one party is dissatisfied with the outcome, the system loses all its reason for being.
The criminal procedure was never designed as a forum for “equalizing suffering,” but as a safeguard against arbitrary punishment.
Those who fail to understand this, misunderstand the adversary completely— or seek to perpetuate the mixed inquisitorial system.
From this perspective, the contemporary attempt to equate victims’ rights with those of the accused — especially when used to justify the review of acquittals — rests on conceptual confusion, historical risk, and, crucially, lacks any constitutional grounding.
Binder warns that such approaches risk reintroducing inquisitorial logic under the guise of empathy toward victims, but driven by the same premise: that the process exists to secure punishment, not to limit state power.
In another exceptional passage, the Court analyzes section 89, the provincial Constitution, and the international covenants together:
“Section 89 must be read in harmony with the double jeopardy clause established in the international covenants of human rights — Section 8.4 of the ACHR (‘An accused person acquitted by a nonappealable judgment shall not be subjected to a new trial for the same cause’) and Section 14.7 of the ICCPR (‘No one shall be tried or punished again for an offense for which he has already been finally convicted or acquitted’).
Furthermore, section 31 of the Catamarca Constitution provides that ‘No one may be prosecuted more than once for the same offense… except when revision is sought in favor of the defendant as provided by law.’
Accordingly, the jury’s not-guilty verdict in this case is final and definitively ends the criminal prosecution.”
Isabel Perón 1975
The Court went further. For the first time in Argentine jurisprudence on juries, it quoted a 1975 opinion of the National Attorney General on double jeopardy — a remarkable scholarly contribution.
“Doctrine is unanimous — both procedural and constitutional — in affirming that the material effect of res judicata rests on protecting an individual who has already faced state prosecution from renewed punitive attempts when the first trial’s outcome was unfavorable to the State. As the U.S. Supreme Court held in Ex parte Quirin (1942), the double jeopardy prohibition aims to shield individuals from repeated attempts by the State — armed with all its power and resources — to convict them, thus subjecting them to hardship, anxiety, and insecurity.” (Attorney General’s Opinion in María Estela Martínez de Perón, 1975.)
In conclusion, the Court held that the prosecution’s desire for a conviction is limited by Law 5719, which bars public or private accusers from seeking review of a jury’s not-guilty verdict.
The impossibility of appealing a not-guilty verdict does not undermine access to justice or judicial protection, as the appellant claimed. As the Federal Supreme Court of Justice has repeatedly stated, due process requires that the litigant be heard with the formalities of the law — not that the law provide multiple appellate instances (e.g., Fallos 126:214; 127:167; 223:430).
“The appellant (the victim) argues that her right to appeal was violated. However, according to that conventional law, the accused is the sole holder of the right to appeal. Granting the opposing party the power to appeal an acquittal would force the accused to be put twice in jeopardy under sections 8.2(h) of the ACHR and 14.5 of the ICCPR.”
FINAL
The R.W.M. case not only consolidates doctrine on the limits of prosecutorial appeals; it also exposes the clash between two traditions: the adversarial system, which prioritizes shielding the accused from state power and conceives the process as a restraint; and the inquisitorial one, which seeks punitive reassurance for prosecutors even at the cost of eroding the accused’s guarantees.
As Binder notes, any genuine procedural reform must recognize its lineage and the tradition it seeks to overcome. Trial by jury belongs unequivocally to the adversarial, Enlightenment-inspired, liberal tradition: it is public, oral, adversarial, and grounded in citizen deliberation.
On the other hand, the longstanding tradition of bilateral appeals were inherited from continental European inquisitorial systems and written proceedings.
As we have stated, this decision is not isolated: Entre Ríos, Chaco, and Buenos Aires produced the three major leading cases affirming the finality of jury acquittals, and together with this Catamarca precedent, they anchor the consolidation that legitimizes the sovereignty of the citizen verdict and forms a foundational pillar of national jury jurisprudence (see the Bray Paredes ruling) (see the SCJBA´s ruling on Bray paredes) (see the López ruling) (Cervín ruling Entre Ríos) (BA Pitman ruling).
The ruling is not merely procedural; it is a reaffirmation of principles. Refusing to review an acquittal — even in cases of profound social sensitivity — preserves the liberal tradition of guarantees, the strongest defense against the inquisitorial impulses that persist in ever-changing forms.
