As repercussões da mudança de entendimento das Cortes Superiores sobre a prova de reconhecimento de pessoas.

Abstract

At this paper, we sought to understand the fallibility of human memory and its impacts on the proof of recognition of persons, widely used in criminal proceedings – often as decisive in determining authorship. At the same time, understanding the relevance of some procedural measures in order to have a minimum of reliability of the evidence, the study proposed to analyze the overcoming of the understanding of the brazilian Superior Courts, that article 226 of the Code of Criminal Procedure should be interpreted as mere recommendation, and its observance becomes a requirement for the validity of the evidence. In this sense, having established these premises, it was proposed to carry out an exploratory study through qualitative research on decisions of the Court of Justice of Minas Gerais (TJMG) with a view to verifying whether – and to what extent – the new understanding has had an impact on decisions of the mining court. The research analyzed decisions of the eight Criminal Chambers of the TJMG in the period between January 1, 2021 and April 30, 2022. In the end, it was concluded that there is strong legal uncertainty on the subject within the court, considering the diversity of positions adopted. Although some decisions are presented in accordance with the new jurisprudence, most of them still ignore the contributions of cognitive psychology and affirm the validity of photographic recognition in disagreement with the minimum standards provided for in the Criminal Procedure Code, which demonstrates the little TJMG's sensitivity to the relevance of the discussion.