IMPLEMENTATION OF JURY TRIALS
STAGE 2 CONVOCATION When it is stipulated that a trial requires the intervention of a jury, 36 members are drawn by lot from this initial list
STAGE 3 SELECTION Of the 36 summoned the judges and the parties select 14: 12 regular and 2 substitutes
STAGE 4 TRIAL This jury decides the guilt or innocence of the accused, which is defined by majority: with 10 votes the sentence is reached
APPLIES IN CASES OF
Aggravated homicide
Sexual abuse followed by death
Homicide in occasion of robbery
Cases of penitentiary or police personnel accused of crimes in confrontation.
The Secretary of Justice of the Province, Santiago Mascheroni, and the Undersecretary of Relations with the Judiciary, María Florencia Blotta, gave details of how the process of selection of citizens for jury trials will be carried out.
It is worth remembering that this Thursday the draw for the main list of citizens who may eventually be called to serve as jurors in a trial, a system that in the province of Santa Fe will begin to be applied from October 1 in the Judicial District No. 5 (Rafaela), and progressively will do the same in the rest of the districts.
Mascheroni explained that for the deliberation process "in the province of Santa Fe, the North American model of requiring unanimity was not followed exactly, but here there can be a guilty verdict with 10 votes out of 12: the first discussion is the search for unanimity; if this is not achieved, the judge gives new instructions.
The law also provides that "in the event that the trial judge so determines, he or she may sequester the juror from his or her daily life during the trial. If the characteristics of the trial do not require it, the jury can participate normally in their lives. They will be isolated for the duration of the deliberations and the production of the verdict.
The provincial authorities also differentiated between the roles of the judge and the jury: "There is a trial judge, he does not intervene but rather directs the process; the real actors are the prosecution - through the Public Prosecutor's Office -, the defense counsel, and eventually the plaintiff".
Meanwhile, "jurors cannot be questioned during the hearings: they see, hear, and do not participate in the deliberative framework". When the time comes to deliberate, "their opinion, their vote and their criteria are absolutely reserved, they cannot reflect how the internal discussion went and how each one voted, nor do they have to give a reason for their statements when the judge summons them after deliberation. The judge gives them a series of instructions before they go to the deliberation room, and the jurors will have to limit themselves to what they saw in the trial, what they heard, how the parties were questioned, the documentary evidence, which is what defines the trial and is the only thing that the jurors can have to evaluate the arguments of their verdict".
Once the deliberation is over, "the judge will ask the jury's spokesperson to say whether or not they reached a verdict, whether or not they are guilty or not guilty. Then a trial is held, called a trial of cessation, where the technical judge will have to determine the penalty: the jury issues the verdict and the technical judge will issue the sentence, acquittal or conviction, with the determination of the penalty," Blotta said.
Criminal cases
It is worth remembering that this type of judicial resolution is foreseen for four types of crimes contemplated in criminal cases: qualified homicide, hate crime or sexual abuse followed by death, robbery followed by death and the confrontation of security forces that ends with the death of a civilian.
Progressive implementation
The application of the Trial by Jury in the province will be applied progressively, starting with the Judicial District N°5 (Rafaela) as of October 1, 2024; and will continue with the Judicial District N°4 (Reconquista) as of November 1, 2024; Judicial District 3 (Venado Tuerto) as of 1 December 2024; Judicial District 1 (Santa Fe) as of 1 April 2025; and Judicial District 2 (Rosario) as of 1 August 2025.
