The First Chamber of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF) began judging on Friday (11) an appeal filed on behalf of former congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro against his sentence of four years and two months in prison, set for a semi-open regime, which in Brazil allows inmates to work or study outside prison during the day. According to CNN Brasil, the session in the court's virtual plenary opened at 10 a.m., runs for one week and is due to end on Friday, September 18.
The sentence was handed down in June for coercion in the case of the alleged coup plot. According to the court, Eduardo lobbied US officials, including President Donald Trump, to press for sanctions against Brazil and against STF justices, in an attempt to benefit his father, former president Jair Bolsonaro. Revista Oeste reports that the former congressman now lives in the United States.
The defense argument
The appeal, a motion known in Brazil as embargos de declaração (clarification embargos), was filed in July by the Federal Public Defender's Office (DPU). The office does not contest the facts behind the conviction. It argues that the ruling contains a contradiction. According to the defense, all four justices who decided the case relied on Eduardo's public statements as proof of a confession. The reporting justice, Alexandre de Moraes, wrote that the defendant "expressly confessed the crime" in interviews. Cristiano Zanin and Cármen Lúcia made similar statements, and Flávio Dino used the same wording more narrowly, when addressing the intent to commit the crime.
None of them, however, counted the confession as a mitigating factor when calculating the sentence. The defender's office says the omission violates Brazil's Penal Code and settled precedents of the Superior Court of Justice and of the STF itself.
Clarification embargos exist to fix contradictions or omissions in a ruling, not to reopen the merits of the case. If the chamber grants the request, the sentence can be recalculated. If it rejects the appeal, the conviction stands and the case moves to the enforcement stage. The virtual vote remains open until September 18.