Appeals court's existence questioned

[NewsWhore]

Supreme Court magistrate Rafael Luciano Pichardo told a select audience that the existence of an appeals court constitutes a court of "mini-appeals" and is redundant. With his speech commemorating the 100th anniversary of the appeals process in Dominican jurisprudence, Pichardo renewed his criticism of the Penal Procedural Code (CPP) that was instituted a few years ago. He questioned the existence of two courts of appeals: The Supreme Court and the Appeals Court. Pichardo said that the CPP allows the Appeals Court to make a judgment on the sentence but not on the facts of the case that was settled in a lower court. According to Diario Libre, Pichardo pointed out that the existence of the Appeals Court, as it now stands, constitutes double jeopardy since it allows for a case to be retried in a lower court. This, in the magistrate's opinion, is why the appeal of a sentence is considered, by many jurists, to be nothing more than a "mini-appeal", and the appeal itself still goes to the Supreme Court.

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