Testemunhas acreditadas: uma análise acerca da legitimidade do depoimento do policial como meio de prova no processo penal constitucional brasileiro

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to analyze the legitimacy of police officers’ testimony as evidence in the Brazilian constitutional criminal procedure. In considering the numerous convictions based principally or exclusively on the reports of law enforcement officials, as well as noting the lack of neutrality in the provision of such statements, it is necessary to examine the validity of such testimonies. From the point of view of the democratic constitutional State, it was necessary to conduct case studies, consult doctrines and analyze the jurisprudence of Rio Grande do Norte Court. It was found the inherent vices of the testimonial evidence, the influences that affect the police officers’ performance and their natural one-sidedness while giving statements, as well as the essential prestige to the non-culpability principle over the presumption of veracity and the impossibility of repetition of informative elements of the inquiry in the judicial scope. At the end, in order to give proper legal treatment to the testimony of police officers, it is proposed to the judge, when assessing the evidence gathered in the process, to conduct a critical and careful examination over the involved police officers’ credibility and the content of their testimonies in the concrete case, excluding the use of generalizing elements.