The sentence of the old man who killed the attacker of his house could be annulled due to a legal error

While public expressions of solidarity with its protagonist continue, there could be a judicial reversal in the case of Pau Rigo, the 83-year-old Majorcan man sentenced to a foreseeable prison sentence after shooting dead a member of the violent gang of thieves who broke into his house.

A technical error in the guided formulation of the popular jury's verdict that declared him guilty could cause the annulment of the trial, which took place this month in the Provincial Court of the Balearic Islands.

The error, which various jurists from the Islands have warned about in recent hours, revolves around the lack of unanimity or simple majority in the voting of the nine members of the popular jury.. Anonymous citizens who, as the law establishes in these cases, must decide on guilt and the mitigating circumstances of the crime.

The jury ruled very narrowly to declare guilt, by five votes to four. He also did so in a fact presented as favorable but, according to the defenses, clearly unfavorable for the accused, which requires a qualified majority of votes to decide the judgment in one direction or another.

Lawyer change

This convoluted circumstance is currently planning the possible annulment of the sentence that must be issued by the magistrate who presided over the trial..

Although the judicial sentence is tied to the verdict of the popular court, the situation, alerted by the Prosecutor's Office and the lawyers in the case, could cause the case to be annulled, leading it to a legal limbo from which the exit is still unknown.. The possibility that the trial may have to be repeated is not ruled out.. At the moment, there is no clear resolution.

Meanwhile, Rigo himself went this Tuesday morning to the headquarters of the Superior Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands where he was tried.. He did so accompanied by a new lawyer, the renowned criminal lawyer Jaime Campaner, a specialist in the figure of the popular jury.. Rigo demands his acquittal in light of this unexpected turn in the development of the verdict, an unprecedented situation in the Islands.

The judge must rule in the coming days.

Thus, judicial uncertainty grows while signs of solidarity continue to accumulate with the octogenarian convicted of homicide for fatally shooting one of the two thieves who entered his home with the intention of robbing him with a hunting rifle.

Institutional statement

The last to join this solidarity movement has been the Porreres City Council itself, the town where the events occurred.. Thus, the signs in favor of Rigo accumulate from the field of politics to which PP, Vox and the regionalists of El Pi have already joined..

The Porreres council has demanded through its plenary session that the Government and the General Council of the Judiciary adopt the measures that may correspond “by law” so that Rigo does not go to jail for those events.

It should be remembered that the popular jury itself asked in its verdict that Rigo be pardoned, something that the City Council reinforces with this institutional declaration.

At the moment, there is a guilty verdict and the Prosecutor's Office maintains its request for prison. But his sentence has not been expressed, pending seeing how this legal obstacle is resolved. Furthermore, the accused could later appeal to higher judicial authorities, such as the Superior Court of the Balearic Islands or the Supreme Court.