Reforma: Ana Laura Magaloni Kerpel*
Translated by: Joel Cloke
In the media it’s known as the case of “the young rapists from Veracruz”. It involves Jorge Cotaita, Diego Cruz Alonso, Gerardo Rodríguez and Enrique Capitaine, also known as the Porkys group [a play on the Spanish ¿Porqué? Porque: Why? Because]. The evidence against them for the raping of a seventeen year old girl is convincing: her statement, testimonies of her friend’s who were with her when, coming out of a nightclub, the four aggressors forced her into a Mercedes Benz; the psychological and gynecological studies of the victim and the four videos of each one of them admitting their guilt and apologizing to the young girl. It’s fitting to note that they are not videos like the ones we know, where those under arrest admit, during the police interrogation and without the presence of their lawyer and often visibly beaten, their participation in the crime that they were connected with. In this case, the young men are in their homes, each of their parent’s voices is heard and there is no intimidating environment.
According to what the father of the victim, Javier Fernández, says, he asked the parents of the aggressors for said videos so that his daughter could confirm that they were sorry. At that time, Fernández wasn’t thinking about presenting a criminal suit, rather about the emotional and psychological recuperation of the minor. However, the parents of the aggressors, uncomfortable with the issue, started a slander campaign against Fernández and his daughter. This motivated Fernández, on May 16, 2015, to present a criminal suit against the four aggressors. The General Prosecutor of Veracruz, Luis Ángel Bravo Contreras, “froze” the prior inquiry because the parents of the Porkys are members of the state’s political and economical elite. In the face of this, last week, Javier Fernández decided to make public the cheap collaboration between the prosecutor and the four families involved.
It’s clear that in Mexico, when it has to do with the elite, the causality between illegal behaviour and legal consequences is broken abruptly. That’s the essence of privilege. The crown jewel, in terms of these privileges, is, by a long way, the administration of Mexican justice. In this area, fighting against a member of the elite while being on a lower social ladder, like Javier Fernández, is unbearable for those privileged ones.
[Javier] Duarte, like most governors, chose Bravo Contreras as a prosecutor not because of his crime investigation skills or his understanding of lawsuits. Bravo Contreras is there because above all he provides certainty to Veracruz’s elite that there will be no legal liabilities as a consequence for any of its members’ actions, without the seriousness of their actions mattering, except when the governor wants it. The prosecutor is covering up the state's scandalous corruption. There will be no legal consequences for anyone.
In Mexico, the role of any prosecutor is first and foremost political and does not involve the defense of victims or the public security of citizens. His job is above all to guarantee impunity for the powerful people. Presenting the preliminary investigation into the four Porkys to a judge, although it would have generated some type of piblic recognition, in reality for Bravo Contreras means not fulfilling his “real” job. His professional future and his wealth depend on the “favours” that his job lets him carry out for this select club of privileged people in Veracruz.
It, I repeat, is not exclusive to this state. The administration of justice in Mexico is a way of exercising power. This bureaucratic system is designed to serve and protect the interests of those unlawfully in power. Thanks to it, the Attorney General’s offices are paralyzed from making solid accusations for the infinite serious crimes committed in this country. In these cases impunity is not protection, rather it is a consequence of institutional inability. The social and economic cost is enormous, but to thoroughly reform the Attorney General’s offices would mean giving up the foundational center of class privileges. Spanish original
Reforma only allows readers to access its articles online.
*Ana Laura Magaloni Kerpel, Doctorate in Law, Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain); Research Professor, Center for Research and Economic Teaching (CIDE). Research Areas: Supreme Court and Comparative Constitutional Justice; Empirical Studies of Institutions of Justice; Institutions of Prosecution and Enforcement of Justice.
In the media it’s known as the case of “the young rapists from Veracruz”. It involves Jorge Cotaita, Diego Cruz Alonso, Gerardo Rodríguez and Enrique Capitaine, also known as the Porkys group [a play on the Spanish ¿Porqué? Porque: Why? Because]. The evidence against them for the raping of a seventeen year old girl is convincing: her statement, testimonies of her friend’s who were with her when, coming out of a nightclub, the four aggressors forced her into a Mercedes Benz; the psychological and gynecological studies of the victim and the four videos of each one of them admitting their guilt and apologizing to the young girl. It’s fitting to note that they are not videos like the ones we know, where those under arrest admit, during the police interrogation and without the presence of their lawyer and often visibly beaten, their participation in the crime that they were connected with. In this case, the young men are in their homes, each of their parent’s voices is heard and there is no intimidating environment.
According to what the father of the victim, Javier Fernández, says, he asked the parents of the aggressors for said videos so that his daughter could confirm that they were sorry. At that time, Fernández wasn’t thinking about presenting a criminal suit, rather about the emotional and psychological recuperation of the minor. However, the parents of the aggressors, uncomfortable with the issue, started a slander campaign against Fernández and his daughter. This motivated Fernández, on May 16, 2015, to present a criminal suit against the four aggressors. The General Prosecutor of Veracruz, Luis Ángel Bravo Contreras, “froze” the prior inquiry because the parents of the Porkys are members of the state’s political and economical elite. In the face of this, last week, Javier Fernández decided to make public the cheap collaboration between the prosecutor and the four families involved.
It’s clear that in Mexico, when it has to do with the elite, the causality between illegal behaviour and legal consequences is broken abruptly. That’s the essence of privilege. The crown jewel, in terms of these privileges, is, by a long way, the administration of Mexican justice. In this area, fighting against a member of the elite while being on a lower social ladder, like Javier Fernández, is unbearable for those privileged ones.
[Javier] Duarte, like most governors, chose Bravo Contreras as a prosecutor not because of his crime investigation skills or his understanding of lawsuits. Bravo Contreras is there because above all he provides certainty to Veracruz’s elite that there will be no legal liabilities as a consequence for any of its members’ actions, without the seriousness of their actions mattering, except when the governor wants it. The prosecutor is covering up the state's scandalous corruption. There will be no legal consequences for anyone.
In Mexico, the role of any prosecutor is first and foremost political and does not involve the defense of victims or the public security of citizens. His job is above all to guarantee impunity for the powerful people. Presenting the preliminary investigation into the four Porkys to a judge, although it would have generated some type of piblic recognition, in reality for Bravo Contreras means not fulfilling his “real” job. His professional future and his wealth depend on the “favours” that his job lets him carry out for this select club of privileged people in Veracruz.
It, I repeat, is not exclusive to this state. The administration of justice in Mexico is a way of exercising power. This bureaucratic system is designed to serve and protect the interests of those unlawfully in power. Thanks to it, the Attorney General’s offices are paralyzed from making solid accusations for the infinite serious crimes committed in this country. In these cases impunity is not protection, rather it is a consequence of institutional inability. The social and economic cost is enormous, but to thoroughly reform the Attorney General’s offices would mean giving up the foundational center of class privileges. Spanish original
Reforma only allows readers to access its articles online.
*Ana Laura Magaloni Kerpel, Doctorate in Law, Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain); Research Professor, Center for Research and Economic Teaching (CIDE). Research Areas: Supreme Court and Comparative Constitutional Justice; Empirical Studies of Institutions of Justice; Institutions of Prosecution and Enforcement of Justice.