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Court frees woman jailed for 13 years after ruling recognizes poverty, violence and vulnerability
🇦🇷 Argentina /Crime & Justice

Court frees woman jailed for 13 years after ruling recognizes poverty, violence and vulnerability

From Clarín · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Outcome reported
  • Córdoba’s Superior Court of Justice reduced Paola Ortiz’s life sentence to 13 years, 9 months and 26 days, the time she had already served, and ordered her immediate release.
  • The court said the original proceedings failed to consider her poverty, exposure to economic, psychological and sexual violence, vulnerability and the circumstances surrounding the stillbirth of her daughter.
  • The ruling also criticized gender stereotypes that had shaped expectations about how Ortiz should have acted during her pregnancy, labor and medical emergency.

After more than 13 years in prison, Paola Ortiz walked free when Córdoba’s Superior Court of Justice overturned her life sentence and ordered her immediate release. The court set a sentence of 13 years, 9 months and 26 days, exactly the time she had already spent in detention.

Ortiz had received a life sentence in 2015 for the aggravated homicide of her newborn daughter. The case began in Villa Nueva, Córdoba, on Oct. 31, 2012. Ortiz was 37 or 38 weeks pregnant, lived in precarious conditions and gave birth alone in the room where she lived, without medical assistance. The baby died.

The court’s new decision followed a review appeal filed by lawyers Rocío García Garro, of La Guardia Feminista de Abogadas, and Julia Luna. The judges said the original trial had not examined the conditions surrounding Ortiz’s pregnancy, delivery and postpartum period. She had separated from her husband and lived with her former father-in-law, her sisters-in-law and her children. Photographs in the case file showed the poor condition of the home.

extraordinary mitigating circumstances

— Córdoba’s Superior Court of JusticeThe court used this legal basis to reduce Ortiz’s life sentence to the time she had already served.

Ortiz had concealed the pregnancy because she feared her former father-in-law would throw her out and she had nowhere else to go. Her defense also described economic, psychological and sexual violence. Psychological assessments portrayed her as vulnerable, with low self-esteem, feelings of loneliness and abandonment, dependency and difficulty anticipating consequences. One report noted extremely limited schooling.

The judgment challenged the gender stereotypes applied in the original proceedings. Defense lawyers said the prosecution had judged Ortiz against an unspoken model of a “good mother,” who should recognize the pregnancy, receive medical checkups, go to hospital, know how to manage labor, cut the umbilical cord and immediately seek help. The court revisited those criticisms, including the expectation that Ortiz should have known how to respond to an obstetric emergency despite her circumstances.

good mother

— Defense lawyersThe phrase described the gendered expectations that lawyers said shaped the original judgment.
About this summary

Originally published by Clarín in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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