He was given 170 years for crimes he didn't commit. His lawyers say it could happen again

Carlos Edmilson da Silva served 12 years in Brazil before being freed, after a widely used police practice led to a false arrest

Tiago Rogero in Rio de Janeiro
Sat 25 May 2024 07.15 EDT

Carlos Edmilson da Silva had already served three years in prison for a crime he had not committed when he was arrested in the Brazilian city of Barueri and accused of a string of horrific rapes. His face was plastered across newspapers and TV reports, where he was dubbed the “maniac of Castello Branco”, after the highway where 12 women had been raped over two years.

At the age of 24, he was convicted in the first of the 12 cases. By the end of the trials, he had been sentenced to a total of 170 years in jail, where he spent 12 years – before DNA tests revealed that another man had been responsible for the crimes.

Da Silva was released earlier this month and, now aged 36, is trying to rebuild his life. But his lawyer has warned that the police procedure that led to his arrest is still widely used by Brazilian detectives, and accepted by prosecutors and judges.

Da Silva’s convictions were all based on photo recognition, in which victims were shown his mugshot and asked whether they believed he was the perpetrator.

. . .

“We accept a kind of amateurism in investigations. We’re satisfied with so little to condemn people to high prison sentences,” said Schietti.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/25/brazil-man-freed-prison-accused-rape