The Huelva Prosecutor's Office has appealed before the Andalusian Superior Court of Justice (TSJA) the sentence that sentences a journalist to two years in prison for a crime of revealing secrets related to the case of the murder of Laura Luelmo in December 2018. In the appeal, to which EFE has had access, it is requested that the sentence be revoked and that the defendant be sentenced for the same crime but applying the incomplete defense of acting in the exercise of the journalistic profession in relation to the right to information (article 20.7 of the Penal Code and 20 of the Constitution), which would exempt her from criminal liability. Secondarily, in the event that it is decided to maintain the sentence for the type of crime determined by the Huelva Court, he requests that the sentence be reduced to nine months in prison and a fine of 1,620 euros.
In his appeal, the prosecutor assures that he shares "to a large extent" the sentence handed down, although he considers that he "values the test carried out in relation to the legal qualification of the proven facts, reaching conclusions without sufficient and reasonable motivation." After indicating that he does not question the proven facts and that "in no case does he request a greater sentence than the one imposed", he emphasizes issues that, in his opinion, could have led to a greater sentence, such as the fact that in the information "intimate data is revealed and very sensitive of the victim" or that "they came from the illegal leaking of the summary proceedings and without any authorization from the victim's family".
Making this clear, the Prosecutor focuses his appeal on what he considers to be a violation of the law due to non-application of the incomplete defense of acting in the exercise of the journalistic profession in relation to the right to information. At this point, the prosecutor points out that in this case "the treatment of the violent death of the victim in written and television media was very intense and invasive" and that excess was what led him to the oral trial, although he understands that, starting from of the constitutional doctrine, this incomplete defense must be appreciated and the sentence graduated in a proportionate way.
It considers that "it is not reasonable" that the sentence does not sufficiently analyze and develop the concurrence as incomplete of this defense and, applying the constitutional doctrine to the case, points out that "provided that the defendant is a journalist, she covers news of clear relevance and national public interest and obtains the summary proceedings in an unspecified but unlawful manner".
"It publishes them without omitting data that, seriously affecting the privacy of the victim and her family, contributed nothing to the constitutional right of public opinion to be informed of the crime and its investigation," says the prosecutor.
"We would be faced with the assumption that the constitutional doctrine speaks of excesses that cannot be fully covered" since, although acting under the exercise of his profession, "he published unnecessary data to inform and that seriously violated privacy", hence who understands that the exemption must be applied incompletely.
