Racionalidade probatória e cultura visual do Direito: critérios de valoração e limites epistêmicos da perícia técnica na prova em vídeo no Processo Penal brasileiro

Abstract

This dissertation, linked to the concentration area "Law, Argumentation, and Public Policies: empiricism and innovation in legal research", analyzes the paradox of audiovisual evidence in the Brazilian criminal procedure: the growing omnipresence of videos coexists with an uncritical judicial reception, which presumes the self-evidence of the image and dismisses technical mediation. The research problem investigates how courts handle content expertise on videos used as criminal evidence and by what criteria they value or dismiss this examination. The research is grounded in the dialogue between Legal Epistemology (Taruffo, Haack, Laudan) and studies on the Visual Culture of Law (Guedes, Silbey, Sherwin). The general objective is to examine, in collegiate decisions from the Court of Justice of Minas Gerais (TJMG), the incidence and treatment of content expertise on video evidence, as well as the criteria for its valuation. Specifically, it seeks to: identify the direct or indirect appreciation of the video; map the registration of the digital chain of custody; describe who interprets the content (experts, police officers, judges); and evaluate the standards of rational justification. An empirical methodology of a qualitative nature is adopted, supported by descriptive quantitative indicators, based on the documental analysis of a corpus of 150 rulings from the TJMG. The conclusions confirm the hypothesis that technical expertise is rarely required, with indirect valuation prevailing, based on police testimony and an uncritical trust in the image's transparency. This practice reveals an implicit epistemology of belief, to the detriment of evidentiary rationality, weakening procedural guarantees. It is noted that in the minority of cases where expertise was present, it acted as an essential epistemological filter for the rational justification of the decision.