When reading the sentence sentencing Ronnie Lessa and Élcio de Queiroz, judge Lúcia Glioche, from the 4th Jury Court of Rio de Janeiro, recognized that the Brazilian judicial system is slow, but that whoever commits crimes in the country will at some point be punished. 
“Justice is sometimes slow, it is blind, it is stupid, it is unfair, it is wrong, it is crooked, but it arrives. Justice arrives even for those who, like the accused, think that they will never be reached by justice. With all difficult to be interpreted and experienced by victims, Justice reaches the guilty and takes away from them the most important asset after life, which is freedom.”
She highlighted the difficulties of investigating a crime and also spoke about the years of suffering that the families of Marielle Franco and Anderson Gomes went through in search of answers to the crime.
Early this evening, the confessed killers of councilor Marielle Franco and driver Anderson Gomes, former military police officers Ronnie Lessa and Élcio de Queiroz were convicted. Ronnie Lessa was sentenced to 78 years, 9 months and 30 days. Élcio, 59 years, 8 months and 10 days.
See the full sentence:
“The jury is a democracy. A democracy that Marielle Franco defended.
Here the will of the people in the majority prevails. Those who act as jurors receive nothing; They provide a voluntary, free service, representing the will of the people in the act of judging their fellow man, who is accused of having committed a crime so serious that it involves wanting to take another person’s life.
Therefore, gentlemen of the jury, thank you on behalf of the Judiciary. Thank you on behalf of the population of the city of Rio de Janeiro.
The sentence that will be read now may not bring what is expected from Justice. Perhaps the justice that has been talked about so much here would be if today had never happened. Perhaps justice would have been Marielle and Anderson present. As if justice had the power to bring the dead back.
So we say that victims of the crime of homicide are those who remain alive, needing to survive in the sewer that is the emptiness of remaining alive without the life of the one who was ripped away from their daily lives.
The sentence does not serve to reassure the victims, who are Marinete, Marielle’s mother; Anielle, Marielle’s sister; Mônica, Marielle’s wife; Luyara, daughter of Marielle; Ágatha, Anderson’s wife, and Arthur, Anderson’s son.
Homicide is a traumatic crime — it leaves a pain in your chest that bleeds every day, a few days more, a few days less, but every day.
The person who is murdered leaves a lack, a lack, a vacuum. No words describe it. All my solidarity and that of the Judiciary to the victims.
The sentence that will be given now may also not answer the question that echoed through the streets of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and the world: Who killed Marielle and Anderson?
Perhaps it does not answer the questions of the 46,502 Rio voters who made Marielle Franco the 5th most voted councilor in the city of Rio de Janeiro in the 2016 municipal elections — and who had their right to representation terminated on March 14, 2018.
However, the sentence that will be read now is addressed to the accused present here. And more: she addresses the various Ronnies and several Élcios that exist in the city of Rio de Janeiro — free out there.
I always say that in the 31 years that I have served the justice system, none of us in the people will ever know what happened on the day of a crime. Anyone who was not at the scene of the crime, did not participate in it, never knows what happened.
Even so, the Judiciary and today the jurors need to judge the crime with the evidence that the process presents, and bringing the evidence to the process is difficult for the jurors.
However, with all the difficulties and problems of investigating a crime, the Public Ministry of the State of Rio de Janeiro denounced the accused. They were prosecuted and had their right to defense guaranteed — and they were tried.
For years exercising the full constitutional right of self-defense, the accused swore their innocence, all the while casting doubt on the evidence brought against them. Until one day, last year, 2023, for reasons that we will never truly know, the accused Élcio entered into the award-winning collaboration. Then the accused Ronnie did it too.
The accused confessed to the execution and participation in the murder of councilor Marielle Franco.
Therefore, here is the following message for the accused present and for the various Ronnies and various Élcios out there, free:
Justice is sometimes slow, blind, stupid, unfair, wrong, crooked, but it arrives.
Justice comes even to those who, like the accused, think they will never be harmed by justice. With all the difficulty of being interpreted and experienced by victims, Justice reaches the guilty and takes away from them the most important asset after life, which is freedom.
Justice has arrived for Messrs. Ronnie Lessa and Elcio de Queiroz. You were convicted by the jurors of the 4th jury in the capital:
to 78 years and 9 months in prison and a 30-day fine for the accused Ronnie;
to 59 years in prison and 8 months in prison and a 10-day fine for the accused Élcio.
The two men sentenced to pay Anderson’s son, Arthur, a pension until the age of 24.
The two are sentenced to pay, together, R$706,000 in compensation for moral damage to each of the victims — Arthur, Ághata, Luyara, Mônica and Marinete.
I order the accused to pay the costs of the case and maintain their preventive detention, denying their right to appeal freely.
I thank the parties, the Public Defender’s Office, for the defenses of the 2 accused. I thank the justice workers and the military police officers. I renew my thanks to the jurors.
I close the trial session and break the incommunicado.
Have a good night everyone.”
