Criminal Cassation Appeal Lawyers in Marbella

Criminal Cassation Appeal before the Supreme Court

The cassation appeal before the Second Chamber (Criminal Chamber) of the Supreme Court constitutes the last ordinary instance of Spanish criminal proceedings and one of the technically most demanding avenues in the entire body of procedural law. It is not a second appeal and does not allow the evidence taken at trial to be reassessed; instead, any disagreement must be channeled through statutorily defined grounds and argumentation of a high cassational standard.

At RAKH Abogados we handle the preparation and filing of these appeals with technical rigor, focusing on the correct application of the law to the account of facts found proven, which is binding on the Supreme Court.

Extraordinary Nature and Grounds for Appeal

The Ley de Enjuiciamiento Criminal (LECrim) (Spain's Criminal Procedure Act) structures the cassation appeal around three grounds of a distinct nature and effect:

• Violation of the Law (Art. 849 LECrim): sub-ground 1 for the improper application or non-application of a substantive criminal law provision; and sub-ground 2 for error in the assessment of evidence based on documents in the case file that are not contradicted by other evidence.
• Breach of Procedural Form (Arts. 850 and 851 LECrim): alleges procedural defects (denial of evidence, contradiction or lack of clarity in the facts found proven, failure to rule on an issue raised). If successful, it leads to the proceedings being sent back for reconsideration.
• Violation of a Fundamental Right (Art. 852 LECrim / Art. 5.4 LOPJ (Spain's Organic Law on the Judiciary)): the avenue for alleging violations of the presumption of innocence, the right to effective judicial protection, or the right of defense.

Limitation of Grounds and the Cassation-Relevance Filter

Deadlines and Procedural Requirements

The appeal proceeds in two main stages:

• Preparation: filed with the court that issued the decision within 5 days of its notification. For the ground under art. 849.2 LECrim, the self-sufficient documents relied upon must be expressly designated in this filing.
• Filing (interposición): formalized before the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court once the case file has been received.

For grounds based on a breach of procedural form, it is an imperative requirement that the corresponding objection or request for correction was placed on the record during the lower-instance proceedings.

Our Cassation Strategy

• Technical selection of grounds: matching the cassation channel to each violation, without mixing grounds of a different nature.
• Verification of the applicable regime: prior review of art. 847 LECrim to tailor the strategy to the grounds legally available.
• Cassation-relevance argumentation: drafting a specific section justifying the significance of the issue raised.
• Rigorous compliance review: verifying compliance with deadlines, prior objections and documentary formalities in order to avoid inadmissibility.

Has an unfavorable criminal judgment been handed down against you, and are you considering a cassation appeal before the Supreme Court? At RAKH Abogados we handle these appeals with the technical rigor demanded by the Second Chamber, throughout Spain.