On March 27, 2026, Justice Cristiano Zanin, of the Brazilian Supreme Court, annulled Anthony Garotinho‘s conviction of nearly 14 years in prison for electoral corruption, criminal association, document suppression, and witness tampering. The decision did not acquit him. It recognized something prior and more fundamental: that the evidence sustaining the conviction cannot be considered valid.
Why? The digital files that formed the basis of the investigation were extracted via flash drive, without seizing the original equipment and without any technical forensic examination.
Due to this lack of method, there is no way to guarantee that the content that reached the proceedings is the same as what was on the computers at the Municipal Secretariat of Human and Social Development in Campos dos Goytacazes.
That is the central issue in this case — and it goes far beyond Garotinho.
The Alleged Scheme and the Evidence That Supported It
Operation Chequinho investigated the alleged misuse of the Cheque Cidadão social welfare program, which was supposedly used to buy votes in the 2016 municipal elections in Campos dos Goytacazes. The alleged scheme was simple in its execution: irregular distribution of social benefits in exchange for electoral support for candidates linked to Garotinho’s political group.
The investigation produced an extensive body of evidence — witness testimony, judicially authorized wiretaps, documents, and expert reports. At the center of this body of evidence was a spreadsheet extracted from computers at the Municipal Secretariat: it identified candidates, the number of checks distributed, and the structure of the alleged scheme.
That spreadsheet was obtained on September 2, 2016, during the execution of a precautionary measure. The problem: according to the recent Supreme Court decision, the files were merely copied via flash drive. The computers were not seized. No forensic examination was conducted on the material. No integrity record was produced at the source.
When Evidence Is Born Before Cross-Examination
To understand why this matters, one must grasp a structural shift in contemporary criminal procedure.
The classical model was designed for street crimes, with a predominance of oral evidence. In such cases, the reconstruction of facts takes place in court — witnesses testify, memories are confronted, and cross-examination bears on what is being produced at that very moment. The center of gravity of the evidence lies, therefore, in the evidentiary hearings and oral testimony produced throughout the criminal proceedings.
In technology-mediated crime, the dynamic is different. Evidence is born digital, pre-constituted, during the investigative phase. By the time it reaches the judicial proceedings, it is already formed. Cross-examination does not bear on its production — it bears on a finished product.
This shifts the center of gravity of the evidence to the investigation. And that is precisely why the method of collection ceases to be a technical detail and becomes a constitutive element of the evidence itself. This is not a matter of formality. It is the only way to verify, afterward, whether that evidence is reliable.
Why Digital Evidence Has Higher Standards
Digital evidence has a characteristic that sets it apart from physical traces: it is highly mutable, and that mutability leaves no perceptible marks.
A physically altered object tends to reveal the alteration. A digital file can be modified, copied, or overwritten without that being immediately detectable. The data appears intact. It appears the same. But it may not be.
There is an additional aggravating factor: once digital evidence enters the record, it becomes immutable for procedural purposes. The proceedings crystallize it. There is no correcting it afterward, replacing it, or retrieving it for a new forensic examination if the original source has been discarded. What entered, stays. The moment of collection is therefore irreversible — and any doubt about authenticity that is not resolved at that point remains permanently unresolvable.
That is why we have said before that good evidence is verifiable evidence. What is at stake is not the apparent content of the evidence, but the ability to demonstrate that it is the same from collection to judgment — what legal scholars call sameness. Evidence whose authenticity is not beyond doubt must not be allowed to settle in the record.
In the case of Operation Chequinho, according to the Supreme Court decision, that demonstration is impossible. The files were copied via flash drive, without recording source codes, without a hash generated at the time of extraction, without a technical report, without seizing the equipment that would allow for counter-examination. There is no baseline for comparison. There is no way to state, technically, that the spreadsheet that reached the proceedings is the same as what was on the Secretariat’s computers.
What Is Chain of Custody and Why It Exists
Chain of custody is the set of procedures that documents the path of a trace from its collection to its final analysis, recording who had access, at what moment, under what conditions, and for what purpose. In the Brazilian Code of Criminal Procedure, it is established in Arts. 158-A through 158-F, introduced by Law n.º 13.964/2019.
Its function is not bureaucratic. It is epistemic: chain of custody is the instrument that allows verification of three indispensable requirements for digital data to serve as evidence — authenticity, integrity, and traceability. Without it, it is impossible to affirm that the element presented corresponds to the trace originally obtained.
The consequence of the absence of chain of custody is not a reduction in probative value. It is the impossibility of use. The problem does not lie in the weighing of evidence — it lies in admissibility. Data without chain of custody is not weak evidence. It is data that does not meet the minimum conditions to enter the proceedings as valid evidence.
The Superior Court of Justice has already recognized this distinction. In AgRg no HC 738.418/SP, decided by the 6th Panel in March 2025, the Court held that the absence of chain of custody in digital evidence makes any reliability test impossible — and that the consequence is exclusion, not reduced weight. The evidence becomes unusable.
What the Supreme Court Recognized
Justice Zanin began from a factual finding: all testimony referenced in the sentence, all documentary evidence produced during the investigative and procedural phases, stemmed from the search and seizure conducted on September 2, 2016. The only prior act — the flagrant arrest of alderman Ozéias — was not sufficient to fully elucidate the modus operandi of the alleged scheme, identify all those involved, or determine the amount allegedly misappropriated.
The conclusion was direct: the investigation that led to Garotinho’s conviction has the same unlawful origin already recognized by the Second Panel of the Supreme Court in ARE 1.343.875/RJ. What came after the tainted search and seizure has no independent existence. The conviction was annulled.
Art. 157, § 1, of the Code of Criminal Procedure establishes that evidence derived from unlawful evidence is inadmissible, unless it is shown that it could have been obtained from an independent source. In this case, there was no independent source: the evidence presented as autonomous was born from the same search and seizure that was compromised from the outset.
Lessons From Operation Chequinho
The Supreme Court’s decision is not about Garotinho. It is about what the State can assert on the basis of digital evidence obtained without methodological control.
If digital data can be extracted via flash drive — without an integrity record, without forensic examination, without documentation of the chain of custody from the outset — and if that extraction is sufficient to sustain a conviction of nearly 14 years, then anyone investigated with this type of evidence is vulnerable to what the data appears to be, not what it is.
Criminal proceedings cannot be governed by appearances. Evidence must survive the question: how did you get here? Without chain of custody, that question has no answer. If that is not properly documented, the evidence is unusable.
Facing an investigation with a digital component? Early identification of chain of custody failures can be decisive for your defense. Contact Lucchesi Advocacia.
