Judicial individualization in the selection of the principal penalty for an adult natural person

Abstract

In the following, I set out to analyse the steps imposed by the Criminal Code for the judicial individualization of punishment. I refer to “steps” because, although the current criminal and criminal procedure legislation imposes a single manifestation of the will of the court which establishes both the existence of criminal liability and its concrete materialization through the selection of the type of penalty, the amount or duration of the sanction, as well as possible alternative means of the execution of the sentence, a careful study of the rules of the Criminal Code seems to indicate a staged approach.
In this paper I will present each of the stages of this process, showing how the rules governing them are interpreted and attempting to answer those aspects that have controversial interpretations. I believe that the clarifications provided by this article may allow for a more predictable judicial individualization of sanctions, but also for the participants in the criminal trial to formulate arguments that are relevant to the specific requests they have in relation to the judicial individualization of the main sanction.