Deciding not to decide

This article is based on a representative and randomly selected sample of 396 individual criminal decisions from the Federal Supreme Court, issued between January 1, 2020, and June 22, 2021, related to the COVID-19 pandemic. We tracked the petitions, the type of imprisonment, the date of judgment, the type of legal action, and the outcomes of these requests. Subsequently, we conducted a qualitative analysis of the arguments employed by the Court in reaching its decisions. The main objective of the study is to understand how the Court ruled on requests for release from incarceration and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in the judicial reasoning. The findings indicate that the pandemic had no relevant impact on the Court’s decision-making process. Dismissals on procedural grounds prevailed, allowing the court to avoid ruling on the merits of a claim. On the other hand, when the merits were analyzed, the pandemic was not treated as a sufficient argument for releasing a prisoner. Additionally, during the pandemic, CNJ’s Recommendation No. 62 and ADPF No. 347 had no argumentative prominence in the few decisions that granted requests for release. This research reinforces the diagnosis that the pandemic has not changed how the Judiciary deals with imprisonment. This finding contributes to understand the challenges in tackling mass incarceration in Brazil.