Especially vulnerable people and defenceless people in crimes against independent human life

Abstract

The current regulation of intentional death in the Spanish Penal Code punishes with life sentence cases of accumulation of characterizing and specific circumstances of murder. It is particularly problematic the concurrence of the circumstances of treachery ―extended by the case law from the assurance of execution to secure execution due to absolute defenselessness of the victim― and of special vulnerability. The raison d’être of both is the same and therefore to appreciate them jointly would violate the prohibition of double valuation of any aggravating element. Having examined the courts opinions on this concurrence, which admits in some cases the simultaneity of both, we propose, as de lege ferenda solution, to reserve the circumstance of special vulnerability for cases of absolute defenselessness, which thus would no longer be included in the scope of treachery.