Appeal Proceedings

Although Beteta's superiors and other suspected material authors of Myrna Mack's murder were not prosecuted in the Beteta trial, the case proceedings added to the mounting evidence suggesting involvement of his superiors. For example, Beteta and others maintained while on duty a daily military-style surveillance operation over Myrna Mack in the two weeks before Beteta and another man stabbed her to death. Furthermore, Beteta was not sanctioned for neglect of duties during this period or for abandonment of the service when he left the EMP after the murder. His position as an active member of the State's security apparatus at the time of the murder, along with the deliberate organized surveillance of Myrna Mack prior to her murder-as well as the organized harassment and even murder of persons involved with the case--all suggested that further investigation should be conducted. To this end, Helen Mack's summation to the court in the Beteta trial asked that investigation be continued against Beteta's three superiors. However, the trial judge found no basis for maintaining proceedings against anyone else in the case and rejected a petition to open a proceeding against Beteta's superior officers and his other accomplices in the murder, who all remained at large.

Both parties appealed the verdict. Beteta sought to overturn his conviction, while the prosecution sought to reverse the judge's decision to foreclose further criminal proceedings against other suspects. On April 28, 1993, the Fourth Chamber of the Court of Appeals affirmed the judge's decision on all counts without reasons. A request for the appeals court to expand on and clarify its decision was denied, threatening to foreclose any possibility of judicially determining not only the identity of Beteta's accomplices at the crime scene but also whose orders, if any, Beteta and others were obeying when they stalked Myrna Mack for weeks and then murdered her.

Helen Mack petitioned for casación , which is an extraordinary and technical petition to the Supreme Court to review specific aspects of an appellate decision. Her petition named the same three superior officers mentioned above, as well as three other individuals, as prospective targets of investigation. The public prosecutors explicitly opposed Helen Mack's efforts to investigate the intellectual authors of the crime, and favored continuation of the investigation only as to the identity of a second person who joined Beteta in the murder.

However, in a February 9, 1994, landmark decision, the Supreme Court not only affirmed Beteta's conviction and sentence, but also granted Helen Mack's petition, ordering that the investigation against all those named continue, on the ground that sufficient indicia of the possible participation of other persons in the murder was produced in the Beteta prosecution process. This hard-fought ruling held out the promise that the victim's family would have an opportunity to bring to justice all those criminally responsible for the murder. The Court ordered that a criminal proceeding be opened against Beteta's superiors at the EMP who allegedly authorized Beteta to carry out the murder, along with three others believed to have assisted Beteta in the surveillance and murder.

The new criminal proceedings were initiated in February 1994. According to the provisions of a new Criminal Procedure Code, the case was assigned to a military judge because the accused were members of the military. However, the proceeding was delayed by the three superior officers' action in the Constitutional Tribunal, the nation's highest court, seeking to overturn the Supreme Court's order. In December 1994 their petitions were denied. next>>