This Sevilla Court rejected the family’s request to invalidate a prior ruling. Marta del Castillo, a young Seville resident who received a sentence of 21 years and three months for the 2009 murder of Miguel Carcaño, challenged the court’s decision to uphold the Fourth Investigation Court, which refused to broaden the inquiry to include the raw data from the victim and the perpetrator’s mobile numbers. The case also involves Carcaño’s brother Francisco Javier Delgado, his girlfriend María García Mendaro, and associates such as Francisco Javier García, known as Samuel Benítez or El Cuco, all of whom have been drawn into the proceedings.
In a decision circulated by the Communications Bureau of the Andalusian Superior Court of Justice on 24 March and reported by Europa Press, the Third Division of the Seville Court rejected Marta del Castillo’s parents’ bid to overturn the ruling. The court held that extending the examination to the mobile phones of third parties who have already been tried would violate provisions of Article 588, subparagraphs 3.b and c.
The court explained that such an extension would lack investigative relevance to the search for Marta’s remains and would compromise the rights of individuals in the criminal process, potentially affecting the integrity of the ongoing proceedings and justifying the decision to maintain the separate investigation rather than extend it.
No room for an extension of the investigation
The court stated that the search for Marta del Castillo’s body is the sole purpose of preserving this separate inquiry, and that extending the scope beyond the agreed purposes would limit the effectiveness of the expert examination focusing on Miguel Carcaño’s phone numbers. The investigation of other telephone terminals mentioned by the expert concerns Marta’s phone and other individuals who were not shown to have a justified role in the work or consent to it.
The court further ruled that the search for Marta del Castillo’s body has no time limit. The National Police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office may conduct any research they deem necessary to locate the victim, but such actions cannot revive a procedure that has already been concluded. If consent is obtained, police or prosecutors may question those who were previously examined, but without compelling further judicial intervention.
Additionally, the court noted that examining the raw data from Miguel Carcaño and Marta del Castillo’s mobile phones must remain outside the scope of this separate case. The aim is not to create new proceedings that would affect the rights of those already prosecuted, nor to grant investigative status to individuals outside the current framework.
The court found that the inviolability of data and the right to effective legal protection and legal certainty were not violated. The family’s arguments hinged on these principles, but the court maintained that the challenge to the invalidation would not be sustained on those grounds.
It should be recalled that the request to investigate Marta del Castillo’s body prompted the Fourth Investigation Court in Seville to respond by considering extending the inquiry to cover raw data from mobile devices involved in the case.
On 21 September, the Fourth Investigation Court in Seville received mobile telephony reports from operators for Miguel Carcaño and Marta del Castillo and decided to file this piece while forwarding it to the appointed expert for referral.
Also the Audience
In February 2022, the investigating court granted access to the raw data from the mobile phones owned by Miguel Carcaño and Marta del Castillo at the time of the events. However, as with Carcaño’s brother Francisco Javier Delgado, the court excluded the remaining phone terminals belonging to other individuals charged with the crime, including María García Mendaro and Francisco Javier García, known as Samuel Benítez or El Cuco.
As a reminder, the first three individuals were acquitted in the 2011 case against adults. El Cuco was convicted by the Juvenile Court for aiding in the murder by Carcaño, and in 2022 the Criminal Court number seven sentenced her and her mother to two years for a false accusation. Their status as witnesses in the earlier adult case remains a point of reference.
Although Marta del Castillo’s parents objected to the exclusion order, on 26 October 2022 the Third Section of the Trial declared that the new doctrine of the Supreme Court applied. It acknowledged that the investigation period had expired without an extension being accepted, a stance that affected the current trial which began on 9 November 2009 as a separate effort to locate the victim’s remains. The finding did not address the charges directly and did not decide to extend the investigation period.
Previous decisions
The Third Section argued that the Supreme Court’s decision became final after the Supreme Court’s appeal of the first-instance ruling from the Seventh Division concerning the main charge in the case. The second file in the case involved Carcaño’s brother, Francisco Javier Delgado, who faced accusations of being the actual author of the crime.
Referencing extensive case law, the Third Section noted that the investigation phase had effectively ended given the duration of the inquiry, which spanned twelve years, eleven months, and seventeen days. It also prevented consideration of actions decided before the end of the investigation in accordance with jurisprudence, though no new crime beyond the main offense could be pursued. The court ultimately upheld the conviction of Miguel Carcaño.
The court dismissed the appeal by the victim’s family and affirmed the rejection of a new evidentiary trial approach.