Mitigations and Excuses in the Spanish Criminal Code

Our expert lawyers in criminal law in Marbella represent their clients before the criminal courts and tribunals of Marbella and Malaga, as well as around Spain.

Committing a crime does not mean necessarily carries the entire penalty set forth in the articles of our Criminal Code. There are a series of defenses or “tools” that the Spanish criminal code allow to use, mitigations and excuses, called in Spanish “atenuantes” and “eximentes”, which can reduce criminal responsibility or even exclude it.

By mitigations or “atenuantes” we mean circumstances that criminally exonerate the defendant, that is to say, it allows that even if a crime has been committed, the perpetrator is exempt and does not go to prison (not to be confused with the conditional suspension of a prison judgment, which is quite different). The most popular, with its indispensable requirements, for appearing recurrently in the world of cinema, is that of legitimate defense. But there are many more, each with its own peculiarities.