Court applied article 132 of the Guatemalan Criminal Code in force at the time, which provided that if a person is convicted of murder, the death penalty shall be imposed instead of the maximum term of imprisonment “if the circumstances of the act and of the occasion, the way it was carried out and the determinant motives reveal a particular dangerousness of the agent.” In reaching this conclusion, the Criminal Sentencing Court stated the following: "In this case, the existence of an impulse of brutal perversity is also evident, inasmuch as this aggravating or qualifying circumstance consists in the fact that since the offender acts in a manner totally devoid of any apparent motive, the danger of being the victim of his aggressions causes alarm among all citizens, since no one is protected from that risk. The doctrine points out that this rare figure, revealing the extraordinary general dangerousness of the subject, comes from the lack of conscious concrete motives to act, the attack is not directed against a specific individual and acts for the barbaric pleasure of spilling blood".38 b.2 Appeals (i) Special appeal 42. Rodríguez Revolorio, López Calo and Archila Pérez filed a special appeal against the conviction, alleging a series of formal and substantive defects in the decision.39 They argued, among other issues, that: (i) the Court omitted to duly individualize the accused; (ii) there was a lack of an enunciation of the facts and circumstances that were the object of the accusation; (iii) there was no precise and circumstantial determination of the facts; (iv) lack of sufficient justification; (v) erroneous evaluation of the evidence; (vi) the operative part of the sentence contained formal defects, and (vii) failure to observe substantive law in relation to aggravating circumstances, fixing of the sentence, and of the death penalty.40 43. On September 2, 1996, the Tenth Chamber of the Court of Criminal Appeals, Drug Trafficking and Crimes against the Environment (hereinafter "Court of Appeals") dismissed the special appeal filed.41 With regard to the substantive defects pointed out in the special appeal,42 the Court of Appeals indicated that these arguments could not be accepted on the grounds that: "a) the way in which the generic and specific aggravating circumstances of the crime were applied is not within the remit of a special appeal, because its application stems from the sentencing court's decisions on the evidence presented and gathered during the hearing: a factual examination that is beyond the control of this Court due to the exclusively revisory nature of the appeal that concerns us in terms of the law. Only the determination of aggravating or mitigating circumstances is subject to review in order to verify whether the sentencing court complied with the legal norm that confers it that power; b) All the matters related to the fixing of the sentence is not susceptible of being heard by means of a special appeal, because it comes from a discretionary power that the law confers on the Judges so that, based on Article 65 of the Criminal Code, they may reach conclusions of legal Judgment of the Fourth Criminal Sentencing Court for Drug Trafficking and Crimes against the Environment of Guatemala of May 23, 1996 (evidence file, folio 110). 39 Special appeal filed by Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Revolorio before the Fourth Criminal Sentencing, Drug Trafficking and Environmental Crimes Court of Guatemala, June 20, 1996 (evidence file, folios 114 to 200). 40 Special appeal filed by Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Revolorio before the Fourth Criminal Sentencing, Drug Trafficking and Environmental Crimes Court of Guatemala, on June 20, 1996 (evidence file, folio 114). 41 Judgment of the Tenth Chamber of the Court of Criminal Appeals, Drug Trafficking and Crimes against the Environment, September 2, 1996 (evidence file, folios 202 to 222). 42 That is, the failure to comply with substantive law in relation to (i) the generic and specific aggravating circumstances of the crime, (ii) sentencing, and (iii) partial non-compliance with the content of substantive law for the establishment of the death penalty. 38 13