A. Arguments of the Commission and the Parties 148. The Commission concluded that article 132 of the Criminal Code is contrary to the American Convention and affirmed that the judicial authority that imposed the death penalty referred to the "unfavorable personal background of the guilty party" to justify the "social danger", thus violating, in the opinion of the Commission, the right to the presumption of innocence and the principle of legality and, consequently, the right to life. It also indicated that the imposition of the death penalty in the framework of processes that violate due process produces a violation of the right to life, for these reasons, the Commission concluded that the State violated articles 4(1), 4(2) and 9 of the American Convention, in relation to articles 1(1) and 2 therein. 149. The representatives argued that the State sentenced Tirso Román Valenzuela Ávila to the death penalty through a sentence that was based on a norm contrary to the American Convention, therefore, it is internationally responsible for the violation of the right to life and the principle of legality, established in articles 4(1), 4(2) and 9 of the Convention, in relation to article 1(1) of the same instrument. They also alleged the violation of Article 4(6) of the Convention for failing to guarantee access to an effective remedy to challenge an arbitrary sentence. 150. The State considers that applying the criterion of the incompatibility of dangerousness with the Convention to declare the international responsibility of Guatemala for having sentenced Mr. Valenzuela to the death penalty, is to give retroactive use to the content of the Convention, because although it was in force in Guatemala at the time of Mr. Valenzuela Ávila’s conviction in 1999, the jurisprudential criterion of the Court that opposes the principle of legality of the dangerousness of the agent did not exist at that time, so it would be a violation of the legal certainty and the principle of legality in the Inter-American System to sanction the State for it. It concluded that there was no violation of articles 4(1), 4(2) and 9 of the Convention, in relation to article 1(1) and 2 thereof. B. Considerations of the Court 151. For purposes of examining the alleged violation of the right to life of Mr. Tirso Román Valenzuela Ávila due to the imposition of the death penalty, it should be remembered that the Court has recently highlighted in the case of Martínez Coronado v. Guatemala123 that in the exceptional cases in which States are allowed to apply the death penalty, it is subject to a set of rigorous limitations. It is stipulated that the death penalty may only be imposed for the most serious crimes (Article 4(2)) and its application for political crimes or for common crimes related to political crimes is absolutely excluded (article 4(4)). The fact that the American Convention reduces the possible scope of application of the death penalty in the most serious and unrelated common crimes reveals the intention of considering said penalty applicable only in exceptional conditions. 152. The Court emphasizes that in this case, in order to determine the conviction of Mr. Valenzuela Ávila, Article 132 of the Criminal Code in force on that date was applied, which regulates the criminal classification of murder (supra para. 66), to substantiate the categorization of the facts of the criminal offense and determine the corresponding sanction. Specifically, Mr. Valenzuela Ávila was sentenced to death in application of the second paragraph of said norm, which provided for its application "if due to the circumstances of the Cf. Case of Martínez Coronado v. Guatemala. Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of May 10, 2019. Series C No. 376, para. 62 to 67. 123 38