5 19. In brief, it is necessary to continue insisting on the existence of that special position of guarantor and on its consequences for the State and for the individual. This encompasses behavior of the agents of the State –who systematically abridge the rights of the inmates in the course of prison life-., through action or omission, as shown by the Tibi and Panchito López cases, to which we must add another recent, explosive situation in the Urso Branco prison, where violent deaths of inmates have continued, despite the provisional measures ordered by the Inter-American Court. 20. Reiteration of the violations, despite projects and promises, and even despite actions that will yield medium- and long-term results, led me to point out in the Concurring Opinion that I attached to the July 7, 2004 ruling on measures, in regards to conditions prevailing in the Urso Branco prison: “It is good that there be a penitentiary reform, that new legislation be enacted regarding this matter, that inmates be classified, that penitentiary institutions be modernized, that the officials who will act as guards and be responsible for sentence execution be carefully recruited, that there be adequate alternatives to prison sentences, that visits to prisoners take place under decent conditions, that there be medical care to protect the inmates’ health, that schools, workshops and work units be set up. All this, and more, is absolutely indispensable, because it reflects current standards regarding deprivation of liberty, both preventive and penal, a measure that currently is severely questioned. – But none of this, which must be done as soon as possible, can substitute immediate adoption of the necessary measures to avoid a single additional death in the Urso Branco Prison.” V. Right to fair trial and judicial protection 21. In criminal Law there is concurrence of criminal offenses, which generally entails a more severe applicable sentence. For this, an assessment of the overall situation is the basis for a ruling. Something similar happens in human rights Law. Rarely is there an isolated abridgment of a juridical right that is protected by a precept of a convention. There are many examples of this in the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court. Abridgments are usually multiple, beginning with a single unlawful conduct (as in the case of forced disappearance: violation of various rights, as the Court pointed out already in its early judgments: thus, in the judgment on the merits in the Velásquez Rodríguez case, on July 29, 1988) or, in the course of successive facts or acts, in close succession. It is perfectly possible that during a criminal prosecution proceeding, which may take place rapidly, there are various violations: arbitrary detention, torture, irrational severity of preventive detention, breaches of due process, flaws in the judgment. Nevertheless, each one has its own specificity. 22. Things may have been seen otherwise –but at the time there was no protection of human rights as there is today- when there was “aggravated” capital punishment, that is, one carried out with major use of means to carry the suffering of the convict to the extreme. There are numerous examples: such is the case of Damiens, referred to in the first pages of Discipline and Punish. Thus, torture was part of punitive death, it was incorporated into this punishment, which did not separate purgatory torment, on the one hand, and fulminating death, on the other. Even so, it is possible to naturally establish a distinction between the suffering inflicted and the death caused: the former violates –as we say today, in the language of Article 5 of the American Convention- the right to humane treatment, and the latter violates the right to life recognized in Article 4. 23. There is, therefore, a constellation of events, with barely a break in continuity, if it exists at all, which the judge must observe, analyze, and decide upon. This will be the starting point for establishing the responsibility of the State and the consequences in