Inter-American Court of Human Rights and to the opinion of the Human Rights Committee5 on the compulsory observance of the guarantees of due process in cases in which capital punishment is a possibility in order to prevent the death sentence from being handed down on an arbitrary basis. Regarding the Exhaustion of Domestic Remedies 18. The petitioners report that the judgment of March 6, 1998, that handed down Mr. Fermín Ramirez’s death sentence was challenged by means of an appeal, which was dismissed by the Guatemalan Court of Appeals in a ruling dated May 27, 1998; that the defense filed an appeal for annulment against that ruling, which was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Justice on August 17, 1998; that the defense later lodged an amparoconstitutional relief suit with the Constitutional Court, which was dismissed on February 18, 1999; and that it finally filed a review remedy with the Supreme Court of Justice, which was dismissed on July 12, 1999. They also report that on July 27, 1999, an appeal for clemency was lodged with the President of the Republic, and that this request was rejected on May 31, 2000. B. State 19. In its response, the Government of Guatemala stated that it would not address all the points related to the right of defense invoked by the petitioners in their complaint because, in its view, that would mean discussing the interpretation and enforcement of domestic legal precepts, which would clearly imply the creation of a fourth instance, the weakening of Guatemalan institutions, and the reexamination of an issue that has already gone through all the stages and proceedings set by the Code of Criminal Procedure (hereinafter “the CCP”) and other applicable laws. 20. The State maintains that in the case at hand, the change in the legal classification of the crime made by the first-instance court upon handing down its judgment did not undermine Mr. Ramirez’s right of defense since it took place in strict compliance with the judicial guarantees implicit in due process. Thus, the State argues that the defendant was remanded in custody for the crimes of murder and aggravated rape and that, as recognized by the petitioners, his defense team was informed at trial of a possible change in the legal classification–a situation that is explicitly provided for in the CCP6–and that later, in the final conclusions, the change was also requested by the public prosecution service. 21. The State further argues that the Sentencing Court merely assessed the evidence in the case file, which does not indicate that the child’s death was caused by the rape or by secondary circumstances related thereto; on the contrary, it maintains that in this case, it was clearly shown and proven, in the forensic report presented at trial, that the cause of death was asphyxia through strangulation. The State adds that this case involves the doctrine known as the “real or material combination of crimes” in that the defendant, according to the trial documents, performed two actions: that of “killing” the girl and that of “raping” her. These two actions constitute separate crimes, and the Sentencing Court ruled that the action of killing the girl, with the applicable aggravating circumstances, led to the activation of the legal provision that governs the taking of a life. For that reason the State believes that the alteration of the facts that the petitioners allege–and that, according to the petitioners’ arguments, led to the violation of the defendant’s rights–did not in fact take place; the State also maintains that even if those arguments were true, all the necessary means for presenting a defense were available to the defendant. 22. Regarding the petitioners’ claims that the presumption of innocence was violated, the State holds that if a conviction was handed down in this case it was because it was duly proven that 5 Human Rights Committee, General Comment 6, Article 6 (sixteenth session, 1982), Compilation of General Comments and General Recommendations Adopted by Human Rights Treaty Bodies, U.N. Doc. HRI\GEN\1\Rev.1 at 6 (1994). 6 Ibid., footnote Nº 4. 4