Abstract
The Law nº 9,605/1998 represented a historic milestone in Brazilian environmental legislation, defining crimes against wildlife. In this context, this study aimed to investigate the application of expert reports in judicial decisions of the Santa Catarina Court of Justice in cases of crimes against fauna from 2018 to 2023, through bibliographic and jurisprudential research. During the period evaluated, 321 expert reports of animal’s examinations were issued by Scientific Police of Santa Catarina. The year 2023 had the highest number of reports (135), followed by 2022 (62), 2021 (53), 2020 (34), 2019 (25) and 2018 (6). In 2023, the Florianópolis superintendence issued the largest number of expert reports (72), followed by the Joinville region (30). In jurisprudential research, 123 results were obtained in the period. Of this total number of judicial decisions, 52 (42.27%) cases were classified as included and 11 of these cases cited the terms expert examination and/or expert report in their respective summaries. Given the analysis of the cases, it was possible to verify divergences regarding the essentiality of the expert report in judicial decisions, depending on the specific case. In certain situations, judges considered other evidences in their sentences. In other cases, the report was relevant in the decision-making process and may be essential for the materialization of the crimes. Therefore, many technical issues depend on forensic experts to carry out specific examinations on animals, with emphasis on the work of veterinarian experts.