The death of criminal judge Vivian Polanía in the early hours of Wednesday shocked Colombia. In recent years, his name has transcended Cúcuta, a city of about 800,000 on the border with Venezuela. Her critics presented her as an official different from the traditional canons of judicial solemnity: she appeared smoking in a bed during a Zoom hearing, she participated in an erotic show at the Cúcuta Courthouse, she published photos in underwear and swimsuits on social networks. They repeatedly accused her of “disrespecting” justice and failing to preserve her dignity. She defended her freedom and always insisted that judges also have the right to a personal life. He later said he was the victim of harassment and intimidation by his superiors.
Police found his body Wednesday afternoon. He was in his bed, wrapped in blankets, with his one and a half month old son crying next to him. His escort had raised the alarm after not being able to communicate with Polanía for the entire day – the last contact took place on Tuesday evening. He notified the judge’s mother and the complex guard. “Around 5:30 in the afternoon, the call was received from the guard of the building where the judge lives. He entered with a locksmith and the mother, and the judge was found dead in his bed in the company of his baby,” said the commander of the Cúcuta Metropolitan Police, Fabio Ojeda, in statements to the press.
The colonel also stressed that “the technical inspection of the corpse was coordinated to determine the causes of death”, but that “no signs of violence were found”, in reference to a possible suicide. Later, in an interview with La Fm on Thursday, Ojeda clarified that forensic medicine must determine the causes of death and that the judge’s son is “stable” in an intensive care unit (ICU).
Several political leaders spoke out after the judge’s death. “What a painful story. Judge Vivian Polanía was found dead next to her two-month-old baby. The investigations are only just beginning. As a mother, I think of her baby, of her, of her family”, wrote in X Vicky Dávila, far-right presidential candidate. Her rival Claudia López, also a candidate for the House of Nariño in next year’s elections, commented something similar: “What painful news. It breaks the soul to think of her little daughter. Judge Vivian Polanía was in charge of crucial cases against organized crime. The prosecution must investigate and clarify the causes of her death. Consolation and solidarity with her family and friends.
Beyond the shock of death, the media and social networks began to remember the moments that made the judge from Cúcuta known. The most notorious occurred in 2022: 57 minutes after the start of a hearing, she appeared on screen, without a gown, with a cigarette in her hand and lying down. Then, the public prosecutor’s office filed a complaint claiming that the judge had presented a “deplorable” image and that she had “disrespected” her colleagues. The judge was suspended, but the National Judicial Disciplinary Commission revoked the measure in February 2023. But controls against her continued. The media and citizens investigated her private life on social networks and viralized photos in which Polanía plays sports and takes selfies in a swimsuit or underwear.
Polanía always defended that she was a free woman and that being a judicial official did not prevent her from having a personal life. “Before being a judge, I am a person (…). You see my Instagram and I am not saying anything legal. Because a social network is a social network, precisely for meeting people,” he told CNN in 2020, when he was already accumulating investigations for an account of 150,000 subscribers on which he posted sensual photos online. “I have already warned: I am not going to change,” he added. In 2022, after the controversy for appearing smoking in a bed during a hearing, she assured that “several magistrates from Cúcuta” had harassed her because of the way she dressed and that they had threatened her with new disciplinary investigations. He also said he was overworked and this caused him to have anxiety attacks.
That wasn’t the end of the story. Later, in September 2023, videos of a Love and Friendship Day celebration at the Cúcuta Palace of Justice went viral. There, Polanía appears sitting on a chair, dancing and laughing with a half-naked man. “We had to make a potluck for the day of love and friendship and I brought my potluck. The boy is not a stripper“He is a waiter in a restaurant, he has never been naked,” defended the judge during an interview with Week.
A few years later, after the uproar over the 2023 courthouse party, she said she was “from a different generation” and that her superiors had harassed her for it. “I tried to change because I thought it was my fault and I started wearing long dresses. Now I have psychological trauma with that, to the point where I can’t put on a skirt without thinking someone is looking at me and judging me,” she said in Week.
Then came better times. In February this year, the National Commission for Judicial Discipline acquitted her for a case of alleged mistreatment that a lawyer had reported in 2020: he had uttered phrases such as “you are more lost than confused”, “that already makes me laugh”, “I don’t know if it’s a lack of experience, last chance”.
The judge continued her career and maintained her social media posts, but with a new, discreet account. “Work!!! How’s the new look? (sic),” she wrote on Instagram in June, alongside several photos in which she appears in her toga and is seen smiling. “This belly is out of control…” she declared in July, a few weeks before the birth of her son. “I love you Mohammed!” he wrote with a picture of the ultrasound.
Messages of condolence after his death included inquiries about what Polanía meant for justice and criticism of the harassment he suffered. “The country will remember her for the scandals that made her an easy headline; those of us who shared her work, a coffee or a conversation with her know that there was also lucidity, a social conscience and an intelligence that did not fit the mold. Yes, there were excesses. But a life and a career cannot be managed to the point of public punishment,” human rights defender Carlos Ramos wrote in X. a judge sells himself” and demands “that a rigorous investigation be carried out to find out who pushed this machine of judicial attrition which cornered her to the end, which persecuted her relentlessly”.
Other people recalled that Polanía was investigating organized crime gangs in Cúcuta and that he had received threats. The director of the Indepaz Foundation, Leonardo González, called on the government to “immediately strengthen” security measures for judges in territories affected by violence. “Judge Vivian Polanía Franco was carrying out legal proceedings linked to the criminal structures that operate in Cúcuta and the border area, which makes the complete clarification of the circumstances of her death even more urgent,” he stressed.
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