Can Anyone Get a Fair Trial in Italy?

[SoDesuKa]

Writing in Foreign Policy magazine, Anna Momigliano asks, Can anyone get a fair trial in Italy? Momigliano answers her own question, calling Italian justice a "broken system." Italians themselves don't trust their courts, she says. Judges are incompetent, and criminal trials take years and years.

The truth is, Italians have long since recognized the unreliability and compromised nature of their courts. At the moment, the Italian public's trust in the justice system is at an all-time low. According to a November poll by Euromedia research group, only 16 percent of Italians fully trust it; just two years ago, the figure was 28 percent. And Italian civil rights groups are intense in their criticism of what they view as kangaroo courts.

For one, they say that coerced confessions and the use of dubious forensic evidence, as might have happened in the Knox case, are way too common. . . . .

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/12/10/can_anyone_get_a_fair_trial_in_italy

Anna Momigliano is an American-educated Italian journalist living in Milan. She writes both in English and in Italian, mostly on current affairs topics.

Edit: Corrected link.

[LiberalFighter]

1. I don't trust a system where the judge(s) are both judge and jury.

Especially when their rules of evidence lack credibility.

[goldcanyonaz]

11. And, the jury is allowed to research the case on it's own while hearing the case.

[lib2DaBone]

2. About Amanda Fox....

Homicide Detectives will tell you.. it is very unusual that a female would cut a throat. That is a very "male" type of homicide.

But.. these days.. never say never......

I would look at the boyfriend first... he was convicted.. but why did they include Amanda Fox in the decision?

Unless she was there when it happened?

I would definitely need to include the "love triangle" thing....

[SoDesuKa]

3. Juror Malpractice

Because the Knox conviction is the product of groupthink - which is frequently unreliable - there may have been underlying motives of which the participants themselves were unaware. For example, the expression, a passport not an alibi refers to the 1998 "Massacre of Cermis," when an American Marine pilot killed 20 people by cutting the ski lift cable. Both he and the navigator were acquitted, largely because they were Americans.

There are other possible underlying motives. University towns often detest the universities they host, and the year round residents resent what they perceive as the careless, indolent lives of the students. When I lived in Santa Barbara, for instance, I was amazed at how much the townies hated Isla Vista, site of the University of California. They've never forgotten the notorious burning of the Bank of America in 1968.

There's also the possibility that jurors found Knox guilty because they didn't find her likeable. The prosecution did everything possible to defame her character. It may be that the righteous citizens of Perugia believe that a woman who would have sex with two men at the same time is capable of doing anything! Mignini certainly didn't make it easy for them to afford her the presumption of innocence.

There may be other possibilities, but it's hard to speculate at this distance. I'm only hearing now that Italians themselves don't respect their courts. For all we know, the jurors were tempted to find her guilty simply because everyone around them thought she was guilty.

[TorchTheWitch]

4. Her throat wasn't cut

It was stabbed through one side and the tip of the knife came out the other... she died slowly and painfully drowning in her own blood. It doesn't matter if it was Amanda or not that stabbed her, if she was there, involved and covered up for herself and the other two who were there she's just as guilty of murder. Evidence and Amanda's own words put her there, involved and covered up. Personally, I don't believe it was Amanda that thrust the knife through Meredith's neck, but it makes her no less guilty of murder.

Woman have been known to be just as vicious and violent as men. They're also known to manipulate men to do viciousness and violence on their behalf far more so than the other way around.

[TorchTheWitch]

5. this crap again?

Give it up. You've already outed yourself as being a total bigot and woefully ignorant about even the basics of the case. Starting a new thread isn't going to make you any more believable nor score any points.

[Heidi]

6. Funny how we didn't care so much about Italian justice until an American was indicted. (nt)

[TorchTheWitch]

7. and one particular American

it's not like no other American has been subjected to the Italian justice system before.

[SoDesuKa]

8. New Information

I wasn't aware that Italians don't trust their own courts. It's news to me! When I suggested that this particular court had shortcomings, people jumped all over me as a bigot.

Justice was not done for this defendant. We now know that this isn't unusual. I wonder what else is coming out.

[TorchTheWitch]

9. you got jumped on as a bigot

because you continually expressed extraordinary bigoted remarks.

You're hardly anyone to be touting information seeing as you have already long since outed yourself to be woefully uninformed about the case in question, the Italian justice system and having an EXTREME bias.

GIVE. IT. UP. You cannot be believed nor taken seriously given the above, and a new thread is not going to make you more believable nor help your cause. Why do you insist on making yourself look more foolish and more of a bigot than you already have?

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

10. That's ONE Italian's opinion

I bet you can find many Americans who share the same opinion on the U.S. legal system.

Since I am just as much of an American-educated (except for elementary, junior high and one year of high school) Italian, living in the U.S., and one in an influential type of employment (though I'm not a journalist), let me opine as well that there is no system anywhere on this planet that is 100% without its problems.

However, that does not make a person less guilty.

[SoDesuKa]

13. Not Planning a Boycott

I'm not judging a whole nation by one wrong verdict. It's up to other people whether they want to cancel planned trips to Italy or to boycott Italian products. However, I hope that Italian justice as a whole is better than what we saw in Perugia. Did the jurors really believe Mignini's fanciful theory of the case? I'm trying not to put too simplistic an interpretation on their behavior.

However, I still believe that the case against Knox was weak. For all his smutty innuendoes, Mignini did not place Knox at the scene of the crime nor provide a plausible motive. Neither of these things is separately needed for a righteous conviction; however, since they were both missing, I don't think the burden of proof was met.

I note that the population of Perugia (<150,000) is about the size of Lancaster, California or Pembroke Pines, Florida. Perhaps it's unfair to say you can't get a fair trial in a small city. However, I would not want to be on trial where the jurors aren't even vetted.

[Fumesucker]

12. I wonder if Italy has a private, for profit prison system that pays judges to convict?

Nah, probably not..

That seems to be uniquely American, at least in the developed world.

http://federalism.typepad.com/crime_federalism/2009/02/judge-convicted-for-privateprison-kickback-scheme.html