This morning the Denver Post informs us that:
ROME—Italy's highest criminal court on Tuesday overturned Amanda Knox's acquittal in the slaying of her British roommate and ordered a new trial, prolonging a case that has become a cause celebre in the United States.
Knox called the decision "painful" but said she was confident that she would be exonerated.
Italian law cannot compel Knox to return for the new trial, and her lawyer said she had no plans to do so. The appellate court hearing the new case could declare her in contempt of court but that carries no additional penalties.
In the United States we use an evolved form of English Common Law, and of course that common law system has been greatly impact here by the protections afforded under State and Federal Constitutions. There's no such thing here as a reversal of an acquittal and the thought itself is strange. If you are acquitted, you're acquitted.
Italy uses a version of the Code Napoleon, which descends, but not in a straight line, from the Code Justinian. Apparently, at least in the Italian version of this, you can be tried twice for the same time. Very odd to think of.
I haven't really followed this entire story so I can't comment knowledgeably about it and I'm not saying that the Italian justice system is fatally flawed. It's successfully handled a lot of really nasty and dangerous Mafia trials in the last 40 years. But it does seem oddly slow in some ways, and the lack of an apparent double jeopardy provision is surprising.
Postscript
Once again, I haven't really been following this case, but yesterday the verdict in the second Knox case was rendered, and she was convicted again.
I'll confess that this time, while I'm not questioning the Italian justice system, I'm baffled about the procedure. The original trial seemed to feature some sloppy prosecution to me, but then Knox's evolving versions of events, including implicating an innocent man, were questionable too. But the overall procedure is really baffling.
The original trail was held at Perugia, followed by an appeal to a court in Perugia. The first appellate court overturned the murder conviction (she was also convicted of slander). That would have ended the matter, had this been an American, English, Canadian, Australian, etc. court. But there was a second level of appeal in Italy, and that appeal went to the Italian Supreme Court.
The Italian Supreme Court apparently vacated the Perugia appellate ruling, which is not the way I'd originally understood that holding, and sent it back to the lower appellate court for a second hearing, but this time at Florence. Somehow, new evidence was taken in at the appellate level, by order of the Italian Supreme Court. That's a complete impossibility under the Common Law system we use. Apparently the Italian intermediate appellate court can act, in at least some circumstances, act as an intermediate trier of fact as well as an appellate court. It's apparently even the case that the prosecutor in the second intermediate appellate proceeding, used a different motive as his theory of the case. Anyhow, that court not only reinstated Knox's conviction, but it increased her sentence from 26 years to 28.5.
A very large part of this process would be rampagingly Unconstitutional in the US. The first appellate decision would have ended the whole case. To subject a criminal defendant to a second fact finding proceeding would be double jeopardy. To those familiar with Common Law courts, this is extremely alien. I'm frankly quite glad that we do not use this system.
Which isn't to say that its inherently unfair. Code Napoleon trials are more in the nature of factual inquiries than they are adversarial proceedings, and the court acts as a fact finder. Still, it seems rather protracted and messy.
Postscript II
Worth noting here in addition, there is a person serving time in Italy for this crime, Ray Guede. He's apparently admitted to being in the house at the time of the murder, and he's implicated Knox as being in the house, but apparently hasn't blamed her or anyone else for the killing, although he continues to deny that he committed the murder.
Postscript
Once again, I haven't really been following this case, but yesterday the verdict in the second Knox case was rendered, and she was convicted again.
I'll confess that this time, while I'm not questioning the Italian justice system, I'm baffled about the procedure. The original trial seemed to feature some sloppy prosecution to me, but then Knox's evolving versions of events, including implicating an innocent man, were questionable too. But the overall procedure is really baffling.
The original trail was held at Perugia, followed by an appeal to a court in Perugia. The first appellate court overturned the murder conviction (she was also convicted of slander). That would have ended the matter, had this been an American, English, Canadian, Australian, etc. court. But there was a second level of appeal in Italy, and that appeal went to the Italian Supreme Court.
The Italian Supreme Court apparently vacated the Perugia appellate ruling, which is not the way I'd originally understood that holding, and sent it back to the lower appellate court for a second hearing, but this time at Florence. Somehow, new evidence was taken in at the appellate level, by order of the Italian Supreme Court. That's a complete impossibility under the Common Law system we use. Apparently the Italian intermediate appellate court can act, in at least some circumstances, act as an intermediate trier of fact as well as an appellate court. It's apparently even the case that the prosecutor in the second intermediate appellate proceeding, used a different motive as his theory of the case. Anyhow, that court not only reinstated Knox's conviction, but it increased her sentence from 26 years to 28.5.
A very large part of this process would be rampagingly Unconstitutional in the US. The first appellate decision would have ended the whole case. To subject a criminal defendant to a second fact finding proceeding would be double jeopardy. To those familiar with Common Law courts, this is extremely alien. I'm frankly quite glad that we do not use this system.
Which isn't to say that its inherently unfair. Code Napoleon trials are more in the nature of factual inquiries than they are adversarial proceedings, and the court acts as a fact finder. Still, it seems rather protracted and messy.
Postscript II
Worth noting here in addition, there is a person serving time in Italy for this crime, Ray Guede. He's apparently admitted to being in the house at the time of the murder, and he's implicated Knox as being in the house, but apparently hasn't blamed her or anyone else for the killing, although he continues to deny that he committed the murder.
1 comment:
This story hit the news program "This Week" on their panel discussion.
One person basically said, regarding extradition, what my thoughts were. If we were trying to extradite somebody from Italy, we'd expect them to do it, going on to note that we helped set up the Italian court system after World War Two. So, he said, Knox should be extradited to Italy.
Another commenter went on state that the Italian court system was "corrupt" and this showed that. I haven't been paying that much attention to this story, but corrupt? Italy is a first world nation. Is there really any basis for saying that, in connection with this story?
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