Wrongful Conviction News an Injustice anywhere website
This is a prelude (supporting documentation) to a forthcoming article on the impetus behind the current momentum driving Italy‘s push for the guilty verdicts of two innocent students for the murder of Meredith Kercher.
Whether you are extremely familiar with the Amanda Knox case or just curious, may I suggest reading this short and comprehensive overview of the case as I’ve ever read:
THE FORGOTTEN KILLER: RUDY GUEDE AND THE MURDER OF MEREDITH KERCHER By Douglas Preston, John Douglas, Mark Olshaker, Steve Moore, Judge Michael Heavey, Jim Lovering & Thomas Lee Wright
Available on Kindle from Amazon.com
(Note: The Kindle reader for PC or Mac is a free download.)
As there has been a lot of confusion about the differences between Double Jeopardy American Style and Double Jeopardy Italian Style, let’s look at it from the simplified logic of basic computer programming. This is just a quick outline applying basic logic called “IF, THEN, ELSE IF, END” (condensed and simplified for space).
This is NOT the reason Amanda and Raffaele are locked in an infinite loop of persecution, Double Jeopardy Italian Style is the mechanism that allows this injustice seemingly perpetual motion.
First: DOUBLE JEOPARDY AMERICAN STYLE
>>>
Scenario #1:
IF a person accused of a crime is found innocent in their first trial,
THEN the person is released and may never again be tried for that crime.
They are innocent of that crime for life. This is called:
DOUBLE JEOPARDY AMERICAN STYLE
INNOCENT, END, GAME-OVER
>>>
Scenario #2:
IF a person is found guilty of a crime in the first trail,
THEN they have the right to appeal the verdict and have it tried again in an appellate court.
GUILTY but GAME-NOT-OVER
ELSE they have the right to accept the guilty verdict.
GUILTY, END, GAME-OVER
>>>
Scenario #3:
IF a person is found guilty of a crime in the appellate court,
THEN they have the right to appeal the verdict to a higher appellate court until it is ultimately presented to the US Supreme Court for consideration for a final ruling.
ELSE IF a person is found innocent at any court level, the person is exonerated for life.
DOUBLE JEOPARDY AMERICAN STYLE
INNOCENT, END, GAME-OVER
ELSE the person is found guilty with exhausted appeals,
THEN they will serve as sentenced.
GUILTY, END, GAME-OVER
As you can see, if just ONE jury/court finds reasonable doubt and exonerates a defendant, the nightmare is over and life for the accused may be resumed as an innocent person. They cannot be tried again under the American version of DOUBLE JEOPARDY.
____________________________________________________________
Now: DOUBLE JEOPARDY ITALIAN STYLE
(Note: ISC = Italian Supreme Court)
>>>
Scenario #1:
IF a person accused of a crime is found innocent in their first trial,
THEN the prosecution has the right to petition for a retrial in an appellate court to attain a guilty verdict.
INNOCENT but GAME-NOT-OVER
>>>
Scenario #2:
IF a person accused of a crime is found guilty,
THEN the Italian system automatically escalates the appeal to the appellate court for a second trial (sounds fair enough).
GUILTY but GAME-NOT-OVER
>>>
Scenario #3
IF the appellate court finds the defendant not guilty,
THEN the case is reviewed by the ISC, not as a re-trial, but strictly as a review of the legal technicalities of the trial.
Example: If the ISC finds the not-guilty verdict of the appellate court unacceptable, the ISC has the right, for any reason, to declare a mistrial and send the case back to another appellate court.
INNOCENT but GAME-NOT-OVER
(Starting to sound fishy…)
>>>
Scenario #4:
This time IF the new appellate court finds the defendant guilty,
THEN the ISC must still review the proceedings and validate the verdict.
GUILTY but GAME-NOT-OVER
>>>
Scenario #5:
IF the ISC finds the guilty verdict to their satisfaction,
THEN they can approve the verdict for formal confirmation of guilt.
Under Italian constitutional mandate, a person is considered INNOCENT until the finalization by the ISC of an innocent or guilty verdict.
***Note: Until the final ISC ruling on a guilty verdict, Amanda and Raffaele are legally still innocent. Therefore, the defendant(s) are not required to be incarcerated. No extradition request can currently be issued for Amanda for this reason!
IF the ISC confirms the verdict of GUILTY,
THEN, END, GAME-OVER
ELSE IF the ISC confirms INNOCENT,
THEN DOUBLE JEOPARDY ITALIAN style is invoked.
>>>
The single most common occurrence of gross abuse of this system by the Italian Judicary is the ability to keep Scenario #3 in a perpetual loop until the defendant is financially devastated and/or emotionally drained amounting to a kind of psychological torture.
Unfortunately, Italy is held hostage to their own Judicial System as there is no constitutional oversight allowing for total domination over their legal system.
Once you are in the Italian Legal System, it is much like Roulette, no matter where you land, you will continue to go round-and-round!
DENVER