Amanda Knox: guilty…or is she?
December 7, 2009 – 5:06 pm by JohnI was very intrigued by this short video featuring an Italian lawyer, who has practiced in the U.S. and in Italy, explaining the differences between criminal trials (specifically, the judges and juries) in the two countries. He was being interviewed in the context of the conviction of Amanda Knox, the University of Washington student who was found guilty of the murder of another study-abroad student, Meredith Kercher.
Since the computer programmers a CNN’s iReport.com are apparently as dense as everyone else employed by CNN, their videos cannot be embedded with the autoplay feature turned off (at least, by any means I know of), so here is the page with the video on it. Quoth the unnamed Italian lawyer:
In Italy we don’t have a jury system, like in the U.S…. You don’t have only laypeople that decide. You have a pool of two professional judges and six laypeople, and they sit together, they decide together… There’s always a risk that if one of the two professional judges thinks that the criminal defendant is guilty…it’s natural that she or he might have a lot of clout over the jurors.
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The public prosecutors, together with judges, are not elected by the people, nor are they appointed by the political power, but they…have a law degree…they pass an exam. They’re only accountable to…a body formed by public prosecutors from everywhere in Italy. … There is not real accountability for magistrates in Italy. It’s a big problem. It’s probably one of the most serious problems that the Italian justice system has because when you have power, you must be accountable.
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If we were in the U.S., who would decide about the admissibility of the DNA evidence? The judge. The jury would know nothing [about evidence that was thrown out]. It Italy, the judge decides on the admissibility of the DNA, but then that same judge also decides on the verdict. So, there’s something wrong about it.
He also explains that both the defense and the prosecution can appeal a verdict; in other words, there is no double-jeopardy protection in Italy.
Despite these procedural and technical differences, one similarity should stand out between the English common-law/American systems and the Italian system: the State arrogates to itself a geographic monopoly over criminal investigation, pursuit, prosecution, and punishment. The prosecutors and judges are not accountable to the people because the people have little to no say in the justice systems they are subjected to or the people who “represent” them.
Note this Italian attorney’s lament that juror-judges (and prosecutors) have power but are not accountable to the citizenry. This is what Albert Jay Nock opened his magnum opus Our Enemy, the State with: in any society there is only a certain amount of power, or influence, or ability to carry out your wishes, and this power, unfortunately, is divided between the State and its subjects. The more power the State has, the less its subjects necessarily have. Every single little thing the State is allowed to do takes from the people a proportional amount of ability to achieve their ends.
I am an outspoken opponent of juror conscription and proponent of professional jurors, just as we have professional lawyers and judges and janitors and teachers. It is clear from the (supposed) corruption and unaccountability in the Italian justice system that professional, non-conscripted jurors do not constitute the whole of the solution to corrupt, overzealous prosecutors and judges who think a good verdict is the verdict the State wants and that the verdict the State wants is “guilty.” The most important part of the solution to the problems that every criminal-justice system faces is to subject every part of it to the free market and to give the people more control over their legal protection.
Finally, the interviewer in this video points out the character assassination of Amanda Knox that the Italian mass media carried out. They labeled her a “sex predator,” a “little female devil,” and the “dark lady of Seattle.” This should make it clear that prosecutors and judges (and their easily influenced jurors) are not the only ones who seek the glorification of the State with convictions for everyone. The sycophants in the media and a large proportion of the populace also react to such criminal cases in sensational ways. Without any hyperbole, this is somewhat reminiscent of the Roman arenas with their gladiator battles. The root of the problem is not the State per se but rather Statism. Most of the world is guilty of Statism, and it will take a long and gradual shift in our core beliefs to effect the types of societal changes that are really necessary to eliminate not only the governments that inflict so many injustices upon people but the mindset that permits them to do so. I hope that this website plays some small, positive role in promoting those changes.