In the US, it is often real hard to get an appeal heard. It almost has to be something super blatant. Is it better in the UK?
It's not difficult to have an appeal heard in the US since you merely need to file an appeal. Unlike in Italy, many appeals are published and form the basis of 'stare decisis', which is the legal principle of determining points in litigation according to precedent, and these written appellate decisions come the closest to Italy's system of a Motivation Report, but appellate decisions are much shorter, some only a page or 2 long, but others can be over 20 pages.
Back before computers I spent many an hour 'Shepardizing' case law in law libraries (one book at a time), but today it's done much faster using a service such as FindLaw, and then you can simply paste your citation into a written brief.
Apparently, for better or worse, Italy's legal system isn't based upon the precedent of earlier cases that may be similar to a case an Italian lawyer is currently litigating, so these extensive Motivation Reports their trials produce seemingly have no effect beyond the case they apply to (not very efficient).
Even so, Italy's extensive Motivation Reports do allow you to peek up their judicial robes to view all their shortcomings. I was amazed at how illogical and error filled Massei was the first time I read it. According to the reviews I read about it, Nencini was even worse.
But the term "appeal" means very different things in the UK/US style of system and the Italian system. In the UK and US, a defendant has a single, definitive trial, after which there is a definitive conviction or acquittal, and the imposition of a sentence if there's a conviction. The trial is a serious and exhaustive affair, and in the vast majority of cases the court reaches the correct verdict.
Of course, in the US most criminal trials end in plea deals since there isn't enough time to take every case to trial. A poor (but INNOCENT) defendant may take the guilty plea and serve only a few years instead of taking their chances at trial. As in Italy, bogus eye-witnesses, bogus forensics and coerced confessions, can induce an innocent person to take a plea deal. If an innocent person sticks to their guns and goes to trial, all that bogus evidence can often bite them on the butt.
In Italy, by contrast, for serious offences the two-trial-plus-SC-affirmation system is a joke. It basically makes the court of first instance little more than an evidence/testimony-gathering operation. The real deliberation and verdict is arrived at by the appeal-level court. And even then, Italy doesn't trust its appeal level courts enough to let their verdict be the definitive one - the Supreme Court has to have a look too. And only after the SC has signed off can the defendant be definitively convicted or acquitted, and any sentence imposed.
The length of the Massei trial was a joke. Court was in session only once or twice per week with bombastic speeches consuming much of the time.
The American system is far from perfect, but the Italian system is a time-consuming joke.
They don't have any bail system, so the accused must be thrown in jail for many years, on flimsy (or in Amanda's case nonexistent) evidence. A prosecutor in the Italian system simply has too much power.
A very good indication of how bad a process this is in practice - and how/why the word "appeal" should be considered very differently from the UK/US model - is the very high proportion of cases in Italy following this trial process where the appeal-level court modifies or even overturns the verdict of the first court. That, in and of itself, renders the verdict of any court of first instance as largely worthless.
I've read that about half of lower court (First Instance) decisions are reversed on (automatic) appeal. The Italian system may be cumbersome and inefficient, but it does manage to employ many more inept judges than other legal systems can do.
There's no reason whatsoever why a country such as Italy cannot institute a justice system which makes defendants (and lawyers/judges/juries) endure only one, proper, trial - a trial in which the verdict has legitimacy and authority. If there are deficiencies in that trial, there can be an appeals process just as in the UK/US. There might even be an automatic appeal granted for the most serious crimes (just as in the US all death-penalty convictions carry an automatic appeal). But the verdict of the single trial would be definitive (pending any appeal) and the sentence would be enacted immediately.
Italians don't appear to have a work ethic consistent with the needs of a speedy trial. They also don't seem to have a problem with violating many accepted legal principles, such as judges not having ex parte communications with the lawyers, or even discussing the case with each other before it's submitted to the jury room, etc.
The Italian legal system reminds me of the corrupt Mexican legal system.
The current system in Italy, where defendants have at least three trials (and often, as in our case, more) sometimes lasting several years, is ridiculous on its face. I don't accept the argument that this somehow makes for a "better" or "fairer" justice system. And there's no reason to think that a single, competent court which examines all the issues in proper depth would be any less fair than an automatic two-trial (+ SC) system where the verdict of the first court is not much more than the equivalent of a committal verdict (or Grand Jury indictment) in UK or US courts.
You're preaching to the choir –– Hallelujah!
