Now, what's the difference between public mischief CCC 140(1a) and calunnia CP Article 368? I see the significant difference is that public mischief includes the element of "intent to mislead" which itself implies "knowing the statement is false" and "willfully (voluntarily) making the statement to mislead or deceive the peace officer".
So calunnia is NOT public mischief, in my opinion. Just as blasphemy in, for example, Pakistan, is not the same (depending on the specific acts) as blasphemy in Canada. To belabor this point: suppose a person Z in country A, with intentional disrespect, but in private without publicizing the act, tears up a Bible and uses the pages to line the bottom of a bird cage (which houses the Monty Python parrot while it was still alive). A visiting neighbor sees the pages of the Bible on the bottom of the bird cage (without Z calling attention to them) and reports this crime to the police. Person Z is convicted of blasphemy in accordance with the laws of country A. After being released from prison, Z decides to visit Canada, perhaps even to immigrate. What are Z's obligations to the CBSA with regard to the blasphemy conviction in country A? Has Z committed blasphemy or any act that would be a crime in Canada?
I think I'm following this. I think.
There's a huge debate within the USA between justices who are "originalists" and those who attempt to interpret laws as their original intent was, rather than how this intent might evolve through the ages. Justice Scalia was one, and his replacement, Gorsuch, is another.
There's another huge debate as to the amount judges can divine the intent of a law, from the way it developed - as opposed to forgetting its development and simply interpreting the final judicial product as legislators drafted it.
You've positioned yourself as a liberal interpreter of laws. You're no Scalia or Gorsuch.
Still - the starting point for determining if calunnia has an equivalent crime in Canada, so I am told, is where it is listed (which other laws it is sectioned with). It seems Vixen is on the right track, so I am told, in that both public mischief (Canada) and calunnia (Italy) are contained in sections titled (loosely), "Offences Against the Administration of Law and Justice".
In Italy, this is even more pronounced, because other countries around it which also descend from Inquisatorial criminal systems (like France or Belguim) count this crime as a crime against honour, not the administration of law and justice.
So the argument as to the two laws
inequivalency, belongs elsewhere. No one as of yet has shown me where it is, and I don't have access or training, really, to figure it out myself.
But, I am told, the compelling issue here is that in this case, we are talking about someone who has twice now gone to Canada within 6 months - to talk on the very subject that should naturally attract the attention of CBSA. And here's the key, CBSA found no barriers to her entrance - which you might expect if Vixen were 100% right.
For someone who is not a lawyer to be invited to talk at a law school event on the wrongfully convicted, and having a name which once had been in the news (although not big in Canada) - can be expected to attract attention.
So the fact of the seamless travel through the border signals something that I cannot find, but also that Vixen cannot admit, and which undeniably remains. CBSA does not regard Knox as a felon.
I'd be surprised if a CBSA agent - who always has full discretion - buried themselves in the minutiae as per above Numbers. That scenario would require a prior intervention by, perhaps, a Seattle lawyer to the Canadian government, and then a notice sent to ports of entry attached to the American passport in question.
My guess - an uneducated one - is that it would be more akin to why Canada threatened to refuse extradition to Wisconsin of Laurie Bembenek, who was MORE than simply a convicted murderer, but an escaped convict! Yet when Canada looked into the case when preparing for a potential extradition, Canada put riders onto the request that Wisconsin review the conviction, or Canada would refuse extradition.
This act won Bembenek a new trial. My guess is akin to your other scenario that someone in the Canadian government has actually looked into Knox's calunnia conviction and determined that the evidence in Italy does not support a conviction.
So where I am sitting now is that more than likely calunnia and public mischief are not equivalent crimes, but that the reason is located elsewhere other than in the Criminal Code itself.
Custody battles
I hope I'm getting this last part right, but it was mentioned earlier today and I ran across this frequently in my own reading - in case law "public mischief" shows up frequently in parental custody battles, where the accusation is a targeted maneuver against a specific person. What Knox's calunnia conviction lacks is any sense that (assuming it was a safe conviction for a moment) Knox purposefully wanted to harm Lumumba specifically. It was you, Numbers, who noted that Hellmann based his own calunnia conviction on something other than that Lumumba specifically had been targeted.
I would have said that a key element in the case law for public mischief was this specific targeting against an individual (something contained in the case law surrounding Section 140 in Canada, but totally absent from calunnia in Italy) - except there's also this strange case of the New Year's Eve party, where when the host falsely claimed that the murder victim had left her party safely, she was herself ended up being charged with public mischief under Section 140, without even naming a culprit (falsely or otherwise) at all!
When the defence lawyer wanted the judge to dismiss the charge as the wrong one on which to try his client, the judge refused. That one was a headscratcher.
So - I can only repeat what I've been told - the key element is that CBSA is acting as if Italian calunnia and Canadian public mischief are not equivalents, with all the caveats above.
But regardless of the nuances, it's what CBSA is doing. This is where the guilter will have to, eventually, start accusing the CBSA of being a stooge to the Masons - like they've done with Kassim, Douglas, Moore, Dr. Gill, etc.
