Your numbers support the opposite of your point, but that's the reality of most of your posts. The US system obviously insures that more actually guilty people with actually strong evidence are taken to trial in the first place, so the court isn't pointlessly dragging people through a years long process when there obviously isn't enough evidence to sustain a conviction.
Exactly. The numbers actually tend to support two damning things in respect of Italian "justice" - one of them is a fact, and the other one is a deductive inference.
The fact is that, astonishingly, the courts of first instance in Italy get it wrong HALF THE TIME. That's a scandalous proportion.
And the inference is that the courts of first instance in Italy are either monumentally incompetent, or cravenly beholden to the prosecution, or a combination of the two.
In the case of the Knox/Sollecito trial process specifically, I believe it was a combination of those two factors. I don't think either Knox or Sollecito should ever have faced trial in the first place, had the "evidence" (and lack of evidence) been competently, fairly and objectively evaluated by police and prosecutors (rather than what I think actually happened, which was that police and prosecutors got utterly blinded by tunnel vision and confirmation bias, once they'd convinced themselves that Knox and Sollecito were participants in the murder).
And when the case was brought before the Massei court, I believe that court acted manifestly improperly and anti-judicially in the way it bent to the prosecution case again and again, more-or-less accepting it as the default "truth" until/unless the defence could actively disprove it. I still do believe that the defence made significant glaring errors in that first trial, perhaps most notably their failure to wholly discredit Curatolo (which would have been an extremely easy thing to do), plus a failure to discredit the likes of Quintavalle and Capezzali, plus a failure to discredit the DNA and blood evidence, plus a failure to realise that the practical upper limit for ToD could accurately be determined from the autopsy analysis of Kercher's stomach, duodenum and intestines. But even if the defence teams had done all these things, it's still entirely possible that the Massei court would have simply viewed the defence's entire presentation as nothing more than partisan agitation (while, conversely, the prosecutors were viewed as honest, disinterested public servants with no skin in the game and a diligent approach to seeking solely "the truth".....).
I do remember reading somewhere that in Italy, the first trial is almost viewed as a write-off from a defence point of view - that once a defendant is charged, it's hugely likely that the first court will convict. Then the real work starts in front of the appeal court. The astonishing 50% statistic would seem to bear out the notion that the real adjustment or annulment of convictions takes place at the appeal level.
And with all that in mind, it points once again to a structural institutionalised failing in the Italian system. The court of first instance should be the court that gets things right (albeit with inevitable occasional mistakes, but way way short of 50% mistakes....). Defendants are owed as much, victims are owed as much, and frankly the Italian state and the Italian public are owed as much.
