I'm commenting here on the legal aspects of the statement in Vixen's post that I highlighted. Vixen's statement is absurd and false and reflects a severe misunderstanding of Italian law, due to an apparent confusion with US or possibly UK law. I discuss that below. I hope that my discussion will remedy any reader's confusion resulting from Vixen's highlighted statement.
Some other statements in Vixen's post are false but other posters have commented on them, so for brevity, I will not discuss them in this post.
It is critical for those wishing to understand the Knox - Sollecito case to recognize that only Italian and ECHR law applies to the case (excepting, for example, matters such as a hypothetical request for extradition of Knox from the US to Italy, which would be covered by US law, including the US-Italy extradition treaty, or a hypothetical lawsuit launched by a non-US resident against Knox, a US resident (and citizen), which would be covered by US law).
First, Vixen states (or implies) that Knox could have accepted a "deal" where she would have convinced the prosecutor to charge her with manslaughter rather than murder, and that she would then plead guilty to the manslaughter charge. This kind of plea deal would be a lawful possibility in the US (I am not sure about other countries, such as the UK) if accepted by the US trial court judge. However, such plea deals are not at all lawful in Italy. In fact, under Italian law, a defendant is not allowed to plead "guilty" - there are no such initial pleas of guilt or innocence by a defendant as there are in the US or some other countries.
However, the Italian judicial system has instead a mechanism called (in translation) "abbreviated trial" or "fast-track trial" in which only the evidence - for and against the defendant - available at the preliminary hearing is used for the trial (conducted by the preliminary hearing judge, rather than by a panel), and if the defendant is convicted on the basis of that evidence, his sentence as would be determined by a regular trial is reduced by 1/3. The fast-track trial is not a procedure adopted by someone who wishes to demonstrate their innocence by a presentation of evidence not available in the trial records at the time of the preliminary hearing. Thus, Knox and Sollecito each chose to have a regular trial in order to establish their refutation of the prosecution's case. Guede did not, because the nature of the evidence against him gave him no hope of refuting the prosecution case.
Another aspect of Vixen's statement that is false is the confusion of the classification of crimes in the US judicial system (and perhaps in the UK and other similar systems) with that in the Italian system. In the US system, a wrongful death may be classified, in general, as murder (1st degree or 2nd degree) or manslaughter (voluntary or involuntary). (Note that there can be variation in terminology and number of classes from state to state.) The classes of charges of wrongful death depends primarily on the presumed intent of the defendant, and generally a prosecutor can level more than one class of charge against a defendant - that way, if the jury believes that the prosecution has proved its case except for establishing intent, the jury can lawfully convict on the lesser crime. A good summary of the US homicide classification system may be found at:
https://www.runsensible.com/blog/murder-vs-manslaughter-difference-examples-and-sentencing/
The classification of homicide in the Italian justice system is very different from the US (and possibly UK) system. In Italy, there are three types of homicide: Murder (CP Article 575), Death or Injury as an Unintended Consequence of Another Crime (CP Article 586), and Negligent homicide [a form of manslaughter, including, by specific mention, negligent or unlawful road or water transport events resuling in a fatality (CP Articles 589 and 589-bis). The minimum sentence for murder is imprisonment for 21 years, and murder committed as an act associated with the aggravating circumstance of sexual violence or threat [rape] (CP Article 609-bis) is subject to a longer sentence. (The various aggavating circumstances associated with murder are listed, generally by CP Article number, in CP Article 576.) The sentence for rape itself is imprisonment for six to twelve years. See:
In summary, there would be no lawful way for a prosecutor to charge anyone involved with the murder/rape of Kercher with "manslaughter" (CP Article 589 or 589-bis.) Nor would CP Article 586 be a lawful charge, because it was clear from the forensic autopsy that Kercher's wounds were intended.
)
www.lanazione.it
