Thank you, Brodski.
It is quite interesting that this is taken so much for granted by American posters that they felt no need to explain (especially in the light of Quadraginta's statement that it is not that common). It serves to illustrate The Don's point:that in criminal justice one fears what one does not understand. Xenophobia is quick to sneak in where that applies
So far as I understand what Mick Mack explains in one of my links above, this is quite specifically not seen as a problem in Italy. And this is because of the composition of and attitude to juries. We found on common law and so do the americans I think: Italy and many other parts of europe do not.
You need to look at the mischief which the system acknowledges and then at how the system addresses it: if it does.
The mischief under discussion here is bias on the part of juries. It is recognised in all three systems: and they all have to balance that plank of a fair trial against freedom of the press; which is also a strongly held value. They all have a means of dealing with it. It does not seem to me that any of them have a perfect solution and it also seems to me that there is a "lag" in each system so that they are perhaps less able to achieve the end than they used to be. It seems to me that the Italian system suffers less from that lag than we do simply because of their approach.
As I understand it (and leaving aside the state differences Quadraginta brings up) the american system, as imagined by some of the posters here (ie. in its ideal manifestation) relies on keeping the juror away from the media when a trial is going on. I gather they are not to talk to people about the case, not even to each other: and if it is high profile they are "sequestered" for the duration.
This is based on a particular view of the nature of people and of bias: it presumes that jurors will be swayed by what they see and hear outside the court: and attempts to make sure they don't see or hear anything. The underlying assumption is that this process is unconscious and to some extent irresistible
But there is the problem of pre-trial exposure, of course. This can be very extensive and it can be long lived. If the proposition is that juries cannot but be influenced while the trial is going on I can see absolutely nothing sensible in the idea that those same processes do not have the same impact before the trial. The americans here have argued (in several threads actually) that this is met by the system of questioning jurors. They seem to be shocked that this system is not universal and I infer that they consider it very valuable. But it makes little sense. If the processes are unconscious then they are unconscious. Asking someone who is not conscious of bias if they think they can be fair, is not going to get you anywhere; it looks like a chocolate teapot to me.
I have the idea that this is sometimes recognised more strongly because I have a notion that there have been cases where jurors are brought from out of state or from among the amish in cases where the media coverage has been very extensive. That (if true) is a tacit admission of the problem. Perhaps it is common: I do not know.
But this is where I see the American version of lag: that solution is possible because of the size of the country, and it may well have worked well enough in the past. Changes in the media make that a lot less possible than it used to be and I wonder what steps are taken to meet the challenge.
The other problem I see, is that this system is based on acknowledgement of some parts of human nature: but it is curiously blind to others. So jurors are told not to talk to anyone else about the case outside the court: not even each other. I am confident that most jurors will make every effort not to do so, because jurors approach their task seriously for the most part. But we are to believe that a group of people can spend all day focussing on evidence which is very far from their day to day experience: which may be very confusing and very emotionally taxing; and which is extremely interesting to the public they are part of; and can then be shut up in a hotel together without access to the news media and with nothing else in common: and successfully avoid the topic altogether. As I said, I think they probably succeed quite often: but if they can do that they are all grown up and trustworthy: so why are we treating them like children in the first place?
The uk system faces the same problem of course: it has met it differently, as you say. We have sub judice restrictions on what can be reported. That applies pre-trial to some extent, so that problem is less: the balance is weighed towards the fair trial more than in america, and less towards maintaining freedom of the press. There is no right answer to this, and people will argue about where that line should be drawn. But it has to be drawn somewhere.
But we also have the rule that jurors should not talk about the trial outside the court: though they are not so cut off from their ordinary lives I still think that a theory which supposes they are subject to unconscious influence (and I agree that we all are) because of the way we are made should not ignore other aspects equally strong: we are "man the toolmaker": but we are also " man the gossip". I think we can overcome the latter: but if we can then we can also overcome the former, or at least I see no reason why not given that juries are a group
The Italians obviously face the same conflict of principle and the same aim of fair trial and press freedom. They have found a different solution, as I understand it.
In the Italian system the juror is not seen as untrustworthy or as incapable of dealing with bias generated by the press. He is seen much more as a responsible adult. The way they have chosen to deal with this problem is to compose the jury of a number of lay people who sit with professional judges. The professional judge is expected to be educated in the working of bias and its sources: and I think we assume this of our own judges too. They are still human and they will also be affected, if the theory of unconscious influence is valid: but less so because of their training.
I think that is a reasonable view to take: but it is not all. The Italians do not exclude evidence in the way we do: much is admitted which we would exclude. The thinking here is that people weigh different content all the time, and that they are capable of giving proper value to different kinds of evidence. In Italy the jury gets a fuller picture, both in court and in the media. Since they are the decision makers I think there is some merit in that: and I think it limits the kinds of power ARubberChickenWithAPulley rightly identified: the prosecutor and the court cannot control what is presented nearly so well. In other areas of life we tend to think that more sources of information are a good thing: why not here? It is not obvious to me: and of course it preserves the freedom of the press more than the uk system does.
I do not see that any system is perfect: I do not see that the Italian system does not address the problem at least as seriously as common law systems: and I do not see that their solution is any more absurd than ours or the americans. Sure it looks odd: but it does not look worse to me
See post #355. 
