Pifferi case, judges: “Devastating media trial where TV matters more than law”

Milan, Jan. 13 (LaPresse) – The “television trial” had “harmful and devastating” effects on Alessia Pifferi’s “procedural” behavior and turned the “criminal trial” into a “television genre of leisure and entertainment,” where “the needs of programming schedules are prioritized over respect for rules and rights,” with a “legal ‘expertise’ and investigative ‘intuition’” whose quality is “easy to imagine.” This is stated by the Milan Court of Assizes of Appeal in the reasoning of the sentence that reduced the 40-year-old’s sentence from life imprisonment to 24 years. According to the judges, the “spectacularization” of the “media trial” tramples the principles of legal civilization and is unable to “guarantee” either “investigated persons, defendants” or “victims or ordinary citizens,” because it issues “unappealable decisions” based on a supposed “social and popular sentiment” formed through “misinformation.” But sentences – the judges conclude – “are issued in the name of the Italian People, not by the Italian People,” and are based on elements such as “intent and negligence,” “indications and evidence,” “aggravating and mitigating factors,” which have engaged “legal practitioners and technicians for decades.”