Research Criminal Chambers-Eurispes: “Only 20% of the trials reach a sentence in the first instance”

Sentence only for 20.7% of criminal trials at first instance. In 78.7% of cases, the procedure ends with the postponement to another hearing. And the average duration of the postponement is around 5 months for proceedings in the Single Court and 4 months for those before the Collegial Court. This is what emerges from a research conducted by the Union of Criminal Chambers with Eurispes, which therefore examined 32 Courts distributed evenly throughout the country and monitored 13,755 trials. For the proceedings terminated in a sentence, acquittals represent just under 30%: of these, 3.7% is represented by acquittals of non-punishment due to particular tenuousness of the fact. Convictions account for 40.4% of sentences; a much lower percentage than that recorded in 2008 (60.6%). On the contrary, the share relating to the extinction of the crime is much higher: 24.5%, compared to 14.9% in 2008. The statute of limitations is a reason for extinction of the crime which affects 10% of the proceedings that have reached sentence in first instance and represents just over 2% of the total number of trials monitored. “It is not serious to tackle the issues of the trial by slogans or ideological prejudices. Statistical data must speak. This research photographs, like no other, the true causes of the unreasonable duration of criminal trials in Italy, which do not reside in the rules guaranteeing fair trial and the right to defend themselves, but in very serious structural deficiencies of the administrative machinery. Intervening on the rights of the accused citizens to reduce procedural times is therefore illusory , as well as being a pretext “, comments the president of the Union of Italian Criminal Chambers, Gian Domenico Caiazza.