The lawyer who discovered a sentence already written while the trial was still underway

The trial was still ongoing, but the sentence was already written. It was the discovery made almost by chance by the defense lawyer of a defendant accused of mistreatment. The facts date back to February 15 and the case was reported by the Criminal Chamber of Florence, which reconstructed the facts. The lawyer, while waiting for the hearing, began to leaf through the trial file – which contains the actions carried out by the judicial police, the public prosecutor's office and the minutes – with the authorization of the prosecutor of the hearing. But among the various documents, he realized that there was also the sentence of October 18, 2023, which mentioned the name of the accused and the sentence of 5 and a half years for mistreatment, without the signature of the president of the college. But at that time, the prosecutor had not yet filed the indictment and the lawyers had not yet presented their defense. The defense then asked the panel to abstain and all three judges decided to abstain.

The complaint from the Criminal Chamber of Florence

The Florence Criminal Chamber harshly denounced the incident. “We take note of the explanations of the panel which, in the face of the legitimate complaints and the invitation to abstain made by the defender, declared that it was a simple project, likely to be remodulated after the intervention of the parties. He added, however, that “it seems clear that a decision had already been made without first listening to the arguments of the defense.” And he denounced how this method of administering justice “denotes a vision of the criminal trial in which the reasons for the defense are understood as an unnecessary superficiality that can easily be dispensed with, with the consequence of a disregard for the role and the function of the defender.

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