Home » The prosecutor’s dilemma: manslaughter or willful homicide?

The prosecutor’s dilemma: manslaughter or willful homicide?

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Manslaughter or voluntary homicide, for “possible fraud”? This is the dilemma that the chief prosecutor of Verbania, Olimpia Bossi, will have to solve. The issue is not insignificant, it concerns the sentence, but also the compensation.

The classification
The problem has already been addressed on other occasions, but not all legal events are the same. To understand the problems of the legal framework, we ask for help from the prosecutor Laura Longo of the Turin prosecutor’s office: she was in the Raffaele Guariniello pool and represented the prosecutor together with her colleague Francesca Traverso in the trial at the top of Thyssen, the plant where on the night of 2007 the fire broke out which killed seven workers.

The scenario is between the hypothesis of manslaughter “for conscious negligence” and the voluntary homicide “for possible fraud”. An example can help to understand the difference: “A motorist drives at high speed, at night and in the rain in a built-up area. His car is very performing, excellent brakes and road holding. In addition, he is a professional driver and is confident in all this to avoid accidents. If it hits a person and kills him, his is a “conscious fault” ». It becomes “possible fraud” when “the driver is of medium capacity, but drives a battered car, without brakes and with worn tires. In this situation, the driver cannot trust in his own abilities or in the condition of the car, but still accepts the risk ». This “possible malice” is the first step of voluntariness.

The sorrow
For manslaughter, article 589 of the criminal code provides for a sentence of between two and seven years in prison “if the crime is committed in violation of the rules for the prevention of accidents” and “in the case of the death of several people” sentence can “be increased up to three times”, but “cannot exceed fifteen years” in prison. But with the “alternative rites” (abbreviated or plea bargaining) and the “discounts” provided by the penal code, the penalty could be very different. A very different picture from voluntary murder, where the penalty is “not less than twenty-one years”.

Compensation

But Justice is not done only with years in prison. There is the civil part, compensation to the victims’ families. Or to the survivors, as in the case of little Eitan. There are insurance companies, of course, but in general the policies cover “negligent” events. In the event of a charge of voluntary homicide, the condemned would be compensated with their own property. And in the case of Stresa, it is difficult to think that they have the availability to cover the devastation caused to 14 families. More prison and less compensation or less prison and more financial aid to the families involved in the tragedy? This is the dilemma. But there may be an intermediate solution. Not all characters under investigation need to have the same level of responsibility. For some, the conditions of manslaughter may exist and for others those of voluntary homicide. In this way, with the conviction of the defendants, the families could still receive compensation.

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