The defendants, numbering thirty-six in all, were finally brought to trial at the Assize Court at Viterbo, forty miles from Rome, in the spring of 1911, and at the present time[16] the proceedings are still going on. The case is, in fact, one of the most sensational on record and the newspapers of the civilized world have vied with one another in keeping it in the public eye during the year or more that has elapsed since the jury were empanelled, but there is no direct evidence as to the perpetrators of the homicides, and, unfortunately, unless the jury find that some of the Camorristi in the cage actually planned and executed the murder of the Cuocolos, the consequences to the defendants will not be serious, as mere “association for delinquency” with which most of them are charged is punishable with a shorter term of imprisonment than that which will have been suffered by the accused before the conclusion of their trial. Under Article 40 of the Italian Penal Code, the defendants get credit for this period, so that in most instances a verdict of guilty at Viterbo would be followed by the immediate discharge of the prisoners.[17] This is the case with Rapi—although the evidence has brought out a new offence for which he may still be prosecuted. And, as blackmail, for which that astounding rascal, Don Ciro Vittozzi, is being tried, is punishable with but three to five years imprisonment, “that Holy Man,” as he is termed by Alfano, will probably never be compelled to retire to a governmental cloister.
But whatever the result of the trial, it is quite unlikely that the prosecution will have any lasting effect upon the Camorra, for while this cage full of petty criminals has engaged and is engaging the entire resources of the Italian government a thousand or so others have come into being, and an equal number have grown to manhood and as picciotti have filled the places temporarily left vacant by their incarcerated superiors. Nay, it is even probable that the public exploitation of the activities of the society will give it a new standing and an increased fascination for the unemployed youth of Naples.
CHAPTER VIII
AN AMERICAN LAWYER AT VITERBO
It is not unnatural that a young, enthusiastic, and self-confident people should regard with condescension, if not contempt, the institutions of foreign, if older, societies. Americans very generally suffer from the illusion that liberty was not discovered prior to 1776, and that their country enjoys a monopoly of it. Even experienced and conservative editorial writers sometimes unconsciously fall victims to the provincial trait of decrying methods, procedures, and systems simply because they are not our own. Without, the writer believes, a single exception, the newspapers of the United States have indulged in torrents of bitter criticism at the manner in which the trial of the Camorra prisoners at Viterbo is being conducted, and have commonly compared the court itself to a “bear garden,” a “circus,” or a “cage of monkeys.” Wherever the matter has been the subject of discussion or comment, the tone has been always the same, with the implied, if unexpressed, suggestion that if the prosecution were being conducted here the world would see how quickly and effectively we would dispose of the case—and this with the memory of the Thaw and Patterson trials fresh in our minds. The following editorial from the New York Times, printed in March of this year, is by no means extreme as compared with the views expressed in other newspapers, and seems to indicate the popular impression of the manner in which this trial is being carried on:
Our own methods of criminal procedure have long been the object of severe and just criticism, and in our exaggerated and insincere fear of convicting the innocent we have made the conviction of the guilty always difficult and often impossible. Quite unknown in our criminal courts, however, and fortunately, are such strange scenes as are presented daily at the trial of the Camorrists now going on in Italy.
There the law is so little confident of its own powers that the accused are herded together in one steel cage, apparently with the idea of preventing attempts at rescue by a public largely sympathetic with organized robbery and assassination, while the witness for the prosecution is secluded in another cage, lest he be torn to pieces by the prisoners or their friends. The pleadings on each side seem to consist largely of denunciations and threats aimed at the other, tears of rage alternate with shrieks of the same origin, and order is only occasionally restored, when the din rises too high, by the curiously gentle expedient of suspending the session of the court.
How justice is to be the outcome of proceedings such as these, and thus conducted, may be comprehensible to what is called—with little reason—the Latin mind, but others are lost in amazement. It is all highly interesting, no doubt, but one is no more likely to regret that we do not carry on our trials in this way than he is to be sorry that our criminals are not such important and powerful persons as the members of the Camorra seem to be.
Only one fact stands out clearly at Viterbo—the fact that the attack on the banded brigands has been so long delayed that the authority of the law can not now be vindicated without producing a sort of civil war. Which ought to be humiliating for somebody.
Only one conclusion could have been reached by the half million readers of this particular editorial, and that—the immense superiority of our own legal procedure and method of handling criminal business over those of Italy.
Yet (to examine the statements in this editorial seriatim) it is not true that scenes similar to those enacted at Viterbo are unknown in our criminal courts; that the lack of confidence of the authorities in their own power is the cause of the prisoners being confined in court in a steel cage; that the public is “largely sympathetic with organized robbery and assassination”; and that tears and shrieks of rage alternate to create a pandemonium which can be stilled only by adjourning court; and, while there is enough justification in fact to give color to such an editorial, the only extenuation for its exaggeration and the false impression it creates lies in the charitable view that the writer had an equally blind confidence in the sincerity of his resident Italian correspondent and in the latter’s cabled accounts of what was going on.
Unfortunately, the reporters at Viterbo have sent in only the most sensational accounts of the proceedings, since, unless their “stuff” is good copy, the expense of collecting and cabling European news deprives it of a market. The press men at Viterbo have given the American editors just what they wanted. Such opportunities occur only once or twice in a lifetime, and they have fully availed themselves of it.