“That is not so! He is a liar! Abbatemaggio swore thus and so.”
“Nothing of the kind!” retorts the witness impatiently.
“Yes! Yes!” or “No! No!” chime in the advocates.
“Excellency! Excellency!” exclaims Abbatemaggio himself, jumping to his feet in his cage. “I said in my testimony that Cuocolo did accuse Erricone,” etc. And he goes on for two or three minutes, explaining just what he did or did not say or mean, while the president listens until he has had sufficient enlightenment, and stops him with a sharp “Basta!” (“Enough!”).
The incident (whatever its nature) usually tends to elucidate the matter, and while to an outsider, especially one not familiar with Italian dialects, the effect may be one of temporary confusion, it is nevertheless not as disorderly as it seems, and the president rarely (so far as the writer could see during many days of observation) loses complete command of his court, or permits any one to go on talking unless for a clear and useful purpose. At times, when everybody seemed to be talking at once, and several lawyers, Abbatemaggio, and one or two prisoners were on their feet together, his handling of the situation was little short of marvellous, for he would almost simultaneously silence one with a sharp “S-s-s!” shake his head at another, direct a third to sit down, and listen to a fourth until he stilled him with a well-directed “Basta!” When the shouting is over, one usually finds that who is the liar has been pretty clearly demonstrated.
In this connection, however, it should be said that the writer was perhaps fortunate (or unfortunate, as the reader may prefer) in not being present on those days when the scenes of greatest excitement and confusion occurred. Several times, it is true, President Bianchi has preferred to adjourn court entirely on account of the uproar, rather than take extreme measures against individual defendants or witnesses. Thus, during the entire conduct of the case and in spite of the grossest provocation, he has ordered the forcible removal of only three defendants—that of Morro on June 21, 1911, and of Alfano and Abbatemaggio on July 21, 1911. On several other occasions he has adopted the more gentle expedient of adjourning the proceedings and clearing the court, and this has resulted in a certain amount of criticism from the Italian bar, which otherwise regards his presiding as a model of efficiency. The only adverse comment that the writer has heard in Italy, either of the president or the procuratore del re, is that both are somewhat lenient toward the conduct of the prisoners and their advocates, and lack strength in dealing with exigencies of the character just described. In the long run, however, if such criticism be just, such an attitude is bound to be in favor of justice, and will irresistibly convince the public and the world at large that this is no attempt on the part of the government to “railroad” a lot of suspected undesirables at any cost, whatever the evidence may be.
Before commenting too harshly upon this mote in the eye of Italian procedure, it may not be unwise to consider whether any similar beam exists in our own. Certainly there is a deal of interruption, contradiction, and disputation in our own criminal courts which sometimes is not only undignified, but frequently ends in an unseemly dispute between judge and lawyers. Contempt of court is very general in the United States, and we have practically no means for punishing it. Moreover, these scenes in our own courts do not usually assist in getting at the truth. With us, once a witness has spoken and his testimony has become a matter of record, whether he has said what he meant to say or not (under the complicated questions put in examination and cross-examination), or whether or not he has succeeded in giving an accurate impression of what he saw or knows, he is hustled out of the way and made to keep silence. He has little, if any, chance to explain or annotate his testimony. A defendant may go to jail or be turned loose on the community because the witness really didn’t get a chance to tell his own story in his own way. Now, the witness’s own story in precisely his own way is just what they are looking for under the inquisitorial procedure, and if he is misinterpreted they want to know it. The process may take longer, but it makes for getting at the truth, and the Italians regard a criminal trial as of even more importance than do some of our judges, who often seem more anxious to get through a record-breaking calendar and “dispose of” a huge batch of cases than to get at the exact facts in any particular one. There is nothing “hit or miss” about the Continental method. Whatever its shortcomings, whatever its limitations to the cold Anglo-Saxon mind, it brings out all the details and the witness’s reasons. At an Italian trial a witness might testify (and his evidence be considered as important) that he heard sounds of a scuffle and a man’s voice exclaim, “You have stabbed me, Adolfo!” that somebody darted across the street and into an alley, that an old woman whom he identifies in court as the deceased’s mother, and who was standing beside him, cried out, “That is my son’s voice!” and that three or four persons came running up from several different locations, each of whom described, circumstantially and independently, a murder which he had seen perpetrated, identifying the assassin by name.
In America it is doubtful whether in most jurisdictions the witness would be permitted to testify to anything except that he heard a scuffle, saw a man run away, and that an old woman and several other people thereupon said something.
It must not be supposed that the trial of the Camorra is being conducted with the calm of a New England Sabbath service; but the writer wishes to emphasize the fact that the confusion, such as it is, serves a certain purpose, and that the yellings and heartrending outcries described by the newspaper correspondents are only occasional and much exaggerated—except in so far as they might occur at an Italian trial in America. Any one who has been present at many murder trials in New York knows that outbreaks on the part of Italian prisoners are to be anticipated and are frequent if not customary. The writer recalls more than one case where the defendant shrieked and rolled on the floor, clutching at the legs of tables, chairs, and officers, until dragged by main force from the court-room. And at Viterbo they are trying thirty-six Italians at the same time; and every person participating in or connected with the affair is an Italian, sharing in the excitability and emotional temperament of his fellows.
A noteworthy feature of this particular prosecution is that (due doubtless to the strength and ability of the presiding judge), in spite of all interruptions and the freedom of discussion, the taking of evidence proceeds with a rapidity greater than in America, for the reason that there are no objections or exceptions, or attendant argument, and, above all, no cross-examination, except such questions as are put by the judge himself at the request of the advocates.