Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
Russia’s infamous Investigative Committee is pushing a bill to make judges in criminal cases search for “objective truth” rather than merely weigh arguments put forward by the prosecution and the defense. To that end, judges would be allowed – and…
Nina Burleigh, the author of The Fatal Gift of Beauty (which I have quoted before), writes in Newsweek ahead of the final ruling by Italy’s supreme court due next Wednesday in the Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito case (which she…
Reading Nina Burleigh’s book* on the malicious prosecution of Amanda Knox in Italy, The Fatal Gift of Beauty, I am struck over and over again by the offensive indifference to fairness and integrity displayed by Italy’s judicial apparatus. In particular,…
Yesterday, the Moscow City Court affirmed the trial court’s verdict and sentences in the case against opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his brother Oleg. Alexei Navalny received a suspended sentence of 3.5 years but Oleg Navalny, who is already in jail, was…
Via David Wolman‘s Twitter feed, I have found Earthquakes and Great Risks, a blog on the Aquila earthquake trial maintained by a group of Italians. I have written about the earthquake trial here and here but I’m no authority on the case – I’ve learned…
An enlightening piece on the 2012 conviction of Italian seismologists by David Wolman. The prosecutor offered, and the judge accepted, the theory that Italy’s leading seismologists had conspired with the mayor’s office in l’Aquila to send a falsely reassuring message to the…
The triplegic man sentenced in January 2014 to six years in a labor camp has been approved for release by a court in Kostroma. The camp administration argued it was unable to provide adequate care to the inmate, supporting his lawyers’…
No relief on the home front. As I have mentioned earlier, Russia is merging its relatively decent arbitration courts into the general jurisdiction system, which sounds proverbially like adding a jug of honey to a barrel of sh*t. According to…
In their 2011 report acquitting Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito of murder, judges Hellmann and Zanetti examined, one by one, every important piece of evidence presented by the prosecution and found each and every such piece meaningless and worthless. Overturning that…
Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, has been under house arrest since February. He is serving a suspended sentence for “embezzlement” and has recently been indicted for “fraud”. His campaign team is being investigated for stealing donations. In other words, the…
NYC artist Molly Crabapple complains that American “dissidents” are being ignored by American supporters of dissidents worldwide. I suspect that the author has succumbed to an optical illusion. Molly Crabapple was a close and sympathetic observer of the Occupy movement…
Edward Luttwak has argued (registration/subscription required) that in Mafia Republic, University College professor John Dickie misunderstood the nature of the Sicilian mafia, also known as the Honored Society. The Mafia, if I interpret Luttwak correctly, is a social network and…