Abstract
The paper aims to investigate the multiple factors, including institutional ones, that give rise to judicial errors originate, considered inescapable elements of any trial system. In addition to analysing the influence that the criminal process through the media can have on the judge’s free conviction, the paper examines a number of emblematic cases of unjust convictions based on false confessions, misinterpretation of intercepted communications, unreliable testimony and incorrect reconnaissance, without neglecting the errors committed at the scene of the crime, which are in most cases due to the inexperience or carelessness of investigative personnel. In a de iure condendo perspective, possible solutions are explored in order to avoid wrongful convictions or charges or, at least, to reduce the dramatic effects that judicial errors produce, in an immediate and direct way, on the personal and patrimonial sphere of the victim of a wrong justice administration. Finally, the author focuses on the reparative instruments provided by the Italian legal system, analysing not only their function but also the criteria that the judge has to consider when quantifying the compensation.
Keywords
miscarriages of justice; unjust charges; wrongful convictions; compensation for miscarriage of justice; compensation for wrongful imprisonment