Jury Reform in Italy

The jury was first introduced into modern continental criminal procedure by Revolutionary France in 1791. Many European countries in the years during and immediately after the French Revolution followed the French example. But the jury did not reach Italy until much later. Napoleon did not establish the jury in Italy because he did not believe that this institution was adapted to the conditions existing there. This opinion was shared by the leading Italian criminalist of the day, Romangnosi, who, in 1807, prepared a code of criminal procedure for the kingdom of Italy. For similar reasons the Austrians refused to introduce the jury into Lombardy and Venetia when they held these Italian provinces in the post-Napoleonic period, despite the fact that the jury had become an integral part of the Austrian criminal procedure.' Although certain propositions for the introduction of the jury were made in the early decades of the nineteenth century, the jury did not appear in Italy until 18482 when Piedmont introduced it for the trial of press offenses. Once introduced with this limited competence, the jury aroused a public opinion which demanded its extension to other offenses.8 In the Code of Criminal Procedure of

Jury · Political science · Historical Legal Studies and Society · Jury Decision Making Processes · Law