Judge Vitelli explains in a book why he acquitted Stasi: not opinions, but the method. When reasonable doubt becomes certainty of justice
Sixteen years in prison after two acquittals. It is the fate of Alberto Stasi, convicted on appeal for the murder of Chiara Poggi after the judge Stefano Vitelli had acquitted him in the first instance on 17 December 2009. And after the Court of Appeal had acquitted him in the second instance in 2011. Yet, the point is not to establish who is right between the innocent and the guilty. The point is to understand what it means to judge when the facts don’t add up, when certainties falter, when the only tool that remains is doubt. And this is precisely the heart of Garlasco’s reasonable doubtthe book (Edizioni Piemme, 144 pages, 12.99 euros) with which Vitelli (together with the journalist Giuseppe Legato), born in Viareggio in 1974, explains why he acquitted the accused.
What the book reveals about Garlasco
You will not find here the confession of a repentant judge nor the vindication of a stubborn innocentist. Vitelli does not say whether he believes Stasi guilty or innocent. He will never say it. Because the problem is not personal opinion, but the method. And in an era dominated by ideological thought, in which suspicions are enough to issue sentences on social media, Vitelli prescribes the crudest empiricism: opinion is of no value against facts, the Latins said. And the facts, in this case, are hard and rough stones on which what we could call the “waves of reconstructions” break, composed of equivocal fragments.
Garlasco’s crime is full of anomalies, of course. But are anomalies enough to condemn? Are the clues or suspicions enough? Reality tolerates many explanations, but can only be explained in one way. Until you find out, investigate. Without judging. It is here that the book stops being a judicial chronicle to become a sort of philosophical primer of strong thought, quoting Kant (“nothing entirely straight can come out of crooked wood like the one man is made of”) and Jung (“man wants certainties and not doubts, without realizing that certainties can only come from doubts”).
The meaning of the book
This book can be seen as an antidote. Against media tribunalism, against the presumption of absolute truths, against the arrogance of those who pass judgments without knowing their own stature. Vitelli reminds us that administering justice is a matter for men, not for divinities. And men have a limit: they can only condemn when there is no reasonable doubt. Better to have a guilty person free than an innocent person in prison, says the golden principle. A principle that today appears almost subversive.
