Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/46

 THE CASE OF OLIVO upon the accused spoke up loudly : ' ' Keep quiet, counsellor; I am perfectly able to answer. Yes, sir; my wife was ignorant and my purpose in marrying her was exactly to redeem her from her doubly low condition — intellectual and moral." ' ' You are a man of some education; you have even written poetry," he was asked. '"Did not this intellectual difference between you and your wife lead to conjugal troubles?' ' "Not at all," he answered promptly. "You don't suppose that in order to be happy I should have married a poetess or a literary woman?" "But conversation with her was impos sible," he was pressed. "Do you imagine I wished to enter into philosophical disquisitions with my wife!" he replied, to the enjoyment of the audi ence. Asked by the presiding judge, "Were you not cross and stingy with your wife?" he answered: "I wager that with such a woman even Your Honor would have been •cross. As to my being stingy — during my married life I earned exactly 21,175 ^re> besides 600 for extra work. When that event we are discussing happened, I had not one penny saved." Asked whether his wife was jealous of him, he smiled and replied: "I am very glad you have asked that question, because my wife was the daughter of a very jealous mother." An objection was raised, on the ground that the question of hereditary jealousy was not an issue. "Pardon me," said the accused in answer thereto, "but if it is true that genius and madness are inheritable — why not jeal ousy? My idea is that my wife was afflicted by a sort of mixed jealousy —• partly hypo thetical, partly hereditary, and partly fic titious." These few extracts from the testimony of the accused would seem to suffice to prove both that the accused was a proper person for an asylum for the criminal insane,

and that the jury in setting him free by their verdict, were false to their oath. That such a charge cannot be made against the jury, however, is admitted by every one cognizant with the facts in the case, including men learned in the law. Nor has the claim been made, nor could it be made, that the verdict was a sentimental one. The crime was atrocious — its every horrible particular was admitted. Why then this miscarriage of justice? We are to find it, as so often happens even in our country, in a defective, or inelastic procedure. The jury system is not a sponta neous growth in Latin countries as it has been among Anglo-Saxons. It has been grafted, in comparatively recent times, upon Latin juridic systems of ancient origin not in harmony with the innovations from Northern countries. Under Italian procedure the jury, while sole judge of the facts as with us, do more than decide the guilt or innocence of the accused. The Court frames certain questions based on the indictment and the evidence adduced at the trial, which the jury must categorially answer affirma tively or negatively. It cannot go outside of "those questions. This is made neces sary to a great extent, by the elaborate system in the Italian Code of dividing and subdividing crimes into degrees and fixing the corresponding penalty for every pos sible eventuality in extenuation, mitiga tion, or increase in the crime. In the pres ent case, the Court framed the following questions for the jury: I. Is the Jury satisfied that the accused, Alberto Olivo, did, during the night of May 16, cause the death of his wife, Ernestina, by stabbing her with a knife or other weapon? II. Is the Jury satisfied that the act de scribed in Question I was committed by the accused while in such a defective mental state as prevented his consciousness and freedom of his acts? III. Did the accused commit the act de scribed in Question I with the intent to kill? IV. Was it premeditated?