Are there any legal sanctions in the USA regarding Libel and Slander?
Or can you accuse anyone of anything without repercussions?
Serious question.
Okay. It is necessary here to distinguish here between the prosecution which falls under the Ministry of Justice and is part of the Berlusconi government, and the judiciary which is independent and indeed has ruled against the Berlusconi government from time to time, especially in the Lodo Alfano decision recently.
Italian law has its idiosyncrasies, but it isn’t exactly third-world.
It would be pretty amusing if Italian authorities indicted Diceman. As far as the actual substance of the OP, I think CRSP expressed my own views rather well. Physician, heal thyself.
IANAL but I can’t think of anyone who has ever been prosecuted for screaming foul play at the police, a judge, the legal system, or a politician. I think suing for lible is pretty much a right they give up when they accept their position. But like I said, IANAL, and I’m sure one will be along to correct my thinking soon enough.
The angriest my grandmother ever got with me was the time I said I was Italian. It is in her memory that whenever people ask me if my name is Italian, I always reply that it is Sicilian. She was one mean old woman and the last thing I want is her ghost haunting me.
Look, like I said, Italians criticize their government all the time without fear of being disappeared or taken in front of a court. They eviscerate their government in general conversation. If I have to hear about Berlusconi’s latest affront to the dignity of the Italian people, or how inept the Italian government is, one more time then I’ll scream. They complain about their government way more than the British do, and that’s saying something. They have a fatalism where they know things are shit, and begrudgingly accept it. But that doesn’t stop them complaining and marching in the streets about it every other week.
But the Knox’s did not merely criticize the government. They made a pretty specific claim, stating that an officer slapped Amanda multiple times, and that the duty officer on watch did not fulfill his duties in providing a translator, nor even food or water. In effect, the Knox’s accused the police officers who were present of being corrupt. Do you not see how this is different from a “criticism of the government”? Do you understand the difference between a specific accusation, and a general criticism?
Well, here’s a big old list of state criminal libel statutes in the US (.pdf, US stuff starts on p. 171).
17 states plus Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands have criminal libel statutes.
Out of curiosity, I looked up Florida’s, just to make sure I wouldn’t be hauled away to choky (Chapter 836, Fla. Stat.), which make libel a 1st degree misdemeanor (up to a 1 year custodial sentence).
More to the point of this thread, lots of people in the U.S. (plus the U.K. and the rest of the world) see British libel law as a basket case, having a chilling effect on free speech and badly in need of reform (as exemplified by the Simon Singh case).
So obviously Brits have no right to criticize Americans for criticizing Italian justice, or something like that.
Whee! Isn’t tu quoque fun?
Something I can’t find - where were the parents physically located at the time they gave the interview? Italy, UK, US? Someplace else? If they weren’t in Italy, how on Earth can the Italians claim to have any jurisdiction over them?
Jurisdiction is a bit more complex than that. The US claims jurisdiction over people in faraway places all the time.
In the simplest possible terms, there are four theories under which states claim extraterritorial jurisdiction: (1) the suspect is a national of that state; (2) the victim is a national of that state; (3) the crime was committed on a vessel registered in that state; or (4) the “effect” of the crime was primarily or in large part in that state.
The fourth one is often used by the US to indict foreign terrorists we can’t get our hands on. It’s probably the one the Italians are using here, too.
According to your cite, Criminal Libel convictions in the US in modern times are vanishingly rare.
In short, in the last decade for which evidence is available, only three persons were successfully convicted.
The profile for US criminal libel looks like this:
The profile for Italian criminal libel looks like this:
There is “no information available” from the gov’t about the number of persons successfully convicted of criminal libel in Italy, but Reporters sans Frontiers reports as follows:
… which is admittedly not broken up into actual convictions.
It would appear that “criminal libel” in the US is an uncommon crime of dubious constitiutionality, which is not specifically intended to protect gov’t servants or officials, and convictions are rare - only 3 in the entire US in the last decade available.
In contrast, criminal libel actions against newspapers at least in Italy appear reasonably common - nearly a hundred cases in two years in one city (Milan). Moreover, the laws in Italy contain specific protections for public officials and institutions.
In summary, on the available evidence one has far more to fear from the laws of Italy than from those of the US in this respect. The two situations are not really comparable.
That’s not the point. Morgenstern, typing in what appears to be a tone of faintly horrified shock, is defending the parents on the grounds that they can’t possibly understand laws like this because they enjoy freedom of speech.
As you cited, criminal libel prosecutions in Italy are also vanishingly rare, and appear to be limited for the most part to publishers.
The point is that the Knoxes, not being publishers, are probably no less likely to fall foul of criminal libel laws than Italians.
Yep. Something like that.
There will always be aspects of your own legal system that need attention. None is perfect and there is no reason to focus on this one aspect of the Italian system as evidence of corruption or a third world mentality.
(and I have personally donated to the Simon Singh case and campaign for the libel laws to be changed…it is a total joke)
You equate a hacker with parents complaining about how their daughter was treated?
Knox’s parents are now effectively banned from travelling to Italy to support their daugher, lest they find themselves in trouble with the Italian courts too.
It’s not really an issue viz the US anymore, since Federal law now prohibits US courts from enforcing foreign defamation judgments. Well, unless you own stuff in Britain.
You cannot conclude that from the evidence. There is no evidence in that document that the 90 odd cases reported from Milan are all the cases that exist, or that they are limited to publishers. Moreover, 90 odd cases in two years from one city is not “vanishingly rare”.
Moreover, if you examine the section on Italy closely, you will see lots of recent legislative activity concerning the criminal libel statute.
The better generalization is that those criminal libel laws that exist in the US are mostly moribund - the are, as decribed in the article, still ‘on the books’ in 17 states but not much used. This contrasts strongly with the state of similar laws in Italy.
Further, even assuming that the criminal libel laws in Italy are rarely if ever imposed on non-publishers, that fact surely makes their imposition in the instant case more remarkable and more unfortunate - as this indicates these parents are being singled out.
Never mind they DID fall foul for merely speaking.
But that’s the point I think you’ve missed. The parents criticized the police for their alleged improper activity. In response, they find they are facing charges. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but that type of response attaches a chilling effect to speaking publicly about (alleged) police misconduct.
Oh, and it’s not horrified shock, it’s more a matter of disgust.
Cite? Are you fucking retarded or something?
There was this thing they call a “trial” in which other things - let’s call them “evidence” - were talked about by a bunch of people (“a court of law”) who made a decision. I think they call it a “verdict”. Actually, I seem to recall there was more than one of these “trial” thingies, so I guess we’re talking about “verdicts” in this case.
Mouthbreather.
tldr version:
I think some people in this thread won’t get this unless we treat them like kindergarteners: If Johny says something mean about you, and you go and hurt Johny, people are going to think that you really did do it.
Now to put it in more adult terms for the rest of us: Freedom of speech is not an American law, but a fundamental concept of democracy itself. The only way the people can truly be free to vote as they wish is if they can gather information. And the only way people can give out relevant information is if they are not afraid the government is going to hurt them for it.
Right now, in this free county, I am free to say that my government is torturing a specific person in Guantanimo Bay. I’m even free to name a specific person as doing the torturing. The worst thing that could happen is that that individual could seek damages. But, even then I would be giving restitution, not being punished. (And even then it would look bad.)
I’m sorry it bugs that crap out of you, but it’s okay to say that one government is shittier than another one. If you want to claim they have a good reason, offer it. If they want people not to be disgusted with their system, they can do the same thing.
As for the hypocrite card: it doesn’t apply unless you can prove that any of us are okay with this crap when it happens in our country. I’m waiting on that cite, too.
That should more accurately be phrased as “their daughter was allegedly treated”.
Mind you, she declined the chance to substantiate her allegations even when given the chance to do so in open court.