This is why the number of acquittals, and of the admission of
extenuating circumstances, is always very remarkable, even in the
Correctional Tribunals, which in Italy show proportions not
greatly differing from those of the Assize Courts.
We must remember that, under our modern penal procedure, it is not
the individual guarantees that are lacking, such as the assigning
of reasons for the sentence, the almost total abolition of
punishments which cannot be reconsidered, appeals, reversals,
revision, which would be still more efficacious under the positive
system which we propose.
One logical consequence of the psychological objection raised
against judges would be the granting of a jury even in the
Correctional Tribunals, though the experience which we have of it
in the Assize Courts is not so encouraging as to leave many
advocates of a jury in the minor courts.
But a decisive objection, founded on the most positive data of
sociology, can be raised against the jury.
The law of natural evolution proves that no variation in the
vegetable or animal organism is useful or durable which is not the
outcome of a slow and gradual preparation by organic forces and
external conditions.
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