All the facts I have been able to put together about the case are
gathered from this sentence and from those of the courts of appeal. These
sentences, however, are extremely lengthy, very indistinct, and
encumbered with a great deal of legal phraseology. As they are all alike
I may as well give an abstract of this one as a specimen of all. The
sentence begins with the following moral remarks: "Frequent paternal
admonitions, alleged scarcity of daily food, and the evil counsels of
others, had alienated the heart of the prisoner to such an extent, that
feelings of affection and reverence towards his own father, Venanzio, had
given place to contempt, disobedience, ill-will, and even worse." No
one, however, would have supposed that he "was capable of becoming a
parricide, as was too clearly proved on the fatal night in question."
After these preliminary reflections comes a narration of the facts much
in the words in which I have given them. This is followed by a statement
of the arguments for the prosecution and for the defence, consisting of a
number of verbose paragraphs, each beginning, "considering that," &c. The
case of the prosecution was clear enough. The medical evidence proved
that the father died of the wounds received on the above-named night. The
fact that the wounds were inflicted by the prisoner, was established by
the evidence of his mother and sister, who overheard the quarrel between
him and his father, by the flight after commission of the crime, by the
discovery of a blood-stained knife dropped on the threshold, by the
deposition of the father before death, and lastly, by the confession of
the prisoner himself, who admitted the crime, though under extenuating
circumstances. The fact that the sister never heard the knife open,
although it had three clasps, was asserted to be evidence that the
prisoner entered the room with his knife open and intending to commit the
crime. This charge of _malice prepense_ was supported by the son's
refusal to answer his father, by the insolence of his language, and by