Giuliano Mignini, Agent of Injustice

Visualizing Justice in the Case of Amanda Knox

As we await the verdict in the Amanda Knox appeals trial, it is clear why and how two innocent students were imprisoned for four years for a crime that they did not commit.  It is because the chief prosecutor of Perugia, Italy, is not an agent of justice, but of injustice; not an honest warrior for truth, but for falsehood.  The man has such a massive ego that he believes his intuition is 100% accurate.  Whatever impressions first enter his mind are immutable truth, not subject to change based on evidence, no matter how compelling.  Evidence and proof are merely bureaucratic inconveniences, needed only to confirm his clairvoyance.  That which tends to refute his visions is to be devoutly ignored.

This is what happened in the Narducci case, where 21 defendants were prosecuted by Mignini in a different province,  Florence (the city of Perugia is in Umbria province).  There Mignini held no sway over the forensic teams and other law enforcement personnel, and lost every one of the 21 trials.  Justice triumphed, over the heavily damaged lives and fortunes of 21 innocents.  Mignini, however, did not learn from this, i.e. that his intuition and judgment were not so accurate as he believed.  He entered the trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito with the same irrational belief in his own infallibility.

Early on, within the first three days after the murder of Meredith Kercher, Mignini had formed an unshakable opinion that Knox and her boyfriend Sollecito were parties to the crime.  There was no evidence to support this belief, so the Perugian offices of justice went to work to either find or invent some.  The forensic team worked for Mignini and was not an independent authority committed to finding the truth, wherever it might lie, but to finding whatever Mignini wanted them to find.  To do otherwise could be detrimental to one's career, and reflecting on Mignini's recent past, to one's liberty as well.

When one is clairvoyant, like Mignini, proof is only a statutory annoyance, nothing more.  Even today, after all of his key evidence has been refuted or thrown out, Mignini is as convinced as ever of the absolute certitude of his unproven accusations.  No doubt, when the Italians finally get around to removing this massive ego from their system of justice, he can make a fine living as a fortune teller or soothsayer.

Whatever you might say about Giuliano Mignini, in spite of his exalted opinion of himself, he is not an agent of truth and justice, but an agent of falsity and injustice.  His delusional, ruthless abuse of his office have furthered both injustice and human suffering, a net loss to humanity and to civilization.  When this case is finally over, when Knox and Sollecito have finally been released to salvage their damaged lives, a form of justice, however tortured, will have been achieved.  But that's not enough.  Giuliano Mignini must be held to account for his crimes, for the many damaged lives and the suffering that he has caused.  He must be removed from office so that he can no longer victimize the innocent.  Further, the Italian system of justice must be reformed to prevent such injustice in the future.

I personally hope that Mignini will inhabit the prison cell soon to be vacated by Raffaele Sollecito.  Now that would be justice -- and a step in the right direction for Italy.

Related Video:  Ex-FBI agent Steve Moore speaks out on the trial from Perugia, Italy.