I knocked at his door, heard no invitation to come in, opened the door and looked in.
Cervellati raised his eyes from a tattered dossier on a desk covered with other rather grubby dossiers, codices, files, an ashtray with half a Tuscan cigar that had gone out. As usual the room stank a bit: dust and stale cigar smoke.
“Good morning, Mr Prosecutor,” I said with all the fake affability I could muster.
“Good morning, Avvocato.” He did not ask me to come in. Behind his glasses and the barrier of dossiers his face was devoid of any expression.
I entered the room, asking if I could come in and not expecting an answer, which indeed I never got.
“Mr Prosecutor, I have been appointed by Signor Thiam, whom you will certainly remember-”
“You mean the nigger who killed the boy in Monopoli.”
Evidently he did remember. In a few days’ time he would announce that the preliminary investigations were concluded and I would be able to view the documents and make copies. He had no doubt at all that I would ask for the shortened procedure, which would save time for everyone. Perhaps I had not noticed, by a mere oversight, that the charge did not contain the aggravating circumstances of “the teleological nexus” that could trigger a life sentence. If we opted for the shortened procedure, without those aggravating circumstances, my client could get off with as little as twenty years. If we went to the Assize Court he – Cervellati – would have to include those circumstances in the charge and for Abdou Thiam the door to life imprisonment would stand wide open.
He declared his innocence? So did they all.
He thought of me as a serious person and was sure I would not conceive any wrong ideas, such as going to the Assizes in the absurd hope of getting an acquittal. Abdou Thiam would be found guilty anyway, and a court of judges and jury would tear him to shreds. In any case he – Cervellati – had no intention of wasting weeks or even months in the Assize Court.
The shortened procedure is one of the things which in the trade are known as special procedures. As a rule, when the public prosecutor concludes the inquiries in a murder case he asks the judge for the preliminary hearing to commit the accused for trial.
The preliminary hearing serves to verify whether there are sufficient prerequisites for a trial, which, in the case of murder, falls within the competence of the Court of Assizes, composed of both professional judges and a sworn-in jury. If the judge for the preliminary hearing considers that these prerequisites exist, he orders the committal for trial.
The accused, however, has an opportunity to avoid being sent up to the Court of Assizes and to get himself a simplified trial, and this is the shortened procedure.
At the preliminary hearing he can ask, either directly or through his defending counsel, that the trial be determined within what is called the state of the acts. This means that the judge for the preliminary hearing, basing his judgement on the documents provided by the public prosecutor, decides whether there is sufficient evidence to convict the accused. If he finds that such evidence exists, he finds the accused guilty.
It is a far swifter procedure than a normal trial. No witnesses are heard and, except in rare instances, no new evidence is acquired. The public is not admitted and the case is decided by one judge sitting alone. In short, it is an abbreviated procedure that saves the state a great deal of time and money.
Of course, the accused also has an interest in choosing this kind of trial. If convicted, he has the right to a considerable reduction in his sentence. To put it in a nutshell, the state saves money and the accused saves years in prison.
This shortened procedure has another advantage. It is ideal when the accused hasn’t much money and cannot afford long hearings, witnesses, experts, examinations and cross-examinations, summings-up, lengthy harangues and so on and so forth.
Opting for the shortened procedure, the accused clearly loses numerous chances of being acquitted, because everything is based on the documents provided by the public prosecutor and the police, who, as a rule, work to get their man, not to let him go.
However, when for the accused the chances of acquittal are few or none even in a normal trial, then the reduced sentence is a really attractive prospect.
From all points of view, therefore, the shortened procedure seemed ideal for Abdou Thiam, who truly had very slim chances of being acquitted.
“Read the indictment and you’ll see that it’s better for all concerned to do it the short way,” concluded Cervellati, dismissing me.
Outside it was raining. A fine, dense, perfectly odious rain.
I was just getting to my feet when Cervellati said it: “Nasty weather, this. I have no trouble with dry cold, perhaps with a fine sunset thrown in. It’s this damp cold that gets into your bones…” He looked at me. I could have said quite a number of things, some of them even amusing from my point of view. Instead I gave a sigh: “It’s the same as with heat, Mr Prosecutor. It’s not so much the heat, it’s the humidity.”
10
After the meeting with Cervellati I attended a hearing and negotiated a settlement for a woman accused of fraudulent bankruptcy.
In point of fact, the woman had nothing to do with the bankruptcy, the insolvency, the firm or the law. The real owner of the firm was her husband, who had already gone bust once and had a record of swindling, embezzlement and indecent behaviour.
He had registered his fertilizer business in his wife’s name, had made her sign masses of promissory notes, had not paid his workers, had not paid his electricity bills, had not paid his telephone bills, but had raided the till.
Naturally the firm had gone bust and the titular owner had been accused of fraudulent bankruptcy. The husband had chivalrously allowed justice to take its course and his wife to be found guilty, albeit with plea-bargaining.
I had been paid the week before, without submitting an invoice. With the money from the till or acquired from goodness knows what other swindle on the part of Signor De Carne.
One of the first things you learn as a criminal lawyer, especially when dealing with types like De Carne, is to get paid in advance.
Obviously you are almost always, or at least very often, paid with money obtained by criminal means.
It shouldn’t really be mentioned, but when you defend a professional pusher who pays you ten, twenty, even thirty million if you manage to get him out of prison, well, you’re bound to have some vague doubt about the source of that money.
If you are defending a man arrested for persistent extortion in complicity with persons unknown, and his friends come to the office and tell you not to worry about the fee, they’ll take care of it, here too you can make a guess that that fee will not be composed of spotlessly clean money.
Let me make it clear that I was no better than the rest of them, even if I did sometimes try to retain a morsel of dignity. Not with types like De Carne, however.
In short, I had in any case been paid in advance with money from an unknown – and dubious – source, I had concluded a decorous plea-bargaining that at least guaranteed the poor woman a suspended sentence, and as far as that morning was concerned I could go home.
I took advantage of a lull in the rain, did my shopping, reached my apartment and had hardly begun to make myself a salad when my mobile rang.
Yes, I was Guido. Of course I remembered her, Melissa. Yes, at dinner with Renato. It had been a very pleasant evening. Liar. No, I didn’t mind that she’d got hold of my mobile number, far from it. Did I know who Acid Steel were? Sorry, I didn’t. Ah, well there was a concert of this Acid Steel lot in Bari this evening. Well, near Bari anyway. Would I like to go along with her? Yes, but what about tickets? Ah, she had two tickets, in fact two invitations. Fine. Then it’s agreed, tell me your address and I’ll pick you up. You’ll come here? Very well. Ah, you already know where I live. Very good, this evening at eight, yes, don’t worry, I won’t dress like a lawyer. Ciao. Ciao.