Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Sentencing Report: The State Of The Report’s Distribution

Posted by Peter Quennell

Just over a year ago the Micheli report was released as an electronic document and we had it and began translating within hours.

In contrast the judges sentencing report for the Knox-Sollecito verdict and sentence was released to the media and public only on paper and only in Perugia. There was little advance warning of this, and the Rome group of foreign reporters had to make their way to Perugia at short notice to get their own copies.

The intent seems to have been to stop selected quotes being used in media reports under lurid headlines. The practical effect is that the report so far has been less - and possibly less accurately - dispersed than the Micheli report at a similar point in time.

We have lodged a request for an electronic copy and if the court still prefers to go the paper route we will be adjusting to that. In due course the report will - must - appear on the Ministry of Justice website, in Italian. And all or most of it will appear here, in English.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 03/09/10 at 05:50 AM in Trials 2008 & 2009, The Massei Report

Comments

Thanks for the update!

Posted by mojo on 03/09/10 at 10:48 PM | #

Thank you, Peter, for sentencing report. A big effort. Translators, thank you.

Posted by Hopeful on 03/10/10 at 12:05 AM | #

Well, I feel the need to clarify a little to avoid a misunderstanding of the procedure. I have some doubt on Micheli’s report being issued as an electronic document, normally sentencing reports are issued by the clerk’s office only on paper copy - at least for the first times - while digitalized documents can be obtained only by lawyers who are officially accreditated on the ministry site. This is just a precaution for authenticity and privacy issues. There is no ‘intent’ behind the normal praxis.

Usually reports do not appear on the MoJ site (not in a public form) but high profile cases often appear in online lawyer journals or local associations, or sometimes are made public by newspaper sites.

I had a temptation to go to Perugia to buy a copy, but then the digitalization to make a 427 page pdf would require some industrial ocr software/hardware and several more days of correction, and for the moment I am giving up (I may finish it later than a journal).

Posted by Yummi on 03/10/10 at 03:37 PM | #

Hi Yummi. The digitized Micheli report (a Word Doc) was released to certain lawyers as you say and also to media that applied for it. We applied and got it. The media anticipated that procedure would happen this time around too but either caution or normal procedure as you describe set in. We are getting around it.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 03/10/10 at 04:04 PM | #

Hello Yummi. About scanning the report to pdf; at my office, we have this fairly common office copy/scanning machine Canon IR2570Ci and it can scan A4 pages through by-pass automatically, lets say like 50 pages without stopping. It sends pdfs as a one file straight to the computer. scanning 427 pages shouldnt take even one hour. Ask around if some of your friends have access to the similar machine. Those who speak Italian, could be reading the report tomorrow 😊

Posted by Tommi on 03/10/10 at 07:42 PM | #

Our poster group now all have the report and we have some highly qualified Italian to English translators. Stay tuned.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 03/11/10 at 12:07 AM | #

It’s lots of Megabytes, my computer froze. I’ll see if I can forward it to my office.

Posted by Commissario Montalbano on 03/11/10 at 01:04 AM | #

Hi Commisario. It’s also in downloadable Acrobat format on our server.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 03/11/10 at 01:22 AM | #

To all the translators: We are standing behind you, in the metaphorical kitchen waiting to make bacon sandwiches and cups of tea as you embark on this marathon. Thank you for all you do to further knowledge and justice in this case. I am sure I speak for everyone when I say how grateful we all are for your efforts.

Good luck!

Posted by TT on 03/11/10 at 01:49 AM | #

What TT said.

Posted by mortytoad on 03/11/10 at 03:19 AM | #

Commenting is not available in this channel entry.