Francesco Gianniti ( Oriolo, 4 October 1921 – Oriolo, 11 August 2017) was an Italian jurist and humanist. He was Filippo Grispigni’s student at the University of Rome and Silvio Ranieri’s disciple at the University of Bologna.
He was a professor of law and criminal procedure, a criminal lawyer and a criminal judge.
The cornerstone of his criminal- criminological thought, perfected over the years also on the basis of the experience gained in the exercise of judicial and forensic activity, is the idea that, for the purpose of effective action to combat crime, it is necessary to processing of an organic criminal policy program, which contribute, in addition to the penal legal disciplines ( criminal law, criminal procedure and penal law), criminological experimental disciplines (in particular, psychology, sociology and criminal anthropology, forensic medicine and criminology, criminal statistics and scientific police). [1] This program should move along the following lines: [2]
The criminal-criminological thought of Francesco Gianniti is characterized by the tension to satisfy, with the aid of the bio-sociological disciplines of crime, the practical needs of the penalistic disciplines and the preference given to the interdisciplinary and comparative method in the study of criminal law, substantive and procedural. [3]
In this regard, he argued that: "the science of criminal prosecution - similar to criminal science (but unlike the science of the civil trial) - does not end in juridical investigation (criminal procedural law), but extends to psychological investigation (psychology criminal and criminal judicial psychology) and is completed in the sociological survey (criminal process sociology and criminal judicial sociology) .The three surveys - while remaining autonomous for diversity of object, nature and method - are mutually complementary: law, psychology and sociology in fact, they give rise to inquiries that are necessarily different but inextricably linked in an interdisciplinary study of the criminal trial" [4].
From here, the particular conception that Francesco Gianniti had of the criminal lawyer, and, in particular, of the criminal judge.
Precisely it was his conviction that: "the jurist (and especially the criminal lawyer, understood in a broad sense) can not limit himself to dogmatics, that is to the exclusive study of the content and scope of the juridical norms in force, making a systematic elaboration; but, anchoring the conceptual elements to human and social reality, it must also investigate concrete problems, referring to a particular society, urging and helping the legislator in the arduous task of implementing the most suitable reforms. Therefore, an interdisciplinary study is necessary to guide the legislative policy in the fields - inextricably linked - of the substantive and procedural criminal law, of the judicial and penitentiary system" [5].
As for the criminal judge, "these - he wrote - in addition to being endowed with a serene and strong balance and a strict self-control power, he must possess not only the logical finesse of the jurist and the spiritual wealth of the humanist, but also the introspective acumen of the criminologist. He, therefore, must examine and know the personality of the individual delinquent (that particular murderer, that particular robber) in order to be able to concretely and completely judge him. ... As the doctor studies not only the disease, but that particular patient, because this represents "a clinical case", to which the most appropriate therapy must be practiced; so the judge, after having ascertained that a person has committed a crime, must study the unmistakable characteristics of the personality of that particular offender in order to impose on him the most appropriate sanction. If the culture of the criminal judge was limited to being exclusively juridical, criminal justice should deal only with the crime and not with the personality of its author. Ultimately, the criminal judge, in order to properly exercise his complex and delicate function, must assess not only the evidence concerning the crime (so-called judgment on the fact) but also the evidence concerning the suspect or accused person (so-called judgment on author of the fact)" [6].
A scholar of the main works of the Italian criminal tradition starting with Cesare Beccaria, [7] who formed the "heart" of his legal library, [8] Francesco Gianniti had particular interest in those of Francesco Carrara and Enrico Ferri. In a speech at the international conference held in Lucca and Pisa in 1988, on the occasion of the centenary of the death of Carrara, he noted [9] the significant convergence of the above two distinguished criminalists on the different function of law and criminal procedure, especially as the work of both was directed not to the systematic elaborations, but to the reform of the current penal legislation on the basis of new managerial criteria. According to Carrara, these were "the dogmas of supreme reason, which existed before all human laws and which must be observed by the penal legislator"; according to Ferri, instead, they were the "criminal substitutes", that is, the reforms that must be carried out by means of laws concerning economic and political, civil and administrative, and which, in addition to favoring social evolution, tend to indirectly implement preventive defense against crime, especially opposing the factors social.
Francesco Gianniti collaborated for many years with the magazine Positive School. [10] Well aware of the "irrevocable civil and juridical conquests of the classical School" - which he considered mainly represented, as well as by Carrara, Pellegrino Rossi and Enrico Pessina - he recognized himself in the Positive School, which was anticipated by Gian Domenico Romagnosi, Carlo Cattaneo and Giovanni Bovio [11] and represented mainly by Ferri, Cesare Lombroso and Raffaele Garofalo. However, he did not share either the denial of free will, supported by Ferri, nor the importance attributed by Lombroso to the somatic factors in the causal explanation of the criminal phenomenon. [12] He attributed the merit to the Positive School: [13] to have supported the need to resort to prevention before repression, being the former much more effective than the second; to have moved the fulcrum of the penal law from the crime to the author of the criminal conduct, giving life and impulse to the criminological disciplines; to have affirmed the educational finalism of the penalty, anticipating a principle later consecrated in art. 27 paragraph 3 of the Constitution.
He argued that the prevention measures (the so-called criminal substitutes of Ferri) are a more effective means of social defense than penalties in the fight against crime: "a provident civil and administrative legislation " can modify, more effectively than penalties, "the factors social, economic and political, which prepare and facilitate crime". [14] And it was persuaded that the prediction of a plurality of sanctions, the imposition of a punishment adequate to the personality of the subject and a penitentiary treatment adapted to the personality of the condemned person were consistent with the spirit and values of the Constitution.
With great pleasure he used to remember [15] the words pronounced by Pope John XXIII, during the audience of November 21, 1960: [16] "The studies of criminal anthropology present a keen interest and should be encouraged for the high human value and morality, which they enclose".
He was born of Pasquale Gianniti (1889 - 1976) and Maria Camerino (1891 - 1952).
In the family of origin there had been convinced supporters of the Unification of Italy, who had played an active role during the Risorgimento. In particular, the great-grandfather Pasquale Gianniti (1830 - 1884), a doctor in law, in 1857, under the Bourbon government, had been restricted to the prisons of Oriolo for subversive activity, [17] while his younger brother, Luigi Gianniti (1849 - 1870), had been Sergeant Major of the 40th Infantry Regiment and had fallen to Porta Pia on 20 September 1870.
He received his first training in Calabria, where he attended, in the years 1927 - 1932, the primary school in Oriolo, and then, in the years 1933-1940, the Classical High School Bernardino Telesio of Cosenza, where he was a pupil, among others, of Don Luigi Nicoletti. In October 1940, he enrolled in the Faculty of Law of the University of Rome. In 1943 he won the "Nicola Zanotti" [18] award, because, in addition to having obtained the highest marks and praise in the commercial law exam with the professor Alberto Asquini, he presented the best average grade in the Faculty of Law.
On July 28, 1945 he graduated with honors, discussing with the professor Filippo Grispigni the thesis in criminal law on "The legitimacy of resistance to arbitrary acts of the Authority".
In the years immediately following the degree date two of his historical-juridical writings, which bear witness to his passion for history and sympathy for Mazzini's thought: "The Polish question at the Congress of Vienna in 1815" (1946) and "La Repubblica Romana of 1849" (1947); as well as the "Ricordi Coriglianesi" (1950), which contain a dozen poems, with an autobiographical background. [19]
On 20 December 1952 he met Caterina De Santis in Cosenza - daughter of Agostino De Santis, a doctor and honorary inspector of antiquities in Francavilla Marittima, and of Francesca Fasanella Masci, descendant of an old family - who then married on 13 June 1954 and with whom he had three children: Maria Giulia (1955), Daniela (1957) and Pasquale (1961). [20]
His professional life - as a lawyer, judge and university professor - developed between Rome, Corigliano Calabro and Bologna, but always maintained a strong bond with the native village of Oriolo, where he used to spend his summer holidays, gathering relatives and friends and cultivating his studies.
In 1947 he obtained the forensic qualification at the Court of Appeal of Rome, where he carried out professional activities up to the date of entry into the judiciary.
In the years 1965-1985, left the judiciary, resumed to practice the criminal activity in the criminal sector, as a lawyer authorized to practice before the Court of Cassation. [21]
In 1973, in particular, he defended in Cassation the producer of the film " Last tango in Paris" Alberto Grimaldi and the director Bernardo Bertolucci, acquitted by the Court of Bologna (sentence 2 February 1973) but condemned by the Court of Appeal of Bologna (sentence 4 June 1973) for competition in an obscene show. The Court of Cassation, in accepting the appeal, annulled the sentence with a reference to another section of the Court of Appeal of Bologna.
Against the sentence handed down in the adjudication judgment on September 26, 1974, he filed new grounds for appeal to the Supreme Court.
In 1973, Francesco Gianniti defended Pier Paolo Pasolini - who had been acquitted by the Court of Benevento (ruling October 20, 1972) from the indictment of competition in an obscene show for the film " The Canterbury Tales" - before the Court of Appeal of Naples, which confirmed (sentence 2 July 1973) the decision of acquittal delivered at first instance. Following an appeal by the public prosecutor, he was the defender, together with the attorney professor Alfredo De Marsico, of the director Pier Paolo Pasolini and of the producer Alberto Grimaldi, in the judgment for Cassation.
In both judgments, he supported the thesis that the provisions of art. 529 paragraph 2 of the Italian Civil Code pen. ("The work of art is not considered obscene"), correctly interpreted, was applicable to the aforementioned films due to the presence, in both, of "artistic merits", which had taken care to identify and highlight and which had been recognized by a large part of the artistic, national and foreign criticism.
On 11 March 1948 he entered the judiciary as "in charge of judicial functions ", as the winner of the competition for titles issued with d.l.lgt. April 30, 1946.
He served as a magistrate in Corigliano Calabro from 15 September 1948 to 15 October 1950.
In 1950 he was among the first to pass the examination for judicial addition, [22] issued by Ministerial Decree of 23 March 1950.
He moved to Bologna, where he worked: the functions of Pretore (from October 28, 1950 to December 21, 1951), of investigating judge of the Criminal Court (from December 1951 to December 1955), of judge of the first penal section of the Court and of the Court of Assizes of Bologna (from January 1956 to October 1959) and of judge of the second civil section of the Court of Bologna (from October 1959 to December 31, 1962).
In November 1950, when he was a criminal magistrate in Bologna, he was introduced by Professor Filippo Grispigni to Professor Silvio Ranieri, [23] and, on the latter's proposal, he was appointed voluntary assistant of criminal law at the University of Bologna and began educational and scientific activity.
To cultivate this activity was also encouraged by the professor Ernesto Battaglini, who would become judge of the Constitutional Court and who invited him to publish studies and articles in the journal Criminal Justice.
In 1959 he published his first monograph in criminal law, "I reati della stessa indole" (The crimes of the same nature), in which he carried out a systematic reconstruction of this conceptual category, and, facing the problem of recidivism, claimed that the nature of the crimes is generally, but not necessarily, a symptom of a higher capacity to commit delinquency.
On March 17, 1961 he unanimously obtained the qualification for "free education" in criminal law [24].
In 1962, being assistant professor of criminal law at the University of Bologna, he won the national competition for a post of ordinary criminal law assistant in the same University [25] and came to be in the alternative whether to continue the activity in the magistracy or pass to the university career. The passion for scientific research prevailed in him and the attraction of being able to become one day a university chair, which for him was a symbol of intellectual nobility.
So it was that on 1 February 1963 he left the judiciary to embark on a university career, which he covered entirely at the University of Bologna.
In the three academic years of 1963-1966 he was a professor in charge of criminal law. The study on "L'oggetto materiale del reato" (The material object of the crime) dates back to those years, published in 1966, in which he claimed that this element, on the one hand, "assumes particular importance in the general theory of crime, as it arises in numerous crimes such as constitutive element and in many others as an aggravating circumstance, while often it appears as a distinctive or specializing element of a crime compared to another "; and, on the other, "represents a valid coefficient for the scientific elaboration of the special part ... through the study of all the criminal figures who assume it, as an element, essential or accessory, in their structure".
In the following three years 1967-1970 he was a professor in charge of institutions of law and criminal procedure in the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Bologna. In 1970 he published the volume "Studi sulla corruzione del pubblico ufficiale" (Studies on the corruption of the public official) in which three previous writings were collected: in the first, he determined the concept of utility, as a general concept of special part, on the basis of the comparative examination of the various provisions that provide; in the second he illustrated the common elements and the differential characteristics between the German criminal law and the Italian criminal law on corruption; in the third he faced the problem of corruption of the public official in the exercise of powers characterized by administrative discretion.
In 1972 he won the national competition for a post of full professor in the penalistic disciplines at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bologna [26] and came to be in the alternative between continuing the study and teaching of criminal law or passing to the study and teaching the criminal procedure. He opted for the second alternative: "The change of subject - he left written - made me think of the university doctor who, after having spent several years in medical clinic, suddenly goes to the surgical clinic". [27]
His first monographs of criminal procedure date back to the 1970s: "Prospettive criminologiche e processo penale" (Criminological Perspectives and Criminal Process), published in 1977, in which he supported the necessity of developing an organic program of criminal policy (in the substantive, procedural and execution fields of the pena), as well as the examination of the personality of the offender in the criminal trial (before, during and after the trial phase); and "Controversie in tema di giudizio direttissimo" (Controversies in the matter of a very direct judgment), published in 1979, in which he examined this special judgment, framing it as a typical example of an accusatory process in the predominantly inquisitorial system of the then current code of procedure.
From November 1, 1973 to October 31, 1991 he held the chair of criminal procedure at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bologna: first as an extraordinary professor and then, since 1978, as an ordinary professor. [28]
As the holder of the penal procedure, in addition to university courses, he held: a) annual courses of practice in criminal proceedings at the "Enrico Redenti" forensic application institute of Bologna (1973-1991); b) annual courses of lessons, first of all on "criminal trial and administrative process" and then on "crimes against public administration" at the School of specialization in administrative sciences in Bologna (1977-1988); c) annual lecture courses on "penitentiary legal medicine", on "criminological medicine" and, finally, on "criminal legal medicine" to graduates in medicine and surgery at the School of specialization in forensic medicine of the University of Bologna (1978- 1991).
The monographs date back to the 1980s: "Introduzione allo studio interdisciplinare del processo penale" (Introduction to the interdisciplinary study of the criminal process), published in 1986, in which he examined the relations that the science of the criminal process presents with the other branches of the legal system; and "I rapporti tra processo civile e processo penale" (Relations between the civil process and the criminal trial), published in 1988, in which, continuing the previous work, it carried out a comparative examination between various institutions and procedural concepts, both civil and criminal.
As a professor of criminal procedure, he was the promoter, with his collaborators, of a working method, based on a collegial confrontation, characterized by periodic meetings, in which there was talk of scientific questions, organization of teaching or other initiatives related to teaching activity. And, in relations with the students, he pursued three objectives: to transform, at least in part, the teaching classes in "interviews with the students"; to accompany the students of each course, at least once, to the Court and the Court of Appeals to attend the criminal hearings and then draw reasons for reflection in class on the complex relations between criminal law, criminal trial and judicial policy; and finally the goal of encouraging the most willing students to become active subjects of the lessons, inviting them to relate to the content of the research carried out. [29]
In 1985 he gave birth to a post-graduate school in Bologna (called Centro Studi Address Magistratura Avvocatura), which he continued until 2009. In that school, over the years, several hundred young graduates prepared for the written tests of the competition for the judiciary and the examination for the qualification for the legal profession. Expression of this activity were the volumes "Guida all'esame per avvocato" (Guide for the exam for lawyer ) (Giuffrè, 2006) and "Guida al concorso per magistrato ordinario" (Guide to the competition for ordinary magistrate) (Cedam, 2008). Some of the methodological advice, which he used to impart to his students, is now, by his will, fully and freely available on the web [30].
On October 31, 1996 he was placed "at rest" as an ordinary professor, but continued his teaching and scientific activities. As a teacher, he continued to teach law and criminal procedure within the CSIMA School until 2009. From a scientific point of view, he carried out further studies on the criminal trial and its relations with the criminological disciplines. The monograph "Aspetti problematici del processo penale" (Problematic aspects of the criminal trial) dates back to 1997, highlighting the positive and negative aspects of the criminal trial, with particular reference to the "instructive powers" of the public prosecutor and to alternative "inquisitorial" rites, and examined the "derogations" to the trial trial and to the parts process. In 2007, with the monograph "Sistema penale e problemi criminologici" (Criminal System and Criminological Problems), illustrated the relationships between criminal law, criminal procedural law and criminal disciplines; and carried out, with the comparative method, topics of general and special part of the criminal law. Finally, in 2011, now ninety years old, he published the latest monograph, "Criminalistica" (Criminalistic), in which he argued that "to study, with deductive-rational method, the offense as a legal entity must be accompanied by the study, with experimental inductive method, of the crime as human and social reality, so that, on the one hand, the diagnosis of the personality and the prognosis of the dangerousness of the subject that delinque and, secondly, the social defense, as protection of the community and of the injured person, take on importance".
He was: since 1968, Member of Honor of the Society of Criminal Law and Criminology of Buenos Aires; since 1977, corresponding member of the Cosentina Academy Bernardino Telesio; from 1993 to 2005, Magistrate for the judgment of the union action of the Republic of San Marino [31].
In 2013, in his honor, the book Francesco Gianniti. Una vita in tre toghe (Francesco Gianniti - A life in three togas) was published by Antonio Benvenuto (presented in Corigliano on June 29, 2013 during a conference on Avvocatura e Magistratura, organized by the Civil Chamber of Rossano). The author - based on an accurate historical research - in the preface draws the profile of Francesco Gianniti, when he was Pretore in Corigliano (1948-1950), as a young man of vast culture, juridical and humanistic, and warm humanity; while, in the appendix, it outlines the subsequent existential path, characterized by the centrality of the family and by the passion for work, understood as an opportunity to serve others. The Author writes: "The title is inspired by the many professional experiences - as Magistrate, Lawyer and University Professor - of this son of Calabria, who, with his multi-faceted professional activity, has honored the territory of Sibaritide".
Francesco Gianniti ( Oriolo, 4 October 1921 – Oriolo, 11 August 2017) was an Italian jurist and humanist. He was Filippo Grispigni’s student at the University of Rome and Silvio Ranieri’s disciple at the University of Bologna.
He was a professor of law and criminal procedure, a criminal lawyer and a criminal judge.
The cornerstone of his criminal- criminological thought, perfected over the years also on the basis of the experience gained in the exercise of judicial and forensic activity, is the idea that, for the purpose of effective action to combat crime, it is necessary to processing of an organic criminal policy program, which contribute, in addition to the penal legal disciplines ( criminal law, criminal procedure and penal law), criminological experimental disciplines (in particular, psychology, sociology and criminal anthropology, forensic medicine and criminology, criminal statistics and scientific police). [1] This program should move along the following lines: [2]
The criminal-criminological thought of Francesco Gianniti is characterized by the tension to satisfy, with the aid of the bio-sociological disciplines of crime, the practical needs of the penalistic disciplines and the preference given to the interdisciplinary and comparative method in the study of criminal law, substantive and procedural. [3]
In this regard, he argued that: "the science of criminal prosecution - similar to criminal science (but unlike the science of the civil trial) - does not end in juridical investigation (criminal procedural law), but extends to psychological investigation (psychology criminal and criminal judicial psychology) and is completed in the sociological survey (criminal process sociology and criminal judicial sociology) .The three surveys - while remaining autonomous for diversity of object, nature and method - are mutually complementary: law, psychology and sociology in fact, they give rise to inquiries that are necessarily different but inextricably linked in an interdisciplinary study of the criminal trial" [4].
From here, the particular conception that Francesco Gianniti had of the criminal lawyer, and, in particular, of the criminal judge.
Precisely it was his conviction that: "the jurist (and especially the criminal lawyer, understood in a broad sense) can not limit himself to dogmatics, that is to the exclusive study of the content and scope of the juridical norms in force, making a systematic elaboration; but, anchoring the conceptual elements to human and social reality, it must also investigate concrete problems, referring to a particular society, urging and helping the legislator in the arduous task of implementing the most suitable reforms. Therefore, an interdisciplinary study is necessary to guide the legislative policy in the fields - inextricably linked - of the substantive and procedural criminal law, of the judicial and penitentiary system" [5].
As for the criminal judge, "these - he wrote - in addition to being endowed with a serene and strong balance and a strict self-control power, he must possess not only the logical finesse of the jurist and the spiritual wealth of the humanist, but also the introspective acumen of the criminologist. He, therefore, must examine and know the personality of the individual delinquent (that particular murderer, that particular robber) in order to be able to concretely and completely judge him. ... As the doctor studies not only the disease, but that particular patient, because this represents "a clinical case", to which the most appropriate therapy must be practiced; so the judge, after having ascertained that a person has committed a crime, must study the unmistakable characteristics of the personality of that particular offender in order to impose on him the most appropriate sanction. If the culture of the criminal judge was limited to being exclusively juridical, criminal justice should deal only with the crime and not with the personality of its author. Ultimately, the criminal judge, in order to properly exercise his complex and delicate function, must assess not only the evidence concerning the crime (so-called judgment on the fact) but also the evidence concerning the suspect or accused person (so-called judgment on author of the fact)" [6].
A scholar of the main works of the Italian criminal tradition starting with Cesare Beccaria, [7] who formed the "heart" of his legal library, [8] Francesco Gianniti had particular interest in those of Francesco Carrara and Enrico Ferri. In a speech at the international conference held in Lucca and Pisa in 1988, on the occasion of the centenary of the death of Carrara, he noted [9] the significant convergence of the above two distinguished criminalists on the different function of law and criminal procedure, especially as the work of both was directed not to the systematic elaborations, but to the reform of the current penal legislation on the basis of new managerial criteria. According to Carrara, these were "the dogmas of supreme reason, which existed before all human laws and which must be observed by the penal legislator"; according to Ferri, instead, they were the "criminal substitutes", that is, the reforms that must be carried out by means of laws concerning economic and political, civil and administrative, and which, in addition to favoring social evolution, tend to indirectly implement preventive defense against crime, especially opposing the factors social.
Francesco Gianniti collaborated for many years with the magazine Positive School. [10] Well aware of the "irrevocable civil and juridical conquests of the classical School" - which he considered mainly represented, as well as by Carrara, Pellegrino Rossi and Enrico Pessina - he recognized himself in the Positive School, which was anticipated by Gian Domenico Romagnosi, Carlo Cattaneo and Giovanni Bovio [11] and represented mainly by Ferri, Cesare Lombroso and Raffaele Garofalo. However, he did not share either the denial of free will, supported by Ferri, nor the importance attributed by Lombroso to the somatic factors in the causal explanation of the criminal phenomenon. [12] He attributed the merit to the Positive School: [13] to have supported the need to resort to prevention before repression, being the former much more effective than the second; to have moved the fulcrum of the penal law from the crime to the author of the criminal conduct, giving life and impulse to the criminological disciplines; to have affirmed the educational finalism of the penalty, anticipating a principle later consecrated in art. 27 paragraph 3 of the Constitution.
He argued that the prevention measures (the so-called criminal substitutes of Ferri) are a more effective means of social defense than penalties in the fight against crime: "a provident civil and administrative legislation " can modify, more effectively than penalties, "the factors social, economic and political, which prepare and facilitate crime". [14] And it was persuaded that the prediction of a plurality of sanctions, the imposition of a punishment adequate to the personality of the subject and a penitentiary treatment adapted to the personality of the condemned person were consistent with the spirit and values of the Constitution.
With great pleasure he used to remember [15] the words pronounced by Pope John XXIII, during the audience of November 21, 1960: [16] "The studies of criminal anthropology present a keen interest and should be encouraged for the high human value and morality, which they enclose".
He was born of Pasquale Gianniti (1889 - 1976) and Maria Camerino (1891 - 1952).
In the family of origin there had been convinced supporters of the Unification of Italy, who had played an active role during the Risorgimento. In particular, the great-grandfather Pasquale Gianniti (1830 - 1884), a doctor in law, in 1857, under the Bourbon government, had been restricted to the prisons of Oriolo for subversive activity, [17] while his younger brother, Luigi Gianniti (1849 - 1870), had been Sergeant Major of the 40th Infantry Regiment and had fallen to Porta Pia on 20 September 1870.
He received his first training in Calabria, where he attended, in the years 1927 - 1932, the primary school in Oriolo, and then, in the years 1933-1940, the Classical High School Bernardino Telesio of Cosenza, where he was a pupil, among others, of Don Luigi Nicoletti. In October 1940, he enrolled in the Faculty of Law of the University of Rome. In 1943 he won the "Nicola Zanotti" [18] award, because, in addition to having obtained the highest marks and praise in the commercial law exam with the professor Alberto Asquini, he presented the best average grade in the Faculty of Law.
On July 28, 1945 he graduated with honors, discussing with the professor Filippo Grispigni the thesis in criminal law on "The legitimacy of resistance to arbitrary acts of the Authority".
In the years immediately following the degree date two of his historical-juridical writings, which bear witness to his passion for history and sympathy for Mazzini's thought: "The Polish question at the Congress of Vienna in 1815" (1946) and "La Repubblica Romana of 1849" (1947); as well as the "Ricordi Coriglianesi" (1950), which contain a dozen poems, with an autobiographical background. [19]
On 20 December 1952 he met Caterina De Santis in Cosenza - daughter of Agostino De Santis, a doctor and honorary inspector of antiquities in Francavilla Marittima, and of Francesca Fasanella Masci, descendant of an old family - who then married on 13 June 1954 and with whom he had three children: Maria Giulia (1955), Daniela (1957) and Pasquale (1961). [20]
His professional life - as a lawyer, judge and university professor - developed between Rome, Corigliano Calabro and Bologna, but always maintained a strong bond with the native village of Oriolo, where he used to spend his summer holidays, gathering relatives and friends and cultivating his studies.
In 1947 he obtained the forensic qualification at the Court of Appeal of Rome, where he carried out professional activities up to the date of entry into the judiciary.
In the years 1965-1985, left the judiciary, resumed to practice the criminal activity in the criminal sector, as a lawyer authorized to practice before the Court of Cassation. [21]
In 1973, in particular, he defended in Cassation the producer of the film " Last tango in Paris" Alberto Grimaldi and the director Bernardo Bertolucci, acquitted by the Court of Bologna (sentence 2 February 1973) but condemned by the Court of Appeal of Bologna (sentence 4 June 1973) for competition in an obscene show. The Court of Cassation, in accepting the appeal, annulled the sentence with a reference to another section of the Court of Appeal of Bologna.
Against the sentence handed down in the adjudication judgment on September 26, 1974, he filed new grounds for appeal to the Supreme Court.
In 1973, Francesco Gianniti defended Pier Paolo Pasolini - who had been acquitted by the Court of Benevento (ruling October 20, 1972) from the indictment of competition in an obscene show for the film " The Canterbury Tales" - before the Court of Appeal of Naples, which confirmed (sentence 2 July 1973) the decision of acquittal delivered at first instance. Following an appeal by the public prosecutor, he was the defender, together with the attorney professor Alfredo De Marsico, of the director Pier Paolo Pasolini and of the producer Alberto Grimaldi, in the judgment for Cassation.
In both judgments, he supported the thesis that the provisions of art. 529 paragraph 2 of the Italian Civil Code pen. ("The work of art is not considered obscene"), correctly interpreted, was applicable to the aforementioned films due to the presence, in both, of "artistic merits", which had taken care to identify and highlight and which had been recognized by a large part of the artistic, national and foreign criticism.
On 11 March 1948 he entered the judiciary as "in charge of judicial functions ", as the winner of the competition for titles issued with d.l.lgt. April 30, 1946.
He served as a magistrate in Corigliano Calabro from 15 September 1948 to 15 October 1950.
In 1950 he was among the first to pass the examination for judicial addition, [22] issued by Ministerial Decree of 23 March 1950.
He moved to Bologna, where he worked: the functions of Pretore (from October 28, 1950 to December 21, 1951), of investigating judge of the Criminal Court (from December 1951 to December 1955), of judge of the first penal section of the Court and of the Court of Assizes of Bologna (from January 1956 to October 1959) and of judge of the second civil section of the Court of Bologna (from October 1959 to December 31, 1962).
In November 1950, when he was a criminal magistrate in Bologna, he was introduced by Professor Filippo Grispigni to Professor Silvio Ranieri, [23] and, on the latter's proposal, he was appointed voluntary assistant of criminal law at the University of Bologna and began educational and scientific activity.
To cultivate this activity was also encouraged by the professor Ernesto Battaglini, who would become judge of the Constitutional Court and who invited him to publish studies and articles in the journal Criminal Justice.
In 1959 he published his first monograph in criminal law, "I reati della stessa indole" (The crimes of the same nature), in which he carried out a systematic reconstruction of this conceptual category, and, facing the problem of recidivism, claimed that the nature of the crimes is generally, but not necessarily, a symptom of a higher capacity to commit delinquency.
On March 17, 1961 he unanimously obtained the qualification for "free education" in criminal law [24].
In 1962, being assistant professor of criminal law at the University of Bologna, he won the national competition for a post of ordinary criminal law assistant in the same University [25] and came to be in the alternative whether to continue the activity in the magistracy or pass to the university career. The passion for scientific research prevailed in him and the attraction of being able to become one day a university chair, which for him was a symbol of intellectual nobility.
So it was that on 1 February 1963 he left the judiciary to embark on a university career, which he covered entirely at the University of Bologna.
In the three academic years of 1963-1966 he was a professor in charge of criminal law. The study on "L'oggetto materiale del reato" (The material object of the crime) dates back to those years, published in 1966, in which he claimed that this element, on the one hand, "assumes particular importance in the general theory of crime, as it arises in numerous crimes such as constitutive element and in many others as an aggravating circumstance, while often it appears as a distinctive or specializing element of a crime compared to another "; and, on the other, "represents a valid coefficient for the scientific elaboration of the special part ... through the study of all the criminal figures who assume it, as an element, essential or accessory, in their structure".
In the following three years 1967-1970 he was a professor in charge of institutions of law and criminal procedure in the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Bologna. In 1970 he published the volume "Studi sulla corruzione del pubblico ufficiale" (Studies on the corruption of the public official) in which three previous writings were collected: in the first, he determined the concept of utility, as a general concept of special part, on the basis of the comparative examination of the various provisions that provide; in the second he illustrated the common elements and the differential characteristics between the German criminal law and the Italian criminal law on corruption; in the third he faced the problem of corruption of the public official in the exercise of powers characterized by administrative discretion.
In 1972 he won the national competition for a post of full professor in the penalistic disciplines at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bologna [26] and came to be in the alternative between continuing the study and teaching of criminal law or passing to the study and teaching the criminal procedure. He opted for the second alternative: "The change of subject - he left written - made me think of the university doctor who, after having spent several years in medical clinic, suddenly goes to the surgical clinic". [27]
His first monographs of criminal procedure date back to the 1970s: "Prospettive criminologiche e processo penale" (Criminological Perspectives and Criminal Process), published in 1977, in which he supported the necessity of developing an organic program of criminal policy (in the substantive, procedural and execution fields of the pena), as well as the examination of the personality of the offender in the criminal trial (before, during and after the trial phase); and "Controversie in tema di giudizio direttissimo" (Controversies in the matter of a very direct judgment), published in 1979, in which he examined this special judgment, framing it as a typical example of an accusatory process in the predominantly inquisitorial system of the then current code of procedure.
From November 1, 1973 to October 31, 1991 he held the chair of criminal procedure at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bologna: first as an extraordinary professor and then, since 1978, as an ordinary professor. [28]
As the holder of the penal procedure, in addition to university courses, he held: a) annual courses of practice in criminal proceedings at the "Enrico Redenti" forensic application institute of Bologna (1973-1991); b) annual courses of lessons, first of all on "criminal trial and administrative process" and then on "crimes against public administration" at the School of specialization in administrative sciences in Bologna (1977-1988); c) annual lecture courses on "penitentiary legal medicine", on "criminological medicine" and, finally, on "criminal legal medicine" to graduates in medicine and surgery at the School of specialization in forensic medicine of the University of Bologna (1978- 1991).
The monographs date back to the 1980s: "Introduzione allo studio interdisciplinare del processo penale" (Introduction to the interdisciplinary study of the criminal process), published in 1986, in which he examined the relations that the science of the criminal process presents with the other branches of the legal system; and "I rapporti tra processo civile e processo penale" (Relations between the civil process and the criminal trial), published in 1988, in which, continuing the previous work, it carried out a comparative examination between various institutions and procedural concepts, both civil and criminal.
As a professor of criminal procedure, he was the promoter, with his collaborators, of a working method, based on a collegial confrontation, characterized by periodic meetings, in which there was talk of scientific questions, organization of teaching or other initiatives related to teaching activity. And, in relations with the students, he pursued three objectives: to transform, at least in part, the teaching classes in "interviews with the students"; to accompany the students of each course, at least once, to the Court and the Court of Appeals to attend the criminal hearings and then draw reasons for reflection in class on the complex relations between criminal law, criminal trial and judicial policy; and finally the goal of encouraging the most willing students to become active subjects of the lessons, inviting them to relate to the content of the research carried out. [29]
In 1985 he gave birth to a post-graduate school in Bologna (called Centro Studi Address Magistratura Avvocatura), which he continued until 2009. In that school, over the years, several hundred young graduates prepared for the written tests of the competition for the judiciary and the examination for the qualification for the legal profession. Expression of this activity were the volumes "Guida all'esame per avvocato" (Guide for the exam for lawyer ) (Giuffrè, 2006) and "Guida al concorso per magistrato ordinario" (Guide to the competition for ordinary magistrate) (Cedam, 2008). Some of the methodological advice, which he used to impart to his students, is now, by his will, fully and freely available on the web [30].
On October 31, 1996 he was placed "at rest" as an ordinary professor, but continued his teaching and scientific activities. As a teacher, he continued to teach law and criminal procedure within the CSIMA School until 2009. From a scientific point of view, he carried out further studies on the criminal trial and its relations with the criminological disciplines. The monograph "Aspetti problematici del processo penale" (Problematic aspects of the criminal trial) dates back to 1997, highlighting the positive and negative aspects of the criminal trial, with particular reference to the "instructive powers" of the public prosecutor and to alternative "inquisitorial" rites, and examined the "derogations" to the trial trial and to the parts process. In 2007, with the monograph "Sistema penale e problemi criminologici" (Criminal System and Criminological Problems), illustrated the relationships between criminal law, criminal procedural law and criminal disciplines; and carried out, with the comparative method, topics of general and special part of the criminal law. Finally, in 2011, now ninety years old, he published the latest monograph, "Criminalistica" (Criminalistic), in which he argued that "to study, with deductive-rational method, the offense as a legal entity must be accompanied by the study, with experimental inductive method, of the crime as human and social reality, so that, on the one hand, the diagnosis of the personality and the prognosis of the dangerousness of the subject that delinque and, secondly, the social defense, as protection of the community and of the injured person, take on importance".
He was: since 1968, Member of Honor of the Society of Criminal Law and Criminology of Buenos Aires; since 1977, corresponding member of the Cosentina Academy Bernardino Telesio; from 1993 to 2005, Magistrate for the judgment of the union action of the Republic of San Marino [31].
In 2013, in his honor, the book Francesco Gianniti. Una vita in tre toghe (Francesco Gianniti - A life in three togas) was published by Antonio Benvenuto (presented in Corigliano on June 29, 2013 during a conference on Avvocatura e Magistratura, organized by the Civil Chamber of Rossano). The author - based on an accurate historical research - in the preface draws the profile of Francesco Gianniti, when he was Pretore in Corigliano (1948-1950), as a young man of vast culture, juridical and humanistic, and warm humanity; while, in the appendix, it outlines the subsequent existential path, characterized by the centrality of the family and by the passion for work, understood as an opportunity to serve others. The Author writes: "The title is inspired by the many professional experiences - as Magistrate, Lawyer and University Professor - of this son of Calabria, who, with his multi-faceted professional activity, has honored the territory of Sibaritide".