Criminal law, Proof, Evidence and conjectures, Cassation, Sixth Criminal Section, Judgment n. 48581 of 12/21/2022
Passim
The qualification of the circumstantial compendium (the distinction between conjectures and clues) and thus the limits of the power of verification referred to the Court of Cassation in this matter, not without noting that the distinction between clues and conjectures is well known both in the epistemological field and in the jurisprudence of legitimacy.
It is clearly stated that in contrast to the “indications”, susceptible to evaluation pursuant to art. 192, paragraph 2, of the Italian Civil Code. proc. pen. and which constitute known factual elements from which to infer, in an inferential way, the unknown fact to be proved on the basis of scientific rules or maxims of experience, the “suspicion” is identified with the conjecture, with a subjective phenomenon of hypotheses with evidence from search, or with a weak or ambiguous indication, such as to support distinct, alternative – and even opposing – hypotheses in the explanation of the facts being tested (Section 5 n. 5209 of 12/11/2020, dep. 2021, Rv 280408).
On the supervisory powers of this Court, with regard to the inferential evaluation procedure of the judge of merit, it is stated that in the matter of circumstantial evidence, the control of the Cassation on the defects of motivation of the contested sentence, if it cannot be extended to the review on the choice of maxims of experience, consisting of hypothetical judgments with a general content, independent of the concrete case, based on repeated experiences, but autonomous from these, may however have as their object the verification of whether the decision has resorted to mere conjectures, consisting of unfounded hypotheses on the “id quod plerumque accidit”, and insusceptible to empirical verification, or even to an alleged general rule that is devoid of even the slightest plausibility (Sez. 1, n. 16523 of 04/12/2020, dep. 2021, Rv 281385).
Source Supreme Court of Cassation
