The court, however, decides, that though the prisoner was not taken in
the act, yet his guilt was so manifest, that the gendarmes were justified
in acting as if they had caught him perpetrating the crime, while in
offences of great atrocity the police have also a discretionary power to
arrest offenders, even without warrants. Though in this particular
instance the result is not much to be regretted, yet it is obvious, that
the admission of such a principle, and such an interpretation of the law,
gives the police unlimited power of arrest, subject to the approval of
their superiors: whether right or wrong, therefore, the appeal is
dismissed, and the final sentence of death pronounced.
It seems that this verdict was submitted on the 24th of May by the
President of the Supreme Court to the consideration of his Holiness the
Pope, who offered no objection to its execution. The prisoner's last
chance was now gone, but, with a cruel mercy, he was left to linger on
for eight months more in uncertainty. It was only on the 3rd of January,
1860, that orders were sent from Rome to Perugia, for the execution to
take place there instead of at Cannara, on the 13th. On that day the
verdict of the court is conveyed to the unhappy wretch. On the 14th, so
the last paragraph informs us, "The condemned" Luigi Bonci "was beheaded
by the public executioner, in the market-place of Perugia, and his head
was there exposed for an hour to the gaze of the assembled multitude.
Pages:
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68