Before the
actual guilt of either prisoner is ascertained, the public prosecutor,
that is, the Government, decides the relative degree of their respective
hypothetical guilt. The justice of this proceeding may be questioned,
but its motive is palpable enough. There was little or no direct
evidence against the prisoners, and to convict either of them, it was
necessary to rely upon the testimony of the other.
"With both the prisoners," so runs the sentence of the court, "a criminal
motive could be established in the fact of their avowed poverty, as they
each clearly admitted, that neither they nor their families possessed
anything in the world, and that they derived the means of their miserable
sustenance from their daily labour alone." A very close intimacy was
proved to have existed between the prisoners, so much so, indeed, that
Starna had frequently been reproved by his parents for his friendship
with a man who stood in such ill repute as Volpi. The fact that the
murdered man was, or was believed to be in possession of money, was shown
to be well known amongst the Volpi family. Two of Serafino Volpi's
brothers were reported to have spoken to third parties of Ugolini's
savings, and one of them expressed a wish to rob him. Why this brother
was neither arrested nor apparently examined, is one of the many
mysteries, by the way, you come across in perusing these Papal reports.
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