ROME (AP) — When crooked American financier Bernie Madoff was sentenced in New York, the leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera published a front-page cartoon mocking Italy's trial system.
On one side was a U.S. courtroom, where a judge was handing down a 150-year sentence after a six-month trial. On the other, an Italian courtroom with a judge handing down a six-month sentence after a 150-year trial.
That's how the country's No. 1 newspaper summed up Italy's slow-moving, and at times inconclusive, justice system.
The decision by Italy's highest criminal appeals court to overturn the acquittals of American student Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend, and order a new trial in the 2007 slaying of her British roommate, is once again raising concerns both at home and abroad about how justice works in Italy.
It's a system where people cleared of serious crimes can have the threat of prison hanging over them for years, while powerful politicians such as former premier Silvio Berlusconi can avoid jail sentences almost indefinitely by filing appeal after appeal until the statute of limitations runs out.