Corrado Carnevale

Who is Corrado Carnevale?

Corrado Carnevale is an Italian judge, currently member of the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation. He became famous because of the large number of Mafia cases overturned in the Appeal Court where he was president, because of his involvement in some of the worst corruption scandals in the history of the Italian Judiciary and his alleged collusion with the Mafia.

Born at Licata, Sicily, he graduated with honours from the University of Palermo at the age of 21 and came first in the competitive exam for a post of uditore Giudiziario, which he took up on 17 December 1953. His lightning career was crowned at the age of 55, when he became the youngest-ever President of the Italian High Court, the Corte di Cassazione.

He earned the nickname Sentence-Slayer because of the high number of convictions of Mafiosi overturned on appeal in his court for the slightest technicality, such as the lack of a rubber stamp on a document. The Maxi Trial of the mid-1980s, spearheaded by Giovanni Falcone, had led to the convictions of over 200 Mafiosi, of which only a few dozen were still behind bars by 1990, due to Carnevale's role in the appeal trials, quashing the sentences of men who had been brought to trial for conspiracy with the Mafia after long and extenuating trials.