Abstract

This essays aims to enquire the conceptual and practical problems connected to the ascertainment of intention in Italian criminal trials. I distinguish: general problems (common to most of the facts to be proved in the trial), specific problems (posed by every circumstantial evidence) and particular problems that affect only the ascertainment of intention. As for the latter, I argue that they derive from the indeterminacy of the concept of intention, which, in turn, depends on both jurisprudential contrasts and the wrong picture of the mental mechanisms, which is the background of all the different and conflicting definitions. In the last part, I draft an hypothesis on the actual mechanisms that seem to rule the conviction for intentional conduct in some problematic cases.