Court of Cassation: Pifferi lucid in Diana's murder, 24-year sentence upheld
The Supreme Court confirms the 24-year sentence for Alessia Pifferi, who abandoned her daughter Diana until her death. Lucidity and emotional fragility at the centre of the court's reasoning.
Court of Cassation's reasoning: lucidity and emotional fragility in Pifferi's conviction
Alessia Pifferi acted with full awareness even after her daughter's death: this is what the Court of Cassation states in the reasoning of the sentence with which, on 25 June, it upheld the conviction to 24 years' imprisonment for the voluntary manslaughter of little Diana. According to ANSA Cronaca, the court writes that the woman, "even after the discovery of the child's body", had shown "lucid behaviour in modifying the crime scene and, in part, concealing traces of the offence".
Diana, who was less than one and a half years old at the time, was left alone in the house by her mother for almost six days in July 2022, while Pifferi was with her partner at the time. The child died of neglect.
Mitigating factors upheld, but not for media attention
Whilst upholding the charge of voluntary manslaughter and the woman's full mental capacity and responsibility — as reconstructed in the Police investigation and by public prosecutor Francesco De Tommasi — the Supreme Court maintained the generic mitigating factors granted in the appeal trial, which had already overturned the life sentence imposed at first instance.
Founding the mitigating factors are Pifferi's "extreme emotional fragility", a personal history marked by a family environment "not suited to her needs" — with traces already evident in her educational background —, a "dramatic history on an emotional level", a "sense of loneliness" and "emotional dependence on men" which had "led her to sacrifice her daughter".
However, the "suffering" linked to "media attention" cited by the Milan Court of Appeal is not valid, according to the first criminal section presided over by Monica Boni with Carmine Russo as rapporteur: it is a "personal intuition" lacking "any legal basis", as the Milan general prosecutor's office had already argued.
No mental disorder, low IQ irrelevant
The Court of Cassation confirms, in line with two expert reports commissioned in previous proceedings, that Pifferi showed no mental disorder. The reasoning states that there was no "irresistible pathological impulse that could have forced her to abandon the child": only "a form of emotional fragility" was documented, which drove her to continuously seek "the company of a man who desired her". The woman was nonetheless capable of "solving problems and making decisions".
The woman's "low intelligence quotient" which emerged from tests carried out in prison was also deemed irrelevant. The Court rejected appeals from both the defence — represented in the Court of Cassation by lawyer Cristian Scaramozzino — and the Milan general prosecutor's office. Civil parties in the trial were Pifferi's mother and sister, grandmother and aunt of Diana, represented by lawyer Emanuele De Mitri.
Source: ANSA Cronaca