I am going to take up one purpose of the criminal trial other than fact finding with respect to the cases of stolen antiquities, repatriation, and the indictment against the curator of the Getty. These criminal proceedings offer themselves as little more than a Kafkaesque incantation to persuade art collectors and museums worldwide to repatriate suspicious antiquities even if the real heart of the issue is problem with lawless, mafioso Sicily, new technologies, and ineffective law enforcement in the area. In light of the prejudiced Italian authorities prosecuting the case against an American, this purpose of the trial, then, is something like a show trial, indeed a symbolic trial. My outline below contains far too much, so I plan to purge a lot of material as the idea takes shape.

Paper Title (TBD)

The Problem of Looters, or The First 'Purpose' of Shifting the Burden from Italian Criminals to Foreign Museum Professionals

Birth of a Black Market in Morgantina, Sicily

New Technology Leads to New Problems: Portable Metal Detectors in 1970s

Role of the Mafia in the smuggling rings

Italian non-enforcement of smuggling laws creates and reinforces museum industry's assumptions in the 1980s

The Other Side of the Trial, or the Consistent Failure in Convicting the Proximate Offenders

The Suspicious Role of Judge Magistrate Silvio Raffiotta: owner of house in Morgantina, Sicily; writer of archaeological guidebook for the area. In 1980s, he turned the spotlight, with the help ofprosecutor Ferri, West to American buyers because of the difficulty in prosecuting the looters. Little known to most of the world, Raffiotta was charged with being associated with a smuggler ring at the turn of the century. What could be a cause for his new affectation for prosecuting American museums given his close connection to Morgantina, smuggler rings, and perhaps even the Mafia?

The true culprits in this trial are more directly these tomb raiders of cultural patrimony than what may be a 'bona fide' purchaser. The purchaser falls last in a drawn out chain of commercial exchanges. The night looter -> the smuggler -> Italian customers -> the dealer -> U.S. customs -> the purchaser.

Thus, if the goal of the Italian government is to stifle the black market in antiquities dealings, the trial against True is a circuitous route to these more proximate offenders.

The failure of Italian local enforcement and customs officials should not bring the force of the state against a foreign professional. Other methods of regulation include restrictions on portable metal detectors, more cunning techniques of law enforcement, and shifting the burden of illegality from the supplying smugglers to the buying collectors. True's trial sends a threatening message to antiquity buyers to provide greater due diligence.

A Martyr for Another Country's Cause, or the Second 'Purpose' of Persuading the Buyers to Repatriate Mercilessly

True's Trial as a Powerful Symbol for Repatriation

True's character shows a commitment to cultural patrimony laws, including, in the 1990s, testimony in Congress supporting US enforcement of Italian export laws. Her integrity has general approval in the industry.

The publicity surrounding her indictment has been overwhelming across the United States and worldwide.

True's Trial as an Offensive against Cultural Invasions, or the Language of War

With True in the midst of criminal proceedings, the Italian government has been leading an offensive effort to reclaim works exported after the cultural patrimony law passed in 1939 (interestingly, at the dawn of World War II).

New deals reached with the Met, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Princeton Art Museum, and the Getty as well as the first private collector

Italian government's propaganda over True's case sends the message that her guilt is so obvious that other museums believe it necessary to repatriate items.

The Italian government literally declares "vittoria morale" in December with the opening of an exhibition featuring the repatriated items and reaffirms True's guilt in the same breath, without having even started the conviction proceedings.

When Italian government feels True's trial is not putting enough coercive pressure on museums, it resorts to threatening a "cultural embargo" on American museums.

The Italian government's innocence: How dare the Getty show up in Italy with lawyers! Instead of handling this dispute among cultural ministers, the Italian government feels threatened by Robert Olson, the big-shot founder of Munger, Toller, & Olson, who, they believe, attempted to politicize the issue by asking the American ambassador to attend negotiations. They must have forgotten that, at every moment of this dispute, lies in the background an American citizen on trial!

It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.

Paper Title (TBD)

-- By JesseCreed - 09 Feb 2008

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