Maxi Trial - Aftermath

Aftermath

In January 1992, Falcone and Borsellino managed to take charge of further Maxi Trial appeals. Not only did they turn many appeals down, they reversed previous successful ones, resulting in many Mafiosi who had recently swaggered out of prison after their convictions were overturned being unceremoniously rounded up and put back behind bars, in many cases for the rest of their lives. This naturally angered the Mafia bosses, particularly Salvatore Riina, who had been hoping his in absentia sentence for murder would be reversed and allow him to retire in peace with his immense criminal fortune.

That summer, Falcone and Borsellino were murdered in audacious bomb attacks. This resulted in public revulsion and a major crackdown against the Mafia that seriously weakened the organization.

Salvatore Riina was eventually captured, as were other Mafiosi like Giovanni Brusca. Corrado Carnevale, the "Sentence Killer", was sacked and imprisoned for being in league with the Mafia. However he was acquitted by the Corte di cassazione on 30 October 2002 and admitted in 2007 to work again as judge. Salvatore Lima would have probably faced a similar fate but he was murdered in 1992 for not preventing the reversal of the appeals at the start of that year.

Whether the Maxi Trial was a success or not is impossible to judge without taking into account subsequent events. The trial's primary success, at its very outset, was in holding the Mafia as an organization into account for its activities rather than just its individual members for isolated crimes (this approach was personified in the United States via the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act). Some may argue that the corrupted appeals process largely undid the work of the trial, but (and although it took several years and cost the lives of two judges), the Maxi Trial eventually set off a chain-reaction that lead to a severe weakening of the Mafia and the eventual capture of those who escaped the trial's initial net, such as Riina and Brusca.