Volpi is arraigned by the public prosecutor on a charge of wilful murder, accompanied with treachery and robbery, while Starna is only brought to trial as an accomplice to the crime, not as a principal.

Before the actual guilt of either prisoner is ascertained, the public prosecutor, that is, the Government, decides the relative degree of their respective hypothetical guilt.

The justice of this proceeding may be questioned, but its motive is palpable enough.

There was little or no direct evidence against the prisoners, and to convict either of them, it was necessary to rely upon the testimony of the other.
"With both the prisoners," so runs the sentence of the court, "a criminal motive could be established in the fact of their avowed poverty, as they each clearly admitted, that neither they nor their families possessed anything in the world, and that they derived the means of their miserable sustenance from their daily labour alone." A very close intimacy was proved to have existed between the prisoners, so much so, indeed, that Starna had frequently been reproved by his parents for his friendship with a man who stood in such ill repute as Volpi.

The fact that the murdered man was, or was believed to be in possession of money, was shown to be well known amongst the Volpi family.