Il "mostro di Marsala" tra raptus e imputabilità: la capacità di intendere e volere alla luce della giurisprudenza di legittimità più recente

The present study offers a systemic reinterpretation of the Michele Vinci case – widely known as the “Monster of Marsala” – as a crucial interpretive junction for understanding contemporary developments in criminal imputability, forensic psychiatric assessment, and the protection of minors within Italian criminal law. Through an integrated historical-criminological, doctrinal-systemic, and forensic-psychiatric approach, the study critically examines the conceptual inadequacy of categories such as “raptus”, uncontrolled impulsivity, and non-contextualized paraphilic disorders, demonstrating that such constructs, when lacking robust nosographic grounding and a proven causal nexus, cannot meaningfully affect the offender’s capacity to understand and to will, according to the most advanced case law of the Italian Court of Cassation (2019–2025). The article situates the Vinci case within the normative reconfiguration introduced by Law No. 181/2025 and the new offence of child homicide under Article 577-bis of the Criminal Code, which conceptualize lethal violence against minors as a phenomenon structurally rooted in dynamics of domination, vulnerability, and relational asymmetry. It argues that the Marsala case constitutes an anticipatory paradigm of the contemporary criminology of vulnerability, intertwining criminal responsibility, collective memory, the symbolic-preventive aims of punishment, and the State’s positive obligations of protection. The contribution positions itself as a high-impact scholarly reflection on the interplay between culpability, forensic expertise, penal system architecture, and substantive justice, offering an insightful interdisciplinary perspective.