Judicial “Truth” and Historical “Truth”: The Case of the Ardeatine Caves Massacre

Abstract

It is frequently claimed that adjudication before a court of law and historical adjudication are two entirely different tasks. The methods and techniques employed by judges and historians contrast sharply. The judge faces many constraints, in terms of choice of subject matter, the arguments to be considered, the evidence to be evaluated, the procedural steps to be followed, the substantive rules to be applied, and the time available to reach a decision; historians, by contrast, are relatively free to choose their field of research, manage their own time, gather the evidence, evaluate it, decide when findings are ready to be published, and reexamine them.