page_title: Giorgio Coda
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Giorgio Coda / Biography
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Portale d'ingresso della Certosa di Collegno
context_page_description: Giorgio Giuseppe Antonio Maria Coda is an Italian psychiatrist and professor. He's been vicedirector of the mental hospital of Turin and director of villa Azzurra, in Grugliasco After the trial, that lasted from 1970 to 1974, he was sentenced for mistreatment to five years in prison, to the payment of court costs and to the interdiction from the medical profession for five years. He's been nicknamed "the electrician" for his misuse of the electroshock therapy.
  The medical treatment consisted in the application of long-lasting electric current to the genitals and to the head. The treatment didn't make the patient lose consciousness and caused strong pain. According to Giorgio Coda, this treatment should have cured the patient. The treatment was called alternatively "electro-massage" or electroshock depending on whether it was applied to the genitals or to the head. In some cases, the two terms have been used without distinction to denote the generic treatment. The treatment was practiced systematically without anesthesia and, sometimes, without cream and rubber protection device inside the mouth, blowing up the patient's teeth during the treatments.
context_section_description: Most of the details about Giorgio Coda's life and academic career is given by Alberto Papuzzi's book Portami su quello che canta.
  Born in Turin on January 21, 1924 in a wealthy family, Giorgio Coda is the only child of Carlo Coda, a small industrialist from Turin who "regulated the family life as if it were a factory" and Alda Vacchieri. "At school, Giorgio Coda excelled in conduct. He wasn't brilliant, but very diligent. A few schoolmates remember him as a grind."
  In 1943, Giorgio Coda enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Turin and graduated on July 15, 1948 with a thesis about criminal anthropology. On April 16, 1955, Giorgio Coda marries Giovanna Roviera. After becoming head physician of the department, on April 3, 1963 he became a professor of psychiatry.
  The trial starts right after the Italian court specialized in minors - Tribunale per i minorenni - receives a report from children's social worker Maria Repaci. The report is about the facts of villa Azzurra. On September, 7, Giogio Coda is indicted for the crime "misuse of the correction systems" and the amnesty is granted, as provided by Italian law (DPR n. 238 del 22 maggio 1970).
  On December 14, 1970, an Italian judge receives another report from an Italian association - Associazione per la lotta contro le malattie mentali - which turned out to be crucial in order to start the investigation and the trial.  On July 11, 1974 Giorgio Coda is found guilty - "responsible for the crime only for the facts of the mental hospital in Collegno". Subsequently, Giorgio Coda's defender appeals against the sentence.
  On December 2, 1977, at around 6:30 pm, four men, all of them members of the Italian Marxist–Leninist terrorist group Prima Linea penetrate into Giorgio Coda's office and shoot him in the leg.
  At the Court of appeal of Turin, Coda's defense cleverly exploited what the judge Rodolfo Venditti called a "torpedo", a sort of legal trick, based on the fact that Giorgio Coda, as an expert, had been an "honorary judge" (Italian: giudice onorario) of the Juvenile Court (Italian: Tribunale per i miniorenni) in Turin and therefore, since he had been a sort of "judge", he could not be tried in the same court where he had worked as a judge (as stated by Italian law). This detail was perhaps kept hidden by Coda's defense over the whole inferior court trial, and the discovery of this led to the  annulment of the judgment and to the slowdown of the whole trial. Subsequently, the sentence was sent to the so-called Court of cassation (the last step of Italy's three grades of judgement), but the crimes were time-barred and Coda never served any penalty because of crime prescription. Giorgio Coda, according to newspapers, is still alive.
caption: Certosa reale di Collegno, where Turin mental hospital was located until the end of 1970s
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