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Subscribe to RSSThe Italian appeals court that overturned the murder conviction of American student Amanda Knox is now explaining its ruling in a newly-released report. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.
UPDATED 3 p.m. ET
The Associated Press offers more details about the appeals court ruling:
MILAN, Italy -- The Italian appeals court that overturned Amanda Knox's murder conviction in the slaying of her British roommate gave the reasons for its ruling on Thursday: the evidence that had been used by a lower court against the American and her Italian boyfriend just didn't hold up.
Those shortcomings included no murder weapon, faulty DNA, an inaccurate time for the killing, and insufficient proof that Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were even at the location where the crime occurred. So said the Perugia appellate court in its long-awaited reasoning behind its October ruling that reversed the lower court's convictions.
British college student Meredith Kercher was found slain in a pool of blood on her bedroom floor in Perugia, Italy, on Nov. 2, 2007.
Knox and Sollecito, who had just begun dating at the time of the murder, were arrested several days later, then convicted in what prosecutors' portrayed as a drug-fueled sexual assault. They were sentenced to 26 years and 25 years, respectively, in proceedings that made headlines around the world.
Raffaelle Sollecito, the former lover of Amanda Knox, spoke candidly on Italian TV about his relationship with the American student and the "cruel injustice" that destroyed their love, saying they will always be linked by tragedy.
On Thursday, the appellate cited among the other failed elements of the prosecutors' case DNA evidence, which was undermined during a re-examination in the appeals trial, and the failure to conclusively identify the murder weapon. The appellate court even contradicted the lower court's time of death, saying it happened at around 10:15 p.m., not after 11 p.m. The court said the "building blocks" used to construct the case had failed.
The appeals court also said there was no proof of the prosecutors' claim that Knox and Sollecito had helped a third man, who was convicted separately, of sexually assault Kercher, nor was there evidence that the pair had simulated a burglary by throwing a rock through a window to remove suspicion from themselves, as prosecutors alleged.
The appeals court said the lower court had arrived at a verdict "that was not corroborated by any objective element of evidence and in itself was not, in fact probable: the sudden choice of two young people, good and open to other people, to do evil for evil's sake, just like that, without another reason."
"It is not, therefore, sufficient that the probability of the prosecutors' hypothesis is greater than the hypothesis of the defense, not even when they are notably greater in number, but it is necessary that every explanation that differs from the prosecutors' hypothesis is, according to the criteria of reasonability, not at all plausible," the court said.
The only elements of the prosecutors case that were proven, the appeals court said, were the charge of slander against Knox, who was convicted of falsely accusing a bar owner of killing Kercher, and the fact that the Knox and Sollecito alibis did not match.
TODAY's Matt Lauer talks to Amanda Knox's father, Curt, who says his daughter is currently focused on being with her friends, many of whom have stayed her friend while she was in prison.
That the alibis were out of synch "is very different" from the prosecutors' claim of false alibis, the court said.
The proven elements combined, the court said, are not enough to support convictions against Knox and Sollecito.
"The only elements that are sustained don't allow the belief, even when put together, that the guilt of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for the crime of murder ... has been proven," the court said.
After her conviction was thrown out, Knox, 24, returned immediately home to Seattle. She was credited with time served for the conviction of slander for accusing bar owner Diya "Patrick" Lumumba of carrying out the killing.
Prosecutors contended a kitchen knife found at Sollecito's house was the weapon because it matched wounds on Kercher's body and carried traces of Kercher's DNA on the blade and Knox's on the handle. However, the court-ordered review discredited the DNA evidence, saying there were glaring errors in evidence-collecting and that below-standard testing and possible contamination raised doubts over the DNA traces on the blade and on Kercher's bra clasp.
In addition, the defense cast doubt on the knife, questioning why Knox and Sollecito would return it to Sollecito's home if it had been used in the murder. They maintain the real weapon has yet to be found.
A third defendant in the case, Rudy Hermann Guede of the Ivory Coast, was convicted in a separate trial of sexually assaulting and stabbing Kercher. His 16-year prison sentence — reduced on appeal from an initial 30 years — was upheld by Italy's highest court in 2010.
The appeals court also expressed incredulity that the two would have cooperated in such a crime with Guede, with whom there is no proof of any relationship. "For example, there is no evidence of phone calls or text messages between the three," the court said.
Earlier story:
MILAN, Italy -- The appellate court in Italy that cleared American student Amanda Knox in the slaying of her British roommate released the reasoning behind its ruling on Thursday.
The Perugia court said faulty evidence was used to build the case linking Knox and her Italian boyfriend to the slaying of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, whose body was found in a pool of blood on Nov. 1, 2007.
U.K.-based news website The Week reported that Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellman's 144-page report found that Kercher was killed by a "lone assassin."
The judge also suggested that Knox's alleged confession came because she "was stressed," according to The Week.
Knox, then a college student studying in Italy, and Raffaele Sollecito were convicted in 2009 of murdering Kercher in what prosecutors said was a drug-fueled sexual assault.
An Italian appeals court overturned their convictions in October after independent forensic investigators sharply criticized police scientific evidence in the original investigation, saying it was unreliable.
Knox, 24, immediately returned home to Seattle, after four years in jail.
After landing in Seattle, Amanda Knox told supporters, "Thank you to everyone who has believed in me, who has defended me, who has supported my family."
Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Knox had hired a prominent Washington, D.C.-based lawyer as she considers possible book deals.
Knox retained attorney Robert Barnett "to represent her in discussions with various book publishers" and to help her family evaluate "other opportunities," spokesman David Marriott said.
Barnett has previously represented President Barack Obama, former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, singer Barbra Streisand and a host of other political and entertainment luminaries in book deals.
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The Associated Press, Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
Leave a Comment:
Some suckers will still think she's guilty.
I still believe she is guilty, regardless!
Like I said, suckers. That's a good description for people who believe something regardless of the evidence.
Interesting....you know almost nothing about it and yet you have a strong opinion....fortunately, nobody but you cares....
In my opinion, any person that REALLY followed this case to the tee looking at both the prosecutor's evidence and the defense would have known long ago that Knox and Socceltto were completely innocent. What a tragedy to have put those kids threw that. They had the lone murderer in prison already - Rudy. He and he alone killed Kercher. I have been rallying behind Amanda and Rafael's innocence for a while. Nice to see it in print.
Just like OJ, huh?
The reality is, none of us were there and no one but those involved actually know the truth. If she didn't do anything, i feel for her and the time she had to suffer thru. If she did commit the crime, then just like OJ, her day will be due. Until then, Merry Christmas, happy holidays, etc...peace out MoFos.
I'm with RwE. Why are people so quick to be absolutely certain about a case where they see none of the evidence, hear none of the testimony and are not present for deliberations? Why is it so hard for so many people just to say "I don't know"?
Me? I don't know. Still think Amanda is kinda hot, though.
Good that she's home. Let her get that book deal to pay off her family's debt they incurred to prove her innocence. Good call on the Italian appeal court system.
It's true, anyone who followed the case or bothered to learn the facts knows that the guilty person is in jail. Knox made some stupid mistakes when she was questioned, and she smiled for the cameras too often, she's guilty of thinking she wasn't in trouble when she clearly was. Guilty of being naive.
Dave, in a case like this one, where there is NO evidence and it is so abundantly clear that the young woman had nothing to do with a crime, it would be a sin and a shame to sit back and say, "Gee, I just don't know." That is allowing this corrupt prosecutor and his incompetent investigators to have too much power. She had nothing to do with it, the prosecution has no evidence to show otherwise, so, no, I'm not going to participate in the sham by allowing it to be possible that the prosecution is right.
RwEvans/Dave in NM--Because saying "I don't know" frequently amounts to an act of intellectual cowardice and an abdication of our responsibility as citizens. There is a reason why public trials and a free press are considered cornerstones of democracy and free society. It is our job, as citizens, to watch our governments and how they go about the business of prosecuting and imprisoning our fellow citizens. Do the processes seem fair and reasonable? Do the verdicts comport with our notions of justice?
If the innocent are routinely jailed or the guilty routinely set free, then the system is failing us and needs repair. In a democratic society, we all bear responsibility for maintaining and repairing the system. Opting to have no opinion, especially in the abundance of facts made available in this situation, is to be overly deferential to government authority and assume they are doing their job correctly.
Granted, this case is in the Italy, and therefore outside our ability, as Americans, to reform the system. But that does not mean it is not valuable analyze the successes and failures of other systems in order to enhance our understanding of our own.
I am shocked at the lack of comments about the Italian legal system. While our courts need serious help, the Italian courts are nothing short of a 3 ring circus. Total joke. I mean come on, that whole Gov is a joke starting with the Silvio himself. Based on the evidence they had 3-4 years ago, this case would have never even gone to trial if it had occurred in the US. If I was her father I would go after that prosecutor and make him pay for all of the time his daughter lost and all of the pain and agony that family suffered. And to those that still think she was involved or is guilty. get a clue. Its a good thing you never entered the legal profession here in the US.
There are sure a lot of people in the USA serving prison time and/or are on death row because of false evidence and people giving false statements. No I do not mean all but enough of them. I do not believe in collateral damage or supposition. A person is either guilty or they are not.
I am not saying if she is guilty or not. I am saying that the prosecutors shoveled a bunch of s()t evidence in front of every one and every one took it as Gods word. What they did was convince every one threw theatrics, supposition, and with out hard evidence that they were guilty. They had no hard evidence and they new it. They proceeded any way because of time and money involved. They tried to save face and it back fired on them and now they will never be trusted in any case that they have.
Sorry. Innocent till proven guilty beond a shadow of a doubt. I would sure hate to see you or me go to prison for some thing that we did not do when the criminal goes free.
Their system like oure is broken and needs fixed big time.
as an attorney - when "I don't know" is the answer, "not guilty" must be the verdict. The standard in US Courts is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt." In OJ's case, the jurors did not realize that a wet leather glove shrinks, so of course it didn't fit, nor did they understand DNA stuff. Therefore, their "I don't know" also became "not guilty." In a civil case, it is "preponderance of the evidence." Therefore, if 51% of the evidence suggests the person is at fault, the answer is "guilty."
If she is innocent, then she has suffered needlessly for something she did not do, and will continue to suffer, as some people will forever hold her guilty.
If she is guilty, then she's damn lucky.
For anybody casually reading or hearing about the case, we have to accept that we can never absolutely know the extent of her guilt. But, from what this story relates, the appelate courts made the right decision; whatever the prosecuters may believe, the case they put together was incredibly weak.
Sorry but the "suckers" as you call them are the ones who think they "know" for sure either way what happened. Nobody will ever know for sure what happened except for the people involved in the actual crime. This is why, at least in theory, that we only convict people of crimes when we can prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt rather than on someone gut instincts. Virtually all human beings find that they are "100 percent sure" of things thousands of times in their lives when in fact they are dead wrong more often than not. For example the victims parents will always believe that Amanda is guilty despite the evidence to the contrary and many others will believe she is innocent no matter how guilty she appeared to be - and believe me she did behave like a guilty person most of the time. In any case, anybody who thinks they "know" when they cannot possibly know is a moron. Even I don’t assume that I know things for sure and I can read people so well that I can detect guilt or innocence in a person with a better than 95% accuracy rate. Anyway the Italian court did the right thing by overturning the conviction because the evidence simply did not support a conviction, end of story.
For those who accuse the Italian legal system, I will only say that failures there are like the failures here. Overzealous prosecutors, police who try to back them up, and judges trying to look "hard on crime" are everywhere, even here in the US, as has been frequently proven. That does Not mean that the majority are that way, but examples exist everywhere. The crack about Silvio Berlusconi ignores his political ability in the floundering political situation in Italy. I lived there for 9 years, and but for his personal flaws as a ladies man, he has been in power longer than anyone else because the majority of Italians backed him as a politician. Look at Bill Clinton. He had his weak side, yet was cared for by the majority, whether you liked him or not.
Ken-sure, if you want to get all metaphysical, then nobody really knows anything with a 100% certainty, especially if they were not a participant in the event. Although even as a participant, your view and perspective is still somewhat limited, so you can only really be sure about your actions, but even that is subject to the vagaries of memory and the biases attached to it.
But at a certain point, when sufficient evidence has been amassed, we make decisions about what most likely happened and base actions going forward on that decision. Living in a state "I really don't know what happened any where any time" is just silly. That's not to say you don't stay open to new evidence changing your opinion. But you might as well have an opinion.
Right on Dave in NM I totally agree. Waaaaay too many know it alls. Everybody thinks that they are the worlds smartest genius(sp?). Too proud to say I don't know. Like in the Kansas song says "If I claim to be a wise man it surely means that I don't know" And you're right she is kinda hot when she is fixed up and made up!!!!!!
redplanet, there is no virtue in continuing to insist "I don't know" in something like this, where there is more than sufficient information to draw a firm conclusion. I have read every book on the subject. I have read transcripts from trial. I have read the original trial judge's justification for the original guilty verdict. I have absolutely no hesitation in saying with certainty that Amanda and Raffaele had nothing to do with this murder. And this isn't me being too proud or a know it all. It's just me refusing to be afraid to reach a conclusion.
For those ignorant people that state that "we will never know if she was involved or not" - Pure rubbish. Again, if anyone followed the case from both a prosecution's perspective as well as the defense, they would know there is no way Knox had anything to do with this murder. People that are SPECULATING know little or nothing and just like to see their posts.
Hey reality check......huh?
Dude, you so totally missed my point.
I wasn't even really on topic.
And you wanna get all case discussion on me when I really don't give a fk.
LMFAO AT you
Our prisons are full of innocent persons convicted by prosecutors that are just as evil as the Italian prosecutor in the Amanda Knox case .... Prosecutors & judges don't care about whether a person is innocent or not ... they care about convictions, and filling up the jails .....
make more laws .. lock em up! keep the lawyers and judges happy .. it's just business for them ...
Moonbeam, actually, considering the number of convictions, and people in prison, we have relatively few wrongful convictions. The only ones that really bother me are the people on death row. Yes, I know, a man served 20 years for a rape he didn't commit. That is a tragedy. That DNA exonerated him is a success. He was financially compensated, as if that could replace the life he lost. But we Americans are all about the money. I think with DNA testing and records being kept, that will happen far less.
America's judicial system is light years ahead of Italy's. While I love the Italian cooking, family values, and the romance they can create around something so simple as a cup of coffee, I hope I am never in a position to experience the Italian court system.
Mark Stephens--- What you have to understand is the guy who served 20 years was convicted (like thousands of others) without DNA evidence, he was innocent yet they still managed to get a conviction. Then he was exonerated by DNA evidence, but most cases do not have DNA evidence to prove or disprove. The fact is when the police are investigating a crime they rarely look any further than the first person that they think they can convict. When a stranger kills someone he is a ghost, if there are no witnesses and no DNA it's hard to prove he even exists. So it's the friends, family, neighbors who become the prime suspects. Strangers are not that likely in most killings because most killings have a motive and are committed by people the victim knows, but Rapists often do hunt and rape/kill strangers. They either fixate on someone they see in their daily lives and stalk them or just go out looking for a victim and take the first easy opportunity. Either way if they have little or no interaction between themselves and the victim beforehand it's unlikely that identified as a suspect much less convicted. And the more pressure put on the police to solve the crime the greater the likelihood that they will prosecute a innocent suspect. And since the police can spend millions to convict but most people have little or nothing to use for defense they usually convict whom ever they prosecute.
i wouldn't spend a dime her book...all ready know the ending...airheads will buy it...cause they're airheads...
I did read about the case and believe that Knox did indeed bring a partier into the home. (He is in prison.) Knox resented the victim Kercher because she sensed Kerchner's disapproval of her indiscreet if not dirty personal bathroom hygience and easy lifestyle choices. Nothing like a party to loosen Kercher up, right?
Unfortunately, the defense has claimed contamination for the DNA of Kercher found in the knife recovered from Sollecito's apt. and likewise for Sollecito's DNA found in the bra clasp which had been cut away evidently during the sexual assault and left on the floor.
That the window entry of an "intruder" was staged cannot be proven to have been done by Knox and her boyfriend because there is no indisputable video available! The loving couple were outside in the garden of Knox's and Kercher's house early in the morning when the police arrived. Imagine that--- if they had truly spent the night over at Sollecito's house, as Knox claimed, in a marihuana fog!
From a totality of circumstancial evidence, I believe Knox to be guilty but agree that she will not be convicted, even in this re-examination of evidence. HOWEVER, I HOPE THAT WE WILL NOT REWARD KNOX BY BUYING HER BOOK. I WILL READ SPOILERS FROM BLOG SITES but will never directly reward her financially.
She is certainly a liar if not a murderer... who is now going to mint millions through a book deal. But Karma is a bitch. If she is guilty Karma will kick her ass.
Not guilty but very likely mixed up in it somehow, the timeline of her behavior and shifting alibis, and those of her boyfriend du jour, seem to suggest involvement of some kind, perhaps lending a key to the perp in a lapse of judgement, or being present but hugely stoned and too helpless or zonked to stop the crime , something to cause her to later behave and explain herself oddly and implausibly before the police. For just one example, there was the business of the phony computer alibis - they said they were online but it was shown they could not have been. Then there was the phone call records home in the middle of the night, suggesting frantic advice-seeking.
Of course the wacko prosecutor, with his obsession over imagined satanic orgies (which he had also trumpeted almost identically in an unrelated failed prosecution a year or two before!) failed to get to the full story or make a credible case. And the local cops apparently totally botched the investigation, tromping in and out through the bloody crime scene. Che commèdia!
Tommy, the computers were completely wrecked by the police "experts." It was most definitely not shown that "they could not have been" online. And the phone call home to which you must be referring wasn't odd at all. There was clearly something odd at Amanda and Meredith's cottage. It was middle of the night in Seattle, but broad daylight in Perugia. She also didn't shift her alibi over and over, as so many people state as gospel truth.
The problem for Amanda and Raffaele is that so much misinformation persists about this case that they will always be suspected on the basis of stuff that's wrong, misleading, and just flat made up.
You mean alibi that shifted under more than 16 hours of interrogation by police in a language she didn't understand and without the benefit of counsel? That "stress induced" "confession" that the court threw out is your evidence that she's involved? Or the computer alibis that the Italian police attempted to investigate but somehow instead managed to completely wipe the hard drives of 3 of the four computers they collected?
There is absolutely no evidence to suggest she was anywhere other than Sollecito's apartment doing things most 20 year olds do.
I agree with Tommy I don't think she is guilty by any means but she definitely knew/knows something.
all the so called evidence has been totally disproved; had it not been for her family mortgaging everything they owned, even her father using up all his retirement account; the evidence would have never seen the light of day, and she would have rotted in a Italian prison for the next 25 years; the prosecutor was some real freaked out nut case talking to the court about a satanic sex cult involved.
The person who killed her roomate is in prison, he slit her throat in a ritualisit fashion, as in custom for honor killings in Muslim country's; he by the way is a devout Muslim from a African country.
Tommy,
Have you seen a picture of the third person that Amanda was supposed to have been involved in a "drug-fueled sexual assault" with. There are no amount of drugs that would make any young woman want to be involved with such scum.
On what basis can you possibly say "definitely"? I have seen no evidence that she was involved in any way. The only DNA at the crime scene was the guy that fled the country and since has been convicted. She has spent 4 years in prison. Apparently she can not collect damages for the lost 4 years of her life.
People cling to the misguided, wholly unsupported belief that she "definitely" knew something or was there or was involved in some way simply because they can't bring themselves to believe that it's really possibly for 2 completely innocent people who were nowhere near the scene of the crime to be convicted and spend 4 years in prison for a crime they had nothing to do with.
You need to stop watching Nancy Grace.....
I don't know whether she's guilty, but I know I wouldn't want to share a flat with her.
I'm still uncomfortable with the way she flirted and grinned for the cameras. I think a normal young woman whose roommate had been brutally murdered and who was charged with the murder and jailed in a foreign country would not have been having such a real good time. It seems to me that even if she disliked her roommate, she might have had enough empathy for the family to have at least not acted like she was at a party enjoying the attention of all the cute boys in the room.
I don't think Ms. Knox is a normal young woman, whether or not she committed the crime. At the least, she has no idea of how to conduct herself appropriately, to the point of seeming... well, scary.
I wouldn't want her walking behind me.
When did she grin for the cameras and act all weird? I have seen the videos and photos most people are talking about, and I confess I just don't see anything weird about any of it. That stuff right outside of the cottage looks to me like a shell-shocked young woman seeking comfort from the only person she knows in the country. There were plenty of images of her looking sad, scared, stressed, tired, etc. I think people who see her as some freaky, always smiling person are picking and choosing images to see what they want to see. Even people facing life in prison are still going to smile once in a while.
Me - Me too. Joking aside, I saw the same scared, shell shocked girl. I never will get they LOOK guilty etc. What a pathetic statement or judgement.
Maybe she can't collect damages from Italy, but she sure deserves whatever she can get from a book and/or movie deal, and she can make Italy look totally rotten at the same time. I hope she makes enough off a deal to put her family back on their feet and enough to have a good future herself.
whosaid:
You are going to have to help me out here. What exactly is the appropriate way to act in a foreign country where you've been accused of a horrific murder you didn't commit?? She had every right to smile and relax at moments if she wasn't guilty. None of us can even begin to imagine living in terror for four years in a foreign country where just about every one is against you. And none of us can begin to imagine the fears and memories she must still be carrying with her and none of us have any right to judge whether anything she says or does is "appropriate" according to our own experiences or judgements. You think this has been a cake walk for her? I'd rather have her walking behind me than you. I don't want to share a flat with anyone under any circumstances. Especially you.
There was no evidence connecting Amanda and her boyfriend to the crime. They did not have anything to connect them to it so they tried to manufacture evidence- including having the man convicted of the crime change his story in exchange for cutting his sentence in half. Prior to the deal they gave him, he denied knowing Amanda and her boyfriend, denied anyone helped him and denied that it was any kind of a "sex game gone wrong". After he was offered a 15 year reduction of his 30 year sentence, he said anything they wanted. It is very simple, they wanted to create a case against Amanda Knox. The prosecutor is a criminal himself and he should be jailed for all the wrongs he has committed in the name of the law.
To all the people who said she was guilty: In your face losers!
Good One Lord Les!
She Wins they Lose!
I'm sure she'll be attending the "We Did It But Got Away With It" reunion with Casey Anthony and OJ right?
Nope I hear she's skipping that one, because she doesn't belong to their Club!
Casey Anthony and OJ didn't MURDER anyone. OJ's case was investigated by some of the best detectives in the world and Casey was guilty of negligence--which prosecutors were too stupid to charge her for.
Too bad it took the Italian courts 4 YEARS to recognize the "faulty evidence".....
Wonder how that makes the other inmates that are not guilty feel......Justice is blind and this proves it.
Great to see the appellate court getting it right - not only in terms of the outcome of not guilty, but the reasons for its decision.
see...crime does pay...
Not in this case Mary Mary quite contrary!
I hope her books make back all the money her family had to spend to prove she wasn't guilty. This was a sham of a case from the begining and someone's big fat ego couldn't admit they fouled up. It robbed two people of their freedom for 4 years. Compensation for their story seems justifiable.
Sarah, my thoughts exactly!
I'm sure they're already casting a made for TV mini-series. She should hold out, to play herself.
Italy's legal system has historically been prone to fabricate charges and invent "facts" to prove their cases, exspecially when it comes to foreigners. Italy also still has the largest collection of mafiosi still at large of any other country in Europe.
Russia may be running a close second.....
It's not nice to call people "mafiosi"! Being of Sicilian decent, you can call the inept, stupid, even corrupt but they don't even come to the level of mafiosi! You have no idea what today's mafiosi is all about, so save your ill-mannered comments!
Great that she's home at least she'll have a Very Merry Christmas.It's good to see there's still a lot Smart People in that Court System Over There!
A homocidal nymphomaniac.... that's the worst kind of nymphomaniac
Really?Why,do you happen to know one?
if only there were some evidence some where that actually made that statement something other than complete fiction . . . ..
Dustin, what makes you think she is a nymphomanic? I also wonder if you have hairy fingers.
:)
I Wonder if the Italian legal system could overturn the real murder's reduction in sentence? It just seems too apparant that Guede's reduction was linked to his testimony that the two kids "were there". (He never did say what "they" were doing while they were there).
Also, not sure how the $12 M lawsuit filed by Kercher's mother will hold up in any country, now that the judge has ruled that there was a "lone assassin". She needs to file the suit against the "lone assasin", but that wouldn't be as satisfying as filing against Amanda - who will have a best-selling book about her experiences.
I hope her book does well. Her families, she has two of them, mortgaged the farm to get her home, when anyone with half a brain could see that she was innocent all along. It's too bad there is no way for her to sue the prosecuter that caused all this idiocy.
All she needs is one of these 1 million dollar exclusives with date line. Books can get you in trouble....
Hoodie, In my 50 or so posts defending Knox and Soccellito, I wish I said it as you said it:)
"when anyone with half a brain could see that she was innocent all along"
SOOOOOO true!
This is one aspect of the Italian justice system that Americans should appreciate. This reversal would have never happened in America. If it would have, it would have taken years longer because I'm certain she would have had to go to Federal court to get any kind of relief. (Moreover, it is always possible that in the U.S., she would have been on death row.)
State courts in the U.S. routinely defer to juries on issues of whether there was sufficient evidence to convict and how the jury weighs the evidence used to convict. So while a lot of us are criticizing the Italian justice system for taking so long (and "getting it wrong" in the first place, this is a (just, in my opinion) result that would have likely not happened in the U.S.
There's actually a variety of reasons why she likely never would have been convicted in the US to begin with and never had to face the appeals the court. Her "confession" extracted in her non-native tongue without counsel or translator after 16+ hours of interrogation would have been thrown out. She would have been able to defend herself by pursuing her allegations of police misconduct without risking more jail time for libel if the court disagreed. A prosecutor CONVICTED of criminal misconduct in a previous trial would have lost their license and not have been leading the prosecution. Most of the DNA "evidence" would never have been shown at trial because it's collection and handling was so incompetent.
Our appeal courts here defer to juries evaluation of the evidence because our pretrial procedures much more aggressively restrict bad evidence from ever being exposed to the jurors. In the Italian system, the same persons are responsible for determining admissability of evidence and for determinations of guilt and innocence. Therefore the appeals courts must take up both questions.
You make some valid points, however I think the notion that American police would not have gotten a confession out of her and made it look legitimate to pass constitutional muster is very real possibility. I'm not entirely certain she ever asked for counsel and if she didn't, it wouldn't all that much matter. That being said, it is not unheard of for suspects to ask for counsel and the police to claim they never did. We have a large enough Hispanic population in this country that if not having a translator was realistically an issue, it would have certainly been litigated to the highest courts. That being said, I knew a lot of Italians that spoke pretty good English while I was there, and I can't fathom that the Italian police don't have some proficient English speakers, even in "podunk" Perugia.
Police misconduct is alleged all the time, but it is very rarely proven. You can't even get an individual officer's personnel file without being able to demonstrate a pattern of misconduct. While I think the whole notion of the police being able pursue libel claims during a prosecution is reprehensible, it wouldn't change the fact that in American courts, you can allege misconduct until you are blue in the face and juries will believe an officer over a defendant. This is despite the fact that juries are always instructed that every witness comes into the court room with a clean and equal slate on credibility.
Lastly, the DNA evidence may not have come in. But it may have and the judge may have simply decided to let the experts duel it out on its reliability and let the jury decide. Moreover, even if it didn't come in, a jury can convict based on circumstantial evidence, and they can convict based on the testimony of a disreputable co-defendant saying an innocent person is involved.
So, while we certainly have more procedural safeguards in place in the U.S. to keep this from happening, it does in fact happen. And it happens with surprising regularity. Just go to the Project Innocence website and read some of the case studies to see some of the shoddy, disreputable, and unethical legal process defendants have gotten in this country.
First off, let's distiquish between perversions of the system that occur under corruption or human error and a system operating as intended. I don't think we can have a fair or rational discussion about whether Italians or Americans are more corrupt or more prone to error, so it's important to focus on the structural differences. In the problems I cited with the Knox trial in Italy, they were all the result of the system operating as intended. There is no requirement in Italian law that a prosecutor convicted of criminal prosecutorial misconduct surrender his license. Such a conviction here would result in at least a suspension of license pending appeals, if not an outright disbarrment.
With the libel charges, she was systematically prevented from pursuing her defense against the "confession" by being threatened with additional charges. Here, a criminal defendant has a right to say whatever they want about a public official engaging in their duties and not face civil or criminal penalties. Juries may or may not believe them, and may statistically prefer to believe police, but this testimony would have given greater weight to idea that police were intentionally manipulating other evidence to implicate Knox.
On the translator issue, we do, in fact, require translators for suspects who do not speak english. We even require that they be given their miranda rights in a language they understand. It's been litigated all the way to the top. Does this get overlooked or ignored by corrupt cops? Yes.By comparison, whether Knox asked for a translator or attorney is irrelevant, as she was gauranteed neither in Italian law.
As to the DNA evidence, most jurisdictions in the US have implemented strict standards on the admissability of DNA evidence--sample sizes sufficient for secondary testing, manner collected, etc., and have established what is referred to as "black letter law" on it that creates very clear lines about what is allowable. Most the DNA in the Knox case would not have cleared that bar.
I'm not saying we don't have miscarriages of justice in this country and that all of these safeguards are observed every time. But their presence says alot. Furthermore, I think it's safe to assume that, with competent counsel, it would have been highly unlikely for all of those to have gone the prosecution's way in the US. I think if there is a common thread in the Project Innocence cases, it's that the defense trial at counsel was, to be charitable, overworked underpaid public defenders with insufficient resources. Given the way the Knox family bankrupted themselves in Italy, it's safe to assume her trial here would have also had the benefit of experienced and resourceful counsel.
For anyone who still might have faith in the Italian legal system you should read Douglas Preston's book, Monster of Florence. It will definitely open your eyes and has big connections to Knox's case.
Yeah the prosecutor shouldn't have been on the case to begin... What a scumbag of a prosecutor... Heard and read stuff about him...
Honestly I say she would be better off not doing a book or she might accidentally become the next OJ.
She has to write a book. What other means does she have to repay her parents and grandparents for mortgaging their homes and liquidating their lifesavings. It is basic dollars and cents in order to survive. There is not job that she get that would that could correct her family's financial situation after spending every dime they had seeking justice for their daughter.
They are offering something to the tune of $750,000 for an interview with Casey Anthony.
They should be looking for the REAL killer!
Dallas, the real killer is in prison and has been since before Amanda and Raffaele were convicted. His name is Rudy Guede and he left physical evidence ALL OVER the room where Meredith was murdered. There is no doubt about who killed Meredith Kercher.
Anyone who still thinks Knox was guilty needs to read "The Monster of Florence" by Douglas Preston. When he and an Italian journalist started poking around on that case, the prosecutor, the same one who prosecuted Knox, started trying to charge THEM with murders that had happened decades before. Prosecutors there are not hired for their ability, but for who they know. Every case this man gets, he finds a satanic, sex-crazed cult behind. This girl got railroaded by a corrupt system. To not understand that by now, you must be drinking the Nancy Grace coolaid
Yup...saw that show....very scary how much power that prosecuto has (had?)
@dallas8828 - They did find the real killer several years ago and he is already in jail - his name is Rudy Guede. His DNA was all over the murder scene, including inside Meredith and even in the toilet!
"The judge also suggested that Knox's alleged confession came because she "was stressed," according to The Week." So police should conduct investigations only after a little dinner and dancing? Somebody got away with murder.
"Someone" is in prison - but only for 16 years after getting his sentence reduced by the corrupt prosecution team. So..he only got half-way away with murder.
@ObamaLies - it's called "psychological torture" - somewhat similar to waterboarding. You should hope that you never experience it...
Of course, someone with the username ObamaLies clearly doesn't know much about facts and real life anyway.
The article said "stressed". Not waterboarding or psychological torture. For criminal apologists, though, I suppose just being asked, and not nicely, by police is enough to get a confession excluded.
OL- first, it wasn't a confession, exactly. It was a muddled, confused statement saying she imagined being in another room of the cottage when Meredith was killed. Second, it is far easier than you want to believe to get innocent people to implicate themselves and others in crimes. Please be a little open-minded and read a book like "An Innocent Man" by John Grisham or "Dreams of Ada." If you read about known false confession cases and the language used in those false confessions and then compare them to Amanda's 5 am statement, you can see how her language tracks with the language of known false confessions.
ObamaLies--did you consider that the judge's opinion was written in Italian and translated to English and might have more emphasis in the original. I know in English I can say that someone is stressed, under duress, urged, compelled, coerced, forced, manipulated, cajoled, or traumatized in to giving a confession, and a non-native speaker may translate all of those terms similarly.
But since you don't like the word "stress," how would you describe 16+ hours of interrogation in a foreign tongue you barely speak without benefit of a translator or counsel? Throw in the allegations of occassional physical assault (which can't be proved because for some reason the italian police opted not to record the interrogation) and how would you describe that? How certain are you that that method would produce reliable results?
Read about the 5 boys in NY that supposedly killed the lady jogger. They confessed because their lawyer scared them into thinking the prosecution could get them the death penalty. Later they caught the real killer and he admitted they had nothing to do with it. You do not have to waterboard anyone to have them go into what some call stress shock and lose control of their thinking. By now most of us have seen that picture of the American in Turkey who got sent to prison for dope. Now in a foreig counrty with a new set of laws who knows how much stress an innocent person can endure. Since you have that lousy name as a moniker I guess you are some wingnut that believes everyone is guilty until they can prove their innocence. Thats not how it works.
@Obama Lies
fail
Amanda, let me take you away from it all. Marry me!
I have nothing whatever against Amanda Knox and believe her innocent, but you must be hard up for women if you have to go around proprosing to random women on the internet, even as a joke. That is so dopey.
italian cops and prosecutors serve organized crime syndicates and railroaded knox to protect the bar owner who is aligned with african drug smugglers and who is the hub for the drug trade in italy. he is the most likely murderer as who is more likely to rape? an african guy or an american college student girl? simple sherlock. coverup.
The man whose DNA evidence was on the victim, whose DNA was in the bathroom mixed with the victims DNA and whose footprints was in the victims blood was already tried and convicted for the crime and is still in prison for the murder. The prosecution offered him a deal AFTER his conviction to shorten his sentence if he added Knox and her boyfriend as his co-conspirators. Up until that time he never said he had help nor did he say he knew them. If you could have your sentence cut in half to say what the prosecutor wanted you to say- wouldn't you do it? The right man is in jail. And by the way, the one thing Amanda was convicted of was saying that maybe her boss at the bar did it. He had an airtight alibi and had no connection to the crime. Your last assertion as to rape didn't need the African part- a simple who is more likely to rape- a man or a college student girl would have been sufficient without adding your racist part. While women do indeed rape, it is still more likely that a man will commit rape than a woman will. I am not including sexual assaults of any kind that occur in prisons.
I am craving a glass of wine....
nothing like....Boones Farm for breakfast...hell yes...
she is as guilty as sin! anyone who buys her book is just as guilty as her!
So, apparently you have some sort of proof that the police and prosecutors don't?
@MARC
lol orly?
The prosecutor in that case should be put away. His over-the-top crazy tactics cost this young woman and her friend years in prison without a shred of evidence. The supposed DNA of the victim turned out to be rye bread. Really? I never considered Italy a third-world country, but some of their forensic techniques sure make it seem that way.
What consequences (if any) will the fantasizing prosecutor face?