Amanda Knox GUILTY in Italy 2009 - Appealed/OVERTURNED 2011

[cookie]

I have followed the case, but not as closely as others in the past that I have followed.  With that being said, I have an observation.  It seems hard for me to believe that she was in any way complicit in this murder...did she have any sort of past, mental issues, instability, problems at home, drug abuse, or lack of compassion for others that we know about?  (And I am not talking about marijuana use here)

Just seems to me that we have not heard of anything along any of these issues in the media.  Not that we have to - nor should we be privy to hearing about them.

My observation is...with a lack of instability issues and her parents sending her overseas to study, why in the world would she get caught up in something as heinous as this?  Did I read she had known this young boyfriend for six days?

There is something more to this story than what the Italian police have relayed in their theory.  More than what is being put out in the media.  This is dark.  I just don't see this young, very young woman, as being complicit in something this dark.  JMO

agree...I am finding myself leaning towards Amanda being innocent of the murder..I was slightly happy that she was freed, but sad for Meredith's family. However, no family would want an innocent person to be found guilty if they were not really guilty...I feel that they have the right person in jail for her death...jmo
this is a puzzling case to me..

[trimmonthelake]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/10/04/501364/main20115168.shtml
October 4, 2011 4:37 AM
Amanda Knox thanks supporters, heads for home

Amanda Knox, left, leaves the Perugia court following the verdict overturning her conviction and acquitting her of murdering Meredith Kercher, Oct. 3, 2011. (AP)
(CBS/AP)  Updated at 7:05 a.m. Eastern

PERUGIA, Italy - Amanda Knox on Tuesday thanked those Italians who supported her throughout her four years of prison, a day after an appeals court cleared the young American of murdering her British roommate and freed her to return home to the United States.

Knox left her prison outside Perugia Monday night, less than two hours after the verdict was read out in a packed court acquitting her and her Italian one-time boyfriend of the brutal murder.

The Italy-US Foundation, which has championed Knox's cause, said the American was at Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome boarding a flight to London, where she will catch a connecting flight to the United States.

AP photographers and camera crew at Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome saw Knox family members in a terminal. Knox was not immediately seen, and was believed to have been escorted by police through a non-public entrance to the airport.

The freed American thanked those "who shared my suffering and helped me survive with hope," in a letter to the foundation, which seeks to promote ties between Italy and the United States.

"Those who wrote, those who defended me, those who were close, those who prayed for me," Knox wrote. "I love you, Amanda."
 ::snipping2::

[MuffyBee]

If in the future, if new evidence came to light, could she be re-tried?  Does Italy have double jeopardy laws?

No, there doesn't appear to be double jeopardy laws.  Amanda's parents wanted to get her out of Italy asap, because the prosecution can appeal the decision of acquittal.  But if Amanda isn't in Italy, she would be tried again in absence, and could be found guilty again, but I don't think Italy could get her back to go to jail.  If you read through some more of the articles, it indicates that.  The prosecution was so worried if Amanda was acquitted, that she would leave the country and they couldn't retry her again.  I see nothing about the need for new evidence for that to happen.

Here is an older link I had posted earlier, prior to her acquital and may have been missed:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/30/us-italy-knox-idUSL5E7KU1N320110930
Ignore big money campaign to free Knox, prosecutor says
September 30, 2011
 ::snipping2::
If the guilty verdicts are overturned, both would be freed immediately. Speculation has been rife that Knox would be whisked home to the United States if she is released from the Umbrian prison where she has been held for nearly four years.

Any subsequent appeal by prosecutors or any re-trial might then have to take place in Knox's absence.

"We know that if the verdict is overturned, there will be an immediate escape overseas," prosecutor Giuliano Mignini told the court in rebuttals after closing arguments.

"As a result, even if this is the second of a three-step legal process in Italy, it is up to you to ensure justice."

Rather than a victim of media "crucifixion" as her defense alleges, Knox was backed by a "never before seen public relations campaign that cost over a $1 million," he said.

Knox's lawyers later fired back saying the prosecution's case had been like a movie where the Seattle student had been picked to play the role of a "protagonist," with her guilt assumed right from the start.

If her conviction is upheld, Knox would have one more chance to appeal. She was sentenced to 26 years in prison after the first trial, while Sollecito was given 25 years.

[cookie]

I think it is over...

[cadillac]

I don't know how to post the link, but there is an  article in The Rolling Stone June 2011, that is well worth the read.

It colors the Italian judicial system - was a little easier for me to understand how they roll.

If someone wishes to find it and post it, I think many would enjoy reading it (if it hasn't already been linked here).

Cad

[MuffyBee]

Here's the Rolling Stone article you referenced, Cadi.

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/the-neverending-nightmare-of-amanda-knox-20110627
The Neverending Nightmare of Amanda Knox
How a naive kid from Seattle was coerced into confessing to a brutal murder and wound up sentenced to 26 years in an Italian jail
By Nathaniel Rich
June 27, 2011

[cadillac]

Here's the Rolling Stone article you referenced, Cadi.

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/the-neverending-nightmare-of-amanda-knox-20110627
The Neverending Nightmare of Amanda Knox
How a naive kid from Seattle was coerced into confessing to a brutal murder and wound up sentenced to 26 years in an Italian jail
By Nathaniel Rich
June 27, 2011
Thanks Muffy Bee!   

[trimmonthelake]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/amanda-knoxs-words-regaining-freedom/story?id=14661360
Amanda Knox's First Words Since Regaining Freedom

[MuffyBee]

http://www.corriere.it/english/11_ottobre_04/amanda-letter-talians_7a4d061a-ee83-11e0-a09e-1525768cac3d.shtml
October 4, 2011

 ::snipping2::

PROSECUTORS’ COMPLAINTS – Prosecution magistrates who had argued for conviction on appeal for Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito announced they will take the case to the Court of Cassation. Public prosecutor Manuela Comodi said it was “a sentence that does not do justice”, adding “I do not agree at all with this sentence, or with the conviction for slander, which spectacularly contradicts the acquittal for murder. It is a sentence that does not do justice”. Ms Comodi then said that the general prosecutor’s office would certainly appeal to the Court of Cassation.

 ::snipping2::

[MuffyBee]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/04/us-italy-knox-police-idUSTRE7934PJ20111004
Analysis: Knox case shines spotlight on Italian police methods
October 4, 2011

 ::snipping2::
Knox's family, backed by a expensive publicity campaign and top lawyers, persuaded the Perugia appeal court to have the original scientific evidence reviewed by two independent experts, Carla Vecchiotti and Stefano Conti.

Their conclusions at the end of June drove a coach and horses through the police case, saying alleged DNA evidence of Kercher's blood on a kitchen knife handled by Knox and of Sollecito on the victim's bra clip was unreliable.

In a damning conclusion they said that some of the evidence could have been contaminated. "International procedures for inspection and protocols for collection and testing of the evidence were not followed," they said.
 ::snipping2::
With their scientific evidence torpedoed -- a point driven home by the Knox campaign -- the Perugia prosecutors could only resort to what some called a medieval view of women. They dubbed Knox a sex-obsessed "she-devil" who had manipulated Sollecito into helping murder Kercher, while offering very little evidence to back this up.

OTHER CASES

Italy has seen other cases in which investigators appeared to have decided early on who was guilty and then tried to build a case around their suspicions -- resulting in dizzying twists and turns as different suspects were arrested and then released.

In the notorious "Monster of Florence" case, eight couples were murdered outside the central city between 1968 and 1985. Four men were at various times convicted of the grisly murders and several other suspects arrested and released. Many Italians believe the real culprit was never found.

It is said to have been the longest and most expensive criminal investigation in Italian history.

One of the prosecutors in that case, Giuliano Mignini, also won the original conviction and 26-year sentence against Knox and said on Tuesday he would appeal against her acquittal to Italy's highest appeal court.
 ::snipping2::
With no contempt of court protections, the names and even photographs of suspects frequently appear in newspapers long before their trials while under the Italian system public prosecutors and judges often share offices -- meaning they can easily discuss cases before they come to court.

The latter problem is something intended to be changed under a sweeping legal reform planned by the administration of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, although the reform has been discredited by suggestions that the real aim is to protect him from a string of fraud and sex cases.

PROBLEMS WITH "FIRST RESPONSE"

Luciano Garofalo, former head of the Carabinieri paramilitary police scientific squad and now a professor of forensic investigation, told Reuters that police in every country had to improve the quality of evidence collection and analysis.

He pointed to the Innocence Project in the United States which has used DNA testing to review previous convictions, resulting in the exoneration of 273 people.

"This shows that judicial errors are made all over the world and all over the world you can make mistakes," he told Reuters.

He did concede, however, that Italy may be behind some other countries in the training of first response units to a crime, be they police or emergency services, who can contaminate the scene if they follow the wrong procedures.
 ::snipping2::
In the Knox case, he believes there is a question over whether the independent experts were in fact more qualified than the scientific police, without excluding that mistakes were made by the latter.

"Who says these two (the independent experts) have a level of competence enough to give us the certainty that everything was mistaken?" he asked. "We must not give exclusive importance to what the independent experts said."

Garofalo said he also believed, from his own investigations, that the evidence from the bra clip and knife was "very limited" but said there was other material including blood found in the bath of the apartment where Kercher was killed that could have thrown more light on who was responsible.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the acquittal, the collapse of the police case has left the Kercher family still racked by uncertainty over how Meredith died.

Ruede Guede, an Ivoirian drifter and drug dealer, is the only person convicted in a crime which investigators believe was committed by several people, some of whom held Kercher down while she was stabbed and had her throat cut.

"Of course if those released yesterday are not the guilty party, we are now obviously left wondering who is the other person or people," her brother Lyle said.

[MuffyBee]

Who was this "Prison Doctor"?  Amanda and her parents were sued for slander when they alleged her mistreatment, but a "prison doctor" not even named takes a blood sample, announces her as HIV positive, prompting to her to list every man she had sex with.  The list of seven men was handed over by authorities to the media, who printed it.  And then the "prison doctor" still not named, tells Amanda he made a mistake and didn't have Aids.  There's something  very wrong with this, imo.  Is that how you try a person for murder? 

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-burleigh-knox-20111004,0,2921659.story
The scapegoating of Amanda Knox
October 4, 2011

 ::snipping2::
After a few weeks in Perugia, I saw that there was something very wrong with the narrative of the murder that the authorities and the media were presenting. There was almost no material evidence linking Knox or her boyfriend to the murder, and no motive, while there was voluminous evidence — material and circumstantial — implicating a third person, a man, whose name one almost never read in accounts of the case. It became clear that it wasn't facts but Knox — her femaleness, her Americaness, her beauty — that was driving the case.

In person, in prison and in the media, Knox was subjected to all manner of outlandish, misogynistic behavior. A prison "doctor" (he has never stepped forward publicly) tested a sample of Knox's blood and then informed her she was HIV-positive, prompting Knox to list every man she'd had sex with. Authorities passed the names of seven men to reporters from the British tabloid pack, who printed it. Soon thereafter, Knox was told the doctor was mistaken and she didn't have AIDS.

Outside prison walls, Italian criminologists were opining in the media and eventually on the witness stand that because the body had been covered with a blanket, the killer was surely female because such an act was evidence of feminine "pieta."

Finally, there were the prosecution's operatic closing arguments, repeated almost verbatim in the appeal that ended last week. Knox was a "luciferina" — a she-devil — capable of a special, female duplicity. She was "dirty on the inside." Always, even from the defense lawyers, the closing arguments ended with appeals to God, in a medieval courtroom with a peeling fresco of the Madonna on the wall and a crucifix hanging above the judge.

The prosecution's "angel-faced killer" had arrived in Italy a few months after turning 20, a high school ugly duckling who blossomed into a beauty in college and was still testing her effect on men. She appeared outwardly confident, but, according to people I interviewed, she was deeply averse to conflict. She was also a compulsive diarist, explaining herself in rounded handwriting filling hundreds of journals. She thought of herself as a writer.

But that penchant for unfiltered self-expression hastened her demise.

In her "prison diary," a document police handed to reporters after she'd scribbled in it for a month, Knox was often upbeat, blithe, clearly a devotee of positive thinking. The reporters who read the diary explained it as evidence of a psychopathic mind. Tabloid reporters from Britain concentrated on the few instances where she appeared to have sex on her mind — when she wrote about the fan letters Italian men sent her in jail, for example. They ignored pages she filled with details about being sexually harassed by a prison guard.
 ::snipping2::

[trimmonthelake]

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1370800&srvc=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bostonherald+%28Home+-+BostonHerald.com%29
Experts predict positive public reaction to Amanda Knox’s freedom
By Jessica Heslam / Media Biz
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 - Added 4 hours ago
Video at link.
Amanda Knox is no Casey Anthony.

A free woman today after serving four years in an Italian prison for a murder she insists she didn’t commit, Knox is more likely to get a break from the public, a sympathetic welcome home ... and probably a lucrative book and movie deal

“People are relieved with this one,” said Emerson College professor Gregory Payne, who has been watching the case closely with his students.

“It’s almost like a hostage being freed scenario,” Payne added. “With Casey Anthony, she’s forever in — what I would call — rhetorical purgatory with O.J.”
 ::snipping2::

[Aurelia7]

If in the future, if new evidence came to light, could she be re-tried?  Does Italy have double jeopardy laws?

No, there doesn't appear to be double jeopardy laws.  Amanda's parents wanted to get her out of Italy asap, because the prosecution can appeal the decision of acquittal.  But if Amanda isn't in Italy, she would be tried again in absence, and could be found guilty again, but I don't think Italy could get her back to go to jail.  If you read through some more of the articles, it indicates that.  The prosecution was so worried if Amanda was acquitted, that she would leave the country and they couldn't retry her again.  I see nothing about the need for new evidence for that to happen.

::snipping2::

Thanks for the info, Miss Bee!

Who was this "Prison Doctor"?  Amanda and her parents were sued for slander when they alleged her mistreatment, but a "prison doctor" not even named takes a blood sample, announces her as HIV positive, prompting to her to list every man she had sex with.  The list of seven men was handed over by authorities to the media, who printed it.  And then the "prison doctor" still not named, tells Amanda he made a mistake and didn't have Aids.  There's something  very wrong with this, imo.  Is that how you try a person for murder? 

::snipping2::

It looks as if they were trying to paint her as a slut, thereby making that stupid "sex game" theory more plausible.  Telling someone they have HIV is a really cruel thing to do.  They should be investigated for that.

I wonder if she'll ever visit Italy again...especially since now she speaks the language so well.

[trimmonthelake]

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/10/amanda-knox-to-land-in-seattle-shortly/1
Oct 04, 2011
Amanda Knox to land in Seattle shortly
One day after an Italian jury acquitted her on charges of murder, college student Amanda Knox was expected to land Tuesday in her native Seattle at a little after 8 p.m. ET and address the public shortly after.
USA TODAY will live blog that press conference if it happens, and will provide live video too.
 ::snipping2::

[trimmonthelake]

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/1004/Amanda-Knox-What-American-parents-can-learn-from-her-story
Amanda Knox: What American parents can learn from her story
Amanda Knox, the hikers in Iran, the journalists in North Korea – all cases where young Americans were caught up in a foreign legal system. Some points on how to handle such a crisis.
By Daniel B. Wood, Staff writer / October 4, 2011

A sign is posted at the home of Curt Knox for his daughter Amanda Knox on her expected arrival later in the day Tuesday in Seattle. It's been four years since the University of Washington student left for the study abroad program in Perugia and landed in prison.
Elaine Thompson/AP

[trimmonthelake]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8807259/Amanda-Knox-flies-home-to-new-life-as-Americas-millionaire-celebrity.html
Amanda Knox flies home to new life as America's millionaire celebrity
By Gordon Rayner,, Nick Allen and Jon Swaine
12:56AM BST 05 Oct 2011

Amanda Knox smiles at Leonardo Da Vinci airport in Fiumicino  Photo: REUTERS/ANSA/TELENEWS

 ::snipping2::
Corrado Maria Daclon, of the Italy-USA Foundation, had earlier accompanied Miss Knox as she was driven from Capanna prison near Perugia to Rome's Fiumicino Airport. He said: "Amanda was serene, even with all the strong and contrasting emotions that she felt as she glimpsed freedom for the first time."

Miss Knox's former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 27, who was also cleared of murdering Miss Kercher, was back home in Giovinazzo in southern Italy. His father Francesco said he was "trying to recover" after his four years in prison.

"He is going around touching things as if he is a child who needs to take back the things of his life," said Mr Sollecito.

David Cameron, who watched the verdicts being delivered on TV on Monday night, said: "I feel for Meredith Kercher's family. I think all of us should be thinking of them."

[trimmonthelake]

andersoncooper Anderson Cooper
by CNN
#breakingnews: expecting #amandaknox to arrive in seattle any minute, press conference after @AC360 8p, 10pm
26 minutes ago http://twitter.com/#!/CNN

[trimmonthelake]

live feed... http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/10/amanda-knox-to-land-in-seattle-shortly/1



CNN CNN
HAPPENING NOW: Amanda Knox back home in Seattle. Live family presser on CNN now. #CNN
1 minute ago http://twitter.com/#!/CNN

[trimmonthelake]

[trimmonthelake]