Amanda Knox GUILTY in Italy 2009 - Appealed/OVERTURNED 2011

[trimmonthelake]

http://news.yahoo.com/prosecutor-demands-guilty-verdict-knox-140030896.html
Prosecutor demands guilty verdict for Knox
Associated PressBy COLLEEN BARRY | Associated Press – 16 mins ago
 
Prosecutor Alessandro Crini called for 26-year sentences for Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, her co-defendant and former boyfriend, following more than 10 hours of closing arguments over two days. Knox and Sollecito deny any involvement in the killing.

Crini departed from past scenarios by suggesting the crime was not so much sexually fueled — an erotic game that got out of control, as the lower court prosecutor described it — but an act of physical violence with a sexual expression.

He alleged that Knox and Sollecito acted in concert with another man in an explosion of violence sparked by tension between Knox and British student Meredith Kercher.

Crini argued that Rudy Guede — a native of Ivory Coast now serving a 16-year sentence for the murder — may have inflamed tensions between Knox and Kercher after he defecated in a toilet inside the the women's apartment and didn't flush.

Crini said Guede, who was friendly with young men living in a neighboring apartment, had done the same thing the previous week. "It is an absolutely disgusting and incongruous habit that he evidently had," Crini said.
 

[trimmonthelake]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/whats-ahead-knox-murder-trial

What's ahead in Knox murder trial
By COLLEEN BARRY
— Dec. 16, 2013 5:31 AM EST
FLORENCE, Italy (AP) — Former American exchange student Amanda Knox spent four years in jail in Italy, from her arrest to her conviction in her first murder trial through her successful appeal. She's now facing a second appeals trial, along with her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito. Here's a road map to help understand where the Italian court system is going next:

FIRST TRIAL, SECOND TRIAL, THIRD TRIAL

Knox and Sollecito were convicted in 2009 of murdering British student Meredith Kercher, whose throat had been slashed the night of Nov. 1, 2007. Knox was sentenced to 26 years, including one year for a slander conviction for wrongly accusing a bar owner of the murder, while Sollecito received 25 years.

An appeals court overturned their murder verdicts, while confirming Knox's guilt on a slander charge and raising that sentence to three years. Knox, who had spent four years in jail during the investigation and the trials, was free to return to the United States, and she did.

In March, Italy's highest court vacated the appellate court in a scathing decision that blasted it for "deficiencies, contradictions and illogical" conclusions. It ordered the case back to appeal, noting specific weaknesses such as the failure to hear one witness or to test a minuscule trace of DNA on the handle of the presumed murder weapon.

The new appeals trial in Florence began in September.
 

[Nut44x4]

http://www.today.com/video/today/53852186#53852186  video



TODAY

TODAY   |  December 17, 2013

Closing arguments start in Amanda Knox retrial

[Nut44x4]

Amanda Knox: I will become a 'fugitive' if re-convicted for murder

1 hour ago

Amanda Knox has reportedly told an Italian newspaper that if she is again convicted of murder, she will become a fugitive rather than return to an Italian prison.


A representative for Knox, 26, confirmed the interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica and released a statement to TODAY on Friday clarifying her comments.

“[If convicted] legally I'll be defined a ‘fugitive,’ but I will continue to fight for my innocence,’’ Knox said in the statement. “I will not willingly submit myself to injustice."
 

The Italian reporter who conducted the recent interview told TODAY’s Keir Simmons that Knox’s comments about becoming a fugitive may have been lighthearted, but making a joke about becoming a fugitive while closing arguments are being heard in a murder case may have been ill-advised. If Knox is re-convicted, her legal team can appeal to the Italian Supreme Court. It’s not clear whether the U.S. would allow her to be extradited if she is re-convicted.
 
http://www.today.com/news/amanda-knox-i-will-become-fugitive-if-re-convicted-murder-2D11896258

[MuffyBee]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/amanda-knoxs-countdown-verdict/story?id=22257625
Amanda Knox's Countdown to Yet Another Verdict
January 28, 2014

Video at Link

[MuffyBee]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/world/europe/amanda-knox-italian-court-ruling.html?_r=0
Ruling Looms in Italy for U.S. Student in ’07 Killing
January 29, 2014

[MuffyBee]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25941999
Amanda Knox and ex-boyfriend guilty of Kercher Italy murder
January 30, 2014

[Blonde]

So does this mean she has to back to Italy?

[Blonde]

Amanda Knox 'Frightened' By Guilty Verdict and 28 Year Sentence
http://gma.yahoo.com/amanda-knox-sentenced-28-years-guilty-verdict-210424962--abc-news-topstories.html?vp=1

[MuffyBee]

So does this mean she has to back to Italy?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10607883/What-next-for-Amanda-Knox.html
What next for Amanda Knox?
The second conviction of Amanda Knox for the murder of Meredith Kercher could create a complicated diplomatic dispute between Italy and the US
January 30, 2014

Amanda Knox could effectively be trapped in the US for the rest of her life if President Barack Obama’s government decides to protect her from extradition to Italy.
If Ms Knox’s new conviction stands after further appeals, Italian authorities must decide whether to ask the US to hand her over under the 1983 extradition treaty between the two countries.
John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, would ultimately be responsible for either approving a request and forwarding it to the US justice department for processing in the courts – or rejecting it.
Ms Knox would also then be under threat of arrest and deportation to Italy if she travelled to any other country that holds an extradition treaty with Rome. They include Canada, several major Latin American states, Australia, New Zealand, most of Europe and many other countries.
Asked at a briefing in March last year what the State Department would do, Patrick Ventrell, a spokesman, merely noted that the final verdict had not yet been released.
“We can’t really comment beyond that,” Mr Ventrell told reporters. “We never talk about extradition from this podium in terms of individual cases.”
Some lawyers and supporters of Ms Knox have argued that having been acquitted in 2011, she would be protected under the US Constitution from “double jeopardy” – being tried twice for the same charge.
Yet the US-Italy extradition treaty only protects Americans from extradition to face prosecution again in Italy for an offence that has already been dealt with by the US legal system. “This is not applicable in this situation,” said Professor Julian Ku, who teaches transnational law at Hofstra University.
For extradition candidates like Ms Knox who have already been convicted, the treaty states that Italy must merely produce “a brief statement of the facts of the case,” as well as the text of the laws governing the crime committed, the punishment it would receive, and its statute of limitations.
Her conviction would “easily satisfy the conditions of the treaty,” said Prof Ku. “So it would be hard for the US to explain why she should not be handed over”.
Under considerable pressure from Ms Knox’s supporters, the Obama administration could find some other reason to decline a request for her from Italy. However, it would need to weigh this against the potential blow to co-operation on organised crime and other problems between the two governments.
On the other hand, Italy might not want to upset a major ally that is still the world’s sole superpower.
“All this comes in the context of very good relations between the two countries in historical terms, and a close relationship between their leaders” said Michael Calingaert, a Brookings Institution scholar and former diplomat focusing on Italy. “Neither side would be very eager to have to wade into this”.
The US has been accused of failing to fulfill its side of extradition treaties by several allies. In 2009, 23 Americans, most of them CIA officers, were convicted in Italy on charges of illegally kidnapping a terrorist suspect in Milan.
Most of the officers, who had already left the country, were given prison sentences, yet none has ever been extradited to Italy.
 
The last reported extradition from the US to Italy was in February 2012. Giuliano Matei, a 34-year-old Romanian man, was deported to face charges of rape and the trafficking of a minor. He was arrested in Phoenix, Arizona, having fled from Italy.




http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/30/world/europe/italy-amanda-knox-retrial/
Amanda Knox found guilty of murder again by Italian court
January 30, 2014

 
It is unlikely that Knox, who lives in Seattle, Washington, will return to Italy to serve additional prison time because U.S. law dictates that a person cannot be tried twice on the same charge, a legal expert told CNN. He believes that if Italy were to ask for extradition, U.S. officials would deny the request.
"She was once put in jeopardy and later acquitted," said Sean Casey, a former prosecutor who is now a partner at Kobre & Kim in New York. "Under the treaty, extradition should not be granted."
Presiding judge Alessandro Nencini has 90 days to write his arguments behind the jury's ruling. Once that is out, lawyers have 90 days to appeal.
 

Another opinion:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25941999
Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito guilty of Kercher Italy murder
January 30, 2014

 
After nearly 12 hours of deliberations on Thursday, the court in Florence reinstated the verdicts first handed down in 2009 but overturned in 2011, when the pair were freed after four years in jail.
 
Extradition proceedings against Knox, who refused to return to Italy for the case, may now begin.

Both she and Sollecito can lodge appeals with the supreme court, which will have the final say. But it could take a year to make a ruling, experts say.
 
Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at American University in Washington, said that if Italy made a extradition request, the US would have to decide whether it fell under their extradition treaty.
While there was "no reason to think the US has a specific interest" in blocking her extradition, Mr Vladeck said, countries could effectively stand in the way with a variety of "creative" interpretations of extradition treaties.

He added that if the US did grant Italy's request, Knox could fight her extradition in a US court, citing among other things international human rights law.
 

[Nut44x4]

Knox co-defendant 'found' at hotel near border
Sollecito's lawyer said his client voluntarily went to police on Friday and that he was in the area because that's where his current girlfriend lives.


FLORENCE, Italy — Police on Friday found Amanda Knox's ex-boyfriend near Italy's border with Slovenia and Austria, hours after he and the American student were convicted for a second time in the death of British student Meredith Kercher.

Raffaele Sollecito's lawyer, Luca Maori, said his client was in the area of Italy's northeastern border because that's where his current girlfriend lives, and that he went voluntarily to police.

However, the cabinet chief of the Udine police station, Giovanni Belmonte, said police showed up at about 1 a.m. Friday at a hotel in Venzone, a tiny town of 2,200 about 40 kilometers from the border, where Sollecito and the girlfriend were staying.
MUCH MORE  http://news.msn.com/world/knox-co-defendant-sollecito-at-hotel-near-border

[Nut44x4]

Sentencing Amanda Knox Was ‘Emotionally Tough,’ Says Judge

Feb. 01, 2014

The Italian judge who sentenced Amanda Knox to 28 years in prison this week for murdering her British roommate Meredith Kercher said Saturday he struggled with the verdict, calling it a “difficult” decision to sentence Knox and her boyfriend.
 
Judge Alessandro Nencini said his conviction of Knox for the 2007 murder of Kercher was not an easy one to make, describing the sentencing as “emotionally tough,” reports the Associated Press.


 
Knox, a Seattle native who was studying in Perugia at the time of her roommate’s murder, was acquitted in 2011 along with her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito. Both were found guilty on Thursday after a retrial.

 
Knox has said she will never “willingly” return to Italy

http://world.time.com/2014/02/01/judge-conviction-amanda-knox/

[Nut44x4]

 

[MuffyBee]

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/02/04/amanda-knox-case-judge-under-investigation-for-comments-on-verdict/?intcmp=obnetwork
Amanda Knox judge under investigation for comments on verdict
February 4, 2014

MILAN –  Italy's justice minister on Monday announced an investigation into comments to the Italian media made by the judge who read the guilty verdicts against Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.

Annamaria Cancellieri said in a one-line statement that she has asked the inspector general to make a "preliminary assessment" of the remarks published by two Italian newspapers over the weekend.

The newspapers quoted Florence judge Alessandro Nencini as saying, among other things, that Sollecito's decision not to testify on the witness stand deprived the defendant of a voice. The judge also commented on the difficulty of reaching a verdict, due to the vast amount of evidence as well as the intense media attention, and acknowledged that assigning a motive for the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher was one of the most "controversial" aspects of the case.

A Sollecito attorney, Luca Maori, said earlier Monday that the comments on the defense strategy are "serious" and could form part of their appeal to Italy's highest court on last week's verdict. Maori said the defense team would seek an investigation into the judge's comments with the ministry, as well as the magistrates' oversight body and the high Court of Cassation.

 

Knox defense lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova said in an emailed statement that the interviews were "not appropriate," but he reserved comment on any action until the court's reasoning for the verdict is issued, expected within 90 days of the sentence.

Knox's defense also is planning to appeal the verdict. "She feels that it is a mistake and she will continue fighting for her innocence," Dalla Vedova said.

Members of the magistrate's governing body also said they will request an inquiry, saying Nencini had violated the secrecy of deliberations, anticipated arguments in the yet-published reasoning, and made comments on the defense trial strategy that suggest "partiality," the news agency ANSA reported.

Disciplinary measures could include a transfer or monetary penalties.

Nencini was the presiding judge on a panel that deliberated for nearly 12 hours on Thursday before upholding a lower-court's guilty finding against Knox, 26, and Sollecito, 29, in the 2007 murder of 21-year-old Kercher. Kercher, who shared an apartment with Knox in the university town of Perugia, had been sexually assaulted and her throat slit. The case made its way to a second appeal after Italy's highest court vacated a Perugia appellate court's 2011 acquittal, challenging its failure to include some evidence as well as its logic.

Knox remained in the United States for this trial, having been freed on the earlier appeal. In his ruling, Nencini did not issue any precautionary measures against Knox, noting she was legitimately in the United States. He ordered Sollecito's passport to be revoked.

In the comments published on Saturday, Nencini told the Corriere della Sera and il Messaggero newspapers that the judicial reasoning will comment on why the court decided not to separate the positions of Knox and Sollecito in their deliberations and verdict.

Nencini said one clear difference in the Knox and Sollecito defenses is that Sollecito had never been questioned directly, besides during the investigation, even by the prosecution, according to il Messaggero. "The ability not to be heard in a trial is a right, but it deprives the subject of a voice," il Messaggero quoted Nencini as saying.

Sollecito's defense lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno, had requested in her closing argument that the jury not consider Sollecito as an extension of Knox, but look at him in his own right. The two defense teams, nonetheless, remained very close in their arguments and maintained a common alibi that the couple had spent the night of the murder together in Sollecito's apartment.

Maori pointed out that the prosecution never requested Sollecito's testimony.

Nencini on Monday denied having made any judgment on the defendants' legal strategy. "If my words generated a misunderstanding about the absolute legitimacy of the choice of a defendant to make voluntary statements, I regret it," the news agency ANSA quoted him as saying.

He said he had spoken "casually" with journalists he ran into in tribunal corridors and who had presented him with "rumors and inferences" about the deliberations.

"My intention was to clear up possible misunderstandings," Nencini was quoted as saying.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/26/world/europe/italy-knox-ex-boyfriend/
Amanda Knox's ex finds her behavior odd, as appeals case looms
February 26, 2014

(CNN) -- "We are innocent." For six years, that has been the cry that has united Amanda Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend, as they have faced trials in the murder of Knox's former roommate Meredith Kercher.
But that unity may be crumbling, as she and Raffaele Sollecito prepare to appeal their convictions before Italy's Supreme Court next year.
 
Though he still says that the evidence exonerates them both, he is using more selective language.
"There is nothing against me and nothing very strong against Amanda," Sollecito recently told CNN. "And in my case, I really did nothing wrong, and I don't want to pay for someone else's peculiar behavior."
Knox's behavior on the morning Kercher was found stabbed to death in the apartment she and Knox shared seems to be a new hitch for Sollecito.
That was early November 2007, and he and Knox had only been dating for a week.
Sollecito expanded on his doubts in a new interview with Italian television this week that aired in part on NBC.
Knox had spent the night with him but went back to her place to shower, he said. When she returned, she was "very agitated."
She told him that it looked like someone had broken in and that there was blood in the bathroom, Sollecito said. But rather than call the police, she showered and returned to his place.
He finds it odd, he now says.
"Certainly I asked her questions," he said. "Why did you take a shower? Why did she spend so much time there?"
He didn't get any real answers from her, he said in the interview.
Lawyer's advice
Sollecito's apparent distancing from Knox echoes the position of his lawyer, John Kelly.
"It's imperative that the Italian courts consider Raffaele's case separate from Amanda's case," he said. "By necessity, he has to distance himself and his case from Amanda and her case."
In a note on her Facebook page, Knox acknowledges Sollecito's new stance and appears to back it up.
She said he's a scapegoat.
"The only reason he has been dragged into this is because he happens to be my alibi," she wrote.
Since Kercher's death, Knox and Sollecito have gone through a legal odyssey that led to a conviction that was overturned, followed by a second conviction.
Another man, drifter and drug dealer Rudy Guede from the Ivory Coast is currently serving 16 years for Kercher's murder. He was tried separately from Knox and Sollecito.
He admitted having sex with the young British woman but said someone else killed her while he was in the bathroom.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2582827/Amanda-Knox-rides-bike-local-Goodwill-store-prepares-appeal-conviction-murder-Meredith-Kercher.html
Out for a spin: Amanda Knox rides her bike to local Goodwill store as she prepares to appeal conviction for murder of Meredith Kercher
March 17, 2014

*  Amanda Knox pictured cycling to local Goodwill store in Seattle, Washington
* Could be seen sporting hooded top, gloves, helmet and bright pink socks
* Comes as she prepares to appeal conviction of murder of Meredith Kercher
* Knox reconvicted of killing in January this year and given 28-year jail term
* Meanwhile, her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years
* Last month, Knox released photo of herself online, saying: 'We are innocent'


 
Rudey Guede, whom Knox and Sollecito have blamed for the murder of Ms Kercher, is currently serving a 16-year sentence for murdering and sexually assaulting the student.
During his trial, Guede admitted being at the murder scene - but insisted he had been in the toilet at the time Ms Kercher was attacked.

He claimed he had emerged to see ‘someone resembling Sollecito’ fleeing the scene and ‘Knox outside the house’ in Perugia.

Last month, Guede's lawyer, Valter Biscotti, revealed the prisoner was now eligible for day release - and had been given permission to study History at an undisclosed university in Italy.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.examiner.com/article/amanda-knox-coroner-autopsy-shows-hemorrhagic-shock-as-cause-of-kercher-s-death
Amanda Knox coroner: Coroner’s autopsy reveals ‘haemorraghic shock’ in Knox case
March 28, 2014

 
During the brief five-minute hearing at Croydon Coroner's Court in south London when Dr. Roy Palmer gave his final conclusion on the cause of death of Meredith Kercher, none of Meredith’s family members were present as had been previously arranged. Since Meredith was British, an inquest and an official conclusion on her death had to be completed in her home country.

To translate the coroner’s words into simple language, Meredith’s “throat was slashed.”

According to the United States National Library of Medicine (NCBI), haemorraghic shock (also spelled as hemorrhagic shock) occurs when someone is bleeding out, and the body is deprived of the oxygen delivered by the blood. “Hemorrhagic shock can be rapidly fatal.”

The British coroner’s ruling that Meredith died of a “violent and unnatural death” after someone mercilessly cut her throat will be fueling the already existing mob mentality in Italy against Knox.

For Amanda Knox, the coroner’s final autopsy result and revelation of a "haemorraghic shock" are bringing back – once again -- the nightmare of what occurred on the night of Nov. 1, 2007, in the apartment that she shared with Meredith in the Via Della Pergola in Perugia, Italy. If Amanda has to return to Italy because the United States decides to extradite her, a U.S. coroner might end up having to write a similar autopsy report for her.

Update: In regard to the British coroner's report, Amanda Knox has not commented on her Twitter page. However, Amanda Knox does address the "mob mentality," the "hate campaign," and the publicized "Amanda curse" that she is experiencing from Italy. The Italian coroner's report is one of the many documents that Amanda Knox is making available on her website along with a timeline of events. Unfortunately, most of the court documents are still in Italian and have not been translated into English.

[cookie]

I don't think that Amanda or her boyfriend are guilty.
What reason would they have to murder her?
I just can't get there that they are guilty from the evidence that I have seen....but I could change my mind ...

[MuffyBee]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/29/amanda-knox-trial_n_5232721.html
Amanda Knox Trial: Italian Court Says Meredith Kercher's Wounds Indicated Multiple Assailants
April 29, 2014

[cadillac]

I don't think that Amanda or her boyfriend are guilty.
What reason would they have to murder her?
I just can't get there that they are guilty from the evidence that I have seen....but I could change my mind ...

Cookie, I have a difficult time believing the two participated in her murder either.   Guede has admitted he was there and is a sketch type individual.  Who is to say he had a buddy with him or not?

I read Amanda's book.  She was definitely an immature young woman when she went to Italy but I don't see  her getting involved in a murder and trying to get away with it.

JMO though.