Why charge two students with no history of violence? Absent any credible evidence everyone—judges, jurors, media—turned to a one-word answer: sex. Sex made Amanda do just about everything.
This obsession with the American girl’s sex life followed her into prison. Early on, prison authorities falsely informed her that she was H.I.V.-positive, at which point she plunged into despair. Back in her cell, Knox wrote up a list of her previous lovers—which in short order, was leaked to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera and quoted extensively by an Italian author who came up with what would become a habitual media conclusion, one she confided to The Sunday Times: “It’s as if [she] were always hunting men.”
Thus Knox became every Italian mamma’s worst nightmare: the classic blonde, American manipulator of men. Luciferina with an angel’s face, an Italian newspaper called her. Luciferina was dutifully echoed in the courtroom: the girl was obviously involved in some kind of satanic rite....
April 4, 2015
"How Much Does Italy Owe Amanda Knox? A Lot."
A Vanity Fair article by Judy Bachrach. Excerpt:
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I think there's another important lesson here: The next time we get an extradition request from Italy for anyone other than an Italian national, we're going to want to think long and hard about whether we want to do that, and we're going to want to think about Amanda Knox and what her case taught us about how Italy does CrimPro.
Don't hang out with bad people, particularly in foreign countries.
My daughter was acquainted with Ms. Knox at Seattle Prep.
None of this surprises my daughter.
none of this, what madAsHell?
And we were told that we ought to be doing things here the European Way. Maybe along with Italy needing to revise its justice system, Americans need to understand that European culture is not even as libertine as is American culture, let alone as has been represented.
So as usual the US flaunts international law, sheltering criminals from justice.
Once Knox has been handed over to Italy, let's hand of Bush to the ICJ.
This is the same judicial system that brought scientists into court for not predicting an earthquake.
I suspect she is guilty as hell.
The best Italians came to America a while ago.
Luciferina stays crunchy, even in milk!
"So as usual the US flaunts international law, sheltering criminals from justice."
You mean "FLOUTS" international law, you ignoramus.
The Knox case (the Solecito case, too) was unique in that there was no evidence at all of guilt. It never should have been put in front of a jury.
How's a jury supposed to deal fairly with a completely imaginary case? They're not allowed to ask for context, or to have the judge rank the case against the universe of cases that he has ever heard.
A jury is a useful counterweight against the imperfections of the justice system. But the justice system also ought to have some counterweight against the imperfections of juries. Some cases shouldn't make it to trial.
Regarding the point of the article (How much should Knox and Sollecito receive from Italy in damages) a useful question is would you be willing to go through the whole experience in return for the payoff at trial?
For Knox and Sollecito, the answer is pretty clearly no. They both spent several years in their early '20s in prison, being vilified in the international press. They were accused and convicted of a shocking crime that would ruin anyone's reputation. Their families went deeply into debt to conduct a legal defense. Next to an experience like that, what's a few million dollars?
By the metric of "how large a payoff would I accept to go through what Amanda Knox did" she is owed somewhere between ten million and a hundred million dollars, AFTER repayment of all expenses and AFTER members of the Italian Supreme Court give interviews prominently discussing the what an "innocent" verdict in Italy menans.
The man convicted in the crime is eligible for parole.
Alex, you have the rare gift of managing to be vapid and silly no matter which side of the aisle you argue from.
Italy and the Italians have much to recommend them but you don't ever want to be accused of a crime there. Douglas Preston's true crime book "The Monster of Florence," is about a serial killer who operated there in the 1970's and '80's. The complete hash the Italian authorities made of the investigation makes for compelling reading. Many of the same nitwits involved in the travesty that was the "Monster" case went on to persecute Knox.
"Once Knox has been handed over to Italy, let's hand of Bush to the ICJ."
Alex, you are a treasure. If I ever doubt the vapidity of the left, as well as their ignorance, you immediately come to mind.
Thank you.
When asked why the US imprisons so many criminals compared to the rest of the 1st world, one of my stock responses has been "Because Americans cops know how to do their jobs".
Sadly, even in many first world countries, the cops simply aren't very good at the job of building cases, even if the case goes to trial. A trial at least means that the cops have arrested a suspect, and many cases never even get that far.
In Europe now, a sizable fraction of crime comes out of the immigrant communities. In the US, police forces have worked since the 60's at minority outreach, such as hiring black & Latino cops, outreach through charitable organizations, recruitment of informants, language training, etc. We've been at this for fifty years, and while it's far from perfect, it's a hell of a lot better than what inroads European cops have made into their immigrant communities. Over there, no one helps the police, no one.
For all the problems we may have between minorities & the white majority, we are blessed (for now) that our minorities want in to American society. In Europe, they want out.
I read up on this case some months ago. I remember it was about something more than what the article claims.
My daughter was acquainted with Ms. Knox at Seattle Prep.
None of this surprises my daughter.
***
I suspect she is guilty as hell
Every time I've read or heard someone saying she is innocent, all they have done is to deflect by attacking the Italian legal system in one way or another. Never have I read or heard someone attempt to defend her on the actual merits and evidence of the case. Never have I read or heard her defenders take the matter seriously. Knox herself, the more she talks, the more I disbelieve her.
Meanwhile, during the investigation, Knox apparently made inconsistent statements, acted suspiciously and gave a statement implicating her boss, who was later exonerated. From this, there was more than reason to suspect her.
Other evidence tied her to the murder. Knox was Kercher's housemate and had opportunity. Various physical evidence was either incriminating or at best ambiguous.
At this point, having not been provided all of the evidence, who knows if Knox is guilty or not. But I for one have not been convinced that she is innocent -- it is still an open question.
Now, for all that want to bash the Italian system -- it is apparent that they have a much more lenient appellate system than the United States. If Knox had been convicted here, she would not get a de novo review of the facts. She would probably still be in prison and there to stay.
I have read the "evidence" against Knox. It's a complete joke.
One person committed this crime: Rudy Guede. He has been convicted and is in jail. The evidence against him is damning.
There is utterly no evidence that Knox or Sollecito had anything to do with Kercher's murder. Further the motive posited by the Italian prosecutor is a complete fantasy.
Italy should be sued up the wazoo for this travesty.
People aren't always what they seem. Robert Durst doesn't give off a serial murderer vibe. I don't think anyone in the life of that German pilot would have ever suspected him capable of murdering 150 people on an impulse......I don't know that much about the case, but Amanda looks innocent, and there wasn't much hard evidence against her.
People keep using that phrase "no evidence." It does not mean what they think it means.
Meanwhile, it is amazing all the people who were there in the courtroom to hear and see all the evidence.
Mark, I suggest you educate yourself about this case. There's are reason why most people who do so, including the Italian appeals court, cannot believe the evidence against Knox was taken seriously. And evidence aside, the motive was completely fabricated out of whole cloth.
Mark, the interrogated her for 43 hours over the course of a week in a language she didn't speak well without a lawyer, translator or US Consulate official present to assist her. I'm going to say that any statement she made is questionable as evidence.
I hate to look at photos of Amanda Knox, not because I know anything about her innocence or guilt one way or the other but simply because no matter when or where the photo was taken she looks to me as if she is lying
People keep using that phrase "no evidence." It does not mean what they think it means.
It was worse than no evidence. It was BS evidence.
Meanwhile, during the investigation, Knox apparently made inconsistent statements, acted suspiciously and gave a statement implicating her boss, who was later exonerated. From this, there was more than reason to suspect her.
"Acting suspiciously" = BS. She's a foreigner. Her roommate was murdered. She's operating on no sleep. She's answering police questions in a foreign language with no lawyer present.
"made inconsistent statements" = BS. There's a language barrier. There's no indication of any deliberate deceit. The record of the interrogation is missing. (Huge warning sign here).
"gave a statement implicating her boss, who was later exonerated." = BS. Confessing to a ludicrously impossible version of events is not an indication of guilt. It's evidence of a coercive interrogation. You can't have this both ways -- the scenario she confessed to had her boss as an integral member. But he had an ironclad alibi, so the confession cannot possibly be true. (Another huge warning sign).
You know what is missing from this case? Everything. There's no evidence Knox or Solecito were present on the night in question. There's no evidence they had a murder weapon, or violent tendencies, or any grudge against the victim, or any guilty behavior afterwards...
Meanwhile, there's mountains of evidence against Guede, the unconnected person who was also convicted of the crime. He had been breaking into homes with a knife several times before the crime. He left the country the next day and disposed of his clothing. His DNA was found in the body. And the Guede theory is completely inconsistent with the Knox/Sollecito theory -- neither party would have any reason to involve the other.
Italy's criminal justice system is a joke. No wonder the Mafia started there and flourished.
One would think they would fix it.
The next time we get an extradition request from Italy for anyone other than an Italian national, we're going to want to think long and hard about whether we want to do that, and we're going to want to think about Amanda Knox and what her case taught us about how Italy does CrimPro.
For all of you who are upset about how poor little rich girl Amanda Knox was treated by the Italian justice system, why don't you worry about our own criminal justice system? It is a horrible joke for the vast majority of people who are churned through it.
Salon has a very thorough article on this: Amanda Knox verdict: The real evidence and why (almost) everything you think you know about the case is wrong. The piece sets the stage with this:
“In 50 years of practicing law, I have never seen a more one-sided presentation by the media in the United States of the case,” says Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. “Everybody is saying there’s no evidence against her and she’s totally innocent. It’s just not true.”
It then proceeds to look closely at the details, like here in a section about her confession:
Knox accusing her innocent employer of rape and murder is well-documented. According to her supporters, Knox only accused Patrick Lumumba after a torturous, lengthy interrogation in which she was slapped, screamed at, refused an interpreter and denied food and water. This is information that even Knox’s defense now refutes.
An interpreter, Anna Domino, was present throughout the interview and Knox testified in court that she was given food and drink. Her lawyer Luciano Ghirga rejected the claims that she was ever hit by police back in 2008, stating, “We never said she was hit,” and just last week the Italian courts ruled that Knox must face trial for further aggravated calumny for repeating these charges in her book and on TV.
Despite claims that the interview lasted around 40 hours, it was at most two hours long. As soon as Knox learned that Sollecito had withdrawn her alibi, she accused Lumumba of murdering Kercher and placed herself at scene. Knox never retracted her claim and Lumumba spent weeks in prison before being released. The only admission that she had made the whole thing up was to her mother while she was in jail. Her mother decided not to pass on that information to the police.
Emphasis mine.
"why don't you worry about our own criminal justice system?"
I do and fools like you are off into theories that the violent black underclass is a victim. If we exclude the black underclass for crime statistics, the US has less crime and less murder than Europe.
I do think drug legalization has merit and, like most libertarians, believe that many police practices such as collecting small fines and citing insignificant local ordinance violation for funding city budgets is wrong and should be curtailed.
The final verdict of the legal process is that she is innocent. It's a bit confusing that at least some commenters here and elsewhere are talking as if she is still guilty.
The actual murderer was convicted for the crime in 2008! A local burglar and habitual criminal whose DNA was inside the victim. It is insane that the prosecutor thought it was okay to convict two separate parties for the same murder.
Mark
>People keep using that phrase "no evidence." It does not mean what they think it means.
Yes it does. There was, quite literally, no credible evidence against her. And that's what the Italian courts finally agreed. Don't be a Knox verdict denialist.
@Lydia:
Salon has a very thorough article on this: Amanda Knox verdict: The real evidence and why (almost) everything you think you know about the case is wrong. The piece sets the stage with this:
That one-sided Salon article merely re-hashes all the "Knox is guilty" arguments from the prosecutors, with a thin veneer of "hmmm, I wonder what really happened" ponderousness. Most of those points have now been shown to be worthless, as the courts now agree.
If that's the total of your reading on the case then I suggest you read more widely (you can start with the article that Althouse linked to!).
By its very terms "no evidence" does not equal "no credible evidence." One means there is no evidence, the other means that the evidence is not credible.
If there was no evidence, it would have been a really short trial -- about 30 seconds. As it was, there was evidence. Ten thousand pages of it according to the Salon story. The first point of evidence, which most people would find quite credible, is that Knox was a housemate of Kercher. There was a relationship. From there, bit by bit, step by step, other tiny small facts get added together. This is how a case is tried.
There was a LOT of evidence against Knox. Maybe the evidence was insufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But not enough evidence does not equal no evidence.
And, no, I'm not going to go find out all of the evidence. I wasn't at the trial. Neither were you folks. None of us is competent to judge whether she is guilty or not.
>There was a LOT of evidence against Knox.
Let me summarise the evidence for you.
Contaminated DNA samples, dubious eye-witness testimony, inconsistencies and mistakes in their account of their rather normal night together, and the fact that Knox was sexually promiscuous.
That, and a vivid and well-told hypothetical story of the murder from the prosecutor. Indeed above all else, the biggest factor against her was the prosector's passion and clear certainty. Other less charitable souls might call it obsession, but he was persuasive and tenacious.
As for being room-mates, being acquainted with the victim is not evidence of mudering the victim.
But the fact that the Italians tried and convicted a local burglar for the murder should, in any sane world, have been the end of the matter.
> None of us is competent to judge whether she is guilty or not.
Yes, we are. All the details available to the jury are available to us. And laypeople do investigate cases and sometimes even get them reversed.
But I agree that most of the time we should defer to the court's decision. So using your logic (defer to the courts), we can agree that Amanda Knox is innocent.
I had almost forgotten this case until recent days. Recalling the vehemence from some Knox-supporting zealots from years past was reason enough to ignore the maniacal circus. That said, I am gratified to read the reasoned and reality-based commentary from "Mark" on this thread. I couldn't agree more on all points! I've only to recall in years past, when this case was fresher, the bizarre behavior of so many of Knox supporters. They were analogous to a cult going after anyone who illuminated the troubling aspects of this case. I will never be convinced that Knox and Solliceto didn't have something to do with the death of Kercher. Feverish and loony protestations to the contrary, notwithstanding.
Debrah, you do realize that the "Knox supporting zealots" are correct, right? She's not guilty, according to the Italian courts. You're wrong and they were right.
That's the final verdict.
Mark and other puritans are now reduced to grassy-knoll conspiracy. She's not guilty. Deal with it.
For all of you who are upset about how poor little rich girl Amanda Knox was treated by the Italian justice system, why don't you worry about our own criminal justice system?
Oh, I do. For example, there was this case where a minority man shot an established petty criminal (a burglar, drug user, and vandal) in an incident so blatantly obviously a case of self-defense that the local police and prosecutors didn't pursue the case. But he was indicted by an irregular procedure and tried anyway (and subjected to vigilante harassment in the meantime) for no better reason than the dead crook was the same ethnicity of the most powerful man in America.
How about you, Freder? Did you worry about that gross abuse of the American justice system? Or were you one of the worthless scum who cheered it on?
An interpreter, Anna Domino, was present throughout the interview and Knox testified in court that she was given food and drink. Her lawyer Luciano Ghirga rejected the claims that she was ever hit by police back in 2008, stating, “We never said she was hit,” and just last week the Italian courts ruled that Knox must face trial for further aggravated calumny for repeating these charges in her book and on TV.
Uh huh. And the tape of that interview is missing. How inconvenient for the police, for their best defense against malpractice to up and walk away like that.
An interpreter, Anna Domino, was present throughout the interview and Knox testified in court that she was given food and drink. Her lawyer Luciano Ghirga rejected the claims that she was ever hit by police back in 2008, stating, “We never said she was hit,” and just last week the Italian courts ruled that Knox must face trial for further aggravated calumny for repeating these charges in her book and on TV.
A "confession" implicating a completely innocent party (Lumumba) isn't really a confession. It could be an alibi (it wasn't). It could be reciting a prosecutor's bizarre theory of the case under duress (it was). But somebody is lying.
In context, the existence of an impossible confession is strong evidence of innocence. Knox is making a strong claim -- that she was railroaded and denied a fair trial. If that's true, there ought to be evidence of unfair treatment. Signing an impossible confession, after a late night interrogation, whose taped record is now missing, is powerful evidence of unfair treatment. The confession is evidence of innocence, not guilt.
Interesting page by a former FBI agent on the Knox/Sollecito case:
http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/FBI.html
Hi Ann,
"The Plot Thickens!!!!" Amanda the "Luciferrina!!" Leave it to the Dago's! Funny how that goes, I grew up the only Hunkie (Hungarian) kid in a Catholic School full of Dago's whose parents were either immigrants from "The Old Country" or 1st generation. 'Ya learned how to be tough at an early age. Every Dago mother's daughter was the embodiment of "The Virgin Mary!!" Boys, especially if they weren't Italian, were Satan's Sons. Go watch "The Godfather" again. FF to the part where Michael takes his new bride "Upstairs." The part they don't show is after they have sex where Michael takes the blood stained bed sheet and drapes it out the window to prove his new wife's virginity!! In Italy, no virgin blood on the bed sheet could be a death sentence for the new bride! Hence the tombstone reads,"Here lies Angel, who because she was not an Angel, is now with the Angels!!" Essentially this is what the Old Dago Mindset had in mind for Amanda!!! But it wasn't Amanda only that got "Convicted" in that Dago Court, it was also "American Womanhood!!" Go Figure!!!
God, Guns and Guts Keep America Free,
III%,
skybill-out
I've been astonished in reading the thread above and another previous one about Knox that people seem to think that this case was presented to a jury. Italy doesn't use juries; it has barely even transitioned to an adversarial system. We're talking about a primitive legal system—you can't leave American nationals in the hands of European justice.
"If there was no evidence, it would have been a really short trial" LOL You would have to read the definitive book "Murder in Italy" to realize how foolish that statement is. Knox is guilty of felony stupidity but not felony murder. Other then her silly confession, the only evidence against her or her boyfriend was "touch dna" on a knife and a bra clip. Unfortunately, the Italian lab really wasn't qualified do touch dna investigations. The knife, by the way, didn't fit the stab wounds! Some evidence? I thought that she was guilty until I read about it a couple years after the trial.
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