S Folinsky

Amanda Knox and Rafaelle Sollecito have now been finally acquitted: Amanda Knox Articles, Photos, and Videos - Los Angeles Times

I have been more intrigued by the vitriol coming from people who followed the case -- it struck me as religous conversations.

Pulaski

Finally? She's been "convicted" twice, and acquitted twice. Aren't there any more courts to weigh-in on this case?

It seems to me to be Italy's Jon-Benet Ramsey case - a wealth of forensic evidence squandered by police incompetence, and no compelling motive for the only explanations put forward.

In this case I have little doubt that Amanda Knox is innocent, and may know very little, if anything, about what happened.

scrubbedexpat091

I find it interesting that not guilty verdicts can be appealed in some countries, seems odd.

Canada allows the prosecutors to appeal a not guilty verdict as well.

steveq

Double-jeopardy was repealed in the UK too.

scrubbedexpat091

Just doesn't seem fair to me. If someone is acquitted, it should be done and over, the government should only have 1 chance to prove their case.

steveq

It isn't "the government" its us, the people. We task the police and authorities to do the job.

Once DNA came in, and it became blatantly obvious who raped or murdered whom, it doesn't seem fair to me scum like that should walk free.

Sally Redux

Looks guilty as hell to me but what do I know. Like Mr F, I'm puzzling by the quasi-religious responses seen.

zzrmark

I have a feeling that the US media has slanted it's reporting in favour Ms Knox because she's an American. Did you see how abruptly the interview was ended when the BBC reporter asked her if she knew what happened when Kircher was killed?

S Folinsky

Many people misunderstand the concept of double jeopardy. In the Knox case, there was an initial conviction and Ms. Knox appealed. And she won the appeal. Under US procedures, the new trial was therefore not double jeopardy. Lets say in the US, trial court convicts and then appeal court reverses, that is one time where the People have the right to seek further review.

Now, under US law, the appeals court has very limited authority over the findings of fact. It seems in Italy that that power is greater.

BTW, I have several friends who are now grandmothers and they have quite fond memories of their early 20-something sojourn in Italy or France and the handsome Italian or Frenchman they shared their bed with. Ms. Knox's alibi sounded a lot more plausible than murder to them.

On the comments, I wonder what is "normal" reaction when someone you know is murdered?

zzrmark

I suppose that would very much depend upon whether you are talking about their reaction at the time of the crime or seven years later?

Pulaski

Like Mr F I am not sure what a "normal" response is when a friend/ close acquaintance is murdered, but I do know that most killers either (i) try to dispose of the body and/or clean up the crime scene, OR (ii) if far from home/ their comfort zone, make a run for it.

Ms Knox did neither, but if she had done then she would have looked as "guilty as hell" but what she actually did was hang around pretty much irritating the police, which doesn't seem to likely be the actions of a guilty person. .... Though it could just be an unprecedented double bluff.
Her reaction seven years later is also undoubtedly affected by having spent four years in prison for a crime she has now been cleared of.

Michael

As far as not talking to the media about the case, she has never talked to the American or any media about the murder. If she did and made one minor mistake about the facts, that gives the Italian prosecutor more ammunition. Anybody that talks to the media when they have a possible prosecution pending has a fool for a lawyer. Even if she denied being involved and explained why, any minor inconsistency would be used by the Italian prosecutor to indicate that she was guilty.

Other than gut feeling, what is the evidence. The confession? Even in the US where someone being questioned but not under arrest has the right to get up and leave at any time. They also have the right, even if they are arrested, to ask for an attorney and when they ask, the police have to stop questioning. Yet it is suspected that many every year (mostly young people) confess to a murder that they didn't commit.

In Italy they don't have those rights and the police can detain and question someone for days without an attorney.

I would like to think that even as a teenager, I would never confess to a murder that I didn't commit but the police have tactics to entice a confession whether real or false. In the US, by law, the police may not strike someone they are questioning but their mannerisms can feel threating. We don't now what tactics the Italian police used but after a couple days of questioning, people can get confused if the police indicate that the person may possibly have blacked out and was just a witness. The person may start believing that they blacked out and was a witness and once she admits that may be possible, the police then have their foot in the door where a person may possibly start to admit to just about anything. Why did Amanda implicate the bar owner and not the real killer unless the police told her that there had to be a third person that did the killing? Her confession is inconsistent as if it was dictated by someone else.

When the bar owner had an air tight alibi, the prosecutor who has a history of believing in satanic ritual killings just replaced the bar owner with the real killer who's blood was found in the apartment. Although anything is possible, it seems to make more sense that someone with a police record (the real killer) would commit the act alone instead of three people (2 of which were never in trouble with the law before). I suppose the prosecutor may think that since both are black that Amanda got confused in her "spaced out state" as to who was the other person but that seems far fetched.

Police forensics stated that there must have been more than one person stabbing the victim but independent analysis seems to indicate that there is nothing that indicates that. Amanda's Facebook page, her sex life, and a picture of her being lovey dovey with her boyfriend convicted her in the media since apparently a young female with an active sex life, an out going Facebook page, being lovey dovey shortly after the murder, and smoking marijuana must indicate that she was involved.

I'm with Mr. P. not because Amanda is an American but I also don't believe that her Italian boyfriend had anything to do with it since the evidence against him is even less than the evidence against Amanda. The evidence against him is only Amanda's confession and nothing else but he also had to be prosecuted for the confession to be considered valid. What evidence is there against her Italian boyfriend except Amanda's confession? When someone looks only at the case against the Italian boyfriend, there doesn't seem to be any real evidence that he was involved and therefore the case against him and Amanda must be fabricated. The prosecution presented an extremely complicated case instead of a simple more logical case because of his strong beliefs in the supernatural with nothing to back up his theory other than a confession that was full of holes and didn't match up with the forensics.

scrubbedexpat091

Lot's more crimes then just murder and rape of women and a good amount of crimes that don't have DNA involved at all.

If a jury or judge finds someone not guilty, the government should not be permitted to file charges again, it should be over and done with once there is an acquittal.

The police and DA are part of the government, so in my view it is the government who decides the charges against people and pursues the cases.

Pulaski

So if someone "walks" for lack of a murder weapon but then the weapon shows up with the victims blood and the accused/acquitted's fingerprints on it, you don't think there should be a mechanism for reopening the case?

Back in a time when cases were almost entirely built on confessions and eyewitness testimony, then the law against double jeopardy made a lot of sense, but when many cases are prosecuted without a confession and few if any eye witnesses to the crime, the blanket application of the double jeopardy law is leading to a small number of miscarriages of justice (false acquittal).

Michael

With all the money that the government has, how far would you go to allow for double jeopardy? Would there have to be new overwhelming evidence or would you just allow the prosecutor to make that decision? If the prosecutor botches a trial, does the prosecutor have as many trials as he/she wants possibly keeping someone imprisoned for life without ever being convicted?

If a prosecutor knows that he/she can always retry someone, a prosecutor may jail and try people on a "gut" feeling with little or no evidence possibly ruining that person's life. In a sense, that appears to be what happened in the "Knox" and her Italian boyfriend's trail since the prosecutor had nothing to lose since if she or he was found not guilty, he could just try them again.