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Amanda Knox was interviewed by ABC Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts this morning, and just less than a full day after an Italian Appeals Court issued the decision that she, along with her now-former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were sentenced to 28 years and 26 years in jail there, respectively.
Knox, understandably upset and emotional, told Robin Roberts “It really hit me like a train. I did not expect this to happen. I really expected so much better from the Italian justice system. They found me innocent once before.”
The Italian Appeals Court’s verdict marks the third time Knox and Sollecito have had to go through the juidicial ringer in the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher, something that happened in November of 2007 in Perugia, Italy. But unlike the first two trails, this one was not a full rehearing of the case, and the report of how the trial was done should be alarming to any observer of the legal process.
The first trial seemed to be as much a referendum on how Italy thinks about young American women who visit it, as much as determining if Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were guilty. They were found guilty, and wound up spending four years in jail before a brand new trail issued a verdict that they were not guilty.
If you actually look at the trial and the legal process before it, the problem is the Italian police bullied Knox into a fase confession to counter the fact they had zero creditable evidence. First, the crime scene itself was contaminated by the police and by others who were allowed to walk through it. Second, investigators found things like random kitchen knifes and held that up as something that may have been used – since the knife found had Knox’s fingerprints on it, the Italian prosecutors could make up whatever story came to them.
Third, the actual place where Meredith Kercher was killed, her room, shows no signs of Knox ever having been there. In fact, the only person who was solidly convicted of any crime is the man in jail now, the so-called drifter Rudy Guede, and he was sentenced for allegedly raping Kercher, and he was the only person who was actually found to have been in the room and in the apartment with Kercher. That, alone, should have exonorated Knox and Sollecito, but because Guede gave a series of different stories, and one of them mentioned the two of them as having been there, they get accused.
It’s crazy.
And the stuff about Knox fingering the bar owner Patrick Lumumba wasn’t Amanda at all, but Italian police bullying her into saying it had to have been him, when he was working at his bar at the time.
But the real kicker in this silly case comes with the revelation that the most recent trial wasn’t a full re-trying of the case, but only of parts of it – testimony of witness, and the matter of the same tainted evidence. But the final trial turned on a story the Italian prosecutors made up – one that said the entire matter occurred after Knox and Kercher had an argument. Note that what I just wrote wasn’t based on new evidence – that’s the American standard – it was just a story they came up with that fit their prejudices and the jury bought it.
So, Amanda Knox was found to be guilty – of nothing other than fitting the right story that some lazy Italian legal prosecutor came up with. Something that would never been allowed in an American court of law.
America should not allow its citizens to be railroaded in this way. Amanda’s situation, as it looks, could happen to any American college student who dares spend time in Perugia (don’t do it). Italy obviously has a warped view of Americans, and particularly young white college women, and it comes into play in their legal system. We can’t let our Constitution be sullied by this action.
Amanda Knox must not be allowed to return to Italy.
Stay tuned.