Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito, and the European Court of Human Rights

The ECHR is Europe’s court of appeals for human rights violations. I expect both Amanda and Raffaele to file suit there (after the high court ratifies the appeals court ruling), on the basis that they were denied the right to a fair trial.

Amanda was denied an attorney during her long and repeated interrogations

She was denied an independent translator

The police either failed to record her interrogation or somehow misplaced it

For these reasons, the high court ruled the statement she signed after her overnight interrogation was inadmissible for the criminal trial – but they allowed it into the civil trial, which was heard by the same jurors at the same time.

The high court ordered the appeals court to include in its evidence the fact that a third court – the fast track trial that found Rudy Guede guilty – had determined that there was more than one attacker. But Amanda and Raffaele had no opportunity to participate in that trial, or to have their attorneys question Guede about evidence he gave that implicated them. In other words, they had no opportunity to speak for themselves in a trial that was weighing evidence against them – evidence that was later used against them in their appeals trial.

The police lab never gave the defense access to the raw data files for the DNA results

The jurors were not only not sequestered -- they were encouraged to get information from the media in making their decision.

http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/50Questions_ENG.pdf