Amanda Knox's family in debt over $1 million after almost 4 years.

With her appeal still ongoing, and not expected to be decided till September, Amanda's family already is more than $1 million in the hole -- after almost four years of legal and travel expenses.

Supporters in Seattle are doing what they can. A benefit will take place on July 8th.

http://www.westseattleherald.com/2011/06/21/news/amanda-knox-benefit-july-8-feature-three-bands-sh


Three bands will perform during a July 8 fundraiser for West Seattle raised Amanda Knox at the Showbox at the Market downtown. Knox’s family is currently in debt over one million dollars because of legal and travel expenses incurred by her three and a half year long murder trial that is now in its appeals phase. She is currently serving a 26-year sentence in prison in Perugia, Italy. If she wins her appeal, she could be released in early September.

to be a roommate of Meredith Kercher, a British exchange student who was brutally murdered in Perugia, Italy. The prosecutor -- Italy's version of Durham, N.C.'s own Mike Nifong -- decided that Amanda and her boyfriend, a medical student, must have smoked a little pot and in that crazed state, knifed Meredith to death because she didn't want to have an orgy with them (and with a burglar Amanda had once met at a party in the apartment below her and whom Raffaele had never met at all.)

All the hard evidence -- mountains of it -- pointed to the burglar acting alone -- who had a history of breaking and entering and carrying a knife.

it reminds me quite a bit of the "wilding" story invented by prosecutors in new york city, which sent the young men to prison for years before they were exonerated by DNA

the prosecutor's story of what amanda knox supposedly did is so ridiculous that you wonder what THEY were smoking when they invented it

why do prosecutors invent these wild stories? criminals are NOT creative!!! a little occam's razor here or some forensic/scientific training might have been nice

very, very sad, and now they are not going to be able to admit they made a terrible mistake without draining the families of every penny

our system stinks, juries convict the innocent every day, so i guess it's nice to know we're not the ONLY country w. a shitty, unworkable "justice" system that is about getting on teevee instead of finding the truth!!!

It's obvious from the evidence that this was a burglary gone wrong -- and the burglar/rapist/killer was Guede; but the prosecutor had already implicated two other people. So, instead of drawing the obvious conclusion from the evidence, he decided to make up a whole new story to fit the defendants he'd already jailed. So he invented this ridiculously complicated "staged burglary" and pot-smoking-sex-cult-orgy-murder story.

The case this reminds me of is the Duke false rape story -- with both prosecutors seeing a chance to use unpopular defendants in a scandalous case to improve their own public profile.

"The court cited as reliable elements of proof not just the alleged murder weapon (a knife with Knox's DNA on the handle and a trace amount of Kercher's on the blade) and the bra clasp with Sollecito's DNA, but also the luminol-enhanced footprints attributed to Knox and Sollecito.

The judge paid particular attention to the multiple traces of mixed blood (Kercher's) and DNA (Knox's) in the apartment's small bathroom, noting that also the door and lightswitch in the bathroom had been touched with someone with bloody hands or clothes.

Traces of Kercher's blood and Knox's DNA were found together in several spots, the judge wrote, specifically, the on a cotton swap box, the sink and the bidet."


Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Judge-Amanda-Knox-took-part-in-murder-but-wasn-t-895310.php#ixzz1Q2xHsrC4


Here's the report.--you can register at the site for the full Italian and English translation.

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/the_judges_sentencing_report_for_the_guilty_verdicts_in_the_case_of_me/

Or, you can read a compiled translation, here--

http://www.examiner.com/crime-in-national/amanda-knox-read-translated-italian-report-regarding-why-american-student-was-convicted-of-murder

All media fluffery aside, the judge's report hasn't been disputed by any competent legal authority.

who thinks that there's any significance to Amanda's DNA turning up in her own bathroom. The bathroom would naturally be covered with both girls' DNA, and it wouldn't be unusual at all for their DNA to be mixed in many places. They both used the bathroom regularly!

The Court relied on "low count" DNA evidence on the knife, the raw data files for which were never turned over to the defense or even to a neutral third party. This DNA sample was measured in the trillionths of a gram -- too small to be distinguishable from contamination. This would not happen in a U.S. court (or in most courts in the "first world") where the defense is allowed to investigate the raw DNA files. (The raw DNA files finally exonerated the falsely accused Duke lacrosse players.)

The luminol enhanced footprints specifically did NOT measure blood (a test for blood was negative) -- and the footprints were in the hall, not in the murder room. Again, this is not significant because this was Amanda's apartment. (Luminol reacts to the bleach in common household cleaning products that wet feet can come into contact with while taking a shower.)

What IS significant is that in the murder room, which yielded more than 100 samples of evidence linked to Guede, the actual killer, not a single bit of DNA, blood, fingerprints, shoeprints, hair or fiber were linked to Amanda Knox. And that would be impossible if she were engaged in a violent murder there.

The judge's report hasn't YET been disputed by any Italian legal authority, but the appeal is still ongoing. Already the new judge has accepted evidence not accepted by the first judge, and has ordered the stonewalling prosecution to turn over the raw DNA files to the defense.

to be fair

been found guilty at your second appeal. She's still in her first.

And half of people who are found guilty at the initial trial level are eventually found not guilty. That's an awful lot of innocent people who spend years going through the criminal justice system.

Amanda Knox doesn't belong in jail, but some of the prosecuting attorneys certainly do.

There will always be instances of injustice no matter what criminal justice system you're looking at.

no matter if its non US citizens in the courts here or US citizens in the courts elsewhere.

Amanda wasn't allowed any attorney until after they had interrogated her for days and charged her. Does that sound better than in our system?

She was kept in an overnight, tag-team interrogation conducted in Italian with no attorney, no interpreter, and no food and water until they pulled a "confession" out of her at 5:45 am. In this "confession" she imagined that she might have been in another part of the house and heard Meredith screaming (after the police told her to imagine this). A few hours later, after she'd had some sleep, she withdrew this statement.

No audio or video tapes have been produced of the interrogation, although Italian law requires that this be done. Not even a transcript has been made available to the defense.

After the criminal Judge threw out the withdrawn "confession," the jurors in the criminal trial were allowed to read it anyway -- because the same jurors were given it to consider at the concurrent civil trial.

The judge in her initial trial ruled that the prosecution did NOT need to provide DNA data to the defense -- all that was needed was the police report. (If this had happened to the Duke students, they no doubt would been imprisoned for rape, since it was the raw DNA files that led to them being freed.)

That's all you need to know.

For every Amanda Knox held "unjustly" in Italy, there are many more in the United States.

It has nothing to do with cases like this.

" the study finds that minorities in the US face discriminatory treatment at every stage of the judicial process, from arrest to incarceration. The 94-page report was issued by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights based in Washington DC. Its findings show that blacks, Hispanics and other minorities face unfair targeting by police and other law enforcement officials, racially biased charging and plea bargaining decisions by prosecutors and discriminatory sentencing by judges."

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/may2000/bias-m16.shtml

I'll take Italy's over ours any day of the week.

This case gives me some concern, but then there are cases like this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43187273/ns/technology_and_science-science
Can you imagine our government suing scientists for not predicting earthquakes?

What century are they living in?

Can you imagine Italy locking up their citizens as much as we do?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate

They would revolt. We just sit there and take it. America has 5% of the world's population, but holds 25% of the world's prisoners.

The reason for our high incarceration rate is our prosecution of drug cases -- which I oppose. But that has nothing to do with this case.

http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2010/results

The system with an absurd amount of racial bias?

Land of the free? :rofl:

That's how pathetic America is.

As I've said, we choose to prosecute drug crimes that other countries don't. I also disagree with that choice.

But it doesn't make our system more corrupt.

And the "poverty bias" is also connected to the imbalance in our prisons.

(Do you know why police wagons used to be called "paddy wagons"? Because of the high rates of incarcerated Irish, a group that had high poverty rates at the time.)

The Italian government threatens and intimidates citizens who question them. They seized Frank Sfarzo's blog (on the Knox case, as a matter of fact): http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/2011/04/19/prosecutor-threatens-italian-journalists-over-amanda-knox-case
As much as I hate the US war on pot, I'd hate to live under the Italian view of free speech.

How many people are locked up for pot in the US?

ESPECIALLY in the south.

I spent a semester in Genoa, and have gone back to visit many times. I went with my friend to Napoli one weekend and she warned me to be very very careful because the police will arrest an American for very little. All her friends were telling me the same thing, they said dont have an open beer outside as I would be arrested for public intoxication. They told me to be extra sure to stamp my train ticket, as I would possibly be arrested for that.

One evening, we went out and had a few drinks. Of course, I listened to them and we made sure not to drink outside. Later, we go outside as everyone wanted to share a cigarette (a spliff). My friend was paranoid about me even being around them. They were smoking in front of a police officer, but she wouldn't let me smoke, and we actually stood many feet away. I guess they arrest Americans, and other foreigners who look as if they may have money and offer to release you if you pay the right price.

Every Italian I have spoken to about their judicial system has said the same thing...it's a joke. I really haven't paid much attention to Amanda Knox, but she is fighting an uphill battle just being American.

The government allows the crime families to operate freely in the south. Every once in a while they will make a sweep and arrest some low level family members to make the people happy, but they allow the system to continue. It's not like the families are in hiding. Go to Napoli and ask about the Camora family. Everyone knows where they live, but supposedly the government has no clue? The Italian government allows it to continue because they control so much of society in the south that removing them would leave a huge void in social services that would take a long time for the state to fill. Removing the crime families would cause a huge crisis in the south, so it's a double edged sword.

In her original trial, Amanda's defense was asked to PAY (in the tens of thousands of dollars) to get copies of the evidence. The prosecution ended up backing down on this. Maybe someone should have just slipped Mignini a big bribe. Maybe that's the mistake Amanda's parents made!

:shrug:

I do not believe she's guilty. I believe she was railroaded by a corrupt, incompetent Italian "justice" system that was desperate to get out from under the tremendous national and international pressure to solve the case and pin the blame on someone, anyone.

No.

I do know that any family that loves their daughter would likely go through sheer hell to try to help her. I feel for them. They, too have been sentenced to a horrible future, it seems.

that parents everywhere need to have some serious talks with their kids when they are teens... about sex & potentially toxic relationships.. It would seem that these two issues were at the core of her problems now..

Our son went to college in Florence Italy, and I was worried every second that he would somehow run afoul of some European law and I'd get a long distance call.. Luckily for us, he's our "straight-arrow" kid, and the worst thing he did there was to lose my expensive camera he borrowed.. He laid it down on a ledge at a restaurant in Pompeii and when he remembered & went back, it was gone:( I was more upset that he lost a flashcard full of pictures from trips to Budapest & and from his soccer-fan trips he took following "his team" around Europe..

Before he left, we bored him silly with all our "what ifs", but I think it was message-received..

Amanda had one new boyfriend in Perugia, a young medical student. And yes, they did smoke some pot together, but it didn't drive them into a crazed sex-orgy-murder. And not smoking the pot wouldn't have protected Amanda. Unfortunately, she happened to be the roommate of another perfectly nice girl (like your son) who got murdered.

Bad things can happen. Even to good kids with parents who warn them about seemingly everything.

The core of Amanda's problem was a grandstanding prosecutor named Mignini, just as the core of the Duke students problem (in the false rape case) was a prosecutor named Nifong. Mignini announced that he had found the guilty parties BEFORE any of the DNA or fingerprint evidence came back. And when it did, it ALL pointed to a different third party -- a man with a record of breaking and entering through second story windows, and who had previously been caught carrying a knife.

When all the evidence came back implicating an unrelated third party, Mignini should have withdrawn charges against Amanda and Raffaele. But he didn't because the case as he'd painted it was too juicy -- the media was already loving it -- and him. Mignini had already been convicted of abuse of office in another sex/murder/cult case; with the case against him on appeal, this was just what he needed to rebuild his public profile.

I hope it gets "resolved" somehow, but a girl is still dead..and will always be dead.. I once had a lawyer tell me that courtrooms are where you go when you want to hear lies..:(

their daughter to have two innocent young people falsely convicted.

He is in an immersion language program at a public school in Glendale, CA. I want him to have his Italian with him growing up and going into college and beyond. It is a great gift. I am hoping he will use it to get involved in art. My little daydreams for my grandson...

The police collected more than a hundred samples of physical evidence from the murder room (Meredith's bedroom) -- handprints, footprints, DNA, hair, and fiber samples -- and not a single piece was linked to Amanda. That makes no sense, of course, but they had already announced that the case was closed -- before any of the testing results came back -- and that Amanda and her boyfriend were the culprits. So they decided that Amanda must have cleaned the bloody room of all of her own DNA and fingerprints, and left only Guede's. That makes no sense, either -- in fact, it would be physically impossible since you can't see DNA -- but I guess that didn't matter to the jury.

Later, one of the jurors said that it was "so hard to believe" that Amanda had done the murder, but she guessed it "was possible." So that was the standard, apparently. Not "beyond a reasonable doubt" (which is supposed to be the standard in Italy) -- but "possible."

But, yes, i have to agree that the treatment and interpretation of physical evidence is a travesty.

shortly before she was convicted. I was hoping to find out enough to convince me that she could be guilty -- but I found exactly the opposite. She was just a typical, somewhat goofy, Northwestern kid. And judged harshly for what many of us here consider quite normal behavior.

Just one example. The tabloids spread the news that some roommate or other had complained that she was a slob because she didn't always flush the toilet. Well, we have an expression for that in Seattle -- when it's yellow, let it mellow; when it's brown, flush it down. It's all about WATER CONSERVATION which is actually important here in our very dry summers. But in the tabloids, it was just one more piece of evidence that she must be a terrible person.

that no doubt went into this, too.

:nopity:

Based upon the news stories I've watched and the stories I've read.

pieces of physical evidence linked to Guede, contained not a single piece of DNA, or blood, fingerprint, handprint, footprint, hair or fiber belonging to Amanda? How could she have been an active participant in a violent murder and left not a single trace of her presence in the room?

nt

as to be indistinguishable from laboratory contamination.

Did you know that the actual murder weapon is traced in blood on the sheet and it was much smaller than the one police collected at Raffeale's apartment?

Do you know why the police chose that knife? They said they picked it because it looked so clean! Is it so surprising that a knife in a kitchen where Amanda cooked would show her DNA?
Do you know that there was no blood of Meredith's found anywhere on the knife (even when the investigators asked to take it fully apart)? How could Amanda have cleaned the knife well enough to remove all traces of blood from a bloody murder, including that which would have seeped inside the handle? And yet leave some identifiable particles of potato starch?

http://abcnews.go.com/International/amanda-knox-innocent-retired-fbi-agent-steve-moore/story?id=11541334

That stupid knife was a kitchen knife.

I can't believe that armchair quarterbacks on DU are so involved in this crap that they can pronounce this girl guilty or innocent...

Ridiculous.

I would like to see her get a real trial, frankly. I think hers was pathetic.

Not blood.

That retired FBI agent spoke here at a panel at Seattle University. I wish more people could have heard his talk.

Why WOULDN'T there be her DNA a on a knife she used to cook? Bizarre that the knife is even mentioned as evidence.

some potato starch.

:shrug:

Explain how a knife the boyfriend's house would have Knox and Kercher's DNA on it?

"Stefanoni testified today that Knox's DNA was found on the handle of the kitchen knife the prosecution believes is the murder weapon. This knife was found in Sollecito's house. She said Kerches's DNA was on the blade. Stefanoni said, however, that the DNA in these samples was not from blood.

Stefanoni also said that in about 20 out of over 100 hundred samples taken from the crime scene she found Knox's genetic profile, or DNA. This is not unusual since Knox lived in the cottage, but significantly, in a number of the samples Knox's DNA was mixed with Kercher's DNA.

Most of the mixed DNA from the two women was found in blood traces discovered in the bathroom. Stefanoni told the court that Knox's DNA was found mixed with Kercher's in a luminol-enhanced bare footprint in the hallway outside Kercher's room,and in a luminol-enhanced spot found in the room of housemate Filomena Romanelli.

When the murder was discovered, Romanelli's room appeared to have been broken into. Her window was shattered and a large rock was found on the floor. Nothing was stolen, however, and investigators accuse Knox and Sollecito of faking the break-in after murdering Kercher."

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=7656872&page=1

Low count DNA is very likely to be a product of lab contamination. Until a month ago, Stefanoni has withheld the raw data files from the defense or even a neutral investigator. Those data files are necessary to prove the reliability -- or much more likely, the unreliability -- of the police lab's reported results. Why has the police lab withheld this data for more than 3 and a half years? Most likely because it doesn't support their case.

Another point to remember is that only low count DNA -- but NO BLOOD -- was found on the kitchen knife -- even when they took the knife apart. But it wasn't cleaned all that well, because ordinary potato starch was also found on it. And the knife didn't match the impression the real murder weapon left in blood on Meredith's sheet.

Yes, Stephanoni found Amanda's DNA in the cottage in many places. And of course she found Meredith's too -- and even mixed, in some places -- since they both lived there. But she found NONE of Amanda's DNA (or fingerprints, or hair, or anything else) in the BEDROOM where Kercher was actually murdered. Which would be impossible if Amanda was involved in a violent murder in there.

How would anyone other than Meredith know that "nothing was stolen" from her? OTOH, Guede's fingerprints and DNA were found on Meredith's purse -- but not Amanda's or her boyfriend's.

The translated sentencing report is at the link, below.

http://www.examiner.com/crime-in-national/amanda-knox-read-translated-italian-report-regarding-why-american-student-was-convicted-of-murder

Show us where the judge is wrong.

she'd be likely to earn over her working life, assuming an average UK income over 40 years.

Because she's dead.

His was the DNA, blood, handprints, footprints, etc. found all over the murder room -- more than a hundred pieces of evidence. And absolutely none of Amanda's.

So this fact doesn't seem very relevant.

Your propaganda for Ms. Knox - and disdain for Ms. Kercher and her family - are well-known. No doubt, in your mind, the tragedy that befell Ms. Kercher at Ms. Knox's hands pales in comparison to your little legal case, and the great injustice that's supposedly been visited upon Ms. Knox. For this reason, I don't really take anything you say on this matter seriously, since you seem terminally incapable of forming an objective opinion.

Since I have never expressed any disdain for the murder victim or her family, you clearly have me confused with someone else.

In any case, I know a group of people who have followed the trial rather closely - I daresay more closely than even the Knox-obsessed on this board: that would be Ms. Kercher's relatives. Through some odd chance, they all seem rather convinced of ms. Knox's guilt. Are they part of the cover-up? Are they in league with the corrupt Italian justice system? or are they just dumber than you?

Which is it?

they've accepted the prosecution's nonsensical case, unless it's because an alternative theory (that the prosecution brought up but shot down) was that Meredith opened the door to her killer. And that idea would be too horrifying to bear.

I don't think that alternative is necessary at all. Guede had a criminal history of breaking in through second story windows, and this window would have been easy since it could have been approached from the hillside. There is no reason to think that EITHER Amanda or Meredith would have had to let him in through the front door.

The fact that you see it as "nonsensical" while the seemingly reasonable Kercher family sees it as compelling tells me all I need to know.

that Amanda could have cleaned all her DNA and other traces from the murder room while leaving more than 100 pieces of DNA and other evidence tying Guede to the room. DNA is INVISIBLE. Amanda could not have removed it and yet left Guede's.

"The fact that you see it as "nonsensical" while the seemingly reasonable..."

Much like you call an opinion you don't agree with "propaganda". Six of one, half a dozen of the other it would seems. I imagine that should tell us all we need to know about your posts...? Or (and I find this more likely), many people simply have faith that she did it, and many people simply have faith that she didn't-- regardless as to whether we label the opposition opinions as propaganda or not.

There's a difference between that and the endless propaganda of particular posters.

There is compelling evidence for her guilt that cannot be dismissed as "nonsensical." I'm happy to admit that the arguments for her innocence can also be sensible - when they are not petty distortions by propagandists.

of the guilt of whoever the prosecutor says is guilty. That's understandable, of course, because they need justice and closure, but justice is NOT convicting the wrong person and letting the guilty one go free. If my son were murdered, I think I'd have a tendency to be biased against whoever the prosecutor says is guilty and wouldn't look at the case in the same way as someone not so emotionally and intimately involved.

One major example I can think of is the case in Illinois of the child who was home from school sick and was kidnapped, raped and murdered by a burglar who broke into the house. A hispanic male who had nothing to do with it was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death even though there was almost no substantial or physical evidence tying him to the crime and the "confession" was practically beaten out of him by police desperate to get out from under the intense pressure to solve the case. It took many years and two trials and many appeals, but it was finally determined, through DNA and other evidence, that he'd had nothing to do with the crime and the DNA and prison tapes of the actual murderer talking about it finally solved the case, shortly before the convicted man was sentenced to die. It turned out that the prosecutors had known for a good long time that the convicted was likely NOT the murderer, and they'd withheld evidence from the defense, but they continued on with fighting appeals and insisting on the carrying out of the sentence. And that actually happened a lot more than you'd like to think and not everyone is likely to be exonerated. The prosecutors actually went on trial for malfeasance, as they damn well should have. Throughout it all the child's family insisted on the guilt of the innocent convicted and supported the prosecutors until the bitter end, when even they had to concede that the wrong man had spent many years in prison and the guilty party was actually someone else, who was eventually convicted of the crime. Why did they continue to think he was guilty? Because that's what the prosecutors said and because they understandably desperately needed justice and closure.

They seem reasonable and convinced.

We can explain that away with generalities and cases from Illinois and whatnot, but that hardly seems compelling. What the Knox supporters seem utterly incapable of doing is explaining why the perfectly reasonable family of Ms. Kercher seemingly fails to see the supposedly "obvious" case for Ms. Knox's innocence.

this case any better than anyone else, when they are so personally entangled in it?

And when the prosecutor had set out only two alternatives: that either Amanda opened the door to their daughter's murderer -- or that Meredith herself did. OF COURSE they can't bring themselves to believe the second alternative, so instead they cling to the first.

But neither choice is necessary. Guede, the burglar, has a history of breaking and entering through second story windows, exactly as happened in this case.

And their personal entanglement, as you call it, means that they want to get it right. At the very least, the fact that they believe - to a person - that Ms. Knox is guilty puts the lie to your constant claims that her innocence is obvious. It is clearly not "obvious," and the case is clearly not "nonsensical" if Ms. Kercher's family - who, again, are clearly more familiar with the facts of the case than YOU are - believe to a person that the case was reasonable. Whether they are correct or not is, of course, another story, but what their position demonstrates is that your const6ant carping that nobody reasonable could believe the prosecution case is, well, hogwash. So, of course, you now seek to paint them as unreasonable, that they've made all their judgments based on some kind of emotional defense mechanism - completely invented by you, by the by - having to do with being "unable" to bear the thought of Ms. Kercher opening the door to her own murderer. This is trite armchair psychologizing at best, but the sly way you lay the whole thing at Ms. Kercher's feet, then claim in a backhanded manner that the family isn't behaving reasonably simply goes to my earlier point. Never mind that your "burglary" position disputes the supposed confession of Mr. Guede to the child killer Mario Alessi - best known for smashing in the head of a two-year old with a shovel - on whose word the whole Knox family now places its hope of salvation...

Mignini is the only one claiming that someone opened the door to the burglar. I say that the evidence points to Guede coming through the window.


The Knox family is placing no importance on Alessi's claims -- as you would know if you read their recent statement. It doesn't make any more sense that Alessi's brother was there than that Amanda was there, because neither one left any physical trace in the murder room.

The Knox family is placing their hope and faith in a correct evaluation of the DNA evidence, not on any prisoners who claim someone else acted with Guede. That he acted alone is the only reasonable conclusion based on the more than 100 pieces of evidence in the murder room that tie him to the crime.

She lied, eg, about an innocent man, destroying his business and his life, to deflect attention away from herself.

I couldn't decide if she was guilty any role in the actual killing, but did believe she was there, from the evidence.

It's a sad story for all involved, and I do sympathize with her parents. But the Kerschces family have been incredibly dignified throughout all of it, never saying anything that might affect the trial, as some people would have, until it was over and even then, they said very little.

The Knox family otoh, have been no help to their daughter and maybe that's because of the situation they are in, but they alienated many people by their behavior.

I think she did get a very fair trial frankly, far more so than she might have here had both women been Americans.

For one thing, you say that she lied about an innocent man. Did you know that it was the prosecution that PUSHED her into naming the bar owner? (They had found a hair belonging to a black man in Meredith's hand, and a text message to Patrick on Amanda's cell.) That they insisted, over and over, that they knew he had done it, and they told her to IMAGINE that she'd been there, and they only got her to agree that maybe Patrick might have done it after keeping her awake overnight till 5:45 a.m.? And that all she "confessed" to was possibly a memory of hearing Meredith scream? That they interrogated her tag-team style -- two interrogators for an hour at a time, rotating to another pair, all night long, without giving her food and water -- so they were always fresh and she was always exhausted? That they interrogated her in Italian, which she hardly knew at the time, without an interpreter? That they didn't allow her to see an attorney until AFTER the interrogations were over?

If you don't believe what Amanda says about the interrogations, don't you wonder why -- in a building that includes taping equipment in every room (and that they used to tape Amanda speaking to her mother) -- they have produced no tapes or even transcripts of the interrogations? Even though Italian law requires such tapes be made and thousands of tapes had been made of previous interrogations? And don't you wonder why they wouldn't let her have an interpreter or a lawyer?

Did you know that after she had slept for a few hours, she withdrew the "confession"/statement naming the bar owner? That the judge at the criminal trial threw that "confession" out of the evidence? Did you know that the SAME jury was used to consider both the criminal cases and the civil cases (which were running concurrently) -- and that jury was allowed to review the "confession" for the civil case, but was supposed to DISREGARD it for the criminal case?

Did you know that the judge in the criminal case ruled that neither the defense nor impartial investigators needed to examine the DNA evidence -- that the prosecutor's lab report was all that the jury needed to consider?

Did you know that one of the jurors afterwards said it was so hard to imagine that Amanda and Raffaele had done it, but she guessed "it was possible." The standard in Italy isn't "it's possible." It's supposed to be the same as it is here: "beyond a reasonable doubt."

And you still think she had a fair trial?

What is your definition of a fair trial?


Finally, here's what a Seattle judge named Michael Heavey recently wrote to Pres. Obama. He says it all better than I just did.

http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/ConsularFailureKnox.pdf?abc=wwZJaDfi

police so it's a they said/she said situation regarding that aspect of it. Yes, they should havve recorded the interviews with her. And, as I said I was never convinced she participated in the murder, but did think she was there. Maybe she panicked, or maybe she wasn't there, I really do not know.

And there would be nothing worse than a conviction of someone who is innocent so I hope the appeals go better for her if she is innocent.

get justice for the murdered victim? The only justice is if the RIGHT person who actually committed the murder is brought to justice, and that hasn't happened in this case. Pinning the blame on someone and getting a conviction to get a conviction is not "justice" for any victim.

fucking assholes. i hate seeing this shitty ass family all over the tv spreading their bs.

one moment they said Amanda Knox doing cartwheels was a lie and next moment they say she does it to relax or some other shit excuse.

this news makes me happy.

No doubt they know their daughter is guilty and they're doing what they can to salvage her twenties, which she may as well write off.

It's the swarm of propagandists that have attached themselves to the case that constitutes the particularly disturbing spectacle.

in a tiny room and left not a trace of her presence there -- not a speck of DNA or blood, fingerprints, footprints, hair or fiber connected to Amanda in that bloody room -- and yet more than a hundred pieces of evidence connected to the burglar, Guede.

And please don't tell me that she managed to wash her invisible DNA from everything she had touched, while leaving so much of Guede's.

nt

cooking. You know? That's pretty weak. Find another point to argue please.

Amanda's was on the handle. Big deal, she cooked with that knife.

From the dull side of the knife came a tiny piece of DNA that "may" be "compatible" with Meredith's -- but was too small to be repeated in a second test . But no blood of Meredith's was found anywhere on the knife, including inside the handle where it would have seeped in if there had been a lot of blood. And yet potato starch WAS found on the knife -- so it hadn't been cleaned THAT well. The knife also didn't match the murder knife in size -- and not only could the size be determined by the knife wounds, but by the imprint the bloody knife made on the sheets on Meredith's bed.

So no one knows what happened to the knife that was outlined on the sheets. All we know for sure is that it wasn't the same knife that the police took from Raffaele's apartment and presented as the murder weapon.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/8209964/Amanda-Knox-She-realises-that-innocence-is-not-enough.html

In the two years I have been investigating this murder and its distorted legal procedure for a documentary, I have learnt to question every action of the process, to doubt its findings and to have reservations about every claim.

I have come to understand the guilty verdicts against Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were merely interim findings by a court that lacked the standards of objectivity to which we are accustomed, where evidence presented as fact was of dubious probative value. Nor am I, by any means, alone in my conclusions.

SNIP

For those of us brought up in a society where the tenet of law is that a person charged with an offence is innocent until proven guilty, it is hard to comprehend the maelstrom that overwhelmed Knox in the insular atmosphere of Perugia. And it is hard to accept that in a modern European country some of the police techniques used to elicit information are permissible, far less presented in a court of law as a recognised form of evidence.

SNIP

Expert witnesses and defence lawyers were highly critical of the work of police biologist Patrizia Stefanoni and the two forensic teams brought in from Perugia and Rome to collect evidence. Their failure to change gloves when picking up separate pieces of evidence, poor collection methods, incomplete records of evidence and the exact order of testing in the laboratory were among the common complaints. Further doubts were raised when it was revealed that the Rome laboratory conducting the tests was unauthorised and did not meet internationally-accepted higher standards common throughout Europe.

SNIP

Americans. Some think she's not guilty, others want her condemned to life in prison.

Shows how poor the reporting is or how poor people's attention to facts emerging from a foreign trial where rules of evidence and court and police procedures do not follow our Constitution.

Amazing. Well, really NOT, given how some people choose to only look at a few facts before drawing their conclusions.

months before the case even went to trial -- including "evidence" that never got presented in Court. (Either it was tossed by a judge or it never existed at all.)

Much of that evidence continually gets cited by people who never bothered to follow the actual trial. It's sickening to see how easily people can be manipulated.

here in the USA. This is a publicity game, and, sadly, many Americans think of this "trial" as if it were in the USA, and as if they are hearing "evidence" that is of substance.

are very concerned with not looking like they are siding with someone simply because she is an American, which might make them look "nationalistic" in their view. Therefore they will bend over backward to avoid looking as if they have an American bias in any case such as this... they will even go against their own common sense and believe in Satanic sex orgies if it means not looking like they are biased because Amanda is an American. It's a knee-jerk reaction I've seen here at the DU many times in this case and others. Far better to believe in satanists than to accuse the Italian justic system of the egregious injustic they have visited upon Amanda, I suppose.

For others who think she is guilty, I think they really do believe Amanda and her boyfriend were having a frenzied satanic sex orgy with the actual murderer, Rudy Guede. Sad, but considering the average IQ is 100, it is not really THAT surprising I guess.

Sraah Palin would be proud of your display of American "exceptionalism."

that we started to make with the Duke false-rape charges -- with a corrupt prosecutor at the root of each of the cases -- and "privileged" college students an easy and unpopular target. The difference is that Amanda's case has gone on for almost 4 years and she's been in prison for that whole time. By comparison, the Duke students were lucky -- they never had to go to prison and their case ended before it went to trial.

Another difference is that what freed the Duke students was the DNA raw files finally being released to the defense. Amanda Knox was convicted in a trial without her defense ever being able to examine the DNA "evidence" supposedly used against her. It was only about a month ago, during the appeal process, that a judge finally forced the prosecutor to turn over those files.

should be fighting it. She's as innocent as the Duke students were of the false-rape case.

brutal slaying.

then so are you.

Have you ever known anyone who died? Days later, were you able to EAT? How could you? Why didn't you at least "fake the appropriate reaction"?

Amanda had only known Meredith for 3 weeks before the murder. And yes, she was so callous that she actually had PIZZA in a restaurant within days of the slaying. That's what Mignini's investigator said -- he said he knew she was guilty because she ate pizza in a restaurant, and any good Italian woman would have still been in her room, crying her eyes out.

What kind of witch trial was this? And why are you playing along?

http://dailyuw.com/2008/6/5/investigating-amanda-knox/

The Italian investigator was trying to get in touch with Knox’s then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and discovered Knox was eating pizza three days after Kercher’s murder, Ciolino said.

Ciolino paraphrased him, telling The Daily that the investigator was shocked that Knox was enjoying pizza, and that he would’ve still been crying in bed.

Reporters for Vanity Fair and a UK Channel 4 video documentary also conducted interviews with Perugian residents and students, who expressed that Knox had not displayed enough grief following Kercher’s death.

But these grounds for suspicion aren’t enough for an initial arrest, some say.

“She was eating dinner and this was what police decided was their reason to go after her,” Ciolino said.

Knox’s reaction could also be one of several typical reactions to witnessing trauma.

“It could also mean she was personally in a state of shock and frightened to death,” Weis said. “Some people shut down. Other people explode. The fact that she was stoic doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

Anyone is welcome to join and post, or lurk.

They can get their supporters to send them a dollar a piece.

Anyone who wants an un-bought-for account can read the judge's sentencing report.

http://www.examiner.com/crime-in-national/amanda-knox-read-translated-italian-report-regarding-why-american-student-was-convicted-of-murder

Peggy Ganong and her nasty crew.

who murdered her friend in a satanic sex orgy. I mean that is what the prosecutor (who is charged with corruption) argued. I would have thought the DU would have been more rational, but after reading this thread over, I see that many are not at all rational. What a disappointment. I guess there are still a lot of people who are taken in by the accusation of satanism. I feel so bad for Amanda and her family, not to mention her boyfriend. They've been through hell. And the man who actually murdered Meredith got sentenced to less time in prison than the two innocent "satanists." What a terrible injustice.

Satanists? Sex orgies? I agree with you that it's something out of a horror film, and not believable in the least.

The book is by Douglas Preston, and it chronicles his experiences with this same corrupt prosecutor who tried to pin a series of murders on an innocent journalist. Preston almost got arrested himself, just digging into the story.