<p>Sam Lee is correct - there has been little criticism at least here in the UK of the Italian court’s verdict . And it’s interesting to read that US readers think Amanda Knox was viewed as ‘emotionless.’ Here, it is her ‘high spirits’ which have been called into question - eg much has been made of her turning cartwheels when first in police custody. The case has been followed closely here - the victim was a South London girl doing a very popular study abroad programme from a very popular uni.</p>
<p>I can’t say I’ve exhaustively studied the facts of this case and certainly can’t judge the quality of the evidence, but if I assume Timothy Egan (below) did and every other reporter (granted, American) did, it’s pretty hard to think Amanda Knox and her boyfriend were anything but railroaded.</p>
<p>A couple things I don’t understand: Why is it not expected that one’s dna might be found on a tool in one’s own home? How is this damning evidence, unless it’s covered in her blood or something? And roommates borrow clothing all the time–why is it suspicious that the boyfriend was in possession of Kercher’s bra? My neighbor borrowed one of mine once…I imagine she left a few skin cells behind. At least if it hadn’t been laundered yet, it doesn’t seem unusual to me. Maybe even after laundering–I’d have to consult the CSI folks to know that.</p>
<p>I’d also like to offer some anecdotal information that I believe to be true. I have known several people who have lived in Italy and, while they have become fluent in Italian, they universally say it is mentally exhausting to speak and think in Italian all day. I have to think this is true for Amanda Knox, who I don’t believe is a native speaker of the language, however fluent she may be. Furthermore, the many Italians I know who are fluent in English (DH has an office in Italy) often make slip-ups when speaking English that, if not put into proper context, could certainly be construed to have meanings they certainly do not intend.</p>
<p>The Italian courts are asking that we believe Amanda Knox is a Manson-like sociopath. I have seen nothing that suggests she fits that profile.</p>
<p>This is a NYT editorial:
DECEMBER 2, 2009, 9:30 PM
Amanda Knox Revisited</p>
<p>By TIMOTHY EGAN
Giuseppe Bellini/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Amanda Knox on Tuesday.
Timothy Egan on American politics and life, as seen from the West.</p>
<p>Tags:</p>
<p>amanda knox, italy, justice, meredith kercher, murder</p>
<p>Related
An Innocent Abroad, June 10, 2009
The Knox Trial, Continued, June 12, 2009
In just a few days, a verdict is expected in the trial of Amanda Knox, the 22-year-old Seattle exchange student on trial in Italy for the throat-slashing murder of her British roommate two years ago. Her ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, is also being tried.</p>
<p>The trial in the Umbrian college town of Perugia has dragged on just short of a year. As this weeks closing arguments showed once again, the case has very little to do with actual evidence and much to do with the ancient Italian code of saving face.</p>
<p>In closing arguments, Knox was described as a Luciferina and a dirty-minded she-devil. Preposterous, made-up sexual motives were ascribed to her. One prosecutor speculated before the jury what Knox may have said to Meredith Kercher before, he claimed, forcing an orgy that resulted in her death:</p>
<p>You are always behaving like a little saint. Now we will show you. Now we will make you have sex.</p>
<p>Nobody alleges that Knox said this to Kercher. But prosecutors asked the jury to imagine her saying such a thing.</p>
<p>What century is this? Didnt Joan of Arc, the Inquisition and our own American Salem witch trials teach civilized nations a thing or two about contrived sexual hysteria with a devil twist?</p>
<p>On top of everything else, just a few days ago, the parents of Amanda Knox a schoolteacher and an out-of-work retail accounts manager whove maxed out their retirement funds and mortgaged their home to pay for a legal defense were served with legal papers by the authorities prosecuting their daughter.</p>
<p>Now the parents are under investigation for defamation, stemming from a long-ago interview with a British paper, in which they recounted their daughters tale of being mistreated while she was questioned all night by police without an attorney.</p>
<p>The timing is suspect, to say the least. This jury is not sequestered. By casting doubt outside the courtroom on Knoxs account of mistreatment, the authorities can hope to influence the outcome inside the courtroom.</p>
<p>But lets stick with the core of the case. As Ive written earlier, there is no physical evidence placing Amanda Knox at the blood-splattered crime scene, the room where the killing took place. Zero.</p>
<p>But there is abundant evidence linking a drifter named Rudy Guede to the scene blood, DNA, prints and his own admission. Little wonder he fled to Germany just after the killing, while Knox went to the police voluntarily, without an attorney. Little wonder that he was found guilty, last year, of sexual assault and conspiracy to kill Kercher. Hes serving a 30-year sentence and appealing the case.</p>
<p>There is no motive for Knox and Sollecito; they have no criminal record, no history of violent group sexual encounters. E-mails show Knox and her roommate got along fine, except for the typical college-student disputes over bathroom and household chores.</p>
<p>The one bit of physical evidence from the scene that ties Sollecito not Knox to the crime is a bra clasp from Kercher. Prosecutors claim they found some of his DNA on this. But it was not discovered until 46 days after the murder, making it subject to contamination and manipulation.</p>
<p>Prosecutors also say a knife found at Sollecitos house links Knox to the crime. But numerous forensic experts have said the blade size of that knife did not match the wounds, and the DNA on it was such a trace amount that it could not be accurately tested.</p>
<p>So, why has Knox been jailed for two years? As near as I can tell, she is on trial for inappropriate behavior. A widely shown video showed her kissing her boyfriend and cuddling just days after the murder. An athlete, she did cartwheels cartwheels! while in the midst of a long interrogation. This was evidence of her contempt of authorities, prosecutors said.</p>
<p>And she wore t-shirts with Beatles lyrics to court an alt Holly Golightly from Seattle, as Time magazine called her.</p>
<p>In her closing argument, the highly acclaimed Italian defense attorney, Giulia Bongiorno, who is also a member of Parliament, tried to address this guilt-by-inappropriate-behavior argument.</p>
<p>She is not Amanda the Ripper, Bongiorno told the jury. She is a little crazy, extravagant. She does the cartwheels in the police station because reality for her is too strong to deal with. She is spontaneous, immediate and imprudent. She compared her to Amelie, the spacey naïf in the French movie of the same name.</p>
<p>The prosecutorial pride issue dates to the arrest two years ago. Shortly after the killing, after days of interrogation produced suspect stories from Knox and Sollecito, the authorities publicly pronounced the case closed. They had the killers two college lovers.</p>
<p>Except, they didnt. Guede was still at large, and not even named. And later, the Italian Supreme court threw out much of the results of the long interrogation. With abundant evidence tied to Guede, prosecutors should have dropped the case against Sollecito and Knox. Instead, they simply added him to the pair of college students, and changed the story to fit. Guede himself did not testify in the Knox trial, after making statements so inconsistent a school child could trip him up.</p>
<p>And once the prosecutors had fastened on to this bizarre narrative of a sex-crazed thrill killing, to the delight of the European tabloid press, they had to stick to it. Their honor was at stake, no small thing in Italy.</p>
<p>To many Americans, this trial is an outrage. Its probably the most egregious international railroading of two innocent young people Ive ever seen, said John Q. Kelly, a former prosecutor known for getting a civil verdict against O.J. Simpson for the murder of his ex-wife. Speaking on CNN last month, he called it a public lynching based on rank speculation.</p>
<p>Italians see it differently, of course. I was in Italy last month, and found that public opinion had shifted somewhat. There was more skepticism about the case. Still, to many Italians, Amanda Knox is a spoiled, amoral American college girl who has not shown sufficient remorse for the death of her roommate. The narrative of the manipulative she-devil is widespread.</p>
<p>How this happened was explained by Peter Popham, writing last week in The Independent, a British paper.</p>
<p>In Italy, prosecutors regularly leak their theories to the newspapers, often in extraordinary detail, he wrote. As a result, by the time a trial comes around, the public already knows what they think about a case, and why. This makes miscarriages of justice horribly likely.</p>
<p>As with the American system, the Italian jury will be asked to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt this week. Their verdict is not supposed to be about medieval superstitions, sexual projections, Satan fantasies or the honor of a prosecution team. If they simply apply the standard that the law calls for, the verdict will be obvious.</p>
<p>Last January, Peter Popham reported details of the case without drawing conclusions about the possible outcome. At the time, he did not seem to be upset about the prosecutor or the judge. I wonder what made him change his mind.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/amanda-knox-innocent-abroad-or-a-calculating-killer-now-t[/url]”>http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/amanda-knox-innocent-abroad-or-a-calculating-killer-now-t</a></p>
<p>How many of us wished that the OJ Simpson jury had gotten to read the info that we were privy to through the media? Jury sequestration is usually a good thing, but not always.</p>
<p>Marite, do you think you can cut and paste the Popham article? The link doesn’t work and all I can find are at least mildly skeptical commentaries. (Skeptical of the theories proposed by the prosecution, that is.)</p>
<p>Sorry, let me try again:</p>
<p>[Amanda</a> Knox: innocent abroad, or a calculating killer? Now the jury must decide - Europe, World - The Independent](<a href=“Amanda Knox: innocent abroad, or a calculating killer? Now the jury must decide | The Independent | The Independent”>Amanda Knox: innocent abroad, or a calculating killer? Now the jury must decide | The Independent | The Independent)</p>
<p>I am agnostic on the issue of guilt or innocence. I have followed the case, but not closely enough to pass judgment. I have, however, been taken aback by some of the comments on this thread and was responding to them.</p>
<p>I don’t know for sure, of course, and my perspective is probably tainted by the fact that I have a smart, sweet, sometimes goofy 19-year-old daughter who is taking Italian in preparation for a semester in Italy. When I see images of Amanda Knox sitting serenely at the defense table, turning and smiling sweetly at relatives, I see a naive, young American girl whose advisors are encouraging her to believe that the truth will triumph, and all the while the prosecution is spinning fantastic tales of ghoulish melodrama, which the press is using to sell newspapers and the public is eating up as entertainment. Meredith Kercher’s death was horrific and tragic, to be sure. The convoluted fantasy that has ensnared Amanda Knox only serves to sensationalize and trivialize the actual crime, glorify the killer, and likely give him grounds for a retrial and possible exoneration. It’s sick, and, yes, it does frighten me to think of sending my daughter to Italy.</p>
<p>In no way do I not have agony for the gentleman’s families in this case. Because we are on “college” website, my thoughts were streaming toward how it would feel to be the parent of an exchange student, and what situation would be the most heart wrenching. There of course is not a “right” answer for that, just a comment to spark debate. So with my mind-set being on the exchange student side of the story, that is the debate I chose to present. It would be horribly closed minded for anyone on this board to think for a minute that only some of families related to the case were feeling pain.</p>
<p>CS</p>
<p>She did a lot of drugs for such an innocent young girl.</p>
<p>It is surprising that anyone one would find a mention of cultural bias to be in any way “strange” in this context. It is one of the themes which has been touched upon regularly since this fiasco began.
[OJ</a> Simpson lawyer slams ‘public lynching’ of Amanda Knox | People in the News | People | The First Post](<a href=“http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/54907,people,news,oj-simpson-lawyer-john-q-kelly-slams-public-lynching-of-amanda-knox-meredith-kercher?lost=1]OJ”>http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/54907,people,news,oj-simpson-lawyer-john-q-kelly-slams-public-lynching-of-amanda-knox-meredith-kercher?lost=1)</p>
<p>
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/world/europe/06perugia.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/world/europe/06perugia.html</a></p>
<p>
<a href=“http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/6737900/Amanda-Knox-guilty…-but-of-what.html%5B/url%5D”>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/6737900/Amanda-Knox-guilty…-but-of-what.html</a></p>
<p>
<a href=“http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/side-effects/200912/amanda-knox-and-the-power-projection-0[/url]”>http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/side-effects/200912/amanda-knox-and-the-power-projection-0</a></p>
<p>Sounds like lots of stereotyping of Italians.</p>
<p>I’m fully cognizant of the extreme parochialism of most national and local media. I was surprised to find so much of it among supposedly culturally open-minded CC parents.</p>
<p>Evidently the trial was a total farce. I suspect they’ll appeal and she’ll be out in 3 years or so when they reverse the verdict.</p>
<p>I have no idea if she is innocent or guilty. But when did smoking pot dictate innocence or guilt?</p>
<p>It just dictates she was not what her parents and supporters tried to portray. As in most cases of older children and parents, the later really don’t know what their kids are like in their private lives. For them to keep portraying Amanda is some naive young girls was just not in keeping with the facts. It does not mean she was a murderess.</p>
<p>I don’t know what planet you live on, barrons, but on mine there are a whole bunch of naive young girls who drink, smoke pot, and have sex. In fact, I think as they become more worldly their lives revolve a lot less around those things.</p>
<p>On my planet, barrons didn’t say anything like that. 
</p>
<p>I guess we are talking about a different type of “naive”.</p>
<p>From what I think is a fair article about the case.
</p>
<p>Reading some of the comments made here, I would say it’s a sad fact that some people in our society hold a duel and very malicious standard when it comes to gender and accountability. </p>
<p>[Link</a> to article](<a href=“The Daily Beast: The Latest in Politics, Media & Entertainment News”>The Daily Beast: The Latest in Politics, Media & Entertainment News)</p>
<p>That may be a fair article about the case, but it doesn’t come close to convincing me that there was enough evidence to bring Amanda Knox to trial in the U.S., much less to convict her. Her DNA was on the handle of a kitchen knife in her boyfriend’s kitchen? That’s sure strong evidence! She didn’t have a corroborated alibi? Most of the time, neither do I. I would be up a creek if I ever had to prove that on any particular evening I wasn’t a few blocks from my house. She made ambiguous and contradictory admissions after heavy, and physical, interrogation? So would almost anyone, regardless of guilt or innocence.</p>
<p>The degree of speculation prosecutors were apparently permitted is bewildering to me as an American lawyer. Apart from anything else, that alone would be grounds for a mistrial here, if not for disciplinary sanctions.</p>
<p>In the end, regardless of what the jury says, it is very difficult to believe that she was convicted for anything other than being a beautiful young woman whose behavior strayed too often from local norms. That’s essentially what the article linked concludes, too.</p>
<p>^Regardless, to me when I read articles from the US, it seems like they often contain good dose of “opinion”. Also, why is it that the US media have been interviewing pretty much just the defense attorney, US lawyers, family, relatives, and friends of the suspect? I find it odd that I didn’t know about her wide/naughty side until I start reading foreign articles. We hear criticism of the Italian system from the US perspective. They can’t find Italian lawyers that speak English and speak for their own system?? Where’s the “balance”? </p>
<p>At least the UK articles seem more neutral and focus on the facts/information without passing too much opinion and judgement. I often feel more enjoyable to read BBC than CNN which is often too biased for my taste even though I think I am fairly “liberal”.</p>