Third Amanda Knox Verdict Due Shortly

Parent Cafe
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<p>People have the freedom to express any opinion that they like. They just have to deal with the flak if others find theirs distasteful or disagree with their opinion. You have no choice but to tolerate other’s opinions, that’s the price of a free society. It’s not like you can actually do anything except for argue against it. What you might find distasteful, others might agree with. </p>

<p>It is far more offensive to me to try to shut other people down that you disagree with, than for someone to express an opinion that I don’t like.</p>

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<p>No, people do not have that freedom - if that were true there would be no need for forum moderators or TOS. I repeat, there is no such thing as absolute freedom of speech. Personally I think what she said is borderline slander given that it is quite without foundation in fact.</p>

<p>I’m not trying to shut cptofthehouse up (she’s already said it so how could I?). I only want to know why she thinks Meredith’s sex life is at all relevant, and why she isn’t prepared to say that Meredith is wholly innocent.</p>

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<p>Id agree that the Italian police & the court system have bungled tha</p>

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<p>That’s ok. I’ve just shut out Nordicblue myself, and s/he has the right to do the same to me. The problem I have with some of the Justice for Meredith type sites AS WELL as the ones for Knox, AND some of Nordicblue’s statements is that they are inherently not true. For me, I like a differentiation between the facts and spin. There is a lot of spin here, and, yes, Knox was convicted on a lot of spin because the facts that she gave did not pan out so many times, that the court court did fill in their own blanks which,yes, courts are permitted to do. </p>

<p>A lot of Knox’s actions have been panned and reviled terrilby, when Kercher’s were not. A lot of things about the murder and the dead woman herself have been kept out of print out of the old respect for the dead sentiment, something Europeans in particular like to hold. I have no such compunctions. I don’t hold for an instant that Kercher deserved what happened to her–and I would not even if she had been a hardened criminal and streetwalker, neither of which she was, but those young women lived a life that made this sort of thing more likely to happen that for most people. There is no evidence that Kercher did NOT let in Guede. No evidence that she did NOT start out with him as a guest in the house. Not that it makes what happened any better. There is a St Meredith sentiment about all of this, that the Knox PR and Amanda Knox herself have tried to leave alone, so strong is the backlash if anyone says anything to the contrary, which puzzles me. In the US, in most any case, it would be part of the evidence and not be just purged in accounts that make no sense without that info in there. </p>

<p>At this point in time, the big problem Amanda Knox has is that she has been found guilty by the Italian courts this round, and has just one more shot at it, the way their system works. If she does not get a Not Guilty verdict the next time around, the Italian justice system will require her to serve her sentence, ironically as Guede gets out, and the US will likely be asked to ship her over to ITaly to do so. I think the US will be compelled to do, regardless of sentiment here, which is definitely pro Knox. The PR has generated funds for Knox to fight the charges, which has been a huge expense, as one can only imagine, and at this point maybe put money away for her to live elsewhere if Knox chooses not to serve her sentence and take to flight. </p>

<p>My sentiments about this case are entrenched in truly deep sympathies for the Kerchers who lost their daughter, and for the Knox family who are fighting so hard to keep their daughter out of prison, as well as the Sollecitos also engaged in the same battle. </p>

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<p>My prediction is that the US will find some justification for not extraditing her to Italy–probably something murkily procedural. They will be influenced the by pretty strong feeling that she never could have been convicted on such evidence in the US. Sollecito is the one who will end up paying the price.</p>

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<p>Right, so you ‘shut me out’ and choose not to answer any of my questions, presumably because you have no answer to give.</p>

<p>Having sex, drinking and taking drugs (there’s no proof she did the latter by the way) do not make you more likely to be murdered. Maybe they do in the US, but not in Italy.</p>

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<p>“Having sex, drinking and taking drugs (there’s no proof she did the latter by the way) do not make you more likely to be murdered. Maybe they do in the US, but not in Italy.”</p>

<p>It certainly makes you more likely to be murdered in many countries. Sure, not if you’re having sex with your husband, or drinking a glass of wine at dinner. But indiscriminately drinking too much at a party, certainly doing drugs and having indiscriminate sex with people you don’t know…of course that puts you at risk. That’s why we lecture our kids about this in high school and particularly when going to college. Apparently there is no drug related violence, date/acquaintance rape or drunken assaults in Italy. What an amazing country.</p>

<p>Apparently I need to put in the qualifier that I am just addressing the statement quoted and not any particular person. Though that should be obvious, I don’t want anyone accusing me of “borderline slander”.</p>

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<p>Yes, I am sure no one ever has been murdered in Italy by someone in a drunken rage, or sexually assaulted by someone they shouldn’t have trusted in the first place.</p>

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<p>“That’s why we lecture our kids about this in high school and particularly when going to college.”</p>

<p>No, ‘we’ don’t. Meredith was British; she grew up in a completely different culture. It seems to me that some Americans are judging Meredith according to their own social and cultural values and by American ideas of danger which is decidedly unfair.</p>

<p>Drinking and having indiscriminate sex is normal and to be expected, it does not make one any more likely to be murdered - especially not in a small Italian town. In the 20+ years of the Erasmus study abroad scheme I think Meredith was the first to be murdered. If drinking, doing drugs and having sex made one more likely to be attacked then you would expect Erasmus students to have a disproportionally high murder rate, but that is not the case. In short, her sex life and drinking habits are completely irrelevant.</p>

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<p>

They may be, or they may not be. Thinking that they should be irrelevant is a different matter. In the specific case, did her actions expose her to risks? I don’t know–but it’s not impossible that they might have. It may be true that in Italy, people don’t consider such actions to be risky.</p>

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<p>Victims are not off limits here in the courts. Sometimes, it goes too far, but no they are not. And they are not off limits to me, nope, not at all Absolutely, even the most lowdown law breaker still doesn’t deserve to get murdered, and the murderer of such still needs to go through the police and court systems. Kercher was brutally murdered, terrible death, but that doesn’t put her on a pedestal. The whole lot of them did behave in ways that increased the chances of this sort of thing happening. The roommates’ testimonies and statements,as well as the friends and a number of males who did apparently tell all, and whose stories did pan out upon investigations, stated that they were all drinking a lot, taking illegal drugs, having sex with a lot of different people, getting drunk/stoned, whatever. Yes, they all admitted it and Kercher was no exception to the activiites. I read the statements </p>

<p>The problem was and is that Sollecito and Knox did not give statements that panned out and they did stand out from their peers’ in that respect. How they acted, what they did prior to the death of Kercher really should not come into play as to making a decision, but that they directly lied to the police, continued to lie, and those lies have been proven as lies, and there are some key points about the case that they lied about repeatedly is part of why they are in trouble. The press and blogs and supporters as well as detractors on both sides of this matter, as well as the courts, however, have a hard time not dragging in the extraneous information along with what is relevant. That Knox reacted inappropriately, did not say the right things, none of those things should have been or should be relevant but they have been brought up by media and made their way into procedings, and certainly in some of the anti Knox blogs out there. The pro Knox movement has remained respectful to the victim and the families in every way I can see. The ill behavior and panning is one way in this regard. And I"m one who advocates making the moves in shipping Knox back to Italy if the end result is guilty and Italy so request extradition. Knox would have the right to fight extradition in US courts, and if she wins in that endeavor, then so be it too. I support the court decisions of both countries. </p>

<p>There are some situations when one is the object of an extradition request, as Knox may end up being, where one can claim that the country’s charges and system of justice, the evidence, the proceedings do not meet up with our standards or are too draconian, and if they are proven in court to be way off, then extradition can be denied. From what I have read, that will be an uphill fight for Knox, as experts who have examined the case for those purposes have refused to take that stance on their behalf.</p>

<p>The Italian trials, courts, system of justice does not work the same way as ours, so I don’t know if Knox and Sollecit are going to be requested to return to the court site and/or be incarcerated as they initially were with the first guilty verdict. They were exonerated upon the second phase, and now the the first verdict is upheld, but they get another shot at it and this is supposed to all be part one process, not falling under double jeopardy. Makes little sense to me, since they were jailed after Phase 1 even though there was more to go, and yet there doesn’t seem to be a push for them to return to jail yet. which would be the case in an appeals process. Once guilty, into jail you go , and then out if you win your appeal, but not if you don’t. here. IF the initial verdict and sentence is upheld, then it seems to me that Italy should make their extradition request since the the not guilty no longer holds. They didn’t let the two of them out with first round, let them out with the second, and are not insisting they go back the third. That part I don’t understand. </p>

<p>I’ll tell you, here in the US, any parents reading about this case, will not likely want to send their kids to that particular program, and I know some who are now reluctant to send to anywhere, particularly Italy. So the town has had its hits from this. I don’t advocate these DIY programs anyways. Just one less layer of flimsy protection, but sometimes it can make a difference. And I grew up in Europe, went to school there and have family there with some of may family who will be doing higher ed there. </p>

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<p>Cptofthehouse you are missing the point. You keep saying that Meredith drank a lot, had sex with different people, did drugs… but so what? You have not shown that these things are directly linked to her murder or that they in any way increased the risk of murder. The stats clearly show that Erasmus students (who do all of the above things) experience very low levels of crime and according to my knowledge, only one has ever been murdered.</p>

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<p>".The stats clearly show that Erasmus students (who do all of the above things) experience very low levels of crime and according to my knowledge, only one has ever been murdered."</p>

<p>So therefore, Erasmus students can do anything they possibly want, because only one has ever been murdered. Good Lord, I hope you’re not a parent. I also hope you aren’t in a career field that involves statistics. Taking a huge generalization from a tiny statistical sample means absolutely nothing.</p>

<p>I wonder if it’s only Erasmus students that are protected from harm while in Italy, no matter what they do. Or is there a magic line around the country that keeps everyone safe from harm within it (and of course, there are terrible things that can happen to people besides murder). Or is it only if you do them with Italians? I love Italy, but I felt unsafe in many places, and that was just walking around, not having indiscriminate sex and doing drugs. Of course I felt a lot safer after drinking two glasses of wine, but that was probably an illusion.</p>

<p>I wonder if I can generalize about my safety in Italy. I have never been attacked or killed, in all the times I’ve been there. Therefore, I never will be attacked or killed in Italy, no matter what I do. Even if I walk around in the middle of the night by myself flashing money. It hasn’t happened to me yet, therefore it never will.</p>

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nordicblue, you’re missing the point as well. While statistically, these activities may not have historically shown much risk, the question is whether, in this particular case, the victim’s own activities exposed her to risks. I haven’t followed the facts closely enough to say, but if (as an example, not saying she did this) somebody brings strangers back to their apartment for sex, that’s risky behavior, in the US or Italy or anywhere else. As cptofthehouse said, engaging in risky behavior doesn’t excuse the criminal at all. But I think sometimes the impulse to avoid blaming the victim may interfere with understanding the facts of this case. Surely everybody can agree that the facts of this case have been screwed up almost beyond belief? And there are several different versions of the facts, so much so that people in some countries think it’s obvious that Knox is guilty, and people in other countries think it’s obvious that she isn’t.</p>

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<p>“Taking a huge generalization from a tiny statistical sample means absolutely nothing.”</p>

<p>Tiny? 3 million seems to be a rather sizable sample in my opinion.</p>

<p>“nordicblue, you’re missing the point as well.”</p>

<p>Perhaps. I do not claim there was no risk in Meredith’s behaviour - there is an element of risk in everything we do, but the risk Meredith took was in my opinion insignificant and not enough to ‘knock her off her pedestal’. Meredith was completely innocent, why won’t cptofthehouse accept that?</p>

<p>Are the victims of the Columbine High School massacre also to be knocked of their ‘pedestals’ because their parents took the ‘risk’ of sending them to a school in a state with lax gun control laws? The implications of cptofthehouse’s ideas of risk and innocence are quite extreme - are there any innocent victims at all?</p>

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<p>Blaming a victim and voicing opinions about her role in her own death does not change the unfortunate outcome. I have spent countless hours in courtrooms covering trials and I will tell you that none of us are perfect, and that every victim made a choice that led to their murder, attempted murder, assault, rape, robber or an accident. It could’ve been as simple as turning left on a street rather than right. Or choosing to go to the bank while it’s being held up. It’s unproductive and unkind to judge or moralize someone’s character in these situations. And this happens FAR too often in rape cases. </p>

<p>The bottom line is that the circumstances of Meredith’s death are not likely to come to light unless someone truly confesses. Kind of like the Jonbenet Ramsey case.</p>

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<p>thanks for expressing my thoughts exactly agentninetynine. we usually reserve victim blaming for rape, but I see here we’re including murder victims too</p>

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<p>The Knox PR “machine” has shown incredible compassion and respect to the Kercher family, but the same as not been returned by the Kerchers who are convinced that Knox deserves to spend time in jail for murder. Not all families who lose a loved one react that way, but the Kerchers have. Though they do say, they will never know what happened that night, they also say that they want Sollecito, Knox convicted of it. And this was when the courts evicted the guilty charge and let them free. They should have just sat it out and seen how things worked out. They are pro Italian courts when the verdict supports their beliefs and anti when it doesn’t. And at this point, the only thing at stake for them is the very hefty payment they would be due if Sollecito and Knox are found guilty since Guede is highly unlikely to ever be able to pay his “fine” to them. Their daughter is dead, and her roommate is up for murder charges for that death. The reverse could have just as easily have happened, IMO, and with John Kercher a writer, and a good one at that, it’s likely there would then be a Pro Kercher PR machine. </p>

<p>IF you take the stupid behavior out of the picture, and Knox did behave badly, and just list the facts which is not the way a court of law works, and the ITalian court is even worse than ours that way from the junk that is there that is not fact but theory and conjecture, it’s not obvious that Knox did what the courts found her guilty of doing, but she certainly did lie to the police and courts so many times, that at this point, nothing she or Sollecitio says can be beileived without a rock hard piece of proof backing it up. She deserved to sit in jail for that, IMO as did Sollecito. The rest,…well, I will stand behind the final decision of the Italian courts, and if it’s to let Knox free, hopefully the Kerchers can abide by that as well. I don’t think they can. They’ve made up their mind independent of the court’s verdict. </p>

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<p>It’s useful to identify risky behavior in order to warn others of its risks. The example I use is leaving your bike unlocked on a city street. If it gets stolen, the fact that you left it unlocked does not, in any way, excuse the behavior of the person who took it. But many people will (rightly, in my opinion) tell you that you were foolish to expose yourself unduly to that risk. It would be absurd, surely, for you to answer, “But I should have the right to leave my bike unlocked.” I don’t think this is quite the same thing as blaming the victim, but it is a distinction that seems to create problems for many people.</p>

<p>But in this case, the issue of what Kercher did or didn’t do is relevant to the facts. Guede claimed that she let him in, and made other statements about what they did. It seems likely that these were all untrue, but they were certainly relevant to the facts of the case.</p>

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<p>So if you were Amanda Knox and her family - would you be looking for a place to go live? Would you stay and pray that the US govt won’t extradite you or make a run for it?</p>