Can anything be done for Amanda Knox?

I don’t know enough about the Italian legal system to know what would be best. What are grounds for retrials there?

Hard to know, since we weren’t at the trial. But one has to hope that the Italian system is a good one. The one thing I heard is that she has changed her story a few times, implicating others as she did it.

Any good articles about it so we can have a better background??

The US system is not beyond making a point using innocent people. Doesn’t surprise me that it occurs elsewhere.

Even though it had been scrubbed with bleach, analysts found traces of Meredith’s DNA on the knife tip, and traces of Amanda’s DNA near the handle. from page 5, has the whole story their.

send her a Welcome to prison starter kit

oh crap i’m not reading that, i meant an article

lol

A quote from the current article in the New York imes:

In Italy, it is common for sentences to be reduced in two potential rounds of appeals.

I was appalled by the sentence, From what I have read, it was a circus, the prosecutors got to say anything they wanted, including making up dialog they thought might have been said, and saying the knife they found was the murder weapon when forensics proved it was not the knife. I hope she can get an appeal and a real trial.

I am guessing none of us here have any idea what actually happened. What makes you think she is innocent?

I am really just curious, as i know nothing about the case.

I didn’t say she was innocent, I said she didn’t have a fair trial. She deserves a fair trial as all humans do. They had no evidence to prove she did it, only made up dialog and a knife that was proved not to have been the murder weapon.

This is a decent article on this matter.

Was it a fair trial in Italy? Were laws broken in the Italian justice system? If she committed a crime in Italy then she is subject to their justice system. It doesn’t matter if she didn’t get what we would call a “fair” trial.

@tinyfaery There was a “confession” that was ruled inadmissible, because of the circumstances surrounding it, that the prosecution repeatedly referred to and eventually showed on court. In addition, there were several similar and equally damming issues that are not in line with the rules of the judicial system. The prosecution broke the rules of their own judicial system themselves in the trial. That is why its an issue.

The question is whether or not she broke laws. The trial was to determine that. It needs to be conducted fairly by their standards, if not ours.

Here is a link with a video.

I’ve been reading around. She confessed then recanted. Lots o’ crazy stuff. Perhaps she got was she deserved.

Perhaps. But then its normal to have slightly different accounts when telling a story over and over. And its also normal to say things after being kept up all night being questioned that you might not say if you weren’t being interrogated inappropriately. The confession she recanted was that which was given after she was interrogated inappropriately, by all standards.

So, upon hearing the verdict, I called a friend of mine who teaches international law to grad students and asked him this same question. The essence of his answer was similar to what @pdworkin found in the Times. He said that in Italy, it is rather rare for an original sentence to stand untouched during the appeals process — especially when the case has such profound international impact. So, my hope is that this poor girl’s sentence will either be overturned or considerably commuted.

Whether she was guilty and the degree of her involvement, the sentence she received is nothing in comparison to the sentences meted out in American States for relatively minor infractions. Not withstanding the ultimate penality, at least that isn’t a part of Italian or European Justice.

I have every faith in the Italian legal system. Amanda Knox is a murderer.

I would imagine that the media is portraying this case and Amanda in a very different light here in England to what it is in The States. Afterall the victim was a British girl and Amanda is an American. It seems to me that the British press are focusing on placing the blame on someone for the murder of a British girl and the American press are going to want to defend an American who has been accused of murder. For those reasons I take everything I read with a pinch of salt!

@Leanne1986 I get my news from both sides of the pond and yes, the views are quite different.

As far as what can be done- there are many different tacks that could be taken. The US could step in somehow. The Knox family could appeal.

Hubbs and I were talking and we both agree it seems more like fiction than a trial. There’s just so much not adding up correctly- like we’re missing a person in the puzzle. Plus, the media circus and trial (that is odd to us in the States) just seems like a charicature of what a trial would be like in a slash-thriller dime novel. The whole thing is just bizarre.

I have a friend. Robbed a hotel. Got 25 years.

At least your friend got to rob a hotel. I don’t think Amanda got to slit anyone’s throat in exchange for her 25 years.

This is true.

But apparently she got some kinky sex… so it all works out?

Oh yeah guys, poor Amanda Knox, shame those Italians played it dirty, pity she didn’t get a trial free of corruption like say…. OJ Simpson? Pity all countries can’t produce a legal system as great as the good old U.S. of A.

Let’s all rally around Amanda, she is a young American girl, she has to be innocent. That jury whom have been present through every minute of evidence couldn’t possibly know better.

@beautifulbobby193 Even the British press admits that the evidence is shaky at best. I’m one of the first to admit that the American system has major flaws, but when something is ruled inadmissible here, the prosecution isn’t allowed to use it. Other things like that, basically making shit up (which happens everywhere, but is damming in this case) and using things that don’t make sense are what people are objecting to with the fairness of the trial. I read several articles from the UK when looking at this issue, not just things from the American press.

Amanda absolutely is innocent – no doubt about it. I have been following this for two years and there is absolutely no evidence against her. The murder knife does not even match the knife the police are trying to implicate Amanda with. I am praying for justice and for Amanda to be freed. NOT a reduced sentence – she needs to be freed and to come home where she belongs. Anyone who knew her knows she wouldn’t even hurt a spider, literallly. She would be upset for days when she thought she had hurt someone’s feelings. The Italian system is so corrupt and if you do research on the prosecutor, you will find out a lot of corrupt and despicable acts against Americans from him, including an American journalist who is following this case. If I could so anything at all for Amanda, I would, but I feel helpless. All I can do is try to write her with encouraging words and pray that justice will prevail in the end.

@beautifulbobby193 It’s hard to decipher your meaning. You seem to wish to draw an analogy to a man who violently killed two people in anger on a public street and whose guilt was never in doubt, but whose flawed trial set him free, and a young girl convicted in the press and by dishonest means of a murder someone else committed. How does that make any sense whatsoever? I see someone has decided that your answer was a “great” one. Perhaps that person will explain how that was arrived at, too.

Pdworkin, how can you or anybody else come on here saying that this girl is innocent and even the words “no doubt about it” are used above.

It’s complete garbage. I thought that Amanda would escape charges because of the controversy over flaws in the investigation but I am satisfied that justice has been served.

Most murderers deny the charges brought against them, that is completely normal, but I feel many are sympathising with Amanda because she is a pretty, young, American girl in a foreign country.

This murderer, Amanda Knox, accused another man of the crime, almost ruining his life in the process. Luckily it turned out he had an alibi.

As I have previously stated, I put my full faith in the justice system. Those rallying around Amanda are doing so because they can’t understand or accept the truth and/or are incredibly naive.

The police coerced her to implicate the man they now accuse her of defaming during a 47-hour-long interrogation which included physical intimidation. You can get pretty much anyone to confess to pretty much anything, as the police in Vichy France, Hitler’s Germany, The Ramparts District in Los Angeles, and just recently in Iran have amply proven.

I would also point out that nowhere did you address the incomprehensible meaning of the OJ trial in your earlier statement.

It’s only incomprehensible to you because your whole argument is based on your believing that Knox (the convicted murderer) is innocent.

I refer you back to my last message where I mention those whom can’t understand or refuse to accept the truth. I put you in this category as I find it hard to believe you can be naive on the matter given your obvious intelligence proven in postings elsewhere.

You seem to have had limited exposure to the facts of the case, but have decided to have an opinion regardless. That’s not what I would call “convincing”. I put more trust in the BBC which I cited above as having called into doubt many prosecutorial judgments.

@beautifulbobby193 The British press, who are more informed, seem to have a different opinion. Are you saying that you know more than all your countrymen in the press? The people who have studied this case extensively and followed it for years? That you have some inside information that confirms guilt in spite of the fact that there are no facts that support this conviction? Nothing adds up to this girl being guilty, including the fact that she was forced to confession and the knife that they are claiming she used to commit the murder doesn’t match the wound. Those are the facts that are being reported by the British and the American press. If these things are true, and we have no reason to believe them to be untrue, she has no business being convicted.

Ugh. None of us know shit, for sure. We are all ignorant, outside observers. The self-righteousness on this site is embarassing. And it makes y’all look like asses.

Sorry to disappoint you Avooooo, but I’m not British, nor am I American, nor Italian. I don’t have loyalties to any country regarding this case.

I have, however, followed this case quite closely from day one. I will not pretend for a second that I have been exposed to as much evidence and information as the jury has, but if a jury can’t be trusted to return the correct result given the evidence presented to them, then who can?

Amanda Knox is not the victim here.

@beautifulbobby193 You make a lot of flat statements, but you defend none of them intelligibly. It appears you are to be ignored. Very disappointing.

@tinyfaery I hope I at least look like an attractive ass.

Sorry to disappoint you pdworkin. A real shame we don’t all share your views.

I wonder if the outcome of this case would have been any different had you an opportunity to put those very words against the prosecutors on front of the jury.

Somehow I doubt it would win you anything there, and I’m afraid I don’t think it wins you anything here either.

@beautifulbobby193 On the contrary. @pdworkin‘s preference for evidence over hype does win him something here.

I think that at most we can only hope to know little of what went on in the trial. The jury knew 100% and they made a decision.

The people in the jury weren’t ignorant followers, they were people like you and me. Both sides of the case choose the jury.

They came to a conclusion, and in my opinion it was probably the right one. It could have been wrong, that is what the appeals process is for, but I think it is silly for us to debate on here while we know so little of what actually happened.

As opposed to when we know what we’re talking about? When would that be?

@pdworkin
You do have a point, but i feel like we are especially ignorant in this case.

I think she’s innocent too. There was absolutely no DNA evidence in the room where the girl was killed that shows Amanda was there. I don’t think she had anything at all to do with it. I hope Obama gets involved…..

That’s the main thing: How is it that there was DNA all over the scene belonging to Rudy and Meredith but not the tee-tinyest drop of Amanda’s? Answer: She wasn’t in the room. You can’t selectively clean DNA.

@pdworkin That’s right. And that crap about them “cuddling and kissing” outside the house? They’d only been dating for a week, and it simply looked like they were taking comfort in kissing each other.

Besides bad social behavior is not an indicator of thirst for blood. It was just used against her in the tabloids because she was accidentally a pretty girl. If she had looked like the average schmoe on the street there would have been no charges.

She’s young. She has no idea how to behave in the manner that is deemed appropriate for this situation. Who here knows what their reaction would be if faced with the same circumstances? She is also in a foreign country alone, no family to stand by her, so she reached out to her boyfriend of one week.

@chyna Right….and if they’d been dating for a couple of years, or even a few months, they probably wouldn’t have kissed….

@pdworkin From what 48 hours said, a lot of it was that they were bound and determined to label her a loose, immoral American, because, you know, we ALL are.

I would never admit to something I didn’t do. Especially something horrible. The police could use whatever methods they chose. I will never admit to a crime I did not commit. Just sayin’

@tinyfaery Any trained interrogator, given enough time, could get you to say anything. You don’t have to believe me; there are thousands of peer-reviewed studies on this subject.

@tinyfaery I know. I have seen so many of those true stories on Tru TV etc. where people admit to something and then at some point they find they really did not do it. I have always said that I would never admit to something either, but apparently, other people break after hours of interrigation and say anything to make them stop. I have even heard some of these people say they were told they would get to go home if they would just admit to the crime. They believe this and admit to the crime because they are so beaten down.

@tinyfaery One method is for the interrogator to say, “Well, lets just pretend. Play a hypothetical game….if you were there, what would you have done?” Then they take it all out of context….

Nope. I can sit and stare for hours on end. I say my
story one time and ask for a lawyer. Until I get one, I say nothing else.

@tinyfaery Yeah, but she was just a kid. Plus I don’t know the laws in Italy….asking for a lawyer might not stop everything.

That, indeed, is the only way to handle it. Note: leave the US and you are shit of of luck on that plan.

No one can force you to say anything. This is the EU.

Don’t try that in the Middle East, or Asia, or Africa, or South America, or in Los Angeles, or in London.

@tinyfaery Its also America, but it happens all the time. Shit that can’t happen does. That’s just the way it is.

She can accept her sentence.

@TominLasVegas But it’s wrong. She’s innocent. She’s one of our own….

@Val123

Well one of my own committed a crime. Just because shes an american she should get off scott free?By your logic if an Italian commits a crime in the US we should let them go because they are just visiting the country.doesnt work that way

@TominLasVegas I don’t want to jump to conclusions here but have you actually read-up on the case? It was proven she was not in the room where the murder was commited… and the knife FROM HER KITCHEN that had her prints on it was proven not to be the miurder weapon. There is no evidence linking her to the murder.. plus they already have someone in custody serving a sentence that CONFESSED TO THE MURDER.

@TominLasVegas But she didn’t do it.

@Dr_C Thank you.