amanda knox

[Huggers]

well the verdicts will be in some time this afternoon I believe. What do you think? Is it a bizarre array of events that should never have brought her to trial or do you think that there is no smoke without fire?

[daizie]

Weird one . Cant make out how guilty she is .

[PeckhamRose]

Let the jury decide.

[HAL9000]

From what I have read about this case, the trial of Knox and Sollecito is justified by evidence: Knox's retracted police statements and Sollecito's DNA at the crime scene.

There's no doubt that a trial would have taken place in England and Wales on that sort of evidence under R v Galbraith ([1981] 1 WLR 1039.

[Huggers]

Interesting Hal, just the kind of points I was interested in ...how different the Italian and British legal systems are and whether British law requires much more hard justification before charges can be made and prosecutions conducted. Hmmm....

[HAL9000]

Galbraith basically says that the prosecution is obliged to proceed where there is any evidence that can be put before a jury, and that all the prosecution is to be heard before an application of no case to answer can be made.

As for Italian Law, there are some interesting comments within the wiki page covering the Murder of Meredith Kercher.

[HAL9000]

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito found guilty of murdering Meredith Kercher

[Huggers]

I think Amanda Knox is probably a show-off and attention seeker who will now bitterly regret trying to enjoy the limelight of being the flatmate of a murder victim, which made her behaviour seem so bizzarre. I don't think she did it. I think she's been put in the frame by an untethered media who don't have the restrictions of the British press pre-trial.

Being an annoying smartarse doesnt make you a psychopath.

[Santerme]

Seems to me that a jury listening to a years worth of evidence is better placed to make an informed decision on guilt, that those who pick up random reports in the media

[HAL9000]

You'd think so - but, in England, in respect of Crown Court prosecutions (i.e. jury trials), "The percentage rates of success on appeal were 30% for conviction appeals and nearly 68% for sentence appeals" (2000-2001). Source

[DaveR]

The italian and english systems of criminal justice are poles apart, but in this case, just on the bare facts, knox and sollecito were squarely in the frame i.e. victim dead in the house she shared with knox, sollecito also had access, no evidence/faked evidence of an intruder, some forensic evidence tying both of them to the scene, admission + lies.

btw those success figures for appeals are (I suspect) where leave has been given i.e. the Court of Appeal think there is some merit in it. That would generally have been after an appellant has had advice that an appeal is a runner. In those circumstances not so surprising that the % are high. Successful appeals represent a very small proportion of total convictions.

[Huguenot]

Well, only 70% are sustained?

I think we should throw out the justice system and go back to pitchforks.

[LegalEagle-ish]

er, wouldn't that be because they lived in the same house?

[Huggers]

Knox and Sollecito had been going out together for less than a week and only one of them knew Guido- Guido's dna was all over the room- and they knew him only vaguely. Do you think three people who don't really know eachother would kill someone in a frenzied attack/orgy?

Do you think Knox was sophisticated/manipulative enough to destroy any evidence of herself being in that room but not sophisticated/manipulative enough to pretend to look sad or shocked after the event?.

The tiny bit of forensic evidence would have been inadmissable in an english court. The knife with the dna on it didnt even match the wounds on the victim.

I do think that Knox and Solecito lied to cover something up- drug use?-and by lying made themselves untrustworthy and unreliable witnesses.

[????]

Well...so what, it happened in Italy, under the judrsitriction of Italian law and the trial took place there under the scrutiny of the legal system there...what we've read in the papers and heard online hardly puts us in a position to give a verdict does it? Won't stop people though...

[matthew123]

So Huggers what was the real story behind this murder?

[HAL9000]

High-profile crimes make (or break) careers - a temptation for overzealous or corrupt police, experts, lawyers and judges. Juries are easily misled and manipulated - and fallible. The prosecution?s case is largely speculative. Much of the evidence is circumstantial.

It'll be interesting to see whether any of these convictions survive the appeal process.

[matthew123]

Ok what factual evidence is there in this case for both the defence and prosecution (apart from it being murder) maybe we can perform the appeals process whilst the Italians congratulate themselves.

[HAL9000]

I think the most damning evidence against Knox was that she attempted to put a third party in the frame who was subsequently exonerated by the police - that type of evidence weighs heavily against someone in the dock.

[matthew123]

I wonder why!

[Huguenot]

She also seemed a strange girl - almost child-like

Cartwheels and snogging in the police station in the aftermath won't have gone down well. I saw her 'mask of a murderer' speech and was struck by how she appeared like a primary school kid in her first play. There was kind of a disconnect between her words and her actions, they didn't seem natural.

Juries will judge people on this, as it goes to the plausibility of her testimony. It's not exactly evidence.

Her misdirections to the police were fundamental to the case, but don't necessarily imply guilt: attention seekers and pathological liars will also do this - and also kids who are struggling with the concept of consequences.

But then if she struggles with the concept of consequences, that would also diminsh her need for 'motive' to perform terrible acts....

[Huguenot]

I was also struck how many Americans think she must be innocent because she's American.

There also seems an unecessary prejudice against Italians on the basis that they must be corrupt, and an appeal will overturn.

[silverfox]

What I want to know is who has to pay the ?4m compensation? The Italian state? If Knox's/Sollecito's family, what if they can't afford it and why should they be punished?

[sanity girl]

good article in the observer about this Observer article

[Sue]

Was just about to post the same article.

Apparently there were no fingerprints of the two convicted more recently in the room the crime took place, and they can't have wiped them because there were plenty of the guy who was previously convicted, and wiping couldn't have been that selective.

The author of the article reckons it's a face-saving exercise by various of the people/organisations involved in the investigation and prosecution, and that these two may well get off after the next two appeal stages.