Amanda Knox – in the news again
Wednesday, April 17th, 2013
Perhaps you’ve always followed the long and twisted tale of Amanda Knox. I’ve now written two blog posts about her. I was unaware of the trial in Umbria when it was actually happening but became intrigued enough to do a substantial amount of research. In the second blog post I went into considerable detail. You can revisit that post by clicking here. Part of the justice system in Italy as well as other countries outside of the U.S. allows appeals by the PROSECUTOR rather than the defense. This was the case when, on appeal and after 4 years of imprisonment, the initial guilty verdict was overturned. So now a new trial has been ordered. Given our domestic sense of 
justice this seems very strange but those are the rules in Italy so the show must go on. What has repeatedly struck me is the range of feelings provoked by the case. Even in that bastion of seeming sophistication, the New York Times, the comments posted after an article on this Italian judicial ruling were quite something. A number of people feel like I do that she is innocent that the charges were trumped up and the investigatory process was terribly flawed. However others have very strong feelings the other way. I recall one comment in particular which referred to her a a money grubbing whatever because she has an advance on a book soon to be published of , I don’t recall exactly, but 3 or 4 million dollars. What they don’t seem to acknowledge is that her parents used all of their savings and indeed lost a home to pay for her lawyers through the long (and believe me the judicial processes in Italy are LONG) trial and especially the appeal. Add to that that she was imprisoned for 4 years and why would anyone feel that it was unwarranted to recoup something through a book. Also I don’t really understand why the parents of the victim of the murder have been so single minded in their pursuit of Amanda and her Italian boyfriend who was the codefendent. They have someone who is clearly the murderer in jail and perhaps rightly believe that there was someone else involved. Still the evidence in the case really doesn’t support the argument that Amanda and lover were involved. I would be surprised that anything came of the retrial other than to make more clear to the world the glaring flaws in the Italian judicial system. Of course Berlusconi has been able to avoid prosecution through a lot of legal tactics which delay trials until the statute of limitations runs out. I suppose ours is not much better for those those with more money than morals but one would hope for something better.
