Should Amanda Knox be freed, extradited, returned to the USA?

[WillNever]

Those who have been following American news for the past many months probably know about American young woman Amanda Knox and her legal battle with the Italian government. Amanda Knox is 22 year old American student who visited Italy and was accused of sexually torturing and then killing her British roommate, for no reason whatsoever. Just recently, she was sentenced to 26 years in an Italian prison, with...no physical evidence, no murder weapon. The alleged motive was changed four times by the prosecution throughout the trial, until no motive was found at all, followed by the prosecution's statement that a motive never matter anyway and "we just want to punish her."

The question is, if we the people believe beyond the shadow of a doubt that Amanda Knox is innocent, should Italy be made to release her? Or should they be allowed to ruin someone's life anyway because "that is their law" and it would damage their national pride for their sovereignty to be overridden? Should a brewing anti-American sentiment or the actual truth prevail here?

There is a similarity between this case and the case of Euna Lee and Laura Ling, for those of you who remember that couple of girls as well: a foreign country who hated America wanted to take their anger out on a couple of innocent young girls.

BELOW: an image of Amanda Knox being held by a couple of hideous, hairy Italian women.

 

[James R]

WillNever:

Are you saying that the Italian legal system can't be trusted to conduct a fair case?

 

[WillNever]

What I'm right now asking is that if it couldn't be trusted, would the USA then be justified in ignoring it on the basis of incompetence and/or anti-American bias and retrieving Amanda Knox on its own terms?

 

[Pasta]

I'd like to hear the details and evidence of the case.

So far all I've heard from the news media on (U.S.) TV is the basics, that she's accused of murdering her roommate, or something like that, in Italy.....
Not a whole lot to go on.

But my gut feeling is she is guilty, and she and some of the media are playing the game she's a "poor isolated American in a foreign land with nobody to save her".....

 

[StrawDog]

Surely the US authorities and their legal representatives in Italy can investigate the matter and offer support?

 

[James R]

What I'm right now asking is that if it couldn't be trusted, would the USA then be justified in ignoring it on the basis of incompetence and/or anti-American bias and retrieving Amanda Knox on its own terms?

Retrieving her on its own terms? What? US invades Italy to rescue Amanda?

 

[WillNever]

I'd like to hear the details and evidence of the case.

So far all I've heard from the news media on (U.S.) TV is the basics, that she's accused of murdering her roommate, or something like that, in Italy.....
Not a whole lot to go on.

But my gut feeling is she is guilty, and she and some of the media are playing the game she's a "poor isolated American in a foreign land with nobody to save her".....

Or the Italian media is playing the "sexually abusive, foreign she-devil who killed a person in our country, let's lock her up without any conclusive evidence."

For one example, the prosecution produced a murder weapon at some point during the trial. It was a knife in the room that the two girls' shared, containing traces of each of their DNA on it. The Italian government states that it was the weapon that Amanda used to kill her roommates. However, the knife doesn't match the shape or shize of the wounds found on the victim.

 

[superstring01]

WillNever:

Are you saying that the Italian legal system can't be trusted to conduct a fair case?

I am. They did a piss-poor job is sequestering the jury away from inflammatory Italian shock-journalism.

Though, this doesn't necessarily mean that Knox is innocent. They may have, in all likelihood, also come to the right decision. Americans would scoff at the notion of allowing Italians the right to critique our legal system. Americans should be aware of this fact before obsessing over the fairness of Italian courts.

Let Secretary Clinton do her job.

~String

 

[pjdude1219]

I am. They did a piss-poor job is sequestering the jury away from inflammatory Italian shock-journalism.

and that's fair trial 101

Though, this doesn't necessarily mean that Knox is innocent. They may have, in all likelihood, also come to the right decision. Americans would scoff at the notion of allowing Italians the right to critique our legal system. Americans should be aware of this fact before obsessing over the fairness of Italian courts.

Let Secretary Clinton do her job.

~String

bingo



though on a side note I know several people who have gone to europe recently (say past 3 or 4 years trips to europe aren't cheap) to like around ten countries for a total time of maybe 2 years combined stay time from them all their was only one incident relayed to me of a conflict happening because them being american and that happened in Italy.

 

[Bells]

A very interesting viewpoint of the trial and one well worth reading:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article6947979.ece

Only, again, it wasn’t. For just as indisputable as Kercher’s dead body, found with her throat cut in her bedroom, is the fact that there is not one iota of physical evidence placing Knox at the crime scene. Niente, nada, nihil. There is a knife, yes, and it has Knox’s DNA on its handle. The knife was found at the house of Knox’s then boyfriend, Sollecito — but if she had helped him to prepare dinner, traces of her DNA on his knives would not be surprising.

But the attorney Anne Bremner, who offered her services pro bono to Knox via Friends for Amanda, has roundly dismissed the idea that Sollecito’s is the knife that killed Kercher. Bremner argues that the murder weapon was never found; a bloody print on the bed linen, she says, conveys the shape of the actual murder weapon and the knife in question “doesn’t match an outline of the knife on the bed”.

Additionally, Bremner told Time magazine, expert testimony has shown that at least two of the wounds on Kercher’s neck couldn’t have been made by that particular blade.

Some of Sollecito’s DNA was found on one of Kercher’s bra clasps. Note — some of Sollecito’s DNA. But the finding throws up yet more doubt. The clasp wasn’t collected until more than two months after the murder and film footage of the crime scene investigation suggests that it was periodically picked up and moved. The likelihood of DNA contamination is huge.

 

[Asguard]

As the Australian goverment constantly says, you chose to fly overseas away from the protections of your own country then tough. They will do as much as they can for you, they will organise lawyers and possably put in money to help with the expense of running a defense but they WONT rescue you.

Further more, i think you guys should really be looking at the injustices in your OWN system first rather than looking overseas for injustice.

 

[WillNever]

As the Australian goverment constantly says, you chose to fly overseas away from the protections of your own country then tough. They will do as much as they can for you, they will organise lawyers and possably put in money to help with the expense of running a defense but they WONT rescue you.

Further more, i think you guys should really be looking at the injustices in your OWN system first rather than looking overseas for injustice.

Here's my thoughts. If a country's courts are dysfunctional (as Italy's surely are), then they are not worthy of having their laws or decisions respected or recognized. If it were another country like the UK or Germany that Amanda Knox was accused of murder in, then she would haven't to go through this very seedy Italian trial with nothing but bad evidence. In fact those countries would probably extradite Knox swiftly to our own judgement... which is what should have happened in this case. Amanda Knox is our citizen, not Italy's. The person she is accused of killing was British... and crossing into Italy does not somehow make Amanda Knox not an American citizen anymore. That is why I believe that we as Americans have a right and responsibility to bring her back here... and I know that if I were stuck in the throes of the Italy's shitty court system, I'd want to be brought back home too.

 

[S.A.M.]

I find it very strange that the US media is making her out to be the victim. She killed her flatmate and was tried by the laws of the country she was living in, why the exceptionalism?

 

[pjdude1219]

I find it very strange that the US media is making her out to be the victim. She killed her flatmate and was tried by the laws of the country she was living in, why the exceptionalism?

because the evidence is shit from what I read almost all the forensic evidence that was used to convict her wasn't linked to her but her boyfriend and second as string mentioned they let the jurors access to the media which in Italy is highly based on sensalulism. the first indicats corruption and the seconded implies not a fair trial that's why.

 

[S.A.M.]

They found a knife with Amanda's DNA on the handle and the victim's DNA on the blade hidden in the boyfriends apartment. Thats fairly conclusive, regardless of the excuses made by the "experts" for the defence. They can say "contamination" but there is no proof of contamination [there is evidence that they scrubbed it with bleach reducing the amount of DNA available] . What there is, is DNA from the suspect on the handle and victim on the blade. Besides there is motive, the girl and her boyfriend were stealing her money to pay for their drug habits.

Oh I forgot, luminal showed Knox's footprints in the victims blood. Putting her squarely at the scene. The defense points to the lack of footprints near the body, as if they would not have cleaned up. Unfortunately for them the victim struggled [she was a karate expert and would have fought back] and her blood was in more places than was visible to the naked eye. Knox's footprints were in blood near her own bedroom.

And while they are claiming contamination at finding Kerchers cut off bra strap in Knox's boyfriends apartment [wrt the DNA found on the strap], what was her strap doing there?

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

....and her complete lack of credible alibi in the form of her multiple contradictory statements as to her whereabouts some of which were subsequently found to be false.

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

Nay, are you?

Oh dear, well that's quite embarrasing for you then.

 

[WillNever]

They found a knife with Amanda's DNA on the handle and the victim's DNA on the blade hidden in the boyfriends apartment. Thats fairly conclusive, regardless of the excuses made by the "experts" for the defence. They can say "contamination" but there is no proof of contamination [there is evidence that they scrubbed it with bleach reducing the amount of DNA available] . What there is, is DNA from the suspect on the handle and victim on the blade. Besides there is motive, the girl and her boyfriend were stealing her money to pay for their drug habits.

Oh I forgot, luminal showed Knox's footprints in the victims blood. Putting her squarely at the scene. The defense points to the lack of footprints near the body, as if they would not have cleaned up. Unfortunately for them the victim struggled [she was a karate expert and would have fought back] and her blood was in more places than was visible to the naked eye. Knox's footprints were in blood near her own bedroom.

As far as I understand it, the shoeprints were not hers. They were her boyfriend's.The knife also belonged to a boyfriend. Her DNA being on it shouldn't surprise anyone. Who is to say that she wasn't eating dinner with that knife at an earlier date?The only other piece of DNA evidence is a bra clasp that wasn't discovered until 6 weeks after the event. There isn't anything conclusive about any of that.

And let's not forget the fat, Italian investigator who kicked out a window at the crime scene for no reason whatsoever... except maybe to frame something?

 

[pjdude1219]

They found a knife with Amanda's DNA on the handle and the victim's DNA on the blade hidden in the boyfriends apartment. Thats fairly conclusive, regardless of the excuses made by the "experts" for the defence.

not really. all that means she held the knife at some point in time. as a house hold object in a place she spent time in you would expect to find her DNA on it.

They can say "contamination" but there is no proof of contamination [there is evidence that they scrubbed it with bleach reducing the amount of DNA available] . What there is, is DNA from the suspect on the handle and victim on the blade.

as a household object that doesn't really mean all that much. If a knife from my house was used to kill some one you would probably find my DNA on it.

Besides there is motive, the girl and her boyfriend were stealing her money to pay for their drug habits.

which of the many changing motives was that 1 2 3 or 4?

Oh I forgot, luminal showed Knox's footprints in the victims blood. Putting her squarely at the scene. The defense points to the lack of footprints near the body, as if they would not have cleaned up. Unfortunately for them the victim struggled [she was a karate expert and would have fought back] and her blood was in more places than was visible to the naked eye. Knox's footprints were in blood near her own bedroom.

actually from what I have read only her boyfriends showed up not her's

And while they are claiming contamination at finding Kerchers cut off bra strap in Knox's boyfriends apartment [wrt the DNA found on the strap], what was her strap doing there?

you mean the strap that only entered custody 6 weeks after the crime?

 

[S.A.M.]

The footprints in and near her bedroom were hers. Frankly when I read about the boyfriends home smelling of strong bleach and the miraculous lack of footprints around the crime scene, I was immediately biased against Amanda and her boyfriend. The fact that she was "unable to enter and called the police" and luminal found her footprints over blood in her bedroom simply clinched it.

"We also found that a naked footprint found in Knox's bedroom and in the corridor outside, again using Luminol, was compatible with the one taken from her in prison."

Dr Rinaldi explained to the court how microscopic point to point measurements such as ''heel to toe'' or ''toe and arch width'' were used to identify the imprints.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Wo...ler-Amanda-Knox/Article/200905215278601?f=rss