Don’t they already have justice? They jailed that guy from the Ivory Coast right? It was him who originally pointed the finger Knox and her boyfriend at the time. He’s in jail, they got him, they have justice.
No. A conviction overturned on direct appeal can be reinstated by the court of last resort. The specific issue in the Knox case (and this is from old memory) was that the lack of evidence at the original trial was the basis of the initial reversal. So remanding for a new trial did violate double jeopardy because the state (or whatever Italy calls itself as a party) was getting a second bite of the apple.
Wait they can restore a conviction, but cannot remand for new trial?
They can remand for a new trial for procedural errors. They can’t remand for a new trial if the reason the original conviction could not be sustained was a lack of evidence, since the state had the burden of proof and failed to carry it. If the lack of evidence was because the trial court improperly excluded some of the state’s evidence, they could remand for a new trial since it wasn’t the state’s fault it didn’t have enough evidence.
That would be the prosecutor, who has apparently watched too many 1980’s horror movies, and concocted a ridiculous scenario about Knox commiting the murder as part of some kind of Satanic ritual.
Oh, and he was also accused of ordering illegal wiretaps in another case. That issue is apparently still ongoing.
Class act, this guy.
Thanks for your perspective, but I was asking Haberdash; his post seems to implicate Americans, but I have no idea who he means.
I have seen Americans in commentary outlets and on social media say that they are convinced Knox is guilty, or rather want her to spend the rest of her life in an Italian prison, for no reason other than “Americans always think they can get away with anything.” Certainly, anti-American sentiment also played a role in the original circus of her prosecution as well.
So between this, the Earthquake Detection case, and the Autism-Vaccine case, can we just write off the entire italian judiciary branch altogether?
Well, maybe. I’m pretty sure you could find three extremely stupid US court rulings, though. I’ll even give you a head start.
While I have no doubt you’ve seen this, I am highly doubtful that the number of Americans who think this is vanishingly small.
Finally, after more than 8 years, this is done.[
](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/9b31c8e321064b2e83094602d152f46a/italy-top-court-knox-conviction-was-based-poor-case)
No more appeals, no more trials, no more trepidation for either of them.
Finito.
So, grounds for a civil suit by Knox and Sollecito? Their lives have been ruined already. Might as well go for broke.
It’s not really possible that there could have been literally no biological trace of them there–even if they were innocent-- given the time they spent there. Everybody sheds cells every day.
I have a feeling they might want nothing more to do with the Italian legal system for the rest of their lives.
Any decent person will want nothing to do with any Judicial system if they can help it.
One of the high(?)lights of the court’s explanation, at least as reported:
How in the name of Almighty Bob does an investigation team manage to burn out two computers that are being held as evidence? Color me paranoid, but the above makes it sound like the team didn’t want the contents of the computers known.
I’ve seen several comments that liken the prosecution team to the Keystone Kops. This comparison strikes me as insulting — and not to the prosecutors.
Yeah, this strikes me as the kind of “accident” that occurs because the investigators were trying to hide the fact that there wasn’t any evidence to show.
If the computers have been reduced to smoldering junk, you can say anything you want was on there.
Jesus. Can you imagine having this hang over your head for eight years, knowing that you’re innocent?
Can we be sure that they are factually innocent rather than legally innocent?