What are the odds that the jury this time around was remotely un-biased?
ETA: I ask this question because I saw a poll indicating that an overwhelming majority of Italians think Knox is guilty. Without, of course, having seen any evidence, but going just on hearsay. It seems like the whole finding an impartial jury thing which is so important in the US, but breaks down at times, might have been even more problematic in Italy. Just wondering.
Yes, I got that. It’s still a shitty, shitty argument.
So, American courts can screw up, too. What difference does that make? That means we should accept a dubious conviction because dubious convictions happen elsewhere?
And no, that doesn’t mean we should trust the court of opinion, either. There is a difference.
The Italian justice system isn’t the same as the American justice system. For instance (IIRC), cases like this aren’t jury trials, they are heard by a panel of 3 judges, who then render a verdict.
I don’t think American courts would convict someone based on no real evidence on the basis that the person was a witch. At least not since the 18th century.
An earlier poster called the evidence circumstantial, but I’m not even sure what they had qualifies as even circumstantial. Her fingerprints on a knife? It’s a household knife that she used! Her story was inconsistent? People who want to confess often don’t have consistent stories, much less people who are confused and scared.
Plus it’s not like there’s any great mystery about who the killer was. If the case was unsolved, I’d say okay, SOMEONE did it, but instead the Italian prosecutor would have us believe that three people decided to off this girl because she didn’t want to play a sex game, or because they were satanists, or because there was a dispute over cleaning.
BTW, Guede is eligible for release this year because he told the prosecutor what he wanted to hear.
Not even close to the same thing. Demanding the extradition of Warren Anderson for the Union Carbide Bhopal accident would be about as stupid as suing John T. Lampe or Jacques Nasser personally for that whole Firestone/Ford explorer business about a decade ago. Yes, he was the head guy, but not personally culpable by any reasonable stretch of the imagination, and demanding his extradition is absurd and was rightfully ignored by the US authorities. Had the plant manager been American, we probably would have extradited him, but the head of the entire Union Carbide company? Not a chance, because he’s not directly culpable any more than the CEO of an airline or airplane manufacturer is personally culpable if the plane crashes due to pilot error, shoddy maintenance or materials failure.
I love that part too.
Prosecutor: "WE FOUND AMANDA KNOX’S FINGERPRINTS & DNA AT THE SCENE !!! "
Rational Person: "No shit, Sherlock. She lived there. It would be odd if you couldn’t find that stuff at the scene. :dubious: "
Prosecutor: “Uhhh… SHE WAS A SATANIST !!!”
Just to show how fucktup things are in Italy, check this out:
Raffaele Sollecito is the other defendant; he briefly had a thing with Miss Knox right before (during?) Kercher’s murder.
When the new trial was concluded and a guilty verdict reached, Mr. Sollecito was required to give up his passport, although he was not required to be in custody.
[
(bolding mine)
“Significant”? “Perplexing”? He was where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there; this gives me the impression that much of Italy sees something sinister in every action that they either can’t explain or don’t like the explanation for. And it goes further:
“Well, your Mightiness, Mr. Sollecito obviously will flee, since before his travel’s were restricted, he did in fact travel. No, there was no occurrence of flight after his sentence was handed down, but based on his law-abiding actions, we’re pretty sure he’s gonna break the law sometime soon.” :roll eyes:
For a supposedly-first-world country, Italy seems like the most backward, ignorant country in the EU where their justice system is concerned.
I don’t think that Edward Snowden is really going to matter here. It’s certainly not relevant to this case legally, but I also don’t think it matters much politically. The US isn’t going to get Snowden back any time soon, and everybody knows it. I doubt they really even want him back that badly. Half the country thinks of Snowden as a hero, and I’m sure the Justice Department is acutely aware of the massive circus that Snowden’s trial would become.
:mad:
There are good attorneys and bad attorneys. Some are public defenders, some are for hire. I have seen private attorneys with good reputations (and high fees) miss appeal deadlines and sweep it under the rug rather than admit that they made a mistake. My boss, a public defender, was just recognized by the NACDL for basically being a total fucking badass attorney.
Do people get railroaded? All the time! Is it because they have a public defender? NOPE.
I wonder if Knox will become the US version of Roman Polanski? We’ve been moaning and bitching to France about him for forty years.
Knox will have it easy with 50 states to wander around in.
My personal opinion is that Guede was the muderer but that Knox somehow messed with the crime scene and panicked. I totally discount the DNA on the knife, which didn’t even fit the wounds, and the DNA on the brastrap. I also don’t count her confession because it certainly sounded as if it could have been coerced. However, looking at hard evidence, Guede left clear footprints directly away from the scene which would not have been consistent with him locking the bedroom door. In addition, Knox’ blood was found mixed with Kercher’s blood in the sink and a bloody footprint consistent with Knox were found in the room… Then there is the fact that while they say they tried to break down Kercher’s door and went outside to look through the window and tried to get a neighbor, when the police showed up, they told them that they weren’t worried about Kercher because she often locked her door.
My WAG is that Guede did the crime, Knox blundered into the room and found the body and got blood on her and panicked, which is why she went and showered. She then locked the door so that the police would think she had not been in the room. She may also have staged the break-in to also look less suspicious. I don’t think she was there for the murder but I do think she was doing drugs, and may have been worried about the police arresting her for that. She also may have been worried because she had been fighting with Kercher and would be seen as someone who had motive and opportunity.
Apparently you didn’t get it and still don’t.
I offer no opinion about her guilt or innocence or the validity of the court’s decisions. I answered the statement “This doesn’t happen in the US” with “Yes, it does”.
How you are misunderstanding this to mean that I am saying if the decision is wrong that is OK because it happens here too, especially now after two explanations is beyond me, but it is shitty, shitty, reading comprehension on your part.
I always figured maybe she’d gotten caught up in a sex game that went horribly wrong and got out of control.
All the things you mention are exactly what circumstantial evidence is. Most criminal convictions are based on this type of evidence and not ‘smoking gun’ testimony that would make it an open and shut case. They try to build a case based on lots of ‘what might have beens’ from evidence that could link a suspect to a particular act but in and of itself proves nothing other than the possibility. There is a popular theme in movies and books about circumstantial evidence being worthless “You’ll never convict me you dirty screws, you got nothing but circumstantial evidence!” but that is a myth. It is frequently the only evidence presented in a trial, and direct evidence like a person saying “I saw Amanda Knox push the knife into the victim’s throat” is rare, and often times unreliable.
According to this article in the NY Times:
How likely is it that this jury was impartial?
Oh please. Taking a 250 mile drive and checking into a hotel on the border of another country on the day the verdict will be announced could easily be seen as preparing to flee by US authorities.
I have no problem understanding doubts about the prosecution of this case, but it baffles me how many are joining the “Those crazy Italians” bandwagon while living in a country with the highest percentage of it’s population in prison in the entire world.
My personal opinion is that Knox and Sollecito are genuinely innocent. A murder was committed and the police, in a town where murders are almost non-existent, decided Knox and Sollecito were the most obvious suspects and then went far past the evidence to build a case against them. Even after Guede was caught, the local authorities tried to make a case that Knox and Sollecito were somehow accomplices. Guede was happy to confirm this when he was offered a deal to reduce his own sentence.
That article is misleading; the word “jury” doesn’t mean exactly what you think it means. And I apologize for forgetting this was the Court of Appeals, not a Tribunal court. The Tribunal court is 3 judges; the Court of Appeals is 8 judges (2 pro and 6 lay). [Cite
](Italian Code of Criminal Procedure - Wikipedia)I learned all this stuff during the initial trial and then I delved into it again when I read The Monster of Florence.
So the answer of there being any chance as to the jury’s impartiality is likely “not remotely.”
ETA: Thanks for that detailed description, Bo.
The Italian court has explained why Amanda Know was guilty of murder:that the victim’s wounds indicate multiple aggressors, and that the Amanda Knox and Meredith Kercher fought over money on the night of the murder.
Amanda has of course denied it and will again appeal to the Italian Supreme Court:
When will there be a final resolution?