Amanda Knox

Amanda Knox

Knox at the National Innocence Network Conference with David Camm (center) and exoneree Randy Steidl (left)
Born Amanda Marie Knox
July 9, 1987
Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Education University of Washington
Occupation Student when charged with murder, now press reporter and author
Known for Twice convicted and twice acquitted of the murder of Meredith Kercher
Partner(s) Raffaele Sollecito, boyfriend at the time of the murder
Website
Amanda Knox Website

Amanda Marie Knox (born July 9, 1987) is an American woman wrongly convicted of the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Italy.

Knox, together with her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, was initially found guilty of the murder, which was allegedly sexually motivated. A third suspect, Rudy Guede, was also convicted of the same crimes in a separate, fast-track legal process. Later while appealing his sentence, Guede identified Knox and Sollecito as accomplices to the murder. However, both Sollecito and Knox maintained their innocence.

On March 27, 2015, some seven-and-a-half years after their arrest, Italy's highest court overturned previous convictions and exonerated Knox and Sollecito of the murder, by which time they had spent almost four years in prison.

Early life

Amanda Knox grew up in West Seattle with three younger sisters. Her mother, Edda Mellas, a mathematics teacher, and her father, Curt, a vice president of finance at the local Macy's, divorced when Knox was a few years old. Her stepfather, Chris Mellas, is an information-technology consultant.[1][2]

She graduated in 2005 from the Seattle Preparatory School and began studying linguistics at the University of Washington, making the dean's list by early 2007, when she decided to study in Italy.[1] Her stepfather had strong reservations about her going to Italy that year, as he felt she was still too naïve.[3]

Prevailing judicial procedure

video still
A still from Italian television, in which Knox is comforted by Sollecito while police investigate. This frame became what the BBC called "one of the most incongruous images" of the case.[4]

Prosecutors

Prosecutors are part of the Italian judiciary and have the responsibility of gathering evidence irrespective of whether it incriminates a suspect.[5] In 1989 the inquisitorial system of Italy was reformed and elements of US-style adversarial procedure were introduced. The changes were intended to remove an inquisitorial continuity between the investigatory phase and the basis for a decision at trial, but in practice they took control of inquiries away from police and gave prosecutors authority over the preliminary investigation.[6][7] After the assassination of Giovanni Falcone by the Sicilian Mafia and terror bombings that followed the capture of Salvatore Riina, prosecutors were given extra powers to fight organized criminals.[5][8] Although they have considerable authority over early inquiries and discretion in bringing charges, Italian prosecutors do not customarily use their powers in the aggressive way common in the US system.[8][9]

Perugia, the city where the murder of Kercher took place, is known for its universities and large population of students. There had reportedly not been a killing in the city for twenty years, but its prosecutors had been responsible for controversial murder charges.[10][11] In 2002 the conviction in Perugia of fomer Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti on murder conspiracy charges resulted in complaints that the justice system had "gone mad". He was definitively acquitted by the Supreme Court the next year.[12][13]

In early 2002, Perugia prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, who enjoyed taking a detective-like role and was later to be in charge of the Kercher investigation, arraigned 20 apparently respectable people for concealing a murder.[14] Mignini was acting on the theory that a man who apparently committed suicide was actually killed by a high-level secret society; the case was finally dismissed in 2010.[15][16] According to a scholar who researched comparative law in Italy, selective changes to the Italian legal system left it unable to cope when a prosecutor with Mignini's American-style adversarial approach used his powers to the fullest.[9]

Publicity of the case

In Italy, the file of the prosecution's case goes into the public domain before the trial,[11] and Knox became the subject of unprecedented pre-trial media coverage.

The publicity included a best-selling book about her that contained witness transcripts not in the public domain, imagined or invented events, excerpts from her prison journal, and unsubstantiated allegations about her sex life.[17][18][19][20] [21][22][23][24][25]

The inquisitorial system

The rationale for a bias for the inclusion of available evidence is based on the inquisitorial system concept of a search for the truth. Two presiding professional trial judges, who are also part of the jury, are expected to correct any tendency of the lay-judges to give evidence inappropriate weight during their deliberations.[26] Appeals are intrinsic to the process and essentially guaranteed. Unlike the US, where a verdict cannot be appealed except on procedural grounds, an Italian jury's reasoning is given in writing and can be grounds for overturning its verdict.[26]

The murder trials

Via della Pergola 7

In Perugia, Knox shared a four-bedroom ground-floor apartment in a house at Via della Pergola 7, the front door did not have a spring latch and had to be closed with a key. A minute's walk from the house was Piazza Grimana, where students often gathered.[27] Her flatmates were two Italian women in their late twenties, and Kercher. Kercher and Knox moved in on 10 and 20 September 2007, respectively, meeting each other for the first time.[28] Knox was employed part-time at a bar, Le Chic, which was owned by a Congolese man, Diya Patrick Lumumba. She told flatmates that she was going to quit because he was not paying her; Lumumba denied this.[29] Kercher's English women friends saw relatively little of Knox, as she preferred to mix with Italians.[30]

The walk-out semi-basement of the house was rented by young Italian men with whom both Kercher and Knox were friendly. One, Giacomo, spent time in the girls' flat due to a shared interest in music. Returning home at 2 am one night in mid-October, Knox, Kercher, Giacomo and another basement resident met Rudy Guede whom the Italians knew from playing basketball with him at Piazza Grimana.[31] Guede attached himself to the group and asked about Knox. He was invited into the basement and talked about her with the Italians. Knox and then Kercher came down to join them. At 4:30 am Kercher left, saying she was going to bed, and Knox followed her out.[32][33] Three weeks before her death Kercher went with Knox to the EuroChocolate festival. On October 20, Kercher became romantically involved with Giacomo, after going to a nightclub with him as part of a small group which included Knox. On 25 October, Kercher and Knox went to a concert where Knox met Raffaele Sollecito, a 23-year-old student. She began spending her time at his flat, a 5-minute walk from Via della Pergola 7, which Sollecito visited several times, including having lunch there early on the day of the murder.[34]

November 1 was a public holiday and the Italians living in the house were away. Kercher was alone in the house when she returned that evening. In the late morning of November 2, 2007 Knox reported that, after spending the night with Sollecito at his apartment, she had returned to the house and found a broken window and signs of a burglary. There was blood in the bathroom and Kercher was not answering her bedroom door, which was locked. Police arrived and the door was broken open, Kercher's body, naked except for a T-shirt pulled over her shoulders, was on the floor. She had died of blood loss and suffocation caused by stab wounds to her neck.[35]

Prosecutor Mignini was assigned to the case, and spoke to Knox at the scene. According to author John Follain, Mignini thought she was concealing something. Because anyone effecting an entry through the broken window seemed unlikely, police almost immediately discounted the possibility of a burglar being the killer and Knox became the prime suspect, although she was not told this.[36][37][38][39] Over the next four days she was repeatedly interviewed and during the interrogation and statements of 5–6 November, the conduct of which is a matter of dispute, Knox incriminated herself and Lumumba. Knox, Sollecito, and Lumumba were arrested and charged with murder. Examination of the crime scene identified the fingerprints of Rudy Guede, who had fled to Germany days after the murder. Guede, Knox, and Sollecito were charged with committing the murder together. On 30 November 2007 a panel of three judges endorsed the charges, ruled there had been no burglary, and ordered Knox and Sollecito held in detention pending a trial.[40]

Guede

Prior to the murder of Kercher, Guede was said to have burgled a Perugia apartment and brandished a jackknife when confronted, although the complaint and identification did not come until he was a fugitive. On October 14, 2007, a Perugia office was broken into by smashing a window with a large stone. Property was stolen and later found in Guede's possession. On October 27, 2007, the principal of a Milan nursery school arriving for work in the morning discovered Guede in her office. Police found stolen items in his backpack, including a knife from the school kitchen. Examination of the premises found no sign of a forced entry. [41]

In an internet conversation while he was a fugitive wanted for the murder of Kercher, Guede did not mention Knox or Sollecito as being in the house on the night of the murder. The first interview of Guede by the state prosecutor was on December 7, 2007. On March 26, 2008, Guede was questioned again by a prosecutor and for the first time put Knox at the scene of the crime. Although he was accused of committing the murder together with Knox and Sollecito, Guede was tried separately and first. As defendant he could give evidence without taking an oath, but he did not testify.[42] In his pre-trial declarations Guede said Kercher had let him in the cottage.[41][43] In their findings the judges said Guede not been guilty of any theft and there had been no break-in, further saying that Kercher would not have opened the door to Guede (who she knew to be an acquaintance of her boyfriend Giacomo, having socialized with both men in the basement).[41] The judges said that because someone with a key must have let Guede in the house, the signs of a break-in had been staged in an attempt to divert suspicion. The judges found that there was sufficient evidence for a trial of Knox and Sollecito.[41] [44]

First trial

In 2009 Knox and Sollecito pleaded not guilty at a Corte d'Assise on charges of sexual assault, murder and simulating a burglary.

Prosecution case

A prosecution witness, homeless man Antonio Curatolo, said Knox and Sollecito were in Piazza Grimana on the night of the murder for an hour. Prosecutors advanced a single piece of forensic evidence linking Sollecito to Kercher's bedroom, where the murder had taken place: fragments of his DNA on Kercher's bra clasp.[45][46][47] Giulia Bongiorno, leading Sollecito's defence, questioned how Sollecito's DNA could have got on the small metal clasp of the bra, but not on the fabric of the bra back strap from which it was torn. "How can you touch the hook without touching the cloth?" Bongiorno asked.[47][48] The back strap of the bra had multiple traces of DNA belonging to Guede.[48] According to the prosecution's reconstruction, Knox had attacked Kercher in her bedroom, repeatedly banged her head against a wall, forcefully held her face and tried to strangle her.[49] Guede, Knox and Sollecito had removed Kercher's jeans, and held her on her hands and knees while Guede had sexually abused her. Knox had cut Kercher with a knife before inflicting the fatal stab wound; then faked a burglary.[50]

Defense case

The defense pointed out that no shoe prints, clothing fibers, hairs, fingerprints, skin cells or DNA of Knox were found on Kercher's body, clothes, handbag or anywhere else in Kercher's bedroom.[51][52] The prosecution alleged that all forensic traces in the room that would have incriminated Knox had been wiped away by her and Sollecito.[53][54]

Guede's shoe prints, fingerprints, and DNA were found in Kercher's bedroom.[55] Guede's DNA was on the strap of her bra, which had been torn off, and his DNA was found on a vaginal swab taken from Kercher's body.[48][55] Guede's bloody palm print was on a pillow that had been placed under Kercher's hips.[56] Guede's DNA mixed with Kercher's was on the left sleeve of her bloody sweatshirt and in bloodstains inside her shoulder bag, from which 300 euros and credit cards had been stolen.[55][57][58][59] Guede refused to answer questions at his trial.[60]

Verdict

Knox was found guilty and sentenced to 26 years imprisonment, and Sollecito to 25 years.[18][61][62]

Support

American lawyers were troubled by statements obtained while Knox was being denied her rights under Italian law being excluded from the murder trial, but allowed for contemporaneous civil and defamation suits heard by the same jury. Knox's defense attorneys were seen as, by American standards, passive in the face of the prosecution's use of character evidence about her.[63][64]

In May 2011 Gregory Hampikian, director of the Idaho Innocence Project, a non-profit investigative organization dedicated to proving the innocence of wrongly convicted people through the use of DNA testing, said forensic results from the crime scene pointed to Guede being a killer who had acted on his own.[65][66]

photograph
Amanda Knox leaving the prison in Perugia in a car with Corrado Maria Daclon, secretary general of the Italy–USA Foundation

Acquittal and release

A Corte d'Assise verdict of guilty is not a definitive conviction. An appeal trial, Corte d'Assise d'Appello, reviews the facts of the case as well as legal aspects. The appeal (or second grade) trial began November 2010 and was presided over by Judges Claudio Pratillo Hellmann and Massimo Zanetti. A court-ordered review of the contested DNA evidence by independent experts noted numerous basic errors in the gathering and analysis of the evidence, and concluded that no evidential trace of Kercher's DNA had been found on the alleged murder weapon, which police had found in Sollecito's kitchen.[67][68] Although the review confirmed that male DNA fragments on the bra clasp, which the forensic police had lost on the floor for 47 days, included some from Sollecito, the court-appointed expert testified the context strongly suggested contamination.[69][70][71][72]

On October 3, 2011 Knox and Sollecito were found not guilty and released. In an official statement giving their grounds for the acquittals, the judges emphasized that Knox and Sollecito's accounts failing to completely match did not constitute evidence they had given a false alibi. Discounting Curatolo's testimony as self-contradictory, the judges observed that he was a heroin addict. Having noted that there was no evidence of any phone calls or texts between Knox or Sollecito and Guede, the judges concluded there was a "material non-existence" of evidence to support the guilty verdicts, and that an association among Sollecito, Knox, and Guede to commit the murder was "far from probable".[61][73][74] Knox returned to the US.[75][76]

She wrote a letter to Corrado Maria Daclon, Secretary General of the Italy-USA Foundation, the day after regaining her freedom:

To hold my hand and offer support and respect throughout the obstacles and the controversy, there were Italians. There was the Italy–USA Foundation, and many others that shared my pain and that helped me survive, with hope. I am eternally grateful for their caring hospitality and their courageous commitment. To those that wrote me, that defended me, that stood by me, that prayed for me... I am forever grateful to you.[77]

Retrial

On March 26, 2013, Italy's highest court, the Supreme Court of Cassation set aside the judgement of the trial of the second degree that had acquitted Knox and Sollecito, leading to a retrial.[78][79] The retrial began on September 30, 2013, while Knox remained in the US.[80] Judges granted a prosecution request for analysis of previously unexamined DNA found on a kitchen knife of Sollecito, which the prosecution alleged was the murder weapon based on the forensic police reporting that Kercher's DNA was on it. The conclusion had been discredited by court-appointed experts at the appeal trial, but the failure to order another test had been criticized by the prosecution and others.[81][82][83] When the unexamined sample was tested, no DNA belonging to Kercher was found.[84][85] On January 30, 2014, Knox and Sollecito were found guilty. Knox was sentenced to 28½ years in prison, Sollecito received 25 years.[86] Both Knox and Sollecito appealed against their convictions for a second time.[87]

Exoneration

On March 27, 2015, having heard another appeal by Knox and Sollecito, the Supreme Court of Cassation overturned the previous guilty verdicts, definitively ending the case.[88][89][90][91] Rather than merely declaring that there were errors in the earlier court cases or that there was not enough evidence to convict, the court ruled that Knox and Sollecito had not committed the murder and were innocent of those charges.[92] Knox’s lawyer, Carlo Dalla Vedova, said: "Finished! It couldn’t be better than this."[90] According to Vedova, the decision by the five judges was almost unprecedented.[91] While the judges have yet to release the official report explaining their decision, they are required by Italian law to do so within ninety days from delivering the verdict.

After this verdict was announced, Knox, who had been in the United States continuously since 2011, said in a statement: “The knowledge of my innocence has given me strength in the darkest times of this ordeal .... And throughout this ordeal, I have received invaluable support from family, friends and strangers. To them, I say: Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your kindness has sustained me. I only wish that I could thank each and every one of you in person.”[93] Knox ended her statement saying that she was “grateful to have my life back” and, referring to Kercher as a friend, said: “I’m the lucky one”.[94]

While overturning the murder and other convictions, the court upheld a guilty verdict against Knox for the slander of Patrick Lumumba, confirming that a three-year sentence would remain. The term for that sentence had already been served while Knox was imprisoned for the overturned convictions.[91][95] The remaining guilty verdict is based on a statement implicating Lumumba in the murder, made by Knox to the police during interrogations which Knox described as abusive.[96] That statement was withdrawn later the same day, after the interrogation had ended, and was ruled inadmissible in the murder trial. Nevertheless, it was allowed as evidence for the concurrent slander case at the same hearing.[97][98]

Documentaries

Personal life

Knox wrote an account of her life in the 2013 book Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir.[109] In 2014 she started working as a reporter for a local weekly newspaper, the West Seattle Herald.[110]

On February 3, 2015, Knox became engaged to childhood friend and musician Colin Sutherland.[111]

See also

References

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  2. Bates, Daniel (September 28, 2011). "We cherished every moment together". Mail Online.
  3. Follain p.14-15, 19
  4. Joyce, Julian (January 16, 2009). "The college lovers on trial for murder". BBC News. Retrieved March 31, 2013.
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  7. Economist, February 8, 2014 italian justice Untimely Italian Justice
  8. 8.0 8.1 (Mirabella, Julia Grace, Scales of Justice: Assessing Italian Criminal Procedure Through the Amanda Knox Trial January 5, 2012). Boston University International Law Journal, Vol. 30, No. 1, 2012. p 237 and footnote 151)
  9. 9.0 9.1 University Kansas, February 4, 2015, Professor: Amanda Knox trial shows problems with comparing legal systems
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  14. Death in Perugia: The Definitive Account of the Meredith Kercher John Follain, Chapter 55
  15. Monster of Florence: Amanda Knox Prosecutor's Satanic Theories Rejected by Judge, Crimesider, CBS News, April 23, 2010
  16. Bloody Italy: Essays on Crime Writing in Italian Settings edited by Patricia Prandini Buckle p70-73
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  28. Murphy, Dennis. "Deadly exchange", NBC News, 21 December 2007.
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  30. Follain p.35
  31. Follain p179
  32. Follain p.39 ("Meredith joined them she took just one pull on the joint; she was no habitual smoker")
  33. Wise, Ann. "'They Had No Reason Not to Get Along'", ABC News, 7 February 2009.
  34. Follain p.41-43
  35. Follain. J., Death in Perugia p.70=72
  36. Follain p. 83-84
  37. Dempsey 2010, pp. 62, 76–77; for Napoleoni, see Burleigh 2011, p. 165. for Battistelli see Follain p. 67.
  38. Follain p. 75–76.
  39. Burleigh 2011, p. 151–152.
  40. Follain p199-200
  41. 41.0 41.1 41.2 41.3 http://www.penale.it/page.asp?mode=1&IDPag=750 Judgment, Trial of Rudy Hermann Guede], Dr Paolo Micheli, Court of Perugia, judgment of 28 October 2008 – 26 January 2009. Retrieved 19 October 2011 (Google translation, Italian to English).
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  43. name="T24">Moore, Malcolm. "Meredith whispered killer's name, suspect says", The Daily Telegraph, November 24, 2007.
  44. Follain p. 397.
  45. Follain p.307
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  49. Follain p344
  50. Follain p342-344
  51. Guardian, September 22, 2011, Amanda Knox 'hopeful of release'
  52. Judgment, Trial of Rudy Hermann Guede, Court of Perugia, judgment of 28 October 2008 – 26 January 2009 (Google translation, Italian to English).
  53. Falconi, Marta. "Prosecutors: Knox staged break-in after murder", Associated Press, November 20, 2009.
  54. Follain. J., Death in Perugia p.248
  55. 55.0 55.1 55.2 Follain. J., Death in Perugia p.177
  56. Follain. J., Death in Perugia p.174
  57. Povoledo, Elisabetta. "Italian Experts Question Evidence in Knox Case", The New York Times, June 29, 2011.
  58. Judgment, Trial of Rudy Hermann Guede, Dr Paolo Micheli, Court of Perugia, judgement of 28 October 2008 – 26 January 2009. Retrieved October 19, 2011 (Google translation, Italian to English).
  59. Diritto, procedura, e pratica penale Tribunale di Perugia: Ufficio del G.I.P.: Dott. Paolo Micheli: Sentenza del 28 October 2008 – 26 January 2009 (Italian): (English trans): Guede "confirmed then to have touched more or less everywhere in the room, even with his hands stained with blood, without however explaining why one of his [palm-]prints were found on the pillow under the corpse, when he remembered the regular pillow on the bed, where they also found the jacket and purse/handbag that the girl [Kercher] had put down on re-entering the house. The bed was, according to his description, covered with a red or beige duvet (but he had insisted far more on the former colour): the pillow was outside of the quilt." Earlier in his judgement, the judge noted that (Italian): "Soltanto in seguito, attraverso la comparazione in Banca Dati di un'impronta palmare impressa nel sangue e rinvenuta sulla federa del cuscino che si trovava sotto il corpo della vittima, si accertava invece la presenza sul luogo del delitto del 21enne G. R. H., nativo della Costa d'Avorio ..." (English): "Only later, through the comparison in the database of a palm-print imprinted in the blood of the victim and found on the pillowcase of the pillow where the body of the victim was found, it confirmed instead the presence at the scene of the crime of the 21-year-old G[uede] R.H., native of the Ivory Coast, ...".
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External links