There is a joke in Italy about the Justice system that equates to, kill just about anyone you want but don't rob the state or you'll really be in trouble. I asked my own lawyer how many years she would have got if this had been a normal low profile muder case and he said that she would have been unlucky to get 8.

There are so many stories in this case, its hard to tell what is true or false, but one I heard/read was that after Amanda repeatedly denied being involved and after being in the police station for several hours, the police starting asking Amanda to imagine who did it. What would she have done if she had been there? etc, etc.

So, if we had a video, we might be able to determine how the police questions were tabled and then make sense out of her answers.

If she just out of the blue offered up a story about how the bartender did it and she was there, it sounds worse than if she was asked to guess what might have happened and decided to play along.

I'm with you in the respect that I simply can't imagine ever confessing to a crime I didn't commit unless I was being tortured and then I'd probably say just about anything to make the pain stop (and I'm not saying torture was involved here).

Having said that, I've heard of many cases where individuals confessed to crimes they didn't commit under the simple duress of extended interogation. I still scratch my head and think WTF? I would fight to the bitter end and never confess to something I didn't do, but then again, I've never been in that situation, so who knows what I might do after 12 hours of endless interogation without food, sleep or water and possible fear tactics and light physical abuse or threats of physical abuse.

Amanda and her boyfriend sure didn't do themselves any favors with their multiple alibis, but I find it extremely hard to understand how a couple who had only know each other for 6 days could connect with another person she barely knew and her boyfriend had never met (Rude Guede) and commit this crime.

Here's an article that seems to echo some of my feelings about the case:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...questions.html

Everybody lies. Doesn't matter if you're guilty or innocent, if you're dumb enough to talk, you're dumb enough to try and lie.

This seems to make sense. I'm definitely gonna keep quiet in these situations from now on.

False confessions are definitely a real thing. The most famous occurence is probably the central park jogger case where 5 teenagers confessed seperately to raping the woman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisha_Meili

It is insane that Italian courts don't sequester their juries. Is everything just admissible then? If they aren't sequestered then everything better be allowed in court. You don't want jurors reading that she did cartwheels or whatever in a newspaper and then not getting to hear the defense explaing/mitigate that.* I guess since they only need a majority decision there's is less a concern of bribing, but I would think that is a problem as well.

Most of what I know about the case has come from reading this thread. I think she was probably involved, but that there wasn't enough evidence to convict her. I also think, however, that she probably would have been convicted in the US. I've seen enough episodes of 48 hours mystery to know that juries don't require as much evidence as they do on Law and Order. A bad conviction, but probably only slightly more reckless than is the standard. This is nowhere near as bad the West Memphis 3 conviction.

What is the explanation on her only getting 26 years? Is that like hedging their bet or something?

*I've seen a few interviews with jurors, post-trial, and it is ****ing frightening some of what they say as their justifications. It's way more of "that guy just didn't seem right" than physical evidence. There was a 48 hours mystery episode called "dream killers" which was a much worse conviction than this, in my opinion. It deals with a possible false/coerced confession as well. The best part is when one or more of the jurors afterward in an interview for the show said that they didn't believe that was possible and that they already had made up their minds. frightening ****.

that was a lot more rambling than I had intended.

I don't think there is a chance in hell that a 12 person jury would unanimously agree on convicting her, at worst she would get a hung jury.

In Italy all they need to convict is a majority and if its a tie, one of the judges gets to make the deciding vote, it's much easier to get a conviction under these circumstances (imo).

Does anyone know how the jururs voted (ie, was it unanimous).

I also think there was probably massive peer pressure to convict given the way she was portrayed in the press. Reminds me of what I read about the Salem witch trials.

Yeah Ive seen some of these interviews too and they are scary ****. Some juror admitted making up his mind before there was some new evidence brought in. This hillbilly just said that the new evidence didn't matter because he had already made up his mind. So sick on every level, even if this was true, how dumb do you have to be to admit it. Yeah it was a murder trial.

change "probably" to "a good chance of." From the limited exposure I've had to juries (there is definitely selection bias here, as the only trials I'm reading about or watching shows on are going to be ones where defendants seemed innocent and got convicted), they don't require the air tight physical evidence that most of us would like. They're basically 12 angry men, but without Henry Fonda. There are definitely cases in the US of people getting convicted on less.

The Italian system is all kinds of ******ed and the majority vote to decide a person's guilt is reckless, but does anyone else think it's a great idea to have a judge in there? I like the fact that there are 2 judges in there who can guide the discussion and who have votes.

Under Italian law, the jury has 90 days to release the reasoning for its decisions.

Well that should be interesting to hear when it comes out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/wo...y.html?_r=1&hp

I wonder if that just means they transcribed what she said and she signed it. Or if she wrote it out herself. Clearly though it sounds like this wasn't just a one-time outburst. I'd like to know every detail of the story she told and how long she stuck to it. I mean bottom line for some amount of time she carried on the charade, and for all that time apparently she was willing to see this guy rot in jail the rest of his life, and she knew he didn't do anything. This is not some semi-******ed 16-year-old who is barely aware of what they're doing giving a false confession. This is a very smart, calculating young woman who by all accounts should be as aware of the consequences of her actions as much as anyone.

I want to add Amanda Knox in Myspace but her profile is friends only. Do you think she'll still be +EV in 15 years or so?

Has nobody seriously considered that she is insane, whether she murdered Meredith or not? It seems that just her erratic personality, and even that of her immediate family has counted as good evidence against her when perhaps it shouldn't necessarily. The Knoxes remind me of that other American family who claimed that their child had blown away in a balloon, i.e. not exactly evil, but just so far departed from reality to actually count as insane. I saw photos of Knox's mother and father taking a picture of themselves smiling in the courtroom just a few days before the conviction. Obviously none of this should be considered evidence about a murder or non-murder, but it really is freakishly weird, isn't it?

There was a witness that links her to Rudy as a drug dealer friend. Not questioning anything else, no matter whos alibi you go by Amanda is at her apartment or missing the night of the murder. Her boyfriend says she went home. She suddenly made up a confession about being home. And no one can vouch for her being anywhere else. This is before even questioning whether or not the boyfriend being on the internet at his house is relevant. I don't even care if the boyfriend was there, it just seems she is consistently out of a reliable alibi of not being at her apartment.

So she doesn't have a good alibi and is linked to a really weird incrimination of a random dude for no clear motive. This is before all the weird evidence in the room and claims of evidence contamination come into play. I mean it's not condemning but it certainly involves complicity in my mind. I would also like to add that those questioning the evidence are as much bombarded by the counter-media surge by her lawyers so how good, or bad, the evidence actually is, isn't available to us either.

My real big question here is: if Rudy Guede is the solo killer, and he already is condemned to jail. In fact it'd take a meteor to break his ass out of prison. What incentive is he getting to keep Knox and Sollecito in the story/why doesn't he just say exactly what happened without the bushy haired stranger involved. I mean it's too condemning to have your bloody handprint + DNA all over the body, and poop in the toilet. So if his delusions of freedom are pretty much gone why doesn't he tell the real story?

And finally, I think him taking a dump is potentially a really crucial part of the case in terms of determining what kind of connection he has with amanda and the boyfriend. You have to picture the scenario in which you go to a girl's house, rape, kill, and then take a dump. Behind that is a confidence that roomates aren't coming home, that you wouldn't hold it in to get rid of the body. Just a whole lot of comfort issues for a stranger in someone elses house.

Pretty much this.

Not only is it 8 people, 2 of the 8 are judges and therefore are experts, at least in comparison to random jurors. The system doesnt instil confidence enough i want to go committing crimes in Italy but it doesnt sound nearly as bad as other countries.

Its kinda lol that the people who think she is guilty are looking at the evidence like her framing someone else, and the people who think she is innocent are looking at the prosecutor and the system of justice. Oh and one guy defending her repeatedly wants to see tapes for some reason.

Also i assume they found out what happened with Tiger for this to get so much coverage.

She is guilty, i know this because she was found guilty. Next storm in teacup now that this is over and presumably the Tiger stuff has died down.

Yeah because we're in no position to question whether or not the DNA strap evidence or the boot print evidence is legit or not. So what else do we have to look at other than whether or not she behaves like an incredibly guilty person. Granted, none of us will influence her life and none of us truly have enough evidence worthy of convicting her. But we're on an internet forum where the point is to post and discuss, so there you have it.

If that's true, then that's actually one thing (probably the only thing) that I prefer about their justice system. I think that knowing why a jury decided the way they did is a good thing. I can certainly understand the arguments against it (and I think some of them are legitimate), but on balance, I like the idea.

Very interesting breakdown of the differences in the Italian legal system: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540...81879#28075834

I guess the judges play a much more active role - which obviously is going to be a double-edged sword. Also the two judges who were on the jury have to write up their opinion (as mentioned above). So that should be interesting when it comes out.

Also man Dennis Murphy (the interviewer) is a moron. He manages to throw his own bias into just about every question. At one point he interjects with something like "yeah but she's a pretty faced girl, that will [unintelligible]" and the interviewee just looks at him like "wtf does that have to do with what I was talking about?" the proceeds along with what he was saying.

I dont often read newspapers, but i read my parents copy of our local broadsheet (serious, none tabloid) and the case was in there. The report was so different to what ive read on here its unreal and its not because i think they are spinning the story.

Maybe its because the victim is British (she was a student about an hours travel from here) or maybe its because the people writing it up werent American, but its pretty amazing how different it was from what ive read on CNN etc.

Btw, was it mentioned in the thread that she tried to make the murder look like a break in gone wrong by breaking out the window (from the inside)? Coupled with them finding her acting suspicious then she tries to frame the boss. Im not Columbo, but i definitely have one more question.

To think this is open and shut from either side is ridiculous, but there is a hell of a lot of stuff making her look guilty in the little that has leaked out about the case.

I get the feeling that this case was covered in the American media like the Micheal Shields case was over here in the UK. Pretty much "their court system isn't as sophisticated as ours and therefore he isn't getting a fair trial". I didn't buy it for Sheilds and I don't buy it for Knox.

Yeah that's what Dennis Murphy was pretty much trying to imply with every question.

Do they know that she did this?

To be fair Shields, as much as he seems to be a scumbag yob who at least took part in the beating of an innocent man, was eventually given a pardon by the British courts.

Reading the wiki entry i was shocked to learn that the guy who confessed (which i heard about) withdrew his confession and there were reports he and his family were threatened in order to force him to confess (which wasnt reported well enough i heard about it). Also he got several key details wrong in his confession including what the actual murder weapon was. So whilst i have no clue if Shields was the right guy its easy to pass judgement that the reporting was biased and it certainly looks that way in this case.

Basically biased reporting is fuelling "public outrage" which is fuelling more bias in reporting so as to not offend the people its being reported to.

It was reported in the context that she is found guilty and thus did it.

By "they" i assume you dont mean the Italian courts, but that is the "they" who is most important and "they" are sure she did it.

She was convicted with no real physical evidence, but that alone doesnt mean innocence. Its rare but it certainly happens, even in the US, that people are convicted with no physical evidence at all.

Its also true that many are convicted wrongly with physical evidence and that guilty people walk with huge physical evidence against them.

Right now i think this thread is pretty much dead until the 2 judges release their reasoning for the jury decision. I suspect a lot of people will be able to give a "told you so", but right now i dont think either side in the thread are sure they will be able to do so.

With regard to the knife: even her own experts did not eliminate the knife as the possible murder weapon. They simply said that some of the wounds could not have been caused by that particular knife.