BREAKING: Amanda Knox cleared of murder charges

[Ritterin Sophia]

I heard beeing caught in lies and behaving pretty stupidly in the courtroom makes for great publicity these days.

I haven't been following this fiasco, would you mind elucidating on specifics?

[Kanastrous]

it just is a standard reaction to "how dare the foreigners do that to one of us?"

You're right, of course. For my part I never got that - my first reaction to an American being held on criminal charges is don't fuck around on other people's turf (well, unless it's fairly obvious let's-fuck-with-the-Yankees stuff like the hikers held in Iran). Like that fellow who got caned in Singapore - to listen to some people you'd think the US was ready to go to war to save his ass from the rattan. Me, I found that downright embarrassing.

[Thanas]

Basically, she and her family behaved like the worst caricatures of dumb arrogant white trash 'mericans in every way.

Short summary

She enters the courtroom like a beauty queen, pandering to the cameras and sometimes answering journalists' questions with a coy smile. She also wore a "Let It Be" T shirt on Valentine's Day, and has been spotted passing around chocolates, winking at Sollecito, and laying her head down on the defense table. The Italian press has had a ball with Knox's courtroom antics (and those of her family). The jury is not sequestered, and the members are free to read about the case, which means they will certainly have been exposed to rampant criticism of her conduct[....]

Larger article: Link, even more with the lies she was cought in

There should be a basic set of rules when on trial for murder: Don't antagonize the prosecutor and judge. Dress appropriately in court. Don't let your family pose for photos in front of the crime scene. These basic tenets have somehow escaped Amanda Knox, the 22-year-old Seattle native whose trial for sexually assaulting and murdering her British roommate resumes on Friday.

Over the weekend, Knox's mother, Edda Mellas, and her two younger sisters, Deanna, 20, and Ashley, 14, were featured in the Italian women's magazine Gente. The women, in Perugia to support Knox (who turned 22 on July 9 in Capanne Prison), posed somberly in front of the courthouse and leaned on a perch overlooking the Umbrian hillside. One photo showed Knox's younger sisters in short-shorts standing in front of the house that Knox and her murdered roommate, Meredith Kercher, once shared. Understandably, the Kercher family's attorney described the photo as "macabre," but Mellas blamed the photojournalist: "The photos were the photographer's idea, showing Amanda's sisters near the house where Amanda lived," Mellas told NEWSWEEK. "No disrespect to Meredith or her family was ever meant."

The photos have caused yet another uproar here in Italy, where everything Knox and her supporters have done for the past 20 months has been closely scrutinized. And the jury in Perugia, like the rest of this country, is paying attention. During court breaks, jurists have lunch and coffee at the same cafés as lawyers and journalists. In fact, while jurors cannot be quoted in the press, they are still allowed to discuss the case and follow the press coverage.

They're probably horrified by what's happened in the courtroom, too. Two weeks ago, Ashley Knox defied the prohibition on minors attending sex-related hearings and had to be removed from the proceedings. Then Deanna Knox showed up in a red, white, and blue ensemble, complete with hotpants, on July 4. "The jury pays attention to much more than the testimony," says Alessandra Batassa, a Rome-based criminal lawyer who has defended a number of murder suspects. Ideally, "the lawyers should take control of the client's complete image—including who attends court with her—not just the client's personal behavior."

Image is important in this trial, something at which neither the prosecution nor the defense has excelled. The prosecution took five months to make its case, which relied heavily on circumstantial evidence, including Knox's lack of alibi, her behavior after the murder, and contradictory statements she and her co-defendant, Rafaelle Sollecito, made during questioning. The prosecution's forensic evidence cites locations in the house the girls shared where Kercher's blood was found intermingled with Knox's DNA. Prosecutors also offered a knife that has Knox's DNA on the handle and, they claim, Kercher's on the blade. Still, says Batassa, Italian courts have handed down guilty verdicts on less evidence than this.

It is not uncommon in Italy to give equal weight to circumstantial evidence, especially in cases where the defendants have been caught making false statements. Knox, during an interrogation days after the murder, admitted to being in the house when Kercher was killed, and then accused Patrick Lumumba, her former boss, of the murder (he was later cleared). Sollecito at first said he didn't remember if Knox was with him that night and then said he was at home downloading cartoons, even though his computer and Internet records said otherwise. Confronted with records showing that the cell phones of both suspects were turned off at the same moment the night before the murder and then turned on again the next morning about 6—Knox and Sollecito told police that they slept until after 10 a.m.—the two changed their story. They also said that Sollecito called the police the morning after the murder, though phone records show the call was made after the police had already arrived at the at the scene of the murder. "Lies can discredit the suspects as much as hard evidence," said a Perugian judge who preferred to remain unnamed.

The Knox-Sollecito defense team plans to wrap up their case this weekend even though they have presented only a handful of witnesses. Knox's original witness list contained 35 names but defense lawyers have retracted 23. Sollecito's chief forensic consultant walked away from the case (and stuck lawyers with a 50,000 euro bill) in May because he disagreed with the defense strategy. The witnesses who actually testified for the defense caused even more confusion: two forensic scientists placed on the stand contradicted each other. (Sollecito's expert told the jury that Kercher was killed by a single assailant from behind; Knox's said Kercher was killed from the front.) Among the lawyers, chaos reigns: Sollecito's lead attorney, a parliamentarian in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's party, has not been in court for weeks, and his other two attorneys have dismantled their joint practice during the course of this case.

So yeah, it was a clusterfuck of the highest order on both offense and defencse. Knox got lucky she had such an incompetent prosecutor. Had they put up somebody even halfway decent she would be behind bars for murder.

The photos


Yeah, what lovely people. Especially when she claimed that the police had beaten her to get her confession.

[Kanastrous]

People sometimes react very, very weirdly to stress. And whatever else was going on, I think it reasonable to posit that Knox was under a great deal of stress over the course of the trials.

[Thanas]

On that I have no doubt, but claiming such lies even weeks after the fact is really not excusable.

[Crateria]

Basically, she and her family behaved like the worst caricatures of dumb arrogant white trash 'mericans in every way.

Short summary

She enters the courtroom like a beauty queen, pandering to the cameras and sometimes answering journalists' questions with a coy smile. She also wore a "Let It Be" T shirt on Valentine's Day, and has been spotted passing around chocolates, winking at Sollecito, and laying her head down on the defense table. The Italian press has had a ball with Knox's courtroom antics (and those of her family). The jury is not sequestered, and the members are free to read about the case, which means they will certainly have been exposed to rampant criticism of her conduct[....]

Larger article: Link, even more with the lies she was cought in

There should be a basic set of rules when on trial for murder: Don't antagonize the prosecutor and judge. Dress appropriately in court. Don't let your family pose for photos in front of the crime scene. These basic tenets have somehow escaped Amanda Knox, the 22-year-old Seattle native whose trial for sexually assaulting and murdering her British roommate resumes on Friday.

Over the weekend, Knox's mother, Edda Mellas, and her two younger sisters, Deanna, 20, and Ashley, 14, were featured in the Italian women's magazine Gente. The women, in Perugia to support Knox (who turned 22 on July 9 in Capanne Prison), posed somberly in front of the courthouse and leaned on a perch overlooking the Umbrian hillside. One photo showed Knox's younger sisters in short-shorts standing in front of the house that Knox and her murdered roommate, Meredith Kercher, once shared. Understandably, the Kercher family's attorney described the photo as "macabre," but Mellas blamed the photojournalist: "The photos were the photographer's idea, showing Amanda's sisters near the house where Amanda lived," Mellas told NEWSWEEK. "No disrespect to Meredith or her family was ever meant."

The photos have caused yet another uproar here in Italy, where everything Knox and her supporters have done for the past 20 months has been closely scrutinized. And the jury in Perugia, like the rest of this country, is paying attention. During court breaks, jurists have lunch and coffee at the same cafés as lawyers and journalists. In fact, while jurors cannot be quoted in the press, they are still allowed to discuss the case and follow the press coverage.

They're probably horrified by what's happened in the courtroom, too. Two weeks ago, Ashley Knox defied the prohibition on minors attending sex-related hearings and had to be removed from the proceedings. Then Deanna Knox showed up in a red, white, and blue ensemble, complete with hotpants, on July 4. "The jury pays attention to much more than the testimony," says Alessandra Batassa, a Rome-based criminal lawyer who has defended a number of murder suspects. Ideally, "the lawyers should take control of the client's complete image—including who attends court with her—not just the client's personal behavior."

Image is important in this trial, something at which neither the prosecution nor the defense has excelled. The prosecution took five months to make its case, which relied heavily on circumstantial evidence, including Knox's lack of alibi, her behavior after the murder, and contradictory statements she and her co-defendant, Rafaelle Sollecito, made during questioning. The prosecution's forensic evidence cites locations in the house the girls shared where Kercher's blood was found intermingled with Knox's DNA. Prosecutors also offered a knife that has Knox's DNA on the handle and, they claim, Kercher's on the blade. Still, says Batassa, Italian courts have handed down guilty verdicts on less evidence than this.

It is not uncommon in Italy to give equal weight to circumstantial evidence, especially in cases where the defendants have been caught making false statements. Knox, during an interrogation days after the murder, admitted to being in the house when Kercher was killed, and then accused Patrick Lumumba, her former boss, of the murder (he was later cleared). Sollecito at first said he didn't remember if Knox was with him that night and then said he was at home downloading cartoons, even though his computer and Internet records said otherwise. Confronted with records showing that the cell phones of both suspects were turned off at the same moment the night before the murder and then turned on again the next morning about 6—Knox and Sollecito told police that they slept until after 10 a.m.—the two changed their story. They also said that Sollecito called the police the morning after the murder, though phone records show the call was made after the police had already arrived at the at the scene of the murder. "Lies can discredit the suspects as much as hard evidence," said a Perugian judge who preferred to remain unnamed.

The Knox-Sollecito defense team plans to wrap up their case this weekend even though they have presented only a handful of witnesses. Knox's original witness list contained 35 names but defense lawyers have retracted 23. Sollecito's chief forensic consultant walked away from the case (and stuck lawyers with a 50,000 euro bill) in May because he disagreed with the defense strategy. The witnesses who actually testified for the defense caused even more confusion: two forensic scientists placed on the stand contradicted each other. (Sollecito's expert told the jury that Kercher was killed by a single assailant from behind; Knox's said Kercher was killed from the front.) Among the lawyers, chaos reigns: Sollecito's lead attorney, a parliamentarian in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's party, has not been in court for weeks, and his other two attorneys have dismantled their joint practice during the course of this case.

So yeah, it was a clusterfuck of the highest order on both offense and defencse. Knox got lucky she had such an incompetent prosecutor. Had they put up somebody even halfway decent she would be behind bars for murder.

The photos


Yeah, what lovely people. Especially when she claimed that the police had beaten her to get her confession.

I'm honestly ashamed to share nationality with this fucking asshole.

[someone_else]

Technically speaking, the appeal trial confirmed that the evidence against the two was very close to bullshit. Although everyone agreed that the black guy still in jail could not have done it on his own.

But from what I know, they have already asked for the third grade of trial (Cassazione), that will look and see if this second trial has been done correctly (does not examine the case again, only if the appeal trial was run correctly). I have the gut feeling they may find issues in this trial.

While I agree that evidence is very limited, I also see that she acted like a total ass/attention-whore during the whole trial(s). I'd have jailed her on that particular alone. Although being an ass does not make automatically you a criminal, it does lend me to think it is more likely.

Besides, she will make plenty of money with her book (if she hasn't already). Unless the Cassazione finds a way to say this trial is bullshit as well, and reverts to the first's results.


And last but not least, guess what? Alfano (the dog of Berlusconi, former justice ministry now appointed as his party secretary) speaks in behalf of his master to denigrate the work of judges saying that none pays for their errors, and of course comparing his master's trials to this one.

[Hillary]

It's tribal. One of "our girls" was held in a "foreign country" and tried by a "foreign court". You bet there would be celebrations in any nation where anything like this would happen.

Indeed - I have had to remind people over here about the unseemly behaviour when Louise Woodward's conviction was downgraded to involuntary manslaughter.

[Surlethe]

Besides, she will make plenty of money with her book (if she hasn't already). Unless the Cassazione finds a way to say this trial is bullshit as well, and reverts to the first's results.

What makes you think she'd go back to Italy? Does the US have an extradition treaty?

[Thanas]

The US is quite good in demanding extraditions but stonewalling extradition requests on their own, so I doubt she'll ever set foot into Italy again.

[Zac Naloen]

She would have to avoid Europe as a whole wouldn't she, in theory she could get stopped at any european airport and extradited?

Although being an American even that isn't an issue.

[Thanas]

She would have to avoid Europe as a whole wouldn't she, in theory she could get stopped at any european airport and extradited?

If the Italians bother to write a European warrant and US lapdogs would be bothering enforcing it you would be right.

[TheHammer]

Yeah that certainly helps the media circus but having witnessed similar cases in Germany and elsewhere it just is a standard reaction to "how dare the foreigners do that to one of us?" I bet there would be celebrations if she were, say, an 19 year old male as well.

Though nobody came out of the trial smelling of roses, so I don't get the Lifetime movie and all that. Especially as the verdict is not unimpeachable yet.

Good luck getting her back to Italy to stand trial for a third time if the Prosecution does get an appeal...

[TheHammer]

Basically, she and her family behaved like the worst caricatures of dumb arrogant white trash 'mericans in every way.

Short summary

She enters the courtroom like a beauty queen, pandering to the cameras and sometimes answering journalists' questions with a coy smile. She also wore a "Let It Be" T shirt on Valentine's Day, and has been spotted passing around chocolates, winking at Sollecito, and laying her head down on the defense table. The Italian press has had a ball with Knox's courtroom antics (and those of her family). The jury is not sequestered, and the members are free to read about the case, which means they will certainly have been exposed to rampant criticism of her conduct[....]

Larger article: Link, even more with the lies she was cought in

There should be a basic set of rules when on trial for murder: Don't antagonize the prosecutor and judge. Dress appropriately in court. Don't let your family pose for photos in front of the crime scene. These basic tenets have somehow escaped Amanda Knox, the 22-year-old Seattle native whose trial for sexually assaulting and murdering her British roommate resumes on Friday.

Over the weekend, Knox's mother, Edda Mellas, and her two younger sisters, Deanna, 20, and Ashley, 14, were featured in the Italian women's magazine Gente. The women, in Perugia to support Knox (who turned 22 on July 9 in Capanne Prison), posed somberly in front of the courthouse and leaned on a perch overlooking the Umbrian hillside. One photo showed Knox's younger sisters in short-shorts standing in front of the house that Knox and her murdered roommate, Meredith Kercher, once shared. Understandably, the Kercher family's attorney described the photo as "macabre," but Mellas blamed the photojournalist: "The photos were the photographer's idea, showing Amanda's sisters near the house where Amanda lived," Mellas told NEWSWEEK. "No disrespect to Meredith or her family was ever meant."

The photos have caused yet another uproar here in Italy, where everything Knox and her supporters have done for the past 20 months has been closely scrutinized. And the jury in Perugia, like the rest of this country, is paying attention. During court breaks, jurists have lunch and coffee at the same cafés as lawyers and journalists. In fact, while jurors cannot be quoted in the press, they are still allowed to discuss the case and follow the press coverage.

They're probably horrified by what's happened in the courtroom, too. Two weeks ago, Ashley Knox defied the prohibition on minors attending sex-related hearings and had to be removed from the proceedings. Then Deanna Knox showed up in a red, white, and blue ensemble, complete with hotpants, on July 4. "The jury pays attention to much more than the testimony," says Alessandra Batassa, a Rome-based criminal lawyer who has defended a number of murder suspects. Ideally, "the lawyers should take control of the client's complete image—including who attends court with her—not just the client's personal behavior."

Image is important in this trial, something at which neither the prosecution nor the defense has excelled. The prosecution took five months to make its case, which relied heavily on circumstantial evidence, including Knox's lack of alibi, her behavior after the murder, and contradictory statements she and her co-defendant, Rafaelle Sollecito, made during questioning. The prosecution's forensic evidence cites locations in the house the girls shared where Kercher's blood was found intermingled with Knox's DNA. Prosecutors also offered a knife that has Knox's DNA on the handle and, they claim, Kercher's on the blade. Still, says Batassa, Italian courts have handed down guilty verdicts on less evidence than this.

It is not uncommon in Italy to give equal weight to circumstantial evidence, especially in cases where the defendants have been caught making false statements. Knox, during an interrogation days after the murder, admitted to being in the house when Kercher was killed, and then accused Patrick Lumumba, her former boss, of the murder (he was later cleared). Sollecito at first said he didn't remember if Knox was with him that night and then said he was at home downloading cartoons, even though his computer and Internet records said otherwise. Confronted with records showing that the cell phones of both suspects were turned off at the same moment the night before the murder and then turned on again the next morning about 6—Knox and Sollecito told police that they slept until after 10 a.m.—the two changed their story. They also said that Sollecito called the police the morning after the murder, though phone records show the call was made after the police had already arrived at the at the scene of the murder. "Lies can discredit the suspects as much as hard evidence," said a Perugian judge who preferred to remain unnamed.

The Knox-Sollecito defense team plans to wrap up their case this weekend even though they have presented only a handful of witnesses. Knox's original witness list contained 35 names but defense lawyers have retracted 23. Sollecito's chief forensic consultant walked away from the case (and stuck lawyers with a 50,000 euro bill) in May because he disagreed with the defense strategy. The witnesses who actually testified for the defense caused even more confusion: two forensic scientists placed on the stand contradicted each other. (Sollecito's expert told the jury that Kercher was killed by a single assailant from behind; Knox's said Kercher was killed from the front.) Among the lawyers, chaos reigns: Sollecito's lead attorney, a parliamentarian in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's party, has not been in court for weeks, and his other two attorneys have dismantled their joint practice during the course of this case.

So yeah, it was a clusterfuck of the highest order on both offense and defencse. Knox got lucky she had such an incompetent prosecutor. Had they put up somebody even halfway decent she would be behind bars for murder.

The photos


Yeah, what lovely people. Especially when she claimed that the police had beaten her to get her confession.

I'm honestly ashamed to share nationality with this fucking asshole.

Well I'm glad reading this decidedly one sided article was enough to sway your opinion. Quite frankly that article asserts as fact many key details that are in fact very questionable. Here is but one article: How Strong is the Evidence against Amanda Knox?

And so what if her family didn't behave properly for a murder trial? I'd assume this was their first experience. The Girl may be an air head and very naive but that doesn't make her guilty. She may have been poorly coached as to how and dress and behave in court but that doesn't make her guilty.

Contradictory statements? Lies? Well most of her interrogation was conducted in Italian without a translator. It would be easy to sound as though you were giving contradictory information if you were trying to answer questions given to you in a second language. Being put under pressure from interrogators can also cause people to say things that aren't true. There is another posting on SDN on that exact issue.

As for the phyisical evidence, there is nothing to link Knox or Solicceto to this murder, and plenty to link Rudy Guede. He's also the only guy who fled the country after this and truly behaved as though he were guilty. As experts have noted, and common sense should tell us, it would be impossible for Knox and Solicceto to be able to clean up all of their own DNA and leave only Guedes. Particularly if this was a plot that the three of them were "in on" as the prosecution contended. More on Guede and his changing story here.

I don't think anyone could be 100% certain of Knox and Solicceto's innocence. But then I'm not 100% certain no one on this board hand a hand in it either. But clearly, there is still plenty of reasonable doubt in this case for those two, and virtually zero reasonable doubt for whom very like was the sole perpetrator - Rudy Guede. Had the police found him sooner, it is very likely that's how this story would have gone down. Rudy would never have known to try and change his story to pin this on Knox. But by then it was too late. The prosecution couldn't back down at that point without looking foolish. I think ultimately that's the conclusion this second Italian Jury came to.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Uhm, that isn't "typical white trash American behaviour", Thanas. It's a very specific cultural trait of the Pacific Northwest. I once had a conversation with some friends on the East Coast in which one of them was going to a job interview, and I was flabbergasted that he was wearing a full double-breasted suit for that, as I'd never seen someone dressed up so well for anything except a couple of extremely formal events. It didn't occur to me that people might regularly wear suits to job interviews; it turns out my other friend had lived in Washington for a few years and promptly chimed in on a relative comparison of how the entire state dresses down as a rule, usually two steps from the US east coast. A terrible dress sense is something of both a reality and a point of pride in the Pacific Northwest. I mean, I kick my feet up on the table or chair in front of me in pink and black striped socks during college lectures all the time without thinking much of it, and I'm a much more formal dresser than the usual. She was, being from West Seattle and raised here by wealthy parents, especially Vashon Islanders (where there is no formality at all--Puget Sound island culture is such that people will just walk into unlocked houses and hang out, the accepted means of sending a message is to write a note on someone's counter for them, etc), not someone who would think it unusual to do things like that to deal with stress, exhaustion, and distraction during a long and relatively boring event when she's not called on to do anything. The lack of understanding of the formality of courts is so common around here that websites for the courts over even trivial affairs have to drill it into people that there's appropriate courtroom attire.

[Thanas]

Having to be removed from the courtroom and trying to play quintessential "AMERICA" behavior as well as not even having the good sense not to flirt with your boyfriend in front of the jury is typical american behavior? Not in my book.

@Hammer:
As to the second language stuff, she was good enough to address the court in Italian. She was asked if she wanted to get a lawyer etc, she refused.

As to the family, I was not implying that she deserves to be found guilty for the actions to her family. I should not have to clarify that to you but apparently your reading comprehension is pretty bad. What I am saying is that they do not deserve to be glorified as some kind of heroes or role models.

[TheHammer]

Having to be removed from the courtroom and trying to play quintessential "AMERICA" behavior as well as not even having the good sense not to flirt with your boyfriend in front of the jury is typical american behavior? Not in my book.

Well, if she believed she was innocent, and would be found not guilty it might not occur to her that she was acting inappropriately. It is also possible that given the high pressure situation, flirting with her boyfriend acted as a way for her to cope with it. She was very young and a murder trial isn't something you get prepared for in school. Her defense attorney should have coached her far better on things of that nature.

@Hammer:
As to the second language stuff, she was good enough to address the court in Italian. She was asked if she wanted to get a lawyer etc, she refused.

She was good enough to read what was essentially a prepared statement to the court in Italian. Which is a good deal different than understanding questions being asked in different ways to you by persons who may or may not speak the same dialect, and then giving an answer in Italian that means exactly what you want it to mean.

As to what she was offered and when she was offered it, considering they never bothered to record the interrogation, something I find to be very suspect by the way, we really don't know now do we? It could have gone down as the Italian police say, or could have gone down like this.

As to the family, I was not implying that she deserves to be found guilty for the actions to her family. I should not have to clarify that to you but apparently your reading comprehension is pretty bad. What I am saying is that they do not deserve to be glorified as some kind of heroes or role models.

Fair enough. However, while you aren't implying that she deserved to be found guilty, It has been widely noted that the Italian Jurors were influenced by this in making their decision during the first trial. And it wasn't merely her behavior at the trial, but things that many young adults her age do portrayed in the worst possible light - out of context photos, quotes from her facebook page etc built into stories by muck racking reporters. Since Jurors in Italy aren't sequestered from "news reports" this was very much a trial by the media.

And I don't buy the notion that they are being glorified as heroes or role models. Maybe some minority of people feel that way, but for the most part I think the majority just felt like it was an injustice for her to have been convicted in the first place given the absolutely shitty "evidence" used against her. They wanted to see a trial on the evidence not on sensationalism in the Italian and other media.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

She didn't volunteer to be at a murder trial, Thanas. And the flirting was inappropriate by any standard, even the laid-back standards of the Pacific Northwest. Her behaviour therefore was a bit reckless by any standard (and Washington/Oregon standards are markedly different from those of the rest of the country, and islanders an entire 'nother story), but taken as a whole I think most of it can be written off to cultural factors peculiar to how she grew up and the fact that she was a somewhat coddled child. But the most pertinent point is that she didn't volunteer to be at a murder trial. From the point of view of a reasonable person, if the government is compelling you to do something, well, we need government, so I'll go along with it -- but why shouldn't I take my shoes off and kick my feet up on the desk while I'm doing it? I really think it's reasonable for an otherwise uninformed person to have that attitude, which leaves it very much the fault of the defence attorneys that she wasn't disabused of it.

[LaCroix]

From the point of view of a reasonable person, if the government is compelling you to do something, well, we need government, so I'll go along with it -- but why shouldn't I take my shoes off and kick my feet up on the desk while I'm doing it? I really think it's reasonable for an otherwise uninformed person to have that attitude, which leaves it very much the fault of the defence attorneys that she wasn't disabused of it.

You did not just claim that, did you? Acting like a petulant teenager who doesn't give a shit and being highly disrespectful to the people that will decide on your fate is "reasonable behaviour"? A reasonable person being tried for murder would be on best behaviour! This is so far off the norm that it's not even a no-brainer!

[Kanastrous]

Yes, if you're in a courtroom for whatever reason, if you're not doing everything reasonably possible to make yourself sympathetic, you're asking for trouble.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

From the point of view of a reasonable person, if the government is compelling you to do something, well, we need government, so I'll go along with it -- but why shouldn't I take my shoes off and kick my feet up on the desk while I'm doing it? I really think it's reasonable for an otherwise uninformed person to have that attitude, which leaves it very much the fault of the defence attorneys that she wasn't disabused of it.

You did not just claim that, did you? Acting like a petulant teenager who doesn't give a shit and being highly disrespectful to the people that will decide on your fate is "reasonable behaviour"? A reasonable person being tried for murder would be on best behaviour! This is so far off the norm that it's not even a no-brainer!

"an otherwise uninformed person", but reasonable. The average 20 year old has no experience with courtroom procedure, especially not in the United States, and is NEVER taught etiquette today. I know how to act around Judges, Senators, etc, because my father was a politician and a military officer and still had a bit of aristocratic bearing, so I was educated in these things. But the average American kid, especially from the laid-back Pacific Northwest, simply does not know these things. Furthermore remember the American attitude--she is innocent, so she is utterly convinced the court will find her such, and she is not worried about her behaviour because, to her, as an innocent person, the trial is a severe inconvenience and derailment of her life. I believe she simply thought it was 100% impossible that she could be found guilty when she knew she wasn't, so she was just trying to keep herself distracted until the entire charade was over. We're all adults and cynics here, but a 20 year old going to a school close enough to home she probably still lived with her parents and raised in the rather cushy Dr. Spock parenting culture of the US west coast? I am quite sure that until the moment the verdict was pronounced she had literally never even thought once that anything she did short of killing a guard in the proceeding could get her convicted of murder.

[TheHammer]

After reading her letter after her interrogation prior to the first trial , it seems that she was also supremely naive in regards to police and the authorities in general. In her writings she keeps saying she doesn't understand how they have evidence of her at the crime scene, or why solicceto would be lying about her being with him. In reality none of that was true, but it simply doesn't occur to her that the police were in fact the ones lying trying about all of it - the evidence, soliccetto "not covering for her anymore" etc to get her to spill the beans. I think that's what lead to her trying to reconcile what she believed with the truth to what the police were telling her and lead to some of the contradictions and fabrications.

At any rate, she probably was in many ways still a petulent teenager at age 20. But I also think her time in prison, along with natural progression of time, lead to a maturation she clearly didn't have in the first trial. In this one she behaved much more as she should, and essentially let the evidence speak for itself. I believe that is why she went free this time whereas during the first trial, despite most of the same points being raised, she was found guilty.

[Stofsk]

From the point of view of a reasonable person, if the government is compelling you to do something, well, we need government, so I'll go along with it -- but why shouldn't I take my shoes off and kick my feet up on the desk while I'm doing it? I really think it's reasonable for an otherwise uninformed person to have that attitude, which leaves it very much the fault of the defence attorneys that she wasn't disabused of it.

You did not just claim that, did you? Acting like a petulant teenager who doesn't give a shit and being highly disrespectful to the people that will decide on your fate is "reasonable behaviour"? A reasonable person being tried for murder would be on best behaviour! This is so far off the norm that it's not even a no-brainer!

It is also completely irrelevant. Anyone who sits in the dock should be judged on the evidence presented, not on whether they're on their best behaviour. Some of the guiltiest motherfuckers out there are more than capable of putting on their best face and PR - that doesn't magically make them not guilty. Anymore than someone who is aggressive or irreverent somehow becomes more guilty because they're being disrespectful.

Marina's point is that this is on the fucking defence counsel she had, who if they were any good would have sat her down at the start and told her to stfu.

[Kanastrous]

Anyone who sits in the dock should be judged on the evidence presented, not on whether they're on their best behaviour.

Sure. 'Should.' I think we all know that 'should' is kind of the irrelevant part. The road to the conviction of the innocent might well be paved with a reliance upon how things 'should' work.

[Simon_Jester]

We're all adults and cynics here, but a 20 year old going to a school close enough to home she probably still lived with her parents and raised in the rather cushy Dr. Spock parenting culture of the US west coast? I am quite sure that until the moment the verdict was pronounced she had literally never even thought once that anything she did short of killing a guard in the proceeding could get her convicted of murder.

That "permissiveness" charge only emerged after various people decided they disliked Dr. Spock's opposition to the Vietnam War, and that therefore Dr. Spock must be a filthy hippie and a maker of filthy hippies. It didn't come from people reading his work during the intervening decades it'd already been out.

So while I won't dispute that Ms. Knox may well have been raised cushily and with a very thick coat of naiveté about the judiciary's ability and willingness to convict the innocent, I think you're being unfair to Dr. Spock.