Knox convicted for second time

[dragon]

Since this would count as double jeopardy here in the states would we extradite her

Florence, Italy (CNN) -- Amanda Knox vowed Friday to fight her conviction for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher "until the very end" and said she "will never go willingly" back to Italy.

Speaking on ABC's "Good Morning America," Knox said news of the guilty verdict Thursday "really has hit me like a train."

"I did not expect this to happen. I really expected so much better from the Italian justice system," she said. "They found me innocent before. How can they say that it's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?"

Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were found guilty of murder by an appeals court in the Italian city of Florence following a retrial.
Guilty...once again
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Knox conviction raises new questions

Her attorney, Ted Simon, told CNN's "New Day" that he had been in touch with Knox and her family all day as they awaited the court's decision.

"It was terrible news," he said. "She understands more than anyone that a wrongful conviction is unjust, not just for the accused but for the victim, their family, as well as society, and she feels this very personally."

Knox's conviction has raised questions over her possible extradition to Italy to serve her 28½ year sentence, handed down in absentia, since she has been in the United States throughout the retrial.

But Simon said it was too early to talk about extradition since there is still an appeals process to go through.

Knox, 26, told ABC she would fight every step of the way.

"I will never go willingly back to the place where I -- I'm gonna fight this until the very end," she said.

Asked how she was coping with the situation, her attorney highlighted her "great resilience and fortitude," coupled with strong support from her family.

He argued there was no evidence in the case and that her conviction was a profound miscarriage of justice.

Sollecito stopped near border

Earlier Friday, Italian authorities stopped Sollecito near the border with Austria and Slovenia, Italian police told CNN.

Sollecito, who is not allowed to leave Italy while the legal process continues, was halted in the northern Italian town of Udine, police said.

The Slovenian border is less than 20 miles east of Udine, and the border with Austria lies about 55 miles to the north.

Prosecutors said the couple killed Kercher, a British student, in November 2007. Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Both denied murder.

Kercher, 21, was found partially nude in a pool of blood in the house she shared with Knox in the picturesque town of Perugia, where both women were exchange students.

But despite years of courtroom battles over her death, many aspects of the crime still remain unexplained.

'Journey to the truth'

On Friday morning, Kercher's siblings spoke in Florence about their family's long ordeal.

Her sister, Stephanie Kercher, said the family might never know exactly what happened on the night of her death.

"I think we are still on the journey to the truth," she said. "I think it may be the fact that we don't ever really know what happened that night, which is obviously something we will have to come to terms with."

Lyle Kercher, Meredith's brother, said the family may have to wait until spring 2015 for a final resolution, since the verdicts reached Thursday can still be appealed at Italy's Supreme Court.

"Nothing is going to bring Meredith back, nothing will take away the horror of what happened to her," he said.

"The best we can hope for is finally bringing this whole case to a conclusion, having a conviction, and everyone can move on with their lives."

If the Supreme Court upholds the murder conviction, he expects to see Italian authorities make an extradition request to the United States so that Knox serves her sentence in Italy, he said.

Stephanie Kercher said that she had been told of a letter written by Knox to the Kercher family but that she had not seen it.

She also appeared to rule out meeting with Knox in the future, despite the American's overtures to the family and whatever the final outcome of the case.

"We've asked to have our wishes respected in that we would like to be together as a family to remember Meredith," she said. "A lot has happened over this length of time. It would be very difficult to meet someone having had all that happen."

Read more: Six things to know about Amanda Knox retrial verdict

'Frightened and saddened'

Knox and Sollecito were first convicted in 2009, but those charges were overturned on appeal in 2011 and the pair were freed, having spent four years in prison.

In March of last year, Italy's Supreme Court overturned the pair's acquittals, leading to the retrial that resulted Thursday night in their convictions for murder being reinstated by a Florence appeals court.

Knox, who remained at home in Seattle, Washington, while the retrial was held, said in a written statement Thursday that her conviction would bring no consolation to the Kercher family.

Presiding Judge Alessandro Nencini has 90 days to write his arguments behind the jury's ruling. Once that is out, lawyers have 90 days to appeal.

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[Borgholio]

I may be wrong, but as I understand it, in the Italian justice system, the prosecution has the right to appeal a "not guilty" verdict, which results in an appeals trial. The verdict isn't really truly final yet. In a USA Today article I read on it, the mother of the victim says that there still could be a few more trials after this one as appeals are exhausted.

[Flagg]

I may be wrong, but as I understand it, in the Italian justice system, the prosecution has the right to appeal a "not guilty" verdict, which results in an appeals trial. The verdict isn't really truly final yet. In a USA Today article I read on it, the mother of the victim says that there still could be a few more trials after this one as appeals are exhausted.

Yeah its a bit of a mess trying to get the two systems compatible and understandable to a layperson. As far as I'm concerned as a non-lawyer who knows enough about the case to believe the prosecution is more full of shit than an overflowing Olympic swimming pool sized septic tank I'd argue against extradition until the case is settled. But I'm admittedly biased in Knox's favor.

[Thanas]

I may be wrong, but as I understand it, in the Italian justice system, the prosecution has the right to appeal a "not guilty" verdict, which results in an appeals trial. The verdict isn't really truly final yet. In a USA Today article I read on it, the mother of the victim says that there still could be a few more trials after this one as appeals are exhausted.

Yes. This is the case in nearly all European justice systems. The US is quite alone with their silly double jeopardy rule.

[Flagg]

I may be wrong, but as I understand it, in the Italian justice system, the prosecution has the right to appeal a "not guilty" verdict, which results in an appeals trial. The verdict isn't really truly final yet. In a USA Today article I read on it, the mother of the victim says that there still could be a few more trials after this one as appeals are exhausted.

Yes. This is the case in nearly all European justice systems. The US is quite alone with their silly double jeopardy rule.

I sort of agree and disagree with you about double jeopardy. I think barring new evidence (and not something withheld by the DA to get around the rule) or gross errors by the judge, the prosecution should only get one bite at the apple. But if, for instance, someone is found not guilty of murder and later photographs are found of the acquitted torturing and murdering the victim (this has happened) then by all means the DA should be able to appeal the not guilty verdict.

[TheHammer]

I may be wrong, but as I understand it, in the Italian justice system, the prosecution has the right to appeal a "not guilty" verdict, which results in an appeals trial. The verdict isn't really truly final yet. In a USA Today article I read on it, the mother of the victim says that there still could be a few more trials after this one as appeals are exhausted.

Yes. This is the case in nearly all European justice systems. The US is quite alone with their silly double jeopardy rule.

The kangaroo court that is the Italian justice system is a prime example of why a double jeopardy rule exists here in the states. The physical evidence in this case not only leaves plenty of room for reasonable doubt, it actually goes to the extent of actually exonerating Knox and Solliceto. In my mind the only reason it came back as a conviction is for political/face saving reasons. I'm interested to see what sort of tortured logic the judge issues in his ruling...

[Gaidin]

Would it really take tortured logic to granted another trial under Italian law? Would the judge have to make their decision based on the arguments presented, and if something like this isn't exactly looking at a big picture view of the entire ordeal but 'Yea we want another shot at it for these reasons' and the defense gets to try to shoot it down for whatever vague reasons, how much tortured logic would it really take?

[Lord MJ]

Do all Common Law countries have a Double Jeopardy rule, or just the US?

[TheHammer]

Would it really take tortured logic to granted another trial under Italian law? Would the judge have to make their decision based on the arguments presented, and if something like this isn't exactly looking at a big picture view of the entire ordeal but 'Yea we want another shot at it for these reasons' and the defense gets to try to shoot it down for whatever vague reasons, how much tortured logic would it really take?

I'm not exactly clear on what you're asking... As I understand it, no new evidence was presented in the retrial. Given the complete lack of any physical evidence to implicate Knox and Solliceto, while having mountains of physical evidence to implicate Rudy Guede should have lead any reasonable person to conclude that Guede did it and Knox and Solliceto did not. Therefore, to arrive at the conclusion that Knox and Solliceto were guilty after all would require some particularly tortured logic and a motive that isn't in the interests of Justice.

This breaks it down rather neatly:

http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/FBI2.html

[Gaidin]

That's just me misunderstanding what was said then. Either way, sorry, about that.

[Coop D'etat]

Do all Common Law countries have a Double Jeopardy rule, or just the US?

Under Canadian law the Crown has the right to appeal a criminal conviction, but only on the grounds that the trial judge misinterpreted the law and not on grounds of mistakes in the facts of the case. This tends to be a somewhat extraordinary occurrence.

[LaCroix]

I may be wrong, but as I understand it, in the Italian justice system, the prosecution has the right to appeal a "not guilty" verdict, which results in an appeals trial. The verdict isn't really truly final yet. In a USA Today article I read on it, the mother of the victim says that there still could be a few more trials after this one as appeals are exhausted.

You could picture it in that way. All of this is a single trial, with a couple of trial sessions (up to a maximum number), each resulting in a preliminary verdict. Once the last session is over, or the defence and the prosecution agree that the sessions verdict is ok for them (e.g. none of them appeal), the trial is over and the verdict final.

(Exception: New evidence is found at a later time which prooves that the verdict was blatantly wrong (e.g. a videotape of the crime), then it will be redone.)

[Borgholio]

I may be wrong, but as I understand it, in the Italian justice system, the prosecution has the right to appeal a "not guilty" verdict, which results in an appeals trial. The verdict isn't really truly final yet. In a USA Today article I read on it, the mother of the victim says that there still could be a few more trials after this one as appeals are exhausted.

You could picture it in that way. All of this is a single trial, with a couple of trial sessions (up to a maximum number), each resulting in a preliminary verdict. Once the last session is over, or the defence and the prosecution agree that the sessions verdict is ok for them (e.g. none of them appeal), the trial is over and the verdict final.

(Exception: New evidence is found at a later time which prooves that the verdict was blatantly wrong (e.g. a videotape of the crime), then it will be redone.)

What would prevent the defense lawyer from constantly disagreeing with the verdict? I know here in the US there are plenty of scumbag lawyers who would take advantage of that to keep the thing in a constant state of appeal.

[LaCroix]

What would prevent the defense lawyer from constantly disagreeing with the verdict? I know here in the US there are plenty of scumbag lawyers who would take advantage of that to keep the thing in a constant state of appeal.

You can only appeal a certain number of times, as every appeal would be (usually for an european system, I'm not that versed in the italian one) handled in the next higher level court, until the highest court (applicable to your trial - supreme court isn't always an option) has spoken and the verdict is guilty.

Also, you could easily appeal once because the verdict is not to your liking, but if the next trial also ends the same, you need to find some good reason why you still believe that the verdict is wrong to appeal again. That's why appeal trials usually are much quicker, as most of the evidence was already provided in the original trial and only needs to be revisited, with the lawyers presenting their "improved" reasoning why the verdict should be changed.

edit: in this case, it was like that:
First trial in 2009 - guilty, second trial in appeals court(on account of the defence) 2011 - not guilty.

In March 2013, Italy's Supreme Court (3rd and last instance) overturned the pair's acquittals, ordering the appeals court to redo the trial (as the supreme court doesn't do trials, themselves, they send it down to the prior court to redo). The defence can and will fight that decision once more, and the supreme court will either uphold the guilty conviction (= final) or send it back (retrial in appeal court, again.) but that would mean that they need to come up with something really convincing.

[Siege]

Here is an earlier SDN thread on the subject where Thanas and others cleared up a bunch of popular misconceptions with regards to double jeopardy, infinite retrials and the differences between on one hand the continental European justice systems in general and the Italian system in particular and on the other the American justice system.

I honestly have no opinion to offer on the case itself, almost all press reports I've seen are obviously skewed one way or the other: some make the prosecutor out as a crazy modern-day withchunter desperate to bust imaginary satanic cults, others go the 'Knox had a lot of sex SHE MUST BE GUILTY' route of woman-hating insanity; I haven't come across a breakdown of the case that I feel is trustworthy enough to build an opinion on. My guess would be the verdict will be appealed again, and we'll be here a year from now going over it once again.

[Rogue 9]

I may be wrong, but as I understand it, in the Italian justice system, the prosecution has the right to appeal a "not guilty" verdict, which results in an appeals trial. The verdict isn't really truly final yet. In a USA Today article I read on it, the mother of the victim says that there still could be a few more trials after this one as appeals are exhausted.

Yes. This is the case in nearly all European justice systems. The US is quite alone with their silly double jeopardy rule.

Well then if "not guilty" doesn't actually mean "not guilty," why was she permitted to leave the country?

[Flagg]

I may be wrong, but as I understand it, in the Italian justice system, the prosecution has the right to appeal a "not guilty" verdict, which results in an appeals trial. The verdict isn't really truly final yet. In a USA Today article I read on it, the mother of the victim says that there still could be a few more trials after this one as appeals are exhausted.

Yes. This is the case in nearly all European justice systems. The US is quite alone with their silly double jeopardy rule.

Well then if "not guilty" doesn't actually mean "not guilty," why was she permitted to leave the country?

Wasn't this covered in the headache inducing thread from last year?

[Batman]

I dunno.Even a temporary 'not guilty' means at least for the time being the person in question is legally, well, not guilty,so preventing them from leaving the country might be somewhat illegal?

[Simon_Jester]

I understand how the European system approaches appeals- I just think that it's unfair to defendants to handle appeals as the Italian courts are handling them in this case. The point of appeals courts is to correct mistakes made by the lower courts on matters of procedure, or possibly on matters of law or evidence ignored by the lower court.

I CAN accept that under some conditions a criminal case leading to a "not guilty" verdict should be retried. It would be very reasonable to do that if major new evidence arises (say, DNA testing exonerates the suspect who confessed under a high-pressure interrogation). It would also be reasonable to do that if there was a specific reason to suspect incompetence on the part of the appeals court.

But in other cases, the appeals court appears to have done their job competently here, and there is no new physical evidence not already considered. If so, there is no justifiable grounds for leaving the (very plausibly innocent) defendants in limbo for another 2-4 years before they know whether or not they'll be spending the rest of their lives in prison. At some point, criminal cases must be released from a state of Limbo and the proceedings should have to come with an end, especially if the original 'innocent' verdict was the result of an inept prosecution or incompetent judge.

It is the state's responsibility to make sure its jurists, prosecutors, and jurors (if any) are competent. Unless there is specific evidence indicating otherwise, their verdicts should be respected. And that respect is doubly important in cases where the verdict is 'innocent,' because an innocent verdict is the only way that an innocent person's name can be cleared, and the only way they can get on with their lives without suffering criminal penalties.

[Grumman]

Yes. This is the case in nearly all European justice systems. The US is quite alone with their silly double jeopardy rule.

I agree with you about a lot of things, but not this. You cannot have an adequate justice system without following the concept of "beyond a reasonable doubt", and if you've already acquitted someone once that doubt must exist. It also violates their right to a speedy trial, and removes the innocent person's ability to just move on with their life after the prosecution took their best shot and failed.

[Thanas]

Yes. This is the case in nearly all European justice systems. The US is quite alone with their silly double jeopardy rule.

I agree with you about a lot of things, but not this. You cannot have an adequate justice system without following the concept of "beyond a reasonable doubt", and if you've already acquitted someone once that doubt must exist. It also violates their right to a speedy trial, and removes the innocent person's ability to just move on with their life after the prosecution took their best shot and failed.

Oh noes, all Europeans are evil justice hating people. Do you realize how you sound?

[Thanas]

I may be wrong, but as I understand it, in the Italian justice system, the prosecution has the right to appeal a "not guilty" verdict, which results in an appeals trial. The verdict isn't really truly final yet. In a USA Today article I read on it, the mother of the victim says that there still could be a few more trials after this one as appeals are exhausted.

Yes. This is the case in nearly all European justice systems. The US is quite alone with their silly double jeopardy rule.

Well then if "not guilty" doesn't actually mean "not guilty," why was she permitted to leave the country?

Because of USA pressure and because she was declared not guilty for a period of time.

[Batman]

Yes. This is the case in nearly all European justice systems. The US is quite alone with their silly double jeopardy rule.

I agree with you about a lot of things, but not this. You cannot have an adequate justice system without following the concept of "beyond a reasonable doubt", and if you've already acquitted someone once that doubt must exist

No. That doubt existed with regards to the evidence available at the time. At least as I understand it, in the US it's impossible to retry that person even if evidence surfaces that makes it physically impossible for the guy not to be guilty.

It also violates their right to a speedy trial, and removes the innocent person's ability to just move on with their life after the prosecution took their best shot and failed.

I don't see how 'speedy trial' has anything to do with whether or not the prosecution gets more than one go at proving the suspect is guilty. Besides, the (allegedly) innocent person still gets to move on with their life. Prosecution merely gets more than one bullet.

[Rogue 9]

I dunno.Even a temporary 'not guilty' means at least for the time being the person in question is legally, well, not guilty,so preventing them from leaving the country might be somewhat illegal?

Yes, but if, as has been claimed multiple times, this is actually a continuation of the first trial (meaning the first trial wasn't over) then why let her leave? Even though criminal defendants are deemed innocent until proven guilty in court, we still don't let them leave the country until the trial is over, even if they post bail and don't have to wait in jail for their court date. So if the trial wasn't over, the question remains.

[Thanas]

Are you trying to claim that because they let her leave that the trial and appeals process was over?