Monday, October 3, 2011

Amanda Knox is free

Wonderful wonderful news, Amanda Knox is free.  I feel fantastic being able to have a purely positive post.  This was an example where a popular pressure was able to create effective political change.

We've been hearing for years how we should ignore the evidence, ignore police misconduct, ignore the fabrication of evidence.  But thankfully large groups of people said "no" and justice won out. Its very nice to see the good guys win for a change and I hope Amanda all the best and happiness.

I don't know if she will ever again be the joyful girl we saw pictured but the tears of joy or relief show her coming back to life.  We can hope and wish it for her.  To everyone I met involved in this case, you saved a life, you did good!  And for Italy we can wish and hope that they use this as an opportunity to overhaul their judiciary.  To make sure that judges do not again fill in holes in cases with wild conjecture and the words, "it is probable".

The court ruled today that the "crime" of the staged break in never happened.  Which is clear evidence of how truly silly the original verdict was, a theory based on a minor crime whose very existence is now disproven. In Italy there are 2 levels of not guilty: reasonable doubt and proven innocent, "per non aver commesso il fatto"; and as a result of the court looking at the evidence and not speculating she met the higher burden of proven innocent on the murder charge.  I'm hoping that comes from using the autopsy, the medical examiner's timeline that the first court casually dismissed because it didn't agree with Mignini's theory. The people of Italy should not have to live under a law where judges freely fabricate evidence because they can't fill in the wholes with the evidence they have.

3 comments:

Icy Mt. said...

Finally. The actual, real, properly processed forensic evidence in this case has never pointed at anyone other than Rudy Guede. IMO, confessions obtained by The Authorities, signed or otherwise, are absolutely worthless and untrustworthy unless there is seamless video evidence of the confessors treatment from the minute they are first accosted by The Authorities.

It is a time-honored tradition for The Authorities to "work over" a suspect until they will admit to anything. "But," you say, "The Authorities are so honest, that's why they are The Authorities. What reason have they to lie and coerce a suspect?" First, it is not a crime for The Authorities to lie to a suspect during questioning. Second, The Authorities are human and they are under the gun to solve cases and get convictions. They have motive and opportunity to lie.

The case against Amanda Knox has been a travesty from day one.

Icy Mt. said...

In addition, the suspects should have been subjected to Occam's Razor from the start. RS and AK, a computer programmer/student and a language student. Neither had criminal pasts or where known "actors" by the local police. They were calling the police and hanging around after they discovered MK. RG, petty thief, drug dealer and known bad actor by the local police was nowhere to be found after the murder and skipped the country. It's a pretty good bet who's most likely to be guilty here.

Instead of concocting wild stories about orgies and satan, why wouldn't the cops and prosecutors do a thorough analysis and go after the most likely suspect? That's right, two in the hand is worth way more than one in the wind, no matter what the evidence says.

CD-Host said...

Agree with everything Icy. There is a long tradition of coerced confessions. All the confession proves is that the police suspected Patrick and that 20 year old Amanda was not ready to handle a police interrogation on her own.

And of course in reality
Meredith lived in a house with lots of people doing drugs
Meredith's boyfriend was a drug grower
Rudy Guede was a drug dealer.
Dealers killing other dealers over money is a rather common form of murder. Sex crimes inspired by comic books, not so much.