Nothing on Amanda Knox?

[Sam]

She's off. And I could have sworn we'd had a thread on it when she was first convicted, because one of my Facebook friends has put something about being enraged at the decision to release her on her status, and I thought 'you fucking idiot' on the basis of what I'd read about it on here at the time. But I can't find anything (and yes, I've used Google and the site: command) apart from ursus answering one question on the Tiger Woods thread back in 2009.

So... um... anyone? I'd be especially interested in hearing from OTF's legal minds on why the initial conviction was so weak, why it was allowed at all, and how likely the prosecutors are to appeal this decision now...

[Fussbudget]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

Is this the thread you were looking for, by any chance?

[Gerontophile]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

Sorry, is she innnocent?

[caja-dglh]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

She has been cleared.

[Central Rain]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

Way too much about this woman. OTF is one of the few refuges from this story.

[Sam]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

Fussbudget wrote:

Is this the thread you were looking for, by any chance?

It is, yeah. I wonder why that didn't show up when I searched.

And I was sure it was longer (as the milkmaid said to the parson).

[Reed John]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

I have no idea who that is.

[WOM]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

Like following Conrad Black's tribulations, she's been a quiet obsession of mine. It hasn't interrupted my regularly scheduled life or anything, though.

[Sam]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

Central Rain wrote:

Way too much about this woman. OTF is one of the few refuges from this story.

If it's any consolation, every other thread on OTF still is.

[WOM]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

My new obsession is watching Monday Night Football online. Anyone know where I can indulge?

[diggedy derek]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

Sounds like quashing the conviction was the only sensible option.

The Daily Mail's front page is horribly grim

"Weeping Foxy is freed to make a fortune" twitpic.com/6uqj8c

[Incandenza]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

Reed John wrote:

I have no idea who that is.

Reed - she's a young American woman who was studying abroad in Italy when she and a male friend were accused of killing her roommate. There was a sexual aspect to the killing also. I don't know all the details, though.

Interestingly, it seems the story got much more attention overseas than it did in America. I read about it in the Guardian, and the NYT's reporter in Italy wrote about it. I don't think that the cable news stations had saturation coverage about the case like they did with Casey Anthony. I had heard about her before the verdict, unlike Casey Anthony.

[Sam]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

diggedy derek wrote:

Sounds like quashing the conviction was the only sensible option.

The Daily Mail's front page is horribly grim

"Weeping Foxy is freed to make a fortune" twitpic.com/6uqj8c

Almost as bad is what OTF's favourite paper took down from their website pretty sharpish after initially publishing the story they had prepared in the event that the appeal was rejected.

@chantelleosili on Twitter posted this capture of the page, made-up reactions to the verdict and everything. (No need for a Mail warning as that link doesn't actually lead to their page, so you won't be giving them any hits by going there.)

[Etienne]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

I don't think the Mail story is as bad as it's made out. Presumably all that was just structure, with the actual reactions and quotes to be substituted as soon as they happened. I don't think the Mail was intending on running a story with fabricated reactions.

Still cunts, obviously.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

so what happened here? Are the italian police too incompetent and corrupt to reliably collect forensic evidence, without jizzing on the body and cutting themselves with the murder weapon?

Or is it that the italians don't actually believe in going to jail for your first fifteen iterations of the same crime, and always leave a trapdoor in the conviction. Or is it that they believe that four years in jail is too uncivilized for anyone other than a darky to suffer.

or is it just that they had no idea who did this, and railroaded a bunch of foreigners. Or is the whole incident just a simulacra of a news story generated to fill media space in the home of tabloid culture?

[Duncan Gardner]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

Nigel Worthington has called up Foxy's defence lawyers to replace big Aaron and Jonny Evans on the trip to Pescara.

[Brandenburger Toro]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

I had a friend of the deceased start crying in a dissertation meeting on the topic of death once. Not a fun day at the office.

My glib side says I'm happy the average attractiveness of non-incarcerated women has risen slightly. My serious side doesn't much know or care about the details of the case.

[Jah Womble]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

I suspect Reed was being ironic?

[Reed John]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

I was not.

I knew from the frontpage pictures that the Amanda Knox story was some kind of a taibloidy story about a "white girl in trouble/missing/murdered overseas" but I wasn't sure which part Knox played. I knew it was the kind of thing Nancy Grace gets in a twist about. So I never read about it. I never watch TV news. Ever.

So they stiched up some black guy for this, or what? I don't really get it, except that the judge was nuts, or something.

[ursus arctos]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

The case demonstrates the Italian legal system at its worst, which is seriously awful.

Etienne, I'm intrigued by your theory on the Mail. Are you saying that they were just using those fabricated reactions as placeholders? That seems highly implausible to me, as they clearly had two versions of the story ready, and pressed the wrong button when the court announced that the appeal on the defamation charge had been rejected.

[ursus arctos]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

Channel 5 outdoes the Mail.

Parts 2 & 3: Foxy Knoxy: Would Ya?
So Amanda Knox has been cleared of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher. She’s entirely innocent. She’s also undeniably fit and loves wild sex. Or did. So if you were a guy who’d met her in a bar and she invited you back to hers, would you go? I’m being quite serious. Or would something in your brain make you think twice?
We’ll hear what you have to say about that before it’s over to Kelly for the rest of the day’s headlines.

[Moonlight Shadow]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

Well, "Foxy Knoxy" can at least console herself that she got to deal with the incompentence of the Italian justice system rather than than of a number of states of her own country otherwise she might have had to ponder rather more serious stuff than 25 years in jail...

[Hofzinser]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

On the basis of news reports, there seems at least to be sufficient doubt about Knox’s guilt to warrant her release. However, I don’t think it’s ever really possible to confidently pronounce on someone’s innocence or guilt, or the likelihood thereof, on the basis of newspaper reports – you really need to have been following the trial closely, ideally first hand, and considering all the evidence as it is presented rather than through the filter of a journalist (however competent or fair-minded).

One thing that I think has been clearly demonstrated, however, is that victims’ families, or crime victims themselves, should never – contrary to what is commonly argued and in some jurisdictions commonly practised – have a say in the judicial process.

After all, two sets of people who have followed the trial closely and first hand, and therefore ought to be among those best placed to make a judgement on what happened, are the Knox family and the Kercher family, and yet, understandably of course, the former are convinced of Amanda Knox’s innocence and the latter convinced of her guilt.

This sort of thing happens all the time of course, but it is a nice illustration of the impossibility of judging these things dispassionately when a loved one is involved, and the consequent importance of ensuring that the judicial system is set up to ensure trials are conducted as dispassionately as possible.

[The Purple Cow]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

[Wyatt Earp]

Nothing on Amanda Knox?

Hofzinser wrote:

On the basis of news reports, there seems at least to be sufficient doubt about Knox’s guilt to warrant her release. However, I don’t think it’s ever really possible to confidently pronounce on someone’s innocence or guilt, or the likelihood thereof, on the basis of newspaper reports – you really need to have been following the trial closely, ideally first hand, and considering all the evidence as it is presented rather than through the filter of a journalist (however competent or fair-minded).

One thing that I think has been clearly demonstrated, however, is that victims’ families, or crime victims themselves, should never – contrary to what is commonly argued and in some jurisdictions commonly practised – have a say in the judicial process.

After all, two sets of people who have followed the trial closely and first hand, and therefore ought to be among those best placed to make a judgement on what happened, are the Knox family and the Kercher family, and yet, understandably of course, the former are convinced of Amanda Knox’s innocence and the latter convinced of her guilt.

This sort of thing happens all the time of course, but it is a nice illustration of the impossibility of judging these things dispassionately when a loved one is involved, and the consequent importance of ensuring that the judicial system is set up to ensure trials are conducted as dispassionately as possible.

What he said.