Lessons From the Amanda Knox Case-NYTimes

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October 3, 2011

Lessons From the Amanda Knox Case

By TIMOTHY EGAN

Timothy Egan on American politics and life, as seen from the West.

The tragic junior “year” abroad is over, at long last, for Amanda Knox. And for that, we have to thank an Italian legal system that essentially gives every convicted criminal a do-over — more formally, an appeal before fresh eyes. Bravo for Italy.

Those second-chance jurors came to the same conclusion that any fair-minded person who has looked at the monumentally flawed murder case against Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, has arrived at. There was no way, based on forensic evidence that was a joke by international standards and a nonexistent motive that played to medieval superstitions, to find Knox and Sollecito guilty of the 2007 killing of Meredith Kercher, her British roommate in Perugia.

That Amanda Knox will soon be breathing the marine air of her home in Seattle again gets much blood stirring. One camp sees a beautiful killer walk free, backed by a global media cabal that had initially turned her into a villainous cartoon. Another sees a gross miscarriage righted, a victory that should not diminish the memory of the victim.

There is much to be learned from this case: about the strengths and fallibilities of two ancient legal systems, about human prejudice, about honor and retribution. And yes — about justice.

As one of the prosecutors in the case, Manuela Comodi, no friend of Knox, implied last week in his remarks: were Knox being tried in the United States, she might well be on her way to an execution. The case of Troy Davis, killed by the state of Georgia last month despite the fact that most of the witnesses in his case later recanted their testimony, should linger as the Knox saga is reviewed.

I was drawn to this story because of the parallels to my own family: my daughter, a Seattle girl who never knew Knox, was taking her junior year in Italy at the same time as Knox. Suddenly, Seattle, and a college student abroad, took on a very menacing new meaning. I could see my daughter in the Knox role, not yet 21, trying to do the right thing — staying around to help the police, as did Knox, instead of fleeing. And then, a domino of events, a long night of interrogation by police without a lawyer, at a time when Knox could barely understand the language, conflicting statements, and the torture of being fitted into a narrative at odds with the truth.

Knox had no criminal record. No motive for killing the girl who shared a house with her. But still, her behavior seemed odd. Why did she do cartwheels in the police station? Why did she wear a t-shirt in court with John Lennon’s lyrics? (All You Need is Love.) Not enough to convict, of course, but still, it closed many a mind — especially in Italy. She was strange, they said. Off.

Then, for me and millions of others, what prompted reasonable doubts was the evidence presented in the 2009 trial; it could not withstand scrutiny. So, onto the first point that Knox-haters must consider:

Where is the forensic evidence? Meredith Kercher was stabbed, repeatedly, in her small bedroom in a violent struggle that left blood all over the tiny space. Numerous bloody prints and DNA from the man convicted of her killing, Rudy Guede, were found. But any trace of Amanda Knox? No. Nothing. No one has ever been able to place her at the crime scene.

In search of evidence to back a faulty narrative, prosecutors pulled a knife from the kitchen of Sollecito. Of course, Knox’s DNA was on the handle — she used it to cut bread at the home of her boyfriend. The prosecutors said there was a trace of Kercher’s DNA on the blade, a claim that was nearly laughed out of court by an independent panel of experts. These experts in the appeal found instead a kernel of starch on the blade — from cutting bread, most likely.

On top of that were two late-to-the-case “witnesses” — one a heroin addict, the other a homeless man, whose accounts backing the prosecution never held up.

Motive. This is where any defender of women’s rights, or modernity, should howl. Standing in front of the crucifix that adorns Italian courtrooms, prosecutors and lawyers for their side called Knox a “she-devil,” a seducer, a “witch,” someone who manipulated Sollecito into an orgy with Kercher and Guede.

Their evidence? Well, she was sexually active, they said. She had a sex toy. I half-expected prosecutors to throw Knox in a tank of water to see if she sank or floated, a la the Salem witch trials.

Then who did it? Guede, a drifter with a drug history, pled guilty to complicity in the killing. He fled Perugia shortly after the murder. He changed his story, dramatically, to fit the prosecution, which prompted his judge to call him “an absolute liar.” He only named Knox and Sollecito months after he was in jail and looking to cut a deal.

One of the mysteries here is why people can’t see what looks like a straight-forward case for what it is. Race, of course, is a factor. Guede is black. Knox is white. O.K. I get it. It makes for a good debate, but I would never lock away a young couple for a quarter-century because of that.

Why all the attention? People are angry that Knox is the subject of global fascination and second-guessing while thousands of innocents rot in jail on wrongful convictions. It’s because she’s pretty, they say — “Angel Face,” as one nickname had her. “Foxy Knoxy,” in another (actually, that was her girlhood soccer name, for athletic skills). I’m sorry, but that’s human nature. We’re drawn to the duality in people.

But if all the attention to the Knox episode prompts people to take a second look at other questionable cases, then perhaps the tide from Perugia will lift other boats.

In the end, for all the global infatuation over the fate of Knox, this case is about justice for a handful of families. For everyone else — press, prosecutors, Hollywood, two dozen book writers — it’s about something else.

Knox, who spent almost four full years in jail, now has her justice. So does Sollecito. They were both acquitted and freed by the eight-member appeals jury.

And what about the Kercher family? It would have done no honor to their daughter had two people grown old in prison for an accusation that could never be proven. In their news conference just prior to the acquittal, Kercher family members said they remained perplexed as to why Knox and Sollecito would kill their daughter. Asking those questions again, and looking honestly at the case, may yet bring them some peace.