No doubt there will be much coverage of this story, so my interest is not in the case itself, but rather in the US reaction to a justice system that isn't theirs. I have even heard an American suggest that Americans could only get justice in the US.
All very sad, especially when if you look at the facts, the US often treats foreigners harsher than locals (including demanding that a UK hacker who has aspergers syndrome be transported to the US, to face up to 60 yrs ... yes 60 yrs i.e. 3 times the sentence that the Italian's have handed out to a US murderess), or demanding that people who have committed no crime in their homeland be deported to, or arrested in, the US to face 'justice'. e.g. We allow gambling web sites in the UK, but the US has had the CEO's of these legal sites be arrested.
I accept that in many countries there are causes for concern over the 'state run' legal systems, but Italy is not some third world dictatorship (well apart from the Mafia), and is even in the slow process of trying to prosecute its erratic leader Berlusconi (who is trying once again to change the law to avoid this) - his latest scam is to change the statute limits on some crimes to just 2 yrs, which oddly enough stops anyone prosecuting him ...... shockingly this also implies that he has something to hide from a period as recent as 2 yrs ago!
Anyway, my point is that for the US commentators to suggest that Ms Knox and her well connected Italian boyfriend didn't get a 'fair trial' or 'justice', is plainly ignorant or purely arrogant, but in either case inexcusable. The Italian system has the same flaws and check guards as any other (including the US - remember OJ Simpson?) and the various appeals will no doubt be exhausted.
Update: 03/10/2011 - If ever proof was needed that courts work outside of the US, then the fact that the Italian appeal process has just found her and her boyfriend not guilty (because of doubts over the forensic evidence), is it. That is a controversial decision according to many, in the US as well as Italy (the black boy takes the rap, as one Italian commentator said), but evidence enough that Italian courts are not third world, and it will now be interesting to see if Ms Knox will flee to the US, and then refuse to come back if the Italian prosecutors appeal against the verdict?
My guess that is that she will refuse to return, and then the question of her guilt will be forever in the same storyline as the OJ Simpson verdict. She will also become a millionairess from the TV / Media and Movie deals she makes.
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| Where's The Justice For Meredith? |
Who in the US cries over the injustice for her?
PPS: A straw poll at work (where this was the first topic discussed after the news broke), suggests that 4 out 5 people (and it was only 5 people asked), thought that Knox had a hand in the murder. Now that might be UK bias, but these aren't 'anti-american' lefties, so is possibly indicitive of the general feelings in the UK.
Despite the strong objections raised by her family, it is strange that this Knox trial has attracted so much international attention
ReplyDeleteI think its maybe the mixture of teenage sex, violent murder, and Italian locations ..... other than that, I can think of absolutly no reasons!
ReplyDeleteThere are many who will always think that there has been a US juggernaut to get the 'blond white woman' off. If she had been black and from Detroit, would the US media have spent so much time on this case?
ReplyDeleteWe all know the answer to that.
But it makes the appeal verdict very suspicious to many of us.
I am truly sorry for Meredith Kercher's family. how desolated they must feel.
It seems that the decision to free her was premature and that another Italian court over ruled the not guilty findings. Its supposed to go to another court trial, but it seems unlikely that Amanda Knox will fly back from the US to stand trial. Raffaele Sollecito may not be so lucky and of course Rudy Hermann Guede (a black guy) is serving time for the crime.
ReplyDeleteKnox has her second book out recently which will no doubt sell like hot waffles. We have the strange idea that US citzens commit no crimes abroad, and so they are never extradicted.
In November 2021 Rudy Guede, who was the only one convicted/jailed for the 2007 murder of UK exchange student Meredith Kercher, has finished his sentence early after his 30-year jail term was cut to 16 years (he only served 13 years in prison, plus a years community service). Mr Guede a black Ivorian national still lives in the Italian city of Viterbo and apparently has not been deported.
ReplyDeleteSo there was no justice for Meredith after all. Only one person serving just 13 years for her rape and murder! What a comment on the justice system.
You know, this was a very strange case in many ways, with the victim and the horrific circumstances of her death almost an after thought.
DeleteThe only one convicted was a previously petty criminal who had lived in Italy since he was aged 5, who apparently broke in to the residence to rob it, but then turned sexual predator and murderer when he found a single female there.
How the others were involved, if at all, has never been clearly resolved, but there is the possibility that Rudy Guede simply threw them in, to muddy the waters after he was incriminated by forensic evidence.
But even so, the light sentence he served means that yes, there was no justice for Meredith and her family.