Author | Victoria Hammill | Jan. 15 2020
Amanda Knox was the victim of not one, but two wrongful convictions for the same crime.
She spent years in prison, to get her release only to be sent right back only a couple years later.
Meredith Kercher was murdered on November 2, 2007 by Rudy Guede who broke into the apartment Meredith shared with Amanda Knox. Unluckily, he discovered Meredith inside. Rudy’s DNA was ultimately found all over the scene of the crime, but was not tested until years later. At the time, the prosecution was not pushing for testing. Five days after the murder, Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were arrested formally charged with the murder of Meredith Kercher. They were accused of trying to force Meredith into a ‘sex game’, and when she resisted they snapped and killed her. The police had zero evidence or credible motive that Amanda and Raffaele would be inclined to repeatedly stab Meredith to death before sexually assaulting her post-mortem. They simply wanted an easy and fast conviction, as global media was descending on this Italian town. The police had not even finished processing the crime scene when they held a press conference only 5 days after the murder, announcing Amanda and Raffaele as the murderers.
While Amanda and Raffaele’s names were being dragged through the mud, the police arrested and convicted Rudy Guede of the murder through an expedited trial. This meant the prosecution had to simply weave Rudy into their sex driven conviction of Amanda and Raffaele, not re-examine the evidence to find the factual outline of the murders.
Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were first convicted in December 2009 for the assault and murder of Meredith Kercher. They were sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison, respectively. They began the appeal process in November of 2010 and after catching new attention the case was reopened. The couple was released and declared innocent in October of 2011. This was finally their moment of freedom, until March of 2013 when the courts decided they had made a mistake and called for a retrial of Amanda and Raffaele. They were re-tried for the same crime. This may sound a lot like the double jeopardy, the law that exists in the United States which protects a person being charged a second time for the same crime, but unfortunately Italy does not have the same laws. In January of 2014 the couple was convicted for the second time for the murder of Meredith Kercher. Amanda was already back in the United States, and did not return to Italy pending a further appeal of the second guilty verdict. It was not until another year later in 2015 when Amanda and Raffaele were acquitted for the final time by the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation. The Supreme Court said it found “stunning flaws” in the investigation and blamed a “frantic search” by police and prosecutors unused to global media attention.
Amanda Knox has had her name and reputation destroyed by the Italian media, and became an icon for violent sex crimes. She moved back to Seattle after her exoneration with nothing but her destroyed reputation. In 2019 Amanda was finally awarded €18,400
(US: $20,460) as compensation for the 50 hour long interrogation Amanda suffered after her first arrest without access to a lawyer or a translator.
Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito shows the severity of wrongful convictions and that this is not solely a problem which plagues the United States. Many other countries have wrongful convictions on their books and no form of compensation or aid for exonerees.
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