Amanda Knox is a U.S. woman born in 1987, whose conviction for the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher in Italy was widely publicized and controversial. Initially convicted and later acquitted, Knox was again found guilty in 2014 but both she and her co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito remain free due to the Italian legal system's appeals process. The case raised significant questions about the reliability of evidence and the conduct of the Italian judicial system.

1. Amanda Knox
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Amanda Knox
Knox at the National Innocence Network Conference with David
Camm and exoneree Randy Steidl
Born Amanda MarieKnox
July 9, 1987 (age 27)
Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Education University of Washington
Occupation Author
Known for Being convicted, acquitted, and re-convicted of
the murder of Meredith Kercher[1]
Height 5 ft 4 in (1.63 m)
Partner(s) Raffaele Sollecito (ex-boyfriend)
Parent(s) Edda Mellas (mother)
Curt Knox (father)
Relatives Deanna Knox (sister)
Website
Amanda Knox Website

2. Amanda Marie Knox (born July 9, 1987) is an American woman whose conviction, along
with Raffaele Sollecito, of the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher in Italy received widespread
publicity. Rudy Guede, who denied involvement but had strong forensic evidence against him,
had earlier given evidence implicating Knox and Sollecito at his separate trial for murdering
Kercher, and received a reduced sentence. Knox maintained her innocence and there was
criticism of the verdict because of what some experts considered an anomalous absence of
forensic evidence that she had attacked Kercher in her bedroom along with Guede, as the
prosecution alleged. Knox spent almost four years in prison before a second-level or appeal
trial freed both her and Sollecito in October 2011. After Knox had returned to the US,
the Italian Supreme Court ordered the appeal trial to be re-heard. Knox remained in the US. In
January 2014, she was again found guilty, and sentenced to 28 years in prison. Both Knox
and Sollecito remain free; in Italy a guilty verdict in a serious case is not regarded as a
definitive conviction until the accused has exhausted the appeals process.[2][3]
Contents
[hide]
 1 Early life
 2 Perugia and legal background
 3 Meredith Kercher murder case
o 3.1 Via della Pergola 7
o 3.2 Guede
o 3.3 Italian system and publicity
o 3.4 First trial
o 3.5 Prosecution case
o 3.6 Defense case
o 3.7 Verdict
o 3.8 Support
o 3.9 Acquittal and release
o 3.10 Retrial
o 3.11 Prospect of extradition
o 3.12 Documentaries
 4 Personal life
 5 References
 6 External links
Early life
Amanda Knox was raised with two younger sisters. Her mother, Edda Mellas, a mathematics
teacher, and her father, Curt, a vice president of finance at the local Macy's, divorced when
Knox was a few years old. Knox grew up in West Seattle. Her stepfather, Chris, is an
information-technology consultant. She graduated in 2005 from the Seattle Preparatory
School, and began to study linguistics at the University of Washington, making the
university's dean's list by early 2007, when she decided to study in Italy.[4]
Her stepfather had
strong reservations about her going to Italy that year, as he felt she was still too naïve.[5]
Perugia and legal background
Italian prosecutors are part of the judiciary and have the responsibility of gathering evidence
irrespective of whether it incriminates a suspect.[6]
In 1989 the inquisitorial system of Italy was
reformed and elements of US-style adversarial procedure were introduced. The changes were
intended to remove an inquisitorial continuity between the investigatory phase and the basis
for a decision at trial, but in practice they took control of inquiries away from police and gave
prosecutors authority over the preliminary investigation.[7][8]
After the assassination of Giovanni
Falcone by the Sicilian Mafia and terror bombings that followed the capture ofSalvatore Riina,
prosecutors were given extra powers to fight organized criminals.[9][10]
Although they have

3. considerable authority over early inquiries and discretion in bringing charges, Italian
prosecutors do not customarily use their powers in the aggressive way common in the US
system.[11][12]
Perugia is known for its universities and large population of students. There had reportedly not
been a killing in the city for twenty years, but its prosecutors had been responsible for
controversial murder charges.[13][14]
In 2002 the conviction in Perugia of fomer Prime
Minister Giulio Andreotti on murder conspiracy charges resulted in complaints that the justice
system had "gone mad". He was definitively acquitted by the Supreme Court the next
year.[15][16]
In early 2002, Perugia prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, who enjoyed taking a detective-like role
and was later in charge of the Kercher investigation, arraigned 20 apparently respectable
people for concealing a murder.[17]
Mignini was acting on the theory that a man who apparently
committed suicide was actually killed by a high-level secret society; the case was finally
dismissed in 2010.[18][19]
According to a scholar who researched comparative law in Italy,
selective changes to the Italian legal system left it unable to cope when a prosecutor with
Mignini's American-style adversarial approach used his powers to the fullest.[20]
Meredith Kercher murder case
Main article: Murder of Meredith Kercher
Via della Pergola 7
In Perugia, Knox shared a four-bedroom ground-floor apartment in a house at Via della
Pergola 7, the front door did not have a spring latch and had to be closed with a key. A
minutes walk from the house was Piazza Grimana, where students often gathered.[21]
Her
flatmates were two Italian women in their late twenties, and Kercher. Kercher and Knox moved
in on 10 and 20 September 2007, respectively, meeting each other for the first time.[22]
Knox
was employed part-time at a bar, Le Chic, which was owned by a Congolese man, Diya
Patrick Lumumba. She told flatmates that she was going to quit because he was not paying
her; Lumumba denied this.[23]
Kercher's English women friends saw relatively little of Knox, as
she preferred to mix with Italians.[24]
The walk-out semi-basement of the house was rented by young Italian men with whom both
Kercher and Knox were friendly. One, Giacomo, spent time in the girls' flat due to a shared
interest in music. Returning home at 2 am one night in mid October, Knox, Kercher, Giacomo
and another basement resident met Rudy Guede who the Italians knew from playing
basketball with him at Piazza Grimana.[25]
Guede attached himself to the group and asked
about Knox. He was invited into the basement and talked about her with the Italians. Knox and
then Kercher came down to join them. At 4:30 am Kercher left, saying she was going to bed,
and Knox followed her out.[26][27]
Three weeks before her death Kercher went with Knox to
the EuroChocolate festival. On 20 October, Kercher became romantically involved with
Giacomo, after going to a nightclub with him as part of a small group which included Knox. On
25 October, Kercher and Knox went to a concert where Knox met Raffaele Sollecito, a 23-
year-old student. She began spending her time at his flat, a 5-minute walk from Via della
Pergola 7, which Sollecito visited several times, including having lunch there early on the day
of the murder.[28]
November 1 was a public holiday and the Italians living in the house were away. Kercher was
alone in the house when she returned that evening. In the late morning of November 2, 2007
Knox reported that, after spending the night with Sollecito at his apartment, she had returned
to the house and found a broken window and signs of a burglary. There was blood in the
bathroom and Kercher was not answering her bedroom door, which was locked. Police arrived
and the door was broken open, Kercher's body, naked except for a T-shirt pulled over her
shoulders, was on the floor. She had died of blood loss and suffocation caused by stab
wounds to her neck.[29]
Prosecutor Mignini was assigned to the case, and spoke to Knox at the scene. According to
author John Follain, Mignini thought she was concealing something. Because anyone effecting

4. an entry through the broken window seemed unlikely, police almost immediately discounted
the possibility of a burglar being the killer and Knox became the prime suspect, although she
was not told this.[30][31][32][33]
Over the next four days she was repeatedly interviewed and during
the interrogation and statements of 5–6 November, the conduct of which is a matter of dispute,
Knox incriminated herself and Lumumba. Knox, Sollecito, and Lumumba were arrested and
charged with murder. Examination of the crime scene identified the fingerprints of Rudy
Guede, who had fled to Germany days after the murder. Guede, Knox, and Sollecito were
charged with committing the murder together. On 30 November 2007 a panel of three judges
endorsed the charges, ruled there had been no burglary, and ordered Knox and Sollecito held
in detention pending a trial.[34]
Guede
Prior to the murder of Kercher, Guede was said to have burgled a Perugia apartment and
brandished a jackknife when confronted, although the complaint and identification did not
come until he was a fugitive. On October 14, 2007, a Perugia office was broken into by
smashing a window with a large stone. Property was stolen and later found in Guede's
possession. On October 27, 2007, the principle of a Milan nursery school arriving for work in
the morning discovered Guede in her office. Police found stolen items in his backpack,
including a knife from the school kitchen. Examination of the premises found no sign of a
forced entry. [35]
In an internet conversation while he was a fugitive wanted for the murder of Kercher, Guede
did not mention Knox or Sollecito as being in the house on the night of the murder. The first
interview of Guede by the state prosecutor was on December 7, 2007. On On March 26, 2008,
Guede was questioned again by a prosecutor and for the first time put Knox at the scene of
the crime. Although he was accused committing the murder together with Knox and Sollecito,
Guede was tried separately and first. As defendant he could give evidence without taking an
oath, but he did not testify.[36]
In his pre-trial declarations Guede said Kercher had let him in the
cottage.[37][38]
In their findings the judges said Guede not been guilty of any theft and there had
been no break-in, further saying that Kercher would not have opened the door to Guede (who
she knew to be an acquaintance of her boyfriend Giacomo, having socialized with both men in
the basement).[39]
The judges said that because someone with a key must have let Guede in
the house, the signs of a break-in had been staged in an attempt to divert suspicion. The
judges found that there was sufficient evidence for a trial of Knox and Sollecito.[40] [41]
Italian system and publicity
In Italy the file of the prosecution's case becomes public domain before the trial, and there are
looser definitions of what is prejudicial.[42]
The rationale for having a bias for the inclusion of
available evidence is based on the Inquisitorial system concept of a search for the truth. Two
presiding professional trial judges, who are also part of the jury, are expected to correct any
tendency of the lay-judges to give evidence inappropriate weight during their
deliberations.[43]
Appeals are intrinsic to the process and essentially guaranteed. Unlike the US,
where a verdict cannot be appealed except on procedural grounds, an Italian jury's reasoning
is given in writing and can be grounds for overturning its verdict.[44]
Knox was the subject of
unprecedented pre-trial media coverage, including a best-selling book about her that
contained witness transcripts not in the public domain, imagined or invented events, excerpts
from her prison journal, and unsubstantiated allegations about her sex life.[45][46][47][48] [49][50][51][52][53]
First trial
In 2009 Knox and Sollecito pleaded not guilty at a Corte d'Assise on charges of sexual
assault, murder and simulating a burglary.
Prosecution case
A prosecution witness, homeless man Antonio Curatolo, said Knox and Sollecito were in
Piazza Grimana on the night of the murder for an hour. Prosecutors advanced a single piece
of forensic evidence linking Sollecito to Kercher's bedroom: fragments of his DNA on Kercher's
bra clasp.[54][55][56]
Giulia Bongiorno, leading Sollecito's defence, questioned how Sollecito's DNA

5. could have got on the small metal clasp of the bra, but not on the fabric of the bra back strap
from which it was torn. "How can you touch the hook without touching the cloth?" Bongiorno
asked.[57][58]
The back strap of the bra had multiple traces of DNA belonging to
Guede.[59]
According to the prosecution's reconstruction, Knoxhad attacked Kercher in her
bedroom, repeatedly banged her head against a wall, forcefully held her face and tried to
strangle her.[60]
Guede, Knox and Sollecito had removed Kercher's jeans, and held her on her
hands and knees while Guede had sexually abused her. Knox had cut Kercher with a knife
before inflicting the fatal stab wound; then faked a burglary.[61]
Defense case
The defence pointed out that no shoe prints, clothing fibers, hairs, fingerprints, skin cells or
DNA of Knox were found on Kercher's body, clothes, handbag or anywhere in the
bedroom.[62][63]
The prosecution alleged that all forensic traces in the bedroom which
incriminated Knox had been wiped away by her and Sollecito.[64][65]
Guede's shoe prints, fingerprints, and DNA were found in Kercher's bedroom, where the
murder took place.[66]
Guede's DNA was on the strap of her bra, which had been torn off, and
his DNA was found on a vaginal swab taken from Kercher's body.[67][68]
Guede's bloody palm
print was on a pillow that had been placed under Kercher's hips.[69]
Guede's DNA mixed with
Kercher's was on the left sleeve of her bloody sweatshirt and in bloodstains on the inside of
her shoulder bag, which 300 euros and credit cards had been stolen from.[70][71][72][73]
Guede
refused to answer questions at the trial.[74]
Verdict
Knox was found guilty and sentenced to 26 years imprisonment, and Sollecito to 25
years.[46][75][76]
Support
American lawyers were troubled by statements obtained while Knox was being denied her
rights under Italian law being excluded from the murder trial, but allowed for contemporaneous
civil and defamation suits heard by the same jury. Knox's defense attorneys were seen as, by
American standards, passive in the face of the prosecution's use of character evidence about
her.[77][78]
In May 2011 Gregory Hampikian, director of the Idaho Innocence Project, a non-profit
investigative organization dedicated to proving the innocence of wrongly convicted people
through the use of DNA testing, said forensic results from the crime scene pointed
to Guede being a killer who had acted on his own.[79][80]
Amanda Knox leaving the prison in Perugia in a car with Corrado Maria Daclon, secretary general of the
Italy–USA Foundation
Acquittal and release
A Corte d'Assise verdict of guilty is not a definitive conviction. An appeal trial, Corte d'Assise
d'Appello, reviews the facts of the case as well as legal aspects. The appeal (or second grade)
trial began November 2010 and was presided over by Judges Claudio Pratillo Hellmann and
Massimo Zanetti. A court-ordered reviewof the contested DNA evidence by independent
experts noted numerous basic errors in the gathering and analysis of the evidence, and

6. concluded that no evidential trace of Kercher's DNA had been found on the alleged murder
weapon, which police had found in Sollecito's kitchen.[81][82]
Although the review confirmed that
male DNA fragments on the bra clasp, which the forensic police had lost on the floor for 47
days, included some from Sollecito, the court-appointed expert testified the context strongly
suggested contamination.[83][84][85][86]
On October 3, 2011 Knox and Sollecito were found not guilty and released. In an official
statement giving their grounds for the acquittals, the judges emphasized that Knox and
Sollecito's accounts failing to completely match did not constitute evidence they had given a
false alibi. Discounting Curatolo's testimony as self-contradictory, the judges observed that he
was a heroin addict. Having noted that there was no evidence of any phone calls or texts
between Knox or Sollecito and Guede, the judges concluded there was a "material non-
existence" of evidence to support the guilty verdicts, and that an association among Sollecito,
Knox, and Guede to commit the murder was "far from probable".[75][87][88]
Knox returned to the
US.[89][90]
She wrote a letter to Corrado Maria Daclon, Secretary General of the Italy-USA Foundation,
the day after regaining her freedom:
To hold my hand and offer support and respect throughout the obstacles and the controversy,
there were Italians. There was the Italy–USA Foundation, and many others that shared my
pain and that helped me survive, with hope. I am eternally grateful for their caring hospitality
and their courageous commitment. To those that wrote me, that defended me, that stood by
me, that prayed for me... I am forever grateful to you.[91]
Retrial
On March 26, 2013, Italy's highest criminal court set aside the judgement of the trial of the
second degree that had acquitted Knox and Sollecito, leading to a re-trial.[92][93]
The retrial
began on September 30, 2013, while Knox remained in the US.[94]
Judges granted a
prosecution request for analysis of previously unexamined DNA found on a kitchen knife of
Sollecito's, which the prosecution alleged was the murder weapon based on the forensic
police reporting that Kercher's DNA was on it. The conclusion had been discredited by court-
appointed experts at the appeal trial, but the failure to order another test had been criticized by
the prosecution and others.[95][96][97]
When the unexamined sample was tested, no DNA
belonging to Kercher was found.[98][99]
On 30 January 2014, Knox and Sollecito were found
guilty. Knox was sentenced to 28½ years in prison, Sollecito received 25 years. Knox's lawyer,
Luciano Ghirga, stated that she will seek to appeal to the Supreme Court of Italy.[2]
Prospect of extradition
There is no agreement as to what would happen if Knox exhausts the appellate process and
Italy requested her extradition.[100][101][102]
Italian commentators believe the US would obstruct
any official application for Knox to be extradited, and according to Follain, Italian national
authorities are convinced she would never be sent back.[103][104]
However, several US
commentators have asserted that good relations with Italy may outweigh other considerations,
and the US government might well order an extradition of Knox to Italy, if the Italian
government made an official request.[105][101][106]
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