Attorney At Law

Amanda Knox (“Foxy Knoxy”) gets 26 years. In spite of an empassioned and active defence that challenged every piece of evidence and objected to nearly every point and motion of the prosecution, and that finally broke down in tears in an emotional appeal to the jury. And, in spite of some monumentally stupid and shoddy policework, American college student Amanda Knox was found guilty of murdering her British roommate and sentenced to prison after a year-long trial.

Her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito was also convicted and sentenced to 25 years. They were also convicted of sexual assault in the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old student from England.

There is an automatic appeal, but that process could take as long as two years. The Prosecuting Attorney had sought life imprisonment, Italy’s stiffest sentence.

The defense maintained there was not enough evidence for a conviction and no clear motive. The prosecution responded that violent crimes can lack a motive, saying, “We live at a time where violence is purposeless”.

Amanda’s family insists she is innocent and a victim of character assassination with prosecutors portraying Amanda as a sex-crazed, drugs and booze addled, typical, young American girl. The nickname “Foxy Knoxy” (such a rockin’ “moniker”) was actually given to Amanda by her soccer pals when she was eight years old, apparently for fancy footwork.

The Meredith Kercher Timeline -

The house where Meredith Kercher was murdered is a converted cowshed next to a two-story parking ramp, just yards from the city’s busiest junkie hangout. She shared the house with three other girls – Amanda, an A-student at one of the oldest universities in Europe and two Italians.

Nov. 2, 2007
The body of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher is found in a pool of blood in her bedroom. Investigators say she died from a stab wound to the neck.

Nov. 6, 2007
Knox is arrested in connection with the slaying. Also arrested are Knox’s then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito of Italy; and the Congolese owner of a Perugia bar where Knox worked, Diya Lumumba.

Nov. 20, 2007
Ivory Coast national Rudy Hermann Guede is arrested in Germany after an international manhunt. He was wanted in Italy in connection to the slaying. Lumumba, who had been implicated by Knox’s statements to the police in the aftermath of the killing, is released from jail for lack of evidence.

Nov. 21, 2007
Guede, awaiting extradition to Italy, tells German court that he was in Kercher’s room but insists he didn’t kill her. Said Kercher and Knox were arguing about missing money.

Dec. 6, 2007
Guede is extradited from Germany. He is picked up by Italian authorities and jailed.

Dec. 14, 2007
Kercher is laid to rest after a private funeral service in south London.

April 1, 2008.
The Court of Cassation, Italy’s top criminal court, rejects requests by defense lawyers for the release of Knox, Sollecito and Guede and orders them to remain in jail.

Sept. 9, 2008
Guede’s lawyers ask for a fast-track trial. The procedure, in which evidence is presented in document form and no witnesses testify, is quicker and leads to lesser sentences if the suspect is found guilty.

Sept. 16, 2008
Knox appears in court at the opening of a preliminary hearing to determine whether she and the other two suspects must face trial. Sollecito is not in court. Guede, who attends the hearing, is granted the fast-track trial sought by his lawyers.

Oct. 28, 2008
Judge Paolo Micheli orders Knox and Sollecito to stand trial on charges of murder and sexual assault. The same judge also convicts Guede of murder and sexual assault and sentences him to 30 years in prison.

Jan. 16, 2009
Trial of Knox and Sollecito opens in Perugia before presiding Judge Giancarlo Massei.

June 6, 2009
Kercher’s mother, Arline Kercher, tells court in emotional testimony that she will never get over her daughter’s brutal death.

June 12, 2009
Knox takes the stand. She tells the court that she was shocked by Kercher’s death, offers an alibi for the night of the murder and says police beat her into making a false statement in the case.

Nov. 18, 2009
Guede’s appeals trial opens. Guede testifies that he heard Kercher arguing with Knox minutes before she was slain.

Nov 21, 2009
Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini requests life sentences for Knox and Sollecito. Knox addresses the court minutes later to say the accusations against her are “pure fantasy.”

Dec. 4, 2009
An eight-member jury convicts Amanda Knox of murdering her British roommate, and sentences her to 26 years. The jury ialso convicts Knox’s ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, and sentences him to 25 years.

The prosecutors contend on the night of the murder, Knox and her new boyfriend Sollecito met at the apartment where Kercher and Knox lived. They say a fourth person was there, Rudy Hermann Guede, an Ivory Coast citizen who has been convicted in the murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Guede, who is appealing his conviction, says he was in the house the night of the murder but did not kill Kercher.

The prosecution says Knox and Kercher started arguing, and that Knox joined the two men in brutally attacking and sexually assaulting the Briton under “the fumes of drugs and possibly alcohol.”

Throughout the trial, prosecutors depicted Knox as a promiscuous and manipulative she-devil whose personality clashed with her roommate’s. They say Knox had grown to hate Kercher.

Knox said Kercher was a friend whose slaying shocked and saddened her. Strangely, Amanda is witnessed doing Cartwheels around the police station.

Knox and Sollecito say they were watching a video at his home on the night of the murder, where they say they smoked marijuana and had sex. Knox said she went home the next morning to find the door to the house open and Kercher dead.

Knox gave contradictory versions of the night of the slaying, saying at one point she was home and had to cover her ears to block out Kercher’s screams and accusing a Congolese man of the killing. The man, Patrick Diya Lumumba, owns a pub in Perugia where Knox worked. He was jailed briefly but was later cleared and is seeking defamation damages from Knox.

Knox later contended that police pressure led her to initially accuse an innocent man.

The prosecution maintains that a 6½-inch knife authorities found at Sollecito’s house could be the murder weapon; they say Kercher’s DNA was found on the blade and Knox’s on the handle. However, defense lawyers argue the knife was too big to match Kercher’s wounds and the amount of DNA collected was too small to determine with certainty whose it was.

So, how much DNA do you need anyway? …to for instance, clone someone.

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