New column: SWIFT JUSTICE
I decided to create this column to vent my outrage and frustration over court cases that could be dealt with much swifter than the mills of juresprudence in various countries - mainly the US and the UK - grind out. In my column I weigh the evidence, the gravity of the case, the circumstances of perpetrators and victims and how to best effectuate the law. In the end there will always be a verdict and a sentence. This Court never adjourns before a verdict has been reached. Arguments for possible appeals can be lodged under "comment to this."
I am encouraged to meter out swift justice by the conviction that I am smarter than 96.8% of jurors, wiser than 65% of judges, remote and emotionally detached from the cases, free of influence from the media and their effort to prejudge and pre-convict, and immune to government intervention.
So, without much further ado, let's have today's case.
Court is in session. All rise, the Rt Hon Judge Pilatus Euro presiding.
People versus
Amanda Knox, 22 and
Raffaele Sollecito, 25
Miss Amanda Knox, an American citizen from Seattle, and Mr Sollecito from Italy, are on trial in the Italian city of Perugia on charges of murdering fellow student Meredith Kercher from South London, England in November 2007. A third accused, Rudy Guedo, 22 from Ivory Coast, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison in a fast-track trial earlier this year.
The prosecution charges the couple of stabbing and smothering Miss Kercher to death after a botched attempt to involve the Briton in a sex orgy which Miss Kercher allegedly refused to participate in.
The prosecution's case is largely circumstantial, hear-say and speculative. The fact is that Miss Kercher's semi-nude body was found under a duvet, with a gushing stab wound on her neck which resulted in her agonisingly slow and painful death by bleeding out. Lacerations on her body suggest that she resisted vehemently her killer or killers and could not have agreed to any sexual encounter the perpetrator(s) had in mind.
DNA evidence is contradicting and inconclusive. The victim's DNA was retrieved from the blade of a knife belonging to Mr Sollecito, but no traces of his DNA were on the knife. Miss Knox's DNA was found on the knife's handle but in a very small quantity that could also be caused by cross-contamination. The knife was found in the apartment of Mr Sollecito, about 2 miles from the murder scene.
In the wake of the investigation, from the time Miss Kercher's body was discovered until indictments were handed out, substantial contradictions in the stories of both accused made it virtually impossible to come to conclusive findings and to discover the truth. Even the prosecution's contention that both accused helped pin down Miss Kercher while the convicted killer had intercourse with the victim is in dispute: there are indications that the two have not been at the murder scene at all. But that too is contradicted by an initial statement from Amanda Knox in which she claimed to have been in the shower while the murder took place. Rudy Guede on the other hand clearly was at the scene: his bloody footprint was discovered on the bathroom floor, and the blood was that of the victim.
Misreprentations of the two accused by media, defence and prosecution alike added to the mistery and murkiness of the case. The prosecution portrayed the two as wild students on a sex and drugs frenzy during that night, while the defence stressed the innocent character and spotless past and the romantic relationship between the two. The seemingly superficial contentions, however, raise the crucial question in the case: what was the motive in the killing.
The defence says that the relationship between the two exchange students was excellent and on of friendship. The prosecution claims that Amanda Knox hated Miss Kercher for the refusal to enter into a lesbian sexual encounter - a claim that could not be established during the trial. Also the claim that Miss Kercher resented her American room mate for her promiscuous lifestyle lacked any evidence. No witnesses have come forward that would testify that there had been frictions between the two room mates.
After a trial lasting nearly one year, the case goes to the jury this Friday (December 5th). THIS court has heard enough from both sides and comes to the following verdict:
N O T G U I L T Y
as charged.
The defendants are to be released from custody and are free to go on with their lives.
SUMMARY
There has been no reliable evidence presented in court to safely convict the two accused. Circumstantial evidence alone was not enough to find the defendants, who have done nothing to help finding the truth, guilty as charges without immediately inviting reasons for appeals that stood a good chance of success.
The sympathies go squarely to the family of the murder victim. The court cannot feel any empathy for the ordeal of 2 years incarceration which Miss Knox and Mr Sollicito had to endure. It was their decision not to co-operate with authorities, to delay proceedings and complicate the investigation with deliberately false statements. Because of this lack of co-operation, let alone the absence of any emotional expression for the brutal murder of Miss Kercher, the court rules out any possibility for compensation for the two discharged.
The defendants have been found NOT GUILTY for reasons of lack of evidence beyond reasonable doubt; not because their innocence has been proven.
This ends today's proceedings; Court dismissed.
NEXT WEEK: The People vs Roman Polanski
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