01-30-2014, 03:39 PM
VERDICT DELIBERATIONS UNDERWAY IN FLORENCE, ITALY
![[Image: knox_sollecito_kercher1.jpg]](http://seattletimes.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/today/files/2013/06/knox_sollecito_kercher1.jpg)
Accused murderers Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito. Murder victim Meredith Kercher, right - RIP.
If convicted, Sollecito, who like Knox spent nearly four years in jail, risks immediate arrest.
An appeals court in Florence deliberated into the evening Thursday in the third murder trial of U.S. student Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend as she waited a continent away with, in her words, "my heart in my throat."
Knox's absence does not formally hurt her case since she was freed by a court and defendants in Italy are not required to appear at their trials. However, presiding judge Alessandro Nencini reacted sternly to her emailed statement about waiting at her mom's house with her heart in her throat, noting that defendants have a right to be heard if they appear in person.
Sollecito, on the other hand, has made frequent court appearances, always in a purple sweater, the color of the local Florentine soccer club. He was in court again Thursday morning, accompanied by his father and other relatives and said he would return for the verdict.
Knox's situation is complicated by her absence. In the case of a guilty verdict, experts have said it is unlikely Italy would seek her extradition until a verdict is finalized, a process that can take a year.
"As I have always said, Amanda was involved," Patrick Diya Lumumba (the black bar owner who she accused of killing Kercher initially and who successful sued Knox for slander) said while the deliberations were under way.
The first trial court found Knox and Sollecito guilty of murder and sexual assault based on DNA evidence, confused alibis and Knox's false accusation against Lumumbal. A Perugia appeals court dismantled the guilty verdict two years later, criticizing the "building blocks" of the conviction, including DNA evidence now deemed unreliable by new experts, and the lack of motive.
Italy's highest court ordered the third trial in a scathing dismissal of the appeals court acquittal, ordering the examination of evidence and testimony it said had been improperly omitted by the Perugia appeals court as well as addressing what it called as lapses in logic.
In the third trial, "Most of all, the court was instructed to evaluate all of the evidence in their complexity," said Vieri Fabiani, one of the lawyers for the Kercher family.
The Florence deliberations will either confirm or overturn the initial guilty verdict "as if the acquittal never happened," Fabiani said.
In Florence, the new prosecutor, Alessandro Crini, redefined the motive, moving away from the drug-fueled erotic game described by his colleagues in Perugia. Crini contended that the outburst of violence was rooted in arguments between roommates Knox and Kercher about cleanliness and was triggered by a toilet left unflushed by Rudy Hermann Guede, the only person now in jail for the murder.
Guede, a small-time drug dealer originally from Ivory Coast who had previous convictions for break-ins, is serving a 16-year sentence for the murder, but courts have said he did not act alone.
The defense teams for Knox and Sollecito are certain to appeal any guilty verdict to Italy's supreme court, which can take a year or more and could, in theory, result in yet another appeals court trial. The prosecutor general, on the other hand, could decide to let an acquittal stand, although most observers don't believe that's likely.
Full story: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/01/30/...e-head-to/
Accused murderers Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito. Murder victim Meredith Kercher, right - RIP.
If convicted, Sollecito, who like Knox spent nearly four years in jail, risks immediate arrest.
An appeals court in Florence deliberated into the evening Thursday in the third murder trial of U.S. student Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend as she waited a continent away with, in her words, "my heart in my throat."
Knox's absence does not formally hurt her case since she was freed by a court and defendants in Italy are not required to appear at their trials. However, presiding judge Alessandro Nencini reacted sternly to her emailed statement about waiting at her mom's house with her heart in her throat, noting that defendants have a right to be heard if they appear in person.
Sollecito, on the other hand, has made frequent court appearances, always in a purple sweater, the color of the local Florentine soccer club. He was in court again Thursday morning, accompanied by his father and other relatives and said he would return for the verdict.
Knox's situation is complicated by her absence. In the case of a guilty verdict, experts have said it is unlikely Italy would seek her extradition until a verdict is finalized, a process that can take a year.
"As I have always said, Amanda was involved," Patrick Diya Lumumba (the black bar owner who she accused of killing Kercher initially and who successful sued Knox for slander) said while the deliberations were under way.
The first trial court found Knox and Sollecito guilty of murder and sexual assault based on DNA evidence, confused alibis and Knox's false accusation against Lumumbal. A Perugia appeals court dismantled the guilty verdict two years later, criticizing the "building blocks" of the conviction, including DNA evidence now deemed unreliable by new experts, and the lack of motive.
Italy's highest court ordered the third trial in a scathing dismissal of the appeals court acquittal, ordering the examination of evidence and testimony it said had been improperly omitted by the Perugia appeals court as well as addressing what it called as lapses in logic.
In the third trial, "Most of all, the court was instructed to evaluate all of the evidence in their complexity," said Vieri Fabiani, one of the lawyers for the Kercher family.
The Florence deliberations will either confirm or overturn the initial guilty verdict "as if the acquittal never happened," Fabiani said.
In Florence, the new prosecutor, Alessandro Crini, redefined the motive, moving away from the drug-fueled erotic game described by his colleagues in Perugia. Crini contended that the outburst of violence was rooted in arguments between roommates Knox and Kercher about cleanliness and was triggered by a toilet left unflushed by Rudy Hermann Guede, the only person now in jail for the murder.
Guede, a small-time drug dealer originally from Ivory Coast who had previous convictions for break-ins, is serving a 16-year sentence for the murder, but courts have said he did not act alone.
The defense teams for Knox and Sollecito are certain to appeal any guilty verdict to Italy's supreme court, which can take a year or more and could, in theory, result in yet another appeals court trial. The prosecutor general, on the other hand, could decide to let an acquittal stand, although most observers don't believe that's likely.
Full story: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/01/30/...e-head-to/