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Today Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito’s convictions for the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy were annulled, bringing this divisive case to a final close. The verdicts came as shock to both pro-innocence and pro-guilt sides, with lawyers for the defendants openly expressing their fears the conviction would be upheld, and even Knox’s supporters saying they feared a guilty verdict was the only outcome.
The reactions on both sides of the Atlantic will be markedly different; while many Americans may feel the right decision has been reached, in Italy and the UK the reaction so far has mainly been one of stunned disbelief.
Much of the U.S. media has propagated the idea that this has always been a simple case of wrongful conviction: Knox was railroaded by a corrupt prosecutor; she was beaten and bullied into a false confession; and there was no evidence anyway. Or was there?
“In 50 years of practicing law, I have never seen a more one-sided presentation by the media in the United States of the case,” says Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. “Everybody is saying there’s no evidence against her and she’s totally innocent. It’s just not true.”
It's difficult not to feel for Meredith Kercher's family in all this... Was this really justice?