[letmein]

On Monday, Italy’s highest criminal court published a blistering 52-page explanation of their decision to overturn Amanda Knox’s murder conviction in March, faulting police, prosecutors and lower court judges for a trial that “had oscillations which were the result of stunning flaws, or amnesia,” The Guardian reports.



In 2009, Knox and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted of killing Meredith Kercher, her roommate in Perugia, Italy, two years earlier. They would both spend four years in prison before their convictions were overturned in 2011. They were then found guilty a second time in 2014, but that conviction was thrown out by Italy’s Court of Cassation earlier this year.

In its ruling, the court cited the lack of biological traces of either Knox or Sollecito at the crime scene, contrasting that with the “copious” amounts of biological evidence left by a third suspect convicted of the murder, Rudy Guede. From NBC News:

Because no biological evidence from Knox or Sollecito was found at the house in Perugia where Kercher was murdered, the 52-page opinion said, their “participation” in the killing should have been “excluded.”

“There was no shortage of glaring errors in the underlying fabric of the sentence in question,” the court wrote.

The alleged murder weapon, a kitchen knife found at Sollecito’s house, was kept in a cardboard box—“the kind that gadgets are wrapped up in for Christmas”—and a bra clasp said to have carried DNA evidence was left on the floor for 46 days.

“The international spotlight on the case in fact resulted in the investigation undergoing a sudden acceleration, that, in the frantic search for one or more guilty parties to consign to international public opinion, certainly didn’t help the search for substantial truth,” wrote the judges, according to The Guardian.

In a statement on her website, Knox thanked “the many individuals who gave their time and talents to help me” during her nearly eight-year struggle.

“I am deeply grateful that the Italian Supreme Court has filed its opinion and forcefully declared my innocence,” wrote Knox. “I will now begin the rest of my life with one of my goals being to help others who have been wrongfully accused.”

http://gawker.com/top-italian-court-...ium=socialflow