There is an enormous amount that can be said about the whole affair, but the bottom line is that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are innocent of the murder of Meredith Kercher, which took place when they were all students in Perugia in 2007. I originally thought that they were innocent, and then was swayed for a time into entertaining the possibility of their guilt by some things I read, among them Barbie Nadeau’s book Angel Face, which is compiled from her articles for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. But after more extensive reading, notably Candace Dempsey’s Murder in Perugia and Bruce Fisher’s Injustice in Perugia, I believe that they are innocent.
What has happened is a terrible miscarriage of justice. Their convictions were built on improper interrogations, irresponsible handling and use of evidence, dismissal of exonerating factors, unethical practices, prosecutorial misconduct, gross unprofessionalism, sensationalistic media smearing, character assassination, and more. Of course they hurt their own case by some things they said and did, but that does not make them guilty. Their convictions should be thrown out when their appeals come up, and efforts should be made to speed up the appeals process.