The first line of every article about the Amanda Knox murder should begin, “With the understanding that the Italian justice system is crazy…”
Their court system seems to be their version of the Broadway stage.
Yesterday Knox’s own lawyer claimed duirng testimony in court that Knox was like Jessica Rabbit because “she looks like a femme fatale but she is a loyal and loving woman.” Just in case it wasn’t clear, the lawyer continued: “Jessica Rabbit says: ‘I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.'”
Then Knox’s lawyer said “Life is like a box of chocolates” and threw open the back doors of the courtroom so that two dozen mailmen could march in and pour out sacks of letters from schoolchildren, declaring that Amanda Knox was Santa Claus.
If you’ve been following the case since 2007, those last two items are not so far-fetched. In 2009, Italian prosecutors convinced a jury that Knox, formerly a nerdy soccer-playing Catholic high school girl from middle-class Seattle, had come to Italy as an exchange student, turned sex fiend, and then murdered her roommate in a drug-addled sex game.
The only thing stranger than that claim was Knox’s own actions, starting with the cartwheels she turned in a police waiting room while interrogators were about to question her.
Both sides in the case seem crazy, basically. But the bottom line is that Knox is in jail serving a 26-year sentence for murder. This week’s action is the finale of her appeal. The judge will rule next week.
See our Amanda Knox biography >>