Miss Psycho Pep Squad
Amanda Knox was back in court in Perugia yesterday (Saturday, March 12), although you wouldn’t necessarily know as much if you cast but a fleeting glance at the mainstream media websites over the course of the weekend. Sure, the Japanese earthquake understandably bumped all other stories from the headlines – aside from the impending arrival of yet another child for “Posh” and “Becks”, of course – but there’s rather more to it than that.
Let’s face facts for a second: The journalists who once swarmed around every tidbit of Knox-related news like flies to feces have turned into rats, and they’re rapidly deserting a sinking ship. No longer does her every pronouncement result in a deluge of column inches dedicated thereto. The days when a simply flutter of her eyelashes could set editorial hearts a-quivering have long since disappeared.
As you may have deduced from the tone of these opening paragraphs, my feet are firmly planted in the camp that believes in the guilt of both Knox and her ex-boyfriend-slash-co-defendant, Raffaele Sollecito, with regard to the brutal murder of Meredith Kercher; that having been said, I don’t begrudge either of them the right to appeal against their convictions and, if the initial verdict was indeed erroneous, I’ll gladly eat humble pie as these former lovebirds walk free. I just don’t see what they hope to gain from the process… Realistically, anyway.
See, neither Knox nor Sollecito have instructed their lawyers to adduce any substantial new evidence at this appeal. There’s no magical “Get Out of Jail Free” card here, folks, regardless of what Knox’s parents would have you believe as they continue their never-ending series of laps around the interview circuit! Instead, the defense teams seem to be basing their entire case upon an (oft-stated but never elaborated upon) assertion that the lower court simply got it wrong.
The chief problem with this approach is two-fold:
- The court of first instance was unanimous in its conviction of the dubious duo and its final report was similarly unequivocal, leaving little or no wiggle-room to exploit this time around;
- The Supreme Court of Cassation in Rome, Italy’s court of last resort, has already accepted that three people committed the crime in its affirmation of Rudy Guede’s sentence. (Guede, for those of you who have been fooled by press reports into thinking that this entire case revolves solely around Knox, is the third person to be convicted of Kercher’s homicide and, because he opted for a fast-track trial from the very beginning, has already exhausted both appeals to which he’s entitled under Italian law.)
Things look pretty bleak for Knox, then, and it seems as though she’s finally starting to realize the dire nature of her predicament. The giggly, flirtatious girl who seemed to relish the spotlight back in 2009 has all but disappeared, replaced instead by someone who projects a more somber demeanor and whose recent sartorial makeover seems less egregiously inappropriate for a high-profile murder trial.
We won’t know for sure how this appeal is going to pan out until September or thereabouts, by which time some of the relevant DNA evidence will have been re-examined. Even if this process pans out in Knox’s favor, though – which seems massively unlikely in and of itself – she’ll still have to explain away a plethora of inculpatory facts, including (but not limited to) her inconsistent alibis, the odd behavior she displayed in the aftermath of the offense, the obviously-staged crime scene and the false accusations she repeatedly leveled against her former boss, Patrick Diya Lumumba.
While the ever-dwindling Knox bandwagon continues on its inexorable path, the Kercher family’s quest for justice, not to mention some long-overdue peace for Meredith’s memory, is being waged with the same quiet dignity they’ve deployed since the get-go. Just compare John Kercher’s calm, restrained articles on the case to the shrill evasiveness of Edda Mellas, Knox’s mother, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that the latter doth indeed protest too much.
Like mother, like daughter, huh?
