The home of the Eternal City seems also to be jockeying for the title of home of the Eternal Judicial Process. Last night, University of Washington student Amanda Knox learned that Italy’s highest court had overturned her October 2011 acquittal — but this time, she’ll be tried in Florence, not Perugia, and in absentia, not prison.
While the decision was “painful” to hear, as Knox said in a statement, she also seemed to find heartening the prospect of a thorough, competent investigation:
I believe that any questions as to my innocence must be examined by an objective investigation and a capable prosecution. The prosecution responsible for the many discrepancies in their work must be made to answer for them, for Raffaele’s sake, my sake, and most especially for the sake of Meredith’s family. Our hearts go out to them.
Here is her statement following her acquittal:
At every turn in the case, which began with the November 2007 slaying of British student Meredith Kercher, U.S. followers of the legal drama have been treated to an eye-opening tour of Italy’s criminal justice system. In this instance, we learn that Italy doesn’t provide double jeopardy protections, so someone can be tried twice for the same crime. On the other hand, Italy doesn’t require criminal attendants to be in attendance at their trial, and Knox’s defense team has already made it clear she will remain stateside.
Whatever the findings of the new trial, these too will be inspected by the high court, so it could easily take Knox a full seven years after Kercher’s murder to hear if she’s guilty or not.
In possibly related news, The Economist reports that the people are fed up with “Italy’s corrupt and wasteful system of democracy,” which has run up debt of $2.6 trillion. A protest party co-founded by comedian Beppe Grillo, the Five Star Movement, has gained enough clout that they’ve become a wrench in the spokes of a parliamentary majority — “A poll for Corriere della Sera, a newspaper, found that 77% of M5S voters were against supporting a government that included the traditional parties” — pushing instead for online referendum voting.
