Amanda Knox verdict due in next 3 days. For more read:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/225313?GT1=43002

JAS

Any predictions on the verdict? She calls herself Foxy-Knoxy.

I don't think she calls HERSELF that. That's what the Italian press has called her. They're about as tabloidish as the British press. It's amazing how much bad character evidence the Italian prosecutors are allowed to throw out there. Apparently they don't have a bifurcated system. And the prosecutor (who's under indictment himself?)can just argue things not supported by the evidence, like "I think this is what happened," and make up some random theory and show a computer animation of his own theory. She'll probably get convicted. It's a country with a Madonna/Whore view of women. What I don't understand is why they keep saying, "The judges and jury will deliberate." It makes it sound like they have some system where the judge is in there with the jurors during deliberation. ???

She actually was calling herself that on her myspace page before the crimes, according to the American media. Then the international media picked up on it.

With a guilty verdict, will they call her Locksy Knoxy?

Here's a few links about the self-dubbed myspace title Foxy Knoxy(I guess that's how she rolls)stolen by the tabloids.

http://www.seattlecrimeblog.com/2007/11/articles/murder/anatomy-of-a-myspace-page-amanda-knox-suspect/

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=foxy+knoxy+myspace&aq=0&oq=foxy+knoxy+m&aqi=g1

Jane, I rest my case.

To be announced at 6:00 pm tonight.

JAS

I wish my juries would schedule the release of their verdicts. It would make going out to dinner and getting victims and defense attorneys back to the Courthouse soooooooooooooooo much easier.

Guilty.

You know I heard that this trial took a year with 150 witnesses.

Do you ever have 150 eyewitnesses??? I thought California trials were lenghty!

They certainly did not deliberate very long based upon the length of the trial.

It did seem like a very quick verdict for such a long trial. And they all took off for about 3 months for summer vacation. Can you imagine putting a murder trial on hold to go on vacation? How is a jury supposed to remember who said what before they went away for 3 months? A very strange system. Looks like the lawyers wear robes and wigs in court, like in England. One female lawyer had on a scarf instead of a wig. So I guess your choice of headgear if you're a woman Italian lawyer is to either look like an old English man or a cancer patient? No thanks.

Jane,

I gather that the judges do sit with the jury and in fact are part of the jury. This is not uncommon in European courts. I think it would be a good idea.

As for taking a 3 mos. vacation and then resuming the trial--I don't think there is too much of a problem with the jurors forgetting the evidence, at least in a notorious case like this one, because the jurors are allowed to go home every night, and they are allowed to read and watch news accounts about the trial. I'm sure the press over there had lots of helpful summaries of the evidence adduced so far, once the trial resumed.

Seems like the evidence against her was pretty strong. Very interesting to see how the American media bends over backwards to put everything in a favorable light for her. Of course, that isn't surprising, you see it a lot on US cases as well!

I think it's interesting that the jury's verdict didn't have to be unanimous and wasn't unanimous.

Which raises the very real question: what is justice? With so many systems around the world, and many believing they have the only right one, is the Italian system better, worse, or just different but no better or worse, than the Texas system? I admit to feeling uncomfortable about things I read in the reports of the Italian system--but I have similar concerns about the Californian system!

JAS

JAS,

The prosecutor friends I have met via national prosecution schools over the last two decades that are from the 9th Federal Circuit all have the same doubts as you about criminal justice in the 9th Circuit. Although many of them make much, much more money than us in salary, part of them does wish they were practicing in Texas.

http://www.civitas.org.uk/data/prisonPopEU2003.htm


The stats shown are from 2003. It shows Italy has the 5th lowest crime rate in the EU. It also has one of the highest incarceration rates.

Locking up people only lowers the crime rate if the people going to prison are active criminals. If Italy's justice system was capricious about who went to prison and who was acquitted, it's high incarceration rate would have no effect on the crime rate.

Texas now has a crime rate comparable to Italy.

Of course, there are many variables that cause a crime rate to be high or low, but surely the efficiency of the courts is one important consideration.

Thanks for sharing. I'm not into statistics (aversion to math is among the reasons I became a lawyer and one outside the business world) but compare Eire and Sweden--what's happening in those countries?

When I studied legal history and jurisprudence in England a quarter century ago, I recall one of the universal trends in criminal justice systems (possibly oversimplified by me) is low conviction rate and brutal punishment or high conviction rate and moderate-to-lenient punishment. I believe Becarria wrote aboot this as early as the 1700's in Of Crimes and Punishment. A fascinating read.

JAS

To our eyes, the Italian justice system seems indifferent to allowing juries to be tainted by public opinion and "evidence" not submitted in court. In US courts much time is spent instructing venire panels and juries to not look at info from outside the trial, etc. Our courts make extreme efforts to hide all kinds of facts from the jury, e.g. that the defendant is actually in custody.

But the Italian system has a major brake on jury mis-conduct that our courts do not have. They have two judges who are part of the jury. It may be that having two judges in the jury room prevents more jury misdirection and misconduct, than all of our efforts to hide info from the jury without court supervision.

A def. atty. friend of mine told me about a statutory rape case he was a juror on. The teenage girl said she was not raped, that she "loved" the defendant, bla, bla, bla, but admitted that he did have sex with her. The 30-something defendant took the stand, and said the girl kept bugging him to have sex with her and he finally gave in.

My bud knew this would be a fast and easy verdict of guilty, and he'd soon be back at the office making more money than he could as a juror.

The jury was split right down the middle, with all the women voting to acquit and all the men to convict. But the men really didn't give a fig Newton about the case. The women were passionate in wanting to acquit the def. As one woman said, "That girl is just like the girls who hang out at the Rock House trying to steal our husbands away!" (The Rock House was a notorious beer joint. There was absolutely no evidence the girl had ever stepped foot in the Rock House.)

The men were willing to vote to acquit, just to be done with the case. The only one who cared that justice be upheld was my bud, who argued for hours until he finally got the women to see that they had to convict based on the evidence before them.

I wished I had a guy like that on all of my juries. I'd be a lot less worried about voir dire.

The point I'm making is that what would be a grossly intolerable weakness in the American system, may not be such a problem in the Italian system.

(As they say in Wash. D.C.: Full Disclosure here: I all I know about the Italian judicial system is what I have read in the papers. This may be one of those rare occasions where I really don't know what I'm talking about.)

Good point, Terry.

I have seen that juries hold things against the State when they feel like information is being withheld.

Two examples: a misdemeanor family violence case where the 911 tape came in. We had to redact the part where the child was injured as well (prejudicial, felony offense) and the jury assumed that whatever was there went against my victim (not the most symptathetic girl in the world). They came back not guilty and that redaction was one of the reasons.

My most recent jury was very upset that the defense attorney asked a lot of questions about the officer's report, but it wasn't entered. They asked more than one question from the jury room requesting to see the officer's report. The defense had entered in a very badly written pc affid and the jury was very frustrated that the affid was in evidence but not the report. About 6 of them waited after the trial to tell me that they wanted to see that report!! When I explained they were inadmissible, they were completely shocked and confused about why the pc affid was admissible, but not the complete report. So they assumed I didn't enter it because it was bad for my case--not the case at all, it would have cleared up some issues.

Sometimes I think our fairness to the defendant boundaries go against common sense. Lay persons on the jury seem very frustrated by that, and do not know the law, nor are we allowed to explain it to them. I feel like I should have said in my closing "I would love to show you the police officer's report, but our statutory evidence rules specifically make it inadmissible." The defense attorney tried to tell me that it was unethical to attempt to enter it because I know that it's not admissible. We had a spirited debate over that.

quote:

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Originally posted by suzannejost:
The defense attorney tried to tell me that it was unethical to attempt to enter it because I know that it's not admissible. We had a spirited debate over that.

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Hey, it's only inadmissible if he objects!

If the defense attorney was misleading the jury about the contents of the report itself (knowing they would only get to see the PC affidavit), I think the report should have come in to avoid the deception.