Thursday, 21 January 2010

Amanda Knox, will you console me?

I have taken some interest in the Amanda Knox murder trial, before that I was only very vaguely aware of it from the newspapers, thinking, 'oh wow, what a stunning girl, but this is a court trial for murder- not in the context of modelling'.
I do not know whether she killed Meredith or not. I suppose she is just a girl like me in many ways. There seems to be some strong arguments to say she is innocent, like the 'blade' did not fit the fatal wounds, there is no forensic evidence of her being in the room, she did not seem to change her stories in the interrogation processes, non-violent people don't just become violent (the experts will have things to say about this). On the other hand, the details of the case in Perugia were highly complex and intricate, there seemed to be all sorts of practical indications that more than one person was involved in the murder, and obviously Amanda Knox has been found guilty at this stage.
If Amanda is innocent then this imprisonment would be really awful. If she is guilty then I suppose there is no point in her and her family protesting her innocence- it would be better to accept the punishment and one would probably find that punishment is better for the conscience than the lack of it. I hope that Amanda can somehow be a consolation to me, because if she is innocent, it means she is a terrible victim of over-zealousness in the justice system. Just as someone can suffer on this side of the justice system, I regard myself as someone who suffers at quite the other side from gross under-zealousness in the justice system, outside of Italy. I have to talk to my Member of Parliament more often than I talk to my own friends about any slim chances of pro bono legal representation to prosecute someone for crimes that have been outlawed since the year of 1885 anyway. The state should take care of it but it doesn't. I know the court system is not perfect and sometimes convictions aren't laid down following a crime. It is a very intricate and delicate system, fair enough, but the victim's anguish at non-action is notable, just as the anguish of an imprisoned non-murderor is beyond words.

I might as well write to Amanda and mail it to her prison, it's paper so I don't seem to have anything to lose there. Just a stamp. As she effectively believes herself to be the victim of over-zealous legal action, she may or may not have something to say about the anguish caused by under-zealousness. As far as I am concerned it's best if she has something to say, and I don't quite know what to think about what happened in her case. I have listened to her aunt saying that because she knows the case from back to front and inside out, she believes Amanda is innocent. Over here, my case takes 600 hours to explain and study it makes me feel sick. Possibly one day I will have the time to read any books relevant to her trial.

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