While attending school in Italy, Amanda Knox a 27 year old American from Seattle Washington, has gotten herself caught up in quite a lengthy monstrosity. It began in 2007 when Knox and 23 year old Raffaele Sollecito, her boyfriend of one week claim to have been at his home smoking hash and watching movies all night. Upon arriving at the home Knox shared with her roommate the next morning, the pair noticed something astray and called police claiming there must have been a robbery. The police entered the home only to later discover the bloody body of Knox’s roommate Meredith Kercher. After conducting their investigation along with questioning both Knox and Sollecito, the two were charged and eventually convicted in 2009 for the gruesome stabbing …show more content…
A knife, the so called murder weapon did have limited amounts of DNA from both Knox and the victim , but was found to not be compatible with the wounds on the body and contained no trace of blood. A bra clasp belonging to the bra cut off of the victim during the murder had such trace amounts of Sollecito’s DNA that it could only be tested once. It wasn’t until a week after the crime that the clasp was even found, by that time there had been so much activity at the crime scene cross contamination is a great possibility. Prosecutors also claim that a bloody footprint on a bathroom rug belonged to Sollecito, again it was so distorted it could not be confirmed to be a definite match. A majority of attention in the courtroom was place on the inappropriate, risqué, flirtatious behavior between Knox and Sollecito after the murder and at the time of questioning. However that isn’t enough to convict someone of murder…or is it? Amanda Knox immediately left Italy for America at the time of her acquittal. She is currently waiting to find out if she will be extradited back to Italy to serve the 28 ½ year sentence she faces. Raffaele Sollecito, while not presently incarcerated is not permitted to leave Italian soil. It seems to me this circus isn’t over
Casey Anthony Vs. Florida Francisco Regalado Administrative Justice Professor Miranda November 12th, 2017 The murder of Caylee Anthony sent her mother Casey Anthony to trial in Florida, this was a trial covered by most news outlets. I will be talking about the evidence found against Casey Anthony which made her a big part of the murder. There was Human hair found in the trunk of Casey Anthony’s car.
Brenden was put in jail for admitting he helped Steven with the murder of Tarrasa. When Brenden was arrested some of Stevens family turned on him. Brenden’s mom believed he was influenced by his 43-year-old uncle to do bad things. On March 31st Steven is interviewed by the associated press discussing his nephew. Steven tries to send a message to his nephew through the news.
When taken in for questioning Sollecito alibied Knox for the night before Kercher’s body was found but later changed his story, stating that he had not known Knox’s whereabouts between 9PM and 1AM of the same night. Knox and Sollecito’s altered their recollections of the night in question several times and but both stories varied greatly. Soon after Knox and Sollecito’s arrest, Guede’s bloody fingerprint was found at the scene of Kercher’s murder. He was convicted of her murder and sentenced to sixteen years in prison .There was also physical evidence linking Sollecito to Kercher’s murder, “This included DNA, said to be Sollecito’s, that was discovered on Kercher’s bra clasp and DNA allegedly belonging to both Knox and Kercher found on a knife in Sollecito’s kitchen” (Lenth,
The other suspects showed more of an involvement in the murder than Knox. Everyone has different responses to shock and hers was not ideal for the police. Giuliano Mignini was convicted that Knox was involved with the murder just on the base the thought that she was remembering the murder as if she did it. He had an obsession. He had an idea about Knox and wanted that to follow through.
The defense attorney made a remark stating that there was no substantial evidence to convict his client as his DNA was not present. The prosecutor refuted this by saying “although the defense likes to claim there was no DNA evidence of Mr. Santillan, the tests relied on touch DNA that could have been wiped off”. This meant that there was no substantial DNA evidence that could directly correlate the defendant to the
They argued that all the evidence shown were only circumstantial. The only thing that could connect Scott to the murder of his wife and son was the DNA evidence that was found, was one of Laci’s hair on his boat. They believed that a cult had murdered Laci in some sort of ritual for sacrifice. The defense pointed out that there was no cause of death, no time of death, no murder weapon, no evidence as to how she was killed, no crime scene, no eyewitnesses, no confessions. The defense also pointed out that the defendant had an alibi.
Even though the circumstantial evidence implicated Brad, the forensic evidence presented was sufficient to implicate Knox. The testimony made by Mrs. Knox was admissible as the spousal privilege was broken. However, the defense representing Knox could argue based on the Fourth Circuit to dismiss the testimony against him. The Fourth Circuit holds that Mrs. Knox’s statement should be inadmissible and as such, violates the confrontation clause. The use of this testimony to implicate Knox violates the aspect of spousal privileges.
Guede’s DNA, as previously mentioned, was found on and around the victim. On the other hand, police found Sollecito's DNA on Kercher’s bra clasp, though they collected it weeks after the murder and thus deemed it unusable. (Linder, 2023, para. 31). Moreover, they found Knox’s DNA mixed with Kercher’s in various blood spots around the apartment (Strange, 2017, min. 22:48). The Italian Court of Cassation’s official statement included the fact that the majority of the collected evidence incriminating Knox and Sollecito permitted the occurrence of laboratory contamination and thus was labeled unreliable (Linder, 2023, para. 6); however, the court proceedings should have still acknowledged the existence of said evidence during the trial.
The innocence of Sacco-Vanzetti Sacco And Vanzetti were accused of a murder they did not take part in. Sacco and Vanzetti were both Italian Immigrants. They both were charged with the murder of 2 paymasters. The jury and the judge were both against Sacco-Vanzetti because the victims were described as 2 italian immigrants that’s what made the case more sad. What made it more sadder, they were both put to death
The murder of Lynne Harper was a tragic and uneventful occurrence to have taken place in the small community of Clinton, Ontario. What is also uneventful is that an innocent fourteen-year-old teenager, named Steven Truscott, was wrongly accused and charged with Lynne’s death. This was all because Steven last saw helping Lynne out by giving her a lift on his bicycle. The legal system failed Lynne, Steven, and their families because the Police and Crown did not follow proper procedures. Even after Stevens’s exoneration, the real murder was never caught and was able to continue living their life, unlike Steven who loss a part of his childhood and adulthood.
The client was just walking home the night of the murder. Mr. Breck feels really bad for the family but he also knows you have tried to put him away for something he didn’t do. How do we know it was his DNA we don’t because the DNA was to old to even use anymore it was corrupt. The others are saying he is guilty but he isnt.
In 2008, Casey Anthony was accused of first-degree murder among other serious charges such as aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter of a child. Police officers were suspicious of what Anthony was telling them during the investigation and there was probable cause that Anthony committed the crimes she was accused of. She was arrested on July 16, 2008, on suspicion of child neglect. A little over three months later, Anthony was indicted by a Florida grand jury on capital murder charges. Anthony’s daughter’s body remains were found around her home in December of 2008 and after that was revealed, the prosecutors announced they would seek the harshest punishment under the law and that happened to be the death penalty.
Strong, harsh words identify Kercher’s case in this story. For example, it was described as “flawed, flip-flopping” and “high-profile”, as if it were a summary on the back of a thrilling detective novel, not a real-life situation. The investigation had “stunning flaws”, too. The Italian court powerfully “threw out” the convictions of Knox and her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, instead of simply dismissing them. All of these intense words express the emotional weight as well as the importance of Meredith Kercher’s murder and its consequences.
The OJ Simpson murder case was a criminal trial held at the Los Angeles County Superior Court, in which former NFL player OJ Simpson was tried on two counts of murder for the death of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman. He was found not guilty even though there were numerous counts of evidence that showed that OJ was the one who killed his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman. OJ Simpson should have been guilty of murdering Nicole because there was DNA evidence, he had dreams of killing Nicole Simpson, and jealousy could have been the motive that led him to kill Nicole. There was blood found at the crime scene that traced back to OJ’s DNA. Marcia Clark, the lead prosecutor of the murder case, revealed that a blood drop found near the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman has been linked to OJ Simpson through RFLP testing - the highest level of DNA examination, commonly known as a genetic fingerprint.
Within minutes she is unconscious and Kercher’s assailants throw the duvet from her bed over her lifeless body, taking the murder weapon but leaving several bloody prints for the police to find during the investigation to ensue. Giuliano Mignini, the prosecutor of Amanda Knox and Rafaelle Sollecito in the murder trial of Meredith Kercher, portrayed the described sequence of events as unquestionable truth per the evidence collected by Italian police while the defense argued it was nothing more than a theory with no actual forensic evidence linking the accused to this account of the night in question. The prosecution depicted this information in a 20 minute HD video presentation which was viewed by the court multiple times during the proceedings. There was also extensive video footage presented during the trial which highlighted the poor handling and careless collection of evidence from the murder scene as well as from the apartment of Sollecito, which is where the kitchen knife was found. Key questions considered regarding the purported murder weapon went beyond whether an empty shoebox is an appropriate method of transport, however, as the blade did not match any of the wounds found on Kercher’s body nor did the cutlery match the bloody outline of a knife which was found on