Amanda Knox Retrial: Italian Supreme Court Overturns Acquittal, Orders New Trial

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Update: The Italian Supreme Court has ruled that Amanda Knox will face a retrial for the murder of her roommate Merdeith Kercher in Perugia, Italy. The court overturned the 2011 acquittal of Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito. 

Despite the new trial, Knox is not legally obligated to be present for the hearings which are scheduled to being next year. Should the court find Knox guilty in retrial, her conviction will be once again appealed. The ensuing legal battle means that this murder investigation will drag on for years to come. The prosecution for this case started messing up on day one of the murder investigation and haven't stopped since. Their inability to conduct a proper or legal investigation prevents justice for Meredith Kercher and her family. The Italian court system is a spectacle that fuels the media circus around this case.

In a statement, Knox said that the news from Italy today was “painful.” The return of “Foxy Knoxy” has delighted the press corps and you can bet that they will follow this case every step of the way because American’s can’t get enough of the celebrity that is Amanda Knox.  

Knox was originally convicted in 2009 for the 2007 murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher, 21, along with her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito. She spent four of her twenty-six year prison conviction in Italy until her guilty verdict was overturned in 2011 citing a lack of evidence and motive. Kercher was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death in the apartment Knox and her shared. 

A man named Rudy Guede was convicted of Kercher's murder and is currently serving a thirty-year prison sentence. Despite this, the family of Meredith Kercher is convinced that Amanda Knox and her boyfriend were somehow complicit in their daughters murder. Since the trial, Knox has moved back to the U.S. where she lives with her parents in Seattle. 

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito both have agents to help them negotiate book and movie deals as well as press appearances. Knox will publish her memoir later in April with a corresponding interview to be given to ABC. Sollecito has already published his memoir on the subject. In the memoir Sollecito says he still questions Knox’s behavior. Who knows maybe we will get another Lifetime movie out of this?

Knox was paid a $4 million dollar advance for her memoir Waiting to be Heard. The Italy supreme court decision will prompt a refocus of media attention on the Knox family and her reaction. The Knox family has already released several statements as they await the court decision. As with so many murder cases involving attractive white women, the real victim has become a supporting character in their own murder investigation. 

There is no doubt that Amanda Knox went through an ordeal, but that should pale in comparison to what the parents of Meredith Kercher have gone through. Her parents are looking for some kind of justice and closure, a closure that will probably never come for them. We’ll forget about her parents and about Meredith but we won’t forget Ms. Knox. We’ll remember her because we value her celebrity above all else, including whether or not she is guilty or innocent.