Amanda Knox case: DNA evidence to be reviewed following appealItalian judge orders re-examination of forensic tests that led to conviction for murder of Meredith Kercher
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Share30 Tom Kington, Perugia guardian.co.uk, Saturday 18 December 2010 18.59 GMT Article history
Convicted US student Amanda Knox is escorted by guards as she arrives for her appeal hearing at Perugia's courthouse. Photograph: Alessandra Tarantino/AP
Amanda Knox's appeal against her 26-year sentence for the murder of Meredith Kercher received a massive boost on Saturday when a judge granted her request for a comprehensive review of key DNA evidence that was used to convict her and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.
After two appeal hearings in Perugia, judge Claudio Pratillo Hellman said he was convinced that the complexity of the case merited a review of forensic tests in the name of "reasonable doubt". Knox, 23, and Sollecito, 25, were convicted of killing Kercher, a British exchange student, in Perugia, in November 2007.
Hearing the news, Knox began to take deep breaths, her mother and stepfather both began to cry and Sollecito beamed broadly at his family.
"Amanda is stunned," said her mother, Edda Mellas, after conferring with her daughter. "She is in shock but happy – this brings hope."
Knox's college friend Madison Paxton, who has moved to Perugia to be near to Knox, said that she was "full of adrenaline" after Hellman said he was appointing experts to re-analyse a knife and a bra clasp considered crucial to the convictions. "This is an indication that they will look at this with fresh eyes," said Paxton.
The two defence teams had asked for experts to complete an independent review of the analysis of the knife, found in Sollecito's kitchen drawer and considered a murder weapon. It contained tiny DNA traces of both Knox and Kercher, according to police, but insufficient quantities to be reliable, said the defence.
"If it is not possible to check the identity of the DNA, we will check on the reliability of the original tests," said Hellman in his ruling, which came after the judge and jury retired to deliberate for an hour and 20 minutes.
Also disputed is the discovery of Sollecito's DNA on Kercher's torn bra clasp, found in her room 49 days after her death, during which time it had been moved accidentally by investigators.
Hellman agreed to review the bra clasp evidence after defence lawyers claimed it had been contaminated during the crime scene investigation. "It would have been very strange for a guilty party to insist so much on these tests," said Francesco Sollecito, the accused's father.
Hellman said that he would appoint two independent experts from the University of Rome to oversee the tests and would set a timetable on 15 January. A specialist in civil law, Hellman is running the Knox appeal almost by accident since fellow judges who might have been appointed were either transferred or had retired.
Chris Mellas, Knox's stepfather, said that Hellman's lack of experience may be an advantage for her. "Because it is not his typical arena, he might be a little less desensitised. The court's summary of the case, which was read out last week, contained many of our points, and that was already something."
Hellman also accepted the defence request to hear from Antonio Curatolo, a homeless man from the area who they say gave mistaken testimony. Curatolo says he saw Knox and Sollecito loitering near the house Knox shared with Kercher on the night of the murder, but the defence lawyers now claim that he had confused the dates.
At the start of the appeal hearing, Knox entered the court looking pale, watery eyed and hunched, while Sollecito, wearing winter boots and his short hair unkempt, smiled in a dazed fashion. After the trial started late, as a result of snowbound roads around Perugia, prosecutor Giancarlo Costagliola said that a review would be "useless" and that "this court has all the elements to be able to come to a decision".
Manuela Comodi, the prosecutor who built the case against Knox with fellow magistrate Giuliano Mignini, returned to the court to try, in vain, to demolish the defence's case for a review.
Knox's prospects were clouded by the court's decision to incorporate into the appeal all documents, evidence and findings from the murder trial of Rudy Guede, who chose a fast-track trial and was definitively sentenced to 16 years on Thursday for his part in the murder following the two appeals he was allowed under Italian law.
By upholding Guede's sentence, the appeal court also gave credence to the arguments made for his guilt at his first appeal, which clearly placed Knox and Sollecito at the scene of the crime with Guede. Mignani, the magistrate who secured the conviction of Knox, warned that the Guede conviction could doom Knox's appeal.
"Guede's sentence states that Knox and Sollecito were involved and it is very rare that one sentence would contradict a definitive sentence."
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Italian Court OK's DNA appeal
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/7345536.html
PERUGIA, Italy — Amanda Knox won an important victory in her appeals trial of her murder conviction in Italy on Saturday, when a court ruled that it will allow an independent review of crucial DNA evidence after defense claims that samples were inconclusive and possibly contaminated.
The lower court trial, which convicted the American student a year ago and sentenced her to 26 years in Italian prison, had rejected a similar defense request for an outside review of DNA found on the bra clasp of the victim, her British roommate Meredith Kercher, and on a knife the prosecution alleged was used in the fatal stabbing attack.
Kercher's body was found in a pool of blood on Nov. 2, 2007, her throat slit in the apartment she shared with Knox. Forensic experts said she was killed the night before.
Knox burst into tears, in a sign of a release of tension, said her stepfather Chris Mellas. "She's a happy mess," he said, smiling.
She was convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering Kercher in the rented house they shared in the university town of Perugia, where both were studying. The co-defendant in the appeals trial is her ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, an Italian who was convicted of the same charges and sentenced to 25 years. Both deny any wrongdoing.
Prosecutors maintain that Sollecito's DNA was found on the bra clasp and that Knox's DNA was found on the knife's handle and Kercher's DNA on the blade. The defense maintains that DNA traces presented at the first trial were inconclusive and also contends they might have been contaminated when they were analyzed.
The court handed the defense another victory. It will allow several witnesses the defense hopes will refute testimony that placed Knox and Sollecito near the house on the night Kercher was killed.
Knox's mother, Edda Mellas, burst into tears of joy in the courtroom when the appeals court announced its decision. "Finally a little bit of good news," Mellas said, as Knox's family members hugged defense team lawyers.
Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellman said after 90 minutes of deliberations that the DNA evidence review was needed "to remove any reasonable doubt."
He said two independent experts, from Rome's Sapienza university, would either make new analyses of the DNA traces found, or if that isn't possible, would review the analyses that had been carried out by previous forensic experts and assess whether they are reliable.
DNA evidence was crucial in the first trial, where a clear motive did not emerge for the brutal killing.
"Finally, the trial can begin," said Luca Maori, an attorney for Sollecito. "After three years, we have scored our first important victory."
A Knox defense attorney, Luciano Ghirga, called the ruling Saturday "a significant step" and "a victory not for one side, but for the truth."
The experts will be formally assigned the task of the review at the trial's next session, on Jan. 15.
The court said it might decide at a later stage to allow other witnesses sought by the defense.
The court rejected several of the defense requests, including for new tests on Sollecito's computer related to the young man's alibi for the night of the slaying.
Francesco Maresca, a lawyer for the Kercher family who had opposed the review, said that "if the court has any remaining doubts, it does well to try to remove them."
"And now we'll see what these experts will conclude," he told reporters at the end of the hearing.
The review will take at least 30 days, and with new witnesses being heard, the trial is expected to go until next spring.
In seeking the new witnesses, the defense is seeking to refute testimony in the first trial from Antonio Curatolo, a homeless man who said he had seen Knox and Sollecito chatting on a basketball court near the apartment house the night Kercher was killed.
The defense insists his testimony was unreliable and hopes the new witnesses, who operate buses and discos in the area, will prove him wrong.
Prosecutors also appealed the lower court's verdict in hopes of winning stiffer sentences.
Saturday's hearing was held two days after Italy's highest criminal court upheld the conviction and 16-year-prison sentence of the third person charged with the murder, Rudy Hermann Guede of the Ivory Coast.
Guede has admitted being at the house the night of the murder but denies killing Kercher.
He was tried separately. The high court's ruling, which cannot be appealed, is significant because it states that Guede took part in the slaying but did not act alone, prosecutors and lawyers said.
The lower court trial, which convicted the American student a year ago and sentenced her to 26 years in Italian prison, had rejected a similar defense request for an outside review of DNA found on the bra clasp of the victim, her British roommate Meredith Kercher, and on a knife the prosecution alleged was used in the fatal stabbing attack.
Kercher's body was found in a pool of blood on Nov. 2, 2007, her throat slit in the apartment she shared with Knox. Forensic experts said she was killed the night before.
Knox burst into tears, in a sign of a release of tension, said her stepfather Chris Mellas. "She's a happy mess," he said, smiling.
She was convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering Kercher in the rented house they shared in the university town of Perugia, where both were studying. The co-defendant in the appeals trial is her ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, an Italian who was convicted of the same charges and sentenced to 25 years. Both deny any wrongdoing.
Prosecutors maintain that Sollecito's DNA was found on the bra clasp and that Knox's DNA was found on the knife's handle and Kercher's DNA on the blade. The defense maintains that DNA traces presented at the first trial were inconclusive and also contends they might have been contaminated when they were analyzed.
The court handed the defense another victory. It will allow several witnesses the defense hopes will refute testimony that placed Knox and Sollecito near the house on the night Kercher was killed.
Knox's mother, Edda Mellas, burst into tears of joy in the courtroom when the appeals court announced its decision. "Finally a little bit of good news," Mellas said, as Knox's family members hugged defense team lawyers.
Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellman said after 90 minutes of deliberations that the DNA evidence review was needed "to remove any reasonable doubt."
He said two independent experts, from Rome's Sapienza university, would either make new analyses of the DNA traces found, or if that isn't possible, would review the analyses that had been carried out by previous forensic experts and assess whether they are reliable.
DNA evidence was crucial in the first trial, where a clear motive did not emerge for the brutal killing.
"Finally, the trial can begin," said Luca Maori, an attorney for Sollecito. "After three years, we have scored our first important victory."
A Knox defense attorney, Luciano Ghirga, called the ruling Saturday "a significant step" and "a victory not for one side, but for the truth."
The experts will be formally assigned the task of the review at the trial's next session, on Jan. 15.
The court said it might decide at a later stage to allow other witnesses sought by the defense.
The court rejected several of the defense requests, including for new tests on Sollecito's computer related to the young man's alibi for the night of the slaying.
Francesco Maresca, a lawyer for the Kercher family who had opposed the review, said that "if the court has any remaining doubts, it does well to try to remove them."
"And now we'll see what these experts will conclude," he told reporters at the end of the hearing.
The review will take at least 30 days, and with new witnesses being heard, the trial is expected to go until next spring.
In seeking the new witnesses, the defense is seeking to refute testimony in the first trial from Antonio Curatolo, a homeless man who said he had seen Knox and Sollecito chatting on a basketball court near the apartment house the night Kercher was killed.
The defense insists his testimony was unreliable and hopes the new witnesses, who operate buses and discos in the area, will prove him wrong.
Prosecutors also appealed the lower court's verdict in hopes of winning stiffer sentences.
Saturday's hearing was held two days after Italy's highest criminal court upheld the conviction and 16-year-prison sentence of the third person charged with the murder, Rudy Hermann Guede of the Ivory Coast.
Guede has admitted being at the house the night of the murder but denies killing Kercher.
He was tried separately. The high court's ruling, which cannot be appealed, is significant because it states that Guede took part in the slaying but did not act alone, prosecutors and lawyers said.
Monday, December 13, 2010
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