Amanda Knox: Better Off

Jason Mazzone

Amanda Knox is back in our news along with plenty of renewed criticism of the Italian criminal justice system. At the heart of this criticism—and of the arguments against ever extraditing Knox—is that the Italian system is inferior to that of the United States. In particular, the claim goes, there is insufficient evidence against Knox to sustain a conviction and the entire process amounts to what would be a double jeopardy violation under our Constitution. Italians tend to find these criticisms strange. From their perspective, Knox, a young white American woman with access to seemingly unlimited resources, has, if anything, received stronger than usual protections—and so there is nothing surprising or disturbing about the ultimate outcome. This reaction doesn’t, of course, get far in persuading the critics.

But here is another way to think about the issue: how would Knox have fared if the relevant crimes had occurred not in Italy but in the United States and she had been prosecuted instead in an American court?

Under those circumstances, the most likely place Knox would be today is in prison serving a lengthy sentence. This is because, as is true of the vast majority of criminal defendants facing trial, Knox would have pled guilty pursuant to a plea bargain—in exchange for a reduced sentence or dropped charges or some combination of both. As it is, Knox might well never spend another day in prison and certainly she will not be in a cell anytime soon. From that measure, the Italian criminal justice system probably serves Knox better than would that of the United States.

Three things help explain this assessment. First, plea-bargaining is very limited in Italy: plea-bargaining is unavailable if, as in a murder prosecution, the ultimate sentence exceeds five years incarceration; there is also no charge bargaining. Unlike most convicted defendants in the United States, Knox really did have her day in court. Second, the Italian system provides for multiple levels of de novo review of the facts. This, too, has worked to Knox’s benefit. At trial in the first instance, Knox was convicted (her supporters tend to forget that fact)—with that outcome overturned at the next level. Had Knox been convicted at trial in the United States, appellate review would have been considerably more limited: the odds of a guilty verdict being overturned on evidentiary grounds are exceedingly slim. Third, a jury trial in the United States would not have produced the careful written explanation for the verdict that Knox has available to her to argue error.

In sum, the criticisms now made about the evidentiary record in the case and the assertions of double jeopardy problems make for nice sound bites but they actually reflect strengths of the Italian system—ones that have given (and give) Knox a better chance of going free than she would ever have at home.
Posted 4:07 PM by Jason Mazzone [link]