Personally I think that she thought, and still thinks, she can talk her way out of anything, but that's just my personal opinion. Not to be relied on and not evidence.
If I were on her defence team I would do everything in my power to prevent her talking, the "What do you think, she ******** bled to death" type comments
(cite) that she made are as damaging to her as are her email and her changing stories.
I don't think that comments like that are indicative of culpability, but I'd totally agree that they were inappropriate, and can't have painted her an any sort of positive light.
And yes, I totally agree on the "perventing her from talking" point. As I've argued before, I think that pretty much the very first thing that AK's legal team should have done when they were appointed on the 6th November onwards was to essentially
order AK not to write down or say
anything that was in any way connected to the case*. That they seemingly did not do so (or perhaps that they didn't do so strongly enough) is, to me at least, a serious failure to protect their client.
And that leads me to a point about "best defence money can buy" arguments. Most people -
however rich - rarely come into any contact with the criminal legal fraternity (and sorority!) unless and until they are charged with a criminal offence (or their son/daughter/husband/wife is charged). At that point, it's therefore difficult if not impossible for suspects or their families to know who is the "best" criminal lawyer to appoint. In a very short space of time - hours or even minutes sometimes - people have to pick a lawyer from a position of having very low knowledge of what they are looking for.
Therefore, regardless of how much one is willing to spend, choosing a defence attorney can in many ways be likened to "pinning the tail on the donkey". In these instances, it's virtually impossible to select "the best that money can buy" in any case. Last time I looked, criminal lawyers didn't publish their hourly rates online or in some sort of handbook, and nor were they ranked in league tables of success or competency.
So pretty much all that
anyone can do - unless they happen to know a specific criminal defence lawyer whom they trust and admire - is choose from an undifferentiated list of accredited criminal lawyers. They may get lucky, they may not. Indeed, one of AK's attorneys (Carlo dalla Vedova), as I understand it, didn't even have a background in criminal law, but rather was selected based on his ability to speak English. And her other attorney, Ghirga, was (I believe) recommended by the Mayor of Perugia in the spirit of helpfulness - but Ghirga was also a town councillor, so
maybe that's where the Mayor knew him from - and not from any stellar performances in a courtroom.
And I think I'm also right in saying that Raffaele's lead defence lawyer (Bongiorno) was often absent from court owing to political commitments. She was essentially a politician first and a practising lawyer second, and in my belief should never therefore have been chosen to represent a client in a long and complex murder trial. But defendants and their families get to choose their legal representation, and I wonder if Sollecito (and/or, more accurately, his father) were so busy being impressed by Bongiorno's status (and her first fee invoice) that they forget to ask themselves whether she was in fact best-equipped to conduct his defence effectively.
I wouldn't mind betting that if you asked people who were intimately acquainted with the criminal law system in Italy, they would tell you that there are dozens and dozens of practising criminal defence lawyers who are more highly regarded than Bongiorno or Ghirga (let alone dalla Verdova, who's not even a criminal lawyer by practice). There might even be some more highly-regarded criminal lawyers practising in Perugia...
* Although unless she'd retained a lawyer voluntarily on 3rd/4th November (which, incidentally, I'd argue she should actually have done), there would have been no legal adviser around to counsel her not to say things in public about the murder.
). She was there for nearly all the court days and only missed 3 - 4 of them. And even on those, she was still directing, from afar.