Good grief. Is this the "confession" that is the basis of so much Knox slamming on the internet?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1570225/Transcript-of-Amanda-Knoxs-note.html
How in the world is this evidence in any way of guilt? Anybody that has followed any discussions of the problems of police interrogations producing false confessions can see a poster child for the practice in that "confession". She's lied to for hours on end and in a state bordering on hallucinogenic after hours of interrogation she's still enough of a critical thinker to be willing to consider possibilities that counter her memories of the events.
It looks to me like the authorities not only implanted false information to get this statement they decided to misinterpret it into a "confession".
And what you've just written here is important in a wider context. Most of us arguing for acquittal have no emotional attachment to such a position. I would suggest that we all first came to the case with a neutral point of view - or even one inclined towards guilt (most people arrested and charged with crimes are culpable of those crimes, and the vast majority of those found guilty in criminal courts are culpable). Funnily enough, my first standpoint on the case was that Knox and Sollecito were almost certainly culpable: this was based on my limited exposure to the case via the book "Darkness Descending", which (it turned out) contained a number of very significant factual errors, coupled with a casual bias towards guilt.
But to look at the "confession/accusation" issue in isolation is to see a microcosm of all that's different about the opposing "sides" in this internet debate. Like you, I look objectively at all the evidence surrounding this issue, and I come to the clear conclusion that the statements were improperly obtained and were extremely likely to be the direct result of police coercion. There are so many obvious pointers to this being the case: for me, the most important provable ones are Perugia Police Chief de Felice's statement from the following day* and the testimony of police interpreter Anna Donnino in which she said that she'd helped to persuade Knox that she might have suffered traumatic memory loss. Other less-provable (but probably correct) factors are the text of Knox's statements - most notably the "gift", what she was allegedly told of the reason for her detention in custody, and what she said in the prison conversations with her parents.
In fact, it's somewhat ironic that I joined PMF partly in order to address this issue. Other parts of the book I'd just read had persuaded me of Knox's/Sollecito's culpability (these parts of the book subsequently turned out to be incorrect), but even so it seemed obvious to me from the very beginning that the "confession/accusation" was improper and coerced. It was my attempt to argue that such a position on the "confession/accusation" was not only the best assessment of the evidence, but that it was still compatible with an underlying belief in guilt, that was the chief factor behind my "thanks for stopping by" dismissal from the clique. And, also ironically, it gave me a fascinating - and somewhat eye-opening - insight into the mindsets of most of the pro-guilt posters.
So when I see pro-guilt commentators still pointing to this set of statements and making asinine (to my mind) statements along the lines of "See! Knox lied! She accused her innocent boss! Who but a guilty person would do such a thing?!", I realise two things: firstly, such commentators clearly don't have the reasoning skills to look at this issue properly; and secondly, their minds are infested with confirmation bias based on a presumption of Knox's guilt. It's irrational, utterly non-sceptical, and more than a bit weird.
In contrast, I truly believe that most pro-acquittal commentators are making a concerted effort to view each issue of this case in an objective, rational, disinterested way. If such an approach leads to a belief in Knox's/Sollecito's culpability, then that's the conclusion we will reach. If - as is currently the case - this approach leads to a clear indication that there's nowhere near sufficient evidence for proof beyond a reasonable doubt (and in fact that the evidence points strongly towards Knox's/Sollecito's total non-involvement in the murder), then this is the conclusion we will reach. But it bears repeating that if somehow a new piece of evidence shows up that is clearly indicative of the culpability of Knox and/or Sollecito, then I (and, I believe, most other pro-acquittal commentators) would change our opinion readily and quickly. The same, unfortunately, is demonstrably not true of most pro-guilt commentators. And again, this speaks volumes to the difference between us.
* De Felice said this:
"Initially the American (Knox) gave a version of events we knew was not correct. She buckled and made an admission of facts we knew were correct and from that we were able to bring them all in. They all participated but had different roles."
