Amanda Knox - Your Verdict

AK- the verdict

  • Innocent

    Votes: 22 18.2%

  • Guilty

    Votes: 59 48.8%

  • Hung Jury

    Votes: 2 1.7%

  • Don't know, Don't care

    Votes: 28 23.1%

  • planet X has no crime

    Votes: 10 8.3%
  • Total voters
    121
  • Poll closed .
Fnord said:
Amanda Knox? I suppose that if I had known her or her alleged victim personally, I might be more interested. But right now, it's about 23:00, the TV is tuned to a Korean channel, and I'm waiting on an overseas phone call. While waiting, I logged on to JREF, and saw this thread ... what was it about again?

Oh well... whatever... never mind...
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I'm not terribly interested in the case itself, but I find the various Internet discussions about it fascinating. I can understand people questioning whether the evidence was sufficient to support a conclusion of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. What intrigues me are the people who claim that Amanda Knox is obviously innocent, when her innocence would require the occurrence of a not insignificant number of events that seem to me to have a low probability of occurring.
 
Someone in the main thread observed that Scottish courts permit a verdict of "not proven." I suspect that at least some people who voted "guilty" or "not guilty" here might have selected that option.
 
Bob001 said:
Someone in the main thread observed that Scottish courts permit a verdict of "not proven." I suspect that at least some people who voted "guilty" or "not guilty" here might have selected that option.
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My understanding, and I hope that it is correct because I've served on 2 juries in criminal cases, is that a jury in the USA is only really supposed to decide between "proven" and "not proven". It isn't required that the defendant be proven "not guilty".
 
TellyKNeasuss said:
My understanding, and I hope that it is correct because I've served on 2 juries in criminal cases, is that a jury in the USA is only really supposed to decide between "proven" and "not proven". It isn't required that the defendant be proven "not guilty".
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"Guilty" and "Not Guilty" in the U.S. have always related to satisfying a burden of proof. This is why the stigma of merely having been charged remains regardless of the outcome of a trial. There is always a residual suspicion of "Where there's smoke there's fire".

True exoneration, a determination of real innocence by some judicial authority, is comparatively rare.
 
uk_dave said:
I have followed it and learnt many new and interesting things, such as:

  • Ladies sometimes share bras, regardless of body shape
  • Police sometimes suspect cute girls of murder because they're horny
  • The press reporting of a court case is not to be trusted except when it is
  • Sometimes the police will plant evidence in order to convict innocent people and make sure the real killer doesn't walk free
  • Italians are funny people
  • Americans are funny people
  • Internet sleuths play an important part in modern day murder investigations
  • Google is your friend
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I learned that:
* All murders are committed either by people with a history of violent crime or by people named Rudy Hermann Guede.
* Women are psychologically incapable in participating in sexual violence against women.
* Murderers are rational thinkers who after the crime never waste time with any activity that will not help them avoid getting caught.
* Murderers normally act in exactly the way that non-criminals imagine that they would act if they had committed a murder.
* A murder suspect's boss is ALWAYS one of the first people whom the police question.
* It is exceedingly rare in criminal trials for the defense to challenge the validity of any of the evidence, and for the defense to do so implies that something is not on the up-and-up.
 
oh and don't forget :

* The defence will do a lousy job 'cause they want the Appeal fees.
 
Matthew Best said:
95 votes, still less than 50% voting "guilty". As a Forum, we have pretty much acquitted Amanda Knox.
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more than double (almost three times) the number of people have voted guilty than voted not guilty, more people voted don't know/ don't care than voted innocent. I'm not sure how you can look at those stats and say the forum has acquitted Amanda Knox.
 
uk_dave said:
oh and don't forget :

* The defence will do a lousy job 'cause they want the Appeal fees.
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*Police interrogations are so stressful you immediately break down and accuse innocent people.

* Any evidence that connects Amanda to the crime is contaminated, mishandled, planted or falsified.
 
brodski said:
more than double (almost three times) the number of people have voted guilty than voted not guilty, more people voted don't know/ don't care than voted innocent. I'm not sure how you can look at those stats and say the forum has acquitted Amanda Knox.
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The same way he can look at a unanimous guilty verdict and say the evidence was unconvincing.
 
tsig said:
*Police interrogations are so stressful you immediately break down and accuse innocent people.

* Any evidence that connects Amanda to the crime is contaminated, mishandled, planted or falsified.
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* Any reasonably healty adult male can climb through a window that's 12 feet off the ground.

* All murderers have clear-cut, rational motivations for their crimes.
 
brodski said:
more than double (almost three times) the number of people have voted guilty than voted not guilty, more people voted don't know/ don't care than voted innocent. I'm not sure how you can look at those stats and say the forum has acquitted Amanda Knox.
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To convict you'd need either a unanimous verdict, or at the very least a majority, say 10-2. We don't have anything like that, so the verdict is "not guilty".
 
Matthew Best said:
To convict you'd need either a unanimous verdict, or at the very least a majority, say 10-2. We don't have anything like that, so the verdict is "not guilty".
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This is not a court, in court jurors arn't given the options of don't care and planet x. To include them in your count is pretty dishonest.
 
Matthew Best said:
Under the system used in a normal court, whereby a guilty verdict has to be a majority of at least 10-2.
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Let's get the facts right.

A 10-2 majority verdict applies to England and Wales.

In the U.S. criminal trials require a unanimous verdict for Federal trials and all State trials with the exception of Oregon and Louisiana.

In Italy (where this case is being held) a jury only needs a majority to convict on murder. As an aside, the jury was unanimous (8-0) in their guilty verdict in this case.

Thus, if you want to play this game the poll results of 59 guilty, 22 not guilty would result in a guilty verdict in an Italian court.
 
Matthew Best said:
Under the system used in a normal court, whereby a guilty verdict has to be a majority of at least 10-2.
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Under the system used in a normal court, the jury has to not only agree on a guilty verdict for there to be a conviction but also on a not guilty verdict for there to be an acquittal.
 
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