Any info in particular that you're unsure of? I know what he said about the interrogation is exactly dead on. I'm a law student and I'm particularly interested in criminal law. I am not familiar with Italian law, but I can tell you what would happen if this case were before an American court, and that should be at least somewhat helpful in deciding whether you think the reversal of conviction was warranted.
I've read a decent number of law review articles on interrogations/coercion, as well as many cases dealing with voluntariness of confessions. I didn't watch the video of the last night of the interrogation (it's over nine hours long - and it's at the link in my last post, if anyone wants to watch it), but assuming Agent Moore isn't flat-out lying about the contents, there's no way in hell anything Knox might have said in the interrogation would ever get within a mile of a jury in any American court. Such conduct in an interrogation (even if they didn't hit her in the back of the head) would certainly lead to civil liability in the US (personal as well as professional, since those tactics violate clearly established law), as well as departmental discipline and possibly even criminal charges. No half-competent prosecutor would even bother to try to get that admitted, and if he did the judge would rip him a new one.
As for testing only one knife when several other objects were potentially the murder weapon, no expertise is needed to know that's ridiculously poor investigating. The prosecutor implying - in a court filing, no less - that bleach was used to clean the scene when he knew the evidence proved the opposite would be grounds for a mistrial in the US. It would also most certainly lead to severe sanctions from the court and the state bar association, and probably criminal charges as well (perjury, for starters, since Court filings are affirmed by the filing lawyer to be true to the best of her knowledge, under pain of perjury). A prosecutor who knowingly did that would never practice law again, that's for sure.
Moore might be exaggerating when he says that the evidence wouldn't be enough for a search warrant (though that's a close call, and he may be right), but a case based on this evidence would never make it to trial in the United States, because pretty much none of the "evidence" the prosecution had would be admissible. This is not due to technicalities; the weight of the evidence that would be admissible is simply insufficient for any reasonable jury to find guilt by a reasonable doubt. The evidence that would be excluded would be excluded because to call its reliability dubious would be unjustifiably charitable.
I'm not an expert on the scientific details, but I assume he's right about the color of the Luminol's glow being no indication of what the substance is, in which case the investigator's testimony to the contrary would be independent grounds for a mistrial in an American court.
Last edited:
