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S. Michael Scadron

Italy's Persecution of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito Recalls the Dreyfus Affair

Introduction and Premise On March 25, 2015, the case against Seattle native Amanda Knox and her one time Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, will be heard by the Italian Supreme Court in what may be the pair’s final attempt to set right a miscarriage of justice reminiscent of the infamous Dreyfus Affair of the nineteenth century. To briefly recount, the sorry …

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The New Amanda Knox Smear Campaign Has Gotten Pretty Silly

Several weeks before Raffaele Sollecito was to give a press conference explaining his new appeal strategy separating his defense from that of his one time girlfriend, Amanda Knox, the media went haywire with anticipation. Raffaele was going to throw Amanda under the bus, it was reported. He would rob her of her alibi by claiming she wasn’t with him on …

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Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and The European Court of Last Resort

Italy’s bizarre persecution of Amanda Knox, an American citizen, and Raffaele Sollecito, an Italian citizen, ignores the presumption of innocence required by at least two international human rights treaties. The International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a treaty monitored by the United Nations, specifically requires that a presumption of innocence be afforded all defendants in a criminal trial …

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Why the Italian Judicial Circus Won't Let Go of Amanda Knox

It seemed that Italy’s nonsensical persecution of Seattle native Amanda Knox and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, was over when the two were exonerated and released from prison by an appellate court jury in October of 2011. Not so. On March 26 of this year the Italian Supreme Court in Rome annulled the 2011 acquittal, sending the case back to …

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Amanda Knox's Innocence Is No Technicality

In the event Seattle native Amanda Knox, and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollicito, are ultimately acquitted of murder in connection with the 2007 brutal slaying of Amanda’s British housemate, Meredith Kercher, it cannot be said that their exoneration resulted from a technicality, as has been suggested in some quarters. The court-appointed experts in the appeals trial demolished the credibility of …

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Will Italy's Misguided Persecution of Amanda Knox Finally End?

Imagine that you are a foreign exchange student arrested in connection with a murder you had no part in. You are locked up in a prison thousands of miles from home and you don’t speak the language. You think surely the authorities will see their mistake. After all you’ve never been in trouble your whole life, and there is no …

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