Here are the 10 of the most compelling.
10. No motive. Amanda Knox was a typical college student on a study-abroad trip in Italy, and was, by all accounts, having the time of her life. Convincing her boyfriend (of about a week) and a complete stranger to kill her roommate, Meredith Kercher, would have benefited Knox is no way imaginable, other than to bring her good times in Italy to a screeching halt.
9. A case built entirely on character. With an utter lack of physical evidence tying Knox and Sollecito to the murder, prosecutors instead attacked her character. Knox was called a "she-devil", a "spell-casting-witch", "evil incarnate" and all manner of colorful terms, each of which had no legal merit and was used only to get an emotional response from the jury. These kind of techniques would never fly in an American court. Yet because of this method and because of some strange behavior which was seized on by the media, Knox's character went on trial, instead of evidence. Fortunately, on appeal, evidence suddenly became important once again.
8. A criminal prosecutor. Italian prosecutor Giuliano Mignini is, in nearly all aspects, a horrible human. This is a man who once arrested a journalist and falsely accused him of being the serial killer that he was writing about. He's been accused of having journalists beat up for writing negative things about him and of using interrogation techniques that might be straight out of Dick Cheney's handbook. Mignini was convicted of abusing his office last year and given a suspended sentence of 16 months in jail.
7. No murder weapon. Prosecutors in the case said that a kitchen knife found in the home of Raffaele Sollecito was the weapon used in the murder. Further review by independent experts, however, concluded that there was no way that this knife made the wounds found on Kercher.
6. Irresponsible media. During Knox's original trial, tabloids around the world (most blatantly in the UK and Italy) seized on every salacious report of supposed character flaws to be found in Knox and Sollecito. Naming her "Foxy Knoxy" after an old soccer nickname, the rags ran photos of Knox at parties, and went into detail about purchases of lingerie and sex toys, claiming that an adult woman in college who was sexually active must therefore be capable of rape and murder.
5. No criminal history. Though it's possible that a person with no criminal history whatsoever might one day decide to conspire with two other people she barely knows to rape and murder a roommate, it's much more probable that that simply wouldn't happen. For Knox, a first-rate student, athlete and all-around good person, it's hard to imagine why she would suddenly throw that all away to commit a pointless murder.
4. A guilty person already convicted. As opposed to Knox and Sollecito, the evidence implicating Ivorian drifter Rudy Guede is rock solid. His DNA was found all over the crime scene. He admitted to being there the night of the murder. And he has an extensive criminal history. Indeed, all the evidence points to Guede, and it took very little time for a judge to convict him. Somehow, however, prosecutors convinced themselves that other people must have been involved, so they didn't rest until they convicted Knox and Sollecito as well.
3. No confession. With great emphasis prosecutors had used the supposed confession of Amanda Knox to prove once and for all that she was responsible for the murder. That confession, however, was the result of hours of forced interrogation in which no attorney was present for Knox and the prosecution reportedly invented dozens of possible scenarios for what happened, until Knox agreed to one.
2. No witnesses. The only witness to identify Knox and Sollecito being specifically at the murder scene was one man, Antonio Curatolo. He said he saw them talking near the crime scene. The problem is, that witness couldn't even remember what day he saw the pair speaking and, furthermore, is a homeless heroin addict whose ability to recall important details is highly suspect.
1. No DNA evidence. The DNA evidence that originally put Knox and Sollecito behind bars would have never been admitted into a U.S. court. The samples were too small and too contaminated, and when an independent panel of forensic scientists viewed the evidence they found more than 50 critical errors in how it was collected, tested and stored. In short, there was no DNA evidence linking Knox and Sollecito to the crime.
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