by Roland Hulme
After being convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering her British flatmate in 2007, the seemingly watertight case against the 24-year-old burst at the seams on appeal; as a litany of errors rendered the DNA evidence inadmissible.
Prosecutors could no longer even place Knox, or her alleged co-conspirator Raffaele Sollecito, at the scene of the crime - much less as the perpetrators of it.
The fact that the case disintegrated so abruptly is shocking to Americans; used as they are to convictions based on a presumption of innocence and proof of guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt." The truth is, though, that the law in Europe is a considerably more unforgiving creature; and who knows how many have fallen foul of it.
Napolean Versus The World
There are two types of legal system in the world. The British and American rule of law, based on the Magna Carta, and the continental legal system, or the Code Napoleon.
That code was introduced in the early 19th century, when Napoleon conquered the majority of continental Europe, and remains in effect to this day in much of Europe.
Most Americans are unaware that the Code Napoleon differs from the criminal law they're used to in several major respects; the most obvious being the theory that suspects are "innocent until proven guilty."
According to the law enacted by Napoleon, it's the other way around. Suspects are considered guilty until they prove themselves innocent. That's why cases like Knox occur.
Another example occurred in 1999, with the murder of 13-year-old English student Caroline Dickinson. Within hours of her body being discovered, French gendarmes had "solved" the case; beating a confession from 40-year-old drifter Patrice Pade who had been picked up 40 miles away from the murder scene. Yet just hours after, it was revealed that the "confession" came from a man who could not possibly have been in Pleine-Fougeres when the murder took place.
Similarly suspicious was the fate of Richard Durn; the suspect in the murder of eight Paris councillors in 2002. While being interrogated in a police building following his arrest, he managed to "throw himself" to his death, out of a top floor window; witnessed by half a dozen police officers.
The fact is, "justice" in Europe doesn't quite follow the model we Brits and Americans are used to.
Compare the most recent celebrity court case to hit the American media; that of Casey Anthony. She was charged with murdering her 2-year-old daughter, but eventually acquitted by a Florida court. Like O.J. Simpson before her, public opinion deigned that she'd actually committed the crime; but a jury thought differently.
This is because America has the rule that guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in court; and figures famously considered "guilty" by public opinion didn't face prosecution cases that proved that point. It's arguable that this has resulted in guilty people going free; but the hope is that it has prevented innocent people facing prison time - or worse - for crimes they didn't commit.
Okay, so it's not a perfect system. The recent execution of Troy Davis in Georgia - whose case had some serious holes in it - proved that the American legal system is skewed by many factors - like a suspect's race. But overall, the basic structure of criminal law originated in England and brought over to America remains the best - and the safest - in the world.
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