*Drumroll* Amanda Knox verdict coming up!

[grumbler]

Are any media known for its their professionalism or taste?

Yes.

[Warspite]

Are any media known for its their professionalism or taste?

Yes.

Who?

[The Minsky Moment]

See if they float or sink. 

Pretty sure he was being sarcastic.  Besides the float or sink test resulted in very little court delay and cases didnt take years to make it to court and weeks or months to actually hear like they do now.  Similarly having a reality TV panel of judges (screened to ensure they have watched sufficient hours of Court TV as training) judge defendants on their poise and grace would also reduce cost and may even be a revenue generator if enough of an audience can be attracted to the proceedings.

Further, if viewership drops we can always go back to things like trial by combat or even the float test to bring ratings back up.

I've seen arguments  that trial by ordeal may for various reasons actually have been pretty effective in identifying guilt and innocence.
Analysis of medieval legal proceedings is obviously very difficult given the paucity of useful documentation.  But ordeals were in use for quite a long time - indeed, it probably would have lasted even longer in England had the Pope not put an end to the practice.  It is unlikely that such a practice would last for so long unless it "worked" in some meaningful sense.

[crazy canuck]

See if they float or sink. 

Pretty sure he was being sarcastic.  Besides the float or sink test resulted in very little court delay and cases didnt take years to make it to court and weeks or months to actually hear like they do now.  Similarly having a reality TV panel of judges (screened to ensure they have watched sufficient hours of Court TV as training) judge defendants on their poise and grace would also reduce cost and may even be a revenue generator if enough of an audience can be attracted to the proceedings.

Further, if viewership drops we can always go back to things like trial by combat or even the float test to bring ratings back up.

I've seen arguments  that trial by ordeal may for various reasons actually have been pretty effective in identifying guilt and innocence.
Analysis of medieval legal proceedings is obviously very difficult given the paucity of useful documentation.  But ordeals were in use for quite a long time - indeed, it probably would have lasted even longer in England had the Pope not put an end to the practice.  It is unlikely that such a practice would last for so long unless it "worked" in some meaningful sense.

It worked in the sense that it appealed to cultural bias in the same way trial by reality TV would work today.  Ok, only partly tongue in cheek.

[Caliga]

So the Italian Supreme Court overturned Foxy Knoxy's acquittal.

I guess in Italy, they can keep trying someone until they get the desired result?

Anyway, since she's safely in America now I guess she can just ignore this.

[CountDeMoney]

Imagine that.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, I've read that Italy can't actually compel Knox to come to Florence for the trial itself. If the next appellate level, which I guess is the "final" one, confirms the conviction then Italy could seek her extradition. It's less clear as to whether that would happen or not. As with any extradition treaty, Knox would have a hearing here in the United States (if the government even wanted to pursue extraditing her for the wops) and I imagine a lot of the frankly goofy shit from the Italian justice system and various problems with the physical evidence would make it very hard for a U.S. court to be able to extradite her as we can't constitutionally extradite someone if it would violate core constitutional rights.

FWIW while foreign to us, the appellate system in Italy isn't that messed up, it's just a different approach. Basically they have a trial level court where a verdict happens. In the U.S. that would be considered the "real" verdict. If it's an acquittal, it's over right there. If it's a conviction, it can be appealed, only if there are serious problems with the way the trial was conducted or genuine proof of innocence will the appellate courts reverse the conviction. In Italy after you've gotten the trial court conviction the person isn't considered "convicted", and the appellate process is automatic. It has to go through several levels of appellate courts before the conviction is "confirmed" and then it's finalized.

So instead of the U.S. approach where the trial court is the "real" verdict, and the defendant can appeal it if they wish, in Italy the trial court is just the first step in a full conviction.

What's really concerning about the Italian justice system is the prosecutors do not appear to operate within the bounds of justice and just randomly prosecute stuff for crazy reasons (geologists not predicting earthquakes) and are allowed to try stuff that wouldn't fly here (ignore physical evidence and suggests a defendant is a witch) and the courts actually seem to allow it. I still don't know if Knox did it but the evidence against her was quite weak, and I doubt she'd have been convicted under American law. Same reason I said all along Casey Anthony was going to walk, I read the details of that case one time and said "well, there isn't anywhere near enough physical evidence and the only thing they have against her is she lied to the police." In that case Anthony's "accidental death coverup" storyline was no more or less substantiated than the murder storyline put forth by the prosecution, so there was really no way for me to see how a court could rule for a conviction. Now, I think it's an O.J. type case where she probably did it and got away with it, but the bar for conviction is pretty high. In the U.S. luckily something like 3/4ths of all murder defendants confess in a police interview which makes things vastly easier, the rest frequently leave incriminating evidence or have accomplices that flip on them. But if they don't confess and they can't find compelling physical evidence there's really not an easy route to conviction.

[HVC]

She's still a pretty girl, so unless she put on like 30 lbs or got hit in the face by a shovel since the last trial then this outcome won't be any different (assuming they even get an extradition).

[11B4V]

I think we should tell the pasta eaters to go fuck themselves and refuse any extradition.

[Ed Anger]

I think we should tell the pasta eaters to go fuck themselves and refuse any extradition.

We need to knock some more cable cars down.

[DontSayBanana]

I think we should tell the pasta eaters to go fuck themselves and refuse any extradition.

We will.  There's no way we'd extradite for a clear case of double jeopardy.

It's starting to smell really whiffy, anyway.  These guys are desperate to get her locked up.  Either they know something they haven't gotten into previous hearings, or she knows something they'd rather she not say.

[Jacob]

We will.  There's no way we'd extradite for a clear case of double jeopardy.

It's starting to smell really whiffy, anyway.  These guys are desperate to get her locked up.  Either they know something they haven't gotten into previous hearings, or she knows something they'd rather she not say.

Did you read OvB's post?

[dps]

We will.  There's no way we'd extradite for a clear case of double jeopardy.

It's starting to smell really whiffy, anyway.  These guys are desperate to get her locked up.  Either they know something they haven't gotten into previous hearings, or she knows something they'd rather she not say.

Did you read OvB's post?

The fact that they have a different system doesn't mean that a US court wouldn't look on it as double jeopardy.

[Razgovory]

I wonder what the precedent is with double jeopardy and extradition.  Still the prosecution appealing a case seems strange to me.

[DontSayBanana]

We will.  There's no way we'd extradite for a clear case of double jeopardy.

It's starting to smell really whiffy, anyway.  These guys are desperate to get her locked up.  Either they know something they haven't gotten into previous hearings, or she knows something they'd rather she not say.

Did you read OvB's post?

I did, and this still sounds like, in terms of fishing expeditions, it's gone from a hired boat in the local bay to a fleet of Japanese whalers.  Why would you even have a trial court handing out acquittals if its authority is automatically in question?

I know the Italians aren't exactly the shining light of fiscal responsibility, but I doubt even they spend the money on trying and retrying and retrying cases over and over again like this, unless somebody's got something big to lose.

If you had also read OvB's earlier post, he mentioned we can't legally extradite if it would violate a citizen's constitutional rights; overturning an acquittal would be double jeopardy here.

In the end, extraditions aren't cut-and-dry "will do this, must do that" situations.  There's a lot of negotiation that goes on as to who's best interests are served, and it seems painfully clear that someone's got an agenda here in prosecuting Knox.  The court hasn't released any reasoning for its decision, but the evidence was successfully challenged.  At best, this means someone withheld substantial evidence during the trial.  At worst, somebody stands to walk out of this with so much egg on their face, that they're going to try again and again until they can get her back behind bars and away from interviews.