Amanda Knox's Mom Confident About Trial

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It has been almost two years since 22-year-old Amanda Knox was imprisoned in Italy, accused with her ex-boyfriend of murdering her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, in a sex game accident.

Knox's mother, Edda Mellas, told CBS News Correspondent Maggie Rodriguez this morning that she is confident that her daughter's attorneys have handled the case well.

More CBS News Coverage of the Amanda Knox Trial:
Defense Witness Testifies At Italy Murder Trial
Amanda Knox Trial Resumes
Possible Murder Knife Shown in Knox Trial

"The question is, were they able to overcome all the negative perceptions, you know, a year's worth of really bad press that was filled with lies," Mellas told CBS' "The Early Show".

The court is considering having an independent third party examine the evidence against Knox, a move that Mellas says would benefit her daughter's case. Several experts in the United States have already looked at the DNA, according to Mellas.

"It's terrible, it wouldn't be allowed in U.S. courts and it doesn't stand up to any standards," she said.

Though Mellas is confident that the trial is going well, she is also prepared for defeat. She told Rodriguez that she had been warned by several people that justice isn't always served in Italy right away.

"That's just how it works, just because you're innocent, you're not found innocent, at least at this first level."

A man from the Ivory Coast, Rudy Hermann Guede, was convicted in the crime and sentenced to 30 years in prison last year.

Watch Amanda Knox's mother on "The Early Show":


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[AngieC24]

I agree with you. Also I would like to add the DNA on the bra may have been Amandas but alot of friends share bras. I know alot of woman in their 20's who share their bras with oneanother so who can say Amanda hadnt borrowed that bra? I hope Amanda gets her charges dropped. I think Rudy Guede is guilty of murder and he alone. He has the history of carrying a knife and of burglary the Italians need to wake up and hear how the satanic sex murder sounds. I think it sounds about as likely as aliens coming down to earth and doing it.

[want2believe]

It seems that every time the Knox/Mellas family goes on TV they make the situation worse. How do they look in the camera and say that there is no evidence and that nothing Amanda has done makes her seem guilty. If they would just be honest and admit that yes, Amanda made some mistakes, but they don't add up to murder it would be a lot easier to convince people of Amanda's possible innocence.

[yeddow]

Where there is smoke, there is fire. I see a lot of smoke.

[harryrag1]

TruthWithoutFear,

You've made a couple of ignorant and inaccurate comments.

Firstly, the double DNA knife is compatible with the deep puncture on Meredith's neck. Even the medical experts for the defence conceded this point.

Secondly, two bloody footprints were attributed to Raffaele Sollecito. One of them was revealed by luminol in the hallway, and the other one was easily visible to the naked eye on the blue bathmat in Meredith?s and Knox?s shared bathroom.

Lorenzo Rinaldi excluded the possibility that the bloody footprint on the blue bathmat was the right size or shape to belong to Knox or Guede instead of Sollecito: ?You can see clearly that this bloody footprint on the rug does not belong to Mr. Guede, but you can see that it is compatible with Sollecito.?

Andrea Vogt?s report for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer shows just how meticulous and painstakingly detailed the analysis of the bloody footprints was:

?All the elements are compatible with Mr. Sollecito?s foot,? Rinaldi said, pointing with a red laser to a millimeter-by-millimeter analysis of Sollecito?s footprint projected onto a big-screen in the courtroom. He used similar methods to exclude that the footprint on the bath mat could possibly be Guede?s or Knox?s.

Thirdly, Filomena and the police saw broken glass on top of Filomena's clothes. This proves the window was broken after Filomena's clothes had been thrown around her room. It should also be noted that a mixture of Amanda Knox?s DNA and Meredith?s blood was also found in Filomena?s room.

Fourthly, the prosecutors haven't ever claimed that Meredith Kercher's murder was the result of a "sex escapade gone wrong". Amanda Knox is charged with sexual assault, murder, staging a crime, theft and false accusation. She hasn't been charged with manslaughter because the prosecutors don't believe that Meredith's murder was accidental.

Finally, if you are Anne Bremner and I think you are, you analysed the wrong crime scene on NBC and you got your facts wrong when you were interviewed on ABC News. The Italian legal system has two judges and six members of the jury.

[Justice4Meredith]

This new blog below is a reaction to the ill-will Mr Frank has spread, by telling untruths, and by using Meredith's murder to line his pockets.

http://perugianshock.blogspot.com/

[Justice4Meredith]

The best news this year, the court refused to be bullied by the Seattle Gang and the lawyers for defense, who have also played what I view as a wickedly deceitful game, the lengths they have gone to in order to undermine the case is absolutely unheard of and ridiculously ill-conceived & foolish. How could anyone sound of mind, believe that so many things could all have been planned as some kind of conspiracy to be so awful to Knox and Sollecito yet so kind to everyone else, including Knox's former housemates.

These people appear to know no shame at all.

How stupid do Knox-Mellas families take people for?

How utterly wrong the way they have behaved, twisting every detail, playing into nationalistic sentiment but then that misuse of patriotic feelings could only ever bring ridicule and shame to what are, by all accounts, just like anywhere else is the case, good and responsibly-minded people. This case has nothing to do with caring for your own, does everyone who commits murder in Seattle enjoy the privilege of being supported by absolutely everyone else in Seattle just because they happen to live in the same town or city?
How ridiculously nonsensical an idea I have never heard.
This trash about parents will protect their kids no matter what, is simplistic to put it bluntly and to say the very least, it is actually stupid and cruel because to aid a child, who is, though the child of someone, still an adult, then aid them when they are murderously-wrong and telling lie after lie, is not support, it is illness.

God knows how those people will live with themselves further on down the line when the truth is known about what Knox and Sollecito got up to this time two years ago.

I curse the breasts that fed them for their adding to the pain and deceit and not facing up and being stronger because two wrongs never make a right.

[AngieC24]

I think your wrong. I think the Italian police are crazy what kind of story are they gonna come up with next that an alien broke in the partment and killed that poor girl? Seriously its because shes an American. Rudy is the one who murdered her the italian police are to stupid to admit that their wrong and as for the judge a monkey could have done a better job.There is no evidence proving Amanda is guilty. Amanda lived with the victim so duh there is gonna be DNA of Amandas in the apartment. I think you must be Italian because you sound as crazy as them.

[chicosuave2u]

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are innocent. I would expect to see everyone's DNA everywhere in the flat, except Rudy Guede's. They lived together and Raffaele had been there. Foot or shoe print evidence is not an exact science and can be deceptive in many ways and vulnerable to many circumstances. The evidence is only in the eyes of the beholder (or expert) at this point. There was not enough to justify the prosecutions conclusions. When the police think you are guilty of something, they will do almost anything to hear what they want to hear. There was also a communication barrier. This girl is not from Italy although her time has given her the benefit of diminishing that barrier, it was not so at the time of the interrogation. And, inexperienced younger people can be manipulated more easily. The answer is most always the most simple. Rudy Guede had acted alone in other break-ins and committed burglary. He carried a knife. He didn't want a witness. It's that simple. Not the "wild sex game devil worship" story.

[harryrag1]

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito will be convicted of murdering Meredith Kercher on the strength of the evidence. The Italian legal system is very fair and cautious. Numerous judges, including judges at the Italian Supreme Court, have examined the evidence carefully and decided that there are serious indications of Amanda Knox's and Raffaele Sollecito's guilt.

Amanda Knox's DNA was on the handle of the double DNA knife and Meredith's DNA was on the blade. Amanda Knox's footprints were set in Meredith's blood in the hallway and in Meredith's room. There were five mixed samples of Amanda Knox's blood or DNA with Meredith's blood in three different locations in the cottage, including Filomena's room, where the break-in was staged. Incidentally, Raffaele Sollecito's forensic expert, Professor Vinci, claimed that he had found Knox's DNA on Meredith's bra. Apparently, Vincenzo Pascali, Sollecito's chief forensic consultant, also found Knox's DNA on Meredith's bra.

Raffaele Sollecito left a bloody footprint on the blue bathmat in the bathroom and he left another in the hallway. An abundant amount of Sollecito's DNA was found on Meredith's bra clasp. Meredith's bra was removed some time after she had been killed and Rudy Guede had fled the scene.

Amanda Knox admitted on several occasions that she was at the cottage on the evening of 1 November and she voluntarily admitted that she was involved in Meredith's murder in her handwritten note to the police on 6 November. This confession has been admitted as evidence by Judge Massei.

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito have both given multiple alibis and lied repeatedly. They still don't have credible alibis for the night of the murder despite three attempts each. They have no credibility as witnesses. Amanda Knox has been flatly contradicted by the corroborative testimony of numerous witnesses.

[TruthWithoutFear]

Anyone who would state the above, or even believe it having followed the trial for the last three months, must be smoking some pretty good herbal extracts. Perhaps those stalwarts of logic actually stopped watching the trial since evidence from the defense started to refute EVERY single piece of evidence presented by the prosecution, including malfeasance by the prosecution, ineptitude by the Polizia Scientifica, and abuse by the police during the questioning.

Knife? Blunted -- it wasn't even the murder weapon. Footprints? Not so impressive (belonged to convicted murderer Rudy Guede, NOT Raffaele Sollecito). Broken glass part of a staged scene? Shattered. Witness that Ms. Knox was buying bleach to rid the crime scene of evidence? Vanished. Evidence of withdrawing funds from Ms. Kerchner's account? Bankrupt.

By the way -- unless you have latched on to the fairy tale that this was a sex escapade gone wrong (oh, where WAS that prosecution story during the trial... they must have forgotten to mention that), just what do YOU think was the motive? I hope it is better than a jealous rage over Ms. Kerchner's "promotion" in a bar... that sounds pretty hokey for even the most banal of crime stories.

This is not to say that Ms. Knox will be found innocent. The police, prosecutors, and indeed the government of Italy have a lot to lose if they are found wrong in having perpetrated this miscarriage of justice. A guilty conviction will probably start another round of negotiations, perhaps a plea to a lesser crime which would justify the entire ordeal in the eyes of the state. May the sheer weight of evidence guide jurisprudence, not hunger for headlines.

Conviction based on "strength of the evidence"? That is outright delusional.