A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law. In both common law and civil law legal systems, courts are the central means for dispute resolution, and it is generally understood that all persons have an ability to bring their claims before a court. Similarly, the rights of those accused of a crime include the right to present a defense before a court.

The system of courts that interpret and apply the law are collectively known as the judiciary. The place where a court sits is known as a venue. The room where court proceedings occur is known as a courtroom, and the building as a courthouse; court facilities range from simple and very small facilities in rural communities to large buildings in cities.

The practical authority given to the court is known as its jurisdiction (Latin jus dicere) -- the court's power to decide certain kinds of questions or petitions put to it. According to William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, a court is constituted by a minimum of three parties: the actor or plaintiff, who complains of an injury done; the reus or defendant, who is called upon to make satisfaction for it, and the judex or judicial power, which is to examine the truth of the fact, to determine the law arising upon that fact, and, if any injury appears to have been done, to ascertain and by its officers to apply a legal remedy. It is also usual in the superior courts to have attorneys, and advocates or counsel, as assistants, though, often, courts consist of additional attorneys, bailiffs, reporters, and perhaps a jury.

The term "the court" is also used to refer to the presiding officer or officials, usually one or more judges. The judge or panel of judges may also be collectively referred to as "the bench" (in contrast to attorneys and barristers, collectively referred to as "the bar"). In the United States, and other common law jurisdictions, the term "court" (in the case of U.S. federal courts) by law is used to describe the judge himself or herself.

In the United States, the legal authority of a court to take action is based on personal jurisdiction, subject-matter jurisdiction, and venue over the parties to the litigation.

Etymology

The word cour comes from the French court, an enclosed yard, which derives from the Latin form cortem, the accusative case of cohors, which again means an enclosed yard or the occupants of such a yard. The words yard, court, and Latin hortus (meaning "garden," hence horticulture and orchard), are cognates—all referring to an enclosed space.

The meaning of a judicial assembly is first attested in the 12th century, and derives from the earlier usage to designate a sovereign and his entourage, which met to adjudicate disputes in such an enclosed yard. The verb "to court", meaning to win favor, derives from the same source since people traveled to the sovereign's court to win his favor.

Jurisdiction

Jurisdiction, means "to speak the law," is the power of a court over a person or a claim. In the United States, a court must have both personal jurisdiction and subject matter jurisdiction. Each state establishes a court system for the territory under its control. This system allocates work to courts or authorized individuals by granting both civil and criminal jurisdiction (in the United States, this is termed subject-matter jurisdiction). The grant of power to each category of court or individual may stem from a provision of a written constitution or from an enabling statute. In English law, jurisdiction may be inherent, deriving from the common law origin of the particular court.

Trial and appellate courts

Trial courts are courts that hold trials. Sometimes termed "courts of first instance," trial courts have original jurisdiction over most cases. Trial courts may conduct trials with juries are the finders of fact (these are known as jury trials) or trials in which judges act as both finders of fact and finders of law (these are known as bench trials). Juries are less common in court systems outside the Anglo-American common law tradition.

Appellate courts are courts that hear appeals of lower courts and trial courts.

Civil law courts and common law courts

The two major models for courts are the civil law courts and the common law courts. Civil law courts are based upon the judicial system in France, while the common law courts are based on the judicial system in England. In most civil law jurisdictions, courts function under an inquisitorial system. In the common law system, most courts follow the adversarial system. Procedural law governs the rules by which courts operate: civil procedure for private disputes (for example); and criminal procedure for violation of the criminal law.

See also

General

Tribunal

Sanctions (law)

International judicial institution

International Criminal Court

Types and organization of courts

Appellate court

Administrative court

Constitutional court

Court of Faculties

Court-martial

Courts of England and Wales

Ecclesiastical court

Equity court

Family court

High Court of Justiciary

Revolutionary Tribunal (French Revolution)

Scots Law

Scottish Court Service

Supreme court

Trial court

Notes

External links

US federal courts

Courtprep, Information about the Canadian justice process, features an interactive courtroom and witness tips.

Going to court if you're charged with a crime (Directgov, England and Wales)

HM Courts and Tribunals Service (England and Wales)

Category:Courts

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alt	A mid-twenties African American man wearing a sequined military jacket and dark sunglasses. He is walking while waving his right hand, which is adorned with a white glove. His left hand is bare.
background	solo_singer
birth name	Michael Joseph Jackson
alias	Michael Joe Jackson, MJ, King of Pop
birth date	August 29, 1958
birth place	Gary, Indiana, U.S.
death date	June 25, 2009
death place	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
instrument	vocals, guitar, drums, percussion, keyboards
genre	R&B;, pop, rock, soul, dance, funk, disco, New jack swing
occupation	Singer-songwriter, musician, composer, dancer, choreographer, record producer, actor, businessman, philanthropist
years active	1964–2009
label	Motown, Epic, Legacy
associated acts	The Jackson 5
relatives	Janet Jackson (sister)
website	130pxMichael Jackson's signature }}

Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Often referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contribution to music, dance, and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5, then the Jacksons in 1964, and began his solo career in 1971.

In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music. The music videos for his songs, including those of "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller", were credited with transforming the medium into an art form and a promotional tool, and the popularity of these videos helped to bring the relatively new television channel MTV to fame. Videos such as "Black or White" and "Scream" made him a staple on MTV in the 1990s. Through stage performances and music videos, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive musical sound and vocal style have influenced numerous hip hop, post-disco, contemporary R&B;, pop and rock artists.

Jackson's 1982 album Thriller is the best-selling album of all time. His other records, including Off the Wall (1979), Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991), and HIStory (1995), also rank among the world's best-selling. Jackson is one of the few artists to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. He was also inducted into the Dance Hall of Fame as the first (and currently only) dancer from the world of pop and rock 'n' roll. Some of his other achievements include multiple Guinness World Records; 13 Grammy Awards (as well as the Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award); 26 American Music Awards (more than any other artist, including the "Artist of the Century"); 13 number-one singles in the United States in his solo career (more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era); and the estimated sale of over 750 million records worldwide. Jackson won hundreds of awards, which have made him the most-awarded recording artist in the history of popular music.

Life and career

Early life and The Jackson 5 (1958–1975)

Michael Jackson was born on August 29, 1958, the eighth of ten children in an African American working-class family who lived in a small 3-room house in Gary, Indiana, an industrial city near Chicago. His mother, Katherine Esther Scruse, was a devout Jehovah's Witness, and his father, Joseph Walter "Joe" Jackson, was a steel mill worker who performed with an R&B; band called The Falcons. Jackson had three sisters: Rebbie, La Toya, and Janet, and five brothers: Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, and Randy. A sixth brother, Brandon, died shortly after birth.

Jackson had a troubled relationship with his father, Joe. In 1980, Jackson won three awards at the American Music Awards for his solo efforts: Favorite Soul/R&B; Album, Favorite Soul/R&B; Male Artist, and Favorite Soul/R&B; Single for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough". That year, he also won Billboard Year-End for Top Black Artist and Top Black Album and a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B; Vocal Performance, also for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough". Jackson again won at the American Music Awards in 1981 for Favorite Soul/R&B; Album and Favorite Soul/R&B; Male Artist. Despite its commercial success, Jackson felt Off the Wall should have made a much bigger impact, and was determined to exceed expectations with his next release. In 1980, he secured the highest royalty rate in the music industry: 37 percent of wholesale album profit.

Thriller and Motown 25 (1982–83)

In 1982, Jackson contributed the song "Someone In the Dark" to the storybook for the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial; the record won a Grammy for Best Recording for Children in 1984. In the same year he won another seven Grammys and eight American Music Awards (including the Award of Merit, the youngest artist to win it), making him the most awarded in one night for both award shows. The album topped the Billboard 200 chart for 37 weeks and was in the top 10 of the 200 for 80 consecutive weeks. It was the first album to have seven Billboard Hot 100 top 10 singles, including "Billie Jean", "Beat It," and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'." Thriller was certified for 29 million shipments by the RIAA, giving it Double Diamond status in the United States. The album won also another Grammy for Best Engineered Recording – Non Classical in 1984, awarding Bruce Swedien for his work. Thanks to the Bad album, Bruce Swedien and Humberto Gatica won one Grammy in 1988 for Best Engineered Recording – Non Classical and Michael Jackson won one Grammy for Best Music Video, Short Form for "Leave Me Alone" in 1989. HIStory received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. However, the sales for Invincible were lower than those of his previous releases, due in part to a lack of promotion, no supporting world tour and the label dispute. The album also came out at a bad time for the music industry in general. Jackson rehearsed in Los Angeles in the weeks leading up to the tour under the direction of choreographer Kenny Ortega. Most of these rehearsals took place at the Staples Center, which was owned by AEG. With Thriller, Christopher Connelly of Rolling Stone commented that Jackson developed his long association with the subliminal theme of paranoia and darker imagery. Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine noted this is evident on the songs "Billie Jean" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'". In "Billie Jean", Jackson sings about an obsessive fan who alleges he has fathered a child of hers. In "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" he argues against gossip and the media. "Beat It" decried gang violence in an homage to West Side Story, and was Jackson's first successful rock cross-over piece, according to Huey. He also observed that the title track "Thriller" began Jackson's interest with the theme of the supernatural, a topic he revisited in subsequent years. In 1985, Jackson co-wrote the charity anthem "We Are the World"; humanitarian themes later became a recurring theme in his lyrics and public persona.

In Bad, Jackson's concept of the predatory lover can be seen on the rock song "Dirty Diana". The lead single "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" is a traditional love ballad, while "Man in the Mirror" is an anthemic ballad of confession and resolution. "Smooth Criminal" was an evocation of bloody assault, rape and likely murder. Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine states that Dangerous presents Jackson as a very paradoxical individual. He comments the album is more diverse than his previous Bad, as it appeals to an urban audience while also attracting the middle class with anthems like "Heal the World". The first half of the record is dedicated to new jack swing, including songs like "Jam" and "Remember the Time". The album is Jackson's first where social ills become a primary theme; "Why You Wanna Trip on Me", for example, protests against world hunger, AIDS, homelessness and drugs. Dangerous contains sexually charged efforts such as the multifaceted love song, "In the Closet". The title track continues the theme of the predatory lover and compulsive desire. The second half includes introspective, pop-gospel anthems such as "Will You Be There", "Heal the World" and "Keep the Faith"; these songs show Jackson opening up about various personal struggles and worries. In the ballad "Gone Too Soon", Jackson gives tribute to his friend Ryan White and the plight of those with AIDS.

HIStory creates an atmosphere of paranoia. Its content focuses on the hardships and public struggles Jackson went through just prior to its production. In the new jack swing-funk-rock efforts "Scream" and "Tabloid Junkie", along with the R&B; ballad "You Are Not Alone", Jackson retaliates against the injustice and isolation he feels, and directs much of his anger at the media. In the introspective ballad "Stranger in Moscow", Jackson laments over his "fall from grace", while songs like "Earth Song", "Childhood", "Little Susie" and "Smile" are all operatic pop pieces. In the track "D.S.", Jackson launched a verbal attack against Tom Sneddon. He describes Sneddon as an antisocial, white supremacist who wanted to "get my ass, dead or alive". Of the song, Sneddon said, "I have not—shall we say—done him the honor of listening to it, but I've been told that it ends with the sound of a gunshot". Invincible found Jackson working heavily with producer Rodney Jerkins. It is a record made up of urban soul like "Cry" and "The Lost Children", ballads such as "Speechless", "Break of Dawn" and "Butterflies" and mixes hip-hop, pop and R&B; in "2000 Watts", "Heartbreaker" and "Invincible".

Vocal style

Jackson sang from childhood, and over time his voice and vocal style changed noticeably. Between 1971 and 1975, Jackson's voice descended from boy soprano to high tenor. Jackson first used a technique called the "vocal hiccup" in 1973, starting with the song "It's Too Late to Change the Time" from The Jackson 5's G.I.T.: Get It Together album. Jackson did not use the hiccup technique— somewhat like a gulping for air or gasping— fully until the recording of Off the Wall: it can be seen in full force in the "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)" promotional video. With the arrival of Off the Wall in the late 1970s, Jackson's abilities as a vocalist were well regarded. At the time, Rolling Stone compared his vocals to the "breathless, dreamy stutter" of Stevie Wonder. Their analysis was also that "Jackson's feathery-timbred tenor is extraordinarily beautiful. It slides smoothly into a startling falsetto that's used very daringly". 1982 saw the release of Thriller, and Rolling Stone was of the opinion that Jackson was then singing in a "fully adult voice" that was "tinged by sadness".

A distinctive deliberate mispronunciation of "come on", used frequently by Jackson, occasionally spelled "cha'mone" or "shamone", is also a staple in impressions and caricatures of him. The turn of the 1990s saw the release of the introspective album Dangerous. The New York Times noted that on some tracks, "he gulps for breath, his voice quivers with anxiety or drops to a desperate whisper, hissing through clenched teeth" and he had a "wretched tone". When singing of brotherhood or self-esteem the musician would return to "smooth" vocals. When commenting on Invincible, Rolling Stone were of the opinion that—at the age of 43—Jackson still performed "exquisitely voiced rhythm tracks and vibrating vocal harmonies". Nelson George summed up Jackson's vocals by stating "The grace, the aggression, the growling, the natural boyishness, the falsetto, the smoothness—that combination of elements mark him as a major vocalist".

Music videos and choreography

Referred to as the King of Music Videos, Steve Huey of Allmusic observed how Jackson transformed the music video into an art form and a promotional tool through complex story lines, dance routines, special effects and famous cameo appearances; simultaneously breaking down racial barriers. Before Thriller, Jackson struggled to receive coverage on MTV, allegedly because he was African American. Pressure from CBS Records persuaded MTV to start showing "Billie Jean" and later "Beat It", leading to a lengthy partnership with Jackson, also helping other black music artists gain recognition. MTV employees deny any racism in their coverage, or pressure to change their stance. MTV maintains that they played rock music, regardless of race. The popularity of his videos on MTV helped to put the relatively young channel "on the map"; MTV's focus shifted in favor of pop and R&B.; His performance on Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever changed the scope of live stage show; "That Jackson lip-synced 'Billie Jean' is, in itself, not extraordinary, but the fact that it did not change the impact of the performance is extraordinary; whether the performance was live or lip-synced made no difference to the audience" thus creating an era in which artists re-create the spectacle of music video imagery on stage. Short films like Thriller largely remained unique to Jackson, while the group dance sequence in "Beat It" has frequently been imitated. The choreography in Thriller has become a part of global pop culture, replicated everywhere from Indian films to prisons in the Philippines. The Thriller short film marked an increase in scale for music videos, and has been named the most successful music video ever by the Guinness World Records.

In the 19-minute music video for "Bad"—directed by Martin Scorsese—Jackson began using sexual imagery and choreography not previously seen in his work. He occasionally grabbed or touched his chest, torso and crotch. When asked by Oprah in the 1993 interview about why he grabbed his crotch, he replied, "I think it happens subliminally" and he described it as something that was not planned, but rather, as something that was compelled by the music. "Bad" garnered a mixed reception from both fans and critics; Time magazine described it as "infamous". The video also featured Wesley Snipes; in the future Jackson's videos would often feature famous cameo roles.

}} ;Bibliography

George, Nelson (2004). Michael Jackson: The Ultimate Collection booklet. Sony BMG.

Further reading

External links

Michael Jackson Live: Best Pics – slideshow by Life magazine

Michael Jackson at MTV

FBI file on Michael Jackson

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name	The High Court
background	group_or_band
origin	Mount Holly Township, New Jersey
genre	Pop punk
years active	2005–2008
label	I Surrender Records
website	thehighcourtrock.com
current members	Ben RothKyle Shellhammer(Shell)Denny CarvellJohn Browne(JB)Mike Matranga
past members	Lou Cuello
notable instruments	}}

The High Court was an American pop punk band from Mount Holly Township, New Jersey. They released one full studio album, Puppet Strings in 2007, before disbanding in June 2008.

History

The High Court's name is an alternate acronym for THC, the psychoactive substance found in marijuana. The group formed in 2005 from the ashes of several local metal acts. Members Lou Cuello, Kyle Shellhammer, and Denny Carvell placed an ad for a singer on Craigslist, and formed The High Court after John Brown answered the ad. They signed to I Surrender Records and released their debut album, Puppet Strings, in mid-2007. The group played the Warped Tour to support the album. Lou Cuello left the group in September 2007.in late 2007 and early 2008 they toured with 2*Sweet, Fireworks, Bedlight for Blue Eyes and Asteria.The High Court disbanded in June 2008.the band stated that some of the members are going to be starting other projects in the future.

JB is currently singing for the New Jersey band Bright and Early. Shellhammer is the bassist for Just Surrender.

Members

Ben Roth - Guitar

Kyle Shellhammer (Shell) - bass

Denny Carvell - drums

John Browne (JB) - vocals

Mike Matranga - guitar

Previous Members

Lou Cuello - guitar

Discography

Puppet Strings (I Surrender Records, July 2007)

References

Category:American pop punk musical groups Category:Musical groups from New Jersey Category:People from Mount Holly Township, New Jersey

name	Meredith Kercher
birth name	Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher
birth date	28 December 1985
birth place	Southwark, London, England
death date	November 01, 2007
death place	Perugia, Umbria, Italy
death cause	Knife wounds
nationality	British
residence	Perugia
home town	London
other names	Mez (nickname)
known for	Murder victim
occupation	University exchange student
alma mater	University of Leeds }}

The murder of Meredith Kercher occurred in Perugia, Italy, on 1 November 2007. Kercher, aged 21 at the time of her death, was a British university exchange student from Coulsdon, South London. She shared an upstairs flat with three other young women. She was sexually assaulted and stabbed, and property belonging to her was stolen.

Rudy Guede, a resident of Perugia, was convicted on 28 October 2008 of the sexual assault and murder of Kercher. His fast-track conviction was upheld, and he is now serving a reduced sentence of 16 years. Raffaele Sollecito, an Italian student, and Amanda Knox, an American student and a flatmate of Kercher, were convicted of sexual assault and murder in a separate trial on 4 December 2009. They were given sentences of 25 and 26 years respectively. Knox and Sollecito have appealed. Their appeal commenced in December 2010 and is scheduled to end in late 2011.

The case has received much media attention in Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. It has been widely described as controversial, with questions raised over the validity of the convictions, coverage in the news media and the conduct of the police investigation and prosecutor.

Meredith Kercher

Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher, known to her friends as "Mez", was born on 28 December 1985 in Southwark, London, England, and lived in Coulsdon, South London. She had two older brothers and an older sister. Her father is a freelance journalist, and her mother is a housewife who was born in India.

Kercher attended the Old Palace School in Croydon and then she took a degree in European Studies at the University of Leeds. At the time of her murder, she was studying for one year at the University of Perugia as part of the ERASMUS student exchange programme.

In Perugia, she shared a flat with Amanda Knox and two Italian women. Her body was found in her bedroom on the afternoon of 2 November 2007 by police and flatmates. Two mobile phones, two credit cards and 300 euros in cash had been stolen at the time of the murder. Her funeral was held on 14 December at Croydon Parish Church, with more than 300 people in attendance. She was awarded a posthumous degree by the University of Leeds.

People charged with the murder

Rudy Guede

Rudy Hermann Guede (born 26 December 1986, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire) was 20 at the time of the murder. He had come to Perugia at the age of five with his father, who worked as a labourer in the 1990s. At the age of 16, when his father left Italy, Guede was informally adopted by the family of a local businessman. Guede had acquired joint Italian nationality and sporadically studied accounting and hotelkeeping. He also played basketball for the Perugia youth team in the 2004–2005 season. He often stayed with his aunt in Lecco, about 50 km north of Milan, and sometimes worked in Milan bars, returning occasionally to Perugia.

Amanda Knox

Amanda Marie Knox (born 9 July 1987, Seattle, Washington) was a 20-year-old University of Washington language student who shared a flat with Kercher. She was in Perugia attending the University for Foreigners for one year, studying Italian, German and creative writing. Knox met her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito at a classical music concert held on 25 October 2007, which she attended with Kercher at the University for Foreigners. When Kercher left at the intermission, Sollecito met Knox.

Raffaele Sollecito

Raffaele Sollecito (born 26 March 1984, Giovinazzo, Bari) was 23 years old at the time of the murder, and nearing the completion of a degree in computer engineering at the University of Perugia, which he finished while awaiting trial in prison. He is from an affluent family, the son of a urologist from Bari.

Events surrounding the murder

On the evening of 1 November 2007, All Saints Day and a national holiday in Italy, the upstairs flat in which Kercher lived was unoccupied. One of her Italian flatmates had left town and Knox was at Sollecito's flat. The four Italian men who shared the downstairs flat had also left town.

Knox was expecting to work at Le Chic pub that night, but at 8:18 pm her employer, Patrick Lumumba, sent her a text message stating that she was not required due to slow business. She responded by text at 8:35 pm. When a friend arrived at Sollecito's flat around 8:40 pm, Knox answered the door.

That evening, Kercher dined with three other English women at one of their homes and watched a DVD of the film The Notebook. Kercher said that she felt tired and that she wanted to retire early for the night. She borrowed a history book, and left to walk home with one of her friends, Sophie. Parting company with Sophie at about 8:55 pm, she walked the remaining  to her flat alone. According to early investigations and post-mortem examination, Kercher died in the flat between 9 and 11 pm, later revised to between 9 pm and 4 am.

At 12:07 pm the next day, Knox called Kercher's UK mobile phone, ringing for 16 seconds. Knox testified that Kercher had always carried that phone since she expected calls about her mother's recent illness. One minute later, she called her flatmate, Filomena, telling her that she had returned to the flat and found the front door open, and blood in the small bathroom. Knox called Kercher's second mobile phone and called the first phone again. The flatmate called Knox back three times. During the final call, which commenced at 12:34 pm, Knox said that the window in the flatmate's room was broken and that the room was a mess. At 12:47 pm, Knox called her mother in Seattle, who told her to call the police. Sollecito then made two calls to the emergency number 112, at 12:51 and 12:54 pm. He reported a break-in, blood, a locked door and a missing person. Before the Carabinieri arrived in response to these calls, two officers of the Post and Communications Police came to investigate the discovery of Kercher's mobile phones near another house. Knox and Sollecito were outside and told the police that they were waiting for the Carabinieri, that a window had been broken and that there were spots of blood in the bathroom.

As Knox showed the two officers the room with the broken window, the locked door and the blood in the bathroom, the flatmate she had called earlier arrived with three friends. The mobile phones were confirmed as belonging to Kercher. The Carabinieri had not yet arrived and the Post and Communications Police officers were reluctant to break down the locked door. Around 1:15 pm, one of the flatmate's friends kicked it open. Kercher's body was on the floor, covered by a duvet soaked in blood. The officers ordered all present to leave the flat, and the cottage was secured as a crime scene.

Upstairs flat

The house at Via della Pergola 7 () was investigated. The house is situated on an open hillside below the city centre, near a motorway on the edge of town. Kercher shared the upstairs flat with Knox and two Italian women who rented the flat in August 2007.

Kercher rented one of the bedrooms beginning in late August. Knox rented the remaining room and moved in on 20 September 2007, meeting Kercher for the first time. The house was closed as a crime scene from 2 November 2007 until April 2009, when a jury visited during the trial of Knox and Sollecito. It was remodelled and re-occupied from the end of 2009.

Police interviews

On 5 November 2007, after Sollecito had confirmed that he and Knox had spent the night of the murder at his flat, the police reported that a "confused and nervous" Sollecito stated that Knox could have left his home sometime when he was asleep. The police then questioned Knox, who had accompanied him to the police station. Starting at 11 pm that evening, she was questioned first by the police alone and, later that night, in the presence of a prosecutor. Knox was initially interviewed in Italian without an attorney present and without being recorded. Knox stated that during these interviews she was asked to imagine what might have happened at her flat had she been there. Knox said that she saw Lumumba enter Kercher's room with her. She said that she had been in the kitchen when she heard Kercher screaming in her room.

Knox was arrested later on the morning of 6 November. Later that day, she wrote a note to the police, partially retracting her earlier statements. Knox wrote, "In regards to this 'confession' that I made last night, I want to make clear that I'm very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion. Not only was I told I would be arrested and put in jail for 30 years, but I was also hit in the head when I didn't remember a fact correctly." Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini was in the room conducting the controversial 15-hour interrogation where the misconduct by the officer was alleged. She also said she couldn't "fully recall the events that I claim took place at Raffaele's home during the time that Meredith was murdered". She denied involvement in the killing.

In February 2009, Knox spoke in court of her November 2007 interview, stating, "I was treated as a person only after I made a statement. Period. That was when I was brought something to drink, when they let me go to the bathroom." A police officer testified that Knox had been questioned "firmly but politely". In June 2009, she repeated her description of the interrogation at trial. Knox's lawyer, summing up at the end of her trial, stated that the interviews over the course of four days had lasted a total of 53 hours, causing "stress and fear". Knox also stated that there had been no interpreter present. Both the police and Mignini denied her allegations that she was abused and that there was no interpreter, and she has been charged with slander in a separate trial.

The Italian Supreme Court later found that Knox's human rights were violated because the police did not read her her legal rights, appoint her a lawyer or provide her an official interpreter and that her signed statement was inadmissible for Knox's and Sollecito's criminal trial. However, the court allowed the statement to be used in the concurrent civil, defamation trial in which Patrick Lumumba prevailed against Knox. Both trials had the same jury which heard Knox's confession.

Lumumba was arrested on 6 November 2007 as a result of Knox's statements. He was detained for two weeks until the arrest of Guede. Initially, doubts about his alibi were reported in the press, but ultimately he was completely exonerated.

Guede's arrest

Nick Squires of The Daily Telegraph reported that Guede had "...became a suspect in the murder two weeks after Miss Kercher's body was found, when DNA tests on a bloody fingerprint and on samples taken from the body were found to match samples which police already had on file following his earlier arrests." A manhunt for a fourth suspect began on 19 November 2007 after a bloody handprint found on Kercher's pillow was matched to Guede. Guede had left Perugia by train a few days after the murder. Interpol had traced a computer that he had used in Germany to access Facebook and reply to a message from a Daily Telegraph journalist. In his message, Guede had said that he was aware that he was a suspect and wanted to clear his name. On 20 November 2007, the Bundespolizei arrested Guede on a train near Mainz, where he was apprehended for travelling without a ticket. When questioned, he stated that he was returning to Italy to give himself up. He was extradited to Italy on 6 December 2007.

Evidence

Forensic evidence

Kercher's body was found on the floor of her bedroom, with blood in various locations around the room. There were three cuts on her neck as well as bruises suggesting she might have been strangled. There were also signs of sexual assault. The coroner determined the cause of death was combined blood loss and suffocation.

DNA matching Guede's was found both on and inside Kercher's body and on her shirt, bra and handbag. A bloody handprint found on a pillow under Kercher's back was also matched to Guede. The prosecution argued that a severed piece of Kercher's bra, including its metal hooks, revealed traces of both her DNA and that of Sollecito. Knox's lawyers later argued that DNA evidence had been contaminated during the investigation at the crime scene and when the investigators accidentally moved the evidence during the 47-day delay in retrieving the samples. A June 2011 report by court appointed forensic experts concluded that there was not enough DNA on the bra clasp to retest, that the collection of the bra clasp evidence did not conform to internationally accepted procedures, and the collection was "in a context that was highly suggestive of ambient contamination".

Luminol revealed footprints in the flat which the prosecution argued were compatible with the feet of Knox and Sollecito. A consultant for Knox testified that work status reports showed, "in contradiction to what was presented in the technical report deposited by the Scientific Police, and also to what was said in Court, that not only was the Luminol test performed on these traces, but also the generic diagnosis for the presence of blood, using tetramethylbenzidine...and this test...gave a negative result on all the items of evidence from which it was possible to obtain a genetic profile." The judge concluded that the traces revealed with Luminol in Knox's bedroom, the corridor and Filomena's room had originated from Knox's bloody feet.

Knox's DNA was matched to the handle of a kitchen knife recovered from Sollecito's flat, and the prosecution stated that Kercher's DNA was on the blade. A June 2011 report by court appointed forensic experts concluded that the previous results indicating that Kercher's DNA was on the knife blade appeared "unreliable because not supported by scientifically valid analytical procedures". Prosecution witnesses stated that the knife could have made one of the three wounds on Kercher's neck. Carlo Torre, a professor of criminal science based in Turin, hired by Knox, testified that all three wounds originated from a different knife that had a blade one quarter the size of that recovered from Sollecito's flat. During her trial, Knox's lawyers argued that she had used knives for cooking at Sollecito's apartment.

Apart from the knife, there was no forensic evidence directly indicating that Knox had been in the bedroom in which Kercher was murdered. Knox's fingerprints were not found in Kercher's bedroom, nor in her own bedroom. Investigators argued that an apparent break-in had been staged at the flat, partly because the window seemed to have been broken after the room had been ransacked.

In 2009, a group of American forensic specialists wrote an open letter expressing concern that procedures used by most laboratories in the United States to ensure accurate results had not been followed in this case. They stated that a chemical test for blood had returned a negative result for the knife, that the amounts of other DNA were sufficient only for a low-level, partial DNA profile, and that it was unlikely that all traces of blood could have been removed from the knife while retaining the DNA that was discovered. In December 2010, the judge presiding over Knox and Sollecito's appeal ordered a re-examination of the DNA evidence pertaining to the knife and the bra clasp. The report concluded that the DNA evidence used to convict Knox and Sollecito did not adhere to international standards for the collection and analysis of the DNA, that the evidence was unreliable, and that the previous test results could have been the result of contamination. The report concludes that the police either mishandled evidence or failed to follow proper forensic procedure 54 times.

Prosecution and defence arguments

The prosecution's first theory for the motive in the murder involved a Satanic ritual orgy, similar to the charges of belonging to a Satanic sect that Mignini had unsuccessfully leveled at 20 others in the Monster of Florence case. The prosecution also posited it may have been a "cult sacrifice". Mignini denied ever saying that Kercher was the victim of a "sacrificial rite". Later, the prosecution hypothesised that Kercher's murder involved a sex game gone wrong, or that the victim had refused to participate in an orgy, or that Knox was motivated by "jealousy". At trial, the prosecution stated that Knox was easily given to disliking people with whom she disagreed and the time had come to take revenge on Kercher. On another occasion the prosecution theorised that she fell victim to "a rage caused by smoking marijuana". The defence stated that the prosecution had further changed their theory of motive to an economic one. Rolling Stone, quoting a prosecutor as stating "[w]e live in an age of violence with no motive," reported that the prosecutors could not prove either motive or intent.

In the Knox and Sollecito trial, the prosecution sought to prove that a break-in at the murder scene had been staged. An officer testified that shards of glass from the broken window had been found on clothes strewn around the room, suggesting that the window had been broken after the room had been ransacked. A police official and defence witness testified that the break-in was not staged and that the window of Kercher's flat had been broken from the outside. As evidence, he presented a video to reconstruct how the stone was thrown.

Police evidence was presented showing that Knox and Sollecito did not have alibis for the time of the murder. Sollecito maintained that he was at his apartment, using his computer. Police computer analysts testified that his computer had not been used between 9:10 on the evening of the murder and 5:32 the next morning. Knox has maintained that she was with Sollecito at the time, but during police questioning after 10 pm on Monday November 5th 2007, he said that he could not be certain she was with him when he was asleep. Their version of events was contradicted by a witness, who testified that he had seen Knox and Sollecito chatting animatedly on a basketball court around five times between 9.30 and midnight on the night of the murder. At the appeals trial, the witness, a homeless heroin addict who has appeared as a witness in a number of murder trials, offered contradicting testimony concerning the date he said he saw Knox and Sollecito and other crucial details about his testimony. A Perugia shopkeeper testified that Knox had gone to his supermarket at 7:45 on the morning after the murder, at a time when she was, according to her account, still at Sollecito's. The shopkeeper first informed police of his recollection months after the crime occurred at the prompting of a reporter who was his friend. A worker in the shop testified that she had not seen Knox.

Knox told the court that she had been with Sollecito in his apartment on the night of the murder. The defence stated that, despite having put forward several different theories, the prosecution had produced no convincing evidence of a motive for murder. Knox testified that she regarded Kercher as her friend and had no reason to kill her.

The defence sought to show that Guede could have been a lone killer. A school director testified that he had been caught with a stolen knife inside a closed Milan school on 27 October 2007, and was also in possession of a laptop PC and a mobile phone previously stolen from a Perugia solicitors' office, burgled with a rock breaking a window. Guede said that he had bought both the laptop and phone at a railway station in Milan. The school director testified that a small amount of money was also missing after she found Guede looking inside a cabinet in the school office.

Trials

Guede, Knox and Sollecito have all stood trial for the murder of Kercher. Guede was convicted and, after appeal, is serving a 16 year sentence. Knox and Sollecito were convicted in a joint trial in 2009 and sentenced to 25 and 26 years respectively. They are currently appealing their convictions. Under Italian law two appeals are permitted to defendants, during which there is a presumption of innocence until a final verdict is entered.

On 30 November 2007, Knox and Sollecito were denied bail, a decision that was appealed all the way to the Court of Cassation. Their request for release was ultimately denied and they were to remain in custody throughout trial.

Guede elected for a "fast-track" trial that began on 16 October 2008, presided over by Judge Paolo Micheli. By doing so, he exchanged the right to challenge the evidence in a full trial for a more lenient sentence, if found guilty. The trial was held in closed session, with no reporters present. On 28 October 2008, he was convicted of murder and sexual assault but acquitted of theft, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Guede's appeals which concluded in December of 2009 and 2010 upheld his conviction but reduced his sentence to 16 years.

Knox and Sollecito opted for a full trial. They were indicted in October 2008 by Judge Micheli and charged with murder, sexual assault, simulating a crime (burglary), carrying a knife and theft of 300 euros, two credit cards and two mobile phones. Their trial began on 16 January 2009 before Judge Giancarlo Massei, Deputy Judge Beatrice Cristiani and six lay judges at the Corte d'Assise of Perugia. The trial and subsequent proceedings has attracted great media attention. Knox and Sollecito filed for their first appeal in April 2010, which began in November 2010 and is expected to conclude in late 2011.

Guede trial and appeals

Guede was tried for murder, sexual assault and the theft of 300 euros, two credit cards and two mobile phones that had been in Kercher's possession. In evidence he said that on the day of the murder he had visited the cottage for a date with Kercher, organised the previous night. At Guede's trial, witnesses said that they had been with Kercher the night before, and had not seen them talk. Guede said that he had arrived at the cottage at 8:38 pm, and that Kercher had arrived and let him in at about 9 pm. Kercher went to her bedroom and said that a significant amount of money was missing from an open drawer. Guede stated that they kissed and touched each other but did not have sex. He then developed stomach pains and crossed to the large bathroom. Guede specified that he heard Kercher's screams while in the bathroom, but had been unable to hear the killer enter since he was wearing iPod headphones. Guede reported that, emerging from the bathroom, he had found a shadowy figure, holding a knife, standing over Kercher, who lay bleeding on the floor. Guede said that they had struggled. He was cut on the hand, and fell to the floor, but picked up a chair. Guede described the man as an Italian with light-brown hair, without glasses, and shorter than him. The man fled while saying in perfect Italian, "Trovato negro, trovato colpevole; andiamò" ("Found black, found guilty; let's go"). Guede's version of events did not account for Kercher's stolen mobile phones, which had been found in a park about ten minutes' walk from the house.

On 28 October 2008, Guede was found guilty of the murder and sexual assault of Kercher and sentenced to 30 years in prison. The court found that Guede's version of events did not match some of the forensic evidence, remarking that that he could not explain why one of his palm prints, stained with Kercher's blood, had been found on the pillow of the single bed, under the disrobed body, when he had stated that he had left her fully dressed.

Appeals

Giving evidence at the first of his two appeal trials, Guede said that while in the bathroom he heard Knox arguing with Kercher about money missing from the bedroom. He said that, glancing out of the window, he saw the silhouette of Knox leaving the house. This testimony did not match the statements he made before his arrest in which he said that Knox was not at the flat at the time of the murder.

On 22 December 2009, the Corte d'Appello upheld Guede's convictions but cut his sentence to 16 years. In March 2010 the court explained it reduced Guede's sentence by 14 years because he was the only one of the three defendants to apologise to the Kercher family for his "failure to come to her rescue".

In May 2010, Guede filed his second and final appeal to the Court of Cassation. The hearing was held on 16 December 2010 when the Court confirmed the verdict and sentence of 16 years.

Knox and Sollecito trial and appeals

Committal hearings

During Knox and Sollecito's committal hearings Judge Micheli concluded that Kercher had been sexually assaulted and then murdered by multiple attackers. He also concluded that the apparent break-in had been faked and that one or more people had returned to the crime scene, rearranged the body, and staged the fake break-in some time after the murder. Judge Micheli also believed that it was suspicious that Sollecito called the Carabinieri military police, saying that a burglary had occurred but "nothing had been taken" when other flatmates had not yet returned to check their rooms for missing items. He also found suspicious Knox's statement that she took a shower in a room with blood on the floor.

Following the court session, Sollecito’s lawyer Luca Maori described the prosecution's theory on the motive for the murder as being part of a "satanic rite" and this was widely reported in the press, some of whom linked this with the fact that the murder occurred on the day after Halloween. Micheli dismissed this motive as fantasy and made it clear that the committal for trial of the two suspects was not based on this theory.

Trial

During their January 2009 trial Knox was represented by Luciano Ghirga and Carlo Dalla Vedova and Sollecito by Giulia Bongiorno. The head prosecutor was Giuliano Mignini, assisted by Manuela Comodi. Guede was called by the prosecution to testify but asserted his right to silence. During the first session, Judge Massei rejected a request by the Kercher family to hold the trial behind closed doors, ruling that the trial would be public with closed sessions where appropriate.

After nearly six months of hearings, the trial was shut down early for summer, when Judge Massei ordered the prosecution to release to the defence previously withheld biological evidence. On 14 September 2009, the defence requested that the murder indictments of Knox and Sollecito be thrown out due to the length of time that the prosecution had withheld evidence. Judge Massei rejected the defence’s request.

Towards the end of November, the prosecution and defence began summing up their cases. On 4 December 2009, after 13 hours of deliberations, Knox was convicted by a panel comprising two judges and six lay judges of all charges except theft and was sentenced to 26 years in prison. Sollecito was found guilty of all five charges and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. According to the lay judges, the verdict was unanimous.

Judges' report

On 4 March 2010, the Corte d'Assise of Perugia released a 427-page report, detailing its rationale in reaching its verdicts. The report concludes that "all of the elements put together, and considered singularly, create a comprehensive and complete framework without gaps or incongruities and lead to the inevitable and directly consequential attribution of the crimes to both the accused, for which therefore they have penal responsibility." The Court determined that Guede had been supported by Knox and Sollecito in subduing Kercher after she resisted his sexual advances. It was noted that Knox and Sollecito had consumed hashish and had been reading sexually explicit and violent comics collected by Sollecito, which were alleged to have influenced their behaviour. The court ruled that Knox and Sollecito had acted without premeditation and that no grudge had motivated the crime.

The judges concluded that Knox and Sollecito had stabbed Kercher in the neck using two different knives, and that after the murder they had covered the body with a duvet in an act of repentance. The court also stated that a bloody footprint found on a bathroom mat was made by Sollecito, while a footprint in a bedroom was made by Knox. The court further believed that Knox and Sollecito had staged the apparent break-in at the house to make it appear that Kercher had been killed by an intruder and that Knox had attempted to pass the blame by falsely accusing Patrick Lumumba.

Appeals

In April 2010, both Knox and Sollecito's defence teams filed appeals contesting the verdict resulting from the initial trial. The defence counsel has asserted that neither Knox nor Sollecito had any involvement in the crime, and has contested the credibility of some of the witnesses at the first trial and the DNA and other forensic evidence. They also intend to produce new witnesses during the appeal. The prosecution has filed an appeal against the sentences, arguing that currently they are too lenient and seeking to increase them to life sentences. Since the trial, Mignini has been sentenced to a 16-month suspended jail term for "abuse of office" over phone tapping during a 2001 re-investigation of the Monster of Florence case, which he is appealing against. Knox's defence has suggested that his conviction could be grounds for an appeal, although Mignini has said that it would not affect her conviction.

The first appeal (of a possible two appeals) commenced on 11 December 2010 before the Appellate Court of Assizes, presided over by Claudio Pratillo Hellmann, and is expected to conclude in late 2011. On 18 December 2010, the court announced it would re-examine the DNA evidence used to convict Knox and Sollecito, appointing two experts from the Sapienza University of Rome to conduct the review.

In late March 2011 a prosecution witness who had placed Knox and Sollecito near the crime scene on the night of the murder admitted to being a heroin addict. He later contradicted himself regarding the dates, times and details regarding when he may have seen Knox and Sollecito.

On 26 March, media reports surfaced claiming that forensic investigators on the case had been unable to find enough genetic material on the knife that Knox and Sollecito are alleged to have used to stab Kercher. News outlets reported that Kercher's bra clasp, linking Sollecito to the crime, was judged to be too rusty to be re-examined.

At a hearing held on 21 May 2011, it was determined that the police must provide the DNA experts appointed by the court with evidence regarding the identification of the alleged murder weapon and the testimony of the police who found the weapon. According to Knox's father, the police's reluctance to provide this information to the court-appointed DNA experts has delayed their report. In June 2011, the report by court appointed forensic experts concluded that there was not enough DNA on the bra clasp to retest, that the collection of the bra clasp evidence did not conform to internationally accepted procedures, and the collection was "in a context that was highly suggestive of ambient contamination". The forensic experts further concluded that the previous results indicating that Kercher's DNA was on the knife blade appeared "unreliable because not supported by scientifically valid analytical procedures". On 25 July 2011, the forensic experts testified that they found no DNA or blood on the blade of a knife the prosecutors argued was the murder weapon.

In June, several witnesses testified that they had information that demonstrated Knox and Sollecito were innocent. One witness stated that his estranged brother committed the murder. One of Guede's former cellmates testified that Guede revealed that Knox and Sollecito had nothing to do with the crime. He testified that Guede and another friend went to Kercher's house with the intent of having three way sex with her, but when she refused his friend stabbed her to death. The defence also called other witnesses to support Alessi's testimony. One such witness testified that he had heard stories of Knox and Sollecito's innocence while he was in jail and he heard Guede say that Knox and Sollecitor were innocent. However Guede denied this on the stand calling it "all lies". He stated that he never discussed the murder and that the former cellmate was being manipulated by others. Prosecutor Mignini introduced new evidence by reading a letter penned by Guede in 2010 that referred to "the horrible murder of a splendid girl by Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox", and Guede stated that he stood by the contents of the letter.

Media coverage

The murder and associated trials resulted in worldwide media coverage, especially in Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, the home countries of Sollecito, Kercher and Knox, respectively.

Some commentators have criticised the Italian legal process, including Donald Trump, Timothy Egan and journalist Judy Bachrach. Fox News commentators Ann Coulter and Jeanine Pirro have viewed such criticism as misguided.

Alex Wade, writing in The Times, was critical: "If by some cruel miracle a British judge had found himself presiding over 12 good men and true ... it is inconceivable that he would not have made strong, telling directions to acquit". Libby Purves, writing in the same newspaper, said "both evidence and reconstruction look pretty convincing" and described the American campaign for Knox as "almost libellously critical of the Italian court".

Some sources have argued that the pre-trial publicity and tabloid-style coverage tainted the public perception of Knox and may have prejudiced the trial. The professional and lay judges who decide the verdicts in Italian court cases are not sequestered during the trial and are allowed to read news articles about the case. The lawyers filed complaints with a Milan court and with Italy's privacy watchdog.

News coverage of the Kercher murder trials by Italian and British tabloid newspapers has been criticised as consisting of "character assassination" and "demonisation" of the defendants. Author Candace Dempsey, in her book Murder in Italy, lists a number of examples of what she calls falsehoods and distortions in the press reports about the case. Knox's family engaged the services of David Marriott of Gogerty Stark Marriott, a Seattle-based public relations firm, to address what they felt was misinformation about Knox in the media.

On 10 May 2011, Perugia Shock, a blog written by Frank Sfarzo that had been critical of prosecutor Mignini and Perugia law enforcement's conduct in the Kercher case, was shut down by court order. The order was granted by a Florence court to Mignini on the grounds of alleged defamation. The Committee for the Protection of Journalists sent a letter to the Italian government protesting the action. The blog's content was later restored on a new host.

Reaction of the Kercher family

The Kercher family have made clear their views that the trial was fair. On 2 December 2010, Kercher's journalist father, John, writing in the Daily Mail, condemned Knox's "celebrity" status, adding that the "Foxy Knoxy" nickname adopted by the media "trivialises the awfulness of her offence". He said of Knox; "As far as we are concerned, she has been ­convicted of taking our precious Meredith’s life in the most hideous and bloody way."

Support for Knox and Sollecito

Family and supporters of Knox dispute the initial guilty verdicts and maintain the innocence of Knox and Sollecito. Members of Knox's family have spoken with a number of journalists and have appeared on several TV talk shows, such as the Oprah Winfrey Show on 23 February 2010. Knox's family have incurred significant debts from legal fees and travel related to the trial. Funds have been established for Knox and Sollecito to help with these expenses. Various benefits have also been run to help raise money to support Knox.

Senator Maria Cantwell

On 4 December 2009, after the announcement of the verdicts on Knox and Sollecito, Maria Cantwell, United States Senator for Washington, stated that evidence against Knox was insufficient, that Knox had been subjected to "harsh treatment" following her arrest and that there had been "negligence" in the handling of evidence.

Idaho Innocence Project

The Idaho Innocence Project, a non-profit legal organisation dedicated to proving the innocence of wrongly convicted people through the use of DNA testing, worked on the Knox and Sollecito case. On 23 May 2011, Dr Gregory Hampikian, director of the project, announced that, based on its independent investigation and review, Knox and Sollecito are innocent of the crime. Hampikian stated that more than 100 DNA samples taken at the crime scene pointed to Guede, and excluded Knox and Sollecito.

Petition to Italian Justice Minister

On 26 May 2011, 11 members of the Italian parliament, led by Rocco Girlanda and all members of The People of Freedom Party founded by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, issued a document as an act of parliament addressed to Justice Minister Angelino Alfano criticising the evidence that resulted in the conviction in the first level of Knox and the extended detention to which she was subject during the multiple levels of trial required before a final conviction. Furthermore, it was requested that Alfano consider looking into the situation. Girlanda also addressed a letter to President Giorgio Napolitano, in his capacity as president of the Italy-USA Foundation, in which he stated, "These distortions, not without reason, are fuelling accusations against the administration of justice in our country."

Other related court cases

Kercher's family filed a civil suit against anyone found guilty of the murder. The court awarded a sum of €1,000,000 to each of the parents and €800,000 to each of Kercher's siblings.

Patrick Lumumba, the man originally accused of murdering Kercher, sued Knox for defamation and was awarded €40,000. He also pursued compensation from the Italian authorities for unjust imprisonment and the loss of his business and, in December 2009, a court awarded €8,000 in damages. In February 2010, Lumumba announced that he would be taking his claim for compensation from the Italian authorities to the European Court of Human Rights.

In March 2010, Knox won a civil case against Fiorenza Sarzanini, author of a book about the Kercher case, Amanda e gli altri (Amanda and the Others), and her publisher for violation of her privacy and illegal publication of Court documents. The book contained long excerpts from Knox's diary as well as from witness interviews that were not in the public domain, as well as intimate details professing to be about Knox's sex life. Knox was awarded €40,000 in damages.

Following an investigation into Knox's statements that she was mistreated by police during questioning about the murder, a case for criminal slander was opened against her on 1 June 2010. In November 2010, Knox was ordered to stand trial on the slander charge by a judge in Perugia.

In February 2011, Knox's parents, Curt Knox and Edda Mellas, were indicted on charges of criminal slander as a result of an interview published by the Sunday Times in 2009, in which they stated that their daughter "had not been given an interpreter, had not received food and water, and had been physically and verbally abused" by police officers after her arrest. Knox and Mellas had sought to have charges dismissed, on the grounds that there was no intent. On 4 July 2011, Judge Paolo Micheli resigned from the case, citing his involvement in the trial of Knox and Sollecito. The trial of Knox and Mellas was adjourned until 24 January 2012.

Portrayals in books and other media

Books

Television documentaries

American Girl, Italian Nightmare: CBS 48 Hours documentary, broadcast in April 2009 in the United States

Beyond the Headlines: Amanda Knox: Lifetime documentary, broadcast on 21 February 2011 in the United States

A Long Way From Home: CBS 48 Hours documentary, broadcast in April 2008 in the United States

Murder Abroad: The Amanda Knox Story: CNN CNN Presents documentary, broadcast on 8 May 2011 in the United States

Sex, Lies and the Murder of Meredith Kercher: Channel 4 Cutting Edge documentary, broadcast on 17 April 2008 in the United Kingdom

The Trial of Amanda Knox: NBC Dateline NBC documentary, broadcast on 4 December 2009 in the United States

The Trial of Amanda Knox: Investigation Discovery Cold Blood documentary, broadcast on 20 April 2011 in the United States

The Trials of Amanda Knox: The Learning Channel documentary, broadcast on 24 March 2010 in the United States

Television film

Lifetime, an American television network, produced a television film about the case, titled Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy. It focuses on Knox, who is played by American actress Hayden Panettiere. Kercher is played by the British actress Amanda Fernando Stevens. The Kercher family condemned the film and described its images as "horrific and distressing". Before the film was broadcast, lawyers for both Knox and Sollecito formally demanded that Lifetime abandon the production.

Notes

References

External links

Photograph of the Cottage at BBC News Online, from the police investigation

Category:1985 births Category:2007 deaths Category:2007 crimes Category:2007 in Italy Category:British people murdered abroad Category:Deaths by person Category:Deaths by stabbing Category:Murder in 2007 Category:Murder in Italy Category:People educated at the Old Palace School Category:People murdered in Italy

fa:قتل مردیت کرچر it:Omicidio di Meredith Kercher pl:Morderstwo Meredith Kercher ru:Убийство Мередит Керчер simple:Murder of Meredith Kercher

Date	Died June 16, 2008Reported missing July 15, 2008Remains found December 11, 2008
Place	Orlando, Florida
Suspects	Casey Anthony, mother, put on trial May 24, 2011.
Verdict	July 5, 2011: Not guilty of murder, aggravated child abuse, and aggravated manslaughter of a child, but guilty of four misdemeanor counts of providing false information to a law enforcement officer. }}

Caylee Marie Anthony (August 9, 2005 – June 16, 2008) was a two-year-old girl reported missing in Orlando, Florida in July 2008, whose remains were found in a wooded area near her home in December 2008. Her 22-year-old mother, Casey Anthony, was acquitted of first degree murder, but convicted of lying to police officers, in a televised trial in the summer of 2011 that was described by Time magazine as "the social media trial of the century".

Casey and Caylee lived with George and Cindy Anthony, the maternal grandparents. On July 15, 2008, Caylee was reported missing to 9-1-1 by Cindy, who said she had not seen Caylee for 31 days and that Casey's car smelled like a dead body had been inside it. She said Casey had given varied explanations as to Caylee's whereabouts and finally admitted that day that she had not seen her daughter for weeks. Casey fabricated various stories including telling detectives the child had been kidnapped by a fictitious nanny on June 9, and that she had been trying to find her, too frightened to alert the authorities. With the child still missing, Casey was charged with first degree murder in October and plead not guilty. On December 11, Caylee's skeletal remains were found with a blanket inside a trash bag in a wooded area near the family home. Investigative reports and trial testimony altered between duct tape being found near the front of the skull and on the mouth of the skull. The medical examiner mentioned duct tape as one reason she ruled the death a homicide, but officially listed it as "death by undetermined means".

The trial lasted six weeks, from May to July 2011. The prosecution sought the death penalty and alleged Casey murdered her daughter by administering chloroform, then applying duct tape, because she wanted her freedom. The defense team, led by Jose Baez, countered that the child had drowned accidentally in the family's swimming pool on June 16, 2008, and that Casey lied about this and other issues because of a dysfunctional upbringing, which they said included sexual abuse by her father. The defense did not present evidence as to how Caylee died, nor evidence that Casey was sexually abused as a child, but challenged every piece of the prosecution's evidence, calling much of it "fantasy forensics". Casey did not testify during the trial.

On July 5, the jury found Casey not guilty of murder, aggravated child abuse, and aggravated manslaughter of a child, but guilty of four misdemeanor counts of providing false information to a law enforcement officer. With credit for time served, she was released on July 17. The verdict was greeted with public outrage, and was both attacked and defended by media and legal commentators. Some complained that the jury misunderstood the meaning of reasonable doubt, while others said the prosecution relied too heavily on the defendant's allegedly poor moral character, because it had been unable to show conclusively how the victim had died.

Disappearance

According to Casey Anthony's father, George Anthony, Casey left the family's home on June 16, 2008, taking her daughter, Caylee (who was almost three) with her and did not return for 31 days. Casey's mother Cindy asked repeatedly during the month to see Caylee, but Casey claimed that she was too busy with a work assignment in Tampa, Florida. At other times, she said Caylee was with a nanny, who Casey identified by the name of Zenaida "Zanny" Fernandez-Gonzalez, or at theme parks or the beach. It was eventually determined that a woman named Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez did in fact exist, but that she had never met Casey Anthony, Caylee Anthony, any member of the Anthony family, or any of Casey's friends.

On July 13, 2008, while doing yard work, Cindy and George Anthony found a notice from the post office for a certified letter affixed on their front door. George Anthony picked up the certified letter from the post office on July 15, 2008, and found that his daughter's car was in a tow yard. When George picked up the car, both he and the tow yard attendant noted a strong smell coming from the trunk. Both later stated that they believed the odor to be that of a decomposing body. When the trunk was opened, it contained a bag of trash, but no human remains.

Cindy Anthony reported Caylee missing that day, July 15, to the Orange County Sheriff's Office. During the same telephone call, Casey Anthony told the 911 operator that Caylee had been missing for 31 days. Sounding distraught, Cindy said: "There is something wrong. I found my daughter's car today and it smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car."

Case

Investigation

When Detective Yuri Melich, with the Orange County Sheriff's Department, began investigating the disappearance of Caylee Anthony, he found discrepancies in Casey's signed statement. When questioned, Casey said Caylee had been kidnapped by Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, who she also identified as "Zanny", Caylee's nanny. Although Casey had talked about Zanny, she had never been seen by Casey's family or friends, and in fact there was no nanny. Casey also told police that she was working at Universal Studios, a lie she had been telling her parents for years. Investigators brought Casey to Universal Studios on July 16, 2008, the day after Caylee was reported missing, and asked her to show them her office. Casey led police around for a while before admitting that she had been fired years before.

Casey Anthony was first arrested on July 16, 2008, and was charged the following day with giving false statements to law enforcement, child neglect, and obstruction of a criminal investigation. The judge denied bail, saying Casey had shown "woeful disregard for the welfare of her child". On August 21, 2008, after one month of incarceration, Casey Anthony was released from the Orange County jail after her $500,200 bond was posted by the nephew of California bail bondsman Leonard Padilla in hopes that Casey would cooperate and Caylee would be found.

On August 11, 12, and 13, 2008, meter reader Roy Kronk called police about a suspicious object found in a forested area near the Anthony residence. In the first instance, he was directed by the sheriff's office to call the Tip line which he did but received no return call. On the second instance, he again called the sheriff's office and eventually was met by two police officers and he reported to them that he had seen what appeared to be a skull near a gray bag. On that occasion, the officer conducted a short search and stated he did not see anything. On December 11, 2008, Kronk again called the police. They searched and found the remains of a child in a trash bag. Investigative teams recovered duct tape which was hanging from Caylee's hair and some tissue left on her skull. Over the next four days, more bones were found in the wooded area near the spot where the remains initially had been discovered. Over the next four days, more bones were found in the wooded area near the spot where the remains initially had been discovered. On December 19, 2008, medical examiner Dr. Jan Garavaglia confirmed that the remains found were those of Caylee Anthony. The death was ruled a homicide and the cause of death listed as undetermined.

Arrests and charges

Casey Anthony was offered a limited immunity deal on July 29, 2008 by prosecutors related to "the false statements given to law enforcement about locating her child" which was renewed on August 25, to expire August 28. She did not take it.

On September 5, 2008, she was released again on bail on all pending charges after being fitted with an electronic tracking device. Her $500,000 bond was posted by her parents, Cindy and George Anthony, who signed a promissory note for the bond.

On October 14, 2008, Casey Anthony was indicted by a grand jury on charges of first degree murder, aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter of a child, and four counts of providing false information to police. She was later arrested. Judge John Jordan ordered that she be held without bond. On October 21, 2008, the charges of child neglect were dropped against Casey, according to the State Attorney's Office because "the evidence proved that the child was deceased, the State sought an indictment on the legally appropriate charges." On October 28 Anthony was arraigned and pled not guilty to all charges.

On April 13, 2009, prosecutors announced that they planned to seek the death penalty in this case.

Evidence

400 pieces of evidence were presented. A strand of hair was recovered from the trunk of Casey's car which was microscopically similar to hair taken from Caylee Anthony's hairbrush. The recovered strand showed "root-banding," in which hair roots form a dark band after death, which was consistent with hair from a dead body.

Roy Kronk, the meter reader who discovered what eventually turned out to be the remains of Caylee Anthony, told the same basic story that he had told police. On Friday, October 24, 2008, a forensic report by Dr. Arpad Vass of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory stated that results from an air sampling procedure (called LIBS) performed in the trunk of Casey Anthony's car showed chemical compounds "consistent with a decompositional event" based on the presence of five key chemical compounds out of over 400 possible chemical compounds that Dr. Vass' research group considers typical of decomposition (though human decomposition was not specified). Whether or not the decomposition was human is still unknown, but was indicated as a possibility. The process has not been affirmed by a Daubert Test in the courts. Dr. Vass' group also stated there was chloroform in the car trunk. On November 26, 2008, officials released 700 pages of documents related to the Anthony investigation, which included evidence of Google searches of the terms "neck breaking", "how to make chloroform", and "death" on the Anthony home computer.

On February 18, 2009, documents released by the State Attorney's Office in Florida indicated that the same type of laundry bag, duct tape, and plastic bags discovered at the crime scene were found in the house where Casey and Caylee resided. Heart-shaped stickers were also recovered by investigators. According to detectives, a heart-shaped outline was originally seen on the duct tape they stated was recovered from the mouth area of Caylee's skull, but the laboratory was not able to capture the heart-shape photographically and could no longer see it after the duct tape was dusted for fingerprint processing. The documents also indicate that Cindy Anthony stated to them that a Winnie the Pooh blanket was missing from Caylee's bed. This type of blanket was found at the crime scene.

Photos were also entered into evidence, one from the computer of Ricardo Morales, an ex-boyfriend of Casey Anthony, which depicts a poster with the caption "Win her over with Chloroform".

Witness John Dennis Bradley's software, developed for computer investigations, was used by the prosecution to indicate that Casey Anthony had conducted extensive computer searches on the word "chloroform" 84 times, suggesting that Anthony had planned to commit murder. On June 21, Bradley discovered that a flaw in the software misread the forensic data and that the word "chloroform" had only been searched for one time and the website in question offered information on the use of chloroform in the 1800s. He immediately alerted prosecutor Linda Burdick and Sgt. Kevin Stenger of the Sheriff’s Office the weekend of June 25 about the discrepancy, and volunteered to fly to Orlando at his own expense to show them. The prosecution stated they discussed the issue with defense attorney Jose Baez on June 27 and he raised the issue in court testimony and in closing. Baez also asked Judge Perry to instruct the jury about this search information, but prosecutors disputed this and it was not done. On July 5, prosecutors state that, during deliberations, they were about to give the jury the corrected information; however, the jury reached a verdict before they could do so. One legal analyst stated that if the jury had found Anthony guilty before receiving the exculpatory evidence, the prosecution's failure to fully disclose it could have been grounds for a mistrial.

Criminal trial

Attorneys and jury

The lead prosecutor in the case was Assistant State Attorney Linda Drane Burdick. Assistant State Attorneys Frank George and Jeff Ashton completed the prosecution team. Lead counsel for the defense was Jose Baez, a Florida criminal defense attorney. Attorneys J. Cheney Mason, Dorothy Clay Sims, and Ann Finnell served as co-counsel. During the trial, attorney Mark Lippman represented George and Cindy Anthony.

Selection of the jury began on May 9, 2011, at the Pinellas County Criminal Justice Center in Clearwater, Florida, because the case had been so widely reported in the Orlando area. Jurors were brought from Pinellas County to Orlando. Jury selection took longer than expected and ended on May 20, 2011, with twelve jurors and five alternatives being sworn in. The panel contained nine women and eight men. The trial took six weeks, during which time the jury was sequestered to avoid influence from information available outside the courtroom.

Opening statements and witness testimony

The trial began on May 24, 2011, at the Orange County Courthouse, with Judge Belvin Perry presiding. In the opening statements, lead prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick described the story of the disappearance of Caylee Anthony day-by-day. The defense, led by Jose Baez, claimed in opening statements that Caylee drowned accidentally in the family's pool on June 16, 2008, and was found by George Anthony, who then covered up Caylee's death and made it so that it would be a secret kept between himself and Casey, to protect her from accusations of child neglect. This, Baez argued, is why Casey Anthony went on with her life and failed to report the incident for 31 days. He claimed that it was the habit of a lifetime for Casey to hide her pain and pretend nothing was wrong, since she had been sexually abused by George Anthony since she was eight years old, and her brother Lee had also made advances toward her, but that this was also all kept secret. The prosecution alleged an intentional murder and sought the death penalty against Casey Anthony. Prosecutors alleged that Anthony used chloroform to render her daughter unconscious before putting duct tape over her nose and mouth to suffocate her, and left Caylee's body in the trunk of her car for a few days before disposing of it. The prosecution painted Anthony as a party girl who killed her daughter to free herself from parental responsibility and enjoy her personal life.

Prosecutors called George Anthony as their first witness, and, in a response to their question, he denied having sexually abused his daughter Casey. Baez asked an FBI analyst about the paternity test the FBI conducted to see if Lee was Caylee's father. She told the jury the test had come back negative.

Regarding a photo on the computer of Ricardo Morales, an ex-boyfriend of Casey Anthony, depicting a poster with the caption "Win her over with Chloroform," Morales said that the photo was on his Myspace page and that he had never discussed chloroform with Anthony or searched for chloroform on her computer.

The prosecution called John Dennis Bradley, a former Canadian law enforcement officer who develops software for computer investigations, to analyze a data file from a desktop taken from the Anthony home. Bradley said he was able to use a program to recover deleted searches from March 17 and March 21, 2008, and that someone searched the website Sci-spot.com for "chloroform" 84 times. Bradley expressed his belief that "some of these items might have been bookmarked". Under cross examination by the defense, Bradley agreed there were two individual accounts on the desktop and that there was no way to know who actually performed the searches. Bradley later discovered that his analysis was inaccurate and that there was only one search for chloroform, though this information was not presented to jurors by the prosecution (see above).

K9 handler Jason Forgey testified that Gerus, a German shepherd cadaver dog certified in 2005, indicated a high alert of human decomposition in the trunk of Casey Anthony's car, saying the police dog has had real-world searches numbering "over three thousand by now". Sgt. Kristin Brewer also testified that her K9 partner, Bones, signaled decomposition in the backyard during a search in July 2008. However, neither K9 partner was able to detect decomposition during a second visit to the Anthony home. Brewer explained that this was because whatever had been in the yard was either moved or the odor dissipated. During cross-examination, Baez argued that the dog’s search records were "hearsay".

The prosecution called the chief medical examiner Dr. Jan Garavaglia to the stand, who testified that she determined Caylee's manner of death to be homicide but listed it as "death by undetermined means". Garavaglia took into account the physical evidence present on the remains she examined, as well as all the available information on the way they were found and what she had been told by the authorities, before arriving at her determination. "We know by our observations that it's a red flag when a child has not been reported to authorities with injury, there's foul play," Garavaglia said. " ... There is no child that should have duct tape on the lower part of its face when it dies." Additionally, Garavaglia addressed the chloroform evidence found by investigators inside the trunk of Casey Anthony's car, testifying that even a small amount of chloroform would be sufficient to cause the death of a child.

University of Florida professor and human identification laboratory director Michael Warren was brought on by the prosecution to present a computer animation of the way duct tape could have been used in the death of child, which the defense objected to hearing. Judge Perry, after a short recess to review, ruled that the video could be shown to the jury. The animation featured a picture of Caylee Anthony taken alongside Casey Anthony, superimposed with an image of Caylee's decomposed skull, and another with a strip of duct tape that was recovered with her remains. The images were slowly brought together showing that the duct tape could have covered her nose and mouth. Baez stated, "This disgusting superimposition is nothing more than a fantasy ...They're throwing things against the wall and seeing if it sticks." Jurors were seen taking notes of the imagery, and Warren testified that it was his opinion that the duct tape found with Caylee's skull was placed there before her body began decomposing.

FBI latent print examiner Elizabeth Fontaine testified that adhesive in the shape of a heart was found on a corner of a piece of duct tape that was covering the mouth portion of Caylee's remains during ultraviolet testing. Fontaine examined three pieces of duct tape found on Caylee's remains for fingerprints, and said she did not find fingerprints but did not expect to, given the months the tape and the remains had been outdoors and exposed to the elements, stressing that any oil or sweat from a person's fingertips would have long since deteriorated. Though Fontaine showed the findings to her supervisor, she did not try to photograph the heart-shaped adhesive, explaining, "When I observe something is unexpected, I note it and continue with my examination" and that she tried to photograph it later after subjecting the tape to dye testing, but the adhesive was no longer visible.

Challenging Garavaglia's autopsy report was forensic pathologist Dr. Werner Spitz, who performed a second autopsy on Caylee after Garavagli. He called Garavaglia's autopsy "shoddy," saying it was a failure that Caylee's skull was not opened during her examination. "You need to examine the whole body in an autopsy," he said. Spitz stated that he was not allowed to attend Garavaglia's initial autopsy on Caylee's remains, and that, from his own follow-up autopsy, he was not comfortable ruling the child's death a homicide. He said he could not determine what Caylee Anthony's manner of death was, but said that there was no indication to him that she was murdered. Additionally, Spitz testified that he believed the duct tape found on Caylee's skull was placed there after the body decomposed, opining that if tape was placed on the skin, there should have been DNA left on it, and suggested that that someone may have staged some of the crime scene photos. "The person who took this picture, the person who prepared this, put the hair there," stated Spitz. When asked by Ashton during cross examination, "So your testimony is the medical examiner's personnel took the hair that wasn't on the skull, placed it there?", Spitz answered, "It wouldn't be the first time, sir. I can tell you some horror stories about that."

Baez called Cindy Anthony to the stand, who told jurors she had been the one who performed the "chloroform" search on the family computer in March 2008. The prosecution alleged that only Casey Anthony could have conducted this search and the others because she was the only one home at the time. Cindy Anthony said despite her time sheet from work indicating she was working, she was at home during these time periods because she went home from work early during the days in question.

The Judge temporarily halted proceedings on June 25 when the defense filed a motion to determine if Anthony was competent to proceed with trial. The motion states the defense received a privileged communication from their client which caused them to believe "...Ms. Anthony is not competent to aid and assist in her own defense". The trial resumed on June 27 when the Judge announced that the results of the psychological evaluations showed Anthony was competent to proceed. Later, in testimony about air samples, Dr. Ken Furton, a professor of chemistry at Florida International University, stated that there is no consensus in the field on what chemicals are typical of human decomposition. Judge Perry ruled that the jury would not get to smell air samples taken from the trunk.

On June 28, Roy Kronk, the meter reader who discovered what later turned out to be the remains of Caylee Anthony, testified as a defense witness and told the same basic story that he had told police. On June 30, the defense called two government witnesses who did not support the prosecution's assertion that duct tape was found over the child's mouth area. The chief investigator for the medical examiner stated that the original placement of the duct tape was unclear and it could have shifted positions as he collected the remains. Cindy Anthony testified that their family buried their pets in blankets and plastic bags, using duct tape to seal the opening. Additionally, an FBI forensic document examiner found no evidence of a sticker or sticker residue on the duct tape found near the child's remains.

Also on June 30, the defense called Krystal Holloway, a volunteer in the search for Caylee, who stated that she had an affair with George Anthony, he had been to her home and that he had texted her, "Just thinking about you. I need you in my life." She told the defense that George Anthony had told her that Caylee's death was "an accident that snowballed out of control." Under cross-examination by prosecutors, they pointed to her sworn police statement in which she says George Anthony believes it was an accident, rather than knowing that it was. In her initial report, Holloway reported George Anthony saying, "I really believe that it was an accident that just went wrong and (Casey Anthony) tried to cover it up." She said he had not told her he was present when the alleged accident occurred. During redirect examination, Baez asked Holloway if Anthony told her Caylee was dead while stating publicly she was missing, and she said yes.

In his earlier testimony, George Anthony denied the affair with Holloway and said he only visited Krystal Holloway because she was ill. He said he sent the text message because he needed everyone who had helped in his life. After Holloway's testimony, Judge Perry told jurors that Holloway’s testimony could be used to impeach George Anthony's credibility, but that it was not proof of how Caylee died and or evidence of Casey Anthony's guilt or innocence.

The prosecution rested its case on June 15, after calling 59 witnesses for 70 different testimonies. The defense rested its case on June 30, after calling 47 witnesses for 63 different testimonies. Casey Anthony did not testify.

Closing arguments

Closing arguments were heard from June 30 to July 4. Since the defense offered no proof of any sexual abuse of Casey by either George or Lee Anthony, they were not allowed to mention those claims in the closing arguments. Baez contended that there were holes in the prosecution's forensic evidence, saying it was based on a "fantasy". He told the jury that the prosecution wanted them to see stains and insects that did not really exist, that they had not proven that the stains in Anthony's car trunk were caused by Caylee's decomposing body, rather than from a trash bag found there. He added that the prosecutors tried to make his client look like a promiscuous liar because their evidence was weak. He said the drowning is "the only explanation that makes sense" and showed jurors a photograph of Caylee opening the home's sliding glass door by herself. He stressed that there were no child safety locks in the home and that both of Casey Anthony's parents, George and Cindy Anthony, testified that Caylee could get out of the house easily. Although Cindy Anthony testified that Caylee could not put the ladder on the side of the pool and climb up, Baez alleged that Cindy Anthony may have left the ladder up the night before. "She didn't admit to doing so in testimony", he said, "but how much guilt would she have knowing it was her that left the ladder up that day?"

Defense attorney Jose Baez told jurors his biggest fear was that they would base their verdict on emotions, not evidence. "The strategy behind that is, if you hate her, if you think she's a lying, no-good slut, then you'll start to look at this evidence in a different light", he said. "I told you at the very beginning of this case that this was an accident that snowballed out of control... What made it unique is not what happened, but who it happened to." He explained Casey Anthony's behavior as being the result of her dysfunctional family situation. At one point as Baez spoke, Ashton could be seen smiling or chuckling behind his hand. This prompted Baez to refer to him as "this laughing guy right here". The judge called a sidebar conference, then a recess. When court resumed, he chastised both sides, saying both Ashton and Baez had violated his order that neither side should make disparaging remarks about opposing counsel. After both attorneys apologized, the judge accepted the apologies but warned that a recurrence would have the offending attorney excluded from the courtroom.

Defense attorney Cheney Mason then followed with an additional closing argument. Addressing the jury to discuss the charges against Casey Anthony. "The burden rests on the shoulders of my colleagues at the state attorney's office", Mason said, referring to proving that Casey Anthony committed a crime. Mason said that the jurors are required, whether they like it or not, to find the defendant not guilty if the state did not adequately prove its case against Casey Anthony. Mason emphasized that the burden of proof is on the state, and that Casey Anthony's decision not to testify is not an implication of guilt.

On July 3, 2011, Jeff Ashton, for the prosecution, told the jury, "When you have a child, that child becomes your life. This case is about the clash between that responsibility, and the expectations that go with it, and the life that Casey Anthony wanted to have." He outlined the state's case against Casey Anthony, touching on her many lies to her parents and others, the smell in her car's trunk—identified by several witnesses, including her own father, as the odor from human decomposition—and the items found with Caylee's skeletal remains in December 2008. He emphasized how Anthony "maintains her lies until they absolutely cannot be maintained any more" and then replaces [them] with another lie, using "Zanny the Nanny" as an example. Anthony repeatedly told police that Caylee was with the nanny that she specifically identifies as Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez. Police, however, were never able to find the nanny. Authorities did find a woman named Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, but she denied ever meeting the Anthonys.

Ashton reintroduced the items found with Caylee's remains, including a Winnie the Pooh blanket that matched the bedding at her grandparents' home, one of a set of laundry bags with the twin bag found at the Anthony home, and duct tape he said was a relatively rare brand. "That bag is Caylee's coffin", Ashton said, holding up a photograph of the laundry bag, as Casey Anthony reacted with emotion. He further criticized the defense's theory that Caylee drowned in the Anthony pool and that Casey and George Anthony panicked upon finding the child's body and covered up her death. He advised jurors to use their common sense when deciding on a verdict. "No one makes an accident look like murder", he said.

Lead prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick told the jurors that she and her colleagues backed up every claim they made in their opening statement six weeks ago, and implied that the defense never directly backed up its own opening-statement claim that Caylee drowned and that George Anthony made the death look like a murder. "My biggest fear is that common sense will be lost in all the rhetoric of the case," she said, insisting that she would never ask the jury to make their decision based on emotion but rather the evidence. "Responses to guilt are oh, so predictable," she stated. "What do guilty people do? They lie, they avoid, they run, they mislead... they divert attention away from themselves and they act like nothing is wrong." She suggested that the garbage bag in the trunk of the car was a "decoy" put there to keep people from getting suspicious about the smell of the car when she left it abandoned in a parking stall directly beside a dumpster in an Amscot parking lot. "Whose life was better without Caylee?" she asked, stressing how George and Cindy Anthony were wondering where their daughter and granddaughter were in June and July 2008, the same time Casey was staying at her boyfriend’s apartment while Caylee's body was decomposing in the woods. "That’s the only question you need to answer in considering why Caylee Marie Anthony was left on the side of the road dead." Burdick then showed the jury a split-screen with a photo of Casey partying at a night club on one side and a close-up of the "Bella Vita" (meaning "Beautiful Life") tattoo that she got weeks after Caylee died on the other.

The jury began deliberations on July 4.

Verdict and sentence

On July 5, 2011, the jury found Casey Anthony not guilty of first-degree murder, aggravated manslaughter, and aggravated child abuse. She was found guilty on four misdemeanor counts of providing false information to a law enforcement officer.

On July 7, 2011, sentencing arguments were heard. The defense asked for the sentencing to be based on one count of lying on the grounds that the offenses occurred as part of a single interview with police dealing with the same matter, the disappearance of her daughter, as one continuous lie. The defense also argued for concurrent sentences, that is for all four counts to become one count and the sentence to run together as one. The judge disagreed with defense arguments, finding that Anthony's statements consisted of "four distinct, separate lies" ordered the sentences be served consecutively, noting that "Law enforcement expended a great deal of time, energy and manpower looking for Caylee Marie Anthony. This search went on from July through December, over several months, trying to find Caylee Marie Anthony." Judge Perry sentenced her as follows:

Count Four: The defendant told law enforcement that she was employed at Universal Studios during 2008, pursuant to the investigation of a missing persons report.

Count Five: The defendant told law enforcement that she had left Caylee at an apartment complex with a babysitter causing law enforcement to pursue the missing babysitter.

Count Six: The defendant told law enforcement that she informed two "employees" of Universal Studios, Jeff Hopkins and Juliet Lewis, at Universal, of the disappearance of Caylee.

Count Seven: The defendant told law enforcement that she had received a call and spoke to Caylee on July 15, 2008 causing law enforcement to expend further resources. Judge Perry sentenced Casey Anthony to one year in jail and $1000 in fines for each of the four counts of providing false information to a law enforcement officer, the maximum penalty prescribed by law. She received three years credit for time served plus additional credit for good behavior, resulting in her release on July 17, 2011. Anthony filed a notice of appeal on July 15, 2011.

Florida Department of Children and Families

In August 2011, the Florida Department of Children and Families released a report based on a three year investigation into the disappearance and death of Caylee Anthony. An agency spokesperson stated "It is the conclusion of the [DCF] that [Casey Anthony] failed to protect her child from harm either through her actions or lack of actions, which tragically resulted in the child's untimely death." Orlando attorney Richard Hornsby commented that theoretically, if Anthony were to have another child, the findings "could be brought up in future allegations," which might mean the state's child protection agency would take swifter action against her if future allegations of abuse were ever raised in Florida.

Publicity and aftermath

The case attracted a significant amount of national media attention, and was regularly the main topic of many TV talk shows, including those hosted by Greta Van Susteren, Nancy Grace, Geraldo Rivera, and others. It has been featured on Fox's America's Most Wanted, NBC's Dateline, and ABC's 20/20. Nancy Grace referred to Casey Anthony as the "tot mom" and urged the public to let "the professionals, the psychics and police" do their jobs.

Casey Anthony's parents, Cindy and George, appeared on The Today Show on October 22, 2008. They maintained their belief that Caylee was alive and would be found. Larry Garrison, president of SilverCreek Entertainment, was their spokesman until he resigned in November 2008, citing that he was leaving due to "the Anthony family's erratic behavior".

More than 6,000 pages of evidence released by the Orange County Sheriff's Department, including hundreds of instant messages between Casey and her ex-boyfriend Tony Rusciano, were the subject of increased scrutiny by the media for clues and possible motives in the homicide. Outside the Anthony home, WESH TV 2 reported that protesters repeatedly shouted "baby killer" and that George Anthony was physically attacked. George Anthony was reported missing on January 22, 2009, after he failed to show up for a meeting with his lawyer, Brad Conway. George was found in a Daytona Beach hotel the next day after sending messages to family members threatening suicide. He was taken to Halifax Hospital for psychiatric evaluation and later released.

During and after the trial

Public and media reactions

The trial has been compared to the O. J. Simpson murder case, both for its widespread media attention and reported "shock" at the "Not Guilty" verdict. At the start of the trial, dozens of people raced to the Orange County Courthouse, hoping to secure one of 50 seats open to the public at the murder trial. Because the case received such thorough media attention in Orlando, jurors were brought in from Pinellas County, Florida and sequestered for the entire trial. The case became a "macabre tourist attraction", as people camped outside for seats in the courtroom, where scuffles also broke out among those wanting seats inside. The New York Post described the trial as going "from being a newsworthy case to one of the biggest ratings draws in recent memory", and Time magazine dubbed it "the social media trial of the century". Cable news channels and network news programs became intent upon covering the case as extensively as they could. Scot Safon, executive vice president of HLN, said it was "not about policy" but rather the "very, very strong human dimension" of the case that drove the network to cover it. The audience for HLN's Nancy Grace rose more than 150 percent, and other news channels deciding to focus on the trial saw their ratings double and triple. HLN achieved its most watched hour in network history (4.575 million) and peaked at 5.205 million when the verdict was read. According to The Christian Post, the O. J. Simpson case had a 91 percent television viewing audience, with 142 million people listening by radio and watching television as the verdict was delivered. "The Simpson case was the longest trial ever held in California, costing more than million to fight and defend, running up 50,000 pages of trial transcript in the process." The Casey Anthony trial was expected to "far exceed" these numbers. Analysts report that a total figure on the cost to the state of Florida and its taxpayers has not yet been calculated, but the figure could be topping out at some million.

Opinions varied on what made the public thoroughly invested in the trial. Safon argued the Anthonys having been a regular and "unremarkable" family with complex relationships made them intriguing to watch. Frank Farley of CNN described the circumstantial evidence as "all over the map" and that combined with "the apparent lying, significant contradictions and flip-flops of testimony, and questionable or bizarre theories of human behavior, it is little wonder that this nation [was] glued to the tube". He said it was a trial that was both a psychologist's dream and nightmare, and believes that much of the public's fascination [had] to do with the uncertainty of a motive for the crime. Psychologist Dr. Karyl McBride discussed how some mothers stray away from "the saintly archetype" expected of mothers. "We want so badly to hang onto the belief system that mothers don't harm children," she stated. "It's fascinating that the defense in the Anthony case found a way to blame the father. While we don't know what is true and maybe never will, it is worth taking a look at the narcissistic family when maternal narcissism rules the roost. Casey Anthony is a beautiful white woman and the fact that the case includes such things as sex, lies, and videotapes makes it irresistible."

When the "Not Guilty" verdict was rendered, there was significant outcry among the general public and media that the jury made the wrong decision. Outside the courthouse, many in the crowd of 500 reacted with anger, chanting their disapproval and waving protest signs. People took to Facebook and Twitter, as well as other social media outlets, to express their outrage. Traffic to news sites surged from about two million page views a minute to 3.3 million, with most of the visits coming from the United States. Mashable reported that between 2 pm and 3 pm, one million viewers were watching CNN.com/live, 30 times higher than the previous month's average. Twitter's trending topics in the United States were mostly about the subjects related to the case, and Newser reported that posts on Facebook were coming in "too fast for all Facebook to even count them, meaning at least 10 per second". Some people referred to the verdict as "O.J. Number 2", and various media personalities and celebrities expressed outrage via Twitter. News anchor Julie Chen became visibly upset while reading the not-guilty verdict on The Talk and had to be assisted by her fellow co-hosts, who also expressed their dismay.

Others, such as Sean Hannity of the Fox News Channel, felt the verdict was fair because the prosecution did not have enough evidence to establish guilt or meet its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Hannity said that the verdict was legally correct, and that all of the evidence that was presented by the prosecution was either impeached or contradicted by the defense. John Cloud of Time magazine echoed these sentiments, saying the jury made the right call: "Anthony got off because the prosecution couldn't answer [the questions]," Cloud stated. "Because the prosecutors had so little physical evidence, they built their case on Anthony's (nearly imperceptible) moral character. The prosecutors seemed to think that if jurors saw what a fantastic liar Anthony was, they would understand that she could also be a murderer."

Disagreement with the verdict was heavily debated by the media, lawyers and psychologists, who put forth several theories for public dissatisfaction with the decision, ranging from wanting justice for Caylee, to the circumstantial evidence having been strong enough, to some blaming the media. UCLA forensic psychiatrist Dr. Carole Lieberman, said, "The main reason that people are reacting so strongly is that the media convicted Casey before the jury decided on the verdict. The public has been whipped up into this frenzy wanting revenge for this poor little adorable child. And because of the desire for revenge, they've been whipped up into a lynch mob." She added, "Nobody likes a liar, and Anthony was a habitual liar. And nobody liked the fact that she was partying after Caylee's death. Casey obviously has a lot of psychological problems. Whether she murdered her daughter or not is another thing."

The case also created a gender gap. According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll of 1,010, while about two-thirds of Americans (64 percent) believe Casey Anthony "definitely" or "probably" murdered her daughter, women are much more likely than men to believe the murder charges against Anthony and to be upset by the not-guilty verdict. The poll reported that women were more than twice as likely as men, 28 percent versus 11 percent, to think Anthony "definitely" committed murder. Twenty-seven percent of women said they were angry about the verdict, compared with nine percent of men. On the day Casey Anthony was sentenced for lying to investigators in the death of her daughter, supporters and protesters gathered outside the Orange County Courthouse, with one man displaying a sign asking Anthony to marry him. Two men who drove overnight from West Virginia held signs that said, "We love and support you Casey Anthony," and "Nancy Grace, stop trying to ruin innocent lives. The jury has spoken. P.S. Our legal system still works!" The gender gap has partly been explained by "the maternal instinct". The idea of a mother murdering her own child threatens what it is to be a mother.

Explanations other than, or emphasizing, the prosecution's lack of forensic evidence were given for the jury's decision. A number of media commentators reasoned that the prosecution overcharged the case by tagging on the death penalty, concluding that people in good conscience could not sentence Anthony to death based on the circumstantial evidence presented. The CSI effect was also extensively argued—that society now lives "in a 'CSI age' where everyone expects fingerprints and DNA, and we are sending a message that old-fashioned circumstantial evidence is not sufficient". Likewise, commentators such as O. J. Simpson case prosecutor Marcia Clark believe that the jury interpreted "reasonable doubt" too narrowly. Clark said instruction on reasonable doubt is "the hardest, most elusive" instruction of all. "And I think it's where even the most fair-minded jurors can get derailed," she said, opining the confusion between reasonable doubt and a reason to doubt. "In Scotland, they have three verdicts: guilty, not guilty, and not proven. It's one way of showing that even if the jury didn't believe the evidence amounted to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, it didn't find the defendant innocent either. There's a difference."

Defense, prosecution, and jury

Cheney Mason, one of Casey Anthony's defense attorneys, took the stance of those blaming the media for the passionate hatred toward his client. He termed it a "media assassination" of Anthony before and during the trial:

I hope that this is a lesson to those of you who have indulged in media assassination for three years, bias, and prejudice, and incompetent talking heads saying what would be and how to be ... I can tell you that my colleagues from coast to coast and border to border have condemned this whole process of lawyers getting on television and talking about cases that they don't know a damn thing about, and don't have the experience to back up their words or the law to do it. Now you have learned a lesson.

Mason's response was especially viewed as critical of Nancy Grace, whose news program is cited as having "almost single-handedly inflated the Anthony case from a routine local murder into a national obsession". Grace said that she did not understand why Mason would care what pundits are saying, and that she imagines she has tried and covered as many cases as Mason. She criticized the defense attorneys for delivering media criticism before mentioning Caylee's name in their post-verdict news conference, and said she disagrees with the verdict. At a meeting of local professionals, named the Tiger Bay Club of Tampa, Mason told the media and those in attendance that he was surprised at the not-guilty verdict.

State's Attorney Lawson Lamar said, "We're disappointed in the verdict today because we know the facts and we've put in absolutely every piece of evidence that existed. This is a dry-bones case. Very, very difficult to prove. The delay in recovering little Caylee's remains worked to our considerable disadvantage." Jose Baez said, "While we're happy for Casey, there are no winners in this case. Caylee has passed on far, far too soon, and what my driving force has been for the last three years has been always to make sure that there has been justice for Caylee and Casey because Casey did not murder Caylee. It's that simple." He added, "And today our system of justice has not dishonored her memory by a false conviction."

Former Casey Anthony defense attorney Linda Kenney Baden said that the state was trying to "find Elvis on toast". She believes the jury reached the right verdict. "We should embrace their verdict", she stated.

On July 6, 2011, Assistant State Attorney Jeff Ashton gave his first interview about the case on The View. Ashton said of the verdict, "Obviously, it's not the outcome we wanted. But from the perspective of what we do, this was a fantastic case." He disagrees with those who state the prosecution overcharged the case, saying, "The facts that we had... this was first-degree murder. I think it all came down to the evidence. I think ultimately it came down to the cause of death." Ashton additionally explained that if the jury did not perceive first-degree murder when they saw the photograph of Caylee's skull with the duct tape, "then so be it". He said he accepts the jury's decision and that it has not taken away his faith in the justice system. "You can't believe in the rule of law and not accept that sometimes it doesn't go the way you think it should", stated Ashton, and explained that he understands why the case "struck such a nerve" with the public. "I think when people see someone that they believe has so gone away from [a mother's love for her child], it just outrages them." Ashton also made appearances on several other talk shows in the days following, and complimented Jose Baez on his cross-examinations and as having "the potential to be a great attorney".

After the trial ended, the twelve jurors did not initially want to discuss the verdict with the media. 51-year-old Russell Huekler, an alternate juror who stepped forward the day of the verdict, said, "The prosecution didn't provide the evidence that was there for any of the charges from first-degree murder down to second-degree murder to the child abuse to even the manslaughter [charge]. It just wasn't there."

The next day, juror number three—Jennifer Ford, a 32-year-old nursing student—told ABC News, "I did not say she was innocent" and "I just said there was not enough evidence. If you cannot prove what the crime was, you cannot determine what the punishment should be." She added "I'm not saying that I believe the defense," but that "it's easier for me logically to get from point A to point B" via the defense argument, as opposed to the prosecution argument. She also believed George Anthony was "dishonest." She said the jury "was sick to our stomachs to get that verdict" and that the decision process overwhelmed them to the point where they did not want to talk to reporters afterwards. Juror number two, a 46-year-old male who requested to stay unidentified, told the St. Petersburg Times that "everybody agreed if we were going fully on feelings and emotions, she was done". He stated that a lack of evidence was the reason for the not guilty verdict: "I just swear to God ... I wish we had more evidence to put her away. I truly do ... But it wasn't there." He also said that Anthony was "not a good person in my opinion". Juror number six, identified by WTSP as Brian Berling, told gossip website TMZ.com that he is willing to be interviewed "so long as the opportunities are paid".

In an anonymous interview, the jury foreman stated, "When I had to sign off on the verdict, the sheet that was given to me – there was just a feeling of disgust that came over me knowing that my signature and [Casey Anthony's] signature were going to be on the same sheet," but that "there was a suspicion of [George Anthony]" that played a part in their deliberations. The foreman stated his work experience enabled him to read people and that George Anthony "had a very selective memory" which stayed with the jurors, emphasizing that the jury was frustrated by the motive, cause of death, and George Anthony. "That a mother would want to do something like that to her child just because she wanted to go out and party," he said. "We felt that the motive that the state provided was, in our eyes, was just kind of weak." Although the foreman objected to Casey Anthony's behavior in the wake of her daughter's death, he and the jury did not factor that behavior into their verdict because it was not illegal. They initially took a vote on the murder count, which was 10-2 (two voting guilty), but after more than ten hours of deliberation, they decided the only charges they felt were proven were the four counts of lying to law enforcement.

The Anthony family

Mark Lippman, the attorney for George and Cindy Anthony, told ABC News that the family received death threats after the "Not Guilty" verdict was rendered. In response to the verdict, a statement was released by Lippman on behalf of the Anthony family (George, Cindy and Lee Anthony):

While the family may never know what has happened to Caylee Marie Anthony, they now have closure for this chapter of their life. They will now begin the long process of rebuilding their lives. Despite the baseless defense chosen by Casey Anthony, the family believes that the Jury made a fair decision based on the evidence presented, the testimony presented, the scientific information presented and the rules that were given to them by the Honorable Judge Perry to guide them. The family hopes that they will be given the time by the media to reflect on this verdict and decide the best way to move forward privately.

It was stated in press reports that Cindy Anthony had perjured herself when telling jurors she—not Casey Anthony—was the one who used her family computer to search the Internet for "chloroform". The state attorney's office said she would not be charged.

On July 6, 2011, Anthony's jailhouse letters were released to the general public. They were originally released (though not to public) in April 2010 by prosecutors preparing for the Anthony trial. In more than 250 handwritten pages, Anthony discusses her life in jail, what she misses, and her plans for the future if freed. Among her hopes for the future, she discusses children. "I had a dream not too long ago that I was pregnant", wrote Anthony, "It was like having Cays all over again. I've thought about adopting, which even sounds weird to me saying it, but there are so many children that deserve to be loved." Additionally, Anthony discusses missing "vain" belongings (such as tweezers and hair dryers), owning her own business, donating money to charities for cancer research, as well as a name change. "If you could change your name to any name, what would it be?" she wrote. "I've been thinking about that a lot lately. Ideas? Many ideas."

On July 8, 2011, Cindy Anthony had scheduled a visit to meet with Casey at 7 pm, but the visit was denied. "This morning under policy, Casey was told of the visit and she has declined the visit so it will not occur", said jail spokesman Allen Moore. Moore also said that Cindy would be notified of her daughter's decision. Mark Lippman told Reuters during the trial that Casey had cut off communication with her parents. In August 2011, George and Cindy Anthony issued a statement that Casey would not be living at their home when she came back to Orlando to serve probation on a non-related matter.

It has been announced that George and Cindy Anthony will be appearing on Dr. Phil in September to tell their story. According to Huffington Post, Casey Anthony is reportedly working with her probation officer to take online college classes in an unspecified field, while protected by her security, at an undisclosed educational institution.

Civil cases

Anthony is being sued for defamation by a woman named Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez. During the investigation, Anthony told investigators that she left 2½-year-old Caylee with a babysitter named Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez—also known as "Zanny"—on June 16 at the stairs of a specific apartment in the Sawgrass apartment complex located in Orlando, Florida. Fernandez-Gonzalez, who was listed on apartment records as having visited apartments on that date, was questioned by police, but stated she did not know Casey or Caylee Anthony. Her defamation suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages, alleging that Casey willfully damaged her reputation. Fernandez-Gonzalez told ABC News that she lost her job and was evicted from her house as a result of Anthony's lies. She also received numerous phone calls threatening to kill both her and her six children. Fernandez-Gonzalez' lawyer, John Morgan, said he wants to interrogate Anthony about Caylee's death. While it is likely Anthony's lawyers will object to this line of questioning, Morgan says that Caylee's death is "the essence" of the defamation suit.

Texas EquuSearch (TES), a non-profit group which assisted in the search for Caylee when she was believed to be missing, is suing Anthony for fraud and unjust enrichment. According to the group, they spent more than searching for Caylee even though she was already dead. The lawsuit states, "Casey Anthony knew that her apparent 'cooperation' with the massive searches coordinated by TES created an appearance that she was a victim of law enforcement's unjust investigation and that she was a concerned mother seeking her missing child's return." According the founder of group, TES conducted an unnecessary search from July to December of 2008. TES claims it only learned that Anthony knew all along that Caylee was dead when the trial began, and that it expended 40% of the group's yearly resources which could have been spent looking for other missing children.

It was reported before trial that Anthony would exercise her rights under the Fifth Amendment in response to written questions in a civil case. This protection is extended until she exhausts her appeals for her four convictions of providing false information to law enforcement.

"Caylee's Law" and "Caylee's Song"

Since the end of the trial, various movements have arisen for the creation of a new law, called "Caylee's Law", that would impose stricter requirements on parents to notify law enforcement of the death or disappearance of a child. One such petition, circulated via Change.org, has gained over 920,000 electronic signatures. In response to this and other petitions, lawmakers in four states—Florida, Oklahoma, New York, and West Virginia—have begun drafting versions of "Caylee's Law". The law in Oklahoma would require a child's parent or guardian to notify police of a missing child within 24 hours, and would also stipulate a time frame for notification of the disappearance of a young child under the age of 12. The Florida law would make it a felony if a parent or legal guardian fails to report a missing child in timely manner if they could have known the child would be in danger.

Different artists have written songs in Caylee's memory, often entitled "Caylee's Song". Jon Whynock performed his own version at her memorial service in February 2009, and Sheffield songwriter Earl "Peanutt" Montgomery, an Alabama Music Hall of Fame member known for writing hits for country artist George Jones, penned a "Caylee's Song" soon after hearing the verdict. "Me and my wife talked about it, and I decided to do it", said Montgomery. He sent an MP3 of "Caylee" to CNN and the cable news show Nancy Grace, as well as to various radio stations and Internet radio stations. Rascal Flatts' Gary LeVox collaborated with country comedian and radio host Cledus T. Judd and songwriter Jimmy Yeary to write a song titled "She's Going Places" in Caylee's memory, which would be performed by singer Shane Hines. On July 8, 2011, Grace played it for her audience.

See also

Media circus

Missing white woman syndrome

Trial by media

Unreported missing

References

External links

{{external media | align = right | width = | image1 = CBS photo gallery }}

Casey and Caylee Anthony: Documents, Discovery Channel Casey Anthony trial website

Casey Anthony extended coverage, with timeline, Wesh.com, accessed August 21, 2011.

Category:Deaths by person Category:Trials in the United States

fr:Affaire Caylee Anthony fi:Caylee Anthonyn kuolema zh:凯丽·安东尼之死