Meredith Kercher's murder could have been prevented.

[pnwmom]

The police had arrested Rudy Guede, the real murderer, just a few weeks earlier. They caught him robbing a day care center, wielding a knife. They held him for a while, but then released him. And he was implicated in a few other similar crimes during that same period.

No one knows why he was released. There's some speculation that he was a police informant. But if they had kept him in jail, Meredith would be alive today.

(And Knox and Sollecito wouldn't have spent four years in prison for nothing.)

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. And when they FINALLY hang onto him, they reduce his sentence to

16 years from 30 years.

I'd guess he found something in one of his burglaries that he holds over someone in the PD. Like drugs in the prosecutor's house - that ass would have to be on drugs to spout the crap he did during the trial.

[pnwmom]

2. And he'll be out sooner than that with good behavior.

I don't understand how this works, because I'd read that he'd exhausted his appeals, but his attorney today said he will be appealing his conviction -- based on the overturning of the other convictions.

[TorchTheWitch]

4. his sentence was reduced because he had a fast-track trial

at his own request. A fast-track trial is really not a trial at all but more like a preliminary hearing except the judge rules whether or not to acquit or find the defendant guilty. In a fast-track trial there is no jury and only a presiding judge. In exchange for a reduced sentence if found guilty the defendant agrees to give up their rights to challenge the evidence against them. Essentially, the defendant gives up their right to defend themselves at all and allows the judge to rule on the case with only the prosecution's evidence. THAT is why he got a reduced sentence.

Funny, for someone who seems to be paying so much attention to this case you miss most of it. Why Guede got a reduced sentence was obvious to anyone really paying attention. Then again, I'm hardly surprised since all I've really seen here is people parroting the BS of Knox's parents and oblivious to most of the evidence... but that's pretty much exactly what the American media did from the beginning.

[pnwmom]

5. Yeah, go ahead and pretend that the reduction

wasn't also affected by his giving the police the statement against Raffaele and Amanda. That timing was just a coincidence. Right.

So what evidence can you point to that would prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt? Even though not a trace of Amanda's physical presence was found in the tiny murder room -- while dozens of pieces of physical evidence (fingerprints, shoe prints, hair, DNA) were linked to Rudy Guede? Or are you one of the ones who think she was a witch with magic DNA and fingerprint-erasing soap?

You do understand, don't you, that the outcome was very much like that of the Duke students. The Court could have ruled A & R as not guilty (or not proven) -- but instead, it specifically ruled that they were innocent. That they didn't commit the crime.

But you know better, right?

[mainer]

3. Police informant sounds like a good bet

Can't think of any other reason they'd spend so little effort permanently putting away a man whose DNA was all over the murder scene.