SPECIAL TO SEATTLEPI.COM
PERUGIA, Italy -- In an impassioned plea that brought her family and others to tears, Amanda Knox's criminal defense attorney Wednesday pleaded with an Italian jury for the 22-year-old Seattle woman's freedom.
"Amanda is asking for her life," said Luciano Ghirga, choking up as he thanked the jury for its attention. "Give Amanda her life back, by acquitting her of all charges."
Knox is on trial along with her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito for the slaying of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, on Nov. 1, 2007. The case will go to the jury later this week.
The five- hour summation by Ghirga, a well-known bon vivant active in local politics and passionate about soccer, was a defining moment in one the most high-profile cases of his career. He drew on a range of emotion-- anger, humor and tenderness -- telling jurors his display was not a defense strategy, but rather the result of his deep personal conviction of Knox's innocence.
In many ways, he was quintessentially Italian -- raising his voice, gesturing with his hands and even suggesting an espresso break mid-morning when he saw the jury's attention flagging.
He referred frequently to the jurors as fellow Perugians, making references to the "our beautiful city's rites and traditional of historical judicial decisions" -- such as the trial of ex-Italian premier Giulio Andreotti on Mafia charges. Several times he turned affectionately to Knox to ask, "Right, Amanda?" and she would nod.
When it came time to make his most salient point, Ghirga (who played for the Juventus youth soccer team as a young man) chose a sports metaphor.
"You need to give a red card," he yelled, referencing the penalty card a referee pulls from his pocket when calling an intentional foul. "For Amanda, for the Italian justice system and for this trial."
There should be a penalty, he said, for the character assassination of her as a lying maneater, for the mistreatment by the female Perugia police officers who had it out for her, for the shaky forensic evidence, for the double standard of how police addressed Kercher and Knox's sexual histories, but most of all, for the interrogation of her without an attorney.
"The privation of adequate defense of a person who was, at that moment, officially a suspect is very grave," he said. "We cannot accept this. It is a serious omission that we cannot bear. We don't know how to explain it to her. To her parents."
Later, in rebuttal comments, prosecutor Giuliano Mignini cited criminal procedural code and said no attorney was required to be present at the statement because it was given voluntarily and spontaneously. It was not during the questioning of a suspect.
After defending his murder theory, witnesses and investigators, Mignini went on the offensive, telling jurors that Knox was a "coiled spring" who struck the night Kercher was killed.
He criticized both defense teams for heaping the sole blame on already convicted Ivory Coast immigrant Rudy Guede, and again pointed out the dichotomy of the "clean and wholesome" British girl scandalized by the inappropriate young American who sought out hot sex, kept a vibrator as a toy and didn't flush the toilet.
And finally, reaching to match Ghirga's emotional gravitas, he grimly recalled the moment he had to view Kercher's cadaver.
"I saw the body," he said. "The defendants' consultants weren't there. Easy for them, it was just on paper. They should have seen this girl lying there, practically slaughtered."
Mignini's attempt to slow Ghirga's significant momentum revealed a glimpse of professional rivalry between the two men -- who are facing one another in several other large trials playing out in the city -- with each one claiming to be more Perugian than the other.
"I am Perugino," Ghirga said at one point, taking issue with details of the prosecutor's murder reconstruction. "How can he put forward a hypothesis so contorted?
"The prosecutor is right about one thing, you should not forget the victim, Meredith," he said. "And there is one thing the prosecution should have done for Meredith, and that is a rigorous investigation done well from the beginning."
He also took issue with the Kercher family lawyer's previous comments about the Knox "clan from Seattle." "That is the Knox clan," he said turning around to point at the family members in the courtroom. "They are desperate parents. People who have suffered a tragedy."
He went on to distance himself from the outsiders who have been critical of the trial and the Italian system of justice. He pointedly criticized the "lobby groups" that have called into question the case in the U.S. media, and specifically singled out out high-profile Italian-American criminal defense lawyer Joe Tacopina for meddling early on as a paid television network consultant.
In court, Knox seemed buoyed by the presence of her closest family members, especially her sister, Deanna, with whom she was able to exchange a few words during the breaks.
"I know my sister is innocent," said Deanna Knox, upon leaving the courthouse at the end of the day. "I'm confident that she'll get out eventually."
0 comments:
Post a Comment