Talk:Murder of Meredith Kercher/trialsdraft

''This is a little draft of a re-working of the trials section that I propose for the MOMK article, feel free to edit it - within reason - the main aim is to summarise the trial overview for neutrality reasons (to explain Italian legal processes) before going into detail. I am avoiding touching testimony/evidence too much, if at all''

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.

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. He was convicted on all counts on 28 October 2008 and he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

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.

Under Italian law two appeals are permitted to defendants, during the appeals process a presumption of innocence until a final verdict is entered. Guede's appeals which concluded in December of 2009 and 2010 upheld his conviction but reduced his sentence to 16 years.

Knox and Sollecito filed for their first appeal in April 2010, which began as a trial de novo in December 2010. It is expected to be concluded in late 2011.

Guede trial
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, Diritto, procedura, e pratica penale Tribunale di Perugia: Ufficio del G.I.P.: Dott. Paolo Micheli: Sentenza del 28.10.2008 – 26.01.2009 (Italian): "Ribadiva poi di aver toccato più o meno dappertutto nella stanza, anche con le mani sporche di sangue, senza tuttavia spiegare come mai una sua impronta si trovasse proprio sul cuscino sotto il cadavere, quando egli ricordava il cuscino regolarmente sopra il letto, dove si trovavano anche la giacca e la borsa che la ragazza aveva posato rientrando in casa. Il letto era, secondo la sua descrizione, coperto con un piumone rosso o beige (ma insisteva molto di più sul primo colore): il cuscino era fuori dalla trapunta." (English): Guede "confirmed then to have touched more or less everywhere in the room, even with his hands stained with blood, without however explaining why one of his [palm-]prints were found on the pillow under the corpse, when he remembered the regular pillow on the bed, where they also found the jacket and purse/handbag that the girl [Kercher] had put down on re-entering the house. The bed was, according to his description, covered with a red or beige duvet (but he had insisted far more on the former colour): the pillow was outside of the quilt." Earlier in his judgement, the judge noted that (Italian): "Soltanto in seguito, attraverso la comparazione in Banca Dati di un'impronta palmare impressa nel sangue e rinvenuta sulla federa del cuscino che si trovava sotto il corpo della vittima, si accertava invece la presenza sul luogo del delitto del 21enne G. R. H., nativo della Costa d'Avorio ..." (English): "Only later, through the comparison in the database of a palm-print imprinted in the blood of the victim and found on the pillowcase of the pillow where the body of the victim was found, it confirmed instead the presence at the scene of the crime of the 21-year-old G[uede] R.H., native of the Ivory Coast, ..." when he had stated that he had left her fully dressed.

Appeals
In 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 when he had glanced out of the window, he saw the silhouette of Knox leaving the house.

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.

Committal hearings
During the 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. Judge 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. 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.

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 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.

The first appeal (of a possible two appeals) is being conducted as a trial de novo that commenced on 11 December 2010 before the Appellate Court of Assizes, presided over by Claudio Pratillo Hellmand, 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, which was to be delivered on 21 May, but is now scheduled to be considered by the court in July 2011. The court also determined that five witnesses could provide testimony for the defence. At least one of the witnesses is expected to testify that Guede has stated that Knox and Sollecito did not take part in the murder, and all the witnesses have stated that they have information regarding who murdered Kercher. These witnesses were known since the beginning of Knox's and Sollecito's first trial, but that judge would not admit their testimony into evidence. The judge reserved his decision regarding the letter of another witness which claimed that Kercher was killed over a drug debt.