| 10/03/2011 | Extension of time granted | On application of appellant and good cause appearing, it is ordered that the time to serve and file appellant's opening brief is extended to and including November 29, 2011. |
This is a jubilant day for Amanda Knox, who has finally received her well-deserved acquittal. Meredith Kercher was murdered on November 1, 2007; Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were convicted in December 2009. It took less than 2 years for Amanda's wrongful conviction to be reversed.
Laci Peterson disappeared on December 24, 2002. Scott was jailed on April 18, 2003, and has remained incarcerated to this day, nearly 8 1/2 years later. His first appellate brief hasn't even been filed, and won't be filed for at least another 2 months. The wheels of justice do indeed grind slow in America. Many people want to speed up executions; I'm sure just as many want to speed up the appeals process so wrongful convictions can be overturned at a much faster pace. Even when Scott's first appeal brief is filed, it will probably be 4 more years before we see the Court's decision. That will be 12 1/2 years compared to 2 years for Amanda Knox.
2 comments:
I watched Amanda's appeal last night and I was happy that the whole thing was thrown out, as it should have been, in fact, it never should have gone to trial and since the prosecutor was convicted on a number of charges, why was he allowed to try the case?
I remember thinking, the appeals process here should be similar to that of Italy, however, in some cases such as Scott's where there is no DNA to exonerate him, you need the extra time it would take to either get him a new trial or throw the case out.
I think what exonerated Amanda was lack of evidence -- absence of DNA where there should have been DNA. They always had the other guy's DNA and fingerprints -- they just didn't have anything against Amanda and her boyfriend except her strange behavior and the false confessions they made when they were lied to by the police and, in Amanda's case, after hours and hours of non-stop questioning.
In Scott's case, we don't have overwhelming evidence that someone else was involved perhaps simply because the burglars weren't sufficiently investigated, but we do have some evidence that her intrusion into the Medina burglary is what brought about her death.
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