Amanda Knox began her discuss Tuesday to an Erie viewers with an outline of her first evening in an Italian jail cell — the silent stroll down the concrete hallway to the final strong metal door with a tiny window, the metallic mattress body, the froth mattress, the wool blanket.
Knox, an American who spent 1,428 days jailed in Italy after her roommate Meredith Kercher was murdered there in 2007, ended her Erie discuss with the thought that “everyone is more than the worst thing that ever happened to them.
“We all have power and presence,” Knox said. “At the identical time, we now have damage and weak spot. And if we’re cautious and conscious of the affect we now have with others, over others, we are able to do unimaginable work to assist individuals who we by no means knew even existed.”
Knox, now 34 and a journalist, public speaker and author of the New York Times best-selling memoir, “Waiting to Be Heard,” works to shed light on the issues of wrongful conviction, truth-seeking and public shaming, according to her website, amandaknox.com. She was the keynote speaker Tuesday at the Erie County Bar Association’s Law Day Luncheon. Organizers said 551 people attended the event at the Bayfront Convention Center.
“She’s a really sturdy girl,” said Marian Collin Franco, 22, a student from the Dominican Republic who is a legal studies major at Gannon University. Franco said she learned about Knox’s case in a first-year law seminar at Gannon and considered it a privilege to hear her speak first-hand about her experiences.
“I do not know if I might give you the chance to get well from one thing like that,” Franco mentioned.
The murder
In a case that made international headlines, Knox, of Seattle, spent nearly four years in an Italian prison after her British roommate was killed in Perugia, Italy, where the two were studying. Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted of the slaying. An appeals court cleared them but their acquittal was overturned and they were convicted again. In 2015, Italy’s highest court overturned the murder convictions of both Knox and Sollecito. Rudy Hermann Guede was convicted of the murder in a separate trial.
When Knox asked who among the Erie audience members had heard about her case, nearly every hand was raised.
“But for all of the worldwide media consideration this case has acquired through the years, you’d be shocked how few folks have ever heard of Rudy Guede,” Knox said. “Lots of people do not even bear in mind the identify of the sufferer in this case, Meredith Kercher.
“The name and the face that has come to define this horrific crime is mine.”
Knox mentioned their was no proof she dedicated the crime however she mentioned police spent eight years attempting to show their “gut instinct” that she had finished it.
“To do so, they had to create a monster,” she mentioned, mentioning the “Foxy Knoxy” nickname she ended up with and different unfavourable depictions of herself.
“I had no reason to commit this crime but it didn’t matter because the real me was buried under a mountain of tabloid speculation and scandal and that was the story,” Knox mentioned. “It was a story that spoke to people’s fears and fantasies and it became headlines, the crime of the century for so many people.”
She mentioned she first believed in the court docket, in justice and in getting to the reality. Then she was sentenced to 26 years in jail.
“It wasn’t the most truthful story that won,” she mentioned, “it was the most controversial.”
The aftermath
Knox mentioned she wrote her memoir “to add my single voice to the chorus of voices that were authoring my experience without my consent. And when I did so, I was called a narcissist and a liar and a psychopath.”
Through all of it, Knox mentioned, she had the help of her household. She additionally mentioned that the enchantment system was simpler in Italy than in the United States.
When it was all finished, and Knox realized via the Innocence Network that there have been different wrongful conviction circumstances on the market, she realized her objective, she instructed the Erie crowd.
From April:Amanda Knox, exonerated in Italian murder case, to converse at Erie Law Day occasion
She had began out to be a bridge throughout an insurmountable barrier, that of language, she mentioned.
“I realized that I didn’t have to give up that dream after all,” Knox mentioned. “That I just had to tweak it a little. That my dream had turned into being a bridge across a very different insurmountable barrier — judgment. The judgment that we have for people who are accused of crimes whether they have committed them or not.
“It led me to turning into a journalist and an activist,” Knox said. “It led me to perceive some very very tough truths concerning the felony justice system world wide but in addition right here at residence, issues that we now have realized from different locations and issues we’re grateful we do not have to cope with right here.”
Madison Perseo, 20, of Erie, and Karla Jimenez, 25 of Alexandria, Virginia, are Gannon students who attended the event. They said they want to be attorneys. Jimenez said Knox’s story was inspiring. Perseo said it will help her to keep her mind open.
Also at Tuesday’s event, the Erie County Bar Association honored lawyers and members of the community with its annual awards. They were:
- Chancellor of the Bar Award — Erie lawyer Robert G. Dwyer. The award recognizes an Erie County Bar Association member who was nominated by his or her peers for significant contributions with respect to their practice, attitude toward the court and fellow lawyers, and participation in civic affairs and community life, according to the association.
- Pro Bono Award — Erie lawyer Robert C. LeSuer. The award honors the volunteer efforts of an Erie County Bar Association member who has assisted with the delivery of civil legal services to the poor.
- Liberty Bell Award — Lori Dolan, immediate past president of the Erie chapter of the League of Women Voters. She has also been the league’s president, vice president and secretary and has worked on numerous league committees. The Liberty Bell Award recognizes a local non-lawyer for community service that has strengthened the American system of freedom under law.
- Diversity & Inclusion Community Award — Tywonn T. Taylor is the first recipient of the award. He is the director of programming for Mercyhurst University at the Booker T. Washington Center and is the founder of Careers and Dreams, an organization that supports and provides opportunities to inner-city youth.
Contact Dana Massing at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @ETNmassing.
Amanda Knox tells exoneration story after murder in Italy to Erie crowd & More Latest News Update
Amanda Knox tells exoneration story after murder in Italy to Erie crowd & More Live News
All this news that I have made and shared for you people, you will like it very much and in it we keep bringing topics for you people like every time so that you keep getting news information like trending topics and you It is our goal to be able to get
all kinds of news without going through us so that we can reach you the latest and best news for free so that you can move ahead further by getting the information of that news together with you. Later on, we will continue
to give information about more today world news update types of latest news through posts on our website so that you always keep moving forward in that news and whatever kind of information will be there, it will definitely be conveyed to you people.
Amanda Knox tells exoneration story after murder in Italy to Erie crowd & More News Today
All this news that I have brought up to you or will be the most different and best news that you people are not going to get anywhere, along with the information Trending News, Breaking News, Health News, Science News, Sports News, Entertainment News, Technology News, Business News, World News of this news, you can get other types of news along with your country and city. You will be able to get information related to, as well as you will be able to get information about what is going on around you through us for free
so that you can make yourself a knowledgeable by getting complete information about your country and state and information about news. Whatever is being given through us, I have tried to bring it to you through other websites, which you may like
very much and if you like all this news, then definitely around you. Along with the people of India, keep sharing such news necessary to your loved ones, let all the news influence them and they can move forward two steps further.
Credit Goes To News Website – This Original Content Owner News Website . This Is Not My Content So If You Want To Read Original Content You Can Follow Below Links