Amanda Knox Murder Case News Update: Court Postpones Ruling on Case
An Italian court has postponed until Friday, March 27 its ruling on whether to uphold the murder convictions of Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito.
Italy's highest appeals court was meant to make the decision on Wednesday. But due to the length of the prosecutor's and the lawyer's statements during a morning hearing, the court decided to postpone the decision until Friday.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers challenged many of the arguments that made the 2007 murder of British student, Meredith Kercher, a headline-making case. The Court of Cassation in Rome was reportedly mobbed by members of the news media, and the presiding judge, Gennaro Marasca, moved the proceedings to the court's grand hall because the originally scheduled courtroom was too small to hold the many observers, according to The New York Times. Sollecito was present in the courtroom on Wednesday, but Knox remained in the U.S. for the verdict.
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The court will decide whether to uphold last year's convictions, which could mean prison sentences on charges of murder and sexual assault for both Knox and Sollecito. But in an alternate scenario, the court could overturn the previous guilty verdicts and order a new appeals trial.
Meanwhile, Knox's defense attorney, Carlo Dalla Vedova, urged the Italian court to overturn Knox's conviction in the murder of her former roommate.
Dalla Vedova said that the Florence court's conviction of Knox "is not justice, it is a distortion of facts."
"We are confronted with a very grave judicial error that must be set right," he said.
Kercher's lawyer, Francesco Maresca, said he hoped that the Cassation Court would reach a final decision.
"I hope that that family can remember the poor victim outside of the halls of justice after so many years," said Maresca.
