innocent, read “The Monster of Florence,” by Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi.

It’s a damning indictment of the Italian judicial system, from start to finish (by a writer who is admittedly a far-left critic of the US legal system as well). “The Monster” is a true story, and the prosecutor and police investigator who manufactured a case against several innocent people are also involved in the Meredith Kercher murder investigation, an investigation in name only it appears. The botched crime scene investigation is seemingly par for the Italian course.

If you have heard the news accounts of the charges against Knox, you may remember that bizarre sex was part of the first story given by prosecutor Giuliano Mignini as a motive. In the “Monster” case, Mignini believed an unsubstantiated story of satanic ritual killers in his attempt to convict the two newsmen, Preston and Spezi. The details are too complex to go into, but Mignini has been “convicted” of manufacturing evidence in another case.

The prosecution’s theory of Kercher’s killing is unbelievable on its face, and there is precious little physical evidence to support it, but in the Italian system everything seems to go, and jurors love a juicy sex scandal. However, at the last minute, the prosecutor changed his theory to one of a crime of vengeance, of anger because Kercher had criticized Knox’s cleaning habits, among other things.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/AmandaKnox/amanda-knox-lawyer-prosecutor-switched-motives/story?id=9215634

Amanda Knox was convicted based on an accusation and almost nothing else.