For the past four years, we have witnessed the wholesale destruction of a feminine woman at the hands of a prosecutor driven not by a quest for justice, but by depravity, a lurid imagination and nearly diabolical indifference to the evidence – or lack thereof.
Guiliano Mignini was not content to simply prosecute Amanda Knox, he wanted us to fear her. She was not, according to Mignini, the guileless and doe-like female we saw; instead, she was the tenebrous seductress, luring innocent males – as well as her roommate – into an orgiastic sex game culminating in unspeakable violence and murder. In Mignini’s fantasy world, Knox was so concupiscent, so devoid of conscience, she and co-defendant Rafael Sollecito, following the discovery of Meredith Kercher’s body, spent the day shopping for sexy undergarments. Mignini was so determined to expose Knox as a bewitching Delilah he manipulated her into providing a list of her past lovers by having a prison guard, posing as a physician, falsely inform her that she had contracted HIV.
Only a man suffering from a diseased mind could misconstrue a frightened and defenseless young woman as a scheming femme fatale of lore. Mignini set out to exterminate Knox not because of evidence of her complicity, but because of his predetermined mindset to perceive her as wicked. What else, after all, could explain his harsh, manipulative, and unremitting interrogation of Knox, an interrogation so traumatizing that she was nearly unable to distinguish between her own imaginings and reality? And why, after forensic testing revealed that Kercher’s room was awash in Rudy Guede’s DNA did Mignini not question his initial impressions? If Knox was involved in this murder, why after hours of grueling interrogation had she falsely imagined her employer, Patrick Lumumba, as the murderer rather than Guede, a seedy drug dealer?
To reduce their culpability, suspects often resort to half-truths, conceding some superficial role in a murder or crime, but placing nearly all the blame on the others involved. Although the Italian police employed a number of rather underhanded techniques on Knox, including wrongfully informing her that Rafael had implicated her in the murder and that forensic evidence placed her inside Kercher’s room at the time of the homicide, Knox accused neither Guede nor Rafael. While arguably Knox may have been reluctant to turn on her boyfriend, what loyalty did she owe to Guede? Though the case garnered intense international media coverage, no reliable witness ever came forward to testify to a Knox and Guede relationship.
And what of Guede? Within days of the murder he fled the country and when apprehended, he claimed that he had met Kercher the day before the murder and they agreed to get together the following night. He initially told investigators that an Italian male had murdered Kercher while he (Guede) was relieving himself in the bathroom. Although he had concocted an unbelievable story exonerating himself of responsibility, he chose to absolve rather than incriminate Knox of wrongdoing, admitting that she had not been present. Why did Guede, a drug dealer and petty thief initially fail to implicate Knox and Sollecito – if they were involved? A degenerate drifter protecting two white university students? It was only after being convicted of murder in a separate trial in October of 2008, that Guede claimed for the first time that he overheard Knox and Kercher arguing over money, and responding to a “piercing” scream, saw Knox and a male resembling Sollecito fleeing the home. Yet, compulsively misanthropic Mignini overlooked Guede’s pathological indifference to the truth and called him to testify against Knox and Sollecito.
Undaunted by court appointed experts casting serious doubt on the reliability of the minute traces of Knox’s DNA on Kercher’s bra and the handle of a kitchen knife, Mignini bombastically demanded that the appeals court increase Knox’s already hefty 26 year prison sentence to life-imprisonment, including imposing an inhuman nine months of solitary confinement. The appeals court, apparently unimpressed with Mignini’s theatrics, baseless theories, and discredited forensic evidence, finally overturned the convictions of Knox and Sollecito. Unbowed and unashamed, Mignini is challenging the appeals court’s decision in Italy’s highest court. This would be theurgist’s pursuit of those whom he has branded evildoers knows no end.
In a country as evolved as Italy, a man of such unsound mind and nearly unchecked power is allowed to wander the villas and byways in search of nymphs and hobgoblins to prosecute.
Kevin J. Mahoney is a Cambridge Criminal Defense Lawyer, on-air legal analyst, and published author.
