Do you think it's acceptable for college kids or any tourist in a foreign country to spend up to 6 years in jail all for signing a false witness statement in the middle of the night in a foreign language they didn't speak well without a lawyer present?
I don't. That's appalling any civilized country would allow that to happen.
18-22 year olds commit murder. This is college age. Tourists in foreign countries come in all ages. So we have an 18-20 year old tourist that had one year at the University of Washington in Seattle, and she was taking a gap year to travel and study Italian language. She spent almost four years in jail, not six. Three of those years are for her confirmed slander conviction. This is not an innocent woman without criminal convictions. Amanda Knox is a convicted criminal for the remainder of her life and no one can dispute that it is just. In reality, she spent about 11 months in jail for her murder conviction so far.
The "false witness statement" from November 5, 2007, was excluded from the trial. If Knox had not given written statements on November 6 and 7, the statement on November 5 would have never been heard, as it was excluded from the trial. The statements from Knox on November 6, 7, and 10 are the problem.
No civilized country, like Italy, allowed a false accusation taken after midnight without a lawyer, to be used as evidence. It was not. It was completely excluded from the evidence. Knox was convicted of slander on the basis of her November 6, 7 and 10 statements.