The Knox case reminds us that it isn’t always easy to have confidence in justice systems

You don't have to have a strong opinion on the ruling to worry about the obsessive media coverage of this drawn-out case

Amanda Knox served two years in prison before having her conviction overturned (AP)

This week you will have had plenty of opportunities to stare into the blue eyes of Amanda Knox and wonder if she really did it. A large photograph of the young and pretty Knox was chosen by most media organisations, in preference to either her co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito, or the murder victim, Meredith Kercher, even though the news it illustrates concerns them all.

On Thursday night, the Italian supreme court rejected the appeal court verdict which in October 2011 overturned the convictions of Knox and her former boyfriend Sollecito. They were once innocent until proven guilty, then guilty, then innocent, and now the pair have been deemed guilty again. A second man, Rudy Guede, was found guilty of Kercher’s murder and sexual assault in October 2008 and remains in prison, where he is serving a 16-year sentence, after the original 30-year sentence was reduced on appeal.

Actually, the supreme court’s decision was more concerned with the substance of the appeal than the conduct of Knox or Sollecito. It found that the DNA evidence on a knife and a bra clasp presented by new forensic scientists had been too readily accepted by the lower court.

It should also be noted that the headline-grabbing prosecution theory – that Kercher was murdered in the course of a bizarre sex game – has now been discarded. Unfortunately for Knox, not before they were widely reported, along with details from her MySpace page, speculation on her relationship with her mother and some samples of her creative writing, all of which quickly shaped the public image of “Foxy Knoxy”.

Amanda Knox guilty: 'I am frightened and saddened by the unjust verdict'

But if Knox’s reputation has been unfairly smeared by some sections of the press, she has also benefited from a level of supportive coverage that most defendants in appeal cases have no hope of receiving. The attention kept her hopes alive during her four years in prison, and since this latest development, public sympathy seems to have grown. If the US government does agree to extradite her, it will likely be with some reluctance.

It isn’t just the details of legal procedure which are complicated by these overlapping justice systems. Italians, Americans and Britons are all being asked to trust in foreign legal systems with which they may not fully agree. Knox’s American supporters have felt uneasy about an Italian justice system which allowed prosecution theories to reach the newspapers long before the evidence had been properly analysed. Meredith Kercher’s British family has expressed concern over whether the American government will live up to its extradition treaty.

Meredith Kercher, who was murdered in 2007 (AP)

For many Britons and Americans, the experience of being expected to trust in the justice of a system you neither fully understand nor fully agree with is also available at home. In the case of recent controversial acquittals, such as that of George Zimmerman in the US, those who questioned the verdict pointed to the undue influence the media’s focus on physical appearance had on justice. Those who defended the verdict did so by reminding citizens of their responsibility to accept it, whether they agreed or not. As David Cameron urged in the wake of the Mark Duggan verdict: “We have to respect the outcome of trials and the work juries do.”

Respect for the justice system is essential to its proper functioning, but if the justice system doesn’t function properly, how can people be expected to respect it? It’s a Catch-22 that’s unfamiliar to those who enjoy complete confidence in the legal systems of their home countries. And for those privileged few, the case of Amanda Knox offers a useful glimpse of how the other half lives.

No one outside of that courtroom has the right to feel certain about the circumstances of Meredith Kercher’s murder. But you don’t have to form a strong opinion on Knox’s guilt or innocence to feel very uneasy about the role that international media coverage has been allowed to play.

We don’t really know how many miscarriages of justice go on beneath the media’s gaze. We do know, depressingly, that the access to justice you can expect depends more on who you are than what you did. Knox might be living an undeserved nightmare – Kercher’s family certainly is – but at least hers is one the whole world has acknowledged.