Knox on wood

Seattle is known for a lot of things. Salmon being tossed at Pike Place Market. Starbucks. The Space Needle. And now, 24-year-old Amanda Knox. The Seattle native who traveled to Perugia, Italy in 2007 to study abroad and wound up with a 26 year sentence for murdering her roommate, Meredith Kercher, was released on appeal this past Monday. After four years in Italian jail, she has finally come home to the United States.

Books have been written, the media has gone crazy with articles and videos, even 48 Hours had an exclusive entitled "Amanda Knox: The Untold Story" which aired last night (http://goo.gl/c32sk to watch). But how could such a harsh conviction be so quickly overturned during appeal? Why did Knox spend four years in jail when it took a jury only a few hours to turn her conviction around, declaring her innocent of the murder (though guilty of defamation and given time served).



Many news outlets, including the Huffington Post and CNN analysts, are declaring that the evidence was never there. The DNA which put Knox behind bars would never have been admissible in U.S. courts, and the key evidence putting Knox's one-time boyfriend behind bars had been left on the floor to rust for six weeks before being collected. I could certainly argue why I think Knox is innocent, but you can do your own research.

This case caught my eye when it hit the news in November 2007. As a sophomore at Loyola University Maryland, I was in the process of filling out my own application to go abroad in Spring of 2009. I was a political science (focusing on law) major and quickly became entrenched in the case, reading anything I could about what was going on 4400 miles away.

Eventually, I did decide to go abroad to New Zealand. The trip was great and I came home safely. But in all honesty, I was a little scared every day. I know the legal system in the United States fairly well (innocent until proven guilty, you know the drill). But I began to think...what do we truly know about the countries we visit?

Amanda Knox's story should be a cautionary tale, and really cause us to think about our traveling decisions. When we travel to a foreign country, we think about what plug adapters are needed and how to get a visa. Most people, however, know nothing about the legal code in another country. Think about Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer who were held in Iranian prison after serving two years on charges of espionage and illegally entering the country while hiking. What other U.S. citizens are quietly being held abroad as I type this, whose stories have not made headlines?

In several countries in the Middle East, women are whipped if they show any skin other than their hands. Drinking ages change, drug enforcement can be more severe, and U.S. citizens have no idea because they haven't thought to look into it. The types of interrogations and admissibility of evidence change drastically from country to country.

So perhaps what I'm trying to say is this...maybe we should think more before we travel. Maybe before students go abroad, they should be briefed not just on the weather and the great beaches (although these are important, too), but on the legal system. This is not to say that Amanda Knox's ignorance landed her a hefty prison term, but more-so that knowing the Italian legal system might have given her a little more understanding and caution.

After all, our mothers did always say "Safety First."