Amanda Knox is Free

Though packed, the courtroom was unexpectedly quiet. The defense and the prosecution took their respective places, and Amanda Knox, still visibly wracked with nerves, quietly wiped away tears. Everyone in the room, and the millions watching on TV, were waiting for Judge Hellman, and he was late. It's not unheard of for Italian judges to take up to half an hour summing up a case before announcing a verdict, but once he arrived, Hellman cut straight to the point. He announced that the judgment was partially overturned: Knox and Sollecito are innocent of every charge related to the commission of Meredith Kercher's murder. Knox's conviction for slander, a consequence of her false identification of barkeeper Patrick Lumumba as one of Kercher's murderers, was upheld. Knox owes nearly $200,000 in damages to Mr. Lumumba, but more importantly, her jail sentence amounted to time served, and she is free to go.

Judge Hellman was unequivocal that his ruling was not based on any procedural problem; not a "technicality," as it's so often called in our domestic conversations about criminal justice. As is their prerogative in the Italian system, the jury re-examined the evidence from the original case, and in their judgment, Knox and Sollecito were not involved in the murder. The verdict had barely escaped Judge Hellman's lips when Knox was whisked away by a phalanx of police officers. By the time the Judge could silence the gasps and chatter from observers, she was already gone. Some sources say the Knox family had arranged for a plane to be waiting to take her back to the United States, so she may have already left Italy.

With Knox and Sollecito finally out from under the unblinking television cameras, crowds of Perugians and trial tourists outside the courthouse were left to boo and jeer at no one in particular. Although the witch-hunt fever which surrounded the original trial has died down, a recent survey found that only about one in four Italians thought the pair were innocent. There is sure to be anger in Italy tonight, but almost certainly relief as well. The spotlight the trial shined on Italy is finally extinguished, and it did not often illuminate the country's best qualities.

Though Knox and Sollecito are now free to pursue the futures they both argued for so eloquently in their closing statements, both have lost four years of their lives to a nightmare. Meredith Kercher lost her life. Rudy Guede, the only person left imprisoned for her murder, is serving a sentence of only 16 years, leniency which he was able to obtain in part by leveraging cooperation against the more notorious Knox and Sollecito. The tabloid press who so brainlessly howled for Knox's blood are embroiled in near-constant scandal and embarrassment, but even their most sordid disasters don't seem to make a dent in sales or readership. Giuliano Mignini, the man most responsible for the debacle, is nearly unassailable in his position as Prosecutor, despite a career defined by failure and embarrassment, both personal and professional. We're left looking at a tragic, shameful mess: Meredith Kercher is dead, and the innocent seem to have paid for it almost as much as the guilty. Those responsible for turning the investigation of her death into a tawdry farce will likely escape unscathed. Still, it appears the guilty party is behind bars, and the innocent are going free, and in an imperfect world, that's worth celebrating.