Amanda Knox Reacts to Slander Conviction Upholding: ‘I’m Numb’.
Amanda Knox has finally addressed the Supreme Court of Cassation in Rome's decision to uphold her slander conviction.
In an emotional episode of her “Labyrinths with Amanda Knox and Christopher Robinson” podcast on Thursday, January 23, Knox, 37, said, “I’m feeling just kind of f–king numb. I’m a little bit astonished because I had higher hopes for the court.”
This statement followed the ruling, where Italy’s highest court upheld her conviction for falsely accusing her former employer, Patrick Lumumba, of murdering her roommate Meredith Kercher in 2007.
“I'm trying to imagine how a legal expert, a panel of judges on the Supreme Court in Italy, can legally justify the decision they just handed down,” she added.
Visibly upset, Knox reflected on the lasting impact the conviction will have on her life, particularly the fact that she will have a criminal record "forever for something I didn’t do, and there’s nothing I can do."
In 2007, Knox was a 20-year-old exchange student living in Perugia, Umbria, Italy, with Kercher, a fellow exchange student. After discovering blood in the bathroom and Kercher’s bedroom door locked upon returning from a night with then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, Knox called the police. Kercher was found dead at the scene.
Knox, Sollecito, and Lumumba were arrested for the crime. However, Lumumba was cleared after two weeks due to his solid alibi, while Knox and Sollecito were wrongfully convicted. Knox received a 26-year prison sentence, and Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years. The couple was incarcerated for nearly four years before being acquitted. In March 2015, Italy's highest court exonerated Knox and Sollecito, ruling they had been wrongfully convicted.
Rudy Guede was later convicted of Kercher's murder in 2008 and was released from prison in 2021.
Although Knox was exonerated of the murder, she was convicted in June 2024 for falsely accusing Lumumba during a police interrogation, which lasted 53 hours. The following day, Knox recanted her statement in a handwritten “memoriale,” but Lumumba had already been detained for nearly two weeks. The European Court of Human Rights later ruled that Knox’s rights had been violated during the interrogation, prompting Italy’s Supreme Court to order a retrial. Knox claimed she had been coerced by police into making the false accusation.
The case went to trial in June 2024, where an appellate court upheld her conviction. The decision was then appealed to the Supreme Court.
Though Knox will not be required to serve more prison time for the conviction due to the time already served, she expressed a desire to turn the difficult experience into something positive.
“I’ve been mentally telling myself there’s a way for me to not just feel defeated by this, but for it to give me momentum and to pivot around this in some meaningful and valuable way,” Knox said on her podcast. “But, God, I wish I were celebrating right now. I’m going to give myself time to grieve the decision. But I’m also going to channel this into something positive.”
