In Knox Verdict, a Victory for Reality

Amanda Knox has been freed and while the case may continue to be hotly debated in the Italian press, commentators in the US and Britain are overwhelmingly of the opinion that justice has been done.

• The Knox case, "was a textbook example of our never-ending fascination with the supposed femme fatale," Nina Burleigh writes at the Los Angeles Times. Knox became a scapegoat and was subjected to "all manner of outlandish, misogynistic behavior" because of the focus on Knox herself—"her femaleness, her American-ness, her beauty"—instead of the facts.

• The prosecution's case was "always just too far-fetched" and the verdict confirms what many thought: "Knox certainly was guilty of goofy, insensitive behavior and pot use," opines her hometown Seattle Times. "But there was never sufficient evidence to prove she murdered her roommate, whom she knew only a few weeks."
• The Italian legal system painted Knox as "a siren who could apparently entice a virtual stranger to commit murder with her hypnotic sexual charms" when it should have accepted the truth: "The police had simply been wrong," writes Harry Mount at the Telegraph.
• The ineffectiveness of the justice system in Italy—where "appointments are invariably made through nepotism rather than competence"—means rulings are rarely convincing, conspiracy theorists run rampant, and the line between fact and fiction is too often blurred, writes Tobias Jones at the Guardian. Silvio Berlusconi is desperate to reform the judiciary, he notes—but also desperate to avoid it.

(More Meredith Kercher stories.)