HOW MUCH DOES ITALY OWE AMANDA KNOX? A Lot.

The money question is not far-fetched. The families of both Knox and Sollecito have indicated they will seek damages. And why shouldn’t they collect after all they’ve been through? To cover her defense the Knox family mortgaged their house and drained retirement funds. Every year Italy pays around 12 million euros to those who have been imprisoned and then later exonerated, as CNN reported.

Even more to the point, as I observed for Vanity Fair, more than a year before Knox was convicted of killing Kercher, there was never a strong case against the American student. She was 20 at the time with no record of violence. And those in authority knew as much. Lacking hard evidence, their judgments were consistently stuffed with irrelevancies.

Who do the Italians think they are? A campus sex assault tribunal?