Amanda Knox: How the Netflix Documentary Will Make You Reconsider Justice

I had just graduated high school when the Amanda Knox scandal began. 

It was terrifying to me how a girl not much older than me was brutally slaughtered. It was also terrifying how a girl not much older than me was facing the prospect of the majority of her life behind bars for a crime she claimed she didn't commit. Both were unthinkable. For some reason, though, the intrigue of Amanda Knox being attacked in the media, especially if she were innocent, bothered me. How must she feel if she were truly innocent? How would it feel to be one of the most hated, denounced, and insulted college girls if you really didn't do it?

These are questions the new documentary called Amanda Knox explores. I liked how Amanda Knox actually appeared in the documentary present-day. To see the case through her older, wiser, and somewhat broken eyes was enlightening.

The documentary takes you through the damning evidence of the case first. During the first half of the show, I was convinced she was guilty. She made a lot of mistakes, and you could see how the media could latch on to certain aspects of the crime. There was the knife with DNA, the testimony, the changed stories. 

Yet, by the last half, you learn the truth about the investigation. You see how the justice system can actually twist justice to fit their needs. By the end, it is evident that although Knox is no saint, she had no credible evidence putting her at the scene. Crime scene tampering, botched evidence collection methods, and a lack of objectivity of prosecutors and police led her down the dark, deep path of lies. By the end, it was apparent to me at least that Knox was a sometimes senseless, wild college girl who became a victim of a different kind the day of the murder.

Amanda Knox shows us that the media will believe what it wants, and you never know if you're getting the full story unless you're living it. Also, it made me very skeptical of the veracity and reliability of the justice system to allow these mistakes to happen. Wrongful conviction is a truth our society doesn't like to see. Hopefully Amanda Knox will open up the conversation again.

At the end of it, there are no winners. Meredith Kercher is still dead, a victim of a brutal murder. Amanda Knox spent almost a decade fighting for her life and freedom. The entire tale is a sad example of how life can change on a dime and how even the young aren't spared from life's harsh injustices.