Amanda Knox was acquitted for the 2007 murder of then-roommate Meredith Kercher in 2015, but she has remained connected to the case due to a slander conviction for wrongfully accusing another person of the crime. In June 2024, an Italian appellate court upheld her conviction, but what does that mean for Knox’s future?

Who Is Amanda Knox?

Knox was 20 years old and an exchange student living in an apartment in Perugia, Umbria, Italy, with 21-year-old Kercher, a fellow exchange student, at the time of Kercher’s murder in 2007. She called the police after finding Kercher’s bedroom door locked, as well as blood in the bathroom, when she returned home from a night spent with then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito. Kercher was found dead on the floor in her room.

Knox, Sollecito, and Knox’s employer, Patrick Lumumba, were initially arrested for the murder, but Lumumba was released after two weeks due to his strong alibi. Knox and Sollecito were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison, respectively, during their first trial in 2009. They spent almost four years in prison before they were acquitted at a second-level trial.

Knox and Sollecito were exonerated from the murder by Italy’s highest court in March 2015. Today, Knox is an author, activist and journalist.

Why Is Amanda Knox Convicted of Slander?

During a 2007 interrogation after Kercher’s murder, Knox accused Lumumba, the owner of the bar where she worked part-time, of the crime, which led to her then-boss’ arrest and two-week incarceration. She signed two statements prepared by local police regarding the accusation, but then cast doubt on her claim in a handwritten note, according to CNN. She was convicted of slandering Lumumba and spent three years in prison, starting in 2007.

In 2023, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Knox’s rights were violated during the interrogation, which led Italy’s Supreme Court to order a retrial. During her June 2024 trial, Knox argued that the police bullied her into wrongfully accusing Lumumba of Kercher’s murder, AP reported. She also told the appellate court she was “sorry” that she did not try harder to retract her accusation.

However, the court in Florence upheld Knox’s conviction on June 5, 2024. She will not serve any more jail time, although she wrote on X before the trial that she hoped to “clear my name once and for all of the false charges against me.” The decision will go through Italy’s supreme court, and Knox will have another chance to appeal, according to CNN.

“Amanda is very upset from the outcome,” Knox’s lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova said outside the court, the publication reported. “She was looking to have a final point of all this, 17 years now, (of) judicial procedure.”

Italian Supreme Court Upholds Amanda Knox’s Slander Conviction

The Supreme Court of Cassation in Rome rejected Knox’s second appeal and upheld her slander conviction on January 23, 2025. She will not return to prison for the conviction because of the sentence she already served.

The Washington native reacted to the ruling in an impromptu episode of her and husband Christopher Robinson’s “Labyrinths” podcast that same day.

“I’m feeling just kind of f–king numb,” she said. “I’m a little bit astonished because I had higher hopes for the court.”

Knox continued, “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 became emotional as she considered the long-term effects of the conviction, such as having “a criminal record forever for something I didn’t do, and there’s nothing I can do.”

“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,” she said. “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.”

Who Murdered Meredith Kercher?

Bloody fingerprints belonging to Rudy Guede, a known burglar and Ivorian migrant, were found at the scene of Kercher’s murder. However, by the time they were identified as Guede’s prints, Knox and Sollecito had already been charged with the crime. Guede was tried separately and found guilty of the sexual assault and murder of Kercher in October 2008 and began serving a 16-year sentence.

In December 2020, an Italian court allowed Guede to complete his term through community service. He was released from prison on November 24, 2021, after serving most of his sentence, per NBC.