Closed captioning of: Could DNA evidence free Amanda Knox?
>>>
amanda knox
has received a major boost in the appeal of her murder conviction in italy. in court on monday experts slammed the forensics used to find knox guilty of killing her roommate.
keith miller
has followed this case from the beginning. he was in perugia with details.
>> reporter:
amanda knox
is in prison locked up here but monday in court the experts said that more than 50 breaches of international forensic proet controls were carried out by the first
forensic scientists
and that is also, by the way, the
justice department
follows this very closely. it was not an episode of "csi" but rather
italian police
bundling the evidence at the
scene of the crime
. police procedures projected on to a screen drew an audible gasp from the packed courtroom.
>>
i think there was some surprise and amusement from some people in court as to the bungled initial police operation.
>> reporter:
a crucial piece of evidence was dropped on the floor to be photographed. then lost. only to be retrieved
46 days
later. video like this showed officers walking unsupervised through the
crime scene
. one officer handled evidence with dirty gloves. all this and more led independent
forensic scientists
appointed by the court to label the prosecution's
dna evidence
as contaminated and unreliable.
amanda knox
showed no reaction but her defense team felt she finally had her day in court.
>>
we were not surprised because we knew that many of the
scientific evidence
were not reliable, that the proet control was not respected.
>> reporter:
the most damaging testimony to the prosecution's case concerned the alleged murder weapon, the knife retrieved from knox's boyfriend's apartment did not, in the view of the scientists, have any dna material from the victim on the blade. as the prosecution had insisted. there was a frenzy outside the courtroom, but the lead prosecutor in the first trial had no comment. the appeals judge scheduled the next hearing for saturday, allowing the prosecution to rebut this latest testimony. matt?
>>
keith miller
, thank you very
“ ”