The jury's out on Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito ? the verdict on whether their conviction for the murder of Meredith Kercher will be reinstated is expected later today ? but the rest of the world appears to have made its mind up. Public opinion (as reflected by the media) has made an about-turn in their favour. The novelist Nathaniel Rich has twice defended Knox and Sollecito at length: in Rolling Stone and the New York Review of Books. Simon Hattenstone has done so in the Guardian. Casey Greenfield in the Huffington Post has gone so far as to claim that "if Knox were homely, or modest, or male, she'd probably never have been charged to begin with".

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