This Article uses various concepts of Husserlian phenomenology to explain the disparate opinion between the North American and Italian public in response to the prosecution and ultimate acquittal of Amanda Knox. This Article argues that the comparative difference in public opinion is due to an extensive shift in culture that is necessarily accompanied by a shift in spatial-temporal location. In this Article, the Husserlian concepts of intentionality, the Self, the Other-I, and empathy overlay the judicial opinions and media releases critical to shaping North American and Italian public perceptions of Amanda Knox. As applied, these Husserlian concepts function as interpretive lenses, providing the reader with a novel framework for analyzing the cause of interpretive difference across cultures.

The United States’ free speech regime, as codified in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, comes with obvious contrasts to Thailand’s ill-famed lèse–majesté law—Section 112 of the Thai Criminal Code—which prohibits defamation or even truthful degradation of the Thai King and Royal Family. Recent scholarship has focused on such differences and has largely depicted the two regimes as diametric opposites. When viewing the First Amendment and Thailand’s lèse–majesté law in temporal isolation, the recent scholarly consensus has significant merit. However, by analyzing the two regimes over time, similarities arise suggesting that both regimes represent each respective country’s attempt to accommodate competing and changing values present within the respective countries.