Obligatory link for the benefit of new readers.
Burleigh gets the most important question right (Knox and Sollecito are innocent), but her book will drive LW readers crazy: it tries to fit the case into a grandiose narrative about Italian culture that frankly just isn't relevant to what is at bottom an ordinary (if interesting) instance of jumping-to-a-conclusion, confirmation bias, inappropriate deference to authority, and failing to say "oops".
(It also drove me crazy for other reasons.)
I couldn't care less if A. Knox is guilty or innocent, but from my advantage point I can probably elucidate a couple of things that the article (not the book) gets wrong.
If an (informed) Italian is faced with a comparison between Italian and American justice practice (not system), s/he is likely to point out to the rampant racism more than the death penalty, which however could be a close second. Also, faced with the task of remembering some of the injustices perpetrated from the American justice system on Italian's ground, they are far more likely to point to the massacre of Ustica, where (probably, but not with certainty) an american missile hit an Italian plane killing 81 people, while the intended target was a Libic fighter flying nearby.
On the innocence of Knox and Sollecito, however, I know that there's at least a major tabloid which is publicizing their innocence, and so it is likely that at least a good fraction of the population is convinced so.
But blink determinations can be particularly hazardous when they overpower judgments that should more properly be reflective and analytical, such as determining if someone is guilty of a crime. But we all want shortcuts. If we see in the newspaper or on the news that somebody's been accused of a crime, what is the first thing we want to do? We want to see the face of the accused.
You know, with everything I've read about the case, it never even occurred to me to wonder what Amanda Knox looked like. In retrospect I should have wondered much more about what kind of influence her appearance would have on the trial.
I don't buy the implicit (explicit?) argument of the title for a second. Beauty comes with many advantages; show that in all of Italy, beauty's advantages were overall negated and became a disadvantage - that the ugly were favored - and then I might buy that Knox's looks actually contributed to her persecution. As it is, it looks like the fix was in well before the media storm that one might argue continued the persecution.
Two offhand links about the advantages:
Charles Petzold writes about Nina Burleigh's "The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Trials of Amanda Knox".