Continuation Part Eight: Discussion of the Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito case

[Rolfe]

But at the same time she got some sort of result that was able to be represented as Meredith's DNA. Where did that come from? Entirely within the lab or the machine then?

Rolfe.

 

[anglolawyer]

But at the same time she got some sort of result that was able to be represented as Meredith's DNA. Where did that come from? Entirely within the lab or the machine then?

Rolfe.

That is my surmise, yes. It might (I don't know enough about the subject) explain why she has not disclosed the date of amplification, the negative controls for amplification, the negative controls for electrophoresis, or the EDF files.

Nencini has bought into the idea, very well articulated here by Machiavelli (almost as though he had inside information) that Stef's filing of hard copy negative controls before the preliminary judge in October 2008 makes up for all these deficiencies even though nobody has ever seen these controls, they could not be located when Hellman recessed to look for them, they are no substitute for EDFs anyway and there is nothing stopping her disclosing them now.

 

[acbytesla]

Frank has an interesting article out. His theme is that the Supremes will have to reverse Nencini and he gives some reasons why they annulled Hellman in arguing they will have to do the same thing again. Then we can have a third trial! Or will it be the fourth?

I think it is quite generous to call Nencini's judicial hearing "a trial".

 

[js202]

Thank you, interesting article in as much as the reported comments relating to the Vecchiotti and Conti, if accurate it appears that the Florence motivations are critical of Vecchiotti and Conti findings and then some.

Also the defence teams have 45 days to lodge their appeal, not much time.

There have recently been rumours that water is, indeed, wet.

 

[Diocletus]

Not if:

A they wanted a reason for the test to be non-repeatable, and
B the tampering were being conducted in a country with such a primitive system as Italy

Folks keep forgetting that, so far, Stef's gambit has worked.

ETA and I am going to have pen an idiot's guide to the knife because everyone keeps talking as though there was anything on it in the first place. Maybe it's a question of language. People (surely not you, Rolfe) think a 'sample' means something has been sampled but, here, it just means, I dunno, a cotton bud dipped in alcohol or something has been wiped on the blade and popped into a test tube. Something may have been picked up or not. You test it to find out. Stef tested it with these results:

1 not blood
2 not human
3 no observable cells (in fact she didn't look which itself ought to raise suspicions)
4 no DNA (negative for quantification)

Thus, 'the sample' by all tests conducted on it was indistinguishable from nothing. This is why I like to think it should not be measured in picograms but in tons. The sample weighed zero tons.

I think that Steffi knew right away that the results of this test were not reliable and very likely from contamination. I can imagine that her call with Mignini went something like this:

Stef: . . . so we have all of those results.

Mignini: That's all you did, and you have nothing for me?

Stef: Well, there were other tests, but the results don't meet standards.

Mig: What do you mean?

Stef: The amplifications aren't strong enough to be used.

Mig: Oh, I see. Well, to help out our investigation, tell me what you found.

Stef. Well, just a bunch of noise for the most part. On the kitchen knife, actually, we can see something that has many of Kercher's alleles, but its one of the lowest-level results I've ever seen. It's no good for court.

Mig. I see. Thank you. [Hangs Up]

[Several second go by]

Mig.: Hello, editor of the paper? Guess what. We found the murder weapon at Sollecito's place: Kercher's DNA is on the knife.


At this point, Stef is screwed.

 

[anglolawyer]

I think that Steffi knew right away that the results of this test were not reliable and very likely from contamination. I can imagine that her call with Mignini went something like this:

Stef: . . . so we have all of those results.

Mignini: That's all you did, and you have nothing for me?

Stef: Well, there were other tests, but the results don't meet standards.

Mig: What do you mean?

Stef: The amplifications aren't strong enough to be used.

Mig: Oh, I see. Well, to help out our investigation, tell me what you found.

Stef. Well, just a bunch of noise for the most part. On the kitchen knife, actually, we can see something that has many of Kercher's alleles, but its one of the lowest-level results I've ever seen. It's no good for court.

Mig. I see. Thank you. [Hangs Up]

[Several second go by]

Mig.: Hello, editor of the paper? Guess what. We found the murder weapon at Sollecito's place: Kercher's DNA is on the knife.


At this point, Stef is screwed.

Nope. Not buying. She had no reason to press on passed quantification. She had to throw 36B into the trash with 36C if she was straight up.

 

[Diocletus]

But at the same time she got some sort of result that was able to be represented as Meredith's DNA. Where did that come from? Entirely within the lab or the machine then?

Rolfe.

Yes. Just like the DNA that we found in the negative controls from two of Stef's RT-qPCR runs.

 

[Diocletus]

Nope. Not buying. She had no reason to press on passed quantification. She had to throw 36B into the trash with 36C if she was straight up.

Not sure what you mean. She didn't throw any of the Qubit-quantified samples into the trash.

Don't you read the news? http://murderofmeredithkercher.com/missing-profiles-draft/

36c probably didn't give her a result that she could figure out.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

getting lucky and being biased

Simple question is this; in your opinion, is Stefanoni just the luckiest police lab tech in the world, or did she put her thumb on the scale in some way to reliably infer a result?
If she's just goosing up the machine beyond reliability, unless that guarantees the desired result, it's not what I would consider "gaming". (She has to know before she even starts testing that the knife randomly pulled from Raf's kitchen draw, "will do". How does she know that, or did she know?)

This case definitely needs someone to walk through the DNA evidence in relatively simple terms, possibly for YouTube.

I think Stefanoni got lucky with the knife, but I suspect that she has been doing sloppy work for some time, and perhaps getting lucky in similar ways now and again in other cases.* With respect to the clasp, she claimed that only Meredith's and Raffaele's DNA was present, when it is obvious that there are other contributors, especially to the Y chromosomal egram. Whoever stored the clasp destroyed evidence, probably deliberately. Their should be consequences for that, but I am not holding my breath. I am, however, switching my allegiance from Italian bicycles to Japanese.
*EDT
meaning that if one does sloppy work enough times, some mistakes will show up that are favorable to the prosecution. If one knows that one can hide portions of the data, the mistakes then can become evidence.

 

[CoulsdonUK]

There have recently been rumours that water is, indeed, wet.

Even Italian water? What a crazy world.

 

[Diocletus]

Nope. Not buying. She had no reason to press on passed quantification. She had to throw 36B into the trash with 36C if she was straight up.

BTW, under this scenario, it is the leaking of the knife results to the press by the prosecution/police (we know that this happened on 14 November, probably within hours (minutes?) of when the results were reported by the lab to them) that really harmed the defendants.

The defendants barely had counsel, no labwork was disclosed by them, they had no means to fight back against the knife allegation, and the allegation was tantamount to a statement of guilt.

 

[anglolawyer]

Not sure what you mean. She didn't throw any of the Qubit-quantified samples into the trash.

Don't you read the news? http://murderofmeredithkercher.com/missing-profiles-draft/

36c probably didn't give her a result that she could figure out.

No, I read Conti-Vechiotti

Regarding the interpretation of the quantification, it should be noted that on page 78, the following is stated: “the samples testing positive to quantification (samples A and B) were subjected to amplification and subsequent capillary electrophoresis…”.

i.e. sample C was not. That's what I meant when I said it was 'tossed in the trash'. It was not considered worthwhile amplifying C at all. They go on.

... it is not possible to comprehend the criteria adopted in the assessment of the positive quantification result for sample B and the negative result for sample C, given that the same result, “too low”, was obtained for both samples: that is, a value which must be considered not only below the sensitivity threshold of the Fluorimeter indicated by the manual (DNA concentrations equal to 0.2 ng/μl), but below 0.08 ng/μl, a value which the Fluorimeter detected for sample A.

IOW C and B were indistinguishable. Both were 'too low' for quantification but DStef pressed on with B anyway (lying about it and saying it was positive for quantification - please explain why). And explain why she lied about the device used for quantification too:

Nor is it comprehensible, considering the negative results on sample B, what Dr. Stefanoni reported during the GUP questioning (page 178) where she stated that the DNA in sample B, quantified with Real Time PCR (it is recalled that such quantification as confirmed during the hearing was never carried out or, at least, no documentation was provided to support this claim), was “in the order of some hundreds of picograms”, a value which does not appear in any of the documents provided to us (SAL, Fluorimeter report, Real Time report, RTIGF).

If you have any evidence that C was amplified and run for electrophoresis please pass it on.

 

[Bill Williams]

Thank you, interesting article in as much as the reported comments relating to the Vecchiotti and Conti, if accurate it appears that the Florence motivations are critical of Vecchiotti and Conti findings and then some.

Also the defence teams have 45 days to lodge their appeal, not much time.

Nencini is and Nencini is not - critical of C&V that is.

One of the reasons The Supreme Court overturned Hellmann was not because of C&V, per se. It was because they thought that Hellmann had abdicated his judicial responsibility by letting C&V decide not to test sample 36i on its own. The ISC tasked the Florence trial with correcting this mistake - not of C&V's, but of Hellmann's.

With regard to the other findings of C&V, Nencini simply seems to return to the logic used by Massei, the 1st level judge who did not want an independent test at all. The "logic" with Massei was (basically) if Stefanoni claimed it, it must be true.

To say that the Florence motivations is critical of C&V's findings is not actually true. The motivations will raise certain issues which one assumes might have been picked up later in the document to contribute to a conclusion, then the point is lost.

And if you regard the Florence motivations as having any credibility whatsoever, what do you make of Raffaele's DNA now being claimed on the knife? That was not even claimed by the prosecutor, Crini?

 

[anglolawyer]

BTW, under this scenario, it is the leaking of the knife results to the press by the prosecution/police (we know that this happened on 14 November, probably within hours (minutes?) of when the results were reported by the lab to them) that really harmed the defendants.

The defendants barely had counsel, no labwork was disclosed by them, they had no means to fight back against the knife allegation, and the allegation was tantamount to a statement of guilt.

I don't know what this means TBH. Nothing was more prejudicial to them than that the knife was (and remains) held to be the murder weapon. The press did not make that finding, Italy's judges did.

 

[Desert Fox]

This case definitely needs someone to walk through the DNA evidence in relatively simple terms, possibly for YouTube.

I think Stefanoni got lucky with the knife, but I suspect that she has been doing sloppy work for some time, and perhaps getting lucky in similar ways now and again in other cases. With respect to the clasp, she claimed that only Meredith's and Raffaele's DNA was present, when it is obvious that there are other contributors, especially to the Y chromosomal egram. Whoever stored the clasp destroyed evidence, probably deliberately. Their should be consequences for that, but I am not holding my breath. I am, however, switching my allegiance from Italian bicycles to Japanese.

Years ago, a bike mechanic told me that only Shimano derailleurs are worth anything.

 

[Diocletus]

No, I read Conti-Vechiotti


i.e. sample C was not. That's what I meant when I said it was 'tossed in the trash'. It was not considered worthwhile amplifying C at all. They go on.



IOW C and B were indistinguishable. Both were 'too low' for quantification but DStef pressed on with B anyway (lying about it and saying it was positive for quantification - please explain why). And explain why she lied about the device used for quantification too:



If you have any evidence that C was amplified and run for electrophoresis please pass it on.

Don't you read Nencini? He says that C&V are crooks.

Anyway, how would C&V know what was amplified without access to the amplification records, which they did not have? They are relying solely on Stef's Report, which BTW was WRONG about trace B quantifying "negative,” so why can’t it be wrong about what was amplified?

I gave you a link that shows that trace c was amplified as amplification ID No. 772. If you don't believe it, because no one has seen the amplification records, because Stef has hidden them, and instead, you are trusting Stef, who is the one who has hidden the records . . . well, you should sign up for the credulous forum instead of the skeptics forum.

I'm telling you that every one of the Qubit-quantified samples was amplified. There was no reason (in Stef's world) not to amplify them, because her configuration for the Qubit was incapable of quantifying anything as "negative" or even close to negative.

 

[Diocletus]

I don't know what this means TBH. Nothing was more prejudicial to them than that the knife was (and remains) held to be the murder weapon. The press did not make that finding, Italy's judges did.

My point is that advertising the crap knife result as definitive, knowing that it was crap, denied the defendants an impartial tribunal.

 

[anglolawyer]

Don't you read Nencini? He says that C&V are crooks.

Anyway, how would C&V know what was amplified without access to the amplification records, which they did not have? They are relying solely on Stef's Report, which BTW was WRONG about trace B quantifying "negative,” so why can’t it be wrong about what was amplified?

I gave you a link that shows that trace c was amplified as amplification ID No. 772. If you don't believe it, because no one has seen the amplification records, because Stef has hidden them, and instead, you are trusting Stef, who is the one who has hidden the records . . . well, you should sign up for the credulous forum instead of the skeptics forum.

I'm telling you that every one of the Qubit-quantified samples was amplified. There was no reason (in Stef's world) not to amplify them, because her configuration for the Qubit was incapable of quantifying anything as "negative" or even close to negative.

OK, thanks. That's interesting. I will check the link. So C-V took Stef at her word when she said A-B tested positive for quantification and she proceeded to amplification but that C did not so, inferentially, they assumed she went no further with it. Is that right?

Can you explain the highlighted part? I thought the Qubit returned a 'too low' result and could not be persuaded to do anything more. Cripes! I have even looked at bleedin' manuals of the damn machine to check how it works (this is what comes of engaging too closely with Kaosium btw - be warned )

 

[acbytesla]

Even Italian water? What a crazy world.

We're not sure in Italy. It may be wet or it may just be "compatible" with wet.

 

[anglolawyer]

My point is that advertising the crap knife result as definitive, knowing that it was crap, denied the defendants an impartial tribunal.

You think they decided the knife result was good due to bias and the bias set in when the newspapers were told the knife result was good. Maybe so. They also heard a lot of evidence from both sides and were presumably told by the judges to have regard only to what they saw and heard in court. At least as prejudicial, I would argue more, were:

1 the non-disclosure of relevant records of the scientific tests (which is continuing) and

2 the effective stifling of questions or submissions tending to suggest Stefanoni was corrupt

3 the wilful disregard for rigorous scientific protocols in Italy's courts.