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

[Diocletus]

There are a swarm of Flies feeding on this article, CaliDeeva, Yves L., etc. Where do these people come from?

Flies come from maggots.

 

[CoulsdonUK]

I actually think there are two kinds of guilters; those who think they're right, and those who know they're wrong.

The former are usually low information types. The latter are something else entirely. Mischievous, sadistic, criminal, loathsome.

I'm not sure there's any value in engaging with either. But I can see the benefit of watching the guiters get confronted with argument, and having to defend their positions. I just can't.

Fact is though, their positions are not defensible. So when cornered, they resort to ad hominem attacks, or just run away and bad mouth on their own enabler recovery sites.

It's a strange group for sure. Wonder what they'll do when innocence is formally recognized?

I find there are examples of pontification on both sides of this case in guise of sweeping statements being made by individuals, for example when people speak of “guilters” as though they are a recently discovered tribe of Homo Sapiens who have developed differently than pro-innocence folk; they think differently, probably look different, it’s easy to see how elitism or racism can spring up out of nowhere.

The behaviour you describes exist on both sides.

 

[analemma]

Flies come from maggots.

ANOTHER ONE!!!!!
Stunning Interview by Amanda Knox with Chris Cuomo
The author is, get this, "Eyes for Lies Deception and Credibility Expert"
Lots and lots of flies here high fiving each other with Gusto
"defenders on the PR payroll have sociopath tendancies"
Where do the Italian judges find and hire these people?

 

[Diocletus]

I find there are examples of pontification on both sides of this case in guise of sweeping statements being made by individuals, for example when people speak of “guilters” as though they are a recently discovered tribe of Homo Sapiens who have developed differently than pro-innocence folk; they think differently, probably look different, it’s easy to see how elitism or racism can spring up out of nowhere.

The behaviour you describes exist on both sides.

Blah blah blah.

They're wrong.

 

[analemma]

ANOTHER ONE!!!!!
Stunning Interview by Amanda Knox with Chris Cuomo
The author is, get this, "Eyes for Lies Deception and Credibility Expert"
Lots and lots of flies here high fiving each other with Gusto
"defenders on the PR payroll have sociopath tendancies"
Where do the Italian judges find and hire these people?

The astrologer at examiner.com is in on it also!!!!!!
They REALLY lie it up: Mixed Blood, no Guede DNA, the works!!!!!

 

[js202]

I find there are examples of pontification on both sides of this case in guise of sweeping statements being made by individuals, for example when people speak of “guilters” as though they are a recently discovered tribe of Homo Sapiens who have developed differently than pro-innocence folk; they think differently, probably look different, it’s easy to see how elitism or racism can spring up out of nowhere.

The behaviour you describes exist on both sides.

Sez you. Presumably an objective and blameless arbiter between the two sides? Spare us the blandishments, please.

ETA It is also duly noted that you conveniently forget to observe that, in addition to being mean-spirited and intellectually unsubtle, the typical "guilter" is singularly burdened by the inconvenient attribute of BEING WRONG.

 

[Desert Fox]

I find there are examples of pontification on both sides of this case in guise of sweeping statements being made by individuals, for example when people speak of “guilters” as though they are a recently discovered tribe of Homo Sapiens who have developed differently than pro-innocence folk; they think differently, probably look different, it’s easy to see how elitism or racism can spring up out of nowhere.

The behaviour you describes exist on both sides.

Question, what are your thoughts on those who argue for creationism?

Look, I gave those who argue for guilt to argue their case to me. . .
I got no answer. Maybe I would have disagreed but you would expect that they could at least argue their case.
Does that not say anything to you?

 

[acbytesla]

Test?

Since they moved yesterday's post to closed thread, I was checking to see if the old thread is still working. Seems like someone at JREF was playing a trick on us.

 

[kwill]

One thing I think about the pro-guilt side is that they are not even willing to examine the pro innocent arguments instead dismissing them out of hand. I am quite willing to examine any pro-guilt arguments.
<snip>

<snip> I can see the benefit of watching the guilters get confronted with argument, and having to defend their positions. <snip>

I find there are examples of pontification on both sides of this case in guise of sweeping statements being made by individuals, for example when people speak of “guilters” as though they are a recently discovered tribe of Homo Sapiens who have developed differently than pro-innocence folk; they think differently, probably look different, it’s easy to see how elitism or racism can spring up out of nowhere.

The behaviour you describes exist on both sides.

I don't think that's quite fair, CoulsdonUK. The assertion was that the people who believe AK & RS are guilty of murder do not confront arguments about the case and do not defend their position with facts. The sweeping statement you refer to is just that -- the PGP have demonstrated repeatedly that they have no desire to honestly confront any issues that might undermine their convictions.

It's probably not helpful to guess about the psychology of what that might mean, but the statement itself is true.

For one small example, I once got into an extended wrangle with Mach about whether or not AK was really an honor student at a respected university. He simply refused to accept that those facts were in evidence. Her grades and history as a student meant nothing to him, as compared to details that he was convinced showed her true nature as a "party girl."

I brought up the ranking of the UW as compared to other schools. I showed him evidence about the difficulty of getting admitted, and the rigor of a foreign language major. There were many statements on the record from her former teachers and fellow students, all of which spoke to her diligence and determination.

All for nothing. The reality of a hard-working college student with an ambitious academic workload was invisible to him. That's what I mean when I say that the PGP refuse to engage in an honest discussion. AK the honor student in a difficult program at a quality university was incongruent with the person they have conjured . . . so, big shrug.

I could give you a dozen examples, and I've only been reading these threads carefully for a few months.

 

[NancyS]

I find there are examples of pontification on both sides of this case in guise of sweeping statements being made by individuals, for example when people speak of “guilters” as though they are a recently discovered tribe of Homo Sapiens who have developed differently than pro-innocence folk; they think differently, probably look different, it’s easy to see how elitism or racism can spring up out of nowhere.

The behaviour you describes exist on both sides.

I disagree and would say that there is much more rigid thinking on the pro-guilt side. The main problem I have with people who believe in their guilt, is that they also seem completely happy with the standards of evidence collection and also seem to believe that this has been a completely fair process. Can you tell me whether you think it is fair that:

1) Independently criticised DNA evidence is still being used to send people to prison for almost 30-years
2) Basic standards of care regarding evidence collection have not been followed
3) Amanda and Raffaele were tried and convicted by a hostile media prior to the trial even starting - often based on false information
4) conclusions from Guede's trial seem to have been used to convict in the latest trial
5) statements made by Guede have been used in the latest conviction, but Guede has never been cross examined

Regardless of whether you believe they are innocent or guilty, the above should still make you angry if you believe a fair trial is important - and I will never understand the pro-guilt people who argue the above points are fair and just

And as they were found innocent in the Hellman trial, I don't understand how people who know anything about the case, can claim they are guilty beyond all reasonable doubt

 

[acbytesla]

I don't think that's quite fair, CoulsdonUK. The assertion was that the people who believe AK & RS are guilty of murder do not confront arguments about the case and do not defend their position with facts. The sweeping statement you refer to is just that -- the PGP have demonstrated repeatedly that they have no desire to honestly confront any issues that might undermine their convictions.

It's probably not helpful to guess about the psychology of what that might mean, but the statement itself is true.

For one small example, I once got into an extended wrangle with Mach about whether or not AK was really an honor student at a respected university. He simply refused to accept that those facts were in evidence. Her grades and history as a student meant nothing to him, as compared to details that he was convinced showed her true nature as a "party girl."

I brought up the ranking of the UW as compared to other schools. I showed him evidence about the difficulty of getting admitted, and the rigor of a foreign language major. There were many statements on the record from her former teachers and fellow students, all of which spoke to her diligence and determination.

All for nothing. The reality of a hard-working college student with an ambitious academic workload was invisible to him. That's what I mean when I say that the PGP refuse to engage in an honest discussion. AK the honor student in a difficult program at a quality university was incongruent with the person they have conjured . . . so, big shrug.

I could give you a dozen examples, and I've only been reading these threads carefully for a few months.

Unfortunately this is true. None of it holds up actual logical analysis based on the facts. I don't know Amanda or Raffaele. Never met them. Probably never will. If the evidence was conclusive, I'd put the rope around their necks. They would deserve neither sympathy or forgiveness on this earth.

I have been begging for three years those in the PGP to present a compelling and persuasive argument for their guilt that is based on something other than "gut" feeling, or their eyes, or the tenor of their voices..or that they "just know". But they either won't, or they can't.

What's great about JREF, is that none of that kind of nonsense survives the magnifying focus of intellectual discussion and reasoning.

This is why I'm an agnostic/atheist. While it would be nice to have some fatherly figure up in the heavens looking out for me and I do appreciate how faith is something that helps people be strong in the face of adversity. I see no evidence from religion that stands up to intellectual and scientific reasoning.

I've been wrong before, it wouldn't bother me one bit if I was proved wrong again. All I ask is that someone actually try and present a logical argument based on the evidence.

 

[Desert Fox]

Unfortunately this is true. None of it holds up actual logical analysis based on the facts. I don't know Amanda or Raffaele. Never met them. Probably never will. If the evidence was conclusive, I'd put the rope around their necks. They would deserve neither sympathy or forgiveness on this earth.

I don't think that is right. . . .
If they committed the murder and rape, there is something wrong inside them.
They would probably need to be kept away from the population at large but I don't consider them to deserve the noose.

 

[carbonjam72]

They aren't 'two sides' to the truth.

Originally Posted by carbonjam72
I actually think there are two kinds of guilters; those who think they're right, and those who know they're wrong.

The former are usually low information types. The latter are something else entirely. Mischievous, sadistic, criminal, loathsome.

I'm not sure there's any value in engaging with either. But I can see the benefit of watching the guiters get confronted with argument, and having to defend their positions. I just can't.

Fact is though, their positions are not defensible. So when cornered, they resort to ad hominem attacks, or just run away and bad mouth on their own enabler recovery sites.

It's a strange group for sure. Wonder what they'll do when innocence is formally recognized?

I find there are examples of pontification on both sides of this case in guise of sweeping statements being made by individuals, for example when people speak of “guilters” as though they are a recently discovered tribe of Homo Sapiens who have developed differently than pro-innocence folk; they think differently, probably look different, it’s easy to see how elitism or racism can spring up out of nowhere.

The behaviour you describes exist on both sides.

The claim that 'both sides do it' is a symptom of the problem. Both sides are not the same.

Pro-innocence people believe that the absence of any evidence against Amanda and Rafaele is an indication of their innocence, not convincing evidence that they selectively cleaned up all traces of themselves, including only their own DNA.

Pro-innocence people don't believe the the confused statements of a naive young college student couple, resulting from a brutal overnight illegal unrecorded police interrogation, pre-planned for days in advance to soften them up through sleep deprivation and physical exhaustion, are actually lies intended to deflect attention from their own guilt. And take this as evidence of complicity in a horrifyingly violent murder and sexual assault. Believing instead the statements were caused by police abuse, and fully merit prosecution.

Pro-innocence people believe that the people who have known Amanda her whole life and describe her as the gentlest person they have ever known, are more credible than the sex obsessed prosecutor and profit seeking tabloids, depicting her as a sex crazed drugged up killer, "foxy Knoxy", with a dual nature, solely to drum up sales and create controversy where none genuinely exists.

Pro-Innocence people believe that the people who have known Rafaele his whole life and say the same things about his gentle nature, don't believe he would suddenly 'choose to do evil'. Rather that by refusing to give false evidence against a girl he had known for 5 or 6 days before the murder in exchange for his freedom or a lighter sentence, he has shown profound, immense courage and integrity, demonstrating beyond doubt the fact of his good character.

Pro-Innocence people don't find a prosecutor credible who bases his prosecutorial theories on the internet postings of a TV psychic Gabriella Carlizzi, who claims to receive her "illuminations" from a long dead vatican exorcist Father Gabriel. Nor that his similar claims of satanic sex cults and ritual murders in a parallel investigation relating to the Monster of Florence case, ensnaring 20 or so wholly innocent and blameless Italian citizens in an imagined satanic sexual fetish cult, had any more merit than his and the 'psychic' Carlizzi's recycling these same discredited claims in this case.

Pro-innocence people don't believe that what looks like a simple break-in through a second floor window, is a staged break-in; it's just a break-in - exactly the same type as the sole culprit Guede had done in the past. An issue that could be settled, if the prosecution would allow the shattered glass to be tested, but won't. There are too many examples of prosecutorial obstruction to list, it is an encyclopedia of misconduct.

Pro-innocence people believe the prosecution's refusal to allow the testing of any evidence that would disprove their bizarre paradoxical theories of crime, are itself a reflection of the utter lack of plausibility of their case.

Finally, pro-innocence people believe in justice, reason, logic, science, truth, and the honor and integrity of law enforcement and the courts. That's why we're all so disappointed with this tragic fiasco of a case. It draws into question whether the EU country of Italy can be said to have a modern functioning judiciary, or whether it is a failed backwards medieval society enthrall to superstition, mob rule, and their tabloid's dark chronicles who serially profit from such cases at the expense of the innocent.

So no, we're not the same at all. There is no equivalency between the two camps. Guilters of all stripes, are truly not like other people.

And if that sounds like more pontificating, then perhaps confession is in order.

 

[acbytesla]

I don't think that is right. . . .
If they committed the murder and rape, there is something wrong inside them.
They would probably need to be kept away from the population at large but I don't consider them to deserve the noose.

Well, I'm against Capital Punishment DF. But not because I don't believe that the guilty don't deserve it, but because I know that the system is unjust and capricious. That we apply capital punishment in a bizarrely arbitrary fashion. People like Garry Ridgeway are allowed to live?? Excuse me??

I also know that the system is wrong too much to accept the ultimate penalty. And then there is the cost involved. It is actually significantly cheaper to house someone for 40 years than it is to go through 15 years of legal appeals.

I can appreciate that some people are against it on moral grounds that it is just wrong to kill. I was just trying to make it clear to any and all guilters, that I have no love for Amanda Knox or Raffaele and I'm open to an intellectual argument for their guilt and challenge any of them to present one.

 

[Desert Fox]

CJ72:
I would argue that I don't take much stock in people saying that AK/RS are the nicest people you ever meet. This has been said about some of the most horrible people ever known.

I don't consider them either angels or devils

It has some weight but if the crime scene showed them to be guilty, I would accept that they are guilty.

 

[Desert Fox]

Well, I'm against Capital Punishment DF. But not because I don't believe that the guilty don't deserve it, but because I know that the system is unjust and capricious. That we apply capital punishment in a bizarrely arbitrary fashion. People like Garry Ridgeway are allowed to live?? Excuse me??

I also know that the system is wrong too much to accept the ultimate penalty. And then there is the cost involved. It is actually significantly cheaper to house someone for 40 years than it is to go through 15 years of legal appeals.

I can appreciate that some people are against it on moral grounds that it is just wrong to kill. Ii was just trying to make it clear to any and all guilters, that I have no love for Amanda Knox or Raffaele and I'm open to an intellectual argument for their guilt and challenge any of them to present one.

I just watched a documentary on Andrea Yates and that Texas both sought the death penalty and argued that she was not considered insane. If anybody is mentally ill and deserving consider insane it is her. I actually understand the jury not wanting to classify her as insane so that she cannot go free in a few years but the state seeking the death penalty?

 

[codyjuneau]

Vibio,

From the Borsini-Belardi report: "Then, apart from the attempt to staunch the flow of blood from the wound and the proof that it was not he that held the knife that was compatible with the worst of the lesions, it should also be remembered that Guede was the only one, even if in a somewhat fanciful reconstruction of events, to indicate the perpetrators." If Guede were shown mitigation for identifying the others that participated (as indicated in this passage), then the distinction you tried to maintain collapses.

Karate is specifically mentioned several times on p. 369 of the English translation, and "Meredith's physical and personality characteristics" is mentioned on p. 370. There is a good deal of additional conjecture that ignores expert opinion in this section (that almost goes without saying when discussing the Massei report). As for how the defense will respond to Nencini's treading over fundamental principles of judicial fairness in bringing in Guede's trials, we will have to wait for the appeal documents and then see.

Personally I like the idea of motivations reports. What I think is highly questionable is that in them the presiding judge can make up his or her own theory of the crime, against which the defense has had no chance to respond. Whether it is better to have both or neither is an interesting question.

.
I also like the idea of Motivation documents. I think accused persons deserve them as a fundamental right. I wish we had them in Canada.

Perhaps it should be the prosecuting team that has to provide a Motivations document before the trial begins, or maybe even before charges are laid. The judge and jury would have to stick to the prosecution's script and either approve or disapprove it, plus provide a document giving their reasons for doing so.

If the prosecuting team had to produce a motivations document they might be more likely to find the evidence first, and charge people later, rather than the other way around. It would also force them to put some serious thought into assembling the evidence they have into a consistent and believable theory.
.

 

[acbytesla]

I just watched a documentary on Andrea Yates and that Texas both sought the death penalty and argued that she was not considered insane. If anybody is mentally ill and deserving consider insane it is her. I actually understand the jury not wanting to classify her as insane so that she cannot go free in a few years but the state seeking the death penalty?

That's Texas for you.

 

[acbytesla]

.
I also like the idea of Motivation documents. I think accused persons deserve them as a fundamental right. I wish we had them in Canada.

Perhaps it should be the prosecuting team that has to provide a Motivations document before the trial begins, or maybe even before charges are laid. The judge and jury would have to stick to the prosecution's script and either approve or disapprove it, plus provide a document giving their reasons for doing so.

If the prosecuting team had to produce a motivations document they might be more likely to find the evidence first, and charge people later, rather than the other way around. It would also force them to put some serious thought into assembling the evidence they have into a consistent and believable theory.
.

I do too. It makes the state specify the reasoning for it's verdict. That way, the reasoning, not just the verdict is up for review. But I don't like professional jurists. They stop representing truth and justice and end up representing the state.

 

[Diocletus]

.
I also like the idea of Motivation documents. I think accused persons deserve them as a fundamental right. I wish we had them in Canada.

Perhaps it should be the prosecuting team that has to provide a Motivations document before the trial begins, or maybe even before charges are laid. The judge and jury would have to stick to the prosecution's script and either approve or disapprove it, plus provide a document giving their reasons for doing so.

If the prosecuting team had to produce a motivations document they might be more likely to find the evidence first, and charge people later, rather than the other way around. It would also force them to put some serious thought into assembling the evidence they have into a consistent and believable theory.
.

Really? If I'm acquitted of a crime, I don't want anything to do with any "Motivation" document--who cares.

If I'm convicted, I guess a "Motivation" is OK, since it might give some additional reasons to appeal.

One thing I've always wondered, though, is what relationship the Italian's judge's "Motivation" actually has to the jurors' deliberations. Do we think that they discussed in detail all of the points raised in the Nencini Report, or is the Report just some post facto justification for a decision that was made for different reasons?