I'm going to throw a monkey wrench into what Diocletus has said are problems with Batch 5. Diocletus says that there is 5 times as much DNA in these samples as there is supposed to be. That doesn't seem right to me. These are "positive samples of DNA" . correct? The are being put in a machine that is supposed to "grow" the DNA in each well by the temperature rising and falling cycles...correct? So wouldn't we expect the DNA to in fact do just that...increase in amount? If they were negative control samples, we would expect the DNA not to increase...but positive control samples should show growth?
Or do I just not understand this? Someone??
This is where I am with this.... given that when it comes to DNA and subsequent forensic analysis I am a simpleton.
I've also discovered that I share a question with The Machine/Harry Rag, you know Harry Rag, he's the guy who for 6 years has carpet bombed every-and-sundry comments' section of every on-line newspiece and Amazon book reviews with lurid tales of FOA PR Supertankers, mixed blood "in abundance" at the cottage, etc., etc.
Harry Rag/The Machine leads the leagues as a hater - and yet strangely he posed a question that (when separated from his obsessive hatred) deserves to be asked.
Why is this surfacing now, if this is DNA-forensics that has been available to folks since the git-go?
Was this part of the copious number of defence requests for testing that kept getting shot down by various judges? Judge Nencini warned-off one of Amanda's lawyers from pursuing a line of questioning about the interrogation, because it bordered on accusing the interrogators of wrongdoing, and the Public Minister (the prosecutor) controlled the keys to charging someone (even defence lawyers) with a crime....
Is this what's happened with the DNA stuff? Is Stefanoni a criminal herself, or just incompetent? Or both?
What I've learned from my own 2 1/2 years reading around the edges of this is that Italian judges don't like (or accept into evidence) the fact that the investigators themselves may be the criminals.
And the following is one thing I found that shows this - it's from the Massei motivations report, about why (even if they'd actually done an audit of the DNA testing machine) why Massei would believe Stefanoni.....
Massei p 298 said:
"Nor, as has already been said, is it possible to hypothesise a contamination in the laboratory since, as was declared by Dr. Stefanoni, during the course of all the analyses, no anomaly occurred, and the fact that all due controls, precautions and procedures of good laboratory practice were complied with necessarily leads us to rule out the possibility of such contamination in the laboratory."
So what Judge Massei wrote back in 2010 is that there was no contamination or misuse of equipment in Stefanoni's lab. Why?
Because Stefanoni told him so.
Yet some people are saying that anomalies DID occur.
So perhaps a partial answer to my own (and The Machine/Harry Rag's) question is..... they DID ask for some sort of audit, and Massei denied it.
What remains of this denial is this notation in Massei's report that he saw no reason to continue in court with such pesky requests from the defence which impugned the professionalism of Stefanoni. I say "what remains" is because if it had not been challenged, why did Massei need to specifically say be believed Stefanoni, if no one was asking the question about machine/labratory-contamination?
Why give an apology for something, if no one was complaining?
What I fear will come up as Cassazione is set to declare two innocent people "murderers" is that Cassazione sees it as more important to keep the status quo of its own hopelessly broken system, rather than free one of its own citizens and declare innocent a woman from Seattle....
So maybe, I don't go fully with The Machine/Harry Rag, which is a little bit of a relief, believe you me.
. That's what she did in her lab.