Continuation Part 10: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Bill Williams]

I would have stronger opinions about the jury system if I ever saw some juries in operation. Being a lawyer is no guarantee against stupidity, as this case (A & R) shows. I suppose one of its justifications has more to do with being tried by ones peers in preference to state functionaries. The theory is that jurors are supposed to pool their experience and good sense but how that plays out in practise I'm not sure. Sometimes one has the feeling that jurors are reluctant to acquit in the most serious cases due to placing too much trust in the competence and integrity of or being awed by the prosecution.

ETA and you're wrong about Peterson.

What? He's not a swine?

 

[anglolawyer]

Yes, Death Penalty is tragic in the US. But we loves us our guns, and half the US doesn't believe in evolution last I heard (including possibly, former president GW Bush, jr, but I can't even believe that's true).

--------
Chico Forte -

I don't have a great grasp of the details, I'd hate to misstate it. Hoping someone else has a better handle and can give a quick review. Or I'll come back with a quick outline.
(OK, this is bad, I just copy pasted from Italian wikipedia below, crunched through google translate, is that wrong?)

or a much longer explanation at this site: http://www.chicoforti.com/?q=node/26

From What I Recall: The weird thing was Chico picked up a guy at the airport, then dropped him off at a restaurant parking at his request to meet some friends, and the guy was killed a short time later, execution style. Police used Chico Forte's cell phone (I believe) to place him "in the area", but not at the crime. Chico had lied about picking up the guy at the airport I think. It's a convoluted backstory of real estate swindling, and Forte was a champion wind surfer, so its a weird story. Forte's downstairs neighbor was somehow involved, and the local prosecutor was in some way especially sketchy. Wish I had a better review -

Here's the Italian Wikipedia version - not much there, and it translates his name "Forte" as literally "Strong" so it reads a little goofy.

I'm sorry but I can't base an opinion on that. Never mind.

 

[Desert Fox]

Nothing conflicts with this theory except, perhaps, the unexplored avenues that interest RWVBWL, Cody and a few others here, none of which have anything to do with A & R.

Maybe it is just me but I consider it the prosecution's job to show beyond reasonable doubt if somebody else is responsible.

 

[kwill]

I would have stronger opinions about the jury system if I ever saw some juries in operation. Being a lawyer is no guarantee against stupidity, as this case (A & R) shows. I suppose one of its justifications has more to do with being tried by ones peers in preference to state functionaries. The theory is that jurors are supposed to pool their experience and good sense but how that plays out in practise I'm not sure. Sometimes one has the feeling that jurors are reluctant to acquit in the most serious cases due to placing too much trust in the competence and integrity of or being awed by the prosecution.

I was on a jury once in US Federal Court -- a long & very involved case having to do with an elaborate scheme to avoid paying taxes. 7 defendants. multiple attorneys. undercover testimony, complete with video. dozens of witnesses.

Because jurors can't discuss the case until the court gives it to them, none of us knew what the others were thinking about what was going on for many weeks . . . when we were finally allowed to talk to each other, I was gobsmacked to realize that more than half the group had not understood the first thing about the alleged crimes. Very freaky experience.

And yet we managed to get it mostly right (imo, of course) and convicted the lot of them. A couple of years later I was at a party in west Seattle, and this guy approached me to ask if we'd met. Some come on! But he was serious, and so we started asking each other questions. This school? That church? This neighborhood?

And then he said, "Were you ever on a jury?"

And I replied, "Oh my god. I convicted your client."

It was the weirdest thing -- almost like meeting a character in a book you read a long time ago. I'd spent almost 2 full months looking at him across a room. We spent the next hour talking about the case, and about what had happened in the jury room. His clients were acquitted on appeal, but all the rest went to prison.

 

[Bill Williams]

I was on a jury once in US Federal Court -- a long & very involved case having to do with an elaborate scheme to avoid paying taxes. 7 defendants. multiple attorneys. undercover testimony, complete with video. dozens of witnesses.

Because jurors can't discuss the case until the court gives it to them, none of us knew what the others were thinking about what was going on for many weeks . . . when we were finally allowed to talk to each other, I was gobsmacked to realize that more than half the group had not understood the first thing about the alleged crimes. Very freaky experience.

A buddy of mine was on a jury involving alleged contract killings orchestrated by the accused, known drug traffickers.

He could not discuss the case, except to say which case it was - celebrated in our area at the time. The jury acquitted the pair, but the Crown appealed the acquittals only to have one of them later shot from behind while dancing at a nightclub before the appeal was considered - so the appeals did not result in a new trial(!).

But he did say almost exactly what you said. The jury had not spoken with each other until given permission for deliberation. Half of the twelve, he said, could not give a one sentence opinion of the instructions they'd been given, much less remember what he considered salient testimony. He did not use the word "gobsmacked", but that was close... he said it was surreal and chilling that *this* was the way we decided things after all the lawyers and judge were finished.

 

[codyjuneau]

The real reason he won't DF, is that he was just being sarcastic.

When I use sarcasm, I like there to be some tie into reality.
That way, somebody can look at it as sarcasm but still consider it as making a point.

.
It is difficult to be sarcastic when one is on the 'butt' side of the fence. Platonov should consider switching sides so he has ammunition to work with.

Cody
.

 

[carbonjam72]

Another case of a weird confession, after long grilling, that prosecutors can't let go of. Looks like a giant mistake, but once they extract a confession, its like they just can't let go -

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/15/n...ouched-by-a-school-intern.html?mabReward=RI:5

...

Ms. Fisher-Byrialsen has characterized Mr. Thomsen’s statement as a false confession, because detectives told her client that there were videos of him putting children’s hands on his genitals, though there were none, and because they promised him leniency and psychological treatment in Denmark, which they could not necessarily provide.

Under state law, the police officers are permitted to lie when questioning suspects, so long as they are not coercive. In Denmark, Ms. Fisher-Byrialsen said, this is not the case, so when the people questioning Mr. Thomsen told him they had a video, he assumed it was true.

“In Denmark, the whole country is in shock,” she said. “They can’t understand how the justice system works like this.”

Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the American Embassy in Copenhagen on Thursday, protesting the treatment of Mr. Thomsen, Danish news outlets reported.

Ms. Ferrari, the prosecutor, said that Mr. Thomsen’s confession was legitimate and that his lawyer was “making false claims about what happened in the confession.”

The assistant teacher who contacted the authorities, Mariangela Kefalas, first took her accusations to her bosses at the school.
Mr. Thomsen was then placed under observation by school officials, who found nothing suspicious, closed the investigation and fired Ms. Kefalas after she declined to turn over videos she had surreptitiously taken of him. The videos showed Mr. Thomsen hugging children and playing with them on his lap, but they were not sexually explicit, according to a lawyer Ms. Kefalas has retained.

 

[Grinder]

What do you propose to do with your categories? Life throws up infinite variations and combinations of fact that resist systemisation. Every case must be decided on its own facts. The circumstantial case against A and R is not just weak but non-existent, resting on a tissue of lies most of which, even if true, are mutually contradictory, exculpatory or simply impossible to reduce into a coherent and credible case. Contrast Gilroy and Scott Peterson. Even Bill should accept that the circumstances in Peterson allow one to construct a coherent narrative all pointing the same way, even if he doesn't think the result is enough to erase all reasonable doubt.

A second book of Grinder will lay out the new categories. Grinder will be thought of as a Locard or Occam

My point was and is that people will say that a case was based all on circumstantial evidence and therefore is weak when in fact it can be the strongest evidence possible. It seems to me that putting turning phones off on the same level as fingerprints left in the victim's blood is counterproductive. DNA on the victim and being confused about exact times and noting of a phone call are of such different importance just calling them both circumstantial is lacking.

Perhaps the law has already made a distinction that hasn't reached the mere rabble.

 

[Desert Fox]

For as long as there has been any sort of legal system, confessions have long been the gold standard. Even confessions extracted through torture were considered valid.
This is something that has to be completely reconsidered.

 

[Bill Williams]

A second book of Grinder will lay out the new categories. Grinder will be thought of as a Locard or Occam

My point was and is that people will say that a case was based all on circumstantial evidence and therefore is weak when in fact it can be the strongest evidence possible. It seems to me that putting turning phones off on the same level as fingerprints left in the victim's blood is counterproductive. DNA on the victim and being confused about exact times and noting of a phone call are of such different importance just calling them both circumstantial is lacking.

Perhaps the law has already made a distinction that hasn't reached the mere rabble.

Preach it, brother......

 

[anglolawyer]

A second book of Grinder will lay out the new categories. Grinder will be thought of as a Locard or Occam

My point was and is that people will say that a case was based all on circumstantial evidence and therefore is weak when in fact it can be the strongest evidence possible. It seems to me that putting turning phones off on the same level as fingerprints left in the victim's blood is counterproductive. DNA on the victim and being confused about exact times and noting of a phone call are of such different importance just calling them both circumstantial is lacking.

Perhaps the law has already made a distinction that hasn't reached the mere rabble.

Yes, we call some evidence 'strong' evidence while other evidence is just evidence. To muddy the waters, there is also 'weak' evidence. We have all bases covered

 

[Samson]

Yes, we call some evidence 'strong' evidence while other evidence is just evidence. To muddy the waters, there is also 'weak' evidence. We have all bases covered

I just read this remarkable post by Nell on dot net.

In the time between the 18th of October leading up to the day of the murder, the girls exchange a few messages and phone calls. On the 31st of October Amanda Knox sent Meredith an SMS:
Quote:
”What are you doing tonight? Want to meet? Do you have a costume?”

Meredith replied a few minutes later:

Quote:
”Yes, I have to go to a friend’s house for dinner. What’s your program?”Amanda Knox responds:

Quote:
I’m going to Le Chic for a while and then, who knows? Maybe we meet? Call me."

There are no further phone calls or text messages after that except for the time after the murder.

This is new to me, and I see it as strong evidence of whatever brand that they were getting on very well indeed.
ETA.
Nell continues
Meredith’s last text message to Amanda Knox stands out for me as she did not invite Amanda Knox to join her and her friends and Amanda apparently saw a possibility she would change her mind.

Having uncovered this exchange Nell is bizarrely dredging a motive for murder? I believe a deconstruction much more logically says that Meredith saw her dinner with friends as something that may be followed with meeting up, but neither girl pursued this. This seems very normal in the fluid and informal way of students.
I now fully believe Amanda is claiming in the best of faith to have been Meredith's friend right up to the tragedy.

 

[Desert Fox]

Let us assume that Meredeth did say a few things to friends Amanda, I know I have complained about my roommates but that does not mean that I really even mean them in an serious manner.

 

[acbytesla]

I think that circumstantial evidence should have two categories at least. Hard circumstantial such as finger prints, DNA associated directly with the crime (semen in and on the body, fingerprints in blood or in a place the suspect had only a reason to be if involved in the crime, bullet from a gun owned by the suspect etc.) and soft circumstantial such as phone patterns, general behavior, etc.

In this case the phone activity is not consistent with a planned murder as they would have left the phones on but at Raf's.

The phone activity shows nothing. There really is no way to say for sure that the phones were off or simply out of contact with a cell tower. And it has no meaning at all if they deliberately turned them off. I agree with you that the value of any specific circumstantial evidence varies significantly on what it is.

 

[Samson]

The phone activity shows nothing. There really is no way to say for sure that the phones were off or simply out of contact with a cell tower. And it has no meaning at all if they deliberately turned them off. I agree with you that the value of any specific circumstantial evidence varies significantly on what it is.

I always thought the phone turning off fitted very well the unexpected night off, the fact Raffaele's father was a very frequent caller, and that Amanda saw him turn his off and followed suit.

 

[Desert Fox]

I always thought the phone turning off fitted very well the unexpected night off, the fact Raffaele's father was a very frequent caller, and that Amanda saw him turn his off and followed suit.

I would likely just put my phone on vibrate but it is not unreasonable idea.
I do know some people who do still shut their phone off.

 

[kwill]

I now fully believe Amanda is claiming in the best of faith to have been Meredith's friend right up to the tragedy.

Of course she was.

There's no record anywhere at all that says Amanda had any problem at all with Meredith. She liked her, she thought of her as a friend, she didn't know that Meredith & the English women were talking about her behind her back.

That's what the testimony and the phone texts and the emails home all show. Amanda liked Meredith. She liked her Italian housemates, too. Why does anybody believe Mignini's bizarre fantasy of jealousy and rage? It's incomprehensible.

Whatever the English women said later about how Meredith felt about Amanda or how they felt about Amanda is on them. Amanda herself never said a critical word about Meredith to anybody, or you can be dead sure we'd have heard about it. She thought they were friends, which was just one of the many reasons she had a hard time understanding that she was actually being suspected as the killer.

 

[Desert Fox]

What is the timeline of claims of Meredeth's complaints about Amanda?
If after Amanda was arrested, it could very easily be in retro-diction.
If if Meredeth said something, it could easily have grown in the telling.

 

[acbytesla]

I would likely just put my phone on vibrate but it is not unreasonable idea.
I do know some people who do still shut their phone off.

I do all the time. So does my best friend when he comes home.

 

[kwill]

What is the timeline of claims of Meredeth's complaints about Amanda?
If after Amanda was arrested, it could very easily be in retro-diction.
If if Meredeth said something, it could easily have grown in the telling.

As far as I know, the only complaints Meredith ever made to anybody were in the form of casual gossip with the English women. Amanda kept a vibrator in their shared bathroom. Amanda didn't know that she was supposed to use a toilet brush to clean up after herself every time she used the bathroom. Amanda played the same guitar chord over and over. Amanda was too loud.

It's all irrelevant, though, because the sniping goes the wrong way. Amanda liked Meredith, never spoke ill of her, and of course did not kill her out of jealousy, rage, pique, or for any other reason.

The real question is how Mignini got from Meredith talking smack about Amanda to Amanda hating her enough to murder her. Crazytown stuff.