Continuation Part 10: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[lonepinealex]

If anything, I find US culture (as in, TV shows and movies) on the whole more conservative than ours. Which is obviously not the same as people's real-life attitudes, but it's worth mentioning.

E.g. when American actors do promotional tours and appear on UK chat shows, they are always amazed that they are allowed to swear.

 

[anglolawyer]

Well, I strike up conversations with people I don't know all the time actually Anglo, but my career for 30 years has been in sales and being able to make connections with people easily is really part of the job. I practice that constantly, so it's not awkward (I admit, it still feels awkward some of the time depending on the people)

Still, I'd bet college aged kids manage to "hook up" as they say just as easily at Leeds as they do at the University of Washington.

All Americans are in sales. Or they are all cut out for it.

ETA and you are dead right about the hooking up thing.

 

[whoanellie]

All Americans are in sales. Or they are all cut out for it.

I'm not.

 

[anglolawyer]

I'm not.

All except one then

 

[Desert Fox]

Prosecution is the crown prosecution service for England - national civil service lawyers. Who will decide whether to prosecute is it in the public interest and on the balance of the probabilities will they get a conviction (BARD). The prosecutor in court will be a barrister, self employed gun for hire lawyers who will specialise in areas of law e.g. criminal and do both defence and prosecution (in different cases obviously), though some tend to be more defence and others more prosecution. The judges will be selected from successful barristers. You can be a part time judge and also be a prosecuting and defence lawyer, senior judges will be full time. In theory they are royal appointments though on the advice of the Lord Chancellor advised by the judicial appointments committee. So no elected officials in the legal system in the UK. Wales and northern Ireland are very similar. Scotland has its own system somewhat different, but no elected persons.

I mean to ask about this:
Is your defense lawyer always selected for you then or can you hire one?
Generally, you get a better lawyer if you hire although they are some good public defenders and some really bad hired lawyers.

 

[carbonjam72]

'one fifth of Italy, including Sollecito', or, 'only Sollecito'

Wasn't it Vecchiotti who said that she could even find the president of the courts DNA on the clasp depending on which way the mixed traces were interpreted?

Chris H, I had this question too. Wondering if you could help clarify on this point?

 

[Bill Williams]

If anything, I find US culture (as in, TV shows and movies) on the whole more conservative than ours. Which is obviously not the same as people's real-life attitudes, but it's worth mentioning.

E.g. when American actors do promotional tours and appear on UK chat shows, they are always amazed that they are allowed to swear.

Then again there's that old story of an American man on a cruise ship who met a right-proper Brit woman at dinner one night. They retired to her cabin where they proceeded to have a torrid affair....

On landing at port he spied her ahead of him in the debarkation area. Running ahead he caught her by the arm and asked, "Would you like to go to lunch?"

She refused, because they had not been properly introduced.....

 

[Bill Williams]

All Americans are in sales. Or they are all cut out for it.

ETA and you are dead right about the hooking up thing.

I bet you they aren't.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

possible interpretations of what Dr. Vecchiotti meant

Wasn't it Vecchiotti who said that she could even find the president of the courts DNA on the clasp depending on which way the mixed traces were interpreted?

IIUC Dr. Vecchiotti used a set of guidelines for interpretation of mixtures in which one takes peaks in stutter position (one repeat unit shorter than another peak) as true alleles. Dr Balding wrote in his 2013 PNAS journal article, "They cited recommendation 6 of Gill et al. (4) in concluding that all peaks in stutter positions should be regarded as allelic." Dr. Balding's analysis technique treats peaks in stutter position as if they might or might not be true alleles. His treatment of drop-in and drop-out peaks might also be different. "I introduce an innovation to likelihood-based analyses to allow for an “uncertain” allele designation...An assumption of no information is appropriate if there is substantial uncertainty, for example, due to borderline peak height or the possibility that a peak is due to stutter or other artifact." Given the differences, it isn't entirely surprising that they would come to slightly different conclusions. Dr. Vecchiotti might also be raising a concern about suspect-centered analysis.

 

[Dan O.]

Chris H, I had this question too. Wondering if you could help clarify on this point?

I found this page that reviews the C&V report. It includes the electropherograms for the DNA results on the bra clasp.

http://forensicdnaconsulting.wordpr...perts’-report-in-the-amanda-knox-case-part-2/

What is quite interesting to me is the data presented in the original trial showed only peaks representing Meredith and Raffaele but C&V obtained data that included additional peaks indicating other contributors to that DNA. It's one thing to have interpreted the results and find cause to exclude peaks because they are likely stutters or below a threshold. But to bolster ones case by presenting the edited data with those peaks removed is quite dishonest.

 

[carbonjam72]

IIUC Dr. Vecchiotti used a set of guidelines for interpretation of mixtures in which one takes peaks in stutter position (one repeat unit shorter than another peak) as true alleles. Dr Balding wrote in his 2013 PNAS journal article, "They cited recommendation 6 of Gill et al. (4) in concluding that all peaks in stutter positions should be regarded as allelic." Dr. Balding's analysis technique treats peaks in stutter position as if they might or might not be true alleles. His treatment of drop-in and drop-out peaks might also be different. "I introduce an innovation to likelihood-based analyses to allow for an “uncertain” allele designation...An assumption of no information is appropriate if there is substantial uncertainty, for example, due to borderline peak height or the possibility that a peak is due to stutter or other artifact." Given the differences, it isn't entirely surprising that they would come to slightly different conclusions. Dr. Vecchiotti might also be raising a concern about suspect-centered analysis.

IIUC, the inclusion of additional peaks as true alleles (as per C & V & Gill), means the resulting profile could fit a larger pool of potential contributors? For this reason, C&V were less certain of a specific "match", rather than a "not incompatible"?

Is this a professional argument between Dr's Gill and Balding then? And is there anyway for untutored bystanders to assess their respective reliability? Does Gill have a position in regard to Balding's 2013 "innovation"?

(Was Stef relying on Balding's analysis when she achieved her findings? Or was it her suspect centered analysis that enabled her to find what she was looking for, and discard everything else?)

Hope I'm not being thick -

(also thanks to DanO for the cite).

 

[anglolawyer]

I found this page that reviews the C&V report. It includes the electropherograms for the DNA results on the bra clasp.

http://forensicdnaconsulting.wordpr...perts’-report-in-the-amanda-knox-case-part-2/

What is quite interesting to me is the data presented in the original trial showed only peaks representing Meredith and Raffaele but C&V obtained data that included additional peaks indicating other contributors to that DNA. It's one thing to have interpreted the results and find cause to exclude peaks because they are likely stutters or below a threshold. But to bolster ones case by presenting the edited data with those peaks removed is quite dishonest.

That is a key part of C-V's report, that Stef arbitrarily and improperly excluded peaks she didn't like from what she reported to the Massei trial. She gave the false impression that it was just Raf's Y-haplo there whereas the true position was more complicated. She also dribbled out the peak heights and then peak areas to C-V in two stages after putting up a fight.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Frontiers in Genetics article

I found this page that reviews the C&V report. It includes the electropherograms for the DNA results on the bra clasp.

http://forensicdnaconsulting.wordpr...perts’-report-in-the-amanda-knox-case-part-2/

What is quite interesting to me is the data presented in the original trial showed only peaks representing Meredith and Raffaele but C&V obtained data that included additional peaks indicating other contributors to that DNA. It's one thing to have interpreted the results and find cause to exclude peaks because they are likely stutters or below a threshold. But to bolster ones case by presenting the edited data with those peaks removed is quite dishonest.

Dr. Balding acknowledged that there were more peaks than Mrs. Stefanoni had reported or apparently considered. An article coauthored by Dr. Vecchiotti and Carla Zoppis in 2013 in Frontiers in Genetics also indicated that there were more peaks than Mrs. Stefanoni had reported. For example they wrote, "The electropherograms obtained from Y-STRs analysis also showed (besides the peaks designated as alleles in the technical report of the scientific police) the presence of additional peaks with heights exceeding the threshold of 50 RFU (Table1). Despite not being in a stutter position, they were not taken into consideration. Instead, the report(ing) was limited to what was in agreement with the observations on the electropherograms of the autosomal STRs."

 

[acbytesla]

I doubt whether she was particularly bothered about it, us Brits are not very conservative and any young person starting university would have been bombarded with flavoured condoms etc. However, I can imagine she would have told her friends in an 'OMG, why doesn't she keep it hidden' kind of way. There is a terrible stereotype that American students in Europe are loud, and annoying and I am not at all surprised that Meredith and her friends would talk about Amanda behind her back. This says far more about Meredith and her friends than Amanda though

That is a a stereotype about Americans in Europe. The obnoxious American. But I find that you are treated differently abroad if they know you are American. That's why have a collection of Canada t-shirts etc and say I'm from Canada. Otherwise you get blamed for any and every foreign relations problem in the world. I particularly love it when we are blamed for NOT getting involved somewhere. It's a no win situation...that's why it is so much better to just say your from Vancouver BC.

 

[lonepinealex]

That is a a stereotype about Americans in Europe. The obnoxious American. But I find that you are treated differently abroad if they know you are American. That's why have a collection of Canada t-shirts etc and say I'm from Canada. Otherwise you get blamed for any and every foreign relations problem in the world. I particularly love it when we are blamed for NOT getting involved somewhere. It's a no win situation...that's why it is so much better to just say your from Vancouver BC.

Aw don't do that. I really hate to say this, and honestly I don't mean any offence to Canadians, but I'm always a bit disappointed when someone I think is American turns out to be Canadian.... maybe they're all pretending.

 

[acbytesla]

Aw don't do that. I really hate to say this, and honestly I don't mean any offence to Canadians, but I'm always a bit disappointed when someone I think is American turns out to be Canadian.... maybe they're all pretending.

Sorry...but it really helps abroad. I don't do it in the UK though, so maybe that helps. But definitely elsewhere on the continent. I don't see the purpose of doing it in the UK.

 

[js202]

Sorry...but it really helps abroad. I don't do it in the UK though, so maybe that helps. But definitely elsewhere on the continent. I don't see the purpose of doing it in the UK.

Denying my country is unthinkable to me. Not a chance. My wife is Dutch, and I have numerous international friends in NYC, Los Angeles, England, France and Italy.

Our country is no more flawed than any of these European powers at various times in their histories, and considerably less flawed than Italy, at a minimum, at the present time. Whenever I begin wringing my hands too much over US foreign policy in the company of such friends, I remember Omaha Beach, where young American men died like game animals to save Europe.

 

[Desert Fox]

That is a a stereotype about Americans in Europe. The obnoxious American. But I find that you are treated differently abroad if they know you are American. That's why have a collection of Canada t-shirts etc and say I'm from Canada. Otherwise you get blamed for any and every foreign relations problem in the world. I particularly love it when we are blamed for NOT getting involved somewhere. It's a no win situation...that's why it is so much better to just say your from Vancouver BC.

"Oversexed, overpaid and over here"
Term for US G.I. in England during WW2

 

[Strozzi]

There was a woman apparently killed by her Dildo
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wor...ex-toy-watching-porn-coroner-article-1.465860

The Journal of Sexual Medicine just reported about a Scottish woman who forgot where she left her dildo 10 years ago. Her doctor found it recently. It was just where she left it.

 

[Strozzi]

Dr. Balding acknowledged that there were more peaks than Mrs. Stefanoni had reported or apparently considered. An article coauthored by Dr. Vecchiotti and Carla Zoppis in 2013 in Frontiers in Genetics also indicated that there were more peaks than Mrs. Stefanoni had reported. For example they wrote, "The electropherograms obtained from Y-STRs analysis also showed (besides the peaks designated as alleles in the technical report of the scientific police) the presence of additional peaks with heights exceeding the threshold of 50 RFU (Table1). Despite not being in a stutter position, they were not taken into consideration. Instead, the report(ing) was limited to what was in agreement with the observations on the electropherograms of the autosomal STRs."

That's like Stefanoni dropping Meredith's bra clasp on the floor so it can be photographed in situ, as if it was found there!

Someone who understands all that Stefanoni did with the lab testing should write an article about all the tricks Stefanoni played to present evidence in a false way.