Continuation Part 10: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Desert Fox]

I agree with you about the hosts, but I'm fine with impossible. Rudy was wearing tennis shoes as what Raffaele wore most of the time. No need to give the guilters any room. I challenge anyone to use a sound meter from Nara's apartment and come up with a different result.

This is just another piece of incredibly silly evidence that would have been thrown out of most American courts. I really wish people like Peter Quennell or Machiavelli stood in that apartment looking at the meter while this test was conducted. There isn't single witness for the prosecution that is worth a damn.

I just dislike absolute statements. I am not absolutely sure of almost anything. I would argue that I am sure as I can be however that she could not hear anything. Honestly, I seriously doubt she could have heard a scream either.

I found this which might be of interest although have not yet looked through it
http://www.audioforensics.com/PDFs/AES122_Scream.pdf

Edit: Looking through it, a single inside setting drops scream levels to the verge of being imperceptible and inside transmitted outside and then inside I suspect would just make it virtually impossible.

 

[acbytesla]

I just dislike absolute statements. I am not absolutely sure of almost anything. I would argue that I am sure as I can be however that she could not hear anything. Honestly, I seriously doubt she could have heard a scream either.

I found this which might be of interest although have not yet looked through it
http://www.audioforensics.com/PDFs/AES122_Scream.pdf

Edit: Looking through it, a single inside setting drops scream levels to the verge of being imperceptible and inside transmitted outside and then inside I suspect would just make it virtually impossible.

I understand about not liking absolute statements. I don't like many of them either. That said, I'm very comfortable with some absolutes. And unless Nara can demonstrate hearing better than a standard decibel meter, I'm very much fine with "impossible". But I get it DF.

Interesting article.

 

[JREF2010]

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.

one of the most bizarre scenes in this case. but they filmed it for all to see to fullfill the appearance of it being real and truthful, but everyone saw the poor acting and failure at honesty. Even the filming of it was part of the corruption, they just did a bad job of acting and lying.

the tragedy is instead of putting Stefonani in prison, they laughed in the courtroom.

 

[acbytesla]

one of the most bizarre scenes in this case. but they filmed it for all to see to fullfill the appearance of it being real and truthful, but everyone saw the poor acting and failure at honesty. Even the filming of it was part of the corruption, they just did a bad job of acting and lying.

the tragedy is instead of putting Stefonani in prison, they laughed in the courtroom.

Well it was funny in a Keystone cops sort of way. Unfortunately it is real and people's freedom is at stake.

 

[Planigale]

I understand about not liking absolute statements. I don't like many of them either. That said, I'm very comfortable with some absolutes. And unless Nara can demonstrate hearing better than a standard decibel meter, I'm very much fine with "impossible". But I get it DF.

Interesting article.

The problem is whilst objectively it is impossible she could have heard a scream originating from within the room, that she was uncertain about the time and day, and reported the scream long after the events; huge weight has been given to it. More weight is given to the scream in determining time of death than the more certain post mortem findings, telephone data and circumstantial issues such as state of clothing. The eye witness statement of Guede is ignored. Stronger data are ignored because of the need of the prosecution to shift time of death later. Then to compound the silliness the impossible scream is then used to say that Knox reported a scream in her first statement and she would only have known there was a scream if she was there. Leaving aside that if one was being asked to imagine a terrible crime a scream is something that might be imagined as happening, we do not know if there was a scream.

The nature of the Italian legal system is that it appears to give greater weight to witness evidence than objective evidence despite the well known issues with eye witness reliability. Curatolo seems never to have been asked to identify Knox or Sollecito in any sort of line up just the ever reliable 'are those people you see in the dock the guilty ones?'. Does anyone really believe that one could reliably identify a couple you do not know seen at a distance in the twilight months ago? I certainly could not.

 

[LondonJohn]

I also found this from the Massei report, "With respect to the traces present on the door handle of the victim's room, she [Mrs. Stefanoni] stated that they had been identified as being from Kercher. Only blood of the victim was found, and Y chromosome testing was not carried out. In this regard, she explained that Y chromosome analysis is not routine, and there was no particular reason for doing it here." This is an odd statement. If Meredith's blood were on the handle of the door, the most likely person to be responsible for this transfer is the murderer. It is sometimes possible to find additional DNA traces in blood. I am not saying that they would have found anything, only that they might have. Apparently, Sarah Gino also objected to the lack of testing of one door handle, but from the Massei report, it is unclear whether the inside or outside door handle was the one that she meant. (p. 235).

This is indeed strange and troubling (not for the first time).

My feeling is that the entire investigation was predicated upon finding evidence to connect to the murder the three people whom they'd decided were responsible: Knox, Sollecito and Lumumba originally, then the convenient switch to Knox/Sollecito/Guede.

It appears clear to me that Stefanoni (and every other investigator for that matter) was not employing the correct approach of collecting/analysing/interpreting forensic evidence on its own merits and seeing where it led. Rather, she clearly appears to have had a prior agenda to "find" evidence linking Knox/Sollecito/Guede, in order to support the investigators' a priori theory.

I think the way Stefanoni treated the door evidence fits this pattern perfectly. I think that she (and her police bosses and Mignini) already felt they had "nailed" Knox, Sollecito and Guede with what they already thought they had. Anything else might either muddy the narrative or even diminish its power in the courtroom. So they actively decided not to do certain investigative tests.

And I think that they made all these decisions safe in the knowledge that the courts would uncritically accept their judgment, owing to the worrying and unjust hangover from the inquisitorial system where prosecutors are deemed to be impartial seekers of the "truth" and are therefore in no way automatically biassed against the defendant(s).

 

[LondonJohn]

The problem is whilst objectively it is impossible she could have heard a scream originating from within the room, that she was uncertain about the time and day, and reported the scream long after the events; huge weight has been given to it. More weight is given to the scream in determining time of death than the more certain post mortem findings, telephone data and circumstantial issues such as state of clothing. The eye witness statement of Guede is ignored. Stronger data are ignored because of the need of the prosecution to shift time of death later. Then to compound the silliness the impossible scream is then used to say that Knox reported a scream in her first statement and she would only have known there was a scream if she was there. Leaving aside that if one was being asked to imagine a terrible crime a scream is something that might be imagined as happening, we do not know if there was a scream.

The nature of the Italian legal system is that it appears to give greater weight to witness evidence than objective evidence despite the well known issues with eye witness reliability. Curatolo seems never to have been asked to identify Knox or Sollecito in any sort of line up just the ever reliable 'are those people you see in the dock the guilty ones?'. Does anyone really believe that one could reliably identify a couple you do not know seen at a distance in the twilight months ago? I certainly could not.

I know I've quoted this several times before, but it bears repeating once more at this point as a stunning damnation of Massei's court's reasoning skills. Here is "logic", Massei-style:

If there had not been such a scream, and if Mrs. Capezzali had not actually heard it, then the Court can see no reason why she would have spoken about it.

(Massei Report, p96 Eng trans)

 

[RWVBWL]

“Your own profile, President, could likely be found in that DNA”

anglolawyer,
I don't quite follow you. My understanding is that Conti and Vecchiotti agree that Sollecito's DNA is present, but they go on to say that there is additional DNA, both in the standard (autosomal) profile and the Y chromosomal profile.

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?

Found a few gems from that Sfarzo guy who attended court:
Indeed, Vecchiotti explained, “After examining just the first 4 markers (over 17) of the Y chromosome, there were already new alleles for forming at least 8 profiles”! So she didn’t really continue to find the all of them.

For the autosomic STRs, Vecchiotti explained, “There were so many alleles that even my own profile was a match in 9 markers!” (over 16).

“Your own profile, President, could likely be found in that DNA”, Vecchiotti told Hellmann.
And she probably didn’t mean accusing him of having killed Meredith…

If we then add that 4 of the 16 autosomic markers, as Vecchiotti explained, were wrongly attributed to Raffaele’s profile, we understand why the report had concluded that there wasn’t Raffaele’s DNA on the clasps.


Links:
RAFFAELE’S DNA ON THE CLASPS TOTALLY SWEPT AWAY
http://web.archive.org/web/20110924...2011/09/05/raffaele’s-dna-totally-swept-away/

APPROACHING THE CONTAMINATION MOMENT
http://web.archive.org/web/20110925...1/09/06/approaching-the-contamination-moment/


Man,
I'm 1 sunburnt surfer! Surf has been really good, beach weather too nice!
Finally finished fixing my computer after many hours of aggravation today, err, yesterday, so I'm online for abit right now, and I thought I'd drop in and say hi! Hope you all are havin' a great summer!


If anyone who did not attend court is interested in what FS reported on this, here's some good links from Perugia Shock, like the 1st 1 below which shows a couple of charts with jagged lines+some numbers on them:

THE WAR OVER DNA
http://web.archive.org/web/20110925080758/http://perugiashock.com/2011/07/23/the-war-over-dna/

SCIENTISTS CONTI AND VECCHIOTTI ATTACK THE POLICE
http://web.archive.org/web/20110925...tists-conti-and-vecchiotti-attack-the-police/

CONTI AND VECCHIOTTI: THE POLICE AT THE DOOR
http://web.archive.org/web/20110924.../conti-and-vecchiotti-the-police-at-the-door/

A FAREWELL TO WEAPON
http://web.archive.org/web/20110924185513/http://perugiashock.com/2011/07/19/a-farewell-to-weapon/

HELLMANN SAYS NO
http://web.archive.org/web/20110924042446/http://perugiashock.com/2011/07/30/hellmann-says-no/


You can also access alotta the earlier Perugia Shock
archived posts by clicking on the month, and then the post,
located on the left side of any articles that I linked above...
RW

 

[anglolawyer]

I know I've quoted this several times before, but it bears repeating once more at this point as a stunning damnation of Massei's court's reasoning skills. Here is "logic", Massei-style:

If there had not been such a scream, and if Mrs. Capezzali had not actually heard it, then the Court can see no reason why she would have spoken about it.

(Massei Report, p96 Eng trans)

Well, why would she make it up? Isn't that all Massei is saying? No, he seems to be saying more - that the only scream she could have heard was the scream.

I live by a road close to my city centre. Young people pass along it on their way home from the pubs and clubs at any time after about 11.30 p.m. right outside my bedroom window. I frequently hear shouting, screams, laughter, arguments and I am always having to interpret the sounds to see whether they betoken anything serious. Quite often I hear anguished female voices that sound truly alarming only to turn out to be benign, signifying no more than a squabble with a boyfriend or a drunken pest.

Nara has described a very similar state of affairs in the vicinity of her place. I bet she would hear screams quite a bit, from the street below. The assumption that, if she heard a scream at all, it must have been the scream is absurd. They should have conduct an audio test to see what, if anything, could be heard coming from inside the victim's room.

 

[Samson]

Here is Randy Jackson determining that a trivial error annihilates a reputation

We see the same thing happening with Peter Gill who already regrets his ill-informed chapter on the Meredith Kercher murder investigation and will live to regret it to the very depths of his soul; just a preview of things to come for any number of pundits who saw an opportunity to take a swan dive without first checking to see how deep the water was.

 

[js202]

Here is Randy Jackson determining that a trivial error annihilates a reputation

We see the same thing happening with Peter Gill who already regrets his ill-informed chapter on the Meredith Kercher murder investigation and will live to regret it to the very depths of his soul; just a preview of things to come for any number of pundits who saw an opportunity to take a swan dive without first checking to see how deep the water was.

Truly these fools sound like the protectors of Jim Jones, quoted in the press leading up to the endgame in Guyana. The dogma is paramount, and must be protected at any cost. Anyone who transgresses against the dogma is the enemy.

 

[anglolawyer]

Here is Randy Jackson determining that a trivial error annihilates a reputation

We see the same thing happening with Peter Gill who already regrets his ill-informed chapter on the Meredith Kercher murder investigation and will live to regret it to the very depths of his soul; just a preview of things to come for any number of pundits who saw an opportunity to take a swan dive without first checking to see how deep the water was.

What trivial error?

 

[Samson]

Truly these fools sound like the protectors of Jim Jones, quoted in the press leading up to the endgame in Guyana. The dogma is paramount, and must be protected at any cost. Anyone who transgresses against the dogma is the enemy.

I am not certain that I fully understand the allusion, but that case is certainly bizarre.
Here I study with fascination the dark side, hoping to uncover how it could be winning. I would like to know who with skin in the game truly believes, and belief is all that can be attributed, because knowledge certainly can not, that these kids are guilty
Micheli
Massei
Mignini
Galati
Crini
Nencini
Maresca
the Kercher five.

And Popper, that fluent English writer who correctly from Italy forecasts the twists and turns.
Now he says

The only judicial hearings he may ever have in the future are (a) a possible review of conviction if new evidence proved he is definitely innocent (give it 0.0001% chance)

This is one chance in a million!
Yet I see not one chance in a quadrillion that the converse is true, they were involved.
Would he bet his life? I definitely would bet mine.

 

[Samson]

What trivial error?

I think Gill said a shoe box of Meredith's was used to transport the knife by the BBC3 doco, but Machine has gained a retraction from Ruth Alexander. Gill took this as a vehicle for dna transfer. You have to be as time wasting as me to follow this

 

[Desert Fox]

I know I've quoted this several times before, but it bears repeating once more at this point as a stunning damnation of Massei's court's reasoning skills. Here is "logic", Massei-style:

If there had not been such a scream, and if Mrs. Capezzali had not actually heard it, then the Court can see no reason why she would have spoken about it.

(Massei Report, p96 Eng trans)

Being clear, I believe that she believes she has heard the screaming.
The main problem is that people are incredibly suggestible and once that idea is planted, you believe it absolutely.
Judges should really know this and I honestly think that jurors need an education on this.

 

[anglolawyer]

I think Gill said a shoe box of Meredith's was used to transport the knife by the BBC3 doco, but Machine has gained a retraction from Ruth Alexander. Gill took this as a vehicle for dna transfer. You have to be as time wasting as me to follow this

Thanks Samson

 

[Desert Fox]

I think Gill said a shoe box of Meredith's was used to transport the knife by the BBC3 doco, but Machine has gained a retraction from Ruth Alexander. Gill took this as a vehicle for dna transfer. You have to be as time wasting as me to follow this

Maybe I take a more flexible approach but I look at it as the knife was not properly carried in an evidence bag and was handled by multiple individuals.
I see Professor Gill as trying to put in a more or less humorous way.

 

[LondonJohn]

Maybe I take a more flexible approach but I look at it as the knife was not properly carried in an evidence bag and was handled by multiple individuals.
I see Professor Gill as trying to put in a more or less humorous way.

It all seems rather unclear as to whether Gill actually made this explicit assertion or whether it was a misinterpretation by the BBC reporter. Either way, it's largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, since it was always represented (misrepresented in this instance) as only one of several ways in which the knife could have been contaminated.

As all objective scientific minds know, the knife was handled, collected, transported, examined and tested in conditions which were in massive and repeated breach of accepted protocols. Even if it had been a DNA-rich item, the methods used would have been highly suspect. But since the item only yielded ultra-low-template levels of DNA, the grossly negligent way (to take the most charitable explanation....) that the knife was handled renders it hugely unreliable as a source of DNA evidence. In addition of course, the way in which the tests were conducted upon the alleged Kercher sample in particular add an additional layer of unreliability. In short, there is no way whatsoever that the presence of Kercher's DNA on that knife can be accepted as reliable or credible. It simply should not be - and should never have been - accepted by the courts in these trials.

 

[LondonJohn]

Being clear, I believe that she believes she has heard the screaming.
The main problem is that people are incredibly suggestible and once that idea is planted, you believe it absolutely.
Judges should really know this and I honestly think that jurors need an education on this.

Personally, I think it's equally possible that:

a) she genuinely believes she heard a scream when she in fact heard nothing at all;

b) she did actually hear some sort of scream, but not one that was in any way related to the murder, and she subsequently re-imagined the scream to be more than it in fact had been;

c) she's making the whole thing up (far from unknown).


Regardless, I think it's absolutely clear that it's impossible to conclude with reliability that she heard a scream that was directly connected to the murder. The combination of the distances, the circumstances in which she came forward (including her behaviour/actions immediately afterwards, the day after the murder, and in the following weeks and months), and her general state of mind at the time all point inexorably at her evidence being utterly unreliable.

I also looked on in astonishment at Massei's blithe assertion in the paragraph immediately following the one I quoted earlier, that:

The fact that other people, who were heard on this point, stated that they did not hear any such scream, does not detract from the reliability of the statements of Mrs. Capezzali, having declared that she had heard a scream when she had woken up to go to the bathroom.

Seriously? Can a judge really be stating that although others in the vicinity at the same time - who might have been expected to hear the "scream" at least as clearly as Capezzali claims to have heard it - testified instead to hearing nothing, this does not detract (even a little bit?!) from the reliability of Capezzali's claim?!

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Bad forensic practice in Perth and in Perugia

What trivial error?

anglolawyer,

Dr. Gill's book says it was a shoe box, but in fact it was a calendar or day-timer box. Ruth Alexander's article said that that box had been posted to Meredith, which I don't believe is true. What PG commenters are studiously ignoring is that the knife should not have been unpacked at all, especially not by someone (Gubbiotti) who had been to the women's flat earlier in the day. In addition, PG commenters never acknowledge that by letting in badly collected evidence, the courts are setting the wrong incentives for the future. That goes double for the clasp.

EDT
As others have pointed out, I don't know who made the error about posting. However, it was also an error not to use a box that was free of microorganisms, according to Sarah Gino (as reported in Massei).

EDT2
Reporting on the Patrick Waring case in Australia Estelle Blackburn wrote, “In court, police conceded they had not followed best practice in the case. Various officers said that the Central Park scene was left unguarded from 1.25am on the night, it was a week before it was searched, and the same officers had visited the homes of the girl and the accused which allowed for contamination of evidence.”