Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[carbonjam72]

Was Rudy's MO recognized by Police on Day 1?

In your scenario, which may make as much sense as any, that Lumumba and the actual murderer/rapist, Guede, were both of African descent is then a mere coincidence. Could be, but my evil twin, a conspirator theorist, doesn't like it. But coincidences happen.

ETA: Bolded sentence in your post: Her Italian roommates had keys and were in town, with boyfriends, but hired lawyers soon after MK's body was discovered (supposedly to help break the apartment lease?). And my evil twin suggests neither had an African male associate to frame.

DioC and Numbers;

Steve Moore, Nencini in his motivation, and Napoleone in her testimony, all assert that the police were familiar with Guede as a burglar in Perugia before the kercher murder, and Moore and Nencini argue that familiarity extended to recognizing Guede's MO at the Kercher crime scene, immediately on Day 1.

According to Nencini, this is why Guede would not have staged the crime scene in his own MO because it would draw attention to himself, and since they know the crime scene was staged, it must have been done by Amanda and Raf. (ok, its kooky).

Question for Nencini: Is Rudy Guede the 'Pink Panther' of Perugia? Does he absolutely have to use the same MO at every burglary? If Rudy knows that the police would recognize his MO for a break-in, then why would he continue using it and drawing attention to himself, why wouldn't he switch his MO?

If Rudy's staging a scene in his standard MO would draw attention to Rudy the burglar (per nencini), then why wouldn't Rudy using the same MO for real have exactly the same effect? - WTF!

 

[Kauffer]

Lol. Life+Isolation? Is that even legal? I think not.

You don't get that even in the supermaxes. It's all a bit Count of Monte Cristo isn't it?

 

[Kaosium]

Honestly, I don't think these judges have a clue in the world what an EDF is, probably suspect it to be some kind of dance music.

I suspect you're correct. My guess is ten years from now they will though.

 

[Numbers]

It may be that this is a better issue to bring before the ECHR, the Italian judiciary has shown it simply doesn't care about discovery issues.

There's an ECHR case with some similarity, but also of course differences, that was judged a violation of Article 6:
CASE OF KUOPILA v. FINLAND (Application no. 27752/95) 27 April 2000

{The overall principle of importance, IMO, is highlighted below, in paragraph #37, the 2nd from the end.}

In this case, an art dealer, Ms. K. Kuopila, was given a painting to sell on commission; this painting was supposedly by a famous Finnish artist and worth 250,000 Finnish marks. In short, she sold the painting without returning the proceeds to her client. She was convicted of embezzlement and fraud and aggravated embezzlement and fraud. She requested that the prosecutor have the National Gallery of Finland confirm the of authenticity and appraise the painting. This was eventually done; the painting was found not to authentic and the value only that of the frame, about 2000 marks. The National Gallery gave the prosecutor a letter stating their findings. A supplementary police report was generated about these findings.

The importance of the information in the letter to Ms. Kuopila is that it changed the nature and severity of her crime under Finnish law, so her sentence would likely be reduced on appeal. However, the prosecutor withheld the National Gallery letter from her and her defense team. The prosecutor did give the letter to the appeals court, but only about 1 month before its decision, and the appeals court judgment did not refer to the letter.

The ECtHR stated:

37.**The Court recalls that under the principle of equality of arms, as a feature of the wider concept of a fair trial (see, among other authorities, the Borgers v. Belgium judgment of 30*October*1999, Series A no.*214-B, §*24), each party must be afforded a reasonable opportunity to present one’s case in conditions that do not place him at a disadvantage vis-à-vis to his opponent (see the Bulut v. Austria judgment of 22*February*1996, Reports 1996-II, §*47).

38.**In the instant case, the prosecutor had expressed his opinion on the relevance of the report to the Court of Appeal, thereby intending to influence the court’s judgment. The Court considers that procedural fairness required that the applicant too should have been given an opportunity to assess the relevance and weight of the supplementary police report and to formulate any such comment as she deemed appropriate. It is also noted that the applicant had requested a supplementary investigation and that throughout the proceedings she had considered it to be important.
In the light of these considerations, the Court finds that the procedure did not enable the applicant to participate properly and in conformity with the principle of equality of arms in the proceedings before the Court of Appeal.
Accordingly, there has been a violation of Article 6 of the Convention.

 

[carbonjam72]

Gang-like style...

(snip)
I don't think Guede is less guilty than Sollecito and Knox. I think I have never implied anything like that. He is fully guilty of murder.
However, I believe all three are guilty of the same gang-like type of sexual assault and murder. I don't believe Guede is guilty of any break in or burglary.
(snip)

It is correct. Apart from terrorists or those who raped and killed a child, everyone gets less than 20 years if found guilty on a fast track.
The fast track option has merely one purpose: spare the taxpayers' money and courts time, by avoid having court trial hearings with experts and all stuff, and long stays in state prisons.

Mach,

If you believe, "all three are guilty of the same gang-like type of sexual assault and murder", then how do you explain the fact there there are only one set of shoe prints in blood in the room where meredith was killed? (And Rudy has acknowledged the shoe prints are his)
btw, have you seen Ron Hendry's analysis on the Injustice in Perigia site? It's quite thorough. I found it quite convincing that Rudy Guede killed Meredith all by himself.

 

[acbytesla]

Would someone but me care to comment on this post? How did Novelli manage to forget all he said about LT/LCN DNA work for that case when he testified as a hired gun for the prosecution in this case?

Doesn't that say it all?

 

[Numbers]

DioC and Numbers;

Steve Moore, Nencini in his motivation, and Napoleone in her testimony, all assert that the police were familiar with Guede as a burglar in Perugia before the kercher murder, and Moore and Nencini argue that familiarity extended to recognizing Guede's MO at the Kercher crime scene, immediately on Day 1.

According to Nencini, this is why Guede would not have staged the crime scene in his own MO because it would draw attention to himself, and since they know the crime scene was staged, it must have been done by Amanda and Raf. (ok, its kooky).

Question for Nencini: Is Rudy Guede the 'Pink Panther' of Perugia? Does he absolutely have to use the same MO at every burglary? If Rudy knows that the police would recognize his MO for a break-in, then why would he continue using it and drawing attention to himself, why wouldn't he switch his MO?

If Rudy's staging a scene in his standard MO would draw attention to Rudy the burglar (per nencini), then why wouldn't Rudy using the same MO for real have exactly the same effect? - WTF!

Do you have a cite for Napoleone testimony about Guede?

 

[Kaosium]

There's an ECHR case with some similarity, but also of course differences, that was judged a violation of Article 6:
CASE OF KUOPILA v. FINLAND (Application no. 27752/95) 27 April 2000

{The overall principle of importance, IMO, is highlighted below, in paragraph #37, the 2nd from the end.}

In this case, an art dealer, Ms. K. Kuopila, was given a painting to sell on commission; this painting was supposedly by a famous Finnish artist and worth 250,000 Finnish marks. In short, she sold the painting without returning the proceeds to her client. She was convicted of embezzlement and fraud and aggravated embezzlement and fraud. She requested that the prosecutor have the National Gallery of Finland confirm the of authenticity and appraise the painting. This was eventually done; the painting was found not to authentic and the value only that of the frame, about 2000 marks. The National Gallery gave the prosecutor a letter stating their findings. A supplementary police report was generated about these findings.

The importance of the information in the letter to Ms. Kuopila is that it changed the nature and severity of her crime under Finnish law, so her sentence would likely be reduced on appeal. However, the prosecutor withheld the National Gallery letter from her and her defense team. The prosecutor did give the letter to the appeals court, but only about 1 month before its decision, and the appeals did not refer to the letter.

The ECtHR stated:

37.**The Court recalls that under the principle of equality of arms, as a feature of the wider concept of a fair trial (see, among other authorities, the Borgers v. Belgium judgment of 30*October*1999, Series A no.*214-B, §*24), each party must be afforded a reasonable opportunity to present one’s case in conditions that do not place him at a disadvantage vis-à-vis to his opponent (see the Bulut v. Austria judgment of 22*February*1996, Reports 1996-II, §*47).

38.**In the instant case, the prosecutor had expressed his opinion on the relevance of the report to the Court of Appeal, thereby intending to influence the court’s judgment. The Court considers that procedural fairness required that the applicant too should have been given an opportunity to assess the relevance and weight of the supplementary police report and to formulate any such comment as she deemed appropriate. It is also noted that the applicant had requested a supplementary investigation and that throughout the proceedings she had considered it to be important.
In the light of these considerations, the Court finds that the procedure did not enable the applicant to participate properly and in conformity with the principle of equality of arms in the proceedings before the Court of Appeal.
Accordingly, there has been a violation of Article 6 of the Convention.

Yes, that would seem to apply, even to just withholding all the SALs and other info that was (finally) made available on July 30th, 2009. Italian courts operate on a weekly basis and the entire month of August is vacation. The trial started circa October of '08 and ended December 4, 2009, so the trial was almost over before they got what little they did receive which wasn't in the RTIGF. It was because Comodi slipped and let it out she had data the defense was missing which caused it to be discovered in the first place....

 

[Machiavelli]

I watched the translation of Guede's conversation with Giacomo and something bothers me. Guede goes through a long story about smoking pot with the downstairs boys. He says the girls were there and then he slept overnight on the sofa because he was too messed up to walk home. But then he makes a statement, he says "So, I've only ever been there twice." I think he even says it again. It struck me as interesting that his explanation is so detailed about the one time he was there. What about the second time?

The second time, and the context of it, is detailed a bit more in the testimonies of the downstairs boys. Guede came to visit them together with Amanda Knox Meredith, Giorgio and Giacomo, all five came walking together from dowtown. According to testimonies they had met Guede on their way home. Guede was a friend of Giorgio and Marco Marzan, and also somehow to Giacomo, and an acquaintance of Stefano (they all used to play basketball together in the Piazza Grimana court) and according to Stefano, Giorgio and Giacomo it was "obvious" and it was "openly declared" that Rudy liked Amanda. According to Stefano Bonassi, Marco Marzan and maybe Riccardo Luciani also came at their home that evening, and the latter two were sitting in the downstairs kitchen together with Guede, Amanda and Meredith (Stefano was not). According to Giorgio Cocciaretto, Guede was talking with both Amanda and Meredith "very friendly" (or "very naturally").
Giorgio Cocciaretto was a frequent guest at the downstairs apartment. On another occasion, according to Giacomo, Amanda Knox was at their house together with Daniel De Luna, another guest, Daniel and Amanda then went upstairs and reportedly (source: Daniel) they spent the night together.
On a previous time (first half of October) according to Giacomo Guede had been at their house and, while talking with all three of them, he talked about Amanda, asked information like if she had a boyfriend.
According to Marco Marzan, they had a cat that had a wound on his ear, but he thinks it had no blood dropping.

 

[Kaosium]

You don't get that even in the supermaxes. It's all a bit Count of Monte Cristo isn't it?

I suspect that just means life without the privileges of work release and whatnot.

 

[Diocletus]

I suspect that just means life without the privileges of work release and whatnot.

So basically, it means not-life and not-isolation.

Why am I not surprised.

 

[Machiavelli]

Mach,

If you believe, "all three are guilty of the same gang-like type of sexual assault and murder", then how do you explain the fact there there are only one set of shoe prints in blood in the room where meredith was killed?
btw, have you seen Ron Hendry's analysis on the Injustice in Perigia site? It's quite thorough. I found it quite convincing that Rudy Guede killed Meredith all by himself.

There are two sets of footprints. It's a key point. You seem to forget the bloody footprints on the bathmat and the luminol footrpints.
Those do not belong to the same person who left the trail of bloody footprint, they express a different modus operandi. Also, they belongt to two different individuals.

No, I didn't find it convincing, obviously. It doesn't take in account a mass of information that I consider essential. It is also not really consistent imho.

 

[carbonjam72]

Do you have a cite for Napoleone testimony about Guede?

I have to go scrounge, but I know she admitted this. (Help!! all you mmk.commies!)

If it were true, would this alter your theory? Would you be willing to hypothesize that Napoleone, first to arrive on the Kercher crime scene, did in fact (or may have) recognize that Rudy might be involved, as Moore and Nencini have agreed (agreed at least as a practical matter)?

(Nencini only says Guede would not have staged the crime scene in his own style of Breaking-in, because he would know that the police being familair with him and his MO would immediately recognize him as the perp. What nencini doesn't do, is follow his claim to the logical conclusion that if this were true, then the police must have recognized Guede's MO, and must have suspected the break-in was legitimately at least possibly Guede - except for the fact that they somehow knew it had been staged. (Alright, I give up. I can't explain how Nencini idiot reasoning isn't idiotic).

 

[Machiavelli]

He's saying that it's a 'step down' as opposed to a time in years reduction at that stage of the trial. It 'steps down' from Life+Isolation to Life (another 'step') then to 30 years. That's a total of two steps from Life+Isolation to 30 years. He's saying Rudy started at 'Life' (the second step) and it was discounted to 30 years because of the fast track discount.

Yes

Then there's the generic mitigation of six years that was applied at his 'appeal' stage (which still exists though they don't do a real appeal like for Raffaele and Amanda) which reduced his sentence to 24 years.

NO!

On the appeal, the calculation works like this: first, a mitigation from (theoretical) "life" to 24 years. Then, a discount of 1/3 from this latter 24 years, that makes 16.

There was no "6-year cut" (from 30 to 24) due to generic mitigation!

The generic mitigation cut is a theoretical calculation that works starting from a theoretical "life" (the original, edittale term, the "life" term not the 30 years) and brings it down to a theoretical 24 years.

The generic mitigation is a cut that works from life to 24 years, it does NOT work from 30 to 24 years as you say.

It is not a "6 years cut". It is a step down, a downgrading of the penalty from a theoretrical (edittale) ergastolo (life), down to an imprisonment term that was decided - on a discretional and customary basis by the judge - to be set at 24 years.

From there he gets the fast track discount of 1/3rd to make his final sentence 16 years.

Yes, from this you get the last calculation, from a theoretical 24 to a final, practical 16 years due to the automatic fast track discount.

In other words he's claiming there's two discounts for fast track that were applied, the 'step down' from Life to 30 years and then at the end by discounting the mitigated 24 year sentence to 16.

Yes.
But there is no discount "from 30 to 24".

I'm still kind of dubious that it was a fast track discount that caused him to be stepped down to 30 in the first place, that doesn't make much sense to me.

Well why don't you read the penal code?

 

[Anode]

There are two sets of footprints. It's a key point. You seem to forget the bloody footprints on the bathmat and the luminol footrpints.
Those do not belong to the same person who left the trail of bloody footprint, they express a different modus operandi. Also, they belongt to two different individuals.

No, I didn't find it convincing, obviously. It doesn't take in account a mass of information that I consider essential. It is also not really consistent imho.

Luminol footprints? If those are blood then where's the source? You have to step in blood before you can track blood. Show me where she stepped in blood in the murder room.

 

[Kaosium]

There are two sets of footprints. It's a key point.

No, you're wrong, there's only one set of prints in the murder room which CJ specifically delineated in his post. How is it that Raffaele and Amanda were able to move around in that room not having left any trace of their presence with Rudy's shoeprints all over the floor? How can you connect anything outside the murder room with the commission of the murder without any evidence (like a trail!) of the source of those prints being the murder room?

You seem to forget the bloody footprints on the bathmat and the luminol footprints.

The bloody footprint on the bathmat is logically Guede's. One thing that gets lost sometimes in discussing the luminol hits is even if they were blood they're certainly not evidence the people who left them were involved in the murder. Rudy Guede left Meredith's blood in numerous places in that hall, door and bathroom and both Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were amongst the half-dozen or so people who walked over that floor and into that bathroom after the murder when the door was still locked, a dozen or two more walked over them before they were discovered. As for the bare footprints, Amanda even admitted to walking around that cottage that day in her bare feet before the luminol hits were discovered. Naturally of course with four women sharing a flat there could have been previous episodes where minute amounts of blood got into pooled water and was tracked around.

Those do not belong to the same person who left the trail of bloody footprint, they express a different modus operandi. Also, they belongt to two different individuals.

You cannot assume that anything that might have been blood was evidence of the murder even if it was blood, especially when it's in such tiny minute quantities TMB can't pick it up. People bleed and leave invisible traces of blood in houses where murder wasn't committed, they do the same in houses where a murder was committed.

No, I didn't find it convincing, obviously. It doesn't take in account a mass of information that I consider essential. It is also not really consistent imho.

There's no way of proving what you think is 'essential' is actually related to the murder. Your statement is just an admission of bias.

 

[carbonjam72]

There are two sets of footprints. It's a key point. You seem to forget the bloody footprints on the bathmat and the luminol footrpints.Those do not belong to the same person who left the trail of bloody footprint, they express a different modus operandi. Also, they belongt to two different individuals.

No, I didn't find it convincing, obviously. It doesn't take in account a mass of information that I consider essential. It is also not really consistent imho.

Putting aside the fact that I dispute the bare half-foot track on the bath mat is not also Guede's, and that I dispute that the footprints revealed in luminol which tested negative for blood are not in fact in blood - let's put those aside, because though we may disagree as to their meaning - who left them, and in what medium - we can agree at least that they are not in the room where Meredith was killed.

The question I raised with you Mach, is that if all three participated in a gang-style type sexual assault and murder as you believe, then why IN THE ROOM WHERE THE SEXUAL ASSAULT AND MURDER OCCURRED, is there only one set of footprints?
This question is the heart of the matter. I don't see any alternative but to conclude that no one else was present at the violent crime in that small bloody room, involved in a life and death struggle on that well saturated blood soaked floor.

Be honest Mach, you know Amanda and Raf are innocent. You too smart a guy not to know it. Do you really want two innocent young people to waste their lives in prison? Is Mignini's honor worth so high a price? You're a human being, as are they. And that means something.

 

[Numbers]

I have to go scrounge, but I know she admitted this. (Help!! all you mmk.commies!)

If it were true, would this alter your theory? Would you be willing to hypothesize that Napoleone, first to arrive on the Kercher crime scene, did in fact recognize that Rudy might be involved, as Moore and Nencini have agreed (agreed at least as a practical matter)?

(Nencini only says Guede would not have staged the crime scene in his own style of Breaking-in, because hw would know that the police being familair with him and his MO would immediately recognize him as the perp. What nencini doesn't do, is follow his claim to the logical conclusion that if this were true, then the police must have recognized Guede's MO, and must have suspected the break-in was legitimately at least possibly Guede - except for the fact that they somehow knew it had been staged. (Alright, I give up. I can't explain how Nencini idiot reasoning isn't idiotic).

It's not my theory; it's my evil twin's theory.

In other words, the African DNA ID is just a set of (non)working hypotheses or speculations.
So at the moment is the Rudy Guede immediate MO ID theory, unless Napoleone or someone confesses. Nencini's statements are not credible to me; they're a kind of hearsay. I do credit Moore's speculations based on Guede being allowed to return from Milan to Perugia after being arrested in the nursery.

Neither theory is actually that beneficial to the case IMO; they simply help attribute a motive to the police for the framing of AK, RS, and PL. The data needed to verify either theory is suppressed or would require acquisition of inside information (e.g., a police leak).

I would be more pleased if I could find an ECHR case directly relating to equality of arms and forensic testing, especially DNA.

 

[Machiavelli]

Covert entry to private premises without warrant. Is this legal in Italy?

Without warrant? If there is an order or an authorization from an investigating judge, the law enforcement indeed can enter private houses under cover, wiretap conversations, violate privacy of mail.
Actually, the penal code even acknowledges that the police may be authorized by an investigating judge to commit crimes. By an order or authorization of the Investigating Judge the Judicial Police may do illegal things like sell drugs, disseminate pedo-pornography, falsify documents and so on, within boundaries of security, if deemed useful for investigations.
A prosecution order is not enough, there must be an authorization from Investigating Judge. The Investigating Judge is the office that has these power, Matteini and Micheli are investigating judges.

 

[Kaosium]

Well why don't you read the penal code?

Because it's boring and it's in Italian.

If you're just messing with me, mission accomplished because I am now completely befuddled.

If it was the generic mitigation which changed the sentence from 'Life' to 24 years, where does 30 years ever come into the equation? If it was the generic mitigation which was responsible for that, why did you ever claim there were two reductions for 'fast track?'

I wonder if you're just funning with us here!