Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Machiavelli]

Rather than descend to unworthy insults, Mach, how about you explain why negative TMB and lack of confirmatory testing were considered so irrelevant by Nencini, whose approach you share, that he didn't even mention them?

I don't think I understand the question.

 

[Kauffer]

You mean, against a bunch of delusional conspiracy theorists who proclaim themselves liberal rationalists.

The conspiracy theory is yours; a collusion between three people, two of whom had no contact with the third in order to carry out a murder for reasons no-one connected to the prosecution of the case can agree on, and only because these two had the night off.

 

[Desert Fox]

To be fair they may only have been after my purse, but one thinks the worst, two males one small planigale and a knife = panic.

I have had a pistol pointed at me, it is scary how large the barrel looks. I was kind of putting my self in Meredeth's shoes and wondering what my reaction would be if attacked by Raff, Amanda, and Rudy. I think I would be more likely to fight than if it was just Guede because my thoughts would be that they would have to kill me.

 

[Machiavelli]

It has to be this:

Thanks for clearing that up, Mach. I've been confused until now about how it is possible for so many people to be so convinced that forensics are irrelevant when it comes to determining guilt or innocence.

Forensics are not irrelevant. They are relevant, exactly as much as all the other evidence sources. But forensics are not just located in the murder room.

And there is also medico-legal evidence located in the murder room.

 

[Machiavelli]

The conspiracy theory is yours; a collusion between three people, two of whom had no contact with the third in order to carry out a murder for reasons no-one connected to the prosecution of the case can agree on, and only because these two had the night off.

Excuse me, who are the "two" and who is the "third" who supposedly had no contacts with them?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

R v Smart 2008 and luminol

I don't think I understand the question.

From the case R vs Smart Lasry J wrote: "although I would admit the evidence in relation to the blood stains which are confirmed to be blood by scientific analysis and which produce relevant DNA profiles, I would not admit the evidence in relation to the luminol positive areas where there is no confirmatory testing.¹⁷" link

Here is another link on R v Smart, which includes the context of the quote above. Many of us have been saying similar things for only about four or five continuation threads now.

 

[kwill]

Of course the small space he is referring to is Ms Kercher's bedroom. And we still don't know from him how four people managed to fit in there amidst all the stabbing and the bleeding such that Ms Knox left no trace of herself and Mr Sollecito, apparently, a few cells. A good exercise is actually to mark out the space, block off the parts of the space that have furniture and try to conceive of a reconstruction of the crime that a) fits into the space and b) permits for the absence of physical evidence that we point to. You could do it in a courtroom. It would be extremely revealing.

Well, of course. Even doing that exercise as a thought experiment makes it quite obvious how absurd the logic is.

Logic, though, is allowed to function untethered to tedious objects in the Mach working definition of evidence. A beautiful thing, it is.

 

[Welshman]

One of the arguments used to support the innocence of Amanda and Raffaele was that despite them supposedly being involved in a violent struggle in a small room they left no forensic traces besides the dubious DNA on the bra clasp. PGP have often argued that forensic traces such as DNA do not transfer easily which is why Amanda and Raffaele left no traces in the room. This an argument Machiavelli often uses. In addition, Machiavelli argued the forensic traces left by Guede were not that strong which supports the notion biological traces do not transfer easily.

If the notion biological traces do not transfer easily is valid, why did the prosecution never use this argument? To my best of my knowledge in the seven years since the murder of Meredith, the prosecution have never explained the lack of forensic traces being due to traces not transferring easily. When asked to explain why there were no forensic traces of Amanda and Raffaele in the room, the prosecution claimed Amanda and Raffaele carried out a selective clean up. This argument is utterly ludicrious. Amanda and Raffaele were able to detect invisible forensic traces and determine whose forensic traces belonged to who and clean them up without disturbing Rudy's traces. In an interview Mignini was asked how Amanda left no forensic traces. He said Amanda directed the murder from the hall. This is a complete change from prosecution's original position where they insisted Amanda killed Meredith in the room. If the notion biological traces do not transfer easily was valid, why did they prosecution have to resort to these arguments?

If Biological traces do not transfer easily and there is strong scientific evidence to support this argument, surely the prosecution would have used it and found scientific experts to testify. This undermines the notion biological traces do not transfer easily.

PGP have argued that there no forensic traces of Guede in Filomena's room. They argue that if Guede could break in without leaving traces in Filomena's room, Amanda and Raffaele could kill Meredith in her room without leaving traces. How do we know that no traces of Guede were found in Filomena's room and it was covered up. If the prosecution admit Guede's traces were found in Filomena's room this would prove the break in was genuine and the case against Amanda and Raffaele would collapse.

 

[Machiavelli]

How horrible for you. But obviously you had a viable escape route to use, plus it was in a public place with other people around. But I'd argue that it's a very, very different situation to be cornered in a private house, especially if the assailant is significantly bigger and stronger and is the only one with access to a deadly weapon.

It's long been a proven technique of home intruders - particularly males against females - to force their victim into compliance through use of the simple (and usually incredibly effective) technique of promising not to harm them if they comply, and conversely threatening to injure or kill them if they do not comply. Even a 6-year-old could understand the psychological bargain being struck here. (...)

To cause 46 lesions, including the blocking of wirsts, and keeping a hand pressed on the victim's mouth to prevent her from screaming, while at the same time obtaining compliance by promising not to harm...?

 

[kwill]

Forensics are not irrelevant. They are relevant, exactly as much as all the other evidence sources. But forensics are not just located in the murder room.

And there is also medico-legal evidence located in the murder room.

I'm so disappointed. I thought you said

Evidence is a logical concept, it is not an object located within a small space.

So is evidence a logical concept and not an object, or is it logical concepts AND medico-legal (excellent construct, btw, is it your own?) stuff in the murder room?

Is the medico-legal stuff what other people call forensic evidence? Or is it an extension of the logic?

 

[Planigale]

How horrible for you. But obviously you had a viable escape route to use, plus it was in a public place with other people around. But I'd argue that it's a very, very different situation to be cornered in a private house, especially if the assailant is significantly bigger and stronger and is the only one with access to a deadly weapon.

It's long been a proven technique of home intruders - particularly males against females - to force their victim into compliance through use of the simple (and usually incredibly effective) technique of promising not to harm them if they comply, and conversely threatening to injure or kill them if they do not comply. Even a 6-year-old could understand the psychological bargain being struck here.

And many times the intruder really only does go as far as tying up the victim etc before robbing the place and escaping - that's why it works so well. After all, if the victim knew with any degree of certainty that the intruder's intentions were to kill or seriously injure (or sexually violate) her from the very beginning, then obviously the better thing to do would be to fight back from the very beginning. But most who are placed in that invidious position (a form of Sophie's choice in some ways) quickly arrive at a line of reasoning which concludes that their "least bad" option is to comply, since there's at least a decent chance that the intruder will be as good as his word, and since the other option (i.e. not complying and fighting back) virtually guarantees injury or death.

And I believe that this is probably exactly the way in which Guede - as a sole intruder/attacker that night - forced Kercher into a "least bad" decision to comply and allow him to manoeuvre her and place his knife at her throat. I think that at some moment she decided to abandon this strategy (in my view, most likely when Guede initiated a sexual assault, at which point Kercher became painfully aware that Guede intended to violate her), which is in turn what prompted Guede to stab her in the neck.

I think that is what I meant. You do what you need to to survive. The concept that one would fight a man with a knife if cornered is TV fantasy. One complies and then lives with the guilt and shame. Rationally I should have handed over my purse but I had an escape route, but it might have ended badly.

 

[kwill]

To cause 46 lesions, including the blocking of wirsts, and keeping a hand pressed on the victim's mouth to prevent her from screaming, while at the same time obtaining compliance by promising not to harm...?

Wait, do we now believe she didn't scream? I thought somebody told us that the ear witness was golden.

 

[Desert Fox]

I don't think I understand the question.

I assume my question was not so hard?
I am curious, do you believe that American police or prosecutors ever manufacture evidence against defendants?

 

[Kaosium]

Speaking of luminol, see para. 2 of this report. Pretty forceful stuff:

http://netk.net.au/Tasmania/PoliceReport.pdf

This means that the results of screening tests are not admissible as evidence in court unless they are accompanied by follow-up confirmatory tests which identify a particular substance. This is because on their own screening tests prove nothing. They are merely indicative of a possibility. That possibility is that blood is present at the test location.
That this is so has been internationally recognised for many years now, and is well established in the decided cases and in the scientific literature

Think of the breadth of the conspiracy that must exist if the Filth Factory is correct and there's actual legitimate evidence Raffaele and Amanda are guilty of Rudy Guede's crime. It must include three ex-FBI agents, the guy who set up and ran the FBI DNA lab, the (British!) genius who helped develop the discipline of DNA foresnics, Two independent Italian DNA experts, all those writers of textbooks on forensics that have been posted, (some require 'retrocausality' here!) the judges and forensic experts such as you've posted here Diocleutus along with the legions Chris Halkides has as well, Judges Hellmann and Zanetti as well as all the lawyers and sciency-types from the US and Britain who've come forth to protest if not campaign against this injustice and/or the 'evidence' mustered in support of it.

All of these people with no connection to Amanda and Raffaele before this began must have spontaneously decided to conspire together to mislead everyone and destroy their professional reputations on the behalf of a wanton American murderess and her Italian sycophant slaveboy--at least in the minds of the Filth Factory and their fanclub. They must have chosen (sometimes years in advance!) to write papers, textbooks and procedure manuals inaccurately in order to support their perfidious plot.

On the other hand the 'conspiracy' amounts to some police, prosecutors and judges from the most miscarriage-ridden jurisdiction in Western Europe deciding to continue to support a theory where they don't have to admit they abused the rights of two innocents, mislead the family of the victim and mustered them to publicly campaign against two innocent victims and their families and try to do to them what had been done to them by the man who will be out of prison before proceedings against the innocents being persecuted are final. That's an awfully embarrassing and quite probably criminal fate on their part to want to avoid, an 'appalling vista' of consequences compelling them....

 

[Machiavelli]

One of the arguments used to support the innocence of Amanda and Raffaele was that despite them supposedly being involved in a violent struggle in a small room they left no forensic traces besides the dubious DNA on the bra clasp. PGP have often argued that forensic traces such as DNA do not transfer easily which is why Amanda and Raffaele left no traces in the room. This an argument Machiavelli often uses. In addition, Machiavelli argued the forensic traces left by Guede were not that strong which supports the notion biological traces do not transfer easily.

If the notion biological traces do not transfer easily is valid, why did the prosecution never use this argument? (...)

But they did! There was almost an experts' battle on this.

 

[Bill Williams]

Rather than descend to unworthy insults, Mach, how about you explain why negative TMB and lack of confirmatory testing were considered so irrelevant by Nencini, whose approach you share, that he didn't even mention them?

I don't think I understand the question.

A rare ascent into honesty by Machiavelli.

 

[Machiavelli]

Wait, do we now believe she didn't scream? I thought somebody told us that the ear witness was golden.

I never said she didn't scream. Where you get it from?

 

[Bill Williams]

You mean, against a bunch of delusional conspiracy theorists who proclaim themselves liberal rationalists.

The conspiracy theory is yours; a collusion between three people, two of whom had no contact with the third in order to carry out a murder for reasons no-one connected to the prosecution of the case can agree on, and only because these two had the night off.

This is a different Machiavelli.

The Machiavelli we know and love accepts and promotes conspiracy in relation to this. That Machiavelli accepts that Judge Hellmann was put into place through a "Machiavellian manoeuvre" by Presdient of the Appeal's Court of Perugia, De Nunzio, and that Hellmann was paid in Euros to throw the case.

That Machiavelli even knows the amount of euros it took to get Hellmann's cooperation - a known Mason.

 

[Desert Fox]

Of course the small space he is referring to is Ms Kercher's bedroom. And we still don't know from him how four people managed to fit in there amidst all the stabbing and the bleeding such that Ms Knox left no trace of herself and Mr Sollecito, apparently, a few cells. A good exercise is actually to mark out the space, block off the parts of the space that have furniture and try to conceive of a reconstruction of the crime that a) fits into the space and b) permits for the absence of physical evidence that we point to. You could do it in a courtroom. It would be extremely revealing.

I have been arguing this ever since I joined this forum

 

[Kauffer]

"Digestion science" is only your self-proclaimed muse, nothing but an invocation from yourself. I taught you instead a little of basic statistics, but just to show the actual context in which digestion statistics science must be applied here (statistic science must be applied to a specific condition), and you seemingly didn't absorb it. You went on claiming - this is what you said more or less literally - even that 10 minutes earlier "must" be considered "much more likely", no matter what's the position of the figure would be on the Gauss curve! Which is pure insanity. The actual statistic picture says that in the applied case if you are ready to accept a 90 minutes delay as "the most likely", this means you are ready to accept a 100 minutes delay as "close to the most likely". You don't unserstand that you imply a mathematical intorno whenever you decide a value, and you don't understand the distribution of values is more varied the more extreme the farther they are located towards the "tails" of the curve (which is where you want to locate it), a percentile where the tolerance and variability becomes huge. Yet, you want to "locate" it there as the most likely value while - at the same time - you want to deny tolerence for its variation; which is pure nonsense.

On the same topic I also reminded how the gastric emptying argument is actualy an alibi argument, and I pointed out how this argument becomes completely pointless since there is absolutely no alibi valid for the two suspects beyond 8:30/8:40 pm. The few spot-like claimed computer interactions at times like 9:18 are not an alibi.

I pointed out how, on the other hand, the digestion argument is a defensive argument not a refutation of the evidence (thus an alibi) therefore it would even require to meet, in principle, an extremely high standard of certainity.
I did not argue about the delusional statement that their alibi should be considered "osmotically sound", I didn't spend time on that since any rational observer understands that the situation of the two suspects' alibies is absolutely catastrophic.

Statistics is too difficult, ok. Galileo Galilei's method also caused confusion among the pro-Knoxes (Numbers mistook the roles, as if Galileo was the one claiming that when "standards" of "absolute certainity" are not met than you need to accept the opposite hypotheses and analogies are not arguments - while it was the Cardinal Mazzarino crowd who took this side).
Let's turn to something more simple. Addition and subtraction. You have an example for where the pro-Knoxes managed get lost on something as simple as that: an expression with a subtraction and a division to calculate Guede's penalty. Like calculating a discount from the price tage when you by a car from a a salesman. They got it wrong. For how incredible this might be, some people like Kaosium here get lost about it. If you get even this calculation wrong I'm not surprised if you don't understand circumstantial evidence.

The digestion argument for TOD advanced by real scientists here is supported by Sophie Purton's testimony that Ms Kercher was tired and wanted to go to bed, yet was killed having not even taken off her outer wear. It is further supported by the unrepeated 856 call to her mother with whom she did not speak. In this instance, the raw science cannot help us as much as the witness testimony and Ms Kercher's habits which point to her being attacked very shortly after her arrival. As I understand the scientific argument as advanced from experiment, a TOD can be narrowed down to demonstrate that Ms Kercher could not have died after around 950. And yet the important event was not her death, but when she was attacked; most people would have to conclude that this was before 910. If you wish to argue that after speaking to his father at 845, Mr Sollecito and Ms Knox immediately gathered up their things and sprinted off to Via Pergola for a kill fest, well that's up to you. It's a very very strange position to take.