Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Machiavelli]

It's funny how the lamp has resumed its rightful place at the heart of the case. It is indeed an item of 'undoubted significance' as Nencini put it (without bothering to say what the significance was, unfortunately). Who but Battistelli (or his sidekick) had any reason to use a lamp from the next room in preference to Meredith's working lamp and place it out of the way of anyone wanting to enter the room but in the way of someone exiting? Why has this key item never been dusted for prints or tested for DNA? Why can we see it standing on her desk in the 18 Dec vid attracting no interest from anybody at all? Could it be that the liars running this case know full well the lamp is irrelevant but are so desperate to account for the absence of evidence of her presence in the room that they are willing to stoop even this low?

The lamp, like many other items, is a window on a world of corruption, incompetence and lies. Machiavelli, how come you are so easily fooled?

Maybe because the idea that Battistelli brought there a lamp is contrary to all testimonies and completely idiotic?

 

[MDDVS]

Who cares about the lamp.

 

[Machiavelli]

(...)

Galileo inferred from his observations of Venus that Venus revolved about the sun, rather than about the earth. He inferred from his observations of Jupiter and the four Jovian moons he discovered (now often called the Galilean moons) that heavenly bodies may revolve around some other body not the earth. These observations and inferences contradicted the geocentric theory (or model); they supported the heliocentric theory (or model).

(...)

But they also supported the Tycho Brahe model. In fact the reason why Galileo preferred the heliocentric model was a form of Occam's Razor: simplicity, a minor number of causal postulates; and the reason why he considered extra terrestrial planet phases and moons as circumstantial evidence is: analogy.

Analogies and the reducing of the number of causes were his argumentations.

 

[js202]

Why do you ignore the presence of luminol stains 176 and 177 with mixed DNA traces from the victim and with Knox, why don't you "count" them as physical evidence findings?

Perhaps because any actual forensics expert outside of the grotesque funhouse of the Kercher case will tell you that luminol is the first of a three-step process? And that, without the next steps - a positive TMB test and a positive confirmatory test - it is not probative?

 

[Machiavelli]

The the worldviews of people here are Knox-centered as much as the Catholic Church was Earth-centered at the time of Galileo Galilei.

 

[anglolawyer]

Maybe because the idea that Battistelli brought there a lamp is contrary to all testimonies and completely idiotic?

Oh yeah? Whose testimonies? Battistelli lied about looking at the body so we can count him out. Who else is there? Name a witness who claimed the lamp was already there when the door was busted open? Micheli only recites the police photographer and some site report. So, go on. Name one.

Who cares about the lamp.

Good point. Just because it's her lamp, so what? The importance of the lamp is fully explained in that part of Nencini's motivation that we don't get to see in accordance with Machiavelli's Theory of Partial Motivation in which the court only publishes half its reasons.

 

[MDDVS]

But they also supported the Tycho Brahe model. In fact the reason why Galileo preferred the heliocentric model was a form of Occam's Razor: simplicity, a minor number of causal postulates; and the reason why he considered extra terrestrial planet phases and moons as circumstantial evidence is: analogy.

Analogies and the reducing of the number of causes were his argumentations.

He was wrong to endorse the heliocentric theory given the evidence at the time. He just got lucky.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

touching an object does not necessarily deposit DNA

You are claiming the absence of DNA on things Rudy would have touched as evidence of Rudy's absence. But where are the samples taken from those things? Why are they absent from the DNA results? The only sample taken from a tap in that bathroom was the tap on the sink with a clot of Amanda's blood. None of the other taps were tested. Are you claiming that the investigators were stupid dolts not to recognize these obvious points?

If Machiavelli is claiming that the absence of DNA is proof that Rudy did not touch the item in question, then this assertion is wrong. Sometimes people touch items yet do not leave DNA, according to Suzanna Ryan.

 

[anglolawyer]

The the worldviews of people here are Knox-centered as much as the Catholic Church was Earth-centered at the time of Galileo Galilei.

Devastating.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

living in a glass house, yet throwing stones

The the worldviews of people here are Knox-centered as much as the Catholic Church was Earth-centered at the time of Galileo Galilei.

Machiavelli,

That is a remarkable statement coming from someone who did as much violence to the concepts of chemistry as you did within the last few weeks.

 

[Numbers]

You didn't explain in a consequential manner how is it that you think the Supreme Court had an interest in taking part to a conspiracy, why it didn't let Hellmann verdict stand. But if you are happy so. I only wanted to see how you were working it out in your rationalization. The bottom line, as I can understand, is that you believe in a huge conspiracy which would have grown up to a national scale, involving the Supreme Court and almost every other person from all the various authorities and offices who happened to be involved in the case.

As for the ECHR, Italy doesn't have a very good record. It had 34 violations in 2013, among which 16 cases with violation due to excessive lenght of trials and 13 failures to protect property. However it is not that distant from countries like France, which had 28 violations in 2013. Several countries are comparatively worse: Hungary had 40 violations, Greece had 32, but their populations are 1/6 than Italy, Slovenia had 24 violations with only 2.8 million inhabitants and Austria 10 violations with a populations of only 8 millions. Compared to its population, Italy had less than half of the violations of Switzerland, which had 9 violations but is 7.5 times smaller than Italy. The small Croatia had 22 and Portugal had 11. Let's not speak about Turkey and the eastern states.

But the Supreme Court of Italy has little to do with human rights violations. The origin is politics. The system breeds a huge number of lawyers and produces a monstre number of proceedings, especially civil litigations, five times the numbers processed by a country of the same size like the UK every year. This huge number cannot help but produce a comparatively massive heap of failures and inefficiency.

No one doubts that Italy has a better human rights record than certain other states, such as North Korea.

The question is whether Italy can achieve a human rights record consistent with the principles and laws of the European Convention of Human Rights and the Constitution of the Italian Republic.

 

[MDDVS]

The the worldviews of people here are Knox-centered as much as the Catholic Church was Earth-centered at the time of Galileo Galilei.

Don't tell me you're Gallielo centered? You do realize his heliocentric model is wrong too, right?

 

[Dan O.]

3. Her trousers had been removed forcedly by someone who was pulling them while someone else was holding her. The person who was holding her was Guede, and the person who pulled her trousers could have been Knox. Meredith did not remove her trousers herself, because the trousers are completely reversed and that would be a very unusual and difficult way to remove them even if she did it under threat. You need someone to pull them from a somehow distant position. But someone must hold her. Basically, you need two people.
This means there are some perpetators who are somehow in "external" position.

What's wrong with your eyes Machiavelli? Have you not seen photos dsc_0109, dsc_0110, dsc_0112, dsc_0115, dsc_0118, dsc_0132, dsc_0133, dsc_0134, dsc_0135, dsc_0136, dsc_0137, dsc_0138, dsc_0139, dsc_0167, dsc_0243, dsc_0244? All of these show the trousers not reversed. Or is it perhaps nobody told you how you are supposed to dress and you wear your own trousers inside out.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Lindy Chamberlain

This is simply nuts. A series of negative tests, the results of which were withheld from the court and whose probative value was stated by the prosecution's own scientific witness to be decisive cannot in any sense be said to be irrelevant. Ghirga's treatment of it in submissions is a red herring even if what you say were true. This is how Knox's appeal from Massei put it:
SNIP
You, apparently Christiannahannah too, seem to think context a substitute for or more powerful than valid scientifc procedure. Luminol is a test for stuff on the floor (or in a bath) that might be blood, among many other things. The fact there is or has recently been a source of blood nearby cannot override scientific proof that it is not blood nor the dodgy conduct of the forensic scientist in suppressing test results and not conducting tests which could have disposed of all doubt.

anglolawyer,

Thank you for an excellent comment. The first sentence in the second paragraph deserves discussion. The idea that the proximity of a luminol hit to actual blood means that one can conclude that luminol is reacting to blood is found in no textbook or article I have ever read. Nor is it a convincing argument: luminol (or another presumptive test) is often used when someone has come to a violent end and there may be blood present nearby. That doesn't preclude the existence of other substances that also react to luminol. It would not surprise me if Azaria Chamberlain bled after she was attacked, but that doesn't make the presumptive test (ortho-tolidene) any more certain; it still was probably reacting to copper dust.

 

[Numbers]

I'm wondering if I can ask you to focus a little longer on this issue.

If Mignini, Napoleone, Zugarini, recognize Guede's MO at the Kercher crime scene (there's video of Zugarini and Napoleone greeting Mignini at the crime scene which I find mesmerizing), AND, they know that Perugian authorities (whoever) intervened with Milan just 5 days earlier to free Guede and bring him back to Perugia, that's a big deal. It means they own his crimes. It means they aren't just covering for Guede, they are covering their own asses.

Now, tell me again, what is so compelling about the reasons they gave for claiming they knew immediately that the break-in was staged?

And what are the reasons they give for the break-in being staged?

There was some BS about glass being on top of clothes in Filomena's room. Not convincing when one looks at a photo on IIP.

Can you explain their theory?

In terms of the police motive for the framing of Knox, Sollecito, and Lumumba, I can offer perhaps three possibilities. I am aware that if they recognized Guede's MO and decided to protect themselves in terms of the release of Guede in Milan, the police could be considered more culpable.

In an upthread post, I quoted an ECHR decision finding Italy in violation of Article 2 for the early release of a man who had been convicted of rape and murder, who then murdered two women after his early release.

My position is that there is not enough information in this case to be absolutely sure of which theory of police motive is true. Thus, one may pick a favorite or, in a fanciful quantum-mechanical type of construct, believe that elements of each theory are true.

The three theories I am considering are:

1. Police recognized Guede's MO and, since they were responsible for his release and thus morally responsible for his committing the murder-rape, they had to frame individuals to distract attention from the police involvement.
This theory is consistent with Guede having been a police informant, but it would also apply if Guede were protected by the police because of his previous relationship to a respected wealthy Perugian family or even simply because the police admired his skills as an amateur basketball player.

2. The police recognized that a sub-Saharan African was involved in the crime. They learned that Amanda Knox worked for such a person. Amanda had no lawyer, was in Perugia with her boyfriend the night of the murder, had a key to the apartment, was a beginning speaker of Italian, didn't know her legal rights, and was an American female. She had communicated by phone message with Patrick Lumumba the evening of the murder, in a message that the police could intentionally misunderstand. Therefore, the frame is logical. Why look for the actual perpetrator?

3. The police saw that the window was a break-in; possibly a common method of entry for burglars in Italy and elsewhere. It would be efficient for the police to decide that the break-in was staged and that the murderer and rapist was someone who had been close to the victim. Thus, start with the boys downstairs. Oops, they have strong alibis. Next, the other residents of the victim's apartment. How about Amanda Knox? Amanda had no lawyer, was in Perugia with her boyfriend the night of the murder, had a key to the apartment, was a beginning speaker of Italian, didn't know her legal rights, and was an American female. She had communicated by phone message with Patrick Lumumba the evening of the murder, in a message that the police could intentionally misunderstand. Therefore, the frame is logical and convenient (minimizes police effort). Why look for the actual perpetrator?

 

[Machiavelli]

Machiavelli,

That is a remarkable statement coming from someone who did as much violence to the concepts of chemistry as you did within the last few weeks.

Chemistry?

 

[Numbers]

I disagree with the highlighted part and don't think your illustration is actually all that apt. A crummy piece of evidence can be firmed up by another so that they both gain weight from each other. The combinative process itself not only strengthens the inference you want to draw from the evidence (that it's a dog) but can also shore up the individual elements. A bad example, until I think of a better one, is the ID evidence against Barry George (I saw a man in a dark coat a year ago was about the sum total of it) which wasn't even third rate but which the Court of Appeal combined with other crap when turning down his first appeal.

Maybe a better analogy is a jigsaw puzzle. I might have a piece that is entirely blue. It could be anything: sky, sea, a wall, somebody's clothing - basically anything. But once I start to fit other pieces together and the picture begins to emerge the likelihood that it is sky (say) starts to become increasingly likely, eventually reaching certainty when I finally see where the piece fits.

Further, I might have ten puzzles with all the pieces jumbled into a great heap and thus not able to say whether a particular piece belongs to the one puzzle of interest to me (the steam locomotive!). If I first had to prove that a particular piece belonged to that puzzle I would never be able to complete it.

I would strongly disagree with anyone claiming that an unreliable or bogus piece of evidence can be combined with credible evidence, or a collection of such unreliable or bogus pieces can be combined, to form a probative whole which indicates guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

putative reducing agents and TMB

Chemistry?

You listed water as a reducing agent and intimated that the active ingredient of marijuana could somehow affect a TMB test.

 

[Numbers]

In my opinion this Galileo discussion is not really relevant. Also, he had to completely ignore contemporary (Tycho Brahe) models which were very successful in describing the available data at the time, and ignore data that argued against his heliocentric model (no measured stellar parallaxes). In face of this, and with o physics of gravitation, it was wrong of him to push an heliocentric model.

Your statements reflect the belief that evidence, inferences, or arguments supporting a model are "wrong" if there is another model that is also consistent with those inferences. That is logically incorrect. What is correct is that additional information is required to choose between the alternative models.

The lack of measurable stellar parallaxes was, of course, a limitation of the technology of that time, and not an indication of the non-existence of such parallaxes. If one could have the insight or imagination to envision the immense distances to the "fixed" stars, the lack of measurement of their parallaxes with the crude instruments of Galileo's time is not a limitation. That is, the apparent lack of parallax for the "fixed" stars has more than one explanation in Galileo's time. It is therefore not a falsification of the heliocentric theory.

 

[christianahannah]

Well that was thoroughly for naught. I had an answer to Chris_Halkides questions re: luminol and poof! It is gone.

Too late to go back and do over. Maybe I'll attempt tomorrow but by then the subject may have moved on to something else. Or maybe not.

Sorry Chris. I tried.