Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Machiavelli]

Even assuming she was a loathsome individual, Cameron Todd Willingham does not seem to have been a nice guy. He may very well have beaten his wife to death one day. The problem is that the evidence does not support his guilt with regards to the fire at his home being arson.

Inconsistencies are not related to being a loathsome person. They are evidence of lying. And lying is evidence of guilt.

 

[Bill Williams]

Inconsistencies are not related to being a loathsome person. They are evidence of lying. And lying is evidence of guilt.

There's your confirmation biased case in a nutshell.

There are dozens of reasons for inconsistencies, which are not even close to considering them "lying".

There are dozens of reasons for someone lying, which themselves are not even close to the person being guilty.

It is up to the prosecution to prove that a particular set of inconsistencies equals lying - this cannot be assumed.

It is up to the prosecution to prove that a particular set of lies equals guilt - this cannot be assumed.

 

[Desert Fox]

Inconsistencies are not related to being a loathsome person. They are evidence of lying. And lying is evidence of guilt.

Even assuming she was lying, which I do not see, it does not. A good example might be when you are kids. Somebody broke a glass. Maybe you or maybe your brother / sister. Maybe it was just bad luck and fell.

Your parents say "Unless somebody admits to breaking it, nobody gets ice cream." Even if you did not break the glass, you may admit to it so you get ice cream.

 

[Machiavelli]

There's your confirmation biased case in a nutshell.

There are dozens of reasons for inconsistencies, which are not even close to considering them "lying".

Depends on how much inconsistent a story is. There are patterns inconsistencies that are to be considered evidence of lies (some here are very quick to call several people "liars"). I am not ready to accept just any posssible degree of inconsistency and at any condition.

There are dozens of reasons for someone lying, which themselves are not even close to the person being guilty.

It is up to the prosecution to prove that a particular set of inconsistencies equals lying - this cannot be assumed.

It is up to the prosecution to prove that a particular set of lies equals guilt - this cannot be assumed.

It's not up to the prosecution. Actually, it's a matter of jurisprudence. When the lie appears to be placed in order to prevent the discovery of the truth within an investigation or a trial, the Supreme Court rules it should be considered circumstantial evidence of implication.

 

[carbonjam72]

The title means "The angel with the eyes of ice" if that means anything or will help?
edit: I should add that you might want to write directly to the author. I have done this in the past with issues and have gotten good results.

I'd be astounded if I got a response from the author. Maybe the publisher. I mean isn't that the whole point of having a publisher, running defense?

I'll try though, but will feel guilty even asking.

 

[carbonjam72]

Depends on how much inconsistent a story is. There are patterns inconsistencies that are to be considered evidence of lies (some here are very quick to call several people "liars"). I am not ready to accept just any posssible degree of inconsistency and at any condition.



It's not up to the prosecution. Actually, it's a matter of jurisprudence. When the lie appears to be placed in order to prevent the discovery of the truth within an investigation or a trial, the Supreme Court rules it should be considered circumstantial evidence of implication.

Except Amanda and Raffaele never lied. Calling the confused statements extracted under duress in overnight, illegal, pre-planned intentionally coercive interrogations as lies, is simply an abuse of their human rights, as the ECHR will shortly explain.

It is really sad that you take the best of people, and try to paint them as the worst. There is no rational basis for these slanders.

I understand you won't change your mind or stop these posts in this same false light, but I do consider it a type of criminal assault, and imo, it should be prosecuted in criminal court. Mignini, and all those who helped him, and internet posters who continue to spew these reckless lies, and journalists who profit from this type of false ambiguity. And the judges. If there were justice in Italy, the convicting judges would go to jail for their behavior in this case.

No offense Mach, but you are really on the wrong side on this one. The wrong side, meaning, the "inhuman side".

Perhaps after ECHR addresses the situation, you'll take a moment to reflect.

 

[AmyStrange]

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And the dead giveaway is that almost all their evidence (their pretend strongest arguements) all center mostly around the psychology of Amanda. The way she acted after the murders (the cartwheel for example). Her inconsistencies in what she remembered after the fact. Her testimony on the stand. Saying that the break-in was staged by Amanda. All the motives that I've seen involve or revolve around Amanda somehow. If Amanda hadn't been there, it would never have happened scenarios. These are the corner stones of many of the CBPG's case.

Inconsistencies have nothing to do with psychology.

(btw. it seems like you admit she was inconsistent)

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The reasons why or how people remember things, or why we lie, in my opinion, is pure psychology. How you perceive things is what you use to organize and prioritize things in your mind, and is also pure psychology. This particular discipline (which is based on perception) is called "Cognitive Psychology".

As far as inconsistencies being considered lies, try this Mach. Get two of your friends who were out the night before together, and ask them to give an account of their night, putting approximate times when things happened. Have them do this in different rooms and compared. It would be cheating to tell these two people before they go out that they'll be a part of this experiment.

You can bet their accounts will be different and inconsistent with each other. Times will be different, and sometimes even the sequence of events will be changed. Some people even remember parts of a different night or different times of the night as later or earlier.

And I don't hold out this experiment to Mach only. I've tried it myself and I welcome anyone else to do it also,

d

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ETA: Try it again the next night and you can almost bet the second night will be slightly inconsistent with the first night's account from both of them.

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[AmyStrange]

Here pick a knife, any knife...

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...I would like to discuss the knife however. Let us assume that Amanda did kill Meredeth for the sake of this discussion. What is the actual likelihood of that being the knife she used. I would argue that it is just about non existent.

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I tend to agree with you. The almost randomness of the choice (this one looks like the cleanest knife) from Raffaele's apartment is equal to the kind of razzle dazzle you'd see on a TV show.

REAL LIFE FORENSICS is not like the show CSI. Any COMPETENT investigator would have taken all the knives at Rafaele's apartment and had them all tested.

Every bit of this case is like a TV detective show. It's all showmanship. The wrapping up of the mop, picking the murder weapon out of a draw of knives and magically being right, to Mignini deciding it was a staged break-in the minute he got there, all thinking they were Sherlock Holmes (Mignini even admits to liking Sherlock Holmes and liked to pretend he was as smart as him) and they could solve crimes with one look at the crime scene, not the evidence, but the crime scene only.

Not to mention the brilliance of that one detective saying he knew they were guilty because of pizza,

d

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[Numbers]

Thanks DF, much appreciated. Any word on an English version, preferably on kindle? Seems very, very strange that this book is only available in German, and not in the US.

You or anyone have any idea what gives?

The paperback German language edition (2013) is available from Amazon for less than $10 before S&H. What do you mean it's not available in the US? I saw no indication of that on the Amazon site (although I did not complete the order).

I did not see an English language version. Perhaps Preston & Spezi never published an English language edition?

 

[AmyStrange]

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PROVE THIS: I would be interested how you could prove this but, of course you cannot. I would ebb really interested if you could prove it.

Yes: Rudy beat her up and grabbed her hair to twist her to the ground to make the final blow from behind

Rudy stabbed repeatedly from the right side to draw her hand defenses to the right. I did not say he struck her. The knife print in the pillow was from the short knife: The long knife is a fantasy that is not in the murder room.

She could not use her hands to catch the knife or attack Rudy because he was behind and above her. Could you explain how she could get at Rudy or the knife if he and the knife was behind and above her??? I REALLY and interested in this theory. She would be protecting herself from the knife: until he reached around and stabbed her, unexpectedly, on the left side.
By the way, how does one ward off knife blows coming from behind them?

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And don't forget the smashed nose and bruised lips, consistent with her head being smashed against the floor, while she was still dazzed from this he then does exactly what you've described and finishes her off. The autopsy is consistent with a single attacker,

d

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[griffinmill]

No, obviously not. If there was no evidence, I would argue there is insufficient proof.
But I don't think that could be the case: sufficient proof was collected, and I do not believe it is possible that all points of evidence could be proven false.
I do not believe there is a possibility of re-sizing the bathmat print, or to find defensive arguments that are better than Vinci's tricks. I don't believe there is another reasonable substance for luminol, and I don't believe a reasonable scenario for Guede as lone perpetrator that explains the evidence could be drawn. And also, for example, I don't believe a contamination of the bra clasp with Sollecito's DNA is realistic or likely; I do not believe Knox accused Lumumba out of a false memory syndrome; nor that a burglar would enter through Romanelli's window instead of the back balcony or that would leave no soil on the floor after climbing from the ground or sprawl clothes around instead of searching drawers etc. I don't think it would be possible to prove that the suspects' accounts were consistent, or that Mignini coerced Knox instead of collecting a spontaneous statement, or to find a computer or telephone record alibi for anyone of the two suspects nor scientific alibies whatsoever.
And you would need to disprove basically all points of evidence, or better in order to have reasonable doubt on the whole of them, you would need to disprove completely a large majority of them. They should be all factually false in a scenario of factual innocence.
Obviously if things were different I would see the picture differently. But things are so.

Very well put. I've always believed the problem with people here is they raise the burden of proof to absurd levels. In doing so, they are able to believe in an incontrovertible set of false "facts" about the case, not pieces of evidence that deserve their own scrutiny, and need to be weighed in totality. Chronological:

AK/RS statements to police: two people who spent the night together can't produce even a semblance of the same timeline, can't remember if they had sex (with one party having had his first sexual experience in the last week), and with RS eventually admitting his statements were "rubbish," after which he doesn't back AK throughout the trial.

AK's confession: Argued to be coercion (in less than 2 hours), yet she makes up the entire witness to rape and murder scenario without being prompted whatsoever. She never states police suggested Lumumba raped and murdered MK, she comes up with that all on her own, and also puts herself there.

DNA: As I've said before, it's amazingly unlucky that RS shows up on the clasp and MK shows up on RS's knife. But the bad luck goes on. Footprints that don't match Guede, and don't exonerate AK/RS, are also found. Additionally, there are several combinations of AK and RS DNA, even in Filomena's room where that would be especially unlikely. Cue Halkides to cite the studies of professional defense experts who claim it is.

Luminol: Mach has said it best, but it takes an incredible leap of faith to believe that luminol hits were the result of anyting other than blood when a pool of blood was found within 10 feet of them. I guess AK/RS got even more unlucky that turnips or iron deposits showed up, with footprints, that also contained the DNA of AK and MK in several places.

Then there are all the retroactive attempts to create alibis such as RS's many gaffes -- "pricked" MK with the knife, wrote emails to professors, using his relatives to cast doubt on AK.

This is only a partial list, but I'm sure many posters will go back to the dogma and remind me why every fact I posted is wrong. Have at it, but my position is the same:

These are either two of the unluckiest accused people in history, or they're the luckiest murderes to have such a fervent brigade of believers. Either way, their end run around justice is about to come to a close.

 

[kwill]

And lying is evidence of guilt.

Hmmm. Well, here are some lies.

Knox had also contacts with older drug dealers and even had causal sex with some of them.

I also noted that in fact there the label of Knox as “honor student” in Seattle was not backed by evidence.

Amana Knox was also involved in another incident, a burglar-prank in which she staged a burglary and reportedly acted in disguise as a violent burglar/rapist

In fact, the truth is she wasn’t even in Perugia as a University student. . . . like a kind of sabbatical or a diversion from her ordinary university course. . . what she became there: a freshman student at a language school.

She drifted from the Bundestag to Perugia not because she was prioritizing the values of hard work, sacrifice, self-commitment, self-programming, but because she was prioritizing the values of fun, party, the excitement of the student life in Perugia renown for its drug-and-sex party style.

What sort of guilt do they indicate?

 

[carbonjam72]

The paperback German language edition (2013) is available from Amazon for less than $10 before S&H. What do you mean it's not available in the US? I saw no indication of that on the Amazon site (although I did not complete the order).

I did not see an English language version. Perhaps Preston & Spezi never published an English language edition?

Found the german language softcover on Amazon US, so my goof. (no kindle version on the US site, but it is available on the AmazonUK site). But I'm still puzzled why it only seems available in German?

Wonder if they're deliberately avoiding making it available in English and Italian, solely to avoid any claims that they intended to market the book in those countries (UK & IT), and are thus not subject to their libel/censorship laws?

 

[Numbers]

An ECHR case of interest:

Labita v. Italy 26772/95 Final 06/04/2000

The applicant, who was married to the sister of a Mafia leader, was named as a manager of illegal financial money dealings by a pentiti (Mafia member who turned witness against them); call this witness A. However, A had only heard this info from B, who had only heard it from C; B and C were both deceased and therefore could not be called as witnesses. Other pentiti could not identify him as a Mafia member. The police could find no other evidence against the applicant. The applicant was held on remand awaiting trial for about 2.5 years, and was then acquitted due to the lack of evidence; this acquittal was finalized.

The applicant's claims included that he was beaten and otherwise abused in prison while on remand detention (as were other prisoners both on remand and sentenced in this high-security prison), that there was no effective investigation of his complaints of abuse, that his correspondence in prison was illegally censored, and that the length of his detention was contrary to the Convention. The ECtHR judgment found that there was no evidence BARD that he had been beaten/abused, but that Italy had violated the procedural aspect of Article 3 (that is, failure to effectively investigate his claims of abuse). ECtHR also found that Article 5.3 (no excessive length of detention) and Article 8 (right of correspondence) were violated.

Another interesting bit about pretrial detention:
85. The first paragraph of Article 273 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (“CCP”) provides that “no one shall be detained pending trial unless there is serious evidence of his guilt”.

I don't know if this was the wording of the CCP at the time Amanda and Raffaele were detained pretrial, and if so, how one should interpret "serious" evidence of guilt. If the evidence presented at the pretrial detention hearing was demonstrably false, and known by the prosecutor to be false, would it still be "serious" as judged by ECtHR?

 

[Bill Williams]

There are dozens of reasons for someone lying, which themselves are not even close to the person being guilty.

It is up to the prosecution to prove that a particular set of inconsistencies equals lying - this cannot be assumed.

It is up to the prosecution to prove that a particular set of lies equals guilt - this cannot be assumed.

It's not up to the prosecution. Actually, it's a matter of jurisprudence. When the lie appears to be placed in order to prevent the discovery of the truth within an investigation or a trial, the Supreme Court rules it should be considered circumstantial evidence of implication.

This is my own frustration with comments like this from you. It seems fair game to have an issue of "lying" settled with no evidence at all presented to substantiate it - here you have Cassazione able to rule something as lying (a finding of fact) with no prosecutor from a lower court ever addressing the subject.

"When the lie appears to be", is the standard of proof you operate with. Appearances are everything.

Griffinmill is impressed with your reasoning. I am not. You want people to go to jail on appearances. Good for you.

 

[Desert Fox]

I'd be astounded if I got a response from the author. Maybe the publisher. I mean isn't that the whole point of having a publisher, running defense?

I'll try though, but will feel guilty even asking.

I think of all of the authors I have written to, the only one I did not get a response from was Bart Ehrman. One even sent me the DVD of a program she made - I am very interested in K-2 and the Ogre.

 

[Numbers]

Found the german language softcover on Amazon US, so my goof. (no kindle version on the US site, but it is available on the AmazonUK site). But I'm still puzzled why it only seems available in German?

Wonder if they're deliberately avoiding making it available in English and Italian, solely to avoid any claims that they intended to market the book in those countries (UK & IT), and are thus not subject to their libel/censorship laws?

Good question. If you read German, you could buy the book and provide a brief summary in English on the forum.

Buy why not have a US English edition? Would the publisher/authors be responsible for a UK person buying the book?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

please try harder

Footprints that don't match Guede, and don't exonerate AK/RS, are also found. Additionally, there are several combinations of AK and RS DNA, even in Filomena's room where that would be especially unlikely.

Griffinmill,

Please at least get your facts straight. It makes it easier to debunk your arguments that way.

 

[Desert Fox]

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ETA: Try it again the next night and you can almost bet the second night will be slightly inconsistent with the first night's account from both of them.

Discovery Channel did this years ago, when they still were decent, with faking a UFO crash site. They laid down a bit of caution tape and had a security guard. The story completely morphed when interviewed later about what people saw.

 

[griffinmill]

Griffinmill,

Please at least get your facts straight. It makes it easier to debunk your arguments that way.

AK and MK DNA, a typo.