Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Dan O.]

This will date me but I used to discuss creation and evolution on bbs board. I remember this poster who argued for creation and I basically demolished every single one of their arguments.

He did almost exactly the same thing that Machiavelli seems to do. Never accept any arguments against him and would just repeat the same arguments over and over again.

As such, it is possible that Machiavelli is one person.

I don't have to go that far back to find comperable examples. On this very board look up the posts of Humber in the downwind faster than the wind threads. Humber would argue that such a feat is impossible and continued his arguments even after a couple of the main proponents indisputably proved their point by setting the Guinness World Record for a craft traveling directly downwind powered only by the wind. And they didn't just marginally beat the wind with a disputable margin of error, they got up to 2.5 times faster than the wind.

Machiavelli has vested himself on his absolute position. If he won't give on the minor points, he'll never let go of the major points.

 

[Samson]

I don't have to go that far back to find comperable examples. On this very board look up the posts of Humber in the downwind faster than the wind threads. Humber would argue that such a feat is impossible and continued his arguments even after a couple of the main proponents indisputably proved their point by setting the Guinness World Record for a craft traveling directly downwind powered only by the wind. And they didn't just marginally beat the wind with a disputable margin of error, they got up to 2.5 times faster than the wind.

Machiavelli has vested himself on his absolute position. If he won't give on the minor points, he'll never let go of the major points.

That reminds me of my disbelief land yachts could do 65mph in a 25mph wind, which is totally explicable. This downwind business nearly returned us that damned America's cup.

 

[Kauffer]

Italian bonkers court decisions

I think the people her don't have really a clue of what that trial was about.

Wrong sources don't help the English speaking public: that they were "convicted of manslaughter for failing to predict a deadly earthquake" is factually false.

What did these scientist actually say in the meeting organised by the government agency that was considered actionable as a manslaughter case?

And on the subject of jeans, I cannot think about Italy and jeans in the same sentence without remembering that those who wish to go a raping should go a raping in Italy when the victim is wearing jeans because it is a judicial fact that the victim will be considered to have voluntarily participated in the raping.

"It is common knowledge... that jeans cannot even be partly removed without the effective help of the person wearing them... and it is impossible if the victim is struggling with all her might."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/women-in-jeans-cant-be-raped-1070301.html

 

[anglolawyer]

According to the following from Wikipedia, I believe Mach may have a valid point in this instance. The scientists apparently downplayed the risks, which should have been apparent - even to the non-technical citizens of the area.

The killers were of course the collapsing buildings; according to another part of the Wikipedia article, building standards and practices are believed to have been quite deficient compared to current standards.

From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_L'Aquila_earthquake

A trial, which lasted from September 2011 until October 2012, found six scientists and a former government official guilty of involuntary manslaughter.[90] According to the prosecution, they had spread "inaccurate, incomplete and contradictory" statements after preliminary tremors could be felt on the days before 6 April 2009. While scientists were found guilty for failing to give adequate warning,[91] the full text of the decision said that that "science [was] not being tried for failing to predict the April 6, 2009 earthquake" ("Non è sottoposta a giudizio la scienza per non-essere riuscita a prevedere il terremoto del 6 aprile 2009").[92] The seven members of the National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks who were convicted were: Franco Barberi, head of Serious Risks Commission; Enzo Boschi, former president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology; Giulio Lorenzo Selvaggi, director of National Earthquake Centre; Gian Michele Calvi, director of European Centre for Earthquake Engineering; Claudio Eva, physicist; Mauro Dolce, director of the Civil Protection Agency's earthquake risk office; Bernardo De Bernardinis, former vice-president of Civil Protection Agency's technical department.[7]

Boschi had called a major earthquake "unlikely", while not entirely excluding the possibility. De Bernardinis had informed the public that there was "no danger".[8] The prosecutors cited a scientific opinion that the low-level tremors ahead of 6 April quake were typical of the seismic activity preceding major convulsions, but the defendants had classified them as a "normal geological phenomenon".[9] They were criticised in court for being "falsely reassuring" and Judge Marco Billi gave them a six-year jail sentence on 22 October 2012,[7] reasoning that they had provided "an assessment of the risks that was incomplete, inept, unsuitable, and criminally mistaken".[92][93] They were also banned from ever holding public office again and had to pay court costs and damages.

Enzo Boschi, one of the convicted, said, "I thought I would have been acquitted. I still don't understand what I was convicted of."[7] His co-defendant Claudio Eva said that "it was a very Italian and medieval decision."[94] Their lawyers announced they would appeal the verdict, and it will not be finally decided until it is heard by the appellate court.

ETA: The scientists were only following orders, IIUC, in stating the uncertainty of an earthquake as a sequel to the series of tremors, to reduce panic among the citizens. The government instead should have provided less dangerous temporary housing or evacuated residents from the area, IMO.

ETA2: Just wait for Mt. Vesuvius to start acting up. The Italian government planning for that is....?

I don't see why 'failing to predict an earthquake' isn't a fair approximation of the above.

 

[anglolawyer]

What did these scientist actually say in the meeting organised by the government agency that was considered actionable as a manslaughter case?

And on the subject of jeans, I cannot think about Italy and jeans in the same sentence without remembering that those who wish to go a raping should go a raping in Italy when the victim is wearing jeans because it is a judicial fact that the victim will be considered to have voluntarily participated in the raping.

"It is common knowledge... that jeans cannot even be partly removed without the effective help of the person wearing them... and it is impossible if the victim is struggling with all her might."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/women-in-jeans-cant-be-raped-1070301.html

The thought occurs to me that this famously fatuous ISC ruling might have played a part in the equally fatuous investigation of this crime. Remember how in the first few days the cops were interested in her sexual preferences? They had a fake burglary, no sign of forced entry, no sign of rape and removed jeans!

So, which way round were they? How can this possibly be a mystery? If I were taking jeans off a prone person, I would just yank them off by the ankles. Much easier than pulling them down from the waist.

 

[Kauffer]

Practical experiments

The thought occurs to me that this famously fatuous ISC ruling might have played a part in the equally fatuous investigation of this crime. Remember how in the first few days the cops were interested in her sexual preferences? They had a fake burglary, no sign of forced entry, no sign of rape and removed jeans!

So, which way round were they? How can this possibly be a mystery? If I were taking jeans off a prone person, I would just yank them off by the ankles. Much easier than pulling them down from the waist.

I don't doubt you are right in your last paragraph. You see what bothers me most about these Italian judges is that they are prepared to sit in their chairs for years and idly speculate if this or that thing might be possible, but what they are not able to do is get off their backsides and test to see if their speculation has any merit. In this case, the whole break-in scenario could have been reconstructed as could the the notion that three assailants killed Ms Kercher. But why do any real work when you're paid to sit in a chair and engage in faux philosophy? Greg Hampikian got it right - he proved that if you don't change your gloves, you get contamination. Anyone here familiar with our meerkat adverts will understand what I mean when I say, "SIMPLES!".

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I don't doubt you are right in your last paragraph. You see what bothers me most about these Italian judges is that they are prepared to sit in their chairs for years and idly speculate if this or that thing might be possible, but what they are not able to do is get off their backsides and test to see if their speculation has any merit. In this case, the whole break-in scenario could have been reconstructed as could the the notion that three assailants killed Ms Kercher. But why do any real work when you're paid to sit in a chair and engage in faux philosophy? Greg Hampikian got it right - he proved that if you don't change your gloves, you get contamination. Anyone here familiar with our meerkat adverts will understand what I mean when I say, "SIMPLES!".

There are plenty of weirdos on the Internet who still think she did it, but the people running the court system have to know better. They just don't want to take the credibility hit in such a high-profile case. Essentially every judge in a medium sized Italian city endorsed this improbable charge without ever raising an eyebrow or expressing the smallest glimmer of skepticism. It really does make them look like a gaggle of ninnies.

The question is what to do. I suspect Hellmann was a capitulation to the city fathers of Perugia, whose undoubted message was make her go away. Now she is gone, and the bureaucrats of the court system can resume their face-saving gyrations. The question is how far they will take it.

Will they go so far as to lock up Raffaele?

Will they oblige the US State Dept. to look at this case?

My gut says no, they can't possibly be that stupid, but we'll see...

 

[Kauffer]

Consensual rape

Actually, maybe anglolawyer's really on to something. Since Ms Kercher was wearing jeans and it's a judicial fact that you can't be raped wearing jeans, this was why they started to think that the sexual contact was consensual. So we have Guede's semen in her bedroom; we've probably got his blood in her vagina from his cuts; we've probably got Silenzi's sperm in the room as well. Perhaps the dominant discussion in those early days was characterised by a framing of the case within the boundaries of known judicial fact.

 

[anglolawyer]

There are plenty of weirdos on the Internet who still think she did it, but the people running the court system have to know better. They just don't want to take the credibility hit in such a high-profile case. Essentially every judge in a medium sized Italian city endorsed this improbable charge without ever raising an eyebrow or expressing the smallest glimmer of skepticism. It really does make them look like a gaggle of ninnies.

The question is what to do. I suspect Hellmann was a capitulation to the city fathers of Perugia, whose undoubted message was make her go away. Now she is gone, and the bureaucrats of the court system can resume their face-saving gyrations. The question is how far they will take it.

Will they go so far as to lock up Raffaele?

Will they oblige the US State Dept. to look at this case?

My gut says no, they can't possibly be that stupid, but we'll see...

Putting him back in jail may well turn him and the whole case into a cause célèbre in Italy. These guys have a tiger by the tail, though, and can't let go.

 

[Kauffer]

How the case will go away

There are plenty of weirdos on the Internet who still think she did it, but the people running the court system have to know better. They just don't want to take the credibility hit in such a high-profile case. Essentially every judge in a medium sized Italian city endorsed this improbable charge without ever raising an eyebrow or expressing the smallest glimmer of skepticism. It really does make them look like a gaggle of ninnies.

The question is what to do. I suspect Hellmann was a capitulation to the city fathers of Perugia, whose undoubted message was make her go away. Now she is gone, and the bureaucrats of the court system can resume their face-saving gyrations. The question is how far they will take it.

Will they go so far as to lock up Raffaele?

Will they oblige the US State Dept. to look at this case?

My gut says no, they can't possibly be that stupid, but we'll see...

This case cannot survive an ECHR ruling that the callunia trial aspect is admissable. No judgement required because everyone in Italy will know what the judgement will be. It will mean that if they are stupid enough to let the murder conviction prevail, then that too will be admitted to the court at a later date. That will be the beginning of the end. It might be a slightly elongated end but it will be effectively over at that point. I can see Mr Sollecito acquitted and Ms Knox sent for re-trial, but they probably will have been thumped about enough at that point to drop everything.

 

[anglolawyer]

This case cannot survive an ECHR ruling that the callunia trial aspect is admissable. No judgement required because everyone in Italy will know what the judgement will be. It will mean that if they are stupid enough to let the murder conviction prevail, then that too will be admitted to the court at a later date. That will be the beginning of the end. It might be a slightly elongated end but it will be effectively over at that point. I can see Mr Sollecito acquitted and Ms Knox sent for re-trial, but they probably will have been thumped about enough at that point to drop everything.

I wish things were as cut and dried as you seem to think.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Putting him back in jail may well turn him and the whole case into a cause célèbre in Italy. These guys have a tiger by the tail, though, and can't let go.

They can and should let go, for their own sake. They can send it back with instructions to acquit, applauding a valiant effort on behalf of Loony-nol, the police, and Stefanoni the lab tech, while also lamenting that it falls short. "It is better, after all, to spare the guilty than condemn the innocent," one of them might solemnly intone.

They have that option at their disposal. What they may not have at their disposal is the collective wisdom to act in accordance with their true interests.

 

[Kauffer]

I wish things were as cut and dried as you seem to think.

Not cut and dried. It depends on the ECHR. But this would then become a matter for survival. The embarrassment that is the Italian judiciary has never seen it's status so acutely questioned as in this case. They will worry that wholesale reform is demanded. They don't want that. Who wants his cushy little life turned upside down? Not an Italian judge that's for sure. They will act in their own interests.

 

[anglolawyer]

They can and should let go, for their own sake. They can send it back with instructions to acquit, applauding a valiant effort on behalf of Loony-nol, the police, and Stefanoni the lab tech, while also lamenting that it falls short. "It is better, after all, to spare the guilty than condemn the innocent," one of them might solemnly intone.

They have that option at their disposal. What they may not have at their disposal is the collective wisdom to act in accordance with their true interests.

The ISC certainly seems capable of anything but it would be astonishing if they were to overturn a verdict they told Nencini to reach. What would happen then? Yet another trial? Is there a record for re-trials in Italian jurisperudence? I wonder what it is. 7? 8? How many before everybody forgets what the case was about or dies?

 

[Numbers]

The ISC certainly seems capable of anything but it would be astonishing if they were to overturn a verdict they told Nencini to reach. What would happen then? Yet another trial? Is there a record for re-trials in Italian jurisperudence? I wonder what it is. 7? 8? How many before everybody forgets what the case was about or dies?

One point to consider is that the Hellmann verdict was quashed and Nencini ordered by Section 1 of the CSC. The review of Nencini is going to Section 5 of CSC, a different panel of judges. Are the two Sections similar in their views? Probably there's no way for outsiders to know.

I suspect that some of the Italian judiciary actually have little idea what the ECHR is and that they are supposed to be following the Convention and ECHR case-law in their decisions. Their judicial cultural references are fixed to the 1930 code of criminal procedure and the inquisitorial system. They don't understand or agree with the concept of adversarial trial procedure.

 

[Samson]

They can and should let go, for their own sake. They can send it back with instructions to acquit, applauding a valiant effort on behalf of Loony-nol, the police, and Stefanoni the lab tech, while also lamenting that it falls short. "It is better, after all, to spare the guilty than condemn the innocent," one of them might solemnly intone.

They have that option at their disposal. What they may not have at their disposal is the collective wisdom to act in accordance with their true interests.

I will do what I can to make sure the New Zealand Government is acquainted with the Italian job. I am now contemptuous of collaborators in the tourist industry because this travesty breaks new ground. If Sir Peter Jackson thinks the West Memphis Three deserve a film, this case requires an epic series. I will stop at nothing to acquaint him of this material.

 

[Numbers]

I don't see why 'failing to predict an earthquake' isn't a fair approximation of the above.

The manslaughter criminal case against the scientists and the government official is nonsense.

The problem is a political one, in that (1) Italy is likely to have earthquakes, and presumably the locations of many of the fault lines are known; (2) there are measures that can reduce deaths and injuries in earthquakes; (3) these measures involve, for example, certain techniques of building construction and enforcing these as standards. If the available residential or commercial buildings are old or otherwise not built to modern earthquake resistant standards, the risks of death and injury during an earthquake are increased.

L'Aquila is in an area where there have been numerous earthquakes over the last thousand years or so, but apparently no relatively large quakes between the early 1700s and 2009. Swarms of small earth tremors may or may not occur before a larger, damaging earthquake. The time and location of an earthquake simply cannot be predicted reliably based on current knowledge. But the relative probability for earthquakes to occur over some regions over some span of time can be roughly estimated. The real question is how a government addresses the issue of reducing risk from building structural failures during earthquakes over the long term.

 

[Numbers]

From what I read in the Wikipedia article,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_L'Aquila_earthquake

there had been a large and sustained series of tremors (the article lists 26 of magnitude 4 or higher) over a relatively short period of time. People, including I believe geologists, considered this unusual. Sometimes such a series occurs before an earthquake, but often there is no earthquake associated with a series of tremors.

And earthquakes can strike without precursor tremors.

But earthquakes do not kill people; buildings, trees, light poles, etc. falling on people do. Building collapses kill people. Fires resulting from breaches in fuel (liquid or gas) storage or lines kill people. And so on.

Reading the article again, I see that almost all the larger (magnitude 4 or more) tremors were actually aftershocks of the April 6, 2009 magnitude 6+ earthquake. (My oops.) But apparently there were very many small tremors before the April 6 quake.

 

[carbonjam72]

One point to consider is that the Hellmann verdict was quashed and Nencini ordered by Section 1 of the CSC. The review of Nencini is going to Section 5 of CSC, a different panel of judges. Are the two Sections similar in their views? Probably there's no way for outsiders to know.

I suspect that some of the Italian judiciary actually have little idea what the ECHR is and that they are supposed to be following the Convention and ECHR case-law in their decisions. Their judicial cultural references are fixed to the 1930 code of criminal procedure and the inquisitorial system. They don't understand or agree with the concept of adversarial trial procedure.

Andrea Vogt described the lead judge who has been assigned, as having reached high profile guilty verdicts in the past.

IIRC:

One in a political bribery case, and the other in a murder case that I'm not sure I correctly understood. In that case, a grad student in philosophy I believe, was accused of shooting a female student from afar.

There was literally no evidence available, other that that he appeared to be in the vicinity, and the accusation was that he had used his mental skills a s a philosophy student to "commit the perfect crime". (Is it just me, or do all Italian miscarriages of justice sound like bad US TV shows from the 70s?).

I've argued that this case has political dimensions, both in connection to the Monster of Florence crimes and the judiciary's needs not to allow the false convictions in that case to unravel by so thoroughly destroying the 'satanic sect' theory that Mignini opportunistically glommed onto. And also in regard to the Berlusconi battles with the court and the parliament, as the Knox case was attempted to be used as the basis for a judicial/prosecutorial inquiry into how so groundless a case could ever have been filed and approved by the judiciary.

So I'm on the fence. There's a judge who on the one hand, is willing to send innocent people to prison on utterly farcical claims. And on the other, it's a judge with experience in high profile political cases. As I've argued that the political pendulum is swinging back in Amanda and Raf's favor, with the rulings in favor of the 'Florence 20' and Burlesconi's latest appeal, the fix may be in either way. Is he a high profile "hanging judge", or is he also capable of finding innocence?

I do think the ECHR can and will be a key player. From very helpful Number's posts it appears they can dig in as far as they want to if they feel its warranted. An examination not only of the illegal coerced confessions, but Stef's lab work and perjury on the witness stand, and suppression of evidence might all come into play. They could very well address the fact that it's inherently unfair to deny the defendants the benefit of forensic science, simply because the ISC chooses to substitute ignorance for the court appointed independent expert analysis.

I think reminding Italy that science must be respected is something all parties can support.

The ECHR could go a long ways towards cleaning this up, if they wanted to. Here we see the tragedy of the court system, slow as molasses while the innocent suffer, and the guilty preen unashamed.

 

[Desert Fox]

I will do what I can to make sure the New Zealand Government is acquainted with the Italian job. I am now contemptuous of collaborators in the tourist industry because this travesty breaks new ground. If Sir Peter Jackson thinks the West Memphis Three deserve a film, this case requires an epic series. I will stop at nothing to acquaint him of this material.

It would be nice to get a pro innocence film and/or documentary about the case. There was a pro guilt made for TV movie if I understand? Love to also see a PBS Frontline crucifying Italy on this one.