Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Kauffer]

Proof

Evidence would be, that if you assert that a newspaper is making a false claim (or that a police officer or judge is lying), you need to prove it.

There you go again - reversing the burden. When are you actually going to learn that it is those who make an assertion who are bound to supply the evidence for it?

 

[Machiavelli]

Just in the last few days we have had your assertion that Ricciarelli had evidence before him that he did not, that he did not think the climb to Romanelli's window would have been too much for Spider-Man, when in fact he did,(...)

By the way, please try to remember more correctly what I said. I stated very clearly that I didn't read the Ricciarelli report.
And that I also never read a news source reporting the alleged "spider-man" comment.
So I was very precise reporting about the evidence that I have.
While you, on the other hand, have not read Ricciarelli's report neither.

through your inability to provide even one citation to support your position on the interpretation of the luminol hits,

I have cited Webb et al. and Tobe et al. and several other sources even years ago.

to your inability to understand the operation of Article 192 in Italian law.

You are lecturing me on art. 192 too. And you are lecturing the Supreme Court too. This makes you an interesting source.

And much else besides, including unsubstantiated allegations that Ms Knox had multiple contacts with drug dealers.

You mean, substantiated with links to news sources?
Let me understand: are you saying Knox did not have phone contacts with drug dealers? So are you saying she revealed the names matching the numbers of all her phone contacts, and so you could prove that the news sources are wrong?

 

[griffinmill]

Cue Halkides to respond to Mach's post with countless scientific articles produced largely by professional defense experts that propose to be generally accepted "protocols."

The airtight scientific defense, mostly manufactured here by 20 people, was somehow missed by Ak and RS attorneys

After all, a negative TMB with a positive luminol has never ocurred in history. Should have been case closed right there, but those damn defense attorneys somehow didn't make an argument about that. They also never got raw data, and then forgot to mention it in front of Nencini.

I guess with a corrupt Italian system you can only expect incompetent Italian lawyers.

 

[MDDVS]

Cue Halkides to respond to Mach's post with countless scientific articles produced largely by professional defense experts that propose to be generally accepted "protocols."

The airtight scientific defense, mostly manufactured here by 20 people, was somehow missed by Ak and RS attorneys

After all, a negative TMB with a positive luminol has never ocurred in history. Should have been case closed right there, but those damn defense attorneys somehow didn't make an argument about that. They also never got raw data, and then forgot to mention it in front of Nencini.

I guess with a corrupt Italian system you can only expect incompetent Italian lawyers.

What's wrong with being a defense expert?

 

[Machiavelli]

There you go again - reversing the burden. When are you actually going to learn that it is those who make an assertion who are bound to supply the evidence for it?

There is a concept that witnesses are presumed truthful.
Also, when you have news reports that are not denied by any of the people involved, serious newspapers reporting about people such as the lawyers in question, it's just unreasonable to pretend to ignore that.
It is also a fact that Federico, Luciano and Lorenzo were arrested because of Knox's phone contacts.
Its going to be very hard for the innocentisti if all what they have is a solitary group of deniers just ready to distrust any voice, keep their position at any cost until they are forced to leave it.

 

[analemma]

The argument is plain idiotic.
As a preliminary point, it is worth recalling the defendants are not kids.
The prosecution could have never introduced the evidence from these investigations, since the suspect drug dealers were arrested in 2011, and the evidence collection phase on the Kercher trial had ended in 2009.
Amanda Knox wrote about having sex with 'Fedrico', and the arrested drug dealer's name is Federico Martini.
The phone records of Amanda Knox's phone traffic show a number of phone contacts which she doesn't match to any name.
It's worth recall is not "police", it's judges: those dealers were convicted for real, and one of the three drug dealers made a plea bargain, while another has been convicted and sentenced to 2 years and 8 months.
The names of the other two are Luciano (reportedly a boss to Federico) and Lorenzo.
Their attorneys were Aurelio Pugliese, Maria Laura Antonini and Angelo Frioni.


http://www.ternimagazine.it/36101/il-fatto/omicidio-mez-clamorosi-sviluppi-sesso-e-droga-condannato-amante-amanda.html

http://www.umbria24.it/amante-di-amanda-knox-a-processo-per-spaccio-di-cocaina/15156.html


Two of the sources are Umbria 24 and Ternimagazine.it
Amanda Knox is reported having phone contacts with Federico in the days both before and after the murder.

You are doing it again.
Are you saying there is only ONE 'Fedrico' in Italy and he is a drug dealer?
You say "The phone records of Amanda Knox's phone traffic show a number of phone contacts which she doesn't match to any name." So every phone number on the Knox phone not matched to a name is a drug dealer? This truly is Italian Court logic.Are these numbers proven to be those of the drug dealers? Please site, if you can.
They still had Knox in custody in 2011, and by that time the conspiracy was well under way and they would have made sweetheart deals with all three drug dealers if they would have implicated Knox in drug dealing, just as the police made deals with Guede to change his testimony.
Once again-the whole drug dealer thing is nonsense and your illogical attempts to connect "John" the lover to "John Smith the drug dealer" by imagining that an unknown phone number must certainly be that of John Smith drug dealer make as much sense as the reasoning of judge Nencini.
In fact, I expect that the next "Italian Sources" Knox connection sold to the tabloids will be that the unmatched phone numbers are those of Osama bin Laden and the Prince of Darkness himself.

 

[Machiavelli]

You are doing it again.
Are you saying there is only ONE 'Fedrico' in Italy and he is a drug dealer?
You say "The phone records of Amanda Knox's phone traffic show a number of phone contacts which she doesn't match to any name." So every phone number on the Knox phone not matched to a name is a drug dealer? This truly is Italian Court logic.Are these numbers proven to be those of the drug dealers? Please site, if you can.
They still had Knox in custody in 2011, and by that time the conspiracy was well under way and they would have made sweetheart deals with all three drug dealers if they would have implicated Knox in drug dealing, just as the police made deals with Guede to change his testimony.
(...)

Ah right. I forgot the conspiracy.

I also forgot that "the police made deals with Rudy Guede" and that he "changed his testimony".

 

[griffinmill]

What's wrong with being a defense expert?

Nothing. So long as you understand that the science they produce is not instantly accepted as dogma in the scientific community. Nor is it widely accepted as "protocol" the moment it is produced, or even at all. The studies are all part of an ongoing debate about forensic principles, practices, and standards.

At the same time, it should be noted that the scientists who produce these studies often have lucrative careers backing up their own findings on the witness stand. They mostly come from careers running labs, where they made meager wages, and go on to careers where they make more in a month than they used to make in a year. A lot like DA's who change sides for the defense racket.

I'm not faulting them. Only saying they have an agenda that needs to be acknowledged, and more significantly that what they say is only a voice, not a broadly accepted scientific truth.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Btw, I have noticed that nobody was able to deal with the contradictions in the Rudy-lone-perpetrator scenario, as I recently exposed them, and all pro-Knox posters gave up responding.
The people here in my opinion follow a profoundly intellectually dishonest posting habit, but I don't think they even realize it.

We have explained in detail what we think happened at the crime scene, and we have addressed your objections ad nauseum.

You just don't like our answers. You insist that something else happened. You throw out broad conjecture about various elements of the crime, but you never fit these elements together, and you are vague about details.

In particular, as you know, I'm interested in your bathmat sliding theory, and I have a number of questions:

- Did Amanda/Raffaele take turns sliding on the bathmat, did they slide in tandem, or did one use the mat and the other a towel?

- Where at the crime scene did this sliding activity commence?

- What was its extent and purpose?

- Why would they choose to slide on mats instead of cleaning themselves up and walking around normally?

- What evidence shows that this activity really occurred?

I have invited you several times to present your analysis, to explain why anyone should take this idea seriously. Now is your chance to showcase your own supposed intellectual honesty by doing so.

 

[MDDVS]

Nothing. So long as you understand that the science they produce is not instantly accepted as dogma in the scientific community. Nor is it widely accepted as "protocol" the moment it is produced, or even at all. The studies are all part of an ongoing debate about forensic principles, practices, and standards.

At the same time, it should be noted that the scientists who produce these studies often have lucrative careers backing up their own findings on the witness stand. They mostly come from careers running labs, where they made meager wages, and go on to careers where they make more in a month than they used to make in a year. A lot like DA's who change sides for the defense racket.

I'm not faulting them. Only saying they have an agenda that needs to be acknowledged, and more significantly that what they say is only a voice, not a broadly accepted scientific truth.

Do you think there is anything wrong with this particular protocols (i.e. the ones used for luminol evidence)?

What is their agenda, in your opinion?

 

[griffinmill]

Do you think there is anything wrong with this particular protocols (i.e. the ones used for luminol evidence)?

What is their agenda, in your opinion?

I think my previous post ansered your quetion well enough. Defense experts make nice livings, thus their science is predominantly directed at finding the loopholoes in DNA prosecutions.

I have no doubt some of the things they say will help improve standards, but I've read nothing that convinces me luminol footrprints, within ten feet of copious blood, should be disregarded because TMB came back negative, or a confirmatory test wasn't done.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Do you think there is anything wrong with this particular protocols (i.e. the ones used for luminol evidence)?

What is their agenda, in your opinion?

Competent crime labs and law enforcement agencies have developed standards for handling and processing evidence. They know that lab errors are commonplace, and contamination of evidence is a huge problem, with countless real-world examples. To suggest otherwise, or to suggest that this is an artificial problem posed by defense consultants, is purely ignorant.

But, the Italian court system has taken a position of pure ignorance in this case, because it suits their interest to do so, and so they empower an ignorant mob on the Internet.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I think my previous post ansered your quetion well enough. Defense experts make nice livings, thus their science is predominantly directed at finding the loopholoes in DNA prosecutions.

I have no doubt some of the things they say will help improve standards, but I've read nothing that convinces me luminol footrprints, within ten feet of copious blood, should be disregarded because TMB came back negative, or a confirmatory test wasn't done.

Do you agree with Machiavelli that the luminol reactions at Raffaele's apt. were also blood?

 

[Desert Fox]

I think my previous post ansered your quetion well enough. Defense experts make nice livings, thus their science is predominantly directed at finding the loopholoes in DNA prosecutions.

I have no doubt some of the things they say will help improve standards, but I've read nothing that convinces me luminol footrprints, within ten feet of copious blood, should be disregarded because TMB came back negative, or a confirmatory test wasn't done.

You know that there are plenty of cases where defense experts work pro bono.

 

[griffinmill]

Competent crime labs and law enforcement agencies have developed standards for handling and processing evidence. They know that lab errors are commonplace, and contamination of evidence is a huge problem, with countless real-world examples. To suggest otherwise, or to suggest that this is an artificial problem posed by defense consultants, is purely ignorant.

But, the Italian court system has taken a position of pure ignorance in this case, because it suits their interest to do so, and so they empower an ignorant mob on the Internet.

If lab errors are commonplace, and contamination is a huge problem, why is DNA evidence used at all?

Conversely, why should innocents be released when DNA excludes them? The new DNA evidence that implicates another person is probably just contaminated.

Or maybe there are only occassional errors of contamination, but mostly the science gets it right.

In which case, I would be very interested to hear why AK showed up in mixed DNA traces, why Raf showed up on the clasp, and why MK showed up on a knife in Raf's apartment.

That's a lot of coincidences to explain away before you get to all the other evidence. Unless you believe in a mass scale conspiracy that inclued the police, the prosecutor, the forensics investigators, and the Italian Supreme Court. And then you have to also add in the fact the conspiracy refused to plant significant enough evidence at the scene to cement the conviction, and then let a rogue judge overturn it.

But you'll believe what you want to believe, and so will I until one of the murderers confesses.

 

[MDDVS]

I think my previous post ansered your quetion well enough. Defense experts make nice livings, thus their science is predominantly directed at finding the loopholoes in DNA prosecutions.

I have no doubt some of the things they say will help improve standards, but I've read nothing that convinces me luminol footrprints, within ten feet of copious blood, should be disregarded because TMB came back negative, or a confirmatory test wasn't done.

That's why I asked, is there anything wrong with defense experts. How can they be defense experts without finding "loopholes" in (DNA or otherwise) prosecutions? In your opinion, what should be the correct course of action for adefense expert?

 

[MDDVS]

If lab errors are commonplace, and contamination is a huge problem, why is DNA evidence used at all?
Conversely, why should innocents be released when DNA excludes them? The new DNA evidence that implicates another person is probably just contaminated.

Or maybe there are only occassional errors of contamination, but mostly the science gets it right.

In which case, I would be very interested to hear why AK showed up in mixed DNA traces, why Raf showed up on the clasp, and why MK showed up on a knife in Raf's apartment.

That's a lot of coincidences to explain away before you get to all the other evidence. Unless you believe in a mass scale conspiracy that inclued the police, the prosecutor, the forensics investigators, and the Italian Supreme Court. And then you have to also add in the fact the conspiracy refused to plant significant enough evidence at the scene to cement the conviction, and then let a rogue judge overturn it.

But you'll believe what you want to believe, and so will I until one of the murderers confesses.

That's the point of the protocols.

 

[Samson]

If lab errors are commonplace, and contamination is a huge problem, why is DNA evidence used at all?

Conversely, why should innocents be released when DNA excludes them? The new DNA evidence that implicates another person is probably just contaminated.

Or maybe there are only occassional errors of contamination, but mostly the science gets it right.

In which case, I would be very interested to hear why AK showed up in mixed DNA traces, why Raf showed up on the clasp, and why MK showed up on a knife in Raf's apartment.

That's a lot of coincidences to explain away before you get to all the other evidence. Unless you believe in a mass scale conspiracy that inclued the police, the prosecutor, the forensics investigators, and the Italian Supreme Court. And then you have to also add in the fact the conspiracy refused to plant significant enough evidence at the scene to cement the conviction, and then let a rogue judge overturn it.

But you'll believe what you want to believe, and so will I until one of the murderers confesses.

All the evidence used to detain was replaced with completely different evidence to convict. That is why a few people choose to go through all the evidence with a fine tooth comb, and conclude item by item that there is an alternative explanation to the prosecution's or an innocent explanation.
Some people are uneasy that the bra clasp evidence was discovered fortuitously when Raffaele was about to be released because his shoe prints were disqualified from the scene of the crime.
You will be dead before a second person confesses to the murder of Meredith Kercher.
R.I.P. Griffinmill.

 

[Kaosium]

Cue Halkides to respond to Mach's post with countless scientific articles produced largely by professional defense experts that propose to be generally accepted "protocols."

Of the countless scientific papers Prof. Chris Halkides has posted in the past four years, which particular ones were produced by professional defense experts and what percent of the whole do you suppose that makes up and what is your evidence for thinking so? Does the fact he's also posted numerous papers and articles from forensic scientists who've spent their careers putting criminals behind bars give you pause, especially considering they concur with the defense experts he also posts?

The airtight scientific defense, mostly manufactured here by 20 people, was somehow missed by Ak and RS attorneys

No it was not, it was presented in court by Dr. Introna and explained and expanded upon here endlessly taking into account every objection produced by the motivated hordes looking for any and every way they could pretend that someone who was autopsied with 500 cc in her stomach and nothing in her duodenum could have still been alive at ~11:45 PM when it was known that the latest she could have started eating was 7:00.

Professor Introna therefore recalled the witness depositions of Meredith’s friends, from which it would have resulted that Meredith began eating her last meal at around 18:30 – 19:00 pm on November 1, 2007 (page 25 of the report already cited several times, and the declarations made in the court hearing of June 20, 2009). Based on these elements, and considering a time of gastric emptying of 2 to 3 hours after the commencement of the ingestion of the last meal, Professor Introna asserts that the violence suffered by Meredith, and which probably caused the cessation of the digestive process, began between 21:00 pm and 21:30 pm.

After all, a negative TMB with a positive luminol has never occurred in history. Should have been case closed right there, but those damn defense attorneys somehow didn't make an argument about that.

I'm assuming the first part of this statement is meant facetiously; however the final statement is untrue, they made that argument and Comodi famously answered it with the immortal: 'It could be fruit juice or blood, you decide.' Don't tell me you've not heard that.

They also never got raw data, and then forgot to mention it in front of Nencini.

The latter is untrue, indeed it was Machiavelli himself who reported Raffaele's lawyer presenting it in court and Nencini's pig ignorant and sophistic denial on a half-truth and thus unscientific grounds.

I guess with a corrupt Italian system you can only expect incompetent Italian lawyers.

They are facing a prosecution desperate to defend their case which led to the actual murderer getting off with a light sentence due to their mistakes and unwillingness to reconsider after everything they arrested three innocents on turned out to be nonsense. They have thrown every piece of trash and sophistry imaginable at the remaining innocents in hopes of obfuscating the case until it's nearly impossible for an outsider to make heads or tails of it and give the impression there must be smoke, (some evidence) therefore there must be fire (proof of guilt) somewhere.

That this has been allowed to go on so long is indeed an indictment of the Italian system and my sympathy is with those lawyers who don't have the resources or time in court to give each and every instance of fraud, foolishness or lying the time it deserves. Especially in a place where calling a fraud a fraud, a fool a fool or a liar a liar can result in 'investigations' being started against them like they were against at least two of the defense lawyers and, from what Machiavelli posts, possibly one of the independent experts as well.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

If lab errors are commonplace, and contamination is a huge problem, why is DNA evidence used at all?

It can be very reliable, but it involves minute quantities of material, measured in the billionths or trillionths of a gram, so it is only reliable if the evidence is handled properly and the lab procedures are rigorous. Otherwise it is easily possible to make mistakes that incriminate innocent people, and this has happened many times. If you don't know this, you would do well to remedy your ignorance of the subject.

Conversely, why should innocents be released when DNA excludes them? The new DNA evidence that implicates another person is probably just contaminated.

Or maybe there are only occassional errors of contamination, but mostly the science gets it right.

In which case, I would be very interested to hear why AK showed up in mixed DNA traces, why Raf showed up on the clasp, and why MK showed up on a knife in Raf's apartment.

That's a lot of coincidences to explain away before you get to all the other evidence. Unless you believe in a mass scale conspiracy that inclued the police, the prosecutor, the forensics investigators, and the Italian Supreme Court. And then you have to also add in the fact the conspiracy refused to plant significant enough evidence at the scene to cement the conviction, and then let a rogue judge overturn it.

But you'll believe what you want to believe, and so will I until one of the murderers confesses.

What happened in this case is no different from many other cases I have followed over the years, which is why I spotted it as a hoax within a couple of months after Amanda and Raffaele were arrested.

I could see exactly what had happened. The police staked their credibility to an accusation, and then they went on a frantic quest to make it stick. They came up with lots of "evidence," but all of it is contrived or flawed in one way or another. They didn't come up with the solid evidence they would have found if their suspects had really been involved in the murder.

There are many precedents for this. The other day I quoted from Kirk Makin's book about Guy Paul Morin and the Christine Jessop case:

From office gossip to the floor of any legislature, there is a salacious drive to believe the worst of people. In the case of the police, it is not just a drive; it's an occupational imperative. Once they have made the decision to arrest someone, they cannot afford to seriously consider the possibility of their being wrong. Their careers, their psychological well-being and the reputation of the department are all bound up in being right.

That explains the case against Morin, it explains the case against Amanda and Raffaele, and it explains a great many cases. Is it a "conspiracy"? You can choose whatever word you want. It really happens, and it happens a lot.