Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[analemma]

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

So you agree: John the lover is not necessarily John Smith the dope dealer?
You did not reply to that question. Interesting.
You must be the only person in the world who does not think that Rudy changed his testimony.
Are you actually asserting that Rudy did not change his testimony?
If you must know, I personally DO think that there is a conspiracy to protect the infallibility of the Italian Judiciary, regardless of the cost.
The Italian Judiciary is protecting that infallibility: The STATE cops NEVER make mistakes, the STATE labs NEVER make Mistakes, the STATE system must be preserved at all costs.
I disagree with those who think the entire judiciary is somehow misled and is making errors, I do not think anyone, let alone a whole group of educated, intelligent people can be that blind or stupid.
The state must be shown to be all powerful and all infallible, which is what was questioned in the acquittal.

 

[Kaosium]

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.

What does it matter anyway if by going through Amanda's phone records they found the number of someone that knew a drug dealer and sometimes worked with him? This is Perugia, the armpit of Italy, and is awash with drugs, especially amongst the students. Knowing someone that is connected to a drug dealer is hardly uncommon for students there. For instance Meredith Kercher herself was sleeping with and aiding a drug dealer, helping cultivate the plants in fact. Completely unconnected to any of these are (at least) two of the 'witnesses' that the prosecution presented in court, Curatolo and Kokomani, both of whom were 'drug dealers' if you want to think of it that way.

 

[Samson]

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.



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.

griffinmill should consider reading the Shrien Dewani thread where internet sleuths are generally seeing something similar happen, though fortunately a conviction appears unlikely. Note in a similar fashion, there are definite perpetrators already in jail while a probably innocent man is being tried for procuring a murder.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

griffinmill should consider reading the Shrien Dewani thread where internet sleuths are generally seeing something similar happen, though fortunately a conviction appears unlikely. Note in a similar fashion, there are definite perpetrators already in jail while a probably innocent man is being tried for procuring a murder.

Griffinmill should consider reading a lot of things, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Kaosium]

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.

These aren't 'loopholes'--they're flagrant violations of DNA science not unlike the crap that Portuguese authorities tried to throw at the poor McCann family. LT/LCN DNA is a new application of forensic DNA science and assumptions people have about typical high template forensic DNA science simply doesn't hold with this new process.

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.

Then learn something about forensic science. The TMB test shows that at best there could have only have been minute quantities of blood in water or another substance that someone stepped in or tracked around, the fact the prints were still recognizable as being made by feet or shoes and not smeared and swirled all over shows they weren't the result of cleaning, and the fact that Amanda, Raffaele, Filomena and her boys as well as the postal police--not to mention Rudy Guede--were walking all over that floor after the murder, then the Polizia Scientifica went through there and totally tore the place apart when they were finished, walking all over that hall and those rooms dozens of times indicates there's no way to pretend they were actually evidence from the murder and not the discovery and investigation, not to mention the possibility they could have been there before. I have no idea how someone can look at these photos and videos, and fail to realize there's no way to get detailed forensic evidence from the murder, understanding that the ones on the right are what it looked like after the initial investigation and before they went and collected the bra clasp and laid the luminol six weeks later.

They went back to that utterly trashed crime scene and they're trying to pretend everything was where it was when the murder happened? How could anyone be so easily gulled, especially when the Italian court-appointed independent experts made it a feature of their report, quoting from the manuals the Polizia Scientifica were supposed to follow as well as forensic manuals from all over the world and three former FBI agents have decried that grossly contaminated scene? There was a retiring judge in Italy who even specifically mentioned those videos on the return trip as one of the most embarrassing things he's seen when listing some of the evidence why the Italian Court System needs reform.

 

[Bill Williams]

This is an almost complete listing of Machiavelli's contributions to this thread for the last two days. See if you can make head nor tale out of the responses. For proper context, some of the things he was responding to is included between quotes.

This is the last two days.

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.

Machiavelli does not say why this applies only to the prosecution side of things; but when it does it sudenly requires the defence to prove the testimony wrong, rather than have the alleger prove the veracity of their statement.

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.

Again, this only applies to the opposing side, not to the side Machiaelli favours

TMB disproves nothing. I have quoted scientific literature finding TMB is less sensitive and less specific than luminol, and you bound up your eyes with prosciutto.

Nobody is able to disprove a grain of evidence. But your stunning belief in things you can't prove that defy any reality and common sens, stays unchallenged. Spare me your nauseating, silly defamatory comments about Mignini.

This is twisted information from rules of jury-based jurisdictions that you apparently wish to transplant (after twisting it) in other systems. This oblique point has no content, it is irrelevant. Those kinds of reference do not answer to the points that circumstantial evidence needs to be answered if you want to challenge it.

The idea that you need to find DNA or fingerprints of Ms. Knox in Meredith's room in order to "not contradict" their guilt, is a kind of assumption that, as I said, is too irrational to discuss. I point out that any pro-Knox position that is based such irrational settings, is not going to be an argument able to challenge guilters, judges or the rest of the world.

You make a series of inferences and conclusions, both about laws and facts, which appear to me as devoid of any basis. I recall you read art. 111 of the Constitution and you inferred the Italian system was an 'adversarial system'. I see a sort of hyperbolic level of ideology working in your analysis, the attribution of some kind of your personal 'absolute' meaning to some pieces of the law, a meaning which is usually unrealistic and extreme, and you elaborate on this personal ideas of yours.
But those ideas are not the law.

I've said there is no 'duodenum alibi' and my statement is standing unchallended.
There was no constant CCTV coverage. The parking lot cam activates only when someone or a vehicle crosses by at the entrance.

Machiavelli simply slides by the fact that the poster was not claiming "constant coverage", but that the CCTV did pick up people's movements, which interestingly enough, Machiavelli confirms!

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.

This was was in response to Kauffer saying, "I've noticed he does not usually respond when his erroneous claims are dealt with. I have a growing list. I expect a lot of people here do. He is profoundly dishonest in his posting habits."

The above quoted statement makes no sense.
So there is a "very clear intantion" to "hide evidence of exculpatory character" (?). The causal statement is missing. There is no causal antecedent.
And the statement doesn't remotely address the problem I raised which apparently intended to answer to, that is the complete inconsistency of a conspiracy theory scenario, as well as its total lack of evidentiary support.
In addition to that, no entity such as "the PLE" exists.

Absolutely not. I intend to send them to jail based on a totally different set of evidence. But I also don't wish to allow the pro-Knoxes to use a false characterization as a defensive shield: I intend to take away that shield from their hands, show it is a bogus paper shield.

The one above was in response to M.'s claim that Rudy and Amanda re not "differnet in kind", he thinks Innocenters use her status as an honour student as proof of some sort of moral superiority. Where he gets that, I do not know.

Now, the Mobile Squad instead. Some may like to assume soem of the police officers are not that angels, they may have committed offences, etc. But this is not something from which you can deduce that a conspiracy theory could make sense. Because you don't need just some few cops who are ready to break the law. You can't go much further with Napoleoni's intemperance. You would need a pre-planned and/or systematic conspiracy performed on a wider scale, by entire offices (not just one) and on a much higher level, and with evidence convincing, compelling motives, in order to manifacture evidence on a murder case like this one. You would need a whole conspiracy theory which looks immediately unproven and unrealistic. And also, what evidence, after all?
Had they decided to manufacture evidence, why don't manufacture phisical evidence on a massive scale. If they had the capability and the will to manufacture such a technical piece of evidence like the kitchen knife, this means they could much more easilly have placed flocks of the victim's DNA wherever they wanted to; they could have placed massive easy-to-produce evidence. The whole conspiracy theory stands out immediately as inconsistent and nonsens when you try to fit these aspects in.
Not to speak about the fact that DNA evidence is unnecessary in this case.

The one above is Machiavelli's strawman, convoluted argument.

Now, Quintavalle didn't talk to any talk show, a journalist came and interviewed him at his shop. That's not particularly cautious on the part of a witness, but most people are not prepared to be witnesses nor to resist to media pressure, and it's not a reason for deducing that Quintavalle did something wrong.

Why? There is no evidence of this. Either you believe Volturno, or you don't. If Volturno tells the truth, there is no evidence Quintavalle ever lied.
In addition to that, Quintavalle would have no motive to lie.

Stefanoni is on no hook; there us no suspicious answer no lie in her questioning, and certain not on this point: here her answers are absolutely ok and it seems paranoid to see something wrong in the fact that she never had experience of a contamination incident in her lab. You really should try some better ground for your attacks.

What a BS. Nencini never concedes there are even two "extra males". And he does not mean to make any complete list of possible contributors.

..... which is what Judge Nencini exactly does do, in saying that the extra alleles probably belong to Meredith's boyfirend, and two of her "amica". It's amazing that Machiavelli says the exact opposite of what Nencini wrote.

But of course Candace Dempsey is "unreliable", just like Nina Burleigh. But to say unreliable is an euphemism. Those are among the earliest on the PR team.
No, Nara had never been in an asylums. Also, there are no real asylums in Italy. People can be involuntary committed to some hospitals only if they commit some serious crime.

It seems to me it is one of the pro-Knoxes specialties. They find incontrovertible truth on a field medical science holds as "largely unexplored" such as the gastric emptying lag phase.

The above was Machiavelli's response to it being noted that he now adds human digestion to his list of expertise.

This is another twisted one. Stefanoni was asked if it had ever occurred to her that they found evidence that a result in their laboratory was the effect of contamination. Stefanoni said: no, I naver had evidence of such a problem.

This one was a response to Judge Massei noting that he believed Stefanoni when she said she'd neer had a case marred by contamination.
It's not that I am not interested in the truth. I am very interested in the truth, and I think it has been found. I am only not that interested in forensic science. I don't accept that a trial is mistaken for an investigation on forensic science. And I also radically object to the ideology that the "whole truth" is to be found only within a comprehensive release of all the data and for that data to be peer reviewed. I believe the only review of evidence must be within the trial, and subject to the interest expressed by the judge and by the parties. The only trial must take place within the courtroom.

There is no standard of any kind for pieces of evidence.
Pieces of evidence cannot be subjected to evidentiary laws of the kind you have in jury based systems.

However I don't see why you say I have "accepted" (and what does exactly that mean?) that the girls "ate at 7 20pm", and even that (!) digestion autopsy "allows a death at 9 pm, no later".
I don't understand what does it mean that something should be deduced from the fact that I considered a scenario where the time of meal was conventionally placed at 7:20, I merely consider it as not necessarily impossible if we want a conventional time; and it's not clear how this could conventional time could determine a conclusion that the autopsy only "allows" a death at 9pm and not later.

Finally, Nara Capezzali: a scream like that cannot be attributed just to someone else as if it was a normal event. It is not something that the people in that neighborhood used to hear every other day. And also it is to be crossed with another witness, because it's two witnesses who heared the scream: Nara Capezzali and Antonella Monacchia. They both locate it later than 9pm, they describe it in the same was and they both locate it exactly in the same place.
Moreover, the scream appears for the first time as a very remarkable element in Knox's false statement of 05:45 to prosecutor Mignini, and it is also emphasized in Guede's phone conversation.
Why so many independent sources emphasize it like that? They do not merely report of it, they emphasize it, they associate strong memories to it.
It's not an element that you can easilly dismiss.

This is your opinion about the Polizia Scientifica report. I don't subscribe to it, I don't think that is a crappy work at all. I also don't consider it a laboratory work, and not as a report produced by one individual. I think it is also an unfounded assertion to say that operational procedures were not in place. Yet, I am not going to argue about your opinion. I will put it on a shelf. The point is elsewhere.
This is a murder case. There is a judge, and the focus of judgement is the defendant alone (and this is true even more when there is an inquisitorial principle in the system). Not the quality of the investigation, not the professionalism of this or that expert or witness or party, not even the quality of a piece of evidence: just the defendant alone. It's no zero sum game: the defendant does not become innocent if the detectives are unprofessional or the forensics are not good and not even if the prosecution is sloppy. Guilt or innocence of the defendant can only be asssessed by a judge directly and independently from all these external elements.

Second, this is a murder trial means it is about an overall system of evidence; it not a trial about DNA, nor about forensic evidence. It is only about evidence as a whole. And DNA, in this case, is an unnecessary element. Even if the forensics had been completely sloppy and had provided no DNA evidence at all, had I been the judge I would have convicted anyway. I would find them guilty beyond reasonable doubt with no need of DNA at all.
Yet, DNA here is not a "crappy" result at all. The bra clasp and the knife are valid results and good evidence simply because they fulfill the intrinsic property of good pieces of evidence: there is no likely explanation for them. The myth og "contamination" is in fact a conspiracy theory and thus is worth nothing.

And DNA findings on the knife are also part of a contiguous system. The victim's blood on the knife, for example, is not just backed by the DNA result, but also by the defendant's own admission that the knife came into contact with the victim. There was also the defendant admission that the victim's DNA might be found on the cleaning rags, there was Knox's admission in prison saying she was worried by the knife, there was Knox's DNA on the handle and on the blade at the handle insertion and there was her own blood on the tap where the murderer washed him/herself together with the victim's blood. Knox's DNA on handle, Sollecito's double and repeated admission, Knox's admission, Knox's DNA on blade, Knox's blood: this is a contiguous pattern of elements. In Italian legalese we say conducenti, they are "conductive". The knife is also an incredible match to the bed sheet imprint.
All this is what makes the knife a piece of circumstantial evidence.

I didn't forgot. I remember it differently. Comodi did not refuse, she accepted. Se evidently told Stefanoni to provide documentation.

After that, what happened is:

1 - the defenses (in particular following Tagliabracci's testimony) said some SAls were missing, asked if there was further documentation and asked if they could have them, but failed to request raw data or to complain about their absence.
2 - Comodi said they had no further documentation, those SALs didn't exist
3 - judge Massei denied the defence request (not Comodi), assessing that the defence failed to explain why they should need further documentation (and the issue of raw data was never discussed)
4 - the defence did not seek "dismissal as a result" of said denial. They sought "dismissal" (actually annulment of Stefanoni's testimony) but not as the result of failure to provide full documentation nor failure to provide raw data; they sought as the result of late discovery, that was after Tagliabracci's notes in his testimony. Thus, not failure to provide data, but late discovery, that is having provided some data too late.
5 - Massei denied the annullment request, on the reasonable ground that it was the defence who didn't seek the data in the incidente probatorio; so did Hellmann, and so did Nencini.

The defence was clearly not focused on obtaining raw data, and was not focused on missing data at the the of the final disclosure.

Well, as a citizen, I think there are some scientists who may need to be lectured about law, and some anonymous posters (maybe lawyers) who seem to have indulged too much to posing as self-proclaimed judges. But mostly, there is a club of conspiracy theorists that hosts among them also a vein of badly concealed prejudice and a sort of ideological anger.

The pro-Knox are finished. They are going nowhere if their arguments are those of these comments. It's going to be a small club of conspiracy theorists forever split from our reality. The defence and the expert activists are no tax collectors, they are no public officers, and the defence did not make a request that was not fulfilled with the rules and opportunities provided by the system. The defence obtained all data they were interested in, and left out what they decided to leave out. Al their legitimate requests were fulfilled.
It's obvious that if their intent is to introduce further evidence at the appeal trial (the Florence one) only because people like Hampikian want to seek material to feed campaigns (calling themselves "tax collectors") this is not a legitimate reason for request. If the defence or other experts want to act as tax collectors and investigate the honesty or the validity of laboratory results, they should file a complaint and request of investigation with a court. They can't do this within the Knox trial.

 

[kwill]

I just don't want this to be lost.

From carbonjam72:

At first they kept Raf in the case to get to Amanda. Now they're keeping Amanda in the case to get to Raf's inheritance.

That's what happened. The getting to Amanda in the first place is something that flowered up out of the mistaken notion of a staged break in. It all followed from that.

It's a travesty.

 

[LondonJohn]

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.

And that right there demonstrates a woeful deficiency in rational, logical, scientific thinking.

It's logically akin to trying to argue something like this (hypothetically): "I know that the man standing in the defendant's box in court charged with robbery has four previous convictions for robbery; I don't therefore need to see any evidence that the man committed this current robbery for which he is on trial - I can safely reason that if he did those previous robberies, it's correct to infer that he did this robbery too."

Although it's illuminating to observe various pro-guilt commentators - both here and elsewhere - trying to make this very argument that the very fact that there was blood on the floor in Kercher's room some how gives one a "free pass" to infer that the Luminol-positive patches elsewhere in the cottage were blood. I guess it shows pretty vividly just how much poor-quality thinking is going on among so many of those who argue for guilt.

 

[LondonJohn]

TMB disproves nothing. I have quoted scientific literature finding TMB is less sensitive and less specific than luminol, and you bound up your eyes with prosciutto.

We really are deep in "Baghdad Bob" territory now!

This has been explicitly pointed out to you several times now: the scientific literature you are using is NOT comparing the proper two-part TMB test with Luminol. Rather, it's comparing the quick in-field combined Hemastix test. The proper two-part test (which is the test that not-a-proper-doctor Stefanoni should have performed following a Luminol positive) is only very marginally less sensitive (in the sense of dilution ratio) than Luminol, but is very considerably more sensitive. And of course that's exactly why it's the test that's done after a positive Luminol - it is able to rule out pretty much all non-blood substances that give a Luminol positive.

If you get a Luminol positive and a (proper two-part) TMB positive, then you almost certainly have blood, but you still must do a confirmatory test to prove you have blood. Conversely, if you get a Luminol positive and a (proper two-part) TMB negative*, then you do not have blood and there is no need for a confirmatory test or DNA testing.

Once again, here is the US National Forensic Science Technology Center's training manual insert for the proper two-part TMB test:

http://www.nfstc.org/pdi/lab_manual/Linked Documents/Protocols/pdi_lab_pro_2.19.pdf

It's perhaps a shame that Stefanoni hadn't read it or anything like it, otherwise she might have actually done a proper, competent job........


* meaning that you get a positive in the first part of the test (i.e. the TMB reagent itself), as opposed to a negative in the first part but a positive when the second part (the peroxide) is applied.

 

[Samson]

I just sent this email to the Mayo clinic, if I get a response I will post it.

I have been researching the Meredith Kercher murder, and would be keen to hear from a gastroentorologist the answer to this question. This healthy 20 year old was found deceased with a full stomach, nil passage of meal contents to the duodenum. Her stomach contained 500 mil mixed pizza, apple crumble and gastric juices. Is there a greatest time between beginning this meal and her death, in other words, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes etc?
I have studied as many papers as I can, and believe the question can be answered with a reasonable degree of certainty. I have nothing to do with the case myself, but many people are curious.
Best regards

 

[LondonJohn]

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.

I concur, but I would go further still. I believe that the standard human factors explained here are significantly magnified when it comes to the area of law enforcement and the judiciary. That's because there is the additional element of public confidence to take into account. In essence, authorities such as the police and the courts have an institutionalised mentality to stick to their decisions, since the inference of reversing decisions is that they don't know what they're doing - and if they don't know what they're doing, then they risk losing the implicit support of the public (and legislators, for that matter).

I think that this issue plays a considerable factor in the way the police and judiciary operate, and I believe it plays/played a huge part in the Knox/Sollecito trial saga. The police and lawyers are "referees of the game", and when they blow the whistle and award a penalty, it will take heaven and earth for them to put their hands up and say "OK, on reflection that wasn't a penalty at all". After all, to do so means that the next time they put the whistle into their mouth to blow for a penalty, the players will all have in their mind the thought "I wonder if I can trust this referee's judgement."

 

[anglolawyer]

I concur, but I would go further still. I believe that the standard human factors explained here are significantly magnified when it comes to the area of law enforcement and the judiciary. That's because there is the additional element of public confidence to take into account. In essence, authorities such as the police and the courts have an institutionalised mentality to stick to their decisions, since the inference of reversing decisions is that they don't know what they're doing - and if they don't know what they're doing, then they risk losing the implicit support of the public (and legislators, for that matter).

I think that this issue plays a considerable factor in the way the police and judiciary operate, and I believe it plays/played a huge part in the Knox/Sollecito trial saga. The police and lawyers are "referees of the game", and when they blow the whistle and award a penalty, it will take heaven and earth for them to put their hands up and say "OK, on reflection that wasn't a penalty at all". After all, to do so means that the next time they put the whistle into their mouth to blow for a penalty, the players will all have in their mind the thought "I wonder if I can trust this referee's judgement."

There is a further element: police and lawyers are guardians of social order. They are mostly in conflict with bad elements and we all have a stake in their coming out on top. So much so that we are willing to turn a blind eye to their misdeeds and, beyond that, to submit to a subtle blackmail that obliges us to be preoccupied with their morale.

 

[LondonJohn]

So you agree: John the lover is not necessarily John Smith the dope dealer?
You did not reply to that question. Interesting.
You must be the only person in the world who does not think that Rudy changed his testimony.
Are you actually asserting that Rudy did not change his testimony?
If you must know, I personally DO think that there is a conspiracy to protect the infallibility of the Italian Judiciary, regardless of the cost.
The Italian Judiciary is protecting that infallibility: The STATE cops NEVER make mistakes, the STATE labs NEVER make Mistakes, the STATE system must be preserved at all costs.
I disagree with those who think the entire judiciary is somehow misled and is making errors, I do not think anyone, let alone a whole group of educated, intelligent people can be that blind or stupid.
The state must be shown to be all powerful and all infallible, which is what was questioned in the acquittal.

I wrote my previous post before reading this, but it echoes many of these very ideas.

As another analogy, it's not dissimilar to the need for perceived infallibility of a parent to a three-year-old child. Parents know very well that it's near-impossible to exercise control over the child if they act something like this:

Parent: "If you don't stop shouting then we are not going to the zoo on Sunday as we had planned."

Toddler: *Keeps shouting*.

Parent: "Right! That's it! We're not going to the zoo"

Parent (two days later): "Well, we ARE going to the zoo."


Of course the child quickly learns that the parent is untrustworthy and inconsistent when it comes to punishment and reward, and the child therefore learns that it's fine to misbehave because (s)he knows the parent is likely to renege on promises of punishment.

 

[LondonJohn]

What does it matter anyway if by going through Amanda's phone records they found the number of someone that knew a drug dealer and sometimes worked with him? This is Perugia, the armpit of Italy, and is awash with drugs, especially amongst the students. Knowing someone that is connected to a drug dealer is hardly uncommon for students there. For instance Meredith Kercher herself was sleeping with and aiding a drug dealer, helping cultivate the plants in fact. Completely unconnected to any of these are (at least) two of the 'witnesses' that the prosecution presented in court, Curatolo and Kokomani, both of whom were 'drug dealers' if you want to think of it that way.

[deliberately-intended sarcasm] How DARE you malign Saint Meredith! [/deliberately-intended sarcasm]

 

[tsig]

I wrote my previous post before reading this, but it echoes many of these very ideas.

As another analogy, it's not dissimilar to the need for perceived infallibility of a parent to a three-year-old child. Parents know very well that it's near-impossible to exercise control over the child if they act something like this:

Parent: "If you don't stop shouting then we are not going to the zoo on Sunday as we had planned."

Toddler: *Keeps shouting*.

Parent: "Right! That's it! We're not going to the zoo"

Parent (two days later): "Well, we ARE going to the zoo."


Of course the child quickly learns that the parent is untrustworthy and inconsistent when it comes to punishment and reward, and the child therefore learns that it's fine to misbehave because (s)he knows the parent is likely to renege on promises of punishment.

So that's what happened to Amanda? Spare the rod and the child becomes a killer.

 

[Planigale]

The idea that you need to find DNA or fingerprints of Ms. Knox in Meredith's room in order to "not contradict" their guilt, is a kind of assumption that, as I said, is too irrational to discuss. I point out that any pro-Knox position that is based such irrational settings, is not going to be an argument able to challenge guilters, judges or the rest of the world.

If evidence had been found of Knox in MK bedroom then this would have been presented by the prosecution. The defence would have argued that (depending on the nature) there was an innocent explanation. Sometimes the absence of something is a significant fact, gaps in the spectrograph of stars are positive evidence of the presence of intervening elements; or another example is the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. The defence can very legitimately argue that the absence of any presence of Knox, in the room where the struggle and murder occurred, no fingerprints, shoe prints, DNA, hair, fibre transfer, combined with the lack of any evidence of Kercher on Knox's person including DNA, fibre, injuries is very strong evidence that Knox did not actively participate in the crime. This may not be absolute, few things are but given there is no conclusive items of evidence presented by the prosecution this should weigh heavy on the balance of evidence. An alternative would be for the prosecution to present a case for Knox to be part of a conspiracy ('directing from outside the room'), but not a physical participant.

Machiaveli previously suggested that one of the judges was prepared to accept that this was the case. This is where the tradition of the inquisitorial system arises. In an adversarial system if the prosecution presents a case that Knox stabbed MK, but the jury think there is a reasonable likelihood she did not, then she is innocent. The judges here are reverting to an inquisitorial approach the evidence has been presented to them by the prosecution, the judge chooses to re-interpret the evidence. the judge thinks that maybe the prosecution hypothesis is right, but not certainly so, but if not then Knox participated in some other way, and combining the likelihood of Knox being an active participant or a passive participant leads to a conclusion it is reasonably certain she was involved.

A similar argument involves the knife ex Sollecito. There is a legitimate argument that if Knox habitually carried the knife in her bag it should have torn the lining so the absence of damage needs to be weighed against the lack of evidence she did so (e.g. an eye witness reporting seeing the knife in the bag previously). Equally the knife post murder should have shed MK blood and DNA into the bag when transported back. Nencini appears to accept the former argument because we no longer have the habitual transport of a knife for defence, but have the possibility of its use for cooking.

(It strikes me now that if the knife had been brought to the flat for the legitimate purpose of cooking as Nencini says, then was opportunistically used for a murder, then the prosecution for transport is clearly erroneous. I could accept that carrying a knife for defence might be a criminal act but is it really a crime to carry a knife from one place to another in Italy for culinary purposes? In the UK there is I think specific exemption for cooks, Seikhs, and Scotsmen.)

 

[Kaosium]

So that's what happened to Amanda? Spare the rod and the child becomes a killer.

Sigh.

Neither Amanda nor Raffaele had anything to do with the murder. Why don't you post what you think is the best evidence Raffaele or Amanda were involved in the murder?

 

[Kaosium]

[deliberately-intended sarcasm] How DARE you malign Saint Meredith! [/deliberately-intended sarcasm]

Heh, not much maligning going on there, especially in Italy. Did you hear about that Italian media outlet that surreptitiously gathered samples from an assortment of Italian politicians and found that 25% or so of them were positive for illicit drugs? It was posted by Broken English of IIP who wrote it several years back when he first found the site.

 

[carbonjam72]

Have the courage to face the case at its center please

TMB disproves nothing. I have quoted scientific literature finding TMB is less sensitive and less specific than luminol, and you bound up your eyes with prosciutto.

Nobody is able to disprove a grain of evidence. But your stunning belief in things you can't prove that defy any reality and common sens, stays unchallenged. Spare me your nauseating, silly defamatory comments about Mignini.

Hi Mach, you seemed to have missed the central point of my post, so I'll repeat the central point again for you:

This is the logical flaw at the heart of your argument. All of your erroneous arguments are predicated on this blatant error in logic. There is enormous evidence against Rudy Guede, none against Amanda and Raf. Because Rudy was in the room when Meredith was killed, and Amanda and Raf were not. In order to maintain that Amanda and Raf are guilty, you have no choice but to dispute this settled point of logic that no reasonable person would disagree with. Your continuing failure to recognize this simple basic logical truth can only be described as 'cognitive dissonance'. All your false arguments follow from this basic error.
Your failure to address this point is fundamental to you're continuing to argue that Amanda and Raf are guilty, or should have been found guilty in court.

Once you squarely address this logical truth, you must conclude that Amanda and Raf are actually innocent, or at a minimum, entitled to a finding of "not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt".

You yourself have accepted that if there were other people in the room where Meredith was killed, they would have to have left "hundreds of footprints". Yet there are none. So rather than change your thesis, you (and the prosecution and courts) simply hypothesize there must have been a clean-up - with no evidence of a clean-up, and a selective clean-up of DNA, fingerprints, and so on, utterly impossible.

How would it hurt you to consider Amanda and Raf are innocent? Why would you cling so tightly to so gross and obvious a miscarriage of justice?

 

[Desert Fox]

Sigh.

Neither Amanda nor Raffaele had anything to do with the murder. Why don't you post what you think is the best evidence Raffaele or Amanda were involved in the murder?

It is interesting that Tsig was on the board two years before this case yet does not use skepticism with regards to it.