Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Machiavelli]

Well, again you seem to miss the point. Specifically, evidence that Amanda or Raf, or anyone else, was present in the house, AT THE TIME OF THE MURDER. Guede's presence is there at that time, because of his signature in blood and DNA at the scene.

Amanda and Raf lived in the house. Of course there will be signs of their presence, but not necessarily at the time of the murder. D'UH!! Nencini's conclusion that any traces of Amanda in her own home are only referable to the crime, is an indication that the trial and the judicial reasonings are not serious or valid, but plainly irrational, unsupported, unfounded, or how shall we say, michugena.

But this would be still nonsense. It is not enough. DOn't you realize it?
Rudy Guede was not convicted because "he was in the room at the time of the murder". As a piece of information, that was one causal step that brought to his conviction, but it would not be sufficient to find him guilty.
Rudy Gude was convicted because he lied.
He failed to proviede a plausible innocent explanation for his presence in the room at the time of the murder. This is why he was convicted, not because of just his presence.
The presence in the murder room at the time of the murder itself would not sufficient, and on the other hand, it would be not neccessary. You don't need to present on the place of a murder in order to be guilty. It is sufficient if your conscious behaviour is element in the chain of causes.
Then, on the other hand, even if there was massive evidence of Knox and Sollecito in the murder room, by your definition since Knox was "living there", given that Knox's traces could be easilly justified and given that mostly evidence cannot be dated, it would be extremely difficult to connect their traces with a specific time.
However, there are luminol prints which can be attributed to blood by any reasonable person and this is NOT disproven at all by any scientific test, contrarly from what you assert. And there is also a bra clasp and a print on a bathmat that is in diluted blood. Those prints are related to the time of murder and to Knox and Sollecito: there is a precise connection between their physical evidence and the time of the murder.
Moreover, there is no way a "right" time for Meredith's DNA to be on Sollecito's kitchen knife, and also the physical evidence of a staged burglary is clearly related to the events of the murder and also logically linked to Knox.

Well, I agree. The issue is whether one believes Spezi/Preston and their professional reporting.

And I do believe Spezi/Preston, over the my admirably game sparring partner 'Big Mach', who thinks he can contradict forensic experts on subjects like luminol tests which are TMB negative, as still being 'probably blood'.

But there isn't any contradictiom: the scientific literature is simply on my side. I have already pointed to Tobe et al. and Webb et al. and other sources which you have already seen. Nothing should be added to this. Either you see those findings, or you refuse to see them.

I'm sorry Mach, but your undoubtedly high opinion of yourself does not extend to the denial of well settled forensic science. You may think you're being clever, but you're fighting the best state of our knowledge. (...)

The bast state of our knowledge says the things that are written in the sources that I have quoted, and that some people here seem to try to desperately deny.

Yes, I was aware that Mignini asked to archive the charges. Spezi/Preston reported that a suggestion was made to the prosecutor, and it was taken up.

Oh yes a "suggestion"!

It was not Mignini! It was a suggestion!

Don't you realize how ridiculous your claims sound, in the face of reality?
Look these are the facts: Paolo Canessa and Alessandro Crini thought the evidence set agaisnt Calamandrei was sufficient, and asked him to be found guilty and sentenced to life.
Giuliano Mignini thought the evidence would be found insufficient by a judge, and asked the preliminary judge to drop the charge on ground of insuffficience of evidence.
These are the facts.

Then, the idea that Carlizzi was a confident to Mignini before 2005, and then he decided to distrust her and to arrest her only later, well, it should be obvious to anyone how your attempt of rationalizations flies in the face of any attempt to believe something consistent.
I stay full of surprise before the degree of nonsens to which you seem ready to to take your rationalization scenario, in order to avoid dissonance with the assumption that you "belive Spezi/Preston".
Certainlly Carlizzi was among the first witnesses who presented themselves to "talk" about the Narducci case since 2004, this is in the line of Carzzi's character. But then, as I quoted newspapers where Mignini points out that Carlizzi is one of those witnesses who like to "talk while knowing nothing", you should have derives some logical conclusion. Mignini openly discredited any information that ever came from Carlizzi, including the information that she gave the very beginning. He said it was a mass of lies, in the bast scenario a mass of raving from a mental mythomaniac.
So Mignini discredited all Carlizzi's testimonies including the early one. all what she told, from the beginning: how can you put this information together with Spezi's claim that Mignini had built a case on his belief of Carlizzi's testimony? How can you put together his public claim that he believed Carlizzi was a crazy liar, with a theory about him bringing into court a theory developed from Carlizzi?

Just think about that for a second: Mignini said there was insufficient evidence for charges, in an investigation that he himself had brought forward INTO COURT. Do you think it's possible he may have been similarly mistaken in other cases? Like, ahem, THIS ONE!!! (This is not a compliment to Mignini you've made!!! You've exposed him as a complete buffoon, contradicting his own case!!! Don't you get that???)

But Mignini was stainelss on this! You really don't understand anything about procedure. You seem to mistake Mignini for a "prosecutor" within the USA system, in which the prosecution decides whether to bring a case into court or not. But the Italian system is completely different! It is not the prosecutior who brings cases into courts: it is the Investigation Judge. The job of the prosecution is not discretional: he needs to bring all his investigation before the examination of a preliminary judge. Whenever he opens an investigation file, some judge will have to decide about it. What you are saying is complete nonsense.

 

[Numbers]

Actually, I believe the procedure code is self-evidence. The code basically says, there is no discretional power of the judge on evidence admission.
There are only exceptions in evidence admissions, a marginal set of circumstances which are relegated to: some specific situations provided by the code (for example some testimonies or recordings) and to to the cases of manifest irrelevance or superfluousness (which anyway can be inpugned before the SC).
As for the refusal to test a semen stain, the ground for the refusal seems obvious: because it is manifestly irrelevant. It is irrelevant because it can either be Sollecito's DNA, or Guede's, ore someone else's, of may be not semen at all. All outcomes would be irrelevant insofar they would not change the outcome of a trial against Knox/Sollecito: if there is already sufficient evidence agaisnt Sollecito, his semen would be superfluous evidence. Only if the evidence against Sollecito was insufficient then the testing would be potential relevant evidence against him; but if the Appeal Judge (bear in mind: we are talking about Appeal) already assesses that the evidence picture is valid beyond reasonable doubt, a collection of further evidence is superfluous.
If it's Guede's stain than it would be irrelevant since Guede is not a defendant in this case and his guilt has been already settled. If it's a third person, there would be no further evidence to build a scenario that relates such third person to the murder. If it's not semen it would be irrelevant to the outcome too.As for the files, a similar reasoning could be made. Either there is a convincing reason presented by the defence for a re-opening of the trial discussion about the DNA findings, or there isn't. Bringing in electronic files would mean re-open the evidence examination phase on the DNA evidence (whenever you introduce further evidence information you re-open a session). The judge may have come to the conclusion that the examination was thorough and delievetred a conclusive set of experts opinions, that there is no compelling reason for re-opening the discussion. This is perfectly reasonable, since arguments against contamination were already unfold by Novelli who had testified after examining the electronic data at Stefanoni's lab and found no instance of Meredith's DNA or contamination pattern. Actually, this was probably reasonable even since the first instance trial, since the defence did not request the raw data (if we call that one a "request") until after the closure of the evidence examination session.

Your argument (highlighted) is a perfect example of the confirmation-of-guilt bias (the opposite of presumption of innocence) that makes this series of trials unfair. In a criminal trial, every reasonable alternative must be explored, and the consequences reasonably deduced from the evidence examined. For example, for the (presumed) semen stain, it is clear part was fresh when Guede was in the room; his shoe print is clear on that part. So it is likely that either the deposit was entirely his, or some possibly from another male. If the deposit were tested and found to be another male, not Sollecito, this would be exculpatory for Sollecito. Likewise, if it were entirely attributable to Guede, it would be exculpatory for Sollecito, since there is no other evidence linking him to Ms. Kercher's body, since the bra clasp DNA actually clearly shows contamination (DNA from several males). Finally, if it were attributable to Sollecito, that would be highly inculpatory for him.

Thus, there is no conceivable reasonable explanation for an objective prosecutor, obligated to find both the evidence against and the evidence for a defendant (which IIUC is the Italian law), not to order the presumed semen analyzed.

With regard to the raw DNA, you show information about a supposed lack of contamination attributable to a prosecution expert. Since one cannot see contamination with the naked eye, but only by careful examination of the DNA data, including the raw data (electronic data files), this statement is not convincing to objective persons. Contamination is a known risk in DNA profiling and occurs to some degree in every lab, but not all the time. Thus, it is important to quantify the extent of any such contamination by objective scientific measurements of controls and test samples. That contamination did occur in the forensic police lab during the DNA testing is known from the data that was turned over to the defense. The only question is how extensive this contamination was throughout the DNA testing.

 

[Machiavelli]

Thank you Machiavelli, this statement of yours is now in the file I use to explain to people why it is so certainly a miscarriage of justice. The appeal to authority works on most people who find it difficult to believe there is no fire behind the smoke, but saying the testing of a semen stain for its owner is irrelevant when considering incarcerating Sollecito for a sex crime is perfect for my file.

So, in which way do you think it could have changed Sollecito's position?

 

[Machiavelli]

Your argument (highlighted) is a perfect example of the confirmation-of-guilt bias (the opposite of presumption of innocence) that makes this series of trials unfair. In a criminal trial, every reasonable alternative must be explored, and the consequences reasonably deduced from the evidence examined. For example, for the (presumed) semen stain, it is clear part was fresh when Guede was in the room; his shoe print is clear on that part. So it is likely that either the deposit was entirely his, or some possibly from another male. If the deposit were tested and found to be another male, not Sollecito, this would be exculpatory for Sollecito. Likewise, if it were entirely attributable to Guede, it would be exculpatory for Sollecito, since there is no other evidence linking him to Ms. Kercher's body, since the bra clasp DNA actually clearly shows contamination (DNA from several males).

Absolutely not. It would not be exculpatory for Sollecito. The guilt of Guede or of another person cannot be exculpatory of Sollecito in any way, once the evidence against Sollecito has been aknowladged to be sufficient to establish his guilt. His innocence or guilt cannot be deduced by the guilt of another person any more.

Finally, if it were attributable to Sollecito, that would be highly inculpatory for him.

Absolutely not: it would be irrelevant, if you believe that evidence beyond reasonable doubt has been already established.

Bear in mind also that the testing of a possible semen stain was asked by Sollecito's defence only on appeal, thus only after he had been already found guilty. This does not imply that there is already an assumption of guilt under the law, but, within the procedure, findings from a lower instance of trial are anyway logically presumed to be grounded by the Appeal judges, the defence needs to find arguments against the lower court findings if they intend to challenge them.

Thus, there is no conceivable reasonable explanation for an objective prosecutor, obligated to find both the evidence against and the evidence for a defendant (which IIUC is the Italian law), not to order the presumed semen analyzed.

It is the judge who has the power to take this decision, not the prosecutor.

With regard to the raw DNA, you show information about a supposed lack f contamination attributable to a prosecution expert. Since one cannot see contamination with the naked eye, but only by careful examination of the DNA data, including the raw data (electronic data files), this statement is not convincing to objective persons. Contamination is a known risk in DNA profiling and occurs to some degree in every lab, but not all the time. Thus, it is important to quantify the extent of any such contamination by objective scientific measurements of controls and test samples. That contamination did occur in the forensic police lab during the DNA testing is known from the data that was turned over to the defense. The only question is how extensive this contamination was throughout the DNA testing.

The defence needs to bring up all those kinds of expert opinions during the evidence discussion, not as last resort after the discussion is closed and they have already lost.

 

[Samson]

So, in which way do you think it could have changed Sollecito's position?

I live in a country where a jury decides whether there is reasonable doubt. Your country is a judge only system.
The case against Sollecito brought before a jury in New Zealand would be demolished by the defence in summing up.
"The prosecution claims my client was involved in a sex crime but refuse to test a fresh semen stain."
That is all they would remember when considering the allegation, and acquit very quickly. In Italy the close relationship between Massei and Mignini is clearly prejudicial to Sollecito.

 

[Numbers]

The IIP website is down, apparently the result of a sudden flurry of Spambots.

Me, I tend to be conspiratorial. Should I be blaming the Pro-Guilt PR lobby?

IIP and the Wiki (MMK) are back up now. Might have been down for maintenance or upgrade; Bruce had posted about issues & possible interruptions Tuesday Nov. 11.

Bruce has a new post on this issue at IIP forum. It was spambots, and additional measures may be required.

 

[Bill Williams]

The presence in the murder room at the time of the murder itself would not sufficient, and on the other hand, it would be not neccessary. You don't need to present on the place of a murder in order to be guilty. It is sufficient if your conscious behaviour is element in the chain of causes.
Then, on the other hand, even if there was massive evidence of Knox and Sollecito in the murder room, by your definition since Knox was "living there", given that Knox's traces could be easilly justified and given that mostly evidence cannot be dated, it would be extremely difficult to connect their traces with a specific time.
However, there are luminol prints which can be attributed to blood by any reasonable person and this is NOT disproven at all by any scientific test, contrarly from what you assert. And there is also a bra clasp and a print on a bathmat that is in diluted blood. Those prints are related to the time of murder and to Knox and Sollecito: there is a precise connection between their physical evidence and the time of the murder.
Moreover, there is no way a "right" time for Meredith's DNA to be on Sollecito's kitchen knife, and also the physical evidence of a staged burglary is clearly related to the events of the murder and also logically linked to Knox.

Here we go again.

The operative term here is "can be".

Therefore if someone can attribute it to blood, then it must be blood - that is Machiavelli's logic. It then becomes the responsibility of someone else to demonstrate it is not blood. Not just that it can be something other than blood (which would be the equivalent in a level playing field), but the uneven Machiavelli-playing field it must now be proven NOT blood, not just that it can be not-blood, nor that it was not proven to be blood in the first place.

This even in the fact of the confirmatory test saying it is not blood. (Maybe the confirmatory test is wrong.)

Welcome to the Machiavelli reboot.

 

[Numbers]

Absolutely not. It would not be exculpatory for Sollecito. The guilt of Guede or of another person cannot be exculpatory of Sollecito in any way, once the evidence against Sollecito has been aknowladged to be sufficient to establish his guilt. His innocence or guilt cannot be deduced by the guilt of another person any more.



Absolutely not: it would be irrelevant, if you believe that evidence beyond reasonable doubt has been already established.

Bear in mind also that the testing of a possible semen stain was asked by Sollecito's defence only on appeal, thus only after he had been already found guilty. This does not imply that there is already an assumption of guilt under the law, but, within the procedure, findings from a lower instance of trial are anyway logically presumed to be grounded by the Appeal judges, the defence needs to find arguments against the lower court findings if they intend to challenge them.



It is the judge who has the power to take this decision, not the prosecutor.



The defence needs to bring up all those kinds of expert opinions during the evidence discussion, not as last resort after the discussion is closed and they have already lost.

1. The guilt of Sollecito and Knox was (wrongly, and contrary to ECHR) established by Guede's fast-track trial, in which neither Sollecito nor Knox were represented. That trial found that Guede had conspirators, and identified them as Sollecito and Knox. The CSC in quashing Hellmann went back to Guede's trial to point out the alleged guilt of S & K as in essence a judicial truth. If in fact Guede had a conspirator assisting him, that may be shown by an analysis of the assumed semen stain.

2. Now there you go again, Mach, that is not true according to the Constitution of the Italian Republic and not true according to the ECHR. Article 27 of the Constitution states: " A defendant shall not be considered guilty until a final sentence has been passed." The "appeal" is in US terms an appeal of points of law and a retrial, and new evidence may be introduced. Article 111 of the Constitution states: "The defendant shall have the right...to produce all other evidence in favour of the defence."

3. The police, who are directed by the PM, who becomes or is the prosecutor, have the forensic lab and possession of the pillow with the presumed semen stain. Therefore, the PM and/or police should order the analysis even before the trial begins. The judge has the power to order the analysis after the trial starts.

4. The case is not yet over, the CSC has not finalized a decision. It could, for example, order a third second-level trial. It is my understanding that the defense brought up these issues before both of the second-level trials that have taken place, Hellmann and Nencini.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

However, there are luminol prints which can be attributed to blood by any reasonable person and this is NOT disproven at all by any scientific test, contrarly from what you assert.

Oh! I didn't realise logic worked that way. In that case Knox and Sollecito are innocent and we can prove it.

There are traces on Sollecito's computer which can be attributed to Knox and Sollecito being at home all night by any reasonable person and this is NOT disproven at all by any scientific test, video footage or reliable testimony.

Therefore they were at home all night. Therefore they are innocent.

Or is this prosecution-only logic? That would make it awkward to be a defendant, though, if the prosecution was held to a standard of "anything you say which is not disproven is true" and the defence was held to a standard of "anything you say which is not proven beyond unreasonable doubt is false".

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Who the others were should have been an open question

If in fact Guede had a conspirator assisting him, that may be shown by an analysis of the assumed semen stain.

Numbers,

This is an important issue. At one point in time (2010?) the SCC said that Guede was convicted with others but did not say who the others were. If the semen belonged to an unknown individual (not Silenzi), then this person becomes the other prime suspect.

 

[Desert Fox]

Out of the mouth of babes

With no context at all, I asked my coworker what he thought about a case of rape and murder with the defense wants a semen sample tested and the prosecution and judge does not. His words were "Suspicious."

 

[Machiavelli]

1. The guilt of Sollecito and Knox was (wrongly, and contrary to ECHR) established by Guede's fast-track trial, in which neither Sollecito nor Knox were represented. That trial found that Guede had conspirators, and identified them as Sollecito and Knox. The CSC in quashing Hellmann went back to Guede's trial to point out the alleged guilt of S & K as in essence a judicial truth. If in fact Guede had a conspirator assisting him, that may be shown by an analysis of the assumed semen stain.

It is not true, the findings about Guede are a historical fact which constitutes merely an element of circumstantial evidence against Knox and Sollecito. The do not "establish" judicial facts against Knox and Sollecito, they are only circumstantial evidence to the establishment of facts.
By the way, Sollecito and Knox were fully represented at Guede's first instance trial, their defences were present and they presented evidence (for example the famous "Y-shaped glass shard"). They were not represented only at Guede's appeal; but after all, it was Rudy Guede who launched the appeal for his own interest.

2. Now there you go again, Mach, that is not true according to the Constitution of the Italian Republic and not true according to the ECHR. Article 27 of the Constitution states: " A defendant shall not be considered guilty until a final sentence has been passed." The "appeal" is in US terms an appeal of points of law and a retrial, and new evidence may be introduced. Article 111 of the Constitution states: "The defendant shall have the right...to produce all other evidence in favour of the defence."

You are wrong. I am obviously well aware about the Constitution, but also about the nuances of the law. The Constitution provides a principle which has its sphere of validity, but also has its limits, and it is a principle but not a procedural method of assessment. For example, a defendant may be found guilty on first instance (therefore formally still "not guilty" in a definitive penal way) but may be ordered to pay damages immediately without waiting for a further instance. You may not apply the Constitution yourself, there are application laws. In fact an Appeal in the Italian System is not exactly a retrial, it may be just a further step and it does not ignore the existing findings and developments from the previous procedings. The Appeal judges do not apply a "presmpution of innocence" as the mandatory method of assessment on each piece of evidence: a presumption of completeness of previous judicial acts is also in play. Now, it is clear that new evidence may be introduced on Appeal, but there are other requirements for this, and those requirements would change also depending on the kind of evidence that a party demands to introduce. For example one thing is presenting something that is just documental "pieces of evidence", that is something just coming from a party's investigation activity (like a document, a picture, a letter, a recording, a witness memoir' or an additional report by an already heard witness, or so), while another thing is evidence that would require a rinnovazione dibattimentale, which consists in the re-opening of the trial discussion about a part of of evidence, or (within ths frame) that requires a judge's own investigation and appointing of experts and detectives (called perizia). There is a rift between fhose two kinds of presenting new "evidence" - present documental evidence on one hand, or a request of investigating by re-opening a procedure on the other - they are very different: if it's not just depositing documents but actually require the re-opening of a procedure, the standard is much higher and this would require giving evidence that there is a compelling necessity to do so.

3. The police, who are directed by the PM, who becomes or is the prosecutor, have the forensic lab and possession of the pillow with the presumed semen stain. Therefore, the PM and/or police should order the analysis even before the trial begins. The judge has the power to order the analysis after the trial starts.

The prosecution does not possess a forensic labe and above all cannot perform any activity on items of evidence of any kind, after the investigation is closed. That means, after a trial has begun the prosecution certainly will not perform investigations.
Once the investigation is closed (what happened in July 2008) the prosecution cannot peform any investigation.
As long as the investigation is open, even the other parties can request to perform investigations (in fact they did so: prof. Vinci did request to examine the pillowcase, but only for footprints; the defence accessed the pillowcase and could perform all kinds of laboratory analysis they demanded, but they only looked for footprints and did not request to analyze the semen stain, despite Stefanoni herself pointed out the the stain to Vinci during the analysis and noted that it was "possible semen"; the defence was not interested).
On Appeal, the prosecution is actually carried on by the Prosecution General and the Prosecution General is an office which cannot perform any investigations at all.
It is only the Judge who has the power to order an investigation within a trial. An investigation on the pillowcase, if it's performed during a trial, must be ordered by the judge and performed by experts appointed by the court.

4. The case is not yet over, the CSC has not finalized a decision. It could, for example, order a third second-level trial. It is my understanding that the defense brought up these issues before both of the second-level trials that have taken place, Hellmann and Nencini.

It is possible. It is theoretically possible that the SC orders a re-trial on the ground that a defence request was denied with no legitimate reason; but this could happen only if this was among the reasons for annullment the defence presented in their recourse to the Supreme Court. Bringing them up to Hellmann and Nencini wouldn't be enough: they would need to present the instance again to the Supreme Court.

 

[Machiavelli]

I live in a country where a jury decides whether there is reasonable doubt. Your country is a judge only system.
The case against Sollecito brought before a jury in New Zealand would be demolished by the defence in summing up.
"The prosecution claims my client was involved in a sex crime but refuse to test a fresh semen stain."
That is all they would remember when considering the allegation, and acquit very quickly. In Italy the close relationship between Massei and Mignini is clearly prejudicial to Sollecito.

But this case could not exist as it is in New Zealand. Bear in mind, for example, that experts were appointed by a court to investigate on some specific pieces of evidence, and this brough to a change in verdicts. This could not have taken place in New Zealand.
The Sollecito's defence was invited at the forensic laboratory, only prof. Vinci came, and when the defence could ask to do all the test they wanted abaout the pillowcase, they only performed footprint analysis; they did not wish to test the semen stain. This procedure too wouldn't have taken place in New Zealand.
I also point out: it is not the prosecution who refused to test the semen stain; it was an appeal court (actually two appeal courts) who refused to perform the investigation when the defence requested it.

 

[Machiavelli]

Here we go again.

The operative term here is "can be".

Therefore if someone can attribute it to blood, then it must be blood - that is Machiavelli's logic. It then becomes the responsibility of someone else to demonstrate it is not blood. Not just that it can be something other than blood (which would be the equivalent in a level playing field), but the uneven Machiavelli-playing field it must now be proven NOT blood, not just that it can be not-blood, nor that it was not proven to be blood in the first place.

This even in the fact of the confirmatory test saying it is not blood. (Maybe the confirmatory test is wrong.)

Welcome to the Machiavelli reboot.

It is false that a confirmatory test ever found that those prints are "not blood".
There is simply a lack of absolute certain confirmation by chemical tests; there was never a finding that the stains ate "not something".
The above claim by Bill Williams is false, and it's one among the innocentisti stupid self-deceits.

Asking for the luminol prints to be 'proven' blood through a chemical test, it's like demanding an eye-witness to present a photography.

 

[Kauffer]

Erroneous perception

Actually, I believe the procedure code is self-evidence. The code basically says, there is no discretional power of the judge on evidence admission.
There are only exceptions in evidence admissions, a marginal set of circumstances which are relegated to: some specific situations provided by the code (for example some testimonies or recordings) and to to the cases of manifest irrelevance or superfluousness (which anyway can be inpugned before the SC).
As for the refusal to test a semen stain, the ground for the refusal seems obvious: because it is manifestly irrelevant. It is irrelevant because it can either be Sollecito's DNA, or Guede's, ore someone else's, of may be not semen at all. All outcomes would be irrelevant insofar they would not change the outcome of a trial against Knox/Sollecito: if there is already sufficient evidence agaisnt Sollecito, his semen would be superfluous evidence. Only if the evidence against Sollecito was insufficient then the testing would be potential relevant evidence against him; but if the Appeal Judge (bear in mind: we are talking about Appeal) already assesses that the evidence picture is valid beyond reasonable doubt, a collection of further evidence is superfluous.
If it's Guede's stain than it would be irrelevant since Guede is not a defendant in this case and his guilt has been already settled. If it's a third person, there would be no further evidence to build a scenario that relates such third person to the murder. If it's not semen it would be irrelevant to the outcome too.
As for the files, a similar reasoning could be made. Either there is a convincing reason presented by the defence for a re-opening of the trial discussion about the DNA findings, or there isn't. Bringing in electronic files would mean re-open the evidence examination phase on the DNA evidence (whenever you introduce further evidence information you re-open a session). The judge may have come to the conclusion that the examination was thorough and delievetred a conclusive set of experts opinions, that there is no compelling reason for re-opening the discussion. This is perfectly reasonable, since arguments against contamination were already unfold by Novelli who had testified after examining the electronic data at Stefanoni's lab and found no instance of Meredith's DNA or contamination pattern. Actually, this was probably reasonable even since the first instance trial, since the defence did not request the raw data (if we call that one a "request") until after the closure of the evidence examination session.

Your mind is biased. Why can you only conceive of the admittance into evidence of the semen stain and EDFs as part of a post conviction, appellate matter?

Go back in time to pre-Christmas 2007. Consider the whole of 2008; consider the entire period up to and including the First Instance trial. During this time, whatever you believe to be the case post conviction, in what sense is it possible to place such a construction on this evidence as to render it either "manifestly superfluous or irrelevant"?

With regard to the pillow semen stain, according to Stefanoni, it was not tested, yet Napoleoni testified in February 2009 that Guede's DNA had been found on it. Nevertheless, Vinci discovered the putative semen stain on May 25th, some six months before the conclusion to and thus the verdict in the first instance trial. So, the court had not at this point deliberated on the question of guilt or innocence. There can be no question therefore, that at the time it was discovered by the defence, the putative stain was "manifestly superfluous or irrelevant" evidence. Indeed, there is good reason to suppose that the prosecution had discovered and tested the stain considerably earlier, even before the hearing of 30th November 2007, possibly even before Matteini. We know, for example that DNA positive sperm fractions were profiled from body swabs - the evidence undisclosed to the defence.

As far as the EDFs are concerned, there is simply no excuse for their non disclosure. This is a matter that the entire forensic science community is most clear about: there must be an examination of all of the raw lab data in order to verify the results obtained by the lab as presented in the printed paper egrams, and in order to address the question of possible contamination. The disclosure of the EDFs should have been made according to law - all "investigatory materials" are required to be disclosed. Whether or not the defence made a request at a particular time or not is immaterial; the records should have been disclosed as a matter of course and if they were not, then the judge should have ordered it himself.

 

[Numbers]

It is not true, the findings about Guede are a historical fact which constitutes merely an element of circumstantial evidence against Knox and Sollecito. The do not "establish" judicial facts against Knox and Sollecito, they are only circumstantial evidence to the establishment of facts.
By the way, Sollecito and Knox were fully represented at Guede's first instance trial, their defences were present and they presented evidence (for example the famous "Y-shaped glass shard"). They were not represented only at Guede's appeal; but after all, it was Rudy Guede who launched the appeal for his own interest.




You are wrong. I am obviously well aware about the Constitution, but also about the nuances of the law. The Constitution provides a principle which has its sphere of validity, but also has its limits, and it is a principle but not a procedural method of assessment. For example, a defendant may be found guilty on first instance (therefore formally still "not guilty" in a definitive penal way) but may be ordered to pay damages immediately without waiting for a further instance. You may not apply the Constitution yourself, there are application laws. In fact an Appeal in the Italian System is not exactly a retrial, it may be just a further step and it does not ignore the existing findings and developments from the previous procedings. The Appeal judges do not apply a "presmpution of innocence" as the mandatory method of assessment on each piece of evidence: a presumption of completeness of previous judicial acts is also in play. Now, it is clear that new evidence may be introduced on Appeal, but there are other requirements for this, and those requirements would change also depending on the kind of evidence that a party demands to introduce. For example one thing is presenting something that is just documental "pieces of evidence", that is something just coming from a party's investigation activity (like a document, a picture, a letter, a recording, a witness memoir' or an additional report by an already heard witness, or so), while another thing is evidence that would require a rinnovazione dibattimentale, which consists in the re-opening of the trial discussion about a part of of evidence, or (within ths frame) that requires a judge's own investigation and appointing of experts and detectives (called perizia). There is a rift between fhose two kinds of presenting new "evidence" - present documental evidence on one hand, or a request of investigating by re-opening a procedure on the other - they are very different: if it's not just depositing documents but actually require the re-opening of a procedure, the standard is much higher and this would require giving evidence that there is a compelling necessity to do so.



The prosecution does not possess a forensic labe and above all cannot perform any activity on items of evidence of any kind, after the investigation is closed. That means, after a trial has begun the prosecution certainly will not perform investigations.
Once the investigation is closed (what happened in July 2008) the prosecution cannot peform any investigation.
As long as the investigation is open, even the other parties can request to perform investigations (in fact they did so: prof. Vinci did request to examine the pillowcase, but only for footprints; the defence accessed the pillowcase and could perform all kinds of laboratory analysis they demanded, but they only looked for footprints and did not request to analyze the semen stain, despite Stefanoni herself pointed out the the stain to Vinci during the analysis and noted that it was "possible semen"; the defence was not interested).
On Appeal, the prosecution is actually carried on by the Prosecution General and the Prosecution General is an office which cannot perform any investigations at all.
It is only the Judge who has the power to order an investigation within a trial. An investigation on the pillowcase, if it's performed during a trial, must be ordered by the judge and performed by experts appointed by the court.



It is possible. It is theoretically possible that the SC orders a re-trial on the ground that a defence request was denied with no legitimate reason; but this could happen only if this was among the reasons for annullment the defence presented in their recourse to the Supreme Court. Bringing them up to Hellmann and Nencini wouldn't be enough: they would need to present the instance again to the Supreme Court.

1. My information, from a reliable Italian-speaking source, is that Knox and Sollecito did not have representation at Guede's fast-track trial. I cannot speak from my own personal observation. The line between "judicial fact" and "circumstantial evidence" is a thin one in this instance. The issue IMO is that the fast-track trial established that Guede acted with accomplices, and indeed named these accomplices as Knox and Sollecito. This is contrary to the presumption of innocence for Knox and Sollecito in their own trials, separate from Guede, who they were unable to have cross-examined. Their inability to cross-examine Guede (by his legitimate decision) should mean his testimony cannot be used against them, according to Art. 111 of the Italian Constitution. The finding that they were accomplices by Guede's fast-track trial should not enter the Knox - Sollecito trial, but should be established independently and judged as true or not to conform to the presumption of innocence (Article 27).

2. It is the individual defendant who is presumed innocent, not the evidence. The paying of damages immediately after a first level conviction in a criminal case would seem to conflict with the Italian Constitution Article 27.

3. The PM (prosecutor) controls the police in terms of their investigation prior to the trial, IIUC. After the trial starts, the judge can order evidence to be evaluated and admitted to court.

4. IIUC, there are many issues in the appeals to the CSC. I have only seen a summary in English of Amanda Knox's appeal and only some of the "highlights" of Raffaele Sollecito's appeal. There are, IIUC, issues raised about evidence; but certainly the appeals request a new trial.

 

[Numbers]

It is false that a confirmatory test ever found that those prints are "not blood".
There is simply a lack of absolute certain confirmation by chemical tests; there was never a finding that the stains ate "not something".
The above claim by Bill Williams is false, and it's one among the innocentisti stupid self-deceits.

Asking for the luminol prints to be 'proven' blood through a chemical test, it's like demanding an eye-witness to present a photography.

Your statement is quite wrong; again, you are presuming the test shows blood, when the presence of blood is only confirmed by a specific test, for example, an antigen-antibody test.

Testing a substance or stain to show blood under forensic conditions is a multistep process (unless one decides to immediately use a specific test such as the antigen-antibody test); first, there is a presumptive chemical test, such as luminol, which is not specific to blood (that is, can have false positives) and then a specific test (antigen-antibody, which essentially has no false positives or false negatives). For convenience and probably budgetary reasons, a different, second presumptive chemical test may be used before the somewhat expensive antigen-antibody test; in the present case, TMB was used. TMB has different false positives than luminol, and an essentially identical sensitivity. Thus a negative TMB result shows the substance or stain is not blood. Stefanoni testified to this fact, after the defense found out she had conducted the TMB as well as the luminol tests.

 

[js202]

Asking for the luminol prints to be 'proven' blood through a chemical test, it's like demanding an eye-witness to present a photography.

This is so bafflingly idiotic that it does not even qualify as passable sophistry. What part of the fact that, in addition to blood, luminol reacts to substances which are not blood do you not understand?

 

[Desert Fox]

It is false that a confirmatory test ever found that those prints are "not blood".
There is simply a lack of absolute certain confirmation by chemical tests; there was never a finding that the stains ate "not something".
The above claim by Bill Williams is false, and it's one among the innocentisti stupid self-deceits.

Asking for the luminol prints to be 'proven' blood through a chemical test, it's like demanding an eye-witness to present a photography.

You just completely reversed science. Science is such that you make a hypothesis and you try to disprove a hypothesis. One if you try to disprove and passes the test is it more likely to be true.

Hypothesis - This is blood
Test - Luminol - passed - Might be blood
Test - TMB - fails - not blood

 

[Desert Fox]

This is so bafflingly idiotic that it does not even qualify as passable sophistry. What part of the fact that, in addition to blood, luminol reacts to substances which are not blood do you not understand?

And one includes the soils in that area