Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[moije2]

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?

The "argumentation" is increasingly lacking in honesty. All the wasted pixels correcting us on the level of training of Stefanoni and recently arguing that she must be PhD holder because of (cough) evidence of her position with a university. No CV in sight for this so-called professional. And these idiotic arguments about proving the negative regarding the existence of blood. I can promise you that even if an antigen test was employed and found negative for blood the argument would be that that is still not conclusive because the testers only tested a small percentage of the molecules in question and it is possible they just "missed" the blood cells. So you see, by mLogic, there is still "circumstantial evidence" that when considered with such heavy other circumstantial evidence such as lying in her emails and swiveling her hips MUST lead one to believe that in fact it was blood. Just like the luminol argument allows for that possibility. And he has the study to prove the reasonableness of this, er, mLogical conclusion which in fact is unavoidable given the totality of the evidence. It is rather easy and sort of fun in a perversion of logic to reason like this!

Evidence. Circumstantial evidence. I enjoy how the term allows so broadly for inclusion of items against AK and RS but not in their favor. My favorite is that the rulings in the RG case are not findings of facts against AK and RS, but rather are "circumstantial evidence" (again) that may be used against them. I say CE of what? After all, we are reminded that facts (eg, the rulings re RG) are not evidence but the facts may lead to logical conclusions. So Mach will say evidence of the truth of the assertion therein. But how does one weigh that fact especially when considered in the "context" (another favorite escape valve) of the directive of ISC? Can there REALLY be considered to exist any differentiation between judicial finding and "just" circumstantial evidence? Where is the judicial discussion of the value of such conclusions? Was there a serious possibility that the Nencini court would say er sorry ISC, I know you wanted us to decide "how" AK and RS were involved, not "whether" they were involved, and we consider the Guede ruling ill advised... This hole exercise doesn't rise to the level of mental masturbation.

 

[Bill Williams]

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.

Someone beat me to it. This does not even qualify as dietrology.

 

[Numbers]

Well, it's time to resume the Remedial ECHR Law Course. Here the goal is to find ECHR cases similar to the situation of Amanda Knox at her Nov. 5-6, 2007 interrogation. The minimum elements include: 1) no lawyer; 2) threats against or "mild" (non-torture) mistreatment of the victim (in the ECHR sense), 3) a confession or statement from the victim; and 4) a conviction.

Here's an example:

CASE OF PAKSHAYEV v. RUSSIA 1377/04 13/03/2014 {excerpts follow}

A Summary of the Case

6. On 2 May 1997 the applicant was arrested on suspicion of murder. He was given a written note explaining that he could not be obliged to give evidence against himself, his spouse or close relative and that he was entitled to legal assistance from the moment that the arrest record or the detention order was read out to him. He signed the explanatory note and asked for legal assistance.

7. At 6.30 p.m. on the same day the applicant was questioned. He was not assisted by a lawyer. According to the applicant, he was threatened that if he did not confess the investigator would order his cellmates to rape him. The applicant confessed to the murder.

8. At 8.20 p.m. on the same day the arrest record was read out to him.

10. On 8 May 1997 the applicant was provided with a lawyer.

11. At the trial the applicant retracted his confession. He admitted that he had been at the victim’s house on the evening of the murder. However, he denied killing her.

12. On 15 January 2001 the Kondinskiy District Court of the Khanty-Mansiyskiy Region convicted the applicant of murder and sentenced him to ten years’ imprisonment. It relied on the applicant’s confession statement of 2 May 1997, testimony by several police officers that the confession had been made by the applicant without any pressure and statements by witness Kh. that he had seen the applicant in the victim’s house several hours before the murder. The court also relied on the autopsy of the victim describing the injuries and establishing the cause of death.

13. On 18 October 2006 the Khanty-Mansiskiy Regional Court upheld the conviction on appeal. It found, in particular, that the District Court’s reliance on the applicant’s confession statement had been lawful. The applicant had been questioned and had confessed before the arrest record had been read out to him. He had not therefore been entitled to legal assistance during that questioning.

The Court's Judgment

27. The Court reiterates that, although not absolute, the right under Article 6 § 3 (c) of everyone charged with a criminal offence to be effectively defended by a lawyer, assigned officially if need be, is one of the fundamental features of a fair trial (see Poitrimol v. France, 23 November 1993, § 34, Series A no. 277‑A).

28. As regards legal assistance at the pre-trial stages of the proceedings, the Court has held that the particular vulnerability of the accused at the initial stages of police questioning can only be properly compensated for by the assistance of a lawyer, whose task is, among other things, to help to ensure respect for the right of an accused not to incriminate himself. This right indeed presupposes that the prosecution in a criminal case seek to prove their case against the accused without resort to evidence obtained through methods of coercion or oppression in defiance of the will of the accused. Accordingly, in order for the right to a fair trial to remain sufficiently “practical and effective” Article 6 § 1 requires that, as a rule, access to a lawyer should be provided as from the first questioning of a suspect by the police, unless it is demonstrated in the light of the particular circumstances of each case that there are compelling reasons to restrict that right. Even where compelling reasons may exceptionally justify denial of access to a lawyer, such restriction - whatever its justification - must not unduly prejudice the rights of the accused under Article 6. The rights of the defence will, in principle, be irretrievably prejudiced when incriminating statements made during police questioning without access to a lawyer are used for a conviction (see Salduz v. Turkey [GC], no. 36391/02, §§ 50-55, ECHR 2008, and Panovits v. Cyprus, no. 4268/04, §§ 64-66 and 83, 11 December 2008).

29. In the present case the applicant’s right of access to a lawyer was restricted during the first hours of the police custody under Article 47 § 1 of the old CCrP, in force at the material time, which provided that a suspect was entitled to legal assistance from the moment that the arrest record or the detention order was read out to him (see paragraph 15 above). Given that the applicant was questioned before his arrest record was read out to him, his request for legal assistance was denied. As a result, he did not have the benefit of legal advice when he made his confession statement to the police.

30. The Court notes that no compelling reasons to restrict the applicant’s right of access to a lawyer were cited by the Government. The restriction was therefore the direct result of the application of Article 47 § 1 of the old CCrP. The Court has previously found that a systematic restriction of the right of access to legal assistance, on the basis of statutory provisions, is sufficient in itself for a violation of Article 6 to be found (see Dayanan v. Turkey, no. 7377/03, § 33, 13 October 2009). Moreover, the Court does not lose sight of the fact that that provision was subsequently declared unconstitutional by the Russian Constitutional Court (see paragraph 16 above).

31. The Court further notes that the applicant was undoubtedly affected by the restrictions of his access to a lawyer in that his statement to the police was used for his conviction. Indeed, the confession statement made by the applicant without the benefit of legal advice served as the sole basis for the finding of guilt both in the first-instance and the appeal judgments (see paragraphs 12 and 13 above). The Court therefore finds that, irrespective of whether the applicant had the opportunity to challenge the evidence against him before the courts, the absence of a lawyer while he was in police custody irretrievably affected his defence rights (see Salduz, cited above, §§ 58 and 62; Panovits, cited above, §§ 75-77 and 84-86; and Pavlenko v. Russia, no. 42371/02, § 119, 1 April 2010).

32. The Court concludes from the above findings that the use of his confession statement made without the benefit of legal advice for the applicant’s conviction undermined the fairness of the proceedings as a whole.

33. There has accordingly been a violation of Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (c) of the Convention.
ETA: This case appears to have a number of similarities to Amanda's calunnia conviction. These include:
1) Interrogation without a lawyer; 2) Threats, no torture, to coerce a statement (confession); 3) Arrest after statement is made; 4) Statement (confession) is renounced after some time and/or in court; 5) Statement (confession) is the major (only, for calunnia) evidence; 6) Police deny use of pressure, claim statement (confession) made freely; 7) Conviction (of calunnia, for Amanda)

Thus, Amanda's application to the ECtHR would seem to result in a "slam dunk" (certain) finding that her rights to a fair trial were violated.

ETA2: See CASE OF PANOVITS v. CYPRUS 4268/04 11/12/2008
for another case with some relevance. Lawyers will find interest in the testy interchange between the defense counsel and the judges.

 

[Numbers]

This is CASE OF YURIY VOLKOV v. UKRAINE 45872/06 19/12/2013

Interrogation without lawyer leading to confession is a Violation of Art. 6.3 with 6.1

66. The Court observes that on 1 December 2003 the investigator ordered the police to ensure the applicant’s presence for questioning as a suspect in the case of the robbery and murder of Ms D. As a result, on 6 December 2003 he was brought to the police station and was questioned there in respect of those criminal offences. There is no indication that, even before he was questioned, the authorities treated the applicant as anything other than a suspect (see, for comparable examples in the case-law, Khayrov, cited above, § 74, and Zamferesko v. Ukraine, no. 30075/06, § 61, 15 November 2012, and, for a converse example, Smolik v. Ukraine, no. 11778/05, § 54, 19 January 2012).

67. By virtue of the Court’s case-law principles, the applicant was entitled to be assisted by a lawyer as from his very first questioning by the police. However, he was questioned and confessed to having committed the crimes without being legally represented. The Court therefore considers that his right to legal assistance was restricted on this account.

68. The Court notes that the applicant’s initial confession in the form of the “statement of surrender to the police” formed part of the evidence adduced against him, given that the trial court expressly referred to it when finding the applicant guilty and convicting him (see paragraph 38 above). It should be noted that the inadmissibility of the applicant’s complaint in this respect under Article 3 of the Convention does not preclude the Court from examining his related complaint under Article 6 § 1 concerning his alleged self-incrimination (see Kolu v. Turkey, no. 35811/97, § 54, 2 August 2005, and Lopata v. Russia, no. 72250/01, § 140, 13 July 2010).

69. Even though the circumstances in which the applicant made his initial confession cast doubts on its reliability, they were not elucidated by the domestic courts. The Court observes in this connection that the applicant insisted, throughout his trial, that he had been arrested and questioned on 6 December 2003 and that he had wrongly been held for over seventeen hours following his arrest, without legal assistance, on the premises of the police department instead of the prosecutor’s office where he was expected for questioning. His account of events was confirmed by the Crimea Court of Appeal in its separate ruling of 19 November 2004, which, in its turn, relied on the police records. Thereafter the applicant’s arguments remained without any assessment or even comment: both the trial court and the Supreme Court confined their reasoning in that regard to the observation that the applicant had been arrested and questioned in a lawyer’s presence on 7 December 2003. Accordingly, the Court concludes that the domestic courts failed to establish in a convincing manner that the applicant’s initial confession had been made in full freedom.

70. The Court therefore considers that the applicant’s right to freedom against self-incrimination and to legal assistance were unduly restricted during his initial questioning by the police, and that this restriction was not remedied in the course of his trial. 71. This suffices for the Court to conclude that there has been a violation of Article 6 § 3 (c) of the Convention in conjunction with Article 6 § 1.

 

[Planigale]

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.



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.



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.



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?



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.

Machiaveli makes some good points that need addressing. I would agree, that Guede's presence at the time and place of murder as demonstrated by his bloody hand print, may not be sufficient to prove guilt in itself. Mach says it is because Guede lied, I feel a circular argument here, presumably he lied about murdering her, but if he did not murder her then he did not lie and on this basis is innocent? The other lie might be about the date with the victim. I would take the view that it was not because he lied (which I thought accused were allowed to do in Italy), but because he failed to provide a reasonable explanation for his presence that was not related to his muder. An innocent explanation might have been 'I was invited in by Knox', then follow on with the story about being on the toilet. What is interesting is the 'moral quality' of the accused is obviously of importance in assessing guilt in Italy. The bloody handprint is not proof of guilt but lying is. This leads to the importance of the witness placing Sollecito and Knox in the park, even though this is in effect an alibi in itself, it is used to demonstrate that Knox and Sollecito are liars and therefore following Mach's logic are guilty. Also why for Mach Knox's prior sexual experience and possible drug use are relevant it speaks to her moral quality and this is of importance in determining guilt.

Mach also makes a fair point that the bloody footprint on the bath mat does have a time print. It was made at the time of the crime and does place someone at the crime scene as the blood was probably acquired from MK bedroom. The blood was that of MK, and all seem to agree on this. So the identification of foot becomes essential. This then highlights the suspect orientated approach that Nencini fails to understand. (This is even better illustrated by the bloody shoe prints). One has a bloody footprint. This should have been analysed by a forensic anthropologists. A forensic anthropologist may have been able to say that this is a print of such a size and that 30% of the male population but only 5% of the female population would have feet of such a size. One could further conclude that the likely height of such a person was 1.7 to 1.9 m if male. One might further say if there were any distinct characteristics such as a deformed toe. What happened was different, the police laboratory had three prints to fit to the bathmat print in essence they were asked to make the best fit, but not the right fit. The circular argument will go that the only people who were there were Knox, Sollecito and Guede, therefore these were the only people who could leave the print, therefore it must belong to one of them therefore it belongs to whoever best fits. But this assumes guilt. Let us say that the semen stain tested as matching the sample from another burglary sex murder, maybe someone who was a known criminal associate of Guede who happens to fit the footprint also, and an unidentified fingerprint.

Let us look at the footprint identification. We will leave aside the fact that the identification was done by people who incorrectly identified the shoe print and so one might question their competence. One will leave aside that they were not blind to the identities of the reference prints. The prosecution looked only at photographs and not at the original item. Photographs unless orthogonal distort dimensions. One cannot assume that the scale of both dimensions is the same. The ruler placed on the bathmat in one dimension at some distance. this will lead to some inaccuracy in measurement off the photo. The Robbins technique was used by the prosecution, this gives rise to concern Robbins is known to have led to many misidentifications and wrongful convictions. Finally there is the obvious problem of comparing the dimensions from the reference prints, with a print made on a soft surface with an absorbent nature with a non viscous liquid. The dimensions should differ the bathmat print should be larger. If one looks at the dimensions found by the prosecution most of them are identical, this is so unlikely as to be suggestive that they measured to match. I suspect that if you made a series of footprints using identical methods one would not get measurements that were so identical. The bathmat footprint should be larger, not identical. In contrast the defence expert Vinci directly measured the prints using special illumination techniques to emphasise the print. (Vinci who identified the error made by the police print unit in identifying the shoe print, and made a correct identification.) Vinci demonstrated and conclude that the print was not compatible with Sollecito and was with Guede. Other than being a defence expert there seems to be no reason for the judges to prefer the demonstrably error prone prosecution exerts who failed to examine the original print and used a technique of a discredited scientist over the defence expert.

Whilst the bathmat footprint might be critical evidence in reality although it provides evidence in time and place it fails to provide identity. Having reviewed the evidence I personally feel Vinci is correct in his conclusions, I also suspect that the prosecution made measurements to fit. They did this because they adopted a suspect orientated approach, they were making the evidence fit the theory not allowing the evidence to speak for itself.

I mentioned above the shoe print, here the police laboratory had reference prints of the shoes of Knox and Sollecito. One of Sollecito's shoes had rings on the sole similar to the bloody shoe prints that were found. Because of adopting a suspect orientated approach and assuming that because Sollecito was guilty therefore the print must fit his shoe they declared an identity. In fact as Vinci demonstrated the print was incompatible with Sollecito's shoe and compatible with those of Guede. This is the perfect example of what is termed in England 'fitting up'.

The Luminol positive prints even if blood because they are so dilute do not fix time. Knox could have become innocently contaminated with blood after the shower when she stood on the bath mat and then walked around bare foot. (Other explanations also available). The DNA on the bra hook lacks both time and place, we cannot say where or when the DNA came to be on the bra hook. The DNA result from the knife lacks time and place, and baring in mind that no blood and no DNA was detected on the knife blade was likely to be in laboratory contamination.

There is comment as to why Vinci did not test the semen stain since he found it, he was a not a DNA specialist therefore it would not be appropriate. If the semen stain had matched a rape from another crime this potentially would have been exculpatory for Sollecito and Knox. It is entirely wrong to say that the test does not need doing because it will not add to the proof of guilt, it needs doing because it may provide proof of innocence.

 

[Kauffer]

Stefanoni's presumed criminality

How do the pro - guilt posters here explain and excuse the following?:



Patrizia Stefanoni produces the RTIGF Report of her “technical analysis” on June 3rd 2008

- Omitted from the report is the luminol prints all tested negative for blood with tetramethylbenzidine.

- Knife samples A-B-C are recorded as being assessed with real time PCR….they weren’t.

- No mention of the ‘Qubit Fluorometer’ being used and sample 36B failed to register for quantification.

- Samples marked as ‘cat blood’ were positive for human DNA.

Under suspicion of which offence(s) could Ms Stefanoni have been arrested for in Italian law? What censure does her professional body permit or perhaps insist on, for such conduct?

 

[tsig]

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.

Why didn't the defense lawyers argue that?

 

[tsig]

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?

Then what were the non blood substances the luminol was reacting to?

 

[tsig]

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."

My co-worker said she was "Guilty as sin".

 

[Chris_Halkides]

luminol, the flashing blue light special of forensics

Then what were the non blood substances the luminol was reacting to?

tsig,

Iron from rusty water; manganese or iron from soil; or manganese from plant matter. Or possibly residue from a cleaning solution. If it were from Meredith's blood then why were the majority of the spots negative for her DNA?

Luminol detects the possibility of blood. Some jurisdictions don't even let luminol evidence into the courtroom if that is all that the prosecution has. Why didn't the FP use an antibody-based confirmatory test?

 

[anglolawyer]

Then what were the non blood substances the luminol was reacting to?

Who cares? We know it wasn't blood.

 

[anglolawyer]

This is CASE OF YURIY VOLKOV v. UKRAINE 45872/06 19/12/2013

Interrogation without lawyer leading to confession is a Violation of Art. 6.3 with 6.1

66. The Court observes that on 1 December 2003 the investigator ordered the police to ensure the applicant’s presence for questioning as a suspect in the case of the robbery and murder of Ms D. As a result, on 6 December 2003 he was brought to the police station and was questioned there in respect of those criminal offences. There is no indication that, even before he was questioned, the authorities treated the applicant as anything other than a suspect (see, for comparable examples in the case-law, Khayrov, cited above, § 74, and Zamferesko v. Ukraine, no. 30075/06, § 61, 15 November 2012, and, for a converse example, Smolik v. Ukraine, no. 11778/05, § 54, 19 January 2012).

67. By virtue of the Court’s case-law principles, the applicant was entitled to be assisted by a lawyer as from his very first questioning by the police. However, he was questioned and confessed to having committed the crimes without being legally represented. The Court therefore considers that his right to legal assistance was restricted on this account.

68. The Court notes that the applicant’s initial confession in the form of the “statement of surrender to the police” formed part of the evidence adduced against him, given that the trial court expressly referred to it when finding the applicant guilty and convicting him (see paragraph 38 above). It should be noted that the inadmissibility of the applicant’s complaint in this respect under Article 3 of the Convention does not preclude the Court from examining his related complaint under Article 6 § 1 concerning his alleged self-incrimination (see Kolu v. Turkey, no. 35811/97, § 54, 2 August 2005, and Lopata v. Russia, no. 72250/01, § 140, 13 July 2010).

69. Even though the circumstances in which the applicant made his initial confession cast doubts on its reliability, they were not elucidated by the domestic courts. The Court observes in this connection that the applicant insisted, throughout his trial, that he had been arrested and questioned on 6 December 2003 and that he had wrongly been held for over seventeen hours following his arrest, without legal assistance, on the premises of the police department instead of the prosecutor’s office where he was expected for questioning. His account of events was confirmed by the Crimea Court of Appeal in its separate ruling of 19 November 2004, which, in its turn, relied on the police records. Thereafter the applicant’s arguments remained without any assessment or even comment: both the trial court and the Supreme Court confined their reasoning in that regard to the observation that the applicant had been arrested and questioned in a lawyer’s presence on 7 December 2003. Accordingly, the Court concludes that the domestic courts failed to establish in a convincing manner that the applicant’s initial confession had been made in full freedom.

70. The Court therefore considers that the applicant’s right to freedom against self-incrimination and to legal assistance were unduly restricted during his initial questioning by the police, and that this restriction was not remedied in the course of his trial. 71. This suffices for the Court to conclude that there has been a violation of Article 6 § 3 (c) of the Convention in conjunction with Article 6 § 1.

Nice one.

 

[Kauffer]

Luminol reactions

Then what were the non blood substances the luminol was reacting to?

Good grief! You can actually see, if you bother to look, that the hall radiator is leaking rusty water on to the hall floor!

One of the many non blood substances that luminol readily reacts with is there in the hall!

Can you see it? Can you?

It's no wonder the stuff lit up like a Christmas tree!

 

[Kauffer]

Luminol woman

tsig,

Iron from rusty water; manganese or iron from soil; or manganese from plant matter. Or possibly residue from a cleaning solution. If it were from Meredith's blood then why were the majority of the spots negative for her DNA?

Luminol detects the possibility of blood. Some jurisdictions don't even let luminol evidence into the courtroom if that is all that the prosecution has. Why didn't the FP use an antibody-based confirmatory test?

Whereas luminol only raises the possibility that blood has been found, Commodi thinks it's proof despite Stefanoni stating categorically that it is not blood in this case. Commodi is a loony moll.

 

[carbonjam72]

CONCERNING A 'RADIUS OF GUILT'

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.



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.



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.



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?



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.

Thanks for responding Mach, and you certainly have given plenty to ponder. I'll have to get back with more on everyone's favorite psychic, Madam Carlizzi, a bit later.

For now though consider the highlights.

1. So a person does not need to be proven to be present at the location of a crime, in order to be convicted in Italy. Ok, is there a radius of guilt?. So that if you're within say a half-mile, you could be swept up and convicted based on whatever?

The problem Mach, is that to believe Amanda and Raf are guilty in THIS CASE, you must literally depart reality. I'm not saying this as a figure of speech, I mean it literally. The argument that IN OTHER MURDER CASES, a conviction can occur because of evidence not found in the murder room, IS TO IGNORE THE FACT THAT EVIDENCE OF THE KILLeR'S IDENTITY WAS FOUND IN THIS CASE..

There is evidence of only Rudy Guede in the room where Meredith was killed, in her own blood. AND, Rudy's DNA IS INCRIMINATING, BECAUSE RUDY GUEDE HAS NO LEGITIMATE REASON FOR BEING IN THEIR HOME, AND HAS A HISTORY OF BURGLARy, BRANDISHING KNIVES, KNIFE FIGHTS, HARASSING WOMEN, AND BLACK OUT FUGUE STATES, AND LYING.
Amanda and Raf are not in the same position in this case as Rudy, WHOM THEY DID NOT KNOW, AND WITH WHOM THEY HAD NO PRIOR CONTACT.
2. You mention with some apparent frustration, the difficulty of ascribing physical evidence of Amanda and/or Raf, as evidence of their participation in the murder, if such indications cannot be accurately dated to the time of the murder. THIS IS TRUE. Even if such traces were found in the murder room, if they can not be linked to the time of the murder, they can not be held to be conclusive of their presence at the time of the murder, BECAUSE AMANDA AND RAF HAD A LEGITIMATE RIGHT TO BE IN THEIR OWN HOME AND LEAVE THEIR OWN BIOLOGICAL TRACES ANYWHERE. The exception being obviously, if their DNA turned up somewhere incriminating, LIKE INSIDE MEREDITH, or if there footprints or fingerprints were PRINTED IN MEREDITH'S BLOOD, AS WERE RUDY GUEDE'S BIOLOGICAL SAMPLES.
This is the reality Mach. You may not like it, because it conflicts with your having an easy pathway to reasoning a guilty verdict, but no reasonable person will believe it, BECAUSE IT IS AN OBVIOUS LOGICAL FLAW IN YOUR REASONING.
3. Your continuing to insist that you have cited scientific literature that contradicts common knowledge, IS DIVERSIONARY BANTER INTENDED BY A CHARLATAN TO GULL THE CREDULOUS. WE ARE NOT YOUR SIMPLETONS. This type of fake pseudo science may pass for reasoning in Italy's tabloids, and god knows nothing is too low, dishonest or vile to be worthy of headlines in the UK tabloids, BUT NO ONE WITH ANY SENSE BELIEVES YOU HAVE REFUTED WELLL SETTLED FORENSIC SCIENCE: NEGATIVE TMB CONFIRMATORY TEST = NO BLOOD. NOT IF IT COMES FROM MACH, NENCINI, MASSEI, OR THE ISC. IT IS NO MORE CONVINCING THAN A PMF MOD"S CLAIM TO HAVE "DEBUNKED" DR PETER GILL. IT IS THE WORK AND PROVINCE OF CHARLATANS.
Mach, I'm exhausted. Long story short, you have to take THIS CASE, on its own merits. THERE IS evidence of the murderer IN THE MURDER ROOM AND BOTH IN AND ON THE VICTIM. Just one murderer, Rudy Guede. Not Amanda or Raf or anyone else.

ALL OF YOUR OTHER EFFORTS TO INCRIMINATE THE PAIR, IS TO TRY TO EQUATE THEIR POSITION TO THAT OF RUDY GUEDE, AND THAT IS A GRATUITOUSLY FALSE EQUIVALENCE.

You have participated in falsely accusing two innocent people, cheered at their unjust false imprisonment, and continue to advocate in furtherance of a miscarriage of justice.

For your own peace of mind, conscience, personal reputation, and ability to sleep at night or walk the streets with any sense of pride and self respect: take a moment and think.

 

[CoulsdonUK]

This is CASE OF YURIY VOLKOV v. UKRAINE 45872/06 19/12/2013

Interrogation without lawyer leading to confession is a Violation of Art. 6.3 with 6.1

66. The Court observes that on 1 December 2003 the investigator ordered the police to ensure the applicant’s presence for questioning as a suspect in the case of the robbery and murder of Ms D. As a result, on 6 December 2003 he was brought to the police station and was questioned there in respect of those criminal offences. There is no indication that, even before he was questioned, the authorities treated the applicant as anything other than a suspect (see, for comparable examples in the case-law, Khayrov, cited above, § 74, and Zamferesko v. Ukraine, no. 30075/06, § 61, 15 November 2012, and, for a converse example, Smolik v. Ukraine, no. 11778/05, § 54, 19 January 2012).

67. By virtue of the Court’s case-law principles, the applicant was entitled to be assisted by a lawyer as from his very first questioning by the police. However, he was questioned and confessed to having committed the crimes without being legally represented. The Court therefore considers that his right to legal assistance was restricted on this account.

68. The Court notes that the applicant’s initial confession in the form of the “statement of surrender to the police” formed part of the evidence adduced against him, given that the trial court expressly referred to it when finding the applicant guilty and convicting him (see paragraph 38 above). It should be noted that the inadmissibility of the applicant’s complaint in this respect under Article 3 of the Convention does not preclude the Court from examining his related complaint under Article 6 § 1 concerning his alleged self-incrimination (see Kolu v. Turkey, no. 35811/97, § 54, 2 August 2005, and Lopata v. Russia, no. 72250/01, § 140, 13 July 2010).

69. Even though the circumstances in which the applicant made his initial confession cast doubts on its reliability, they were not elucidated by the domestic courts. The Court observes in this connection that the applicant insisted, throughout his trial, that he had been arrested and questioned on 6 December 2003 and that he had wrongly been held for over seventeen hours following his arrest, without legal assistance, on the premises of the police department instead of the prosecutor’s office where he was expected for questioning. His account of events was confirmed by the Crimea Court of Appeal in its separate ruling of 19 November 2004, which, in its turn, relied on the police records. Thereafter the applicant’s arguments remained without any assessment or even comment: both the trial court and the Supreme Court confined their reasoning in that regard to the observation that the applicant had been arrested and questioned in a lawyer’s presence on 7 December 2003. Accordingly, the Court concludes that the domestic courts failed to establish in a convincing manner that the applicant’s initial confession had been made in full freedom.

70. The Court therefore considers that the applicant’s right to freedom against self-incrimination and to legal assistance were unduly restricted during his initial questioning by the police, and that this restriction was not remedied in the course of his trial. 71. This suffices for the Court to conclude that there has been a violation of Article 6 § 3 (c) of the Convention in conjunction with Article 6 § 1.

Thank you for your informative posts on ECHR cases.

I have found the ECHR Provisional List of Hearings for the Grand Chamber ECHR hearing schedule . There are of course alternative routes see here Application flow chart.

Apparently as of 2010 approximately 95% of applications to the ECHR were rejected as stated in the introduction of the ECHR Admissibility guide.

Even if the slander application passes the admissibility phase of the process, I doubt that it will be heard prior to the 3rd level hearing mainly because the ECHR doesn’t get involved until all legal remedies have been exhausted in a member state. Of course I could be wrong but the slander case is part of the wider case that is still not completed.

 

[anglolawyer]

Thank you for your informative posts on ECHR cases.

I have found the ECHR Provisional List of Hearings for the Grand Chamber ECHR hearing schedule . There are of course alternative routes see here Application flow chart.

Apparently as of 2010 approximately 95% of applications to the ECHR were rejected as stated in the introduction of the ECHR Admissibility guide.

Even if the slander application passes the admissibility phase of the process, I doubt that it will be heard prior to the 3rd level hearing mainly because the ECHR doesn’t get involved until all legal remedies have been exhausted in a member state. Of course I could be wrong but the slander case is part of the wider case that is still not completed.

Coulsdon, all legal remedies have been exhausted as regards the calumny conviction. There is no need to await the final outcome of the murder case. In fact, it should be other way round. The murder process should await the ECHR's review of the calumny appeal since Italy has used that conviction to strengthen the case of murder.

I stress, before the muppets over at PMF go into orgiastic spasms of joyful moockery, that I fully realise things don't work this way but its how they should work. After all, it would be repugnant to your and my sense of fairness if she were hurled back in jail only to have the whole thing turned upside down if/when the ECHR reverses the calumny conviction. Such a reversal would go right to the heart of the whole case, don't you agree?

 

[Kauffer]

ECHR

Thank you for your informative posts on ECHR cases.

I have found the ECHR Provisional List of Hearings for the Grand Chamber ECHR hearing schedule . There are of course alternative routes see here Application flow chart.

Apparently as of 2010 approximately 95% of applications to the ECHR were rejected as stated in the introduction of the ECHR Admissibility guide.

Even if the slander application passes the admissibility phase of the process, I doubt that it will be heard prior to the 3rd level hearing mainly because the ECHR doesn’t get involved until all legal remedies have been exhausted in a member state. Of course I could be wrong but the slander case is part of the wider case that is still not completed.

All legal remedies have been exhausted in the calumny case. She stands convicted and this has been finalised. The aggravation aspect is an additional penalty phase and not a matter of fact finding.

 

[Numbers]

Then what were the non blood substances the luminol was reacting to?

There are many possible substances, all common to the area of the cottage and within the cottage: rust (iron oxide) in water, iron and/or other metal ions from the local soil, residue of plant material. The soil of the province Umber, in which Perugia lies, is famous for containing umber, the color of which is due to the iron and manganese oxides within it.

It is the legal responsibility of the prosecution to demonstrate by a scientifically valid method - for example, by a confirmatory antibody test that would react with antigens in blood - that the luminol footprints are blood. The defense does not have a legal responsibility to identify the exact substance that is triggering the luminol chemiluminescence (CL). The defense only needs to show that the CL is not probative - that is, that it has one or more innocent explanations.

 

[Kauffer]

Calumny

Coulsdon, all legal remedies have been exhausted as regards the calumny conviction. There is no need to await the final outcome of the murder case. In fact, it should be other way round. The murder process should await the ECHR's review of the calumny appeal since Italy has used that conviction to strengthen the case of murder.

I stress, before the muppets over at PMF go into orgiastic spasms of joyful moockery, that I fully realise things don't work this way but its how they should work. After all, it would be repugnant to your and my sense of fairness if she were hurled back in jail only to have the whole thing turned upside down if/when the ECHR reverses the calumny conviction. Such a reversal would go right to the heart of the whole case, don't you agree?

You are right about all this. Of course Ms Knox is not going to be hauled back to Italy regardless of what Cassation says in March. Applications for extradition are not made by Cassation. It is a matter for governments (unlike, the European Arrest warrant). The Italian government will not be so stupid.