Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[carbonjam72]

Copied from my post on IIP forum:

The actions of the Italian authorities in their wrongful case against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito included violations of the right to presumption of innocence. This right is listed in Article 6.2 of the ECHR. Defendants in a trial are presumed to be innocent before the trial and throughout the phases or appeals of a trial, until there is a final sentence, according to the Italian Constitution and the ECHR. There were several instances of this violation IMO, including, not exclusively:

1. The initial press conference by the police after the arrests
2. The campaign of character assassination and slander, especially against Amanda, conducted by the prosecution and police in the media
3. Naming of Amanda and Raffaele as co-conspirators with Rudy Guede in his fast-track trial and appeal
4. The approach used in the judicial motivation of the Massei court, which choose the alternative of guilt with arbitrary reasoning for each evaluation of specific elements of evidence
5. The motivation report of the CSC quashing the Hellmann court acquittal verdict

There is ECtHR case-law regarding violations of the right to presumption of innocence. One that involves the use of the media to declare suspects guilty before trial through a media campaign is:

Khuzhin v. Russia 13470/02 23 Oct 2008 Violation of Article 6.2 (and other articles)

excerpts:

93. The Court reiterates that Article 6 § 2, in its relevant aspect, is aimed at preventing the undermining of a fair criminal trial by prejudicial statements made in close connection with those proceedings. The presumption of innocence enshrined in paragraph 2 of Article 6 is one of the elements of the fair criminal trial that is required by paragraph 1 (see Allenet de Ribemont v. France, judgment of 10 February 1995, Series A no. 308, § 35). It prohibits the premature expression by the tribunal itself of the opinion that the person “charged with a criminal offence” is guilty before he has been so proved according to law (see Minelli v. Switzerland, judgment of 25 March 1983, Series A no. 62) but also covers statements made by other public officials about pending criminal investigations which encourage the public to believe the suspect guilty and prejudge the assessment of the facts by the competent judicial authority (see Allenet de Ribemont, cited above, § 41; Daktaras v. Lithuania, no. 42095/98, §§ 41-43, ECHR 2000‑X; and Butkevičius v. Lithuania, no. 48297/99, § 49, ECHR 2002‑II).

94. It has been the Court’s consistent approach that the presumption of innocence will be violated if a judicial decision or a statement by a public official concerning a person charged with a criminal offence reflects an opinion that he is guilty before he has been proved guilty according to law. It suffices, even in the absence of any formal finding, that there is some reasoning suggesting that the court or the official regards the accused as guilty. A fundamental distinction must be made between a statement that someone is merely suspected of having committed a crime and a clear declaration, in the absence of a final conviction, that an individual has committed the crime in question. The Court has consistently emphasised the importance of the choice of words by public officials in their statements before a person has been tried and found guilty of a particular criminal offence (see Böhmer v. Germany, no. 37568/97, §§ 54 and 56, 3 October 2002, and Nešťák v. Slovakia, no. 65559/01, §§ 88 and 89, 27 February 2007).

95. Turning to the facts of the present case, the Court observes that a few days before the scheduled opening of the trial in the applicants’ case, a State television channel broadcast a talk show, in which the investigator dealing with the applicants’ case, the town prosecutor and the head of the particularly serious crimes division in the regional prosecutor’s office took part. The participants discussed the applicants’ case in detail with some input from the show’s presenter and the alleged victim of their wrongdoings. Subsequently the show was aired again on two occasions during the trial and once more several days before the appeal hearing.

96. As regards the contents of the show, the Court notes that all three prosecution officials described the acts imputed to the applicants as a “crime” which had been committed by them (see their statements in paragraphs 16, 17 and 18 above). Their statements were not limited to describing the status of the pending proceedings or a “state of suspicion” against the applicants but represented as an established fact, without any qualification or reservation, their involvement in the commission of the offences, without even mentioning that they denied it. In addition, the town prosecutor Mr Zinterekov referred to the applicants’ criminal record, portraying them as hardened criminals, and made a claim that the commission of the “crime” had been the result of their “personal qualities” – “cruelty and meaningless brutality”. In the closing statement he also mentioned that the only choice the trial court would have to make would be that of a sentence of an appropriate length, thus presenting the applicants’ conviction as the only possible outcome of the judicial proceedings (see paragraph 18 above). The Court considers that those statements by the public officials amounted to a declaration of the applicants’ guilt and prejudged the assessment of the facts by the competent judicial authority. Given that those officials held high positions in the town and regional prosecuting authorities, they should have exercised particular caution in their choice of words for describing pending criminal proceedings against the applicants. However, having regard to the contents of their statements as outlined above, the Court finds that some of their statements could not but have encouraged the public to believe the applicants guilty before they had been proved guilty according to law. Accordingly, the Court finds that there was a breach of the applicants’ presumption of innocence. This finding makes it unnecessary to examine separately the applicants’ grievance that the release of the case file to the journalists was also prejudicial to their presumption of innocence.

97. There has therefore been a violation of Article 6 § 2 of the Convention.

I think its time to start taking a poll on how many violations of human rights the ECHR will find in Amanda's Calumnia petition, and whether the ECHR will request the ISC review be halted because the reversal of Hellman was unfounded & arbitrary.

1. Failure to accord the presumption of innoicence through public statement to the media.
2. Same as above, through judicial hearings and verdicts.
3. Suppression of exculpatory evidence.
4 denial of an attorney
5. Coercing false confessions
6. Degrading and Humiliating treatment
7 Coercing a false statement, and then using the statement elicited under coercion as the basis for a criminal charge.
8. Usage of a coerced statement as supporting evidence in further charges; murder, slander, staging a break-in, etc.
9 Commission of perjury by state witnesses
10 Intentional character assassination in the press

Well that's a start. would be interesting though to see how close in terms of the number and severity of violations.

Will legal fees be awarded fully? Will Raf's fees get covered too? Will the ECHR address the rest of the ongoing case, or the rest of the ISC rejection of Hellman since its all in the same document, and an obvious gross violation?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Here's a case where luminol was used to help solve a murder:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/two-wiv...cious-accidents-was-it-coincidence-or-murder/

Notice that the presumptive result fit with a plausible theory, and lab tests confirmed the presence of the victim's blood.

 

[Numbers]

I think its time to start taking a poll on how many violations of human rights the ECHR will find in Amanda's Calumnia petition, and whether the ECHR will request the ISC review be halted because the reversal of Hellman was unfounded & arbitrary.

1. Failure to accord the presumption of innoicence through public statement to the media.
2. Same as above, through judicial hearings and verdicts.
3. Suppression of exculpatory evidence.
4 denial of an attorney
5. Coercing false confessions
6. Degrading and Humiliating treatment
7 Coercing a false statement, and then using the statement elicited under coercion as the basis for a criminal charge.
8. Usage of a coerced statement as supporting evidence in further charges; murder, slander, staging a break-in, etc.
9 Commission of perjury by state witnesses
10 Intentional character assassination in the press

Well that's a start. would be interesting though to see how close in terms of the number and severity of violations.

Will legal fees be awarded fully? Will Raf's fees get covered too? Will the ECHR address the rest of the ongoing case, or the rest of the ISC rejection of Hellman since its all in the same document, and an obvious gross violation?

carbonjam,

Your list is a very good start. I would add:

11. Denial of a neutral, fair interpreter at interrogation
12. Failure of notification of right to remain silent at interrogation
13. Arbitrary and unreasoned judicial opinion for conviction for calunnia
14. As #13, for murder/rape etc. (this would only apply if CSC finalizes Nencini or a similar wrongful motivation report)
15. Denial of right to submit relevant and material defense evidence (including but not limited defense computer expert report)

 

[Kauffer]

No response

No. No one knew about the Flourometer use because it wasn't done during an incidente probatorio. Just like the re-runs of the knife and bra clasp--they were done after the incidente probatorio and were unknown to the defendants.



There is no record of any antibody test, it's not even mentioned in the SALs. Also, contrary to your erroneous statement, the DNA is definitely human because it was detected by a human-specific process (RT-qPCR). Moreover, there are suppressed profiles derived from some of these spots.



When the prosecution deliberately hides exculpatory evidence, and then lies about it, most people consider that a crime.

I see that The Machiavelli character has not challenged this refutation of the responses he made to the questions I put in my post. Embarrassing.

 

[Numbers]

Yet another Remedial ECtHR Law Course lesson.

How does the ECtHR evaluate fairness when an applicant claims requested defense witnesses (or other defense-requested evidence) were improperly denied the opportunity to testify and be examined in court?

An example, for the denial of requested defense witnesses:

Popov v. Russia 26853/04 13 Jul 2006 {excerpt, keeping it short:}

188. Clearly, it is not the Court's function to express an opinion on the relevance of the evidence or, more generally on the applicant's guilt or innocence. However, it is for the Court to ascertain whether the proceedings in their entirety, including the way in which the evidence was taken, were fair (see Asch v. Austria, cited above, § 26). Taking into account that the applicant's conviction was founded upon conflicting evidence against him, the Court finds that the domestic courts' refusal to examine the defence witnesses without any regard to the relevance of their statements led to a limitation of the defence rights incompatible with the guarantees of a fair trial enshrined in Article 6 (see Vidal v. Belgium, cited above, § 34).

189. Having regard to the particular circumstances of the present case, the Court considers that there has been a violation of Article 6 § 3 (d) in conjunction with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

A parade through the old town of Perugia

Copied from my post on IIP forum:

The actions of the Italian authorities in their wrongful case against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito included violations of the right to presumption of innocence. This right is listed in Article 6.2 of the ECHR. Defendants in a trial are presumed to be innocent before the trial and throughout the phases or appeals of a trial, until there is a final sentence, according to the Italian Constitution and the ECHR. There were several instances of this violation IMO, including, not exclusively:

1. The initial press conference by the police after the arrests
2. The campaign of character assassination and slander, especially against Amanda, conducted by the prosecution and police in the media
3. Naming of Amanda and Raffaele as co-conspirators with Rudy Guede in his fast-track trial and appeal
4. The approach used in the judicial motivation of the Massei court, which choose the alternative of guilt with arbitrary reasoning for each evaluation of specific elements of evidence
5. The motivation report of the CSC quashing the Hellmann court acquittal verdict

Numbers,

After Amanda, Raffaele, and Patrick were arrested, the police did not take them on a direct path to jail. Instead they detoured through the old city as if to show off their prisoners. I once referred to this spectacle as a parade. There is also the fact that Dr. Giobbi had a picture of Amanda on a hallway wall near his office no later than early in 2008, long before the trial. This picture was seen in one documentary on the case. There was a picture of a Mafia boss nearby. He had been convicted in absentia IIRC.

 

[Desert Fox]

Numbers,

After Amanda, Raffaele, and Patrick were arrested, the police did not take them on a direct path to jail. Instead they detoured through the old city as if to show off their prisoners. I once referred to this spectacle as a parade. There is also the fact that Dr. Giobbi had a picture of Amanda on a hallway wall near his office no later than early in 2008, long before the trial. This picture was seen in one documentary on the case. There was a picture of a Mafia boss nearby. He had been convicted in absentia IIRC.

The "Perp Walk" should be against the law everywhere

 

[MichaelB]

I believe you are misinterpreting what Mach wrote... but it will be for him to clarify.

BTW: would someone please post a link to the exact quote from Mignini ?

Thanks in advance.

Here's the interview: http://murderofmeredithkercher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Bob-Graham-Mignini-Interview-2011.pdf

Article about it: http://www.umbrialeft.it/notizie/me...el-procuratore-mignini-amanda-knox-scagionata

 

[JREF2010]

Numbers,

After Amanda, Raffaele, and Patrick were arrested, the police did not take them on a direct path to jail. Instead they detoured through the old city as if to show off their prisoners. I once referred to this spectacle as a parade. There is also the fact that Dr. Giobbi had a picture of Amanda on a hallway wall near his office no later than early in 2008, long before the trial. This picture was seen in one documentary on the case. There was a picture of a Mafia boss nearby. He had been convicted in absentia IIRC.

yes thats the same video where Edgardo embarrasses the entire Italian SCS.

 

[CoulsdonUK]

Copied from my post on IIP forum:

The actions of the Italian authorities in their wrongful case against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito included violations of the right to presumption of innocence. This right is listed in Article 6.2 of the ECHR. Defendants in a trial are presumed to be innocent before the trial and throughout the phases or appeals of a trial, until there is a final sentence, according to the Italian Constitution and the ECHR. There were several instances of this violation IMO, including, not exclusively:

1. The initial press conference by the police after the arrests
2. The campaign of character assassination and slander, especially against Amanda, conducted by the prosecution and police in the media
3. Naming of Amanda and Raffaele as co-conspirators with Rudy Guede in his fast-track trial and appeal
4. The approach used in the judicial motivation of the Massei court, which choose the alternative of guilt with arbitrary reasoning for each evaluation of specific elements of evidence
5. The motivation report of the CSC quashing the Hellmann court acquittal verdict

There is ECtHR case-law regarding violations of the right to presumption of innocence. One that involves the use of the media to declare suspects guilty before trial through a media campaign is:

Khuzhin v. Russia 13470/02 23 Oct 2008 Violation of Article 6.2 (and other articles)

excerpts:

93. The Court reiterates that Article 6 § 2, in its relevant aspect, is aimed at preventing the undermining of a fair criminal trial by prejudicial statements made in close connection with those proceedings. The presumption of innocence enshrined in paragraph 2 of Article 6 is one of the elements of the fair criminal trial that is required by paragraph 1 (see Allenet de Ribemont v. France, judgment of 10 February 1995, Series A no. 308, § 35). It prohibits the premature expression by the tribunal itself of the opinion that the person “charged with a criminal offence” is guilty before he has been so proved according to law (see Minelli v. Switzerland, judgment of 25 March 1983, Series A no. 62) but also covers statements made by other public officials about pending criminal investigations which encourage the public to believe the suspect guilty and prejudge the assessment of the facts by the competent judicial authority (see Allenet de Ribemont, cited above, § 41; Daktaras v. Lithuania, no. 42095/98, §§ 41-43, ECHR 2000‑X; and Butkevičius v. Lithuania, no. 48297/99, § 49, ECHR 2002‑II).

94. It has been the Court’s consistent approach that the presumption of innocence will be violated if a judicial decision or a statement by a public official concerning a person charged with a criminal offence reflects an opinion that he is guilty before he has been proved guilty according to law. It suffices, even in the absence of any formal finding, that there is some reasoning suggesting that the court or the official regards the accused as guilty. A fundamental distinction must be made between a statement that someone is merely suspected of having committed a crime and a clear declaration, in the absence of a final conviction, that an individual has committed the crime in question. The Court has consistently emphasised the importance of the choice of words by public officials in their statements before a person has been tried and found guilty of a particular criminal offence (see Böhmer v. Germany, no. 37568/97, §§ 54 and 56, 3 October 2002, and Nešťák v. Slovakia, no. 65559/01, §§ 88 and 89, 27 February 2007).

95. Turning to the facts of the present case, the Court observes that a few days before the scheduled opening of the trial in the applicants’ case, a State television channel broadcast a talk show, in which the investigator dealing with the applicants’ case, the town prosecutor and the head of the particularly serious crimes division in the regional prosecutor’s office took part. The participants discussed the applicants’ case in detail with some input from the show’s presenter and the alleged victim of their wrongdoings. Subsequently the show was aired again on two occasions during the trial and once more several days before the appeal hearing.

96. As regards the contents of the show, the Court notes that all three prosecution officials described the acts imputed to the applicants as a “crime” which had been committed by them (see their statements in paragraphs 16, 17 and 18 above). Their statements were not limited to describing the status of the pending proceedings or a “state of suspicion” against the applicants but represented as an established fact, without any qualification or reservation, their involvement in the commission of the offences, without even mentioning that they denied it. In addition, the town prosecutor Mr Zinterekov referred to the applicants’ criminal record, portraying them as hardened criminals, and made a claim that the commission of the “crime” had been the result of their “personal qualities” – “cruelty and meaningless brutality”. In the closing statement he also mentioned that the only choice the trial court would have to make would be that of a sentence of an appropriate length, thus presenting the applicants’ conviction as the only possible outcome of the judicial proceedings (see paragraph 18 above). The Court considers that those statements by the public officials amounted to a declaration of the applicants’ guilt and prejudged the assessment of the facts by the competent judicial authority. Given that those officials held high positions in the town and regional prosecuting authorities, they should have exercised particular caution in their choice of words for describing pending criminal proceedings against the applicants. However, having regard to the contents of their statements as outlined above, the Court finds that some of their statements could not but have encouraged the public to believe the applicants guilty before they had been proved guilty according to law. Accordingly, the Court finds that there was a breach of the applicants’ presumption of innocence. This finding makes it unnecessary to examine separately the applicants’ grievance that the release of the case file to the journalists was also prejudicial to their presumption of innocence.

97. There has therefore been a violation of Article 6 § 2 of the Convention.

Have you had any luck finding a relevant ECHR ruling against Italy, I have been looking and expected to find some given the high percentage of Italian applications, but no luck so far.

 

[carbonjam72]

Its All Relevant, no?

Have you had any luck finding a relevant ECHR ruling against Italy, I have been looking and expected to find some given the high percentage of Italian applications, but no luck so far.

Haven't all of the cases Numbers has been posting here, relevant against Italy?

Or is Italy alone somehow immune from the requirements of providing a fair trial, and refraining from violating the human rights under ECHR law, of those defendants unfortunate enough to fall prey to Italy's farcically corrupt judicial system?

 

[Samson]

Have you had any luck finding a relevant ECHR ruling against Italy, I have been looking and expected to find some given the high percentage of Italian applications, but no luck so far.

Italy would expect to miss that asteroid, just as the court side stepped the meteorite with the amino acids..

 

[CoulsdonUK]

Haven't all of the cases Numbers has been posting here, relevant against Italy?

Or is Italy alone somehow immune from the requirements of providing a fair trial, and refraining from violating the human rights under ECHR law, of those defendants unfortunate enough to fall prey to Italy's farcically corrupt judicial system?

Numbers has provided a number of interesting ECHR rulings, this set me along what I regard as logical path to try and find ECHR rulings against Italy along the lines of what has been posted, I haven’t found any it, this was and is my point.

 

[Numbers]

Numbers,

After Amanda, Raffaele, and Patrick were arrested, the police did not take them on a direct path to jail. Instead they detoured through the old city as if to show off their prisoners. I once referred to this spectacle as a parade. There is also the fact that Dr. Giobbi had a picture of Amanda on a hallway wall near his office no later than early in 2008, long before the trial. This picture was seen in one documentary on the case. There was a picture of a Mafia boss nearby. He had been convicted in absentia IIRC.

Chris,
Thanks for mentioning these. I am not sure whether ECtHR would consider these relatively symbolic gestures violations of Article 6.2, the right to presumption of innocence. What would be clear would be a statement before the finalization of the trials such as "X is guilty of the crime" rather than "X is suspected in this case".

 

[Numbers]

Numbers has provided a number of interesting ECHR rulings, this set me along what I regard as logical path to try and find ECHR rulings against Italy along the lines of what has been posted, I haven’t found any it, this was and is my point.

I have not been searching for cases specifically involving Italy.

The ECtHR case law applies to all member states of the Council of Europe (currently 47 states). That is, case law developed with respect to any one of them applies to all of them.

In terms of the highest level of severity of violation (Article 2 - right to life and Article 3 - torture and inhuman or degrading treatment prohibited), Italy is not generally the state with the most reported violations, if that is what you are seeking.

 

[Vibio]

We have first Mignini and now Machiavelli saying Amanda need not be in the room.

I read the "interview" with Mignini. The interview that was surreptitiously taped and publicized by The Sun...the British tabloid that has had, in last five years, 22 of it's journalists arrested.

Nowhere in the interview does Mignini say that he thinks she may not have been in the room where the murder took place.

 

[Vibio]

After Amanda, Raffaele, and Patrick were arrested, the police did not take them on a direct path to jail. Instead they detoured through the old city as if to show off their prisoners. I once referred to this spectacle as a parade.

The "Perp Walk" should be against the law everywhere

So there was this perp walk (or was it in police cars ?)...through the streets of Perugia... sort of a parade. I imagine there must be plenty of photos and videos of this event.

Perugians with their cellphones snapping, journalists out there with a great photo-op, the TV news programs filming away.

People lining the sidewalks, standing in doorways, looking down from windows up above the spectacle.

Well, lets see those photos and videos.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Do your own homework

So there was this perp walk through the streets of Perugia... sort of a parade. I imagine there must be plenty of photos and videos of this event.

Perugians with their cellphones snapping, journalists out there with a great photo-op, the TV news programs filming away.

People lining the sidewalks, standing in doorways, looking down from windows up above the spectacle.

Well, lets see those photos and videos.

Thanks in advance.

vibio,

We discussed this almost four years ago in these threads. Please try to keep up.

 

[Kauffer]

Mignini

I read the "interview" with Mignini. The interview that was surreptitiously taped and publicized by The Sun...the British tabloid that has had, in last five years, 22 of it's journalists arrested.

Nowhere in the interview does Mignini say that he thinks she may not have been in the room where the murder took place.

For your edification, Vibio:

"But there’s a “time bomb waiting to explode” in the courtroom. All of a sudden Mignini has doubts. In an interview with Bob Graham in the SUN tabloid, he admits he can’t place Amanda in the murder room. Maybe, he says, she wasn’t there. Maybe she “instigated” the brutal slashing off-screen.

Mignini then makes the extraordinary claim that there’s no trace of Amanda because the police didn’t check every little thing. Since Italian prosecutors lead police investigations, Mignini is unable to explain why he still hasn’t directed forensics experts to test semen stains on the victim’s pillow. Instead, he expresses disdain for the local Perugia police who did the preliminary investigations, even calling the female officers “emotional.”

Giuliano Mignini responded to the SUN story by claiming that he never gave Bob Graham a real interview–only a sort of an informal chitchat. No matter. The SUN has delivered copies of the CD to defense lawyers and to the prosecutor’s office. Giangavolo Sulas of Italy’s Oggi’s magazine says that it could “undermine the trial from the inside.”

http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/2...utor-cant-put-amanda-knox-in-the-murder-room/

Oh and by the way, the journalists you write about were with the now defunct "news of the world".

How are you getting on with your understanding of luminol reactions? Understand it better now?

 

[Vibio]

Kauffer... I read the interview. I speak fluent Italian: no where does he says he believes she was anywhere other than the murder room.