Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[carbonjam72]

This is one of the major fault lines between the two sides. I would be more persuaded of the pro-guilt position if they had actually been asked in detail about their own activities right away on the 2nd. But I believe they weren't because:

1 if they had been, we would have heard about what they said (it would have been a pack of lies, right?)
2 if (as I believe) they became suspects early on (due to all the highly suspicious behaviour you guys always go on about) then the cops would have steered clear of asking them anything that might alert them to their undisclosed status.

It follows, to me, the first time they were expected to have total recall was some time after the night of 5th-6th, getting on for a week later. That is already plenty of time for them to forget whether they watched amelie etc that night or the night before or some other night but also, as has been pointed out many times before here, if guilty, they surely would have made a better fist of agreeing their stories.

You find it hard to believe they just forgot but it seems to me vastly more difficult to believe they hung out in the piazza for two and half hours and just assumed no one saw them, or that Amanda went to Quintavalle first thing in the morning and just gambled on him not remembering her. All this after leaving Raffaele's foot print on the bath mat. In your view of the case, they just switch their brains off completely waiting to be caught having called attention to themselves by laughing and joking etc etc. That's what is hard to believe IMO.

Perhaps ironically, but if we consider these bogus factoids in an 'osmotic analysis' then they make no sense. It's only in taking them in one at a time, that they appear directed to indicate guilt, but in fact do not. (false witnesses and pseudo science aren't actual evidence). But trying to string all these bogus factoids and dodges together into a consistent pattern of events over time, the whole crazy story collapses on itself.

When Mach argues the luminol hits are blood, what he's really arguing is that Amanda is guilty. Because he needs for Amanda and Raf to be in the same position in the evidence with respect to Rudy Guede, for otherwise they are not guilty, as Rudy Guede is guilty. Mach can't let go of the luminol issue, nor any of the other crazy positions he's holding onto, without also letting go of the convictions for Amanda and Raf.

It's Mach's fixation on guilt that is driving his hysterical mania for denial.

 

[carbonjam72]

I am partially at least enjoying this display of committee activity, and by that I mean the Ministry of Machiavelli. I imagine by this flurry of activity that there must be some sort of holiday where they are located that has allowed them to convene and organize their responses. Yes I am amazed. A bit.

The question is, why?
They are putting enormous energy into battling the scientific community in order to...? Defend not-a-real doctor Stefanoni against incompetence? The highly trained and qualified "professional" that destroyed the bra clasp evidence? To somehow prove that the dilution of blood allows for the "presumptive" tests to slip through a narrow window to allow the "blobs" to be blood? When it is irrelevant given the traipsing through apartment?

Yes, perhaps there is a steamy smoke filled basement basement with those types that you suggest!

I think Stef is like a firewall. Each one of the corrupt police that goes down in flames, brings criminal charges one step closer to Mignini, who is the 'Queen' of the Italian judiciary's Perugian chessboard.

Plus don't forget, there is still Raf's inheritance to be looted. Surely many parties will get to 'wet their beak' in that blood ransom.

 

[Numbers]

Phenolphthalein changes color over time in air

We also see from the photos of the bathroom that there is the wide spread presence of a substance that causes phenolphthalein to react and therefore is likely to cause Luminol to change colour. Mach says demonstrate a possible cause of a false positive Luminol result - one can see one possible source in that bathroom.

What we are saying is there is no time stamp on these Luminol positive marks. There is no identity. They may be due to a non blood substance. Mach says a TMB test is unnecessary, whether Mach thinks it is unnecessary is irrelevant, the point is the test was done. If the TMB test was negative then there is only one restricted circumstance in which it could be blood. If it was blood it has to be highly diluted and therefore compatible with contamination of Knox's feet after she showered. However you play it there is an innocent explanation. What Mach says is that we must ignore any innocent explanation if it might be an indicator of guilt because this is the only possible evidence of Knox being present at the time of the murder. I think that these are indicators of innocence because they fit Knox's story of what she did. If you start with asking yourself if Knox took a shower the next morning and stood on the bath mat what might you expect to find? A bare footprint in highly dilute blood. The other splodges elsewhere may be unrelated. if a sticky substance was spilled, then it might catch DNA e.g. from bare feet, it might catch substances such as soil or rust that could give rise to a Luminol result.

A presumed blood sample is first collected with a swab. A drop of phenolphthalin reagent is added to the sample, and after a few seconds, a drop of hydrogen peroxide is applied to the swab. If the swab turns pink rapidly, it is said to test presumptive positive for blood. Waiting for periods over 30 seconds will result in most swabs turning pink naturally as they oxidize on their own in the air.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kastle–Meyer_test
___
The whole bathroom in the photo released by police (or an "unauthorized" cop?) appeared pink. That does not indicate that the entire room was stained with blood, since the phenolphthalein oxidizes in air.

 

[Numbers]

Imagine, if you will, being a naive, 20-year old (about 20 years and 4 months old) woman in a foreign country's police station late at night. You knowledge of the language the people are speaking is at a beginner's level. Your flatmate was murdered and sexually assaulted a few days ago in your house. You realize that you could have been the victim of that crime had you not been at you new boyfriend's apartment that night. You have already been at this police station at least about 40 hours over the past few days. You are sleep-deprived. Teams of police officers keep entering the interrogation room and shouting at you. They are making an argument. It is repetitive but it doesn't make sense. We see an example of such repetitive overbearing and illogical style, a kind of Orwellian 1984 methodology, which cannot engage in rational discussion but assumes an unchanging, irrational point of view, here on the ISF. You have no one else in the room you can speak to or explain yourself to. Then an English-speaking translator enters the room and befriends you....

 

[js202]

js202, respectfully, we are all obsessive compulsive anonymous loons here. Let's tone it down a bit. Machiavelli may be annoying but he (they) is (are) at least instructive, even if not always in the way he/they intend(s).

In principle, I agree. But, respectfully, you, I, and others here are really not that anonymous; and the "loons" are, based on principles of osmosis, you know, the ones on the side of burning the witch.

To a certain extent, I perceive this as a cultural war, and it is inarguable that certain figures on the PG side are at best throwbacks, at worst genuinely odious. When persons go around lobbying to have others fired from their jobs for the beliefs they hold, we are dealing with a category of interaction that has irreversibly departed from politesse. Others from the same crowd have been hurling around epithets like "racist" and "criminal" here and elsewhere, for years.

It's unseemly to be simultaneously so wrong and so disagreeable. I admire Charlie Wilkes' wickedly ironic stance very much, and prefer to hew to that. But occasionally an especially idiotic and mendacious series of posts reminds me of the stakes, which are theoretical only to us, and I get genuinely pissed off.

 

[Kauffer]

Presumption and confirmation

But this is a straw man. The only interlocutor as source is scientific findings and research. Laboratory practice is not a source nor a subject with which you and I have anything to dispute. Scientific practices are often wrong, on many disciplines, protocols and habits change, and there is nothing strange in this.
What is strange is you think they should be always an authoritative source, in the face of scientific studies that prove the contrary, in the absence of any scientific argument in support, and even outside the context of their application (a defensive argument where you are trying to prove that something is a substance different than blood).
It's disingenuous on your part to suggest I should publish my own research: the researches disproving the alleged grounds for alleged frequent laboratory practice already exists.
It is something obvious that articles like Tobe and Webb flatly disprove the presumed significance of a colorimetric test. It is an unavoidable implication of these findings, you can't do anything to help this.

This is nonsense. Let me try to put this plainly and simply:

1) Luminol and TMB are both merely presumptive tests.
2) In order to prove the existence of blood in a sample you must proceed to confirmatory testing.
3) Of course it would be true to say that leaving out the TMB or other colorimetric test is not problematic providing you proceed to confirmatory testing directly after a positive luminol reaction.
4) There is support in the literature for using TMB at crime scenes in order to rule out the existence of blood, following a positive luminol test.
5) The use of colorimetric testing to rule out blood is predicated on:
a) saving money and laboratory time by avoiding the need for expensive confirmatory tests where they are not required to rule out blood
b) allowing an investigation to proceed as fluently as possible.
6) Nowhere in any of the papers you have cited do the authors support your view that a luminol positive reaction should not be followed by a colorimetric test.
7) Nowhere in these papers is there support for your view that a luminol positive result can be relied on for proof of the existence of blood.
6) The authors of the papers you cite discuss Hemastix; you do not know which TMB test Stefanoni used, but it is clear that Hemastix is not the best one if used as a follow up to luminol.
7) The responsibility for producing proof of blood, should that proof have existed lay with Stefanoni - the choice of testing methods was her decision alone.
8) The question of the existence or not of blood could have been settled very easily at the time by use of a confirmatory test, absolutely.
9) That there was no confirmatory test result disclosed to the court by the prosecution is evidence either that one was not carried out or that it produced a negative result.
10) The question of the existence or not of blood being entirely resolvable by science, precludes the authority of the judge to conclude the presence of blood by other imprecise means - one crosses a road by walking; one does not use a pole vault - and in particular since Stefanoni, according to her, stopped testing because she was satisfied that there was no blood.
11) The judge's (Nencini) reasoning for arriving at a conclusion of blood from the evidence before him, is not supported by any valid scientific or philosophical argument.
12) The prosecution's own witness on the matter (Stefanoni herself) stated there was no blood.

 

[anglolawyer]

In principle, I agree. But, respectfully, you, I, and others here are really not that anonymous; and the "loons" are, based on principles of osmosis, you know, the ones on the side of burning the witch.

To a certain extent, I perceive this as a cultural war, and it is inarguable that certain figures on the PG side are at best throwbacks, at worst genuinely odious. When persons go around lobbying to have others fired from their jobs for the beliefs they hold, we are dealing with a category of interaction that has irreversibly departed from politesse. Others from the same crowd have been hurling around epithets like "racist" and "criminal" here and elsewhere, for years.

It's unseemly to be simultaneously so wrong and so disagreeable. I admire Charlie Wilkes' wickedly ironic stance very much, and prefer to hew to that. But occasionally an especially idiotic and mendacious series of posts reminds me of the stakes, which are theoretical only to us, and I get genuinely pissed off.

I perfectly understand. We have all been there.

 

[carbonjam72]

Imagine, if you will, being a naive, 20-year old (about 20 years and 4 months old) woman in a foreign country's police station late at night. You knowledge of the language the people are speaking is at a beginner's level. Your flatmate was murdered and sexually assaulted a few days ago in your house. You realize that you could have been the victim of that crime had you not been at you new boyfriend's apartment that night. You have already been at this police station at least about 40 hours over the past few days. You are sleep-deprived. Teams of police officers keep entering the interrogation room and shouting at you. They are making an argument. It is repetitive but it doesn't make sense. We see an example of such repetitive overbearing and illogical style, a kind of Orwellian 1984 methodology, which cannot engage in rational discussion but assumes an unchanging, irrational point of view, here on the ISF. You have no one else in the room you can speak to or explain yourself to. Then an English-speaking translator enters the room and befriends you....

Yup. And helpfully suggests you may be experiencing a mental schism. Now try again...

 

[Dan O.]

But again it is not specific enough, it is not clear if it is used solely for opening through human interaction. Launch Services is an API that could be called from programs.

You need to keep digging on that terminology. Launch Services can even be invoked from a terminal window or a command script by calling: open <filename>. But that isn't going to open the file for processing by the script. It opens the file using the default application for the user to interact with that type of file.

 

[Numbers]

This is nonsense. Let me try to put this plainly and simply:

1) Luminol and TMB are both merely presumptive tests.
2) In order to prove the existence of blood in a sample you must proceed to confirmatory testing.
3) Of course it would be true to say that leaving out the TMB or other colorimetric test is not problematic providing you proceed to confirmatory testing directly after a positive luminol reaction.
4) There is support in the literature for using TMB at crime scenes in order to rule out the existence of blood, following a positive luminol test.
5) The use of colorimetric testing to rule out blood is predicated on:
a) saving money and laboratory time by avoiding the need for expensive confirmatory tests where they are not required to rule out blood
b) allowing an investigation to proceed as fluently as possible.
6) Nowhere in any of the papers you have cited do the authors support your view that a luminol positive reaction should not be followed by a colorimetric test.
7) Nowhere in these papers is there support for your view that a luminol positive result can be relied on for proof of the existence of blood.
6) The authors of the papers you cite discuss Hemastix; you do not know which TMB test Stefanoni used, but it is clear that Hemastix is not the best one if used as a follow up to luminol.
7) The responsibility for producing proof of blood, should that proof have existed lay with Stefanoni - the choice of testing methods was her decision alone.
8) The question of the existence or not of blood could have been settled very easily at the time by use of a confirmatory test, absolutely.
9) That there was no confirmatory test result disclosed to the court by the prosecution is evidence either that one was not carried out or that it produced a negative result.
10) The question of the existence or not of blood being entirely resolvable by science, precludes the authority of the judge to conclude the presence of blood by other imprecise means - one crosses a road by walking; one does not use a pole vault - and in particular since Stefanoni, according to her, stopped testing because she was satisfied that there was no blood.
11) The judge's (Nencini) reasoning for arriving at a conclusion of blood from the evidence before him, is not supported by any valid scientific or philosophical argument.
12) The prosecution's own witness on the matter (Stefanoni herself) stated there was no blood.

Kauffer,

Thanks for providing this very clear summary of the rationalist position.

For statement #10, if a judge were to argue, opine, or decide contrary to an established, empirically verified scientific position, IMO that would be considered an arbitrary judicial action by objective legal experts, including, for example, the judges of the European Court of Human Rights.

I interpret "philosophical" as equivalent to "logical" in statement #11; is that your meaning?

 

[Dan O.]

...I believe I remember hearing one of the experts, perhaps John Douglas, explaining the luminol hit as most likely from a cleaning product used in the shower, and that similar luminol hits would be found in literally anyone's home. Indeed, weren't luminol hit also found in Raf's apartment, that no one is contending is blood?

That is not true. Very recently one of the guilters was asked what the Luminol activating tracts in Raffaele's apartment were and they said "blood". It's amazing how they just "know" these things without the bother of scientific testing.

I think the focus on the luminol hits in the hallway is another distraction from the central evidence, against only Rudy Guede, in the room where Meredith was killed, as other have pointed out. It's not just evidence against Rudy Guede, it's evidence that affirmatively excludes the presence of anyone else.

It is clear that the investigators intended the Luminol tests as a distraction from the beginning. They did not map the floor in the areas they tested. They didn't even photograph placement markers for each tract so it is very difficult to accurately place where each tract was. They recorded only the Luminol hits that looked like the bare footprints that Amanda already told them might be there and ignored many Luminol hits that had to be there from the known bloody shoe tracts. Quite clearly they were not searching for the truth.

 

[Desert Fox]

I don't believe that they were busy on the computer all night long and don't remember anything.
Not at all tape recorder memory is wanted, but the slightest memory of what they were watching.
Especially incredible is that neither of them remembers anything.
No Naruto, no Stardust. Nothing.

I tend to have documentaries playing in the background when I am doing something. . . . My ability to remember what shows I had playing a few days before is pretty poor at best.

 

[Numbers]

Some philosophy

Kauffer,

Thanks for providing this very clear summary of the rationalist position.

For statement #10, if a judge were to argue, opine, or decide contrary to an established, empirically verified scientific position, IMO that would be considered an arbitrary judicial action by objective legal experts, including, for example, the judges of the European Court of Human Rights.

I interpret "philosophical" as equivalent to "logical" in statement #11; is that your meaning?

"The German philosopher Oswald Spengler .... suggested that democratic systems were destined to be overturned shortly by the forces of irrationalism and 'blood' and be replaced by authoritarian rule...."

Source: Fascist Voices: An intimate history of Mussolini's Italy
by Christopher Duggan (c) 2013
quoting from Spengler's The Decline of the West

 

[Kauffer]

Kauffer,

Thanks for providing this very clear summary of the rationalist position.

For statement #10, if a judge were to argue, opine, or decide contrary to an established, empirically verified scientific position, IMO that would be considered an arbitrary judicial action by objective legal experts, including, for example, the judges of the European Court of Human Rights.

I interpret "philosophical" as equivalent to "logical" in statement #11; is that your meaning?

I can feel a nightmare coming on, Numbers! An extensive and wholly unproductive discussion about language, truth and logic, deductive versus inductive reasoning where Hume, Popper, Ayer, Russell and Wittgenstein show up unannounced in the company of others. Let's not go there!

Let us say just that he can no more argue for blood in the prints from the evidence in front of him than I can argue for fairies at the bottom of my garden on the basis that the bottoms of gardens are the usual context in which you find fairies. It's not serious and it's not precise and it's not concordant (Article 190 requirement) - particularly with the absence of Ms Knox's prints, bloody or otherwise, in Ms Kercher's room.

PS. Arbitrary you said! Yes, I like that.

 

[Numbers]

I can feel a nightmare coming on, Numbers! An extensive and wholly unproductive discussion about language, truth and logic, deductive versus inductive reasoning where Hume, Popper, Ayer, Russell and Wittgenstein show up unannounced in the company of others. Let's not go there!

Let us say just that he can no more argue for blood in the prints from the evidence in front of him than I can argue for fairies at the bottom of my garden on the basis that the bottoms of gardens are the usual context in which you find fairies. It's not serious and it's not precise and it's not concordant (Article 190 requirement) - particularly with the absence of Ms Knox's prints, bloody or otherwise, in Ms Kercher's room.

What strikes me about this miscarriage of justice in Italy is that it is not merely official misconduct carried out in secret - we have seen too many of such cases in the US - but a blatant misconduct that loudly contradicts the language of Italian laws, the Italian Constitution, and the European Convention. And the misconduct also relies on a kind of judicial irrationalism. So perhaps there is a cultural gap that strongly and negatively impresses me.

 

[Samson]

But this is a straw man. The only interlocutor as source is scientific findings and research. Laboratory practice is not a source nor a subject with which you and I have anything to dispute. Scientific practices are often wrong, on many disciplines, protocols and habits change, and there is nothing strange in this.
What is strange is you think they should be always an authoritative source, in the face of scientific studies that prove the contrary, in the absence of any scientific argument in support, and even outside the context of their application (a defensive argument where you are trying to prove that something is a substance different than blood).
It's disingenuous on your part to suggest I should publish my own research: the researches disproving the alleged grounds for alleged frequent laboratory practice already exists.
It is something obvious that articles like Tobe and Webb flatly disprove the presumed significance of a colorimetric test. It is an unavoidable implication of these findings, you can't do anything to help this.

Machiavelli
I have repeatedly published my own research, that says if Meredith dined at 7 20pm at the latest, she was killed as early as possible to allow digestive science to accord with her life continuing till 9 01pm. Fortunately you have declared alibis for Raffaele and Amanda to be curtailed at 8 40pm, so all is consistent with their culpability. My education file is gathering weight.

 

[Bill Williams]

I don't believe that they were busy on the computer all night long and don't remember anything.
Not at all tape recorder memory is wanted, but the slightest memory of what they were watching.
Especially incredible is that neither of them remembers anything.No Naruto, no Stardust. Nothing.

Didn't you say upthread that you believe Raffaele purposely manufactured his computer to look the way it was found?

ETA - I just read js202's response below, and the highlighted part is patently not true. Not even remotely true. They remember dinner, and the leaky sink. It's just they don't remember it in the minute by minute narrative you expect.....

..... which brings up what us on this side of the fence continually ask you folk on the other side. What's your minute by minute narrative?

 

[js202]

I don't believe that they were busy on the computer all night long and don't remember anything.
Not at all tape recorder memory is wanted, but the slightest memory of what they were watching.
Especially incredible is that neither of them remembers anything.
No Naruto, no Stardust. Nothing.

This is pro-guilt manufactured nonsense. It's the narrative you want to believe, and tell yourself as you go to sleep at night. In fact, in their testimonies AK and RS make reference to the visit by Popovic, the fact that they watched a movie together, etc.

 

[platonov]

Breaking news - RS has testified in his murder trial.

This is pro-guilt manufactured nonsense. It's the narrative you want to believe, and tell yourself as you go to sleep at night. In fact, in their testimonies AK and RS make reference to the visit by Popovic, the fact that they watched a movie together, etc.

What testimony of RS are you referring to?

Hint – his testimony is in the same realm as the ‘alibi’ he gave AK i.e. nonexistent

Perhaps while reviewing this ‘testimony’ you missed his press conference!

 

[Bill Williams]

I don't believe that they were busy on the computer all night long and don't remember anything.
Not at all tape recorder memory is wanted, but the slightest memory of what they were watching.
Especially incredible is that neither of them remembers anything.
No Naruto, no Stardust. Nothing.

This is pro-guilt manufactured nonsense. It's the narrative you want to believe, and tell yourself as you go to sleep at night. In fact, in their testimonies AK and RS make reference to the visit by Popovic, the fact that they watched a movie together, etc.

What testimony of RS are you referring to?

Hint – his testimony is in the same realm as the ‘alibi’ he gave AK i.e. nonexistent

Perhaps while reviewing this ‘testimony’ you missed his press conference!

This is more pro-guilt lobby nonsense.

What the pro-guilt lobby says is Raffaele "withdrawing his alibi", is well covered in his written appeal to Cassation and is anything but.

What he is saying, and what he said at the press conference, is this: if they are going to convict Amanda on the basis of her not being at his apartment, what does that have to do with him?

Please read what is before Cassation as we type. He also says, as he said at the press conference, that he knows that Amanda is innocent, because apart from what Nencini said, and apart from what the pro-guilt lobby has said - Amanda was, in fact, with him.

Read the English language version of his appeal document, or if you speak Italian, it's in Italian....

http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/Appeal.html