Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Samson]

Exactly! Reading them puts me in mind of the kid at school who's desperate to show how well-read and clever he is by using incongruously high-flown language, or a newspaper columnist of the sort that is regularly lampooned in "Private Eye".

It all smacks to me of a judicial system that's trapped in a worrying need to demonstrate its "higher competence". In many ways it's not dissimilar to the way the "crack" forensics teams talked the talk by donning the white bunny suits and earnestly demonstrating their actions to camera, while actually riding roughshod over pretty much all the basic protocols of crime scene examination and evidence gathering.....

Yes, the very idea there should be a discussion whether Nencini is being deliberately a clever dick when following malicious instructions to convict finds a new low in this saga.

 

[Methos]

[...]

The police system, the treatment of the accused and the relations between the Prosecution and the Judges are backward in 1930. The police forces consider all accused as criminals, the citizens are treated like doormats and often interrogations degenerate in violence. The Prosecutor plays police commissioner instead of ensuring the rights of the accused being respected. And the investigating judge feels the obligation to promote the action of the prosecutor.

The consultants and experts provide the prosecutor the appointed answers and pieces of evidence. To confirm his preconceived theories. The prosecutors don’t tolerate questioning experts, they want them to blindly volunteer for supporting the charges. And because the experts know that they have to satisfy the prosecutors to have work they accommodate themselves.


Now apparently this is a translation from a book published in German written by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi, so one must consider the source as well as the accuracy of the translation. But if Mori did indeed say these words (or something sufficiently similar), then they are a pretty powerful - and credible - observation of just how unfit for purpose is the present Italian criminal justice system.

[...]

Spezi quotes from this article: E il giudice si tolse la toga: "Non sopportavo più l’idiozia di troppi colleghi" from September 2011.

Mori confessa d’aver tirato un sospirone di sollievo il giorno in cui s’è dimesso: «Il sistema di polizia, il trattamento dell’imputato e il rapporto fra pubblici ministeri e giudice sono ancora fermi al 1930. Le forze dell’ordine considerano delinquenti tutti gli indagati, i cittadini sono trattati alla stregua di pezze da piedi, spesso gli interrogatori degenerano in violenza. Il Pm gioca a fare il commissario e non si preoccupa di garantire i diritti dell’inquisito. E il Gip pensa che sia suo dovere sostenere l’azione del Pm».

and:

Per quale motivo i pubblici ministeri scambiano i periti per oracoli?
«Ma è evidente! Perché i periti offrono ai Pm le risposte desiderate, gli forniscono le pezze d’appoggio per confermare le loro tesi preconcette. I Pm non tollerano un perito critico, lo vogliono disponibile a sostenere l’accusa a occhi chiusi. E siccome i periti sanno che per lavorare devono far contenti i Pm, si adeguano».

 

[Kauffer]

Hi Kaufer,
Good question,
that's how we figure things out,
always question what we read or are told!


I only saw the 1 on the pillow,
I do not know where all 97 of the fingerprints are that Frank Sfarzo writes of.
Maybe he goofed and meant to write that Laura had 17 and Rudy 5?
She has a lot shown on that image.

I'm doing something right now,
maybe some one can count all the fingerprints seen in the image and compare them to what Perugia Shock stated.

Or find out exactly how many and from whom they belong to be checking in the Court documents.

I'll count what I see and post later if no one else does...
RW

Your central thesis seems to be that Guede was not alone but that he was with someone other than Ms Knox and Mr Solllecito. Have I got it? That there is some unsolvable mystery here?

I see no evidence for this - Guede's modus operandi was to burgle alone - unattributed finger prints are really not evidence of anything unless they appear at a crime scene in a date and time stamped fashion - i.e. in blood or on the body and only then if they can be incorporated into a rational argument and sound thesis. We have, almost certainly, Guede on camera going to the cottage, Ms Kercher on camera later, around 9pm going to the cottage. There is no indication of anyone else that you can, even at a stretch, link to the cottage by physical evidence for the time of the murder, let alone Ms Kercher's bedroom.

So the only evidence we have is from a couple of mentally ill eyewitnesses and ear witnesses who would never have been permitted by a proper prosecutor or judge to get within a mile of a courtroom.

Guede alone committed this crime - all of the crimes. A high risk, low reward burglar of limited intelligence, a little native guile but not much and probably himself suffering from mental defect.

 

[anglolawyer]

Something posted on IIP bears bringing over here, I think. It's an extended quote from former Italian judge Edoardo Mori (my bolding):

A judge can be wrong his entire life without anybody saying anything about it. The determination of eventual fault runs through three instances and with this subdivision the body corporate has displayed a bedeviled ability. The result is a renunciation to any accountability and responsibility. The judge of the trial court does not feel certain? Does not matter, he nevertheless condemns, in case of doubt his colleague of second instance will adjust it. For prosecutors you absolutely need legal requirements culpability and accountability. But hawks will not pick out hawks' eyes, not in Italy. In Germany this is a serious offence called “perversion of justice”, perversion of the course of justice perpetrated by the judge.

Meanwhile you cannot even rely anymore on DNA- investigations; you only have to look at the ridicules figure the investigators demonstrated in the murder case of Meredith Kercher.

The police system, the treatment of the accused and the relations between the Prosecution and the Judges are backward in 1930. The police forces consider all accused as criminals, the citizens are treated like doormats and often interrogations degenerate in violence. The Prosecutor plays police commissioner instead of ensuring the rights of the accused being respected. And the investigating judge feels the obligation to promote the action of the prosecutor.

The consultants and experts provide the prosecutor the appointed answers and pieces of evidence. To confirm his preconceived theories. The prosecutors don’t tolerate questioning experts, they want them to blindly volunteer for supporting the charges. And because the experts know that they have to satisfy the prosecutors to have work they accommodate themselves.


Now apparently this is a translation from a book published in German written by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi, so one must consider the source as well as the accuracy of the translation. But if Mori did indeed say these words (or something sufficiently similar), then they are a pretty powerful - and credible - observation of just how unfit for purpose is the present Italian criminal justice system.

Mori here appears to bolster the view held by many of us that there are fundamental structural flaws in the system. Judges and prosecutors are far too close, and judges still appear to instinctively believe that prosecutors are bringing a "fair", disinterested prosecution. Because of this, judges appear to accept the prosecution argument as the kicking-off point, and that unless the defence can comprehensively demolish the prosecution case, then conviction is more-or-less assured. The rights of suspects are routinely ignored or denied, whether during the investigation phase or the trial process. And "experts" will always be available to support the prosecutor, regardless of the objective credibility of that support (though in fairness this is to some extent a problem everywhere). And judges are pretty much unaccountable, with a politicised cabal of patronage and self-support.

I believe we've seen very obvious manifestations of all of these factors in the Knox/Sollecito trials.

When the rule against double jeopardy was abolished in E & W (for the very bad reason that racist police screwed up the Stephen Lawrence investigation) one of my concerns was that letting them have two goes would encourage sloppiness. I am not aware that has happened as there are pretty strict safeguards that require that new evidence be presented that could not have been found with reasonable diligence first time round.

Italy's incontinent system, on the other hand, seems tailor made for sloppy, casual, negligent and/or fraudulent enquiries to just run and run as the prosecutors come up with one theory after another in the never-ending re-telling of the story. Was it a sex game gone wrong, or an argument over unflushed crap/stolen money? Let's test under the handle, no let's not, oh ****, we lost OK we agree to test there, no it's too late, no it's not too late, we'll test there and make up some tommy-rot about what the result proves so as not to expose ourselves as complete clowns.

And so on.

 

[MichaelB]

The 10.13pm MMS was mentioned recently and someone at IA found in one of the old threads an English translation of the phone section in Sollecito's 2010 appeal so here's a link if anyone wants to have a read.

http://murderofmeredithkercher.com/...lecito-appeal-2010-phone-section-p194-210.doc

 

[Kauffer]

When the rule against double jeopardy was abolished in E & W (for the very bad reason that racist police screwed up the Stephen Lawrence investigation) one of my concerns was that letting them have two goes would encourage sloppiness. I am not aware that has happened as there are pretty strict safeguards that require that new evidence be presented that could not have been found with reasonable diligence first time round.

Italy's incontinent system, on the other hand, seems tailor made for sloppy, casual, negligent and/or fraudulent enquiries to just run and run as the prosecutors come up with one theory after another in the never-ending re-telling of the story. Was it a sex game gone wrong, or an argument over unflushed crap/stolen money? Let's test under the handle, no let's not, oh ****, we lost OK we agree to test there, no it's too late, no it's not too late, we'll test there and make up some tommy-rot about what the result proves so as not to expose ourselves as complete clowns.

And so on.

Your observations are sound. The Italian system lets loose a roller coaster, an unstoppable train. The reforms to the CCP were meant to separate the function of preliminary judges from the prosecutor and the prosecutor from those judges. Additionally, the case file from the preliminary hearings is not supposed to be available to the trial judge. And yet seamlessness prevails.

The process that persists is of a conveyor belt type - place suspect on belt and at the end of the line remove criminal. There does not appear to be a real possibility that any judge will throw out a case despite a paucity of evidence. Also, whilst the CCP clearly provides rules for the treatment of evidence, they are not properly interpreted and prosecutors routinely hide evidence or misrepresent it.

The Nencini court opened, if not with instructions from the ISC to convict, then certainly with a directed, pejorative view of the evidence as far as the defendants were concerned, together with the shadow of the crime already having been committed, as adjudged in another forum, by Guede "with others".

The Italians escape a double jeopardy accusation, they and indeed the ECHR would argue, because no verdict was prior finalised. Nevertheless, on entirely the same evidence, with the exception of a separate Knox DNA profile on the bread knife she used, a court has arrived at a conclusion 180 degrees away from the Hellmann court.

It's old fashioned to say so, but it's uncivilised.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

The hunting of the snark

It is still incredible for Nencini to make reference to a stunning episode of incompetence by Stefanoni, to take a shot at Vecchiotti. And then make no deliberation on the "professionalism" of Stefanoni.

It is one more example of the Alice-in-Wonderland quality of the Italian judiciary. I would also say that any lab that was so incompetent deserves to have their results assigned zero weight at a trial.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

the luminol stains at Sollecito's flat

Would you agree that we can rule out the presence of Ms Kercher's blood and/or DNA from the samples at Mr Sollecito's? Would you agree that the absence of transfer evidence - ie blood or other samples from Ms Kercher's room on either Ms Knox or Mr Sollecito's clothes or at his flat, if true of course, is an important piece of exonerating evidence?

I see no strong evidence that it is blood, and none whatsoever that it is Ms. Kercher's blood. Some of it could be animal (fish?) blood. The lack of blood, especially on their clothes, tends to be exculpatory. It is difficult for me to assign an exact weight to it.

 

[Samson]

I do post occasionally on PMF, I think my post count is approx. 70. I went there when another poster* went there but my membership at that forum no more makes me a member of a anti-Knox group than your membership here makes you a member of a pro-Knox group.

Amanda Knox walked into the station of her own free will and could have left at any time til she placed herself at the scene of the crime so how could she be coerced?


ETA: *Fiona, we were both members of the IIDB and the RDF


EETA: I registered there as tsit due to a fat finger and I once tried to get it changed but that was about the time of forum split and it hasn't seemed that important.

tsig, it is helpful to know your poster name on the other forum, therefore I can answer your question here,


I need to take another look at the pictures but going on memory I wonder if the rock will actually fit thru the hole in the window?tsit

but not there.

The forensic picture perfectly fits the rock thrown from the car park at high velocity. It struck near the hinges, in the frame, so the kinetic energy of the rock was transferred to the force required to fling open the internal shutter. The rock dropped and rolled to the left in the eccentric nature of an oval object. The glass was propagated deep into the room, and there is powdered glass in the small divot in the hardwood shutter, and a shard trampolined and embedded lower and left of this damage. There are many photographs in Ron Hendry's analysis on IIP easily demonstrating all this.

 

[anglolawyer]

I do post occasionally on PMF, I think my post count is approx. 70. I went there when another poster* went there but my membership at that forum no more makes me a member of a anti-Knox group than your membership here makes you a member of a pro-Knox group.

This is like saying 'my being a member of the Nazi party no more makes me anti-semitic than does your membership of [say] the English Conservative party make you pro-democracy'. I am a member of PMF.org but my membership is a dead letter as I'm not allowed to post there. If you are, it can only be because you toe the party line and have been adjudged sufficiently servile. This forum and that forum are two entirely different things.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Dr. Giobbi's testimony

I do post occasionally on PMF, I think my post count is approx. 70. I went there when another poster* went there but my membership at that forum no more makes me a member of a anti-Knox group than your membership here makes you a member of a pro-Knox group.

Amanda Knox walked into the station of her own free will and could have left at any time til she placed herself at the scene of the crime so how could she be coerced?

tsig,

The comparison between PMF and ISF is facile for the reasons given by anglolawyer. Amanda may have gone to the station of her own volition, but that doesn't change Dr. Giobbi's testimony that he said to bring them both in, a fact which you ignored. Finally, you didn't respond to my question about recording interrogations. Should police interrogations be recorded as a matter of general principle? If not, why not?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Gary Leiterman and the failure to disclose the results of negative controls

I have a new post up about DNA contamination in the murder of Jane Mixer. Two strong pieces of evidence point to the existence of contamination in this case, one is the presence of DNA from John Ruelas and the other is the failure of the lab in question to acknowledge a positive result from a negative control. Gary Leiterman is not a perfect human being, but the DNA evidence against him is essentially nil.

 

[Numbers]

Thanks for this. I see that at Mr Sollecito's flat there are 14 luminol hits and the extraction is mentioned as "saliva" in 13 of them and "blood" in one. What does this mean? Also, just 4 of these samples produced a profile, none of which is Ms Kercher's. Why have the samples been identified in this manner? The "blood" extraction is an unknown male. Could you perhaps take a look at these and the testing from Guede's apartment and unpack the data? From here:

http://murderofmeredithkercher.com/luminoltests/

Thanks

Would you agree that we can rule out the presence of Ms Kercher's blood and/or DNA from the samples at Mr Sollecito's? Would you agree that the absence of transfer evidence - ie blood or other samples from Ms Kercher's room on either Ms Knox or Mr Sollecito's clothes or at his flat, if true of course, is an important piece of exonerating evidence?

I see no strong evidence that it is blood, and none whatsoever that it is Ms. Kercher's blood. Some of it could be animal (fish?) blood. The lack of blood, especially on their clothes, tends to be exculpatory. It is difficult for me to assign an exact weight to it.

Apparently, Stefanoni did not detect - or chose not to falsely detect - any of Meredith Kercher's DNA in the samples from Raffaele Sollecito's apartment, as reported to the defense and shown at the MMK website.

The prosecution apparently did not interpret the luminol hits in Sollecito's apartment as inculpatory, AFAIK. The lack of blood evidence on the clothing of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito is, of course, not consistent with them being in proximity to the bloody stabbing of Meredith Kercher, and so is reasonably viewed as exculpatory.

The luminol hits in the kitchen of Sollecito's apartment could be from animal (such as fish) blood. Other hits could be due to any number of chemical agents, but there apparently was no indication of blood, and the only DNA detected was from Knox and Sollecito, and some unknown man (could have been the plumber who fixed the sink pipe), and of course, there is nothing probative in any of that.

 

[Kauffer]

Apparently, Stefanoni did not detect - or chose not to falsely detect - any of Meredith Kercher's DNA in the samples from Raffaele Sollecito's apartment, as reported to the defense and shown at the MMK website.

The prosecution apparently did not interpret the luminol hits in Sollecito's apartment as inculpatory, AFAIK. The lack of blood evidence on the clothing of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito is, of course, not consistent with them being in proximity to the bloody stabbing of Meredith Kercher, and so is reasonably viewed as exculpatory.

The luminol hits in the kitchen of Sollecito's apartment could be from animal (such as fish) blood. Other hits could be due to any number of chemical agents, but there apparently was no indication of blood, and the only DNA detected was from Knox and Sollecito, and some unknown man (could have been the plumber who fixed the sink pipe), and of course, there is nothing probative in any of that.

Yes, all of this. But what's interesting to me is that at Guede's apartment, 13 days after Mr Sollecitio's flat was sampled, they took just eight samples, only one of which is noted as part of a luminol test. This one from the floor (somewhere) produced Guede's profile. There is no indication what any of the other samples revealed in testing - no information is shown, no extraction, no quantitation, no profile.

From my layman's understanding of forensic science and crime scene investigation, we might expect to see significant transfer evidence at Guede's apartment - there is no argument that he was awash with blood after the murder and no quick clean up in the small bathroom or downstairs is going to relieve him of that evidence, on his hands, in his hair and on whatever clothing he continued to wear after he returned to his flat - including shoes and socks. This evidence, in the form of confirmed blood traces and Ms Kercher's DNA should have been readily recovered from testing at his flat.

Additionally, if Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito committed the murder together and indeed, if Ms Knox, generally, spent time in Guede's company, then we might expect to find traces of them at Guede's flat too.

 

[CoulsdonUK]

This is like saying 'my being a member of the Nazi party no more makes me anti-semitic than does your membership of [say] the English Conservative party make you pro-democracy'. I am a member of PMF.org but my membership is a dead letter as I'm not allowed to post there. If you are, it can only be because you toe the party line and have been adjudged sufficiently servile. This forum and that forum are two entirely different things.

Lots of people are members of various discussion groups, so what? It’s not like membership of a English speaking discussion group has any effect on the case in Italy.

 

[Numbers]

Yes, all of this. But what's interesting to me is that at Guede's apartment, 13 days after Mr Sollecitio's flat was sampled, they took just eight samples, only one of which is noted as part of a luminol test. This one from the floor (somewhere) produced Guede's profile. There is no indication what any of the other samples revealed in testing - no information is shown, no extraction, no quantitation, no profile.

From my layman's understanding of forensic science and crime scene investigation, we might expect to see significant transfer evidence at Guede's apartment - there is no argument that he was awash with blood after the murder and no quick clean up in the small bathroom or downstairs is going to relieve him of that evidence, on his hands, in his hair and on whatever clothing he continued to wear after he returned to his flat - including shoes and socks. This evidence, in the form of confirmed blood traces and Ms Kercher's DNA should have been readily recovered from testing at his flat.

Additionally, if Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito committed the murder together and indeed, if Ms Knox, generally, spent time in Guede's company, then we might expect to find traces of them at Guede's flat too.

Kauffer,

Regarding the sampling at Guede's apartment, how can one be sure that what was reported to the defense (and thus shown at MMK) was the complete effort? While in a US or UK court the complete findings about the guilt or innocence of an alleged co-defendant would be produced (ideally voluntarily, or under court order) by the prosecution, that is not reality in the Italian court.

I am confident that had the police detected any sign of Knox or Sollecito in Guede's apartment, that information would have been used by the prosecution. AFAIK, Sollecito never met Guede until the trial, and Knox only met him at the downstairs' boys apartment once and apparently he said hello to her once at Lumumba's bar (IIRC). There was no record of any phone communication between Guede and either Knox or Sollecito.

 

[Bill Williams]

This is like saying 'my being a member of the Nazi party no more makes me anti-semitic than does your membership of [say] the English Conservative party make you pro-democracy'. I am a member of PMF.org but my membership is a dead letter as I'm not allowed to post there. If you are, it can only be because you toe the party line and have been adjudged sufficiently servile. This forum and that forum are two entirely different things.

Lots of people are members of various discussion groups, so what? It’s not like membership of a English speaking discussion group has any effect on the case in Italy.

One of the intents of those English-language boards is to effect influence in the US around extradition.

The good thing, perhaps, is that you obviously know nothing of those groups: the PMFs and TJMK. They actively ban people who express pro-innocent views. I have no idea what your own private view of anglolawyer is, but it is the height of stupidity to ban him from ANY group; regardless of the content of his opinion.

I was banned from TJMK early on after seven postings, the last one in which I said that the climb in through Filomena's window was doable. The moderator there claimed my account had not been banned, but I could not log in. Whether he was joking or not I do not know, but he also suggested that it was just as well I was not there because my spelling was so poor.

The character of those three boards is all one needs to know, really, about this case. They brook no opposition, and one of their members sent (allegedly) 700 tweets in one day advertising the English language version of the Nencini report - to make sure all journalists and politicians knew how guilty AK and RS were, presumably mainly in America.

The two PMFs used to be one board - then in March 2011 the single-PMF went off line for a week, and two emerged. There'd been a power struggle amongst the moderators which resulted in what you see today... people chose sides, made accusations - one said Peggy Ganong was really doing all this for profit and worked for Gogerty-Marriott in Seattle. A man who believes he's a deity ended up as a moderator of the other one. That man claimed to have had a conversation with Mignini during a visit to Perugia.

They may not have direct influence on courts in Italy, but there's more to this than that.

 

[Bill Williams]

It is still incredible for Nencini to make reference to a stunning episode of incompetence by Stefanoni, to take a shot at Vecchiotti. And then make no deliberation on the "professionalism" of Stefanoni.

It is one more example of the Alice-in-Wonderland quality of the Italian judiciary. I would also say that any lab that was so incompetent deserves to have their results assigned zero weight at a trial.

I think the word is "impunity". Nencini believes that both he and Stefanoni are so free from scrutiny that he can flaunt things - like conceding he actually knows that Stefanoni destroyed evidence. Does a judge of the Italian courts hold the Scientific Police to account for their errors?

I am finding that the best way to believe the findings of the Nencini report is not to read it.

 

[Kauffer]

Kauffer,

Regarding the sampling at Guede's apartment, how can one be sure that what was reported to the defense (and thus shown at MMK) was the complete effort? While in a US or UK court the complete findings about the guilt or innocence of an alleged co-defendant would be produced (ideally voluntarily, or under court order) by the prosecution, that is not reality in the Italian court.

I am confident that had the police detected any sign of Knox or Sollecito in Guede's apartment, that information would have been used by the prosecution. AFAIK, Sollecito never met Guede until the trial, and Knox only met him at the downstairs' boys apartment once and apparently he said hello to her once at Lumumba's bar (IIRC). There was no record of any phone communication between Guede and either Knox or Sollecito.

Yes quite! We are not in opposition. The evidence has been withheld. I am suggesting there was probably evidence of Ms Kercher in the samples at Guede's and was not disclosed. If Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito's samples had been found there, it would have been a game changer and they would have made a song and dance about it. If you were the Italian police, with your suspects in custody, but lite on evidence for two of them, you would have gone to Guede's full of hope on 26th November because you would have understood how powerful transfer evidence is.

The sampling in Ms Kercher's room, at Mr Sollecito's and at Guede's is ALL exculpatory.

 

[Numbers]

Kauffer,

Regarding the sampling at Guede's apartment, how can one be sure that what was reported to the defense (and thus shown at MMK) was the complete effort? While in a US or UK court the complete findings about the guilt or innocence of an alleged co-defendant would be produced (ideally voluntarily, or under court order) by the prosecution, that is not reality in the Italian court.

I am confident that had the police detected any sign of Knox or Sollecito in Guede's apartment, that information would have been used by the prosecution. AFAIK, Sollecito never met Guede until the trial, and Knox only met him at the downstairs' boys apartment once and apparently he said hello to her once at Lumumba's bar (IIRC). There was no record of any phone communication between Guede and either Knox or Sollecito.

Yes quite! We are not in opposition. The evidence has been withheld. I am suggesting there was probably evidence of Ms Kercher in the samples at Guede's and was not disclosed. If Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito's samples had been found there, it would have been a game changer and they would have made a song and dance about it. If you were the Italian police, with your suspects in custody, but lite on evidence for two of them, you would have gone to Guede's full of hope on 26th November because you would have understood how powerful transfer evidence is.

The sampling in Ms Kercher's room, at Mr Sollecito's and at Guede's is ALL exculpatory.

I had considered your post rhetorical, not as an opposition.

A further thought on the luminol hits in Sollecito's flat: since there was the leak from the under-sink pipe in the kitchen, all manner of debris - animal/fish blood, detergents, and general grime - could have been deposited on the kitchen floor, and then tracked elsewhere in the apartment. (And this is all exculpatory.)