Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Bill Williams]

An Interpreter has the task of "language facilitator" and "language mediator". This was Donnino's task. These are any interpreter's tasks. It's a most normal job.

There is absolutely nothing coercive in being a mediator.

Donnino only said she was a mediator. Donnino acted in concert with the coercive nature of the interrogation.

There is only one goal in interrogation. It is to get the suspect to confess to the body of fact the interrogators know to be true. She buckled and told them this.

Donnino did not translate, interpret, or mediate. She participated in the interrogation with the main goal always in mind.

 

[Machiavelli]

By who?

This is where you get into trouble, Machiavelli. Making assertions like this with no content or citation.

By Mignini?

They were represented by their lawyers. Don't you remember that?
Don't you even realize how many lies the pro-Knoxes are telling?

 

[Bill Williams]

Absolutely not. Mignini and Donnino as you cite them were talking about two different moments.
The rest of your post is made up nonsense, like the rest of your raving.

I note, then, that you do not challenge that Mignini said:

20’48’’ Then I, as I had in some way to, let’s say… this police interrogation had been suspended. At that point I remember that… they made me notice that Amanda, because she wanted to go on talking, I remember she had, like a need to. So I told her: “you can make statements to me; I will not ask questions, since if you make a spontaneous statement and I collect it, I will collect your statement as if I were in fact a notary”.

How did Mignini know she had this need? In the line just before that Mignini had intuited that she had had a great burden lifted from her and he intuited that she was afraid of Lumumba.

The point of all this is that Mignini claims he intuited all of this to satisfy the law.

 

[Machiavelli]

Donnino only said she was a mediator. Donnino acted in concert with the coercive nature of the interrogation.

There is only one goal in interrogation. It is to get the suspect to confess to the body of fact the interrogators know to be true. She buckled and told them this.

Donnino did not translate, interpret, or mediate. She participated in the interrogation with the main goal always in mind.

Believe whatever bs you like. Donnino performed her duty in an excellent way, she was extremely professional. She was also a totally credible witness. And Knox was found by all judges to be a criminal liar.

 

[Bill Williams]

They were represented by their lawyers. Don't you remember that?
Don't you even realize how many lies the pro-Knoxes are telling?

Define "represented". Here they would need to have standing before the court, and potentially have the ability to cross examine.

Machiavelli... this is simply a lie on your part. It's incredible you think you can get away with it. You will simply assert things out of your confirmation bias, and truth does not seem to matter to you, as long as it is condemning of Sollecito and Knox.

What is especially informative are the issues you do not reply to. Have a nice day.

 

[Bill Williams]

Donnino only said she was a mediator. Donnino acted in concert with the coercive nature of the interrogation.

There is only one goal in interrogation. It is to get the suspect to confess to the body of fact the interrogators know to be true. She buckled and told them this.

Donnino did not translate, interpret, or mediate. She participated in the interrogation with the main goal always in mind.

Believe whatever bs you like. Donnino performed her duty in an excellent way, she was extremely professional. She was also a totally credible witness. And Knox was found by all judges to be a criminal liar.

What I hope is that people reading our exchange will make up their own minds.

So far you believe a translator is not an interpreter.... if you think that, you know nothing of translation. (See how the PMF folk translated "Osmotica" (Italian) as "Organic" (English). They translated the word so as to, acc. to them, convey what they thought was the proper interpretation of the word in context.)

Once again, there is nothing you won't skew out of shape to confirm your confirmation bias.

Readers here can make up their own minds.

 

[Diocletus]

• The Italian courts held that Knox was entitled to her Procedural Rights only after being declared a “suspect” by the attending magistrate. In contrast, the ECtHR disregards such formalities, and will conduct its own analysis to identify the point at which Knox was under reasonable suspicion and afford to her Procedural Rights from that point forward. See Pakshayev v. Russia (“Suspect” status under the ECHR is independent of domestic-law formalities concerning designation of “suspects”).

• The Italian courts applied a subject-matter exception to allow the use of statements taken in violation of Knox’s right to counsel to prove a crime (making a false statement) other than the crime (murder) for which Knox was suspected at the time of the Procedural Rights violation. In contrast, the ECHR completely excludes the use against a defendant of any statement elicited in violation of the defendant’s Procedural Rights, and recognizes no exception that would allow such statements to be used to prove “other crimes.” See Balitskiy v. Ukraine ¶ 39 (prohibiting and criticizing use, in connection with murder charges, of statements taken without counsel following arrest on separate administrative charges).

• The Italian courts used against Knox a statement that it determined she had made “voluntarily”, after her Procedural Rights had been violated. In contrast, the ECHR prohibits the use of even “voluntary” statements following the violation of a suspect’s Procedural Rights, unless there is clear evidence that there was a knowing and intentional waiver of such rights prior to the making of the statement. Omelchenko v. Ukraine ¶ 48-49 (nullifying written waivers of right to counsel, and excluding ensuing statements obtained from person in custody, because legal assistance was never provided).

 

[NotEvenWrong]

A reality check for the Americans: concerning your own country... just so you know...

Not only are interrogations not legally required to be recorded in the majority of jurisdictions in the US, there is this too:

"The right to a competent interpreter for anyone who does not understand the language of the court (especially for the accused in a criminal trial) is usually considered a fundamental rule of justice. Therefore, this right is often guaranteed in national constitutions, declarations of rights, fundamental laws establishing the justice system or by precedents set by the highest courts. However, it is not a constitutionally required procedure (in the United States) that a certified interpreter be present at police interrogation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_interpretation

Do you have any idea how ridiculous you are? Literally no one is arguing that the U.S. legal system is without flaws, or even that the U.S. legal system is superior to Italy. In fact, I guarantee you that the vast, vast majority of pro-innocence posters would be criticizing the U.S. system if they convicted someone of a murder orgy conspiracy with no (reliable) evidence.

Is your entire position based on the fact you don't like Amanda and Italy's reputation needs to be rescued?

 

[MDDVS]

Believe whatever bs you like. Donnino performed her duty in an excellent way, she was extremely professional. She was also a totally credible witness. And Knox was found by all judges to be a criminal liar.

She was not professional, at least by any reasonable standard.

The highlighted part is not a convincing argument, in fact it is not an argument at all but a simple appeal to authority.

 

[Vibio]

LOL. They also hire paranormalists, like Madame Carlizzi.

Paranormalists hired by the police in Italy? I've never heard of that happening here. Perhaps you are confusing us with the Brits.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8369369.stm

 

[Diocletus]

Paranormalists hired by the police in Italy? I've never heard of that happening here. Perhaps you are confusing us with the Brits.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8369369.stm

Everyone knows that they have real ghosts living in castles over there.

 

[LondonJohn]

So, suggesting to a person that she was suffering from amnesia from a traumatic experience is just a normal action for an interpreter. Do you think that it is normal that the "mediation" you describe only seems to work in one direction? Why didn't this "interpreter" helped Amanda's version instead of the police version? She could very well said to the police something like: "Sometimes people are wrongly suspected of murder, maybe what she's saying is true. Once I stole a cookie from the jar but my parents didn't believe my story in spite of it being true, imagine what I could have said if I was subjected to an interrogtion in the middle of the night."

So no, she was not mediating, she helping the police with the interrogation.

I agree, but (to coin a phrase.....) there's more. If someone is brought in and questioned under suspicion (as opposed to purely as a witness), as Knox undoubtedly was on 5/6 November, there is an obvious definition of roles. The police interrogators are on one "side", and the person being interrogated is on the other "side". It's obviously understood that the interests of these two "sides" are far from mutual.

And that's precisely why the "good cop - bad cop" interrogation technique has been so widely used. It is intended precisely in order to try to break down (or at least soften) the dividing line between these two opposing "sides". The idea is that the suspect is cowed and confronted by the "bad cop" character, but then the "good cop" character is seen as somehow being more on the suspect's "side" by comparison. The intention is that the suspect is thus more likely to open up to the "good cop" character.

In the case of the interpreter Donnino in Knox's interrogation, it is clear from verified accounts of proceedings that she (Donnino) was not presenting herself to Knox as an agent of the police, but rather as a somewhat maternal "helper" to Knox. When she (Donnino) suggested to Knox that suppressed memories following a traumatic event are a very real phenomenon - adding a personal example to give further credence to the idea - it's clear that a vulnerable and confused Knox was treating this suggestion as neutral "advice" and "help". I have no doubt that Donnino's active participation in the interrogation outside of her interpreter remit had a material impact upon Knox's oral and written statement.

Of course in a proper, fit-for-purpose system, this behaviour from Donnino - which she freely admitted to in court! - would be properly investigated. In the UK, for example, I have little doubt that she would have lost her job over this, and that the investigating police would have been severely reprimanded for their failure to control/supervise/oversee the interpreter and her role properly. Not in Perugia though, of course.........

 

[Machiavelli]

Define "represented". Here they would need to have standing before the court, and potentially have the ability to cross examine.

Machiavelli... this is simply a lie on your part. It's incredible you think you can get away with it. You will simply assert things out of your confirmation bias, and truth does not seem to matter to you, as long as it is condemning of Sollecito and Knox.

What is especially informative are the issues you do not reply to. Have a nice day.

Being represented means to be present at all hearings with the prerogatives of a party. Which includes to cross question witnesses. Which in fact they did.

 

[MDDVS]

Being represented means to be present at all hearings with the prerogatives of a party. Which includes to cross question witnesses. Which in fact they did.

Why the hell would they be represented in a trial of a nother person?

 

[Machiavelli]

She was not professional, at least by any reasonable standard.

The highlighted part is not a convincing argument, in fact it is not an argument at all but a simple appeal to authority.

It's a fact rather than an argument. Where is the argument when you say Donnino was not professional? There is not a shred of an argument. It's a wild statement. And where is the argument by those saying the interrogation was coercive or there was a false memory syndrome? There is no factual argumentation, just the statement of the pro-Knox believers. Your arguments are made of belief.

 

[Diocletus]

Being represented means to be present at all hearings with the prerogatives of a party. Which includes to cross question witnesses. Which in fact they did.

Yeah, all the prerogatives of a party to a fast track trial, which does not include: a jury, a public trial, full disclosure of evidence, the right to expand the case beyond what the prosecutor has decided to put in his dossier, or the right to appeal the accused's conviction.

But hey, at least they were there to witness all of the violations of their rights.

 

[Machiavelli]

Why the hell would they be represented in a trial of a nother person?

They were represented full stop. There is no "why". Actually Guede's trial was Knox and Sollecito's preliminary hearing.

 

[Diocletus]

It's a fact rather than an arguments. Where is the argument when you say Donnino was not professional? There is not a shred of an argument. It's a wild statement. And where is the argument by those saying the interrogation was coercive or there was a false memory syndrome? There is no factual argumentation, just the statement of the pro-Knox believers. Your arguments are made of belief.

Except this:

[the interrogation was of] obsessive length. . . , carried out during [both] day and night, by more than one person, on a young and foreign girl who at the time did not speak Italian at all well, was unaware of her own rights, did not have the assistance of an attorney (which she should have been entitled to, being at this point suspected of very serious crimes), and was moreover being assisted by an interpreter who . . . did not limit herself to translating, but induced her to force herself to remember, explaining that she [Amanda] was confused in her memories . . .

That's from the court that convicted of cullnnia in the second instance (affirmed by the supreme court).

 

[Diocletus]

They were represented full stop. There is no "why". Actually Guede's trial was Knox and Sollecito's preliminary hearing.

True, and even more than that, it turns out that--surprise!--it was their actual trial.

 

[Machiavelli]

Yeah, all the prerogatives of a party to a fast track trial, which does not include: a jury, a public trial, full disclosure of evidence, the right to expand the case beyond what the prosecutor has decided to put in his dossier, or the right to appeal the accused's conviction.

But hey, at least they were there to witness all of the violations of their rights.

But you cannot expect accusatory parties (Knox and Solllecito) to have greater prerogatives than the defendant (Guede).
Actually Knox and Sollecito's lawyer did bring further evidence into the dossier. Such evidence was not convincing.