Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Samson]

Could it be that despite the credible indications that Guede's name was being mentioned to the police around 3rd or 4th November, that they were so obsessed with Ms Knox as their suspect in chief, they simply weren't listening? If they were trawling through Ms Knox's phone records and listening to her calls from 2nd or 3rd, they would have found no trace of Guede. But they would have found Lumumba.

Something set the police off on the Lumumba trail in the 5th/6th interrogations. Either they genuinely put two and two together and made five upon examining Ms Knox's phone in the interrogation or, they had homed in on him before the interrogation started. Now, that could have been from the raw data in Ms Knox's phone records or the taps. Or perhaps it could have been as a result of an unidentified crime scene sample associated with an African origin individual, or combination of all these.

I think it is probable that like Amanda's behaviour, the police acted with good intentions, but are liable to misinterpretation. The good intentions ended for the police when some of them realised they had made the mother of all cock ups. Mignini went into terminal denial and destroyed many lives.

 

[Samson]

Does anyone know, Machiavelli might, what would have happened to Amanda if she dutifully went to Florence to attend "her" appeal?

Peter Quennell offers

"I guess now I have to suggest a reason or some reasons why she was “scared” to come back to Italy for the Florence appeal."

Followed by a predictable list.

Note that Sollecito immediately had his documents and passport removed.
What would they have done with Amanda?

I am quite sure PQ would have insisted his own daughter report for her execution.

 

[Samson]

By the use of those terms my intent was not derogatory. For various reasons I didn't found the Italian term "innocentisti" fully satisfactory.
I am ready to call them by the term they prefer. However I don't know what is the term they want to be called. It should be something acceptable to the opposite side, I suppose, for people like me to use it.

At the beginning I used to call them FoAs, but that was objectionable, as in fact that indicates a certain group who dis use thus label, but there are others who do not belong to that group.
As for me, I don't feel offended being called a "guilter", actually I won't even perceive "Migninian" as offensive, but sounds probably reductive, maybe not fit to all guilters and does not sound the best.

Not all Knox-supporters or advocates here are actual sympathetic "Knoxophiles" apparently, though a few are.

I suggest there are five categories.
1. Those who know Knox is guilty.
2. Those who believe Knox is guilty.
3. Those who believe Knox is innocent.
4. Those who know Knox is innocent.

5. The largest category is none of the above.

I understand only category 4 or 5 in any universe I comprehend and wish to inhabit.

 

[Bill Williams]

Does anyone know, Machiavelli might, what would have happened to Amanda if she dutifully went to Florence to attend "her" appeal?

Peter Quennell offers

"I guess now I have to suggest a reason or some reasons why she was “scared” to come back to Italy for the Florence appeal."

Followed by a predictable list.

Note that Sollecito immediately had his documents and passport removed.
What would they have done with Amanda?

I am quite sure PQ would have insisted his own daughter report for her execution.

Nencini said that Knox was legally abroad.

This is what I mean by saying guilters tend to push Mignini's case, seldom refer to Nencini or Massei.

 

[Kauffer]

By the use of those terms my intent was not derogatory. For various reasons I didn't found the Italian term "innocentisti" fully satisfactory.
I am ready to call them by the term they prefer. However I don't know what is the term they want to be called. It should be something acceptable to the opposite side, I suppose, for people like me to use it.

At the beginning I used to call them FoAs, but that was objectionable, as in fact that indicates a certain group who dis use thus label, but there are others who do not belong to that group.
As for me, I don't feel offended being called a "guilter", actually I won't even perceive "Migninian" as offensive, but sounds probably reductive, maybe not fit to all guilters and does not sound the best.

Not all Knox-supporters or advocates here are actual sympathetic "Knoxophiles" apparently, though a few are.

Razionalisti v Colpevolisti?

 

[Numbers]

I think it is probable that like Amanda's behaviour, the police acted with good intentions, but are liable to misinterpretation. The good intentions ended for the police when some of them realised they had made the mother of all cock ups. Mignini went into terminal denial and destroyed many lives.

{highlighting added to quote}

The reason I believe that the Italian police acted in bad faith on Nov. 5/6 is that theIr methodology so much resembles that of US police who have intentionally coerced vulnerable individuals to make false confessions.

From: The National Registry of Exonerations, A Project of the University of Michigan Law School

http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/learnmore.aspx

Currently 1495 exonerations recorded since 1989

Contributing factors that led to their wrongful convictions (many cases have multiple factors):

Perjury or False Accusation: 56%
Official Misconduct: 47%
Mistaken Witness Identification: 35%
False or Misleading Forensic Evidence: 22%
False Confessions: 13%

The rate of Perjury or False Accusations is highest in child sex abuse cases (82%) and homicide cases (67%).

The rate of Official Misconduct is highest in homicide cases (59%) and child sex abuse cases (46%).

The rate of False Confessions is highest in homicide cases (21%).

The rate of Mistaken Identifications is highest in in Robbery cases (83%) and adult sexual assault cases (73%).

The rate of False or Misleading Forensic Evidence is highest in adult sexual assault cases (33%) and child sex abuse cases (23%).

 

[Numbers]

Does anyone know, Machiavelli might, what would have happened to Amanda if she dutifully went to Florence to attend "her" appeal?

Peter Quennell offers

"I guess now I have to suggest a reason or some reasons why she was “scared” to come back to Italy for the Florence appeal."

Followed by a predictable list.

Note that Sollecito immediately had his documents and passport removed.
What would they have done with Amanda?

I am quite sure PQ would have insisted his own daughter report for her execution.

Under Italian law and in agreement with ECHR case-law, a defendant should attend the first-level trial but need not appear at the second-level trial.

 

[LondonJohn]

By the use of those terms my intent was not derogatory. For various reasons I didn't found the Italian term "innocentisti" fully satisfactory.
I am ready to call them by the term they prefer. However I don't know what is the term they want to be called. It should be something acceptable to the opposite side, I suppose, for people like me to use it.

At the beginning I used to call them FoAs, but that was objectionable, as in fact that indicates a certain group who dis use thus label, but there are others who do not belong to that group.
As for me, I don't feel offended being called a "guilter", actually I won't even perceive "Migninian" as offensive, but sounds probably reductive, maybe not fit to all guilters and does not sound the best.

Not all Knox-supporters or advocates here are actual sympathetic "Knoxophiles" apparently, though a few are.

"Pro-acquittal" or "pro-innocence". It's not difficult.

(Hint: it's the difference between supporting a concept and supporting a person (with all the attendant emotional elements that implies))

 

[sept79]

.
.
It's not that Rudy is black that makes him more probably the guilty one (over Raffaele and Amanda), but that there is more physical evidence he was there during the murder than there is of Raffaele and Amanda, in my opinion,

d

-

Amy, what physical evidence did Raffaele and Amanda leave of their presence during the murder ?

 

[LondonJohn]

Could it be that despite the credible indications that Guede's name was being mentioned to the police around 3rd or 4th November, that they were so obsessed with Ms Knox as their suspect in chief, they simply weren't listening? If they were trawling through Ms Knox's phone records and listening to her calls from 2nd or 3rd, they would have found no trace of Guede. But they would have found Lumumba.

Something set the police off on the Lumumba trail in the 5th/6th interrogations. Either they genuinely put two and two together and made five upon examining Ms Knox's phone in the interrogation or, they had homed in on him before the interrogation started. Now, that could have been from the raw data in Ms Knox's phone records or the taps. Or perhaps it could have been as a result of an unidentified crime scene sample associated with an African origin individual, or combination of all these.

Given that the police definitely had Knox's mobile phone records by around 3rd November, they would have known for sure that she had received a text message from a certain number at 8.18pm on the night of the murder and had sent a text message back to that same number at 8.42pm. And the police obviously would have known that this number didn't belong to Sollecito or to any of the housemates etc. In addition, IIRC Knox had not told them about this text dialogue in their early interviews with her.

So I believe the police and PM followed the following train of (poor) thinking: firstly, they already had Knox in their cross-hairs. Secondly, they interpreted her not telling them about the text message exchange (which they now knew had provably happened) as Knox deliberately hiding the exchange from them. And why would Knox want to hide the exchange unless it had something to do with the murder?

At this point, I'm open-minded on whether or not the police had managed to identify Lumumba as the owner of that mobile number. If they had done so, and especially if they also knew that Lumumba had changed his number immediately after the murder, then this could only have heightened their suspicions. But whether or not they knew Lumumba's identity prior to the Knox interrogation on 5/6 Nov, I believe they had already decided that the person to whom that number belonged was a key participant in the murder, and that Knox herself was also involved (hence why she had "hidden" the exchange of texts from the police up to that point).

Regarding the actual content of the texts in question, I believe it would have been impossible for the police to know the content until/unless they had interrogated either Knox's or Lumumba's handset. It's possible that they had read the infamous "see you later" message off Knox's handset previously, but I think it's more likely that they read it for the first time on the night of the 5th/6th interrogation. And if that IS when they first read it, then it would have seemed to them like perfect confirmation of their theory. I believe that they read the message, then calmly went out of the interrogation room, then whooped and high-fived and congratulated themselves on cracking the case. From then on it was only a case of going back in to the interrogation room and squeezing Knox until she "buckled" and "told them what they already knew to be correct".

 

[platonov]

Amy, what physical evidence did Raffaele and Amanda leave of their presence during the murder ?

Lots but it just disappeared as if by magic.

Oh wait, no it didn’t – that’s not how it works in the real world.

 

[Numbers]

"Pro-acquittal" or "pro-innocence". It's not difficult.

(Hint: it's the difference between supporting a concept and supporting a person (with all the attendant emotional elements that implies))

I suggest "pro-human rights" versus "authoritarian".

Knox and Sollecito have been provisionally convicted only by arbitrary proceedings that have violated Italian and ECHR law - the fundamental rights of defendants.

The "authoritarians" appear to maintain that any court finding that punishes the chosen scapegoats are to be accepted as legitimate and valid.

By the authoritarian logic, the Dred Scott decision of the US Supreme Court would be valid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court held that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, could not be American citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court,[2][3] and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States. Dred Scott, an enslaved African American man who had been taken by his owners to free states and territories, attempted to sue for his freedom. In a 7–2 decision written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the Court denied Scott's request. For only the second time in its history the Supreme Court ruled an Act of Congress to be unconstitutional.[4]

Although Taney hoped that his ruling would settle the slavery question once and for all, the decision immediately spurred vehement dissent from anti-slavery elements in the North, especially Republicans. Most scholars today (as did many contemporary lawyers) consider the ruling regarding slavery in the territories to be dictum, not binding precedent. The decision would prove to be an indirect catalyst for the American Civil War. It was functionally superseded by the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave blacks full citizenship. As of 2007 it is widely regarded by scholars as the worst decision made by the United States Supreme Court.

 

[Desert Fox]

Rudy being an informant, as in protecting Rudy because he has value in his role as an informant, sounds implausible, and unsupported. (Implausible, because Rudy is lazy and unreliable in all things).

I tend to believe in stupidity before malice. . . .Still there is a case in Massachusetts where a drug informant might have been a serial killer.

 

[AmyStrange]

-

Amy, what physical evidence did Raffaele and Amanda leave of their presence during the murder ?

-

Other than Raffaele's probable DNA on the bra hook (possibly from contamination), nothing that I really know of, but it is interestng (and worth noting) that Rudy's DNA was not found in the bathroom where many people say he went after the murder.

I think Mach is one of the people who brought that up.

It's a good question, but it's not that important to me, because it's not only the lack of DNA that makes them probably innocent, in my opinion,

d

-

 

[Desert Fox]

"Pro-acquittal" or "pro-innocence". It's not difficult.

(Hint: it's the difference between supporting a concept and supporting a person (with all the attendant emotional elements that implies))

of note, you could be pro acquittal and consider the defendants still guilty.

 

[Numbers]

Given that the police definitely had Knox's mobile phone records by around 3rd November, they would have known for sure that she had received a text message from a certain number at 8.18pm on the night of the murder and had sent a text message back to that same number at 8.42pm. {1} And the police obviously would have known that this number didn't belong to Sollecito or to any of the housemates etc. In addition, IIRC {2} Knox had not told them about this text dialogue in their early interviews with her.

So I believe the police and PM followed the following train of (poor) thinking: firstly, {3} they already had Knox in their cross-hairs. Secondly, {4} they interpreted her not telling them about the text message exchange (which they now knew had provably happened) as Knox deliberately hiding the exchange from them. And why would Knox want to hide the exchange unless it had something to do with the murder?

At this point, I'm open-minded on {5} whether or not the police had managed to identify Lumumba as the owner of that mobile number. If they had done so, and especially if {6} they also knew that Lumumba had changed his number immediately after the murder, then this could only have heightened their suspicions. But whether or not they knew Lumumba's identity prior to the Knox interrogation on 5/6 Nov, I believe they had already decided that the person to whom that number belonged was a key participant in the murder, and that Knox herself was also involved (hence why she had "hidden" the exchange of texts from the police up to that point).

Regarding the actual content of the texts in question, I believe {7} it would have been impossible for the police to know the content until/unless they had interrogated either Knox's or Lumumba's handset. It's possible that they had read the infamous "see you later" message off Knox's handset previously, but I think it's more likely that they read it for the first time on the night of the 5th/6th interrogation. And {8} if that IS when they first read it, then it would have seemed to them like perfect confirmation of their theory. I believe that they read the message, then calmly went out of the interrogation room, then whooped and high-fived and congratulated themselves on cracking the case. From then on it was only a case of going back in to the interrogation room and squeezing Knox until she "buckled" and "told them what they already knew to be correct".

{Highlighting and numbers added to quote.}

Questions:

1. Wouldn't the police almost immediately know that Lumumba was the owner of the phone number from telephone company information?

2. If Knox had not told them about the text message exchange, had she told them about not being at work that evening because her boss had told her she wasn't needed? Did her work schedule come up in the early interviews?

3. Why was Knox already in the cross-hairs of the police? And according to testimony, all the flat-mates, downstairs boys, Lumumba, and Guede were having their phones tapped. Is there information on when the taps were in place?

4. Were text messages persevered in phone company recording equipment for any length of time, and thus available to police?

5. Why would police not know who was the owner of the phone number? Was Lumumba using someone else's phone?

6. Had Lumumba truly changed his number, or was there a typo, misunderstanding, or clerical error concerning this?

7. Same as 4.

8. Why would the question about the message be presented in an interrogation format rather than an interview format?

9. {Not in your quote} Knox's mother was scheduled to arrive in Perugia from Seattle on Nov. 6, 2007. Do you see any connections between the Nov. 5/6 night interrogation and that fact?

 

[Machiavelli]

"Pro-acquittal" or "pro-innocence". It's not difficult.

(Hint: it's the difference between supporting a concept and supporting a person (with all the attendant emotional elements that implies))

But it's not accurate. Those whom you define "pro-innocence" are in fact either supporting a person, or supporting a conspiracy theory (in fact, mostly both), and they are also supporting a theory of a peculiar guilt of Rudy Guede.

Those aspect: theories about guilt of burglary and post-mortem rape of Guede, guilt of lying and conspiracy, leaks, fabricating false evidence etc. of prosecution, police, forensics, guilt of corruption of prosecution and courts; those things, and similar ones, are actually the aspects that strike me of the "pro-innocence" group, in fact those elements of their narrative are the reason why my attention was attracted by the case. Those are all elements of a belief about "guilt", those are not beliefs about "innocence".
I am not that comfortable calling "pro-innocence" someone who believes Rudy committed a burglary for which there is no evidence and raped a corpse, and that Mignini fabricated a statement on an illegal interrogation, and the police corrupted Anna Donnino to release a false testimony...

 

[CoulsdonUK]

I suggest "pro-human rights" versus "authoritarian".

Knox and Sollecito have been provisionally convicted only by arbitrary proceedings that have violated Italian and ECHR law - the fundamental rights of defendants.

The "authoritarians" appear to maintain that any court finding that punishes the chosen scapegoats are to be accepted as legitimate and valid.

By the authoritarian logic, the Dred Scott decision of the US Supreme Court would be valid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court held that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, could not be American citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court,[2][3] and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States. Dred Scott, an enslaved African American man who had been taken by his owners to free states and territories, attempted to sue for his freedom. In a 7–2 decision written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the Court denied Scott's request. For only the second time in its history the Supreme Court ruled an Act of Congress to be unconstitutional.[4]

Although Taney hoped that his ruling would settle the slavery question once and for all, the decision immediately spurred vehement dissent from anti-slavery elements in the North, especially Republicans. Most scholars today (as did many contemporary lawyers) consider the ruling regarding slavery in the territories to be dictum, not binding precedent. The decision would prove to be an indirect catalyst for the American Civil War. It was functionally superseded by the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave blacks full citizenship. As of 2007 it is widely regarded by scholars as the worst decision made by the United States Supreme Court.

Wow! You are attempting to link a case involving whether African Americans had any rights as human beings or were effectively property in 1857 America with a murder case 150 years later in Italy.

An incredible post.

 

[Samson]

But it's not accurate. Those whom you define "pro-innocence" are in fact either supporting a person, or supporting a conspiracy theory (in fact, mostly both), and they are also supporting a theory of a peculiar guilt of Rudy Guede.

Those aspect: theories about guilt of burglary and post-mortem rape of Guede, guilt of lying and conspiracy, leaks, fabricating false evidence etc. of prosecution, police, forensics, guilt of corruption of prosecution and courts; those things, and similar ones, are actually the aspects that strike me of the "pro-innocence" group, in fact those elements of their narrative are the reason why my attention was attracted by the case. Those are all elements of a belief about "guilt", those are not beliefs about "innocence".
I am not that comfortable calling "pro-innocence" someone who believes Rudy committed a burglary for which there is no evidence and raped a corpse, and that Mignini fabricated a statement on an illegal interrogation, and the police corrupted Anna Donnino to release a false testimony...

Would Knox's travel have been restricted like Sollecitos if she had attended her appeal and listened in court to the verdict?

 

[Machiavelli]

-

Other than Raffaele's probable DNA on the bra hook (possibly from contamination), nothing that I really know of, but it is interestng (and worth noting) that Rudy's DNA was not found in the bathroom where many people say he went after the murder.

I think Mach is one of the people who brought that up.

It's a good question, but it's not that important to me, because it's not only the lack of DNA that makes them probably innocent, in my opinion,

-

If the scenario is that Rudy had cuts on his hands and he washed his hands in the bathroom sink (since it is evident that someone did), and there is no drop or trace of his blood in the bathroom, nor his DNA in the sink and around the drain, what we have here is an inconsistency between the proposed scenario and the physical evidence.