Continuation Part 12: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Machiavelli]

Please tell me if my understanding of this is correct:

In Italy, if you are convicted of a crime, you may (apparently automatically) be prosecuted for statements you made on the stand in your defense. (callunia)

Not if you had previously lodged a complaint about the alleged incident you testify about at due time, and if that submissions had elements of credibility

In the trial for this callunia, your conviction can be used as unchallengeable evidence against you (finding of fact).

Any evidence is challengeable. But here we also have investigation papers showing Knox was a liar, not just a conviction.

In subsequent appeals of your criminal conviction, your conviction for callunia can be similarly used against you as it is now a finding of fact? Is this right?

Don't know which use you refer to. Knox's police calunnia is not going to be used, her murder trial is over.

If so, it seems like a pretty stupid circle of logic.

Also, anytime you go to court and assert improper actions by the police you are charged with another crime?

Seems like a system designed to discourage people from complaining about their treatment by the authorities.

In my mind, the automatic investigation/prosecution should be against the police officers, not the suspect. Crimes by the state (such as police abuse) are more serious than verbal crimes against the state.

Usually you don't allege criminal actions by the police in a testimony, because there is a path for these allegations to be made. When you have to complain about mistreatment by the police you should follow the proper channel to do so, not just pick it up when you are under trial.

Calunnia is considered a rather serious crime in the Italian culture.

 

[tsig]

I wouldn't trust a statement from any lab that has been in operation for any significant amount of time that they have not had at least one contaminated sample.
Also, QCs are in place to show evidence of LACK of contamination. You have to show evidence of non-contamination, generally, not contamination. I work in an environmental field. I am not currently an analyst. I manage the data validation side of the operation. I was previously a chemist at another environmental lab. Most of our work there had to do with hazardous waste permitting, which meant it had to be legally defensible for regulatory purposes.

At both places we have quality check samples in place that are performed with each analytical batch and a given sample frequency. If called to testify, we use these checks to "defend" our data. We also have procedures in place for the instance where these QC checks fail. And they DO fail despite that we are regarded as one of the (if not THE) best in the world at what we do.

I would take issue with any lab that produce control charts that never showed any failures and never had any blanks fail. A correct response would be something along the line of:

"We have quality control checks in place to evaluate the validity of each sample result and protocols we follow when these controls show failure. Here are the results of the quality control samples associated with these samples, and here are control charts for the period of time surrounding these analysis. You may note a few failures on the control chart. Here is documentation of those failures and the corrective action we took to address them." For regulatory purposes (and crime lab cases presumably) you would also need extensive chain of custody documentation.

So saying there was never any indication that a sample was contaminated doesn't cut it. The documentation supporting that claim is essential. This would include raw data files, by the way. In chromatography, for example, you can't always rely on the computer for evaluation. There are occasionally interference peaks that don't separate adequately under the method you are running.

The scientific aspects of this case are jut a cluster___k, in my opinion. From the luminol fiasco to the body temperature, to the digestion time...it's unreal. I actually came to this assuming guilt. But the science just...wow.

One thing that really fascinates me is the whole emphasis that has been placed in some places on how attractive Amanda Knox is. "Foxy Knoxy" and all that. She's reasonably attractive, but not that special. She wouldn't stand out on the quad of any U.S. university or attract any particular attention at the mall. I doubt there are many people defending her because they are enamored with her beauty.

The case is interesting because of the circumstances of the "evidence" and the differences in U.S. and Italian legal systems. I'm pretty critical of the U.S. courts, but this case makes me appreciate our system a lot more.

How many contaminated samples would it take for you to trust a lab?

 

[Bill Williams]

Don't know which use you refer to. Knox's police calunnia is not going to be used, her murder trial is over.

A rare Machiavelli misstep. The murder trial is not over.

 

[Planigale]

How many contaminated samples would it take for you to trust a lab?

I so agree with TomB. Any lab with no errors is a lab with poor QC. I read stuff from Stefanoni and I recognise a bad lab. People who work in labs will recognise the errors. Where is the QC manager for Stefanoni's lab? Where are the SOPs? Where is the documentation for deviation from SOP? Where are the audit and external quality control records? As TomB says any good lab will have these available for inspection. Bad ones will not.

 

[Diocletus]

How many contaminated samples would it take for you to trust a lab?

More than none, but fewer than Stefanoni actually had.

 

[Desert Fox]

Don't know which use you refer to. Knox's police calunnia is not going to be used, her murder trial is over.

A rare Machiavelli misstep. The murder trial is not over.

I would argue that it may be a Freudian slip actually. . . .

 

[Samson]

How do you know the story is false?

My interpretation of Machiavelli is that he accepts the story may be factually true, but because it is judicially false in that no complaint was made, and prisoners are legally permitted to lie on the stand, so her testimony to Massei can be legally disregarded, the story is formally false in Italy, so her parents must be prosecuted.

Have I got that right Mach?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

I'll buy the snacks

Often cited, never proven.

tsig,

Let's listen to the recordings, and...wait, never mind.
EDT
BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
"I think it depends how you define “abused.” If you mean to ask if she was flicked on the back of the head (which is a cultural norm here in schools and in criminal investigations), then yes, that very likely happened. If you mean to ask if she was abused in the way the American police have been caught on CCTV abusing detainees, then no, I do not think she was abused." Ms. Nadeau is no friend of Amanda's or Raffaele's, and her language is an attempt to minimize the actions of ILE. And yet she still basically accepts Amanda's account.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

William Thompson on errors in DNA profiling

How many contaminated samples would it take for you to trust a lab?

Let's ask Professor William Thompson, one of the world's experts in the area where law and DNA profiling intersect. "The number reported was small considering overall caseload -- 3,100 over five years -- but Thompson said mistakes caught by labs "undoubtedly" make up a small fraction of errors. (In fact, he said, labs that report the most are probably better run than those that claim none.)" The point is that a claim of zero instances of contamination is literally incredible in general, and it is demonstrably false in the case of Stefanoni's lab.

 

[Samson]

Maths on trial

Mathematician Leila Schnepps writes

You know how the FOA keep asking "what's the probability that a young girl with no priors bla bla commits a murder?"

But you're not supposed to compute the probability of a YG having committed murder, you're supposed to compute the probability of a YG who has been accused of murder having actually committed it.

Among the set of YG's accused of murder (to which Amanda belongs), how many are innocent and how many are guilty? Your point is that they are basically all guilty. If your statistics are right, it's a very good rejoinder to their question; even if you ignore ALL of the evidence, you still get a high probability of guilt.

Of course, the question is so dumb anyway that it hardly matters, but still.

I believe it is important to point out that probability matters a great deal.
If probability and statistics are likely to exclude a candidate, let us be far more interested in alternative theories. Step one is to take their statements at face value, eg

"A dingo took my baby."
"I spent the whole evening with my boyfriend."
"I did not hear a scream." (often interpreted as I did hear a scream)

Step two . Pay very close attention to alternative theories.
For example, a known male petty thief strongly tied to matching patterns, and strongly linked forensically to the crimes is an alternative theory to consider. It is very helpful to have an alternative candidate, because exonerations occur even without, eg West Memphis three.

So the question is not as dumb as Leila suggests. How could a maths professor, a subject many here probably struggle with, spout such nonsense?

 

[Desert Fox]

tsig,

Let's listen to the recordings, and...wait, never mind.
EDT
BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
"I think it depends how you define “abused.” If you mean to ask if she was flicked on the back of the head (which is a cultural norm here in schools and in criminal investigations), then yes, that very likely happened. If you mean to ask if she was abused in the way the American police have been caught on CCTV abusing detainees, then no, I do not think she was abused." Ms. Nadeau is no friend of Amanda's or Raffaele's, and her language is an attempt to minimize the actions of ILE. And yet she still basically accepts Amanda's account.

Besides, I would argue strongly that Amanda's confused rambling has more to do with being threatened with being locked up for thirty years and being sleep deprived. Hitting her is only a very small part of what they were doing wrong.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Stallings and Chamberlain

Samson,

I am willing to take as a given that the majority of people who are defendants are guilty, but I don't see what that has to do with anything. This dialog doesn't strike me as a particularly strong PG argument. Patricia Stallings and Lindy Chamberlain were convicted (not just accused), yet they were both innocent. In both cases, there was evidence of a sort, but careful and objective examination (as opposed to sloppy, suspect-centered pseudo-science) showed that the evidence wasn't any good.

 

[Wattson]

Maths on trial

Mathematician Leila Schnepps writes

You know how the FOA keep asking "what's the probability that a young girl with no priors bla bla commits a murder?"

But you're not supposed to compute the probability of a YG having committed murder, you're supposed to compute the probability of a YG who has been accused of murder having actually committed it.

Among the set of YG's accused of murder (to which Amanda belongs), how many are innocent and how many are guilty? Your point is that they are basically all guilty. If your statistics are right, it's a very good rejoinder to their question; even if you ignore ALL of the evidence, you still get a high probability of guilt.

Of course, the question is so dumb anyway that it hardly matters, but still.

I believe it is important to point out that probability matters a great deal.
If probability and statistics are likely to exclude a candidate, let us be far more interested in alternative theories. Step one is to take their statements at face value, eg

"A dingo took my baby."
"I spent the whole evening with my boyfriend."
"I did not hear a scream." (often interpreted as I did hear a scream)

Step two . Pay very close attention to alternative theories.
For example, a known male petty thief strongly tied to matching patterns, and strongly linked forensically to the crimes is an alternative theory to consider. It is very helpful to have an alternative candidate, because exonerations occur even without, eg West Memphis three.

So the question is not as dumb as Leila suggests. How could a maths professor, a subject many here probably struggle with, spout such nonsense?

Leila may be numbers smart but clearly lacks street smarts. I was astounded by her lack of common sense when she was ridiculed on IA a year or 2 ago.

 

[Numbers]

How many contaminated samples would it take for you to trust a lab?

A typical way to claim to achieve absolutely no contamination in a DNA lab is by cheating - by not following proper procedures.

In the US FBI lab, Jacqueline Blake did not run proper controls as required by the lab SOP. Therefore, she never had any indication of contamination. She however signed official documents stating that she had followed SOP. She was convicted of falsification of government records.

Tests on DNA specimens that she conducted had to be rerun, insofar as possible depending on DNA quantity, because SOP had not been followed and there was no assurance of the quality (whether or not there was contamination).

Source:
http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/0405/chapter4.htm

Blake's misconduct in the DNAUI resulted from her failure to process the negative controls and reagent blanks in accordance with DNAUI protocols. Although she properly prepared these two types of control samples for amplification, she failed to follow established procedures when preparing them for capillary electrophoresis. The effect of this omission has been to render nearly all of Blake's PCR work scientifically invalid.
....
Blake performed most of these steps as required. However, she failed to add a portion of the amplified negative controls and reagent blanks to the tubes containing the internal size standard. Therefore, the negative control and reagent blank samples that were analyzed through capillary electrophoresis consisted of only the internal size standard. As a result, the negative controls and reagent blanks were useless in detecting contamination that might have been introduced during the testing process. In order for these controls to detect contamination, the amplified contents of the negative controls and reagent blanks must go through capillary electrophoresis.

Because she was not processing the negative control samples, Blake never had a need during her tenure in the DNAUI to record an entry in the Unit's contamination log. Yet, despite her prior training and performance problems, Blake's noteworthy and unusual record of contamination-free testing did not result in heightened scrutiny from Laboratory management.

 

[sept79]

Maths on trial

Mathematician Leila Schnepps writes

You know how the FOA keep asking "what's the probability that a young girl with no priors bla bla commits a murder?"

But you're not supposed to compute the probability of a YG having committed murder, you're supposed to compute the probability of a YG who has been accused of murder having actually committed it.

Among the set of YG's accused of murder (to which Amanda belongs), how many are innocent and how many are guilty? Your point is that they are basically all guilty. If your statistics are right, it's a very good rejoinder to their question; even if you ignore ALL of the evidence, you still get a high probability of guilt.

Of course, the question is so dumb anyway that it hardly matters, but still.

This Leila Schnepps is the same math fraud who thought that it was appropriate to apply statistics to the DNA Stefanoni found on the knife which Conti-Vecchiotti determined to be a result of contamination. Schnepps won't stop parading her misleading 'maths' around . . .

 

[Planigale]

Actually there is no reasonable ground to believe the ECHR would look into the issue at all. There is no reasonable ground to believe that defence submission to the ECHR will be significantly different from the reasons for recourse they had submitted to the SC, which were only about the usability of Knox statements (the delay of counsel was raised before the investigating judge and declared manifestly inadmissible).
There can't be an ECHR ruling that "clarifies the ground to restrict access to counsel in Italy"; the ECHR can't rule on "grounds that work in Italy", the Convention is valid everywhere and general; the ECHR also cannot establish the specific regulations; moreover it also has already an orientation acknowledging "good reasons" among which there's "effectiveness of criminal investigation".
The argument about motivations is pointless: motivations are made for judges, not for the ECHR, and the purpose of written motivation would be to request an investigating judge. But Mignini did not present a request to prolong the delay.

In an ECHR case Italy will be the defendant. The problem is taking a reductio ad absurd approach, if defendants were never permitted counsel prosecution would be easiest. Assuming one does not take that view then any restriction to counsel has to be justified, as you said specific and exceptional. Because of the equality of arms issue, if the prosecution have access to a lawyer (the pm) the defendant should have access to a lawyer. The ECHR can certainly rule that particular provisions of Italian law are in conflict with the human rights. Although you say the restriction of access to counsel was legal under Italian law because it facilitated the prosecution, you can give no reason why it was necessary other than preventing access to counsel disadvantaged the defendant. This case could be made in any case. If there was really true cause then mignini would have gone to court to justify the continued restriction to the five days allowed. that he failed to make the case shows there were no good grounds. The ECHR is clearly not going to favour the routine deprivation of access to counsel because it makes prosecution easier. The circumstances should be specific and exceptional. The grounds should be documented and challengeable. That the Italian courts failed to accept the argument is exactly what justifies the case going to ECHR.

 

[Methos]

The Calunnia against the Police

As we know "calunnia" is defined in Art. 368 c.p. as:

Anyone with denunciation, complaint, demand or request, even if anonymously or under a false name, directly to the court or other authority that has the obligation to report, blames someone for a crime that he knows innocent...

After Amanda Knox made this statement on March 13th, 2009:

Grazie signor Presidente, volevo insistere su un punto per me molto, molto importante. I testimoni stanno evitando ed anche negando i fatti sugli avvenimenti, sull’interrogazione nella notte del 5 e 6 novembre 2007.
Volevo precisare alcuni elementi che per me sono importantissimi e non riesco a lasciare stare. Prima ci sono ore, ore ed ore che loro non dicono che io ho confermato sempre la mia stessa storia anche quando io ho detto che Raffaele avrebbe detto che io sarei uscita da casa. C’era questa insistenza aggressiva sul messaggio che ho ricevuto e che ho risposto da Patrick, proprio aggressivissimi! Hanno chiamato “stupida bugiarda”, da tutte le parti... anche c’era questa storia del trauma che questa Donnino mi ha raccontato e poi successivamente ha suggerito che questo sarebbe stata anche la stessa situazione per me. Nel senso che proprio mentre io non ricordavo bene perché io ero traumatizzava e così dovevo provare di ricordare qualcos’altro. Poi c’è questi scappellotti sulla testa che ho veramente ricevuto... è vero, mi dispiace, è così! Volevo dire queste cose, grazie.

the prosecution (PUBBLICO MINISTERO – DR. MIGNINI)asked:

A questo punto la Procura chiede la trasmissione al nostro ufficio delle dichiarazioni rese da Amanda Knox.

because in their view Amanda Knox, with her statement had commited another calunnia. This time against... whom exactly? (The only indicator we have is who jumped onto the wagon as a civil party.)
Dr Mignini and Dr Comodi dutifully reported this crime to the relevant office, which happened to be their own.

Can someone please point me to the article of the codice penale in which the crime Amanda Knox allegedly accuses the police officers (it must be them because they signed in to be a civil party) of in the above statement, is defined?

Btw. it had to be "calunnia" because it couldn't be diffamazione, because everything said or written in court proceedings couldn't be diffamazione per Art. 598

 

[Samson]

Samson,

I am willing to take as a given that the majority of people who are defendants are guilty, but I don't see what that has to do with anything. This dialog doesn't strike me as a particularly strong PG argument. Patricia Stallings and Lindy Chamberlain were convicted (not just accused), yet they were both innocent. In both cases, there was evidence of a sort, but careful and objective examination (as opposed to sloppy, suspect-centered pseudo-science) showed that the evidence wasn't any good.

Chris, a quick reading suggests Stallings would still be in jail if not pregnant when incarcerated.

You could find the Mark Lundy retrial interesting, which begins soon. There is a speck of contested brain tissue involved, a very strong alibi, but no good alternative suspect. I might start a thread when the trial begins.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lundy_murders

I think he is supposed to have staged a break in.
Also of interest is the probability he would call a prostitute as an alibi, rather than for example, ordering a pizza by phone. The prostitute looked terrible in the eyes of the public, so could be deemed exculpatory.

 

[Numbers]

As we know "calunnia" is defined in Art. 368 c.p. as:

After Amanda Knox made this statement on March 13th, 2009:

the prosecution (PUBBLICO MINISTERO – DR. MIGNINI)asked:

because in their view Amanda Knox, with her statement had commited another calunnia. This time against... whom exactly? (The only indicator we have is who jumped onto the wagon as a civil party.)
Dr Mignini and Dr Comodi dutifully reported this crime to the relevant office, which happened to be their own.

Can someone please point me to the article of the codice penale in which the crime Amanda Knox allegedly accuses the police officers (it must be them because they signed in to be a civil party) of in the above statement, is defined?

Btw. it had to be "calunnia" because it couldn't be diffamazione, because everything said or written in court proceedings couldn't be diffamazione per Art. 598

But she had already wrote in a statement on Nov. 6, 2007 that she had been threatened and slapped by the police. Why was that not calunnia against the police?

It's terrible how unfairly the police are treated! {sarcasm alert}

 

[Samson]

Patricia Stallings, exoneration entry :

Contributing Factors: False or Misleading Forensic Evidence, Inadequate Legal Defense