Continuation Part 12: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Machiavelli]

Yes correct. The argument is steeped in the mind set of a person writing a book, which is generally, with the notable exception of OJ Simpson's an outpouring of best truthful endeavours.

I fully accept you will roll about laughing at my concept, but that will be because you are reading my idea with bias in your heart.

I am not laughing but... based on your concept Casey Anthony should be innocent; also Italian murderer Renato Vallanzasca should be; and the OJ Simpson exception is not easilly explainable.

 

[Bill Williams]

Innocent people simply don't do that, even less after a 2 and1/2-hour questiong.

Really? So you don't think this has ever happened before?

Machiavelli just continues as if he's not been refuted. So here it is again.

http://www.sciencealert.com/people-can-be-convinced-they-committed-a-non-existant-crime-in-just-three-hours

 

[Bill Williams]

The latest statement creates an improper straw man. In fact, the classical situation of the "false confessions" described by Kassin is not reacreated at all by events of our case. The statemet - just one statement - by Anna Donnino is the only element that allows you to try find a contact between the situations, which are in fact obviously different.

I may ask you, for example:

Do you really believe that merely offering a possible diplomatic chance of changing the story by setting a possible hypotheses, as Anna Donnino did, is enough to cause a false memory syndrome?With what probability?
And, given the example of Karl Fontenot - who suffered of a true false memory syndrome - don't you notice any little difference?
Can't you see, for example, that Karl never became a reliable witness, she never recovered her true memory and was unable to call her memories "false" (false memory syndrom is a serious clinical event, not a joke that the patient can handle).
Note also how false confessions are in fact "confessions", the suspects internalize a feeling of guilt, while Knox's is a a projection, and a calculated diverting the investigation from her by placing false evidence.
Notice also that Knox was a manipulative liar before and after the false accusation (in the Nov. 4. letter as well as in the Dec. 17. interrogation).
I may say many other things, but let's cut it. Just another point: by probabilities, how frequent common lies by suspects are, compared with an "internalized" confessions by unstable subjects after 2 hours la Karl Fontenot?

It's amazing, Machiavelli, that you would continue with this "Donnino as diplomat" thing.

 

[Machiavelli]

No. You are looking at one part of the article, and not the whole article, when you make these statements. Here is a part of the article that indicates non-defamatory statements are under legalistic attack in Italy:

The word "spurious" means (in the given context): "being such in appearance only and made or manufactured with the intention of committing fraud".

Source of definition: http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/spurious

In other words, in Italy, false claims of defamation are made to look like real claims to squelch free speech and the freedom of the press.

But does the article tell if those legal actions (which were mainly lawsuits from Berlusconi and his friends against newspapers and journalists) ever resulted in convictions?

(I can tell you they were not)

Because - try to be fair - you are not suggesting that Sollecito is targeted by a spurious legal action. You are rather suggesting something different, that is that the legal action against Sollecito will likely end in an unfair conviction of an innocent.

This is what you actually said. And there is no precedent for such assertion, there are no grounds not even in your quotes.

Thus, your point of contention is not with my statements, but really with a whole body of international standards, to which Italy is obligated to conform based upon its agreement to solemn treaties.

Actually European laws against defamation are often more strict than the Italian ones, but on principle I'm not contending with standards at all. I am actually just talking about the outcome of Sollecito's defamation trial: will he be found guilty or not? What he says in his book is true or not?

What I think is that you are attempting to downplay the significance of a possible finding of guilt, the conclusion that Sollecito is guilty of defamation (and thus, that he is a liar). To bolster this, you are quoting a letter (from the Berlusconi era) that complains about the chilling effect of possible legal action on media, which is obviously off-topic. What you are trying to suggest is, instead, that a possible conviction shall be regarded as non relevant on the - thoes I would call spurious - grounds that Italy system would be perverse, dispotic, fascist and so on (and thus Sollecito tells the truth in his book).

You are not complainig about a spurious legal action: you are attempting to defuse the significance of the outcome of such legal action, based on openly prejudicial generic allegations.

 

[TomB]

Do you really believe that merely offering a possible diplomatic chance of changing the story by setting a possible hypotheses, as Anna Donnino did, is enough to cause a false memory syndrome?

You are making a significant logical error here. You are considering a single event in isolation of all other factors that made up the interrogation.

 

[Desert Fox]

Innocent people simply don't do that, even less after a 2 and1/2-hour questiong.

Really? So you don't think this has ever happened before?

Machiavelli just continues as if he's not been refuted. So here it is again.

http://www.sciencealert.com/people-can-be-convinced-they-committed-a-non-existant-crime-in-just-three-hours

The problem also is that it was not just a single 2.5 hour interrogation but many hours over multiple days . . . .

 

[christianahannah]

Can you supply any scientific support for this astonishing statement? In addition, DNA is known to transfer during packaging and transport (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21546329abstract). Therefore, inferences based upon location of the DNA are dubious. Beyond that, 36I is a mixture; so there must be some unknown person bleeding according to this logic.

I don't know that trace 36I was declared blood but I seem to remember that it was referred to as biological fluids by the RIS. What is meant by this, I do not know. I can't remember if it was solely attributed to Amanda but it was not attributed to Raffaele, Rudy, nor to Meredith.

I don't have the page number where it is located in the report. Perhaps someone else knows where it is located.

 

[Desert Fox]

I don't know that trace 36I was declared blood but I seem to remember that it was referred to as biological fluids by the RIS. What is meant by this, I do not know. I can't remember if it was solely attributed to Amanda but it was not attributed to Raffaele, Rudy, nor to Meredith.

I don't have the page number where it is located in the report. Perhaps someone else knows where it is located.

I wanted to verify what 36I was
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/amanda-...y-from-knox-but-how-will-prosecutors-respond/

Based on this, not finding anybody other than Amanda's DNA on the knife, Nencini should have found Amanda innocent.

 

[Numbers]

But does the articel tell if those legal actions (which were mainly lawsuits from Berlusconi and his friends against newspapers and journalists) ever resulted in convictions?

(I can tell you they were not)

Because - try to be fair - you are not suggesting that Sollecito is targeted by a spurious legal action. You are rather suggesting something different, that is that the legal action against Sollecito will likely end in an unfair conviction of an innocent.

This is what you actually said. And there is no precedent for such assertion, not even in your quotes.



Actually European laws against defamation are often more strict than the Italian ones, but on principle I'm not contending with standards at all. I am actually just talking about the outcome of Sollecito's defamation trial: will he be found guilty or not? What he says in his book is true or not?

What I think is that you are attempting to downplay the significance of a possible finding of guilt, the conclusion that Sollecito is guilty of defamation (and thus, that he is a liar). You are trying to suggest that this must not matter on the - thoes I would call spurious - grounds that Italy system would be perverse, dispotic, fascist and so on.

You are not complainig about a spurious legal action: you are attempting to defuse the significance of the outcome of such legal action, based on openly prejudicial generic allegations.

{Highlighting added to quote.}

Your attempt to change the meaning of the word "spurious" is perhaps somewhat amusing. But "spurious" means, in short: false, fraudulent. Thus, (in the given context) it means the bringing of false charges of defamation against someone who has not committed defamation.

In other words, the article from the website of the Council of Europe - to which Italy is a founding member - authored by the human rights representatives of the UN, OCSE, and CoE, is in fact stating that defamation legal suits and/or criminal charges are filed against persons or organizations who have not committed defamation. The article does not specifically state whether or not such legal actions based on fraud have in fact resulted in convictions.

You state that I have an agenda (see highlighted sentence in your quote). In fact, I have no knowledge of what the upcoming defamation proceeding against Mr. Sollecito will bring. Let us see what evidence of defamation exists and how the Italian judiciary treats this case, and whether it displays an unbiased and fair approach.

You are, of course, displaying your own agenda in your attribution to me of a specific agenda. Your use of illogical arguments, twisted wording, repetition in the face of refutation, disregard for scientific findings - especially for forensics - and general obfuscation are classic propaganda techniques that show your agenda. You do not bring credible citations to support your points.

But it is important to remember that the courts and judiciary of Italy are not the final judges of their own conduct. That role is played ultimately by the people of Italy, but more proximately, by the European Court of Human Rights.

 

[Kaosium]

The latest statement creates an improper straw man. In fact, the classical situation of the "false confessions" described by Kassin is not reacreated at all by events of our case. The statemet - just one statement - by Anna Donnino is the only element that allows you to try find a contact between the situations, which are in fact obviously different.

I may ask you, for example:

Do you really believe that merely offering a possible diplomatic chance of changing the story by setting a possible hypotheses, as Anna Donnino did, is enough to cause a false memory syndrome?

Yes, which is why I've posted this excerpt so often:

While this concept has been addressed frequently in this text, it is worth repeating again--at no time should an investigator attempt to persuade a suspect he is guilty of committing a crime he claims he doesn't remember committing. It is one thing to express high confidence in a suspect's guilt (which will not cause an innocent person to confess), but it's quite another to make statements designed to convince a suspect, who claims to have no recollection of committing the crime, that he must be guilty of the offense.

Amanda was told the police had 'hard evidence' she was at the cottage when the crime was committed. The police were not taking 'no' for an answer, instead threatening her with thirty years in prison and never seeing her mother again unless she stopped 'protecting' the perpetrator of the crime. As she remembered nothing of this, she was faced with a false dichotomy: either she was at the scene and was lying about it to them, or she was at the scene and had 'repressed' the memory due to the trauma of witnessing the event. Since she knew she wasn't lying about it, the only other possibility was she had 'repressed the memory.' As she'd summoned mental images of Patrick (near the door of the cottage, the BB courts as she detailed in her note) when the police thrust the cellphone in her face insisting she stop 'lying' she assumed those must have been the 'repressed memories' returning.

It's not that difficult to understand, and is not that uncommon a phenomena which is why that text notes frequently how important it is for police to avoid trying to get a subject to admit to something they don't recall doing. The subject may believe police over their own memory, especially if a reason is given (repressed due to trauma, smoking hash) why they may not remember what police insist is true.

 

[AmyStrange]

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What is refreshing here is that both CoulsdonUK and tsig are de facto admitting that the Italian judiciary is corrupt. (Anglolawyer beat me to this observation, but then the time zones are on his side. Bloody Brits organized it that way!)

One cannot fault, really, Giuliano Mignini for seeking redress if he believes he was defamed.....

However, the implication above is that criminal decisions in the courts ARE effected by commentary, rather than the evidence. (Innocentisti complained about the effect of the media on non sequestered popular judges, and we were told that the media/books did not effect the!!!! Now tsig and CoulsdonUK admit, maybe they were!)

Strangely, this is one of the conspiracy theories of the innocentisti side - that after the Hellmann verdict Rocco Girlanda threatened investigations into the PLE for the malicious prosecution of two innocents. And that it was THIS (not the books) which caused even the Supreme Court to start to circle the wagons to protect the power of the PMs.

It seems in a backhanded sort of way, even tsig and CoulsdonUK agree.

Oh yes, and CouldsdonUK was dangerously close to expressing an opinion!

Er, no.

As I said when Raffaele published, it was stupid to do so before the third level verdict.

If he’d tried that in the UK he would have broken sub judice rule and been in contempt of court for publishing matters still under consideration by a court, this was Raffaele situation at the time of publishing.

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How is it stupid c if the judiciary is truly and honestly looking for justice? The only way I can see that as stupid is only if the judiciary really will go into the back room and decide to get them both for the books they wrote... and their little dog too.

Let me see if I got the last part right. It's considered a crime to publish anything in the UK before a verdict is in, and what exactly does publish mean, and is holding a press conference considered a form of publishing, because you know it will be published by the newspapers? And what about newspapers, how do they get away with it?

Interesting stuff,

d

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[AmyStrange]

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It is stupid because what one writes can be used against him or her. Sollecito and Knox changed the stories again and they came to show themselves liars at the third power.

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I keep reading about these lies, but I have yet to read anything about what these lies are exactly. Someone once posted a bunch of them but I lost the link to them. Maybe you could quote a couple Mach, just to refresh my memory.*

In my opinion, not only can it be used against them, but it can also be used in their favor, unless (of course) you're only using confirmation bias as your basis to convict...

d

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ETA: *Of course, the biggest lie has to be, I didn't do it. Αll the rest are just a trivia pursuit question waiting to happen.

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[Chris_Halkides]

attribution of 36-I

I don't know that trace 36I was declared blood but I seem to remember that it was referred to as biological fluids by the RIS. What is meant by this, I do not know. I can't remember if it was solely attributed to Amanda but it was not attributed to Raffaele, Rudy, nor to Meredith.

I don't have the page number where it is located in the report. Perhaps someone else knows where it is located.

On p. 139 Dr. Gill wrote, "36-I (junction of the handle and blade of knife) revealed a two person mixture attributed by the prosecution to Amanda Knox and and an unknown individual. He provided this link, which I cannot verify, being on a problematic computer.

 

[Numbers]

Yes, which is why I've posted this excerpt so often:



Amanda was told the police had 'hard evidence' she was at the cottage when the crime was committed. The police were not taking 'no' for an answer, instead threatening her with thirty years in prison and never seeing her mother again unless she stopped 'protecting' the perpetrator of the crime. As she remembered nothing of this, she was faced with a false dichotomy: either she was at the scene and was lying about it to them, or she was at the scene and had 'repressed' the memory due to the trauma of witnessing the event. Since she knew she wasn't lying about it, the only other possibility was she had 'repressed the memory.' As she'd summoned mental images of Patrick (near the door of the cottage, the BB courts as she detailed in her note) when the police thrust the cellphone in her face insisting she stop 'lying' she assumed those must have been the 'repressed memories' returning.

It's not that difficult to understand, and is not that uncommon a phenomena which is why that text notes frequently how important it is for police to avoid trying to get a subject to admit to something they don't recall doing. The subject may believe police over their own memory, especially if a reason is given (repressed due to trauma, smoking hash) why they may not remember what police insist is true.

Thanks for reposting the link. Good information presented well in that chapter.

 

[AmyStrange]

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Even Meredeth's DNA could theoretically have an innocent explanation
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_26055401/san-jose-case-casts-doubts-dna-evidence

Desert Fox,

There are many innocent explanations, such as the one put forth by Dr. Kekule. "The DNA traces on the knife blade could have been transmitted through the hands of Amanda Knox, who lived together with the victim and used her boyfriend’s knife for cooking. The evidence would have more weight if in addition blood stains were found."

In addition, Stefanoni concentrated the sample, and if she did so under vacuum then released the vacuum, this could have introduced aerosol DNA. Airborne contamination is a serious problem for small amounts of DNA.

I agree. . . . If the knife had been taken apart and blood was found in the handle crack, that would be some pretty serious evidence. If done by a neutral party, I think I would switch my stance as far as guilt although likely would still believe the trial was a travesty.

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I've always believed that also DF, especially the neutrality part. How would you work that though? I was thinking all sides get to pick one volunteer each from a college or university with a forensics program to oversee or do the whole thing... just thinking out loud, sorry.

I have to agree with that last about the travesty of a trial and a whole lot of other stuff that happened... in my opinion,

d

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[Desert Fox]

I've always believed that also DF, especially the neutrality part. How would you work that though? I was thinking all sides get to pick one volunteer each from a college or university with a forensics program to oversee or do the whole thing... just thinking out loud, sorry.

I have to agree with that last about the travesty of a trial and a whole lot of other stuff that happened... in my opinion,

Have a Dutch forensic lab do it with defense and prosecution watching

 

[AmyStrange]

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Have a Dutch forensic lab do it with defense and prosecution watching

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I like the last, but why the Dutch for forensics?

d

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[Strozzi]

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I've always believed that also DF, especially the neutrality part. How would you work that though? I was thinking all sides get to pick one volunteer each from a college or university with a forensics program to oversee or do the whole thing... just thinking out loud, sorry.

I have to agree with that last about the travesty of a trial and a whole lot of other stuff that happened... in my opinion,

d

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Several above comments discuss how an independent lab might be selected to test the knife again.

I would not accept any more testing of the knife as valid no matter how independent and competent are the examiners because I cannot be confident that the knife is in the same condition it was in when it was removed from the kitchen drawer. The knife was for much of the time in Stefanoni's possession. Stefanoni has shown that she is not neutral, scientifically-competent, and ethical. Stefanoni clearly favores one side over the other and has shown herself willing to manipulate physical evidence, test instruments, test procedures, machine-generated data, and interpretation of results. Stefanoni has a lot to lose and a lot to protect. Who knows what she may have wiped on the knife.

Didn't Stefanoni testify in the first detention hearing held in prison to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to detain Amanda that there were several hundred picograms of Amanda's or Meredith's DNA on the knife, when subsequent test results in fact showed the quantity to be much less - perhaps 1/5 or 1/8 of the quantity claimed by Stefanoni? Wasn't the quantity so low as to be a trace amount - suggestive of contamination rather than of transfer by direct contact?

 

[Kauffer]

Not only would this case not have made it to court in the UK and not only would Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito not have been arrested, it would not have occurred to anyone to consider they could possibly have been involved, as the Perugians did. And our police are not always the brightest bunch are they?

Yet, in the UK, Barry George was initially convicted of the Jill Dando murder, allegedly having converted a replica handgun into a working one, when he had neither the skills to do so nor access to a workshop capable of it.

With respect, that's not an accurate comparison of Perugian and British investigatory mistakes. Firstly, Jill Dando was shot dead on her doorstep. Secondly, Barry George was an individual with a relevant criminal history who lived half a mile away. In order for the British police to have matched the stupidity of the Perugians in this case, they would have needed to pin the crime on Helen Doble, Ms Dando's neighbour, who found her body. It was perfectly reasonable that George should have been a person of interest.

As it turned out, the spurious forensic evidence that convicted George was eventually discredited and he was released following a re-trial. But it did take seven years.

 

[Desert Fox]

I like the last, but why the Dutch for forensics?

I don't see them as having a dog in the fight

Strozzi does bring up a good point however
Getting a bit depressed because I have been watching 48 hours and how many people are convicted on what I consider voodoo or just bad science (even if they may be actually guilty)