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Continuation Part 12: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

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Comparison of Italy's prosecution of Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox with France's Dreyfuss affair. By S. Michael Scadron, retired Senior Trial Counsel with the U.S. Department of Justice and currently on the advisory board of Injustice Anywhere.

http://groundreport.com/italys-persecution-of-amanda-knox-and-raffaele-sollecito-recalls-the-dreyfus-affair/

Seems Mr. Scadron lacks the understanding - obvious to most Italians - that Hellmann's verdict was absolute ****, as well as the Vecchiotti-Conti report.

I anticipate he will have to add a new chapter to his conspiracy theory, when Hellmann and Vecchiotti are indicted.
 
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I've burgled before, and I have to side with Mach on this one, maybe not the balcony part, but from what I've seen and heard, that window wouldn't be my first choice.

Of course I would have to visit the house first at night before making a real conclusion, but if that window WAS the best choice (I like ground floor entries myself, maybe that makes me biased), I would have first climbed up there (to make sure I could), broke the window, and then jumped down and waited ten or fifteen minutes before finally going in,

d

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Would you consider ease of escape in case of detection? Also, would you assume you would be leaving by the same route you went in or by the front door?
 
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I've burgled before, and I have to side with Mach on this one, maybe not the balcony part, but from what I've seen and heard, that window wouldn't be my first choice.

Of course I would have to visit the house first at night before making a real conclusion, but if that window WAS the best choice (I like ground floor entries myself, maybe that makes me biased), I would have first climbed up there (to make sure I could), broke the window, and then jumped down and waited ten or fifteen minutes before finally going in,

d

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Well if he really felt like climbing through a window, then Amanda Knox's window would have been better, had a large grating below, is less far from the ground and less visible from the road than Filomena's.
 
Seems Mr. Scadron lacks the understanding - obvious to most Italians - that Hellmann's verdict was absolute ****, as well as the Vecchiotti-Conti report.

I anticipate he will have to add a new chapter to his conspiracy theory, when Hellmann and Vecchiotti are indicted.
Is this a serious possibility? I do hope so for a variety of reasons including:

1 it would make Italy's justice a laughing stock which would be favourable to pro-innocence opinion generally and hopefully in places that matter (like the American department of state responsible for dealing with extradition requests)

2 it would mean (if they were found guilty) the Hellman appeal would need to be re-run since Knox and Sollecito would be shown not to have received a fair and impartial appeal

3 (if acquitted) it would further expose the vindictive and ever-growing throng of malicious ass-covering knaves and fools to even greater ridicule if one can imagine such a thing (I realise it's difficult).
 
I will sue for breach of copyright! I made that comparison ages ago, not just because of the longevity of the case but because of its potential for fracturing Italy along political fault lines. The damages will be enormous! :). Drinks are on me.

Ok, so far I have you, me and Machiavelli. Machiavelli chooses the wine and you pay: this is non-negotiable. As you may well have figured out by now, I distrust him on most things, but not on a taste for wine.

He tells me he's choosing the French stuff. Who knew?
 
What are you making up? I said exactly what I am sayin gon: that the closest street lamp is 23 meters far from the balcony. And obviously only illuminates the road.
Now if you like choose an even farther one...

So you admit there are at least two streetlamps illuminating the balcony.

Is their illumination additive, or are you claiming that they cancel each other out?
 
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Let's mention some of the pysical evidence of staging.
We find this set of elements, and we find them occuring all at the same time
(enumerated synthetically):

1. the window is an illogical point of entry (you can deny this, but you won't change this). Thieves just chose the easiest or safest way in;
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I agree.

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2. there is no soil in Filomena's room (the soil below her window is dark and sticky);

3. there is no grass in Filomena's room;
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Remember the non-evidence of Rudy in the bathroom and the non-evidence of Amanda in Meredith's room.

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4. drawers in Filomena's were not searched, they were completely untouched (usually, drawers are just the first place where burglars search).

5. No other room was searched by the alleged burglar; apprent focus only the "entry point room" has no bearing with reality;
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I wouldn't have started in Filomena's room. I would have worried about the light in her room attracting attention. I would have started in Meredith's room, but that's just me.

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6. the tossing of clothes from the wardrobe is something obviously theatrical and bogus, it's something nonsensical for a thief; that's no thief activity (drawers in all rooms would make sense).

7. no valuable item was taken (despite many were easilly transportable);

8. money in Knox's room was not taken;
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Maybe before Rudy got started, Meredith came home.

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9. Amanda Knox fell into serious contradictions on her "discovery" of the alleged burglary: she "forgot" to check for her cash, she allegedly went to check in her room because worried about her laptop, but she "forgot" she had already been in that room that same morning to undress, to dry herself and to change herself (and the laptop is the most visible object as you enter the room); in her Dec. 17. interrogation she contradicts even her own version once more;

10. the window shutters were left closed by Filomena, albeit not locked; which a) further complicates the illogical entry, requires to climb twice, and then, b) subsequently, the shutters were found half open (they would be open if the thief entrerd thought there; they would be closed if the thief wanted to shut them: it makes no sense for a thief to leave one shutter half open, only a forgetful stager could do that; and there was not enough wind, nor in the rigt direction);

11. the rock bowled on a paper bag ripping it, and the ripped paper below the rock has fallen on top of a cloth that allegedly would have been tossed there by the burglar. Many people appear to forget about this; but this is one element more that shows that the rock was thrown after the clothes had been already tossed around.

12. the glass shards on the sill were not touched; any thief balancing there or holding there somehow would tend to remove them or anyway disturb them, move them, collect them or make them fall. Yet they are untouched, as if nobody stepped on the sill.

13. Filomena testified that items (such as the laptop, covered by a tossed cloth) were covered by tiny pieces of glass;

14. no DNA from epithelial cell found on the sill or on the window frame;

15. there is large crumbles of white paint from the painting of the window inner shutter that were fallen on te clothes strewn on the floor (further evidence suggesting clothes were tossed before the smashing);

16. no footprints were found on the soil/grass beneath

17. the rest of circumstantial evidence pointing in the direction of Knox being in the room carrying Meredith's blood, rather than Guede (mixed DNA vitcim + Knox in Filomena's room on luminol stains), no glass outside, the manouver of opening the window sticking an arm though a guillotine shaped glass while climbing a wall seems dangerous and not something a burglar is eager to do, testimonies of police about the soil being wet, lack of relation between burglary and the kind of murder (rape and extreme violence) etc.
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Most of the rest can be explained away with a similar probably innocent explanation,

d

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Is this a serious possibility? I do hope so for a variety of reasons including:

1 it would make Italy's justice a laughing stock which would be favourable to pro-innocence opinion generally and hopefully in places that matter (like the American department of state responsible for dealing with extradition requests)

2 it would mean (if they were found guilty) the Hellman appeal would need to be re-run since Knox and Sollecito would be shown not to have received a fair and impartial appeal

3 (if acquitted) it would further expose the vindictive and ever-growing throng of malicious ass-covering knaves and fools to even greater ridicule if one can imagine such a thing (I realise it's difficult).

I think Hellmann and Vecchiotti will be indicted just because of what they are: in my opinion, corrupt.

The Hellmann appeal doesn't exist, except for calunnia. It could be re-run exclusively for the calunnia part, but I assume it would not, if the investigation finds out that it was the defendant parties who corrupted the court.
 
I think Hellmann and Vecchiotti will be indicted just because of what they are: in my opinion, corrupt.

The Hellmann appeal doesn't exist, except for calunnia. It could be re-run exclusively for the calunnia part, but I assume it would not, if the investigation finds out that it was the defendant parties who corrupted the court.
Is there one? Who is conducting it?
 
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Would you consider ease of escape in case of detection? Also, would you assume you would be leaving by the same route you went in or by the front door?
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Front door, no question, or a back door (which would be better), unless i had no other choice, then I would go out the way I came in.

Of course climbing in a window is easier than climbing out of one,

d

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I will sue for breach of copyright! I made that comparison ages ago, not just because of the longevity of the case but because of its potential for fracturing Italy along political fault lines. The damages will be enormous! :). Drinks are on me.

I'll take those damages from you! Then I will have to pass them on to Charlie Wilkes as I believe he mentioned Dreyfus before I registered.

I just checked--he did.

Bummer!

Easy come, easy go. :)
 
Seems Mr. Scadron lacks the understanding - obvious to most Italians - that Hellmann's verdict was absolute ****, as well as the Vecchiotti-Conti report.

I anticipate he will have to add a new chapter to his conspiracy theory, when Hellmann and Vecchiotti are indicted.

What makes you think Hellmann and Vecchiotti will be indicted?

BTW, why has Conti been forgotten? You regularly rage about Vecchiotti but not Conti--why is that?
 
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Front door, no question, or a back door (which would be better), unless i had no other choice, then I would go out the way I came in.

Of course climbing in a window is easier than climbing out of one,

d

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You've burgled? WTF!

Who knew? Have you ever decided to team up with two strangers connected to an apartment you had cased, and committed a sex murder with them on the fly, just because?

This thing about needing to go to the bathroom after breaking a window, fact or fiction? And is flushing a part of it?

Do you also have black-out fugue states, and like Rudy, make yourself at home, and pretend to have a family life once inside?
 
Seems Mr. Scadron lacks the understanding - obvious to most Italians - that Hellmann's verdict was absolute ****, as well as the Vecchiotti-Conti report.

I anticipate he will have to add a new chapter to his conspiracy theory, when Hellmann and Vecchiotti are indicted.

Mach,
Here are some excerpts from Michael Scadron's article. I think you will enjoy them. {Emphasis added.}

http://groundreport.com/italys-pers...affaele-sollecito-recalls-the-dreyfus-affair/


The appeal, presided over by Judge Claudio Hellman, resulted in acquittal in October 2011 based on actual innocence, chiefly because the court-appointed experts demolished the validity of the DNA evidence pertaining to the knife and bra clasp. In his decision, Judge Hellman noted that there wasn’t one piece of objective evidence pointing to guilt. Essentially, he found the prosecution’s case, and the prior judgment of the lower court, lacking in logic or common sense. Knox and Sollecito were set free with Knox returning home.

The Hellman Court’s exoneration of the two defendants proved to be an insult to the magistrates involved in the case. In Italy such insults must be avenged and reputations preserved. In 2013 the Supreme Court annulled the acquittal and ordered a re-trial to be governed by a presumption of guilt. Not surprisingly, the re-trial resulted in a second conviction and an increased sentence for Knox.

In May 2011, in the midst of the first appeal, as DNA testing of the knife and clasp was being exposed as unreliable, 11 lawmakers from Berlusconi’s center-right coalition petitioned the Justice Ministry to investigate the prosecution’s handling of the case. They requested that inspectors be sent into the office of the magistrates in Perugia for that purpose. While nothing came of this request, the Hellmann Court’s exoneration of Knox and Sollecito in October 2011, coupled with its declaration that the case was nonsense, proved a further insult to the magistrates who had brought the case to trial. Following the verdict, Judge Hellmann added fuel to the fire, infuriating Italian chauvinists by stating in an interview that the impetus for the case was political, that many wanted Amanda in prison because she was American.

After the Supreme Court’s annulment of the acquittal in March 2013, Judge Hellmann gave an interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa in which he said he wasn’t surprised by the reversal because the prosecutor’s lobby had strong influence in the high court. He was, of course, referring to factions opposed to Berlusconi’s center-right coalition, an influence on the left side of the political spectrum.
 
DNA commission of the ISFG

Seems Mr. Scadron lacks the understanding - obvious to most Italians - that Hellmann's verdict was absolute ****, as well as the Vecchiotti-Conti report.

I anticipate he will have to add a new chapter to his conspiracy theory, when Hellmann and Vecchiotti are indicted.
Machiavelli,

Peter Gill's chapter on the Knox/Sollecito case in his book Misleading DNA Evidence supports and extends the criticisms of the DNA profiling that Vecchiotti and Conti initially detailed. Dr. Gill is president of the DNA commission of the International Society of Forensic Genetics.
 
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Well if he really felt like climbing through a window, then Amanda Knox's window would have been better, had a large grating below, is less far from the ground and less visible from the road than Filomena's.
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I remember reading that somewhere else that Amanda's window was the easiest. I think it was in Follain's book, but I'm not sure.

Of course, if it's true that Rudy has used this almost exact method to break and enter before, that adds credibility to the arguement that he did break in that way, but that still doesn't change my feelings about that window not being my first choice of entry,

d

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Yes, they leave little room for ambiguity: Knox is toast, while Numbers has not the farthest clue about what jurisprudence or criminal law is, or even what ECHR law is.

Mach,

Thanks for the mention. I take pride in the opinion you express of me.

But have you ever considered actually reading and citing relevant ECHR judgments? They are relatively clearly written, a little dry perhaps, the vocabulary only slightly legalistic, not too long, but straight on target for logic. Look for the commonality of precedence in cases such as the seventy-five or so cases that reference Salduz v. Turkey. And there is always the Guide on Article 6: The Right to a Fair Trial (Criminal Limb) for help.

See: http://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=home

and: http://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=caselaw/analysis&c=
 
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