Continuation Part 12: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Dan O.]

Come on be serious. No drawer was searched. No other room was searched and nothing was tossed around anywhere, only Filomena's room had this nonsensical theatrical chaos.

So many lies. Do you actually expect anybody other than another guilter will believe you?

 

[anglolawyer]

So many lies. Do you actually expect anybody other than another guilter will believe you?

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=597&pictureid=4167[/qimg]

Didn't Guede weave into his story something about looking for the missing rent money in order to explain in advance any inconvenient forensic discoveries? I am hazy on the details and may well be mistaken.

 

[Bill Williams]

Planigale - I bet you all the money in Bill's pocket this will get no answer. It neve r does.

My bet is that Machiavelli is firing up his photoshop to manufacture fraudulent evidence as we speak.

BTW - I have 20 quid in my pocket. I'll send you a PM with my address.

 

[Rolfe]

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-pers...affaele-sollecito-recalls-the-dreyfus-affair/

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.

It's a really good article though! I've read several people comparing the Megrahi conviction to the Dreyfus affair, but I have to concede from reading all that that the Perugia debacle is a far better comparison.

I'm just surprised, as always, by the absence of a time of death argument. For me that is the most conclusive feature of the case. I'm in no doubt that Meredith was dead before about 9.30 and indeed she was probably killed very soon after returning home. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence to support that, and of course the stomach contents are absolutely conclusive. If someone could explain to me how Knox and Sollecito were involved in a murder that happened before 9.30, it would be a more interesting discussion.

It's quite depressing to realise that people seem to find it so difficult to get their heads round the matter of the stomach contents, that such a completely exculpatory line of evidence is utterly ignored by most commentators.

 

[LondonJohn]

"Easier" is not an issue, when it is easy to get in Filomena's window.

It is not safer to go in through the balcony, because it is more visible. You can deny this all you want, but the pics of the cottage and the layout of the road are clear.

It's not even intellectually appropriate (or honest) to be trying to argue that "all burglars would have used the balcony, so Filomena's broken window must have been a staging". In fact, it's entirely plausible, feasible and reasonable that a burglar might have chosen Filomena's window as a point of entry. Whether "we" think that the balcony would have been a "better" point of entry is neither here nor there.

And that aside, there are actually many other reasons why Guede might have chosen Filomena's window. When it comes down to it, the only possible and reasonable points of entry were Filomena's window, or the balcony door, or the kitchen window which was also accessible from the balcony. As I've pointed out many times before, the balcony door and kitchen window were both of modern double-glazed design, and had locks. They would have had to have been manufactured in accordance with modern regulations. And provided they were closed and locked, it would very probably have been extremely difficult to have broken in through either the balcony door or kitchen window: double-glazed panes are very hard to break without specialised tools, and the locks and frames would similarly have been hard to jemmy.

By contrast, Filomena's window was a very old, wooden, unlockable unit, with thin single panes. It was, in fact, one of the most simple types of window through which to gain entry - notwithstanding its height. But it had a wide stone sill beneath it on the outer side, which would have made it easy for any intruder to perch on the sill while effecting entry (see the C5 video of the guy perching on the sill).

And there are other factors. Machiavelli is being disingenuous about the relative visibility of Filomena's window and the balcony. Filomena's window was in fact set quite far back from the road and at a much lower level. And it was in relative darkness (anyone remember Somealibi's hilarious contrast-altered photo?!). It was also opartially obscured by a tree that was largely in leaf at the time. The balcony was indeed visible to anyone travelling east-west by car, and from fairly close by (certainly far closer than Machiavelli's Google Earth Streetview photo would have us believe). In addition, Filomena's window had the attraction of easy and unobstructed exit if Guede were discovered or interrupted during the break in. He could either go down into the canyon or back up the driveway and onto the main road within seconds. By contrast, if he were discovered on the balcony, he would have had to get round the side of the cottage to escape - a much more hazardous and time-consuming endeavour.

Also, I think it's eminently possible that Guede might actually have tried out the balcony option first. By his own admission, he was "hanging around" outside the cottage for quite some time. It would certainly have allowed enough time for him to have climbed up to the balcony and tried the door and window. As I outlined above, I believe that he - with his lack of proper tools and specialist knowledge - would have quickly realised that it would take him far too much time and effort to break in through that door or window. At that time of night, there was simply too much risk of being spotted, even assuming he was able to finally gain entry this way anyhow. Therefore he might have gone to "option 2" - Filomena's window.

And lastly, regarding the post-murder breakins and thefts, we simply do not know how the "crack" police left the cottage. We do know, for example, that the front door was hanging wide open at the time Nadeau took her photograph. Would it be surprising if the same "crack" police team had left the balcony door or window unlocked (or even ajar...)? And in addition, whoever broke in at that later time had the luxury of knowing that there was guaranteed to be nobody at home, and probably broke in in the dead of night - when there would be little or no risk of being seen by passing cars or pedestrians, and thus ample time to overcome the double glazing and robust frames/locks.


All this is supposition, but that's the point. The point is that it's ludicrous to claim that one can simply follow that maxim of "all burglars use the easiest point of ingress" as an inviolable rule. And the point is that the balcony may indeed not have been the "easiest" (and/or least risky) point of entry for Guede at 8.30 on 1st November 2007 in any case.

 

[LondonJohn]

It's a really good article though! I've read several people comparing the Megrahi conviction to the Dreyfus affair, but I have to concede from reading all that that the Perugia debacle is a far better comparison.

I'm just surprised, as always, by the absence of a time of death argument. For me that is the most conclusive feature of the case. I'm in no doubt that Meredith was dead before about 9.30 and indeed she was probably killed very soon after returning home. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence to support that, and of course the stomach contents are absolutely conclusive. If someone could explain to me how Knox and Sollecito were involved in a murder that happened before 9.30, it would be a more interesting discussion.

It's quite depressing to realise that people seem to find it so difficult to get their heads round the matter of the stomach contents, that such a completely exculpatory line of evidence is utterly ignored by most commentators.

Good to see you back

I agree. There's no way - based on stomach/duodenum evidence - that Kercher was killed later than 10pm. It shreds Massei's convicting argument, and destroys most of Nencini's. I just don't think that the defence lawyers truly understand its importance and implications. The tragedy is that they manifestly did not properly understand it (and therefore they did not properly argue it) in front of Massei's court. In my opinion it was one of many shocking lapses by the defence lawyers.

 

[anglolawyer]

It's a really good article though! I've read several people comparing the Megrahi conviction to the Dreyfus affair, but I have to concede from reading all that that the Perugia debacle is a far better comparison.

I'm just surprised, as always, by the absence of a time of death argument. For me that is the most conclusive feature of the case. I'm in no doubt that Meredith was dead before about 9.30 and indeed she was probably killed very soon after returning home. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence to support that, and of course the stomach contents are absolutely conclusive. If someone could explain to me how Knox and Sollecito were involved in a murder that happened before 9.30, it would be a more interesting discussion.

It's quite depressing to realise that people seem to find it so difficult to get their heads round the matter of the stomach contents, that such a completely exculpatory line of evidence is utterly ignored by most commentators.

And by the defence teams.

 

[anglolawyer]

My bet is that Machiavelli is firing up his photoshop to manufacture fraudulent evidence as we speak.

BTW - I have 20 quid in my pocket. I'll send you a PM with my address.

You guys are using pounds now? Who knew?

 

[Machiavelli]

Does this mean that you are now claiming that there is no investigation or potential indictment?

Sometimes, Mach, I really just don't know if you are making accurate statements or not.

Could you include some special sign - one of the smilies, like this

when you are actually saying something with any validity.

You think someone who calls the guilters " authoritarians" and cites Fascism when talking about law should be taken seriously?

 

[platonov]

A strange new world of ‘broken window perplexity’

Massei was a judge not the prosecuting authority. What we see here is the prosecution hypothesis disproved, so the judge chooses a different hypothesis that the defence has no opportunity to refute because it was not presented in court. This is where the court system has not moved from an inquisitorial system where the judge legitimately develops a theory of the crime to an adversarial approach where the prosecution case has to be accepted if proven beyond reasonable doubt. Hellman appears to have adopted an adversarial approach - the prosecution failed to prove their case - case dismissed. The supreme court effectively pointed Nencini towards an inquisitorial approach whereby the judge had to synthesise a conclusion from an osmotic assessment of individual pieces of evidence rather than holistically assessing the prosecution case as given.

Again, Wow
So let me see if I have this right. Halides1 jumps in to answer the Q for you – that the prosecution posited that the window was broken from within the room while opened in.
Why h1 felt the need to do this is a mystery indeed but one that may soon be solved if its not already

Now you are claiming that your misunderstanding of a very simple point is in fact correct & that Massei only came up with this hypothesis after Pasquali’s demonstration & That the prosecution hypothesis is something else.

Really! Really?

 

[Rolfe]

And by the defence teams.

Yeah. I totally don't understand that.

Do they not understand the evidence themselves? Or do they believe that the judges are such thickos that the prosecution will be able to obfuscate the whole thing with irrelevant references to time for total stomach emptying and so on?

The pizza and crumble were still partially recognisable as their original food forms in the stomach, showing that they hadn't been there for all that long irrespective of whether some material had progressed to the duodenum (which it hadn't). The volume of ingesta in the stomach was consistent with the entire amount Meredith was known to have eaten that evening. None of this had progressed past the pylorus into the duodenum.

Given that the time Meredith consumed the food is known to within reasonable parameters, it's a slam-dunk. She was dead by 9.30 at the outside.

Oh sure the prosecution will try to obfuscate this by flannelling away about completely irrelevant references, and trotting up other references that declare GI tract contents to be an unreliable estimate of ToD (which they often are but not in this case), but is it really so hard to explain it so that a moderately intelligent lay person will understand? Particularly in the context of the evidence of the environment being most consistent with Meredith not having occupied the cottage or her own room as a living person for any significant time after her return?

I think there's politics being played with this whole area of evidence, with Lalli being criticised and people throwing around entirely spurious assertions.

 

[platonov]

And Wow again I’ll look back in tomorrow to see if you have figured it out.

And yet another case of ‘broken window perplexity’ – Kaosium don’t be angry with me but you must admit the recurrence of this stuff is astonishing.

Humour me Planigale (and I mean that literally) - What do you understand to be ‘the prosecution suggestion’ of how the window was broken?

So educate me what does Mignini say on this?

I'm trying.

The Q was .....
What do you understand to be ‘the prosecution suggestion’ of how the window was broken?

It's not that difficult is it?

 

[anglolawyer]

Yeah. I totally don't understand that.

Do they not understand the evidence themselves? Or do they believe that the judges are such thickos that the prosecution will be able to obfuscate the whole thing with irrelevant references to time for total stomach emptying and so on?

The pizza and crumble were still partially recognisable as their original food forms in the stomach, showing that they hadn't been there for all that long irrespective of whether some material had progressed to the duodenum (which it hadn't). The volume of ingesta in the stomach was consistent with the entire amount Meredith was known to have eaten that evening. None of this had progressed past the pylorus into the duodenum.

Given that the time Meredith consumed the food is known to within reasonable parameters, it's a slam-dunk. She was dead by 9.30 at the outside.

Oh sure the prosecution will try to obfuscate this by flannelling away about completely irrelevant references, and trotting up other references that declare GI tract contents to be an unreliable estimate of ToD (which they often are but not in this case), but is it really so hard to explain it so that a moderately intelligent lay person will understand? Particularly in the context of the evidence of the environment being most consistent with Meredith not having occupied the cottage or her own room as a living person for any significant time after her return?

I think there's politics being played with this whole area of evidence, with Lalli being criticised and people throwing around entirely spurious assertions.

The failure of the defence teams to cover this may have some mundane cause, such as lack of money. I really wish people understood better the financial and time constraints at work here. This was a massively complicated case, not like Dewani or Gillroy or Pistorius or any of the others we come across. Expertise across many disciplines was called into play. That imposes a huge burden on a cash-strapped defence.

 

[Rolfe]

I'm thinking maybe the defence team never actually understood it. That they gave too much credence to people handwaving the point away on spurious grounds. Once you understand it properly, it becomes a vital point to get over, possibly the most vital in the case.

 

[anglolawyer]

I'm thinking maybe the defence team never actually understood it. That they gave too much credence to people handwaving the point away on spurious grounds. Once you understand it properly, it becomes a vital point to get over, possibly the most vital in the case.

Perhaps in hindsight? After all, at what stage did the prosecution nail down the time of death it was gunning for? Mignini's closing speech or earlier than that? Presumably you agree that it is far from inconceivable that Massei might have found a way to solve this conundrum by the sort of mental gymnastics we see here just about every day.

 

[Rolfe]

I agree that fighting that prosecution was like fighting against a shape-shifting werewolf. They don't seem to have had any clear idea what they were accusing Knox and Sollecito of doing, or when.

I think when a prosecution seems weak, there is a temptation on the defence not to firm up details but to leave the whole thing as vague and amorphous as possible so as to give themselves maximum manoeuverability. I think this is usually a mistake. If you have clear evidence that A happened and B did not, and your client is actually innocent, then nine times out of ten you will gain from establishing that A actually happened, rather than leaving it all up in the air.

 

[Mr Fied]

I think the case is sound and closed beyond reasonable doubt. I can't see it as weak. It is iron-clad as for the amount of evidence.

If it is so iron-clad, perhaps you would be good enough to explain who was doing what during the murder.

Who was actually in the bedroom, and how did anyone else apart from Guede manage not to leave footprints in blood?

Who actually stabbed Meredith, Guede Knox or Sollecito?

You would have thought with all this iron-clad evidence that the prosecutor and each convicting court would have managed to agree on one story by now.

 

[platonov]

The ever spinning cartwheel

But after breaking the window, they would need to redistribute the glass in the pattern one would find if the glass had been broken by a stone thrown from the outside, scattering towards the door and over the clothing. They need to sort the glass fragments by size so the smaller fragments are distributed more distantly. They need to move the rock. They need to do all this very carefully, since there is a significant risk of cutting yourself on broken glass (note not safety glass), presumably using gloves since they left no fingerprints. Obviously not just wool gloves since this would have left fibres on the glass. Then having spent so much time moving around they need to clean the glass fragments that would have been in their shoes, and possibly clothes. Pack up and dispose of the gloves, along with the cleaning materials (where?). So quite a lot to do after breaking the window?

If Sollecito (or Knox) had gone out in the dark into the garden to collect a rock, come back into the flat, and broken the window, why is there no grass or mud from his (or her) shoes in the flat? The lack of any forensic evidence (no grass or mud) that would have been left if Sollecito (or Knox) had been out in the garden to pick up the rock then throw it then spend time moving glass fragments around disproves the prosecution hypothesis.

PS does anyone know were there kitchen gloves in the flat? Did any go missing? If not where would they have got the gloves from?

Planigale - I bet you all the money in Bill's pocket this will get no answer. It never does.

No, I responded on this several yrs ago

And if you do a search for a phrase along the lines of ......
“cant work out a problem that might be given to a 9yr old as part of a 'learning development' test but then want to go on to discuss 'glass distribution' and we are supposed to keep a straight face”
.........You may find other replies.

 

[anglolawyer]

I agree that fighting that prosecution was like fighting against a shape-shifting werewolf. They don't seem to have had any clear idea what they were accusing Knox and Sollecito of doing, or when.

I think when a prosecution seems weak, there is a temptation on the defence not to firm up details but to leave the whole thing as vague and amorphous as possible so as to give themselves maximum manoeuverability. I think this is usually a mistake. If you have clear evidence that A happened and B did not, and your client is actually innocent, then nine times out of ten you will gain from establishing that A actually happened, rather than leaving it all up in the air.

That goes against every fibre of my being. In a proper system, the burden is on the prosecution to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. If there is some vague but important part of the case that hasn't been covered properly focusing on it is liable only to stimulate the prosecution into noticing and improving a problem area. A good example here is the lamp. The defence had no idea what it was doing there and kept schtum about it. It didn't feature in the case at all until the cartoon and not at all in Massei's judgment. Consequently, nothing was made of it in their appeals to Hellman as it had (rightly) disappeared.

However, I did specify a proper system. The lamp has resurfaced in Nencini when it is too late to ask the questions that would have been asked had the defence decided to focus a spotlight on it.

In the good old days this principle that the burden was on the prosecution was properly observed in E & W. We now have a system in which the defence must file and serve a defence statement saying what the defence will be. This statement must take any technical points the defence is relying on even though this alerts the prosecution to the need to improve its case before trial!!!! That is just totally wrong!

 

[anglolawyer]

No, I responded on this several yrs ago

And if you do a search for a phrase along the lines of ......
“cant work out a problem that might be given to a 9yr old as part of a 'learning development' test but then want to go on to discuss 'glass distribution' and we are supposed to keep a straight face”
.........You may find other replies.

Your response does not address Planigale's point. You owe me 20 pounds.