Continuation Part 12: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Kaosium]

What? I hope I'm not muddling terms here, but is this confusing the sample's quantity with concentration?

Not quite, he's forgetting that the reading was 'too low' which means it didn't register at all. What he's calculating is the highest it might have been and still gotten a 'too low' from the Qubit. That's not any evidence at all of what it was because the reading 'too low' just means nothing registered, it says nothing about what might be there, zero produces the same reading.

Does this make sense to anyone?

No, it's gibberish.

 

[anglolawyer]

I sense desperation masquerading as exasperation from you, Machiavelli. 'Go tell it to a magistrate' 'the defence never argued X' and 'C-V screwed up 36I' are not arguments that work anywhere outside PMF.

 

[Planigale]

Stefanoni's statements were true, including her a posteriori estimation of probably some hundreds picograms (which she expressed only as personal and only probable estimation after pointing out that she could not tell, that she didn't have the datum and was her deduction in that moment when the defence was asking which one if it was more in the magnitude of picograms or in that of nanograms; and finally, that the datum happened to be correct).
Because based on later calculations abou the fluorimeter threshold it came out that it was, in fact, above 120-150 picograms.

And Stefanoni didn't provide any false information about footprints.

But these points are anyway unimportant. They don't change the problems of making false claims against Stefanoni. There are claims of lying, of manufacturing tests during secret sessions and of hiding and suppressing results. Those claims are false no matter how precise or complete the testimony of Stefanoni was. And those claims are what the pro-Knox who maintain them will have to prove.

Stefanoni has got herself into a bit of a double bind. If the quantity was above 100 pg then she had sufficient to run replicates, but she said the amount was too low to run replicates so she obviously thought it was much lower, probably less than 1000 ng (a hundred fold difference). 100 pg would not be LCNDNA, but everyone agreed it was, even Stefanoni never objected to this, so she obviously thought the amount was below 10 pg.

 

[Dougm]

Mach's recent posts, from the phony knife/sheet post to the obvious lack of understanding of what Stef's DNA analysis said, pretty much prove he doesn't even understand the facts of the case, at least as most people would read them.

The sky is not blue, the earth is not round, and we should go over to Italy and present our findings to the very people who have totally botched this case from day one, and continue to do so. REALLY???

I have yet to meet anyone who actually understands the facts of this case that argues for guilt, so I guess we should not be surprised. It really does kind of indicate how futile arguing with this particular multi-headed entity actually is, however.

 

[Bill Williams]

I sense desperation masquerading as exasperation from you, Machiavelli. 'Go tell it to a magistrate' 'the defence never argued X' and 'C-V screwed up 36I' are not arguments that work anywhere outside PMF.

Mach's recent posts, from the phony knife/sheet post to the obvious lack of understanding of what Stef's DNA analysis said, pretty much prove he doesn't even understand the facts of the case, at least as most people would read them.

The sky is not blue, the earth is not round, and we should go over to Italy and present our findings to the very people who have totally botched this case from day one, and continue to do so. REALLY???

I have yet to meet anyone who actually understands the facts of this case that argues for guilt, so I guess we should not be surprised. It really does kind of indicate how futile arguing with this particular multi-headed entity actually is, however.

I agree with both these posts, but then admit, "I don't get it," why, really, Machiavelli even has to be either desperate or ignorant of basic facts of the case.

Why doesn't Machiavelli just refuse to argue and just quote the "judicial truth"? Why does he even need to make his assertions, like, "'Go tell it to a magistrate' 'the defence never argued X' and 'C-V screwed up 36I'", or the most desperate of all - actually manufacturing evidence, by photoshopping an equivalence of Raffaele's kitchen knife with the bedsheet stain?

At best I'd like to think that Cassazione is signalling (to someone close to Machiavelli) that all the DNA stuff is about to be tossed. In the politicized world of the Italian judiciary (complete with internal "party" politics) even tossing the DNA junk Stefanoni was involved with does not necessarily mean acquittals to the two innocents....

..... but it would explain why Prosecutor Crini (without photoshop at his side) and now Machiavelli (WITH photoshop at his side) would try to turn to the bedsheet stain to keep the kitchen knife in this case. That knife, without DNA, would be the ONLY thing keeping Raffaele in the case. And with Raffaele out of the case, Amanda has an alibi.

If I were Machiavelli, I would simply stick with the "judicial facts", as found in the various motivations reports. Yet I know why he doesn't/can't do that!! For some unknown reason, Machiavelli has to keep reinventing the case - just like the convicting judges have to do!

 

[Numbers]

Remember the discussion some weeks ago about the State's responsibility NOT to allow leaks of information from a criminal case file? Here is an ECHR judgment showing that it is the State's responsibility to prevent leaks from the case file; leaks may be violations of Article 8 and may also lead to a violation of Article 6.

APOSTU v. ROMANIA 22765/12 03/02/2015


130. It is to be noted that the public’s access to information from a criminal case file is not unlimited or discretionary, even once the case has been lodged with a court. According to the applicable rules and regulations, the access of the press to the files concerning proceedings for the confirmation or authorization of telephone interceptions and recordings is limited (see paragraphs 69 and 70 above). Moreover, the judges might decide, in justified circumstances, not to allow a third party access to the case files. The Court cannot exclude that a judge dealing with such a request may undertake a balancing exercise of the right to respect for private life against the right to freedom of expression and information. Thus, the access to information is legitimately subject to judicial control.
131. However, no such possibility exists if, as in the present case, the information is leaked to the press. In this case, what is of the utmost importance is, firstly, whether the State organised their services and trained staff in order to avoid the circumvention of the official procedures (see*Stoll, cited above, § 61) and, secondly, whether the applicant had any means of obtaining redress for the breach of his rights.
132. In the light of the above considerations, the Court holds that in the instant case the respondent State failed in their obligation to provide safe custody of the information in their possession in order to secure the applicant’s right to respect for his private life, and likewise failed to offer any means of redress once the breach of his rights had occurred. There has consequently been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention.

 

[platonov]

There is a discussion on PMF about phone calls, briefly the conclusions are from Jar,

<snip>

Again with the PMF fixation. OK.

I’m surprised that you pay any heed to what’s posted there, given the low esteem in which they are held in cartwheel world.
Although IIRC [and if I say so myself my memory is quite good ] there was a time when their every move was commented on in this thread.

So, apart from phone calls what else are they on about these days.
Is it true that they are ‘politically correct’ types?

 

[TomB]

It's not a concentration, but rather an absolute amount in the 50 ml sample based on the concentration reported by the machine. The QF detection threshold was so high, that it couldn't see anything less than 3 ng in 50 ml. Thus, when you see <3 ng, it means that the result was given as "too low" by the machine. It is a non-detect, as you suggest.

Got it. It's the mass in the 50ml aliquot analyzed. (duh) It's the same math I encounter with the Hg data I deal with, but for our purposes, I'm used to converting it to ng/L.

Reading a bit about the Qubit flourometer. From the manufacturer:

The Qubit®
fluorometer has a limit of detection of 0.5 ng/ml and
an upper limit of 600 ng/ml (0.6 μg/ml) when the High
Sensitivity protocol has been selected.

http://www.promega.com/~/media/file...e with the quantifluor dsdna system.pdf?la=en

So what was the aliquot volume used?

By the way, I tried to get the document with the DNA results again, but the link no longer works. (404 error).

 

[Machiavelli]

Stefanoni has got herself into a bit of a double bind. If the quantity was above 100 pg then she had sufficient to run replicates, but she said the amount was too low to run replicates so she obviously thought it was much lower, probably less than 1000 ng (a hundred fold difference). 100 pg would not be LCNDNA, but everyone agreed it was, even Stefanoni never objected to this, so she obviously thought the amount was below 10 pg.

Stefanoni split the sample and used half of it. She decided not to split the remaining half as she feared to obtain no sample.
(But bear in mind that prof. Potenza and a magistrate were present and noted Stefanoni's extraction of the DNA profile).

It is not true that 100 pg would not be LCN according to several scholars, even among the Sollecito's defence (as they argued about the bra clasp as if it was an LCN sample), but this has actually little importance.

The point is: it is pointless for the Knox supporters to just go on stating something that is just as false as the rest of their claims about all other evidence. The fluorimeter has a sensitivity threshold in the tens of picograms/microliter, thus, it could never detect an absolute amount of 10pg. It would be impossible for the fluorimeter to detect anything at all in a figure below the magnitude of hundreds pg. Yet the Qbit fluorimeter did detect something, despite the "too low" note there was a signal which lead Stefanoni to decide to extract the profile anyway.
My understanding was also that it would be impossible to successfully multiplicate a profile starting from an absolute amount of only 10pg, given the concentration threshold of other equiment and the volume of solution employed.

But I also repeat the basic concept: anyway all this is irrelevant as for accusations against Stefanoni. The procedure was an incidente probatorio, the profile is undisputed, there is no possible contamination, and this "defence complaint" about alleged imprecision in Stefanoni's testimony is no evidence of any crime or misconduct.

 

[Numbers]

Stefanoni split the sample and used half of it. She decided not to split the remaining half as she feared to obtain no sample.
(But bear in mind that prof. Potenza and a magistrate were present and noted Stefanoni's extraction of the DNA profile).

It is not true that 100 pg would not be LCN according to several scholars, even among the Sollecito's defence (as they argued about the bra clasp as if it was an LCN sample), but this has actually little importance.

The point is: it is pointless for the Knox supporters to just go on stating something that is just as false as the rest of their claims about all other evidence. The fluorimeter has a sensitivity threshold in the tens of picograms/microliter, thus, it could never detect an absolute amount of 10pg. It would be impossible for the fluorimeter to detect anything at all in a figure below the magnitude of hundreds pg. Yet the Qbit fluorimeter did detect something, despite the "too low" note there was a signal which lead Stefanoni to decide to extract the profile anyway.
My understanding was also that it would be impossible to successfully multiplicate a profile starting from an absolute amount of only 10pg, given the concentration threshold of other equiment and the volume of solution employed.

But I also repeat the basic concept: anyway all this is irrelevant as for accusations against Stefanoni. The procedure was an incidente probatorio, the profile is undisputed, there is no possible contamination, and this "defence complaint" about alleged imprecision in Stefanoni's testimony is no evidence of any crime or misconduct.

If there was no fraud, she would have produced all the EDFs, and told about the contamination evident in the quantification records.
ETA:
And "too low" reading on an instrument means it may be reading nothing - there is always a "noise" level, a true reading must be sufficiently above the maximum level of the noise.

 

[Machiavelli]

There was no reading, just 'Too low.' The best you can do is estimate the most it could have been, but you have no evidence that there was anything in there at all. Zero produces the same results.

No. Zero doesn't produce a profile when amplified, and that profile was a high quality profile.

Because that looked more like he misspoke in court. Regardless the sample was in the low template range and the lab wasn't certified or equipped to do that work whether he'd said it correctly or not.

Conti and Vecchiotti lied, just as lying liars. They cheated. Not just on the "I" sample, also on other issues.
But on the "I" sample Vecchiotti cheated also in her decision, both in her method of deciding and in the merits of her decision not to test the sample, as pointed out by the Supreme Couryt. In Vecchiotti could have well extracted the DNA profile if she wanted to given the volume she had.
She also left samples unprotected in a non-certified refrigerator without temperature log and without thermometer, where part of their original volume was lost.

(...)

Remember my recent post where I showed you how to read an electropherogram? Look at the peaks of the knife blade from my first link ('blade chart, color' is the best) and compare it to NIST's trials with a 28 cycle Identifiler kit, which is what Stefanoni used. Look at the RFU range and compare, note how the 10 pg samples correspond closely to the knife blade RFU levels and how the 100 pg samples are 500%-1000% or so bigger.

Having failed to do Real Time PCR and gotten a 'Too low' on the Qubit only a liar or a fool would try to pretend the knife blade sample was on the order of 'hundreds of pgs.' She had to zoom that far in to even get a readable result, she had to have known she was dealing with much less than 100 pgs.

This is only your personal opinion, and it is an opinion which is judgemental and focused on the personal morals of Stefanoni (your personal interpretation and ideological view about that).
But in fact, Stefanoni is not the person under trial.

Your "belief" that her statement was a malicious lie is factually baseless (since prof. Potenza assisted at the test); it legally bears a burden of proof, otherwise it's pointless; quantization itself is no relevant information since a profile was extracted and it was shown there was no laboratory contamination (Novelli's analysis); it is a factually false allegation because does not even consider the actual statement of Stefanoni (where she says she doesn't know); also, an allegation of malice would have to make some sense (it makes no difference whether it is 100pg or 10pg, so lying would be unnecessary, without effect and pointless, thus would make no sense); and finally, opinions about Stefanoni's morals have no merits in the trial.

Thus there is nothing you can say about Stefanoni's "lying". You have no evidence in your hands to dismiss DNA evidence, and the elements about an alleged "lying" about quantization that you cite are pointless and irrelevant under any logical and legal aspect.

 

[Machiavelli]

If there was no fraud, she would have produced all the EDFs, and told about the contamination evident in the quantification records.

And if the defence wanted them, they would have asked them during the investigation and well before the end of the 2009 trial. And had the defence still wanted them after 2009, they would have submitted instances to the Supreme Court in order to have them and they would have asked them at the Hellmann appeal (which they did not do).

 

[AmyStrange]

-

No. Zero doesn't produce a profile when amplified, and that profile was a high quality profile.



Conti and Vecchiotti lied, just as lying liars. They cheated. Not just on the "I" sample, also on other issues.
But on the "I" sample Vecchiotti cheated also in her decision, both in her method of deciding and in the merits of her decision not to test the sample, as pointed out by the Supreme Couryt. In Vecchiotti could have well extracted the DNA profile if she wanted to given the volume she had.
She also left samples unprotected in a non-certified refrigerator without temperature log and without thermometer, where part of their original volume was lost.

(...)



This is only your personal opinion, and it is an opinion which is judgemental and focused on the personal morals of Stefanoni (your personal interpretation and ideological view about that).
But in fact, Stefanoni is not the person under trial.

Your "belief" that her statement was a malicious lie is factually baseless (since prof. Potenza assisted at the test); it legally bears a burden of proof, otherwise it's pointless; quantization itself is no relevant information since a profile was extracted and it was shown there was no laboratory contamination (Novelli's analysis); it is a factually false allegation because does not even consider the actual statement of Stefanoni (where she says she doesn't know); also, an allegation of malice would have to make some sense (it makes no difference whether it is 100pg or 10pg, so lying would be unnecessary, without effect and pointless, thus would make no sense); and finally, opinions about Stefanoni's morals have no merits in the trial.

Thus there is nothing you can say about Stefanoni's "lying". You have no evidence in your hands to dismiss DNA evidence, and the elements about an alleged "lying" about quantization that you cite are pointless and irrelevant under any logical and legal aspect.

-

Why EXACTLY wasn't there enough to run a second test on the knife for Meredith's DNA?

d

-

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Peak height imbalance

The fluorimeter sensitivity threshold is in the tens of picograms, if you have 10 microliters you have hundreds of picograms. It's elementary.

What is also elementary is that Conti and Vecchuotti cheated about the quantization of the "I" sample, that they lied about it was obvious to everyone, except the Knox supporters.

Machiavelli,

What utter nonsense; your claims get more and more outrageous. The peak height imbalances within each locus are very large in 36B; your claim of hundreds of picograms sits very uneasily with those data.

Conti and Vecchiotti did not amplify 36I because they felt that the result would have been unreliable. They were absolutely correct, and 36I added no useful information. Gubbiotti compromised the knife by opening it up, and Stefanoni compromised it further by testing it in a lab that had no business working with such small amounts of DNA. Even if Gubbiotti and Stefanoni had not double-botched the knife, it was wrong to test the knife at low template levels unless one had taken the knife to a dedicated facility. The profile that the Carabinieri obtained was unreliable and had one drop-in peak that I recall. Such a small amount of DNA as there was in 36I might have come about through transfer from the handle, as I have discussed previously several times. When the Carabinieri testified that one had to perform such a test twice, that should have been the end of the knife as evidence. If you really believed that Vecchiotti and Conti cheated you would not be hiding behind the cloak of anonymity when you said so.

 

[Bill Williams]

But in fact, Stefanoni is not the person under trial.

Yes, you keep repeating this axiom.

What it is shorthand for, is that Stefanoni's result should not be questioned; they simply should be accepted as both convicting courts accepted them, solely on her say-so. (Regardless of whether or not they make sense to other experts.)

In fact, when someone goes to testify at trial, for the time they are there giving evidence, they ARE under trial.

It could not be clearer - this is the gulf between you as one of the chief spokespersons for the pro-guilt lobby, and everyone else. When it comes to Stefanoni, every independent expert says her work is trash.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

For the hundredth time, he defense requested the EDFs.

And if the defence wanted them, they would have asked them during the investigation and well before the end of the 2009 trial. And had the defence still wanted them after 2009, they would have submitted instances to the Supreme Court in order to have them and they would have asked them at the Hellmann appeal (which they did not do).

Machiavelli,

I was in contact with some of the scientists who was consulting with the defense. The defense made multiple requests; all were turned down. The Johnson and Hampikian letter, which was co-signed by seven other forensic scientists, specifically discussed the EDFs.

 

[Samson]

Again with the PMF fixation. OK.

I’m surprised that you pay any heed to what’s posted there, given the low esteem in which they are held in cartwheel world.
Although IIRC [and if I say so myself my memory is quite good ] there was a time when their every move was commented on in this thread.

So, apart from phone calls what else are they on about these days.
Is it true that they are ‘politically correct’ types?

I know opinions differ, but my assessment as a relative newcomer is that their discussions will be part of an advanced sociological dissertation reasonably soon, one which I would enjoy reading.

The indomitable Mr Pink, who Machine wanted to ban pretty early in his career at PMF just said

"There would be no hand-wringing if they were simply minor errors. I admire Nencini for his no nonsense approach to the PR campaign antics. I don't know what happened with the written report. Maybe he had to piece together a bunch of incompatible details that were determined to be facts by his fellow judges. Let's just say they reached the right verdict, but they got there in a broken-down Yugo with two flat tires and smoke coming off the engine."

I hope that has you chuckling platonov....

 

[Planigale]

Just to be a pedant various people are talking about 50 ml this is 50 millilitres about 2 fl oz. I think we are talking about 50 mcl micrometers a thousand times less. The Qubit processes samples in the microlitre range, 5-20mcl.

 

[Wannaknow]

What you are seeing on the upper part of H is another imprint. Y is perhaps the cleanest of the prints that has not been smeared by subsequent traffic. If you trace that one you should be able to overlay it on H and see where there are multiple steps with decreasing traces of blood being left behind.

Y and I resemble, at least a litte bit, a part of trace H, that is right. Still, it is strange that H, at least in my view, ist much clearer than Y and Y is much clearer than I.

Greetings

 

[Chris_Halkides]

liters not meters

Just to be a pedant various people are talking about 50 ml this is 50 millilitres about 2 fl oz. I think we are talking about 50 mcl micrometers a thousand times less. The Qubit processes samples in the microlitre range, 5-20mcl.

Planigale,

Obviously you mean microliter, µL not micrometer.