Continuation Part 13: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Numbers]

I've been reading the treasure trove of new documents on Naseer Ahmad's fake wiki.

We've all heard so much about Raffaele's Kate Mansey interview with guilters saying he changed stories and told lies and we always said she was a useless hack and her articles were filled with mistakes. Well on page 25 of the Knox phone taps she's telling someone Raffaele is pissed because he spoke to a journalist and they twisted everything he said.

In Raffaele's phone taps on page 9-10 he's telling someone he did the interview because they worked for the paper that the father of the girl who died worked for and he couldn't say no.

on page 28 he says "she slept with me that night then we went to the house the next morning and found everything".

on page 95 of the prison bugging. Amanda tells her parents the cops beat her and her parents tell her the lawyers said they can't say that because they'd have to file a complaint and it'll lead to more problems. In another part she clearly identifies the person who did it was the woman who lead her outside on the 6th.

{Highlighting added to quote.}

That the lawyers thought a formal complaint would lead to more problems is significant from an ECHR POV. This suggests the lack of a practical and effective remedy in Italy for police misconduct, a violation of the Convention Article 13.

 

[Numbers]

You are of course correct. The ECHR cannot reverse convictions. I should have been more precise in my earlier comment, and appreciate your correction of my casual statement.

The ECHR may determine that the manner in which Knox's statements were obtained and used (interrogation of one who is clearly suspected, without providing the suspect with legal protections due a suspect) violated her rights, and order Italy to remedy (vacate) the resultant conviction. Italy can of course refuse to do so.

I wonder how other countries or organizations might respond if Italy were ordered to remedy the conviction and failed to do so? The U.S. Department of State would almost certainly include this in both internal use and public assessment of human rights and legal conditions in Italy. Would they have to issue guidance or a "travel advisory" to U.S. citizens in Italy or to citizens contemplating travel to Italy?

Would U.S. college and university administrations have to consider this as they contemplate continuing their study abroad programs in Italy? Suppose a university sent students to Italy and one fell under suspicion in a crime and had their rights as a suspect violated by Italian authorities in a similar way as occurred to Knox. What is the legal obligation and liability of the university in such a case? I suppose universities can ask students to sign waivers before going on a university-approved study trip to Italy.

There should be an insurance program set-up. If a student wanted to study abroad in a country such as Italy or Russia, or any of those with a high number of ECHR applications, they should pay a significant insurance premium to cover the costs of retaining legal counsel for the students as a group. Also, the students should be required to live in housing controlled by the university and with appropriate security (no easy break-ins likely).

 

[Dan O.]

Being mistaken is not always lying, Dan O.

When one is presenting themself as an authority on a subject, there is no being mistaken. We will see when Machiaveli returns if he admits he was wrong or if he doubles down with another lie.

 

[Desert Fox]

The US is not in a position of lecturing Italy about human rights.
Nobody in Italy cares about what American institutions think about human rights in Italy.
And you may be equally concerned about what Europeans may think about US handling of human rights and international laws.

The US is not one entity. . . . .The liberal states (which Washington is one) likely have a better track with human rights than Italy. I would argue that even compared to Virginia, it is a mixed bag not including the death penalty.
While Washington state also has the death penalty, it has only been used five times since 1976 and is under a moratorium currently. I would not be surprised if the death penalty is repealed in the next few years in Washington state.

 

[Desert Fox]

There should be an insurance program set-up. If a student wanted to study abroad in a country such as Italy or Russia, or any of those with a high number of ECHR applications, they should pay a significant insurance premium to cover the costs of retaining legal counsel for the students as a group. Also, the students should be required to live in housing controlled by the university and with appropriate security (no easy break-ins likely).

They are legally adults. . . . .They can move to Saudi Arabia if they wish.
My argument though is that Italy has already badly lost from this case. The number of American students in Italy have plummeted.

 

[Desert Fox]

I've been reading the treasure trove of new documents on Naseer Ahmad's fake wiki.

We've all heard so much about Raffaele's Kate Mansey interview with guilters saying he changed stories and told lies and we always said she was a useless hack and her articles were filled with mistakes. Well on page 25 of the Knox phone taps she's telling someone Raffaele is pissed because he spoke to a journalist and they twisted everything he said.

In Raffaele's phone taps on page 9-10 he's telling someone he did the interview because they worked for the paper that the father of the girl who died worked for and he couldn't say no.

on page 28 he says "she slept with me that night then we went to the house the next morning and found everything".

on page 95 of the prison bugging. Amanda tells her parents the cops beat her and her parents tell her the lawyers said they can't say that because they'd have to file a complaint and it'll lead to more problems. In another part she clearly identifies the person who did it was the woman who lead her outside on the 6th.

There is this literary tool called textural criticism where when somebody writes something against their own position, it is more likely to be true. If the pro guilt side is admitting to this, it is more likely to be true.

 

[Diocletus]

The US is not in a position of lecturing Italy about human rights.
Nobody in Italy cares about what American institutions think about human rights in Italy.
And you may be equally concerned about what Europeans may think about US handling of human rights and international laws.

Well, what Italy does need to be concerned about is what the echr thinks. Because, you know, Italy signed a treaty. The us doesn't really have that problem. Also, Italy needs to be concerned about what the us thinks about Italy's poor human rights practices in this case, because Italy needs something from the us. Whatever Italians think of us human rights practices is totally irrelevant.

 

[Bill Williams]

Why, in any case, should the EDFs not have been handed over without asking, in pre-trial discovery?

I wonder if the Judges are asking this now, as they review the case files.

Probably not. As Machiavelli reminds us, in Italy people giving evidence are not on trial. Especially police, they are simply giving the facts and no one has the right to ask how they came to the conclusions they did.

This is not what I said.I said that defenses indeed can question the about you they reached their conclusions, an can question their credibility.
But if they want to push a theory that they are lying, they need to present evidence of that.

This right to cross question witnesses is essential, in order to make someone be a witness, but this goes for all parties not just the defence, and all kind of witnesses. Thus, it would be also essential if there are experts who may have opinions on some scientific findings. Without answering questions and be questioned, there is no witness.

Now it's my turn, Machiavelli, as for me I have rarely raised the spectre of actual lying. This is where I wish you would deliver on your brag of precision.

This is not what I've said.

For me, I am not saying anyone needs to "lie" for someone else to doubt their testimony. Part of the imprecision of your responses is to continually move to the goalposts into "you're accusing them of lying" territory, when I for one tend not to do that.

So please do not misquote me as you accuse me of misquoting you.

Example: at cross-examination, Stefanoni is shown a video, a video her own police took, which shows her potentially handling the bra-hooks:

​

Bongiorno asks her if this is her handling the hooks with obviously dirty gloves. At trial, Stefanoni tells a partial truth - she can neither confirm nor deny she'd handled them. (Note the hidden hook, hidden by her finger - Stefanoni is wisely not lying with her answer.)

In response to things like this, it is not an issue of accusing Stefanoni of lying, it's really an issue of - did Bongiorno right then, right there cast doubt in the collection procedures. One does not need to prove Stefanoni lied......

...... unless the criminal charge is against her, at a trial in which she's the defendant. At AK and RS's trial, it is enough to cast doubt.

Yet you and others often default to things like, "Stefanoni is not on trial here." Indeed, this appears to be Judge Massei's own reasoning when considering all the evidence which points to faulty collection techniques.... even before considering:

1) the 118 Medical staff came on Nov 2 into the bedroom with no protective covering (Napoleoni's testimony)

2) Stefanoni admitted at least one other male subordinate of hers handled the clasp​

Etc.

The issue of Stefanoni (potentially) lying belongs to her own trial. But Massei seals the deal, following your own lead, "Stefanoni is not the one on trial here," by dismissing all the doubt about her abilities and the cleanliness of her lab by saying in his motivations report: he can see no reason to doubt her at her word when she says she's never had contamination.

One might want an independent evaluation of Stefanoni's brag - but wait a minute!!!!! every independent evaluation has trashed Stefanoni's work, including Conti & Vecchiotti.

So, please limit your criticism of my posts to what I say, not what you think they say. It appears that you are right - police/court experts are NOT under trial and at trial are to be judicially believed on their own say so regardless - even if convincing doubt is established!

If you want to venture into speculating about lying (rather than simply being mistaken or incompetent) that is your problem, not mine. In the example above about Stefanoni's testimony, Bongiorno more than established that at minimum, Stefanoni was either mistaken or incompetent (and Massei believed Stefanoni nonetheless simply on her say-so). Let a PM charge Stefanoni with lying if you need that- oh wait, they only charge the parents of the wrongful convicted, don't they!

 

[Rolfe]

Example: at cross-examination, Stefanoni is shown a video, a video her own police took, which shows her potentially handling the bra-hooks:

[URL]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_5397154cd64bdf2e8d.jpg[/URL]
​

Bongiorno asks her if this is her handling the hooks with obviously dirty gloves. At trial, Stefanoni tells a partial truth - she can neither confirm nor deny she'd handled them.

Irrespective of the presence of dirt on the finger indicated, the glove on the finger holding the clasp is SPLIT! This is a complete no-no. The minute you realise a glove is split, you must change it.

As a personal observation, I'd say that the location of that split is consistent with its being caused by the same glove being worn for longer than they're supposed to be worn for, and thus splitting over the fingernail. They go like this when you've been handling a lot of things with the same glove.

 

[NotEvenWrong]

...... Hedderich is attacked by a badger.

NotEvenWrong is counterattacked by a troll. A miss! Troll attempts to evade but it proves ineffective.

No. – see first para in first link of post 723.

OK, I am reading the first paragraph in the first link of post 723. Here it is:

I see the early and precise ToD is still spinning merrily away and being ignored in the real world. Have no fear, I have no intention revisiting this trope for either comedic or educational purposes - it was disposed of years ago.
However as Rolfe among others has raised it again it would be wise [and an act of kindness] to stress test another aspect of her argument.

This is completely meaningless. I gave you a peer reviewed scientific study on gastric emptying which proves it is impossible Amanda Knox was at the cottage when Meredith was killed, since we know approximately when Meredith's last meal began, and we know the time Amanda and Raffaele were last at Raf's apartment from the time of access of a computer file.

You respond by directing me to a link from a post... which links to another post... where you are saying something about precise ToD spinning merrily away and being ignored in the real world. Then something something comedy, education, and it being disposed of years ago. This is your refutation to known, empirical, scientific fact?

And, to top it off, it looks like 4 posts later LondonJohn proved that you were either deliberately lying about the 4 hour number or were not intelligent enough to understand the actual testimony. Bravo, platonov.

Weren't you the guy who keeps saying "cartwheel world" and you're only interested in quantitative numbers? What the heck do you mean by that if you are completely ignoring all actual statistics and empirical facts on gastric emptying?

Or read the thread.

When people are horribly losing an argument and are proven wrong by something as strong as peer reviewed scientific journal articles, it is a common tactic for them to say something like "read the thread". As if some nebulous part of a huge thread somehow disproves scientific fact because some crackpot talked about it one time. Let me guess, you disproved Gill too in the same post? Did you manage to falsify the moon landing? The 9/11 inside job? Prove Einstein and Darwin wrong too while you were hammering away at your keyboard one evening?

Well, if so, c'mon let's see it. Let's see how you proved all of science wrong and Amanda Knox was actually at the cottage when Meredith was killed. I'm sure you've got a link somewhere if you have written something this important, and it's not actually impossible to be found because it's "somewhere in the thread". Let's go platonov -- you're getting my hopes up! I don't think you're just a loony crackpot (yet), so let's see some evidence and logic.

 

[Machiavelli]

Machiavelli, I wonder if Curatola would agree with you about no retaliation from authorities when they speak. We could ask him, but he is dead. He died in detention.

Curatolo, at the repeated prompting of a wanna-be journalist months after the night of the murder, "remembered" having seen something that made him a witness in this very high profile case. The police or prosecutor then decided to pick him up (arrest him) for a drug deal they knew about from 4 or so years earlier. What they were really doing at that point was to take Curatolo off the street so he could not be interviewed by journalists or defense counsel, as that would expose his garbled account of what he allegedly saw or the manner in which Curatolo, who immediately following the night of the crime had told a police officer he had seen nothing, came to his recent sensational story.

Curatolo would certainly agree, as for everything he said this is what he thought, and because this us the self-evident truth.
Curatolo did not die in detention. He died in his small apartment, as Castellina wrote in his report. He was under conditional freedom, but just for his petty drug trafficking, not because of things he said about authorities.

Of course, you can pick any fit of reality and make up a fantasy story about it. This is something you like to do, about Marzi picking up the kitchen knife for example or about Mignini purportedly having responsibility to protect Knox from police hitting. You may pick bits - as you do - and then draw a fantasy story that spins along with your prejudice. This you can do on anything in any direction.
So you can well make up that in Italy people live in fear of talking about authorities, as long as you allow your fantasy to crook and invent you can say everything.

 

[Machiavelli]

Well, what Italy does need to be concerned about is what the echr thinks. Because, you know, Italy signed a treaty. The us doesn't really have that problem. Also, Italy needs to be concerned about what the us thinks about Italy's poor human rights practices in this case, because Italy needs something from the us. Whatever Italians think of us human rights practices is totally irrelevant.

Frankly, I don't think Italy needs to be concerned at all.
The US might be concerned about the extradition treaty, that has some practical consequence.
I also think that Knox will have some time to be concerned, and that likely it will be from the inside of a prison. But it's just my personal anticipation. It doesn't really matter to me that much now how events evolve. One thing I can say rather confidently is that Italy is not going to say "Knox is innocent" at any time soon.

 

[Numbers]

They are legally adults. . . . .They can move to Saudi Arabia if they wish.
My argument though is that Italy has already badly lost from this case. The number of American students in Italy have plummeted.

But there can be reasonable requirements imposed if one is in a university program and will be getting university credit. That is the difference between what the students are doing and what one might do as an individual and, for example, go off to live in an area that is a conflict zone.

 

[Bill Williams]

So you can well make up that in Italy people live in fear of talking about authorities, as long as you allow your fantasy to crook and invent you can say everything.

This is a strawman argument. The point is that when people criticize Mignini, 20 (or more) have ended up with charges against them.

I'd say Mignini is a fellow not very confident in his own reputation, that what his friends and colleagues know about him will be the only defence he needs.

 

[Rolfe]

But there can be reasonable requirements imposed if one is in a university program and will be getting university credit. That is the difference between what the students are doing and what one might do as an individual and, for example, go off to live in an area that is a conflict zone.

Insurance is a good idea. However I'm not sure that a requirement to live in secure supervised accommodation is what students want when they study abroad, and indeed it's likely to impact negatively on their experience. Getting in there with the locals is surely a part of it all.

 

[Machiavelli]

Now it's my turn, Machiavelli, as for me I have rarely raised the spectre of actual lying. This is where I wish you would deliver on your brag of precision.

This is not what I've said.

For me, I am not saying anyone needs to "lie" for someone else to doubt their testimony. Part of the imprecision of your responses is to continually move to the goalposts into "you're accusing them of lying" territory, when I for one tend not to do that.

So please do not misquote me as you accuse me of misquoting you.

Example: at cross-examination, Stefanoni is shown a video, a video her own police took, which shows her potentially handling the bra-hooks:

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_5397154cd64bdf2e8d.jpg[/qimg]​

Bongiorno asks her if this is her handling the hooks with obviously dirty gloves. At trial, Stefanoni tells a partial truth - she can neither confirm nor deny she'd handled them. (Note the hidden hook, hidden by her finger - Stefanoni is wisely not lying with her answer.)

In response to things like this, it is not an issue of accusing Stefanoni of lying, it's really an issue of - did Bongiorno right then, right there cast doubt in the collection procedures. One does not need to prove Stefanoni lied......

...... unless the criminal charge is against her, at a trial in which she's the defendant. At AK and RS's trial, it is enough to cast doubt.

Yet you and others often default to things like, "Stefanoni is not on trial here." Indeed, this appears to be Judge Massei's own reasoning when considering all the evidence which points to faulty collection techniques.... even before considering:

1) the 118 Medical staff came on Nov 2 into the bedroom with no protective covering (Napoleoni's testimony)

2) Stefanoni admitted at least one other male subordinate of hers handled the clasp​

Etc.

The issue of Stefanoni (potentially) lying belongs to her own trial. But Massei seals the deal, following your own lead, "Stefanoni is not the one on trial here," by dismissing all the doubt about her abilities and the cleanliness of her lab by saying in his motivations report: he can see no reason to doubt her at her word when she says she's never had contamination.

One might want an independent evaluation of Stefanoni's brag - but wait a minute!!!!! every independent evaluation has trashed Stefanoni's work, including Conti & Vecchiotti.

Now, you made a point. That has to do in fact with my being elliptical in my responses, I omit things; I made the example of lying but in fact the concept of the witnesses not being on trial extends beyond. I thought that it was clear, albeit implicit, that this "not being on trial" is a concept itself, the case of lying is a case within the set of possible cases that I specified in other posts, yet I point out not being on trial as a concept itself, especially when referred to expert witnesses, a concept that is not even the same thing of the question about who has a burden of proof.

This "not being on trial" means, I would say it like that, that the trial may not be seen as a zero Su game between accusation witness/ police / expert on one side and defendant on another. That means, you may not turn the trial against a defendant into a trial about whether the investigation was good, or whether an expert is competent or if the investigators are skilled or trustful.

This is something you apparently don't understand, insofar you mistake this as I it was a rule saying that the defence cannot question the credibility of the accusation witness. No, the "not being on trial" doesn't mean this. It means that a discussion about the experts may not replace a discussion about the evidence. Because there is no zero sum game, you can't replace a disputing about evidence and defendant with a disputing about the expert or the procedures or about something else.
The evidence findings must be dealt with directly.

The whole pro-Knox discourse intends to replace this setting, and deal with the evidence indirectly. Instead of explaining Sollecito's DNA and Meredith's DNA finding on the knife through some event and demonstrate how this is probable, they want to discuss about Stefanoni and any dismissing of the evidence should follow only as a stated and generic consequence of this indirect argumentation.

Another point: Conti and Vecchiotti were not independent. They were dependant from a court, the work of which was completely discredited, in the most cathing way by the Supreme Court. Moreover, the Cassazione even censured C&V's intellectual dishonesty explicitly - in the event someone still needed this clarification.

 

[platonov]

NotEvenWrong is counterattacked by a troll. A miss! Troll attempts to evade but it proves ineffective.



OK, I am reading the first paragraph in the first link of post 723. Here it is:



This is completely meaningless. I gave you a peer reviewed scientific study on gastric emptying which proves it is impossible Amanda Knox was at the cottage when Meredith was killed, since we know approximately when Meredith's last meal began, and we know the time Amanda and Raffaele were last at Raf's apartment from the time of access of a computer file.

You respond by directing me to a link from a post... which links to another post... where you are saying something about precise ToD spinning merrily away and being ignored in the real world. Then something something comedy, education, and it being disposed of years ago. This is your refutation to known, empirical, scientific fact?

And, to top it off, it looks like 4 posts later LondonJohn proved that you were either deliberately lying about the 4 hour number or were not intelligent enough to understand the actual testimony. Bravo, platonov.

Weren't you the guy who keeps saying "cartwheel world" and you're only interested in quantitative numbers? What the heck do you mean by that if you are completely ignoring all actual statistics and empirical facts on gastric emptying?



When people are horribly losing an argument and are proven wrong by something as strong as peer reviewed scientific journal articles, it is a common tactic for them to say something like "read the thread". As if some nebulous part of a huge thread somehow disproves scientific fact because some crackpot talked about it one time. Let me guess, you disproved Gill too in the same post? Did you manage to falsify the moon landing? The 9/11 inside job? Prove Einstein and Darwin wrong too while you were hammering away at your keyboard one evening?

Well, if so, c'mon let's see it. Let's see how you proved all of science wrong and Amanda Knox was actually at the cottage when Meredith was killed. I'm sure you've got a link somewhere if you have written something this important, and it's not actually impossible to be found because it's "somewhere in the thread". Let's go platonov -- you're getting my hopes up! I don't think you're just a loony crackpot (yet), so let's see some evidence and logic.

I guess my post title reference to 2 of the authors of the Wiley piece and Ep21 was too vague or complex*.

I will l simplify. That ‘Wiley’ stuff was discussed ad nauseam 4 + yrs ago and was one of the foundation docs that formed part of the ‘Precise & Early ToD.
I’m not reahashing 4 yr old stuff with you because you just found it now and refuse to read the thread even when given links. Start with the 25% correction and work back - or don’t. Truthers and noobs to this thread might have been indulged in that manner on this board but not by me.

Nope. I will pay Rolfe the compliment of assuming that she understood what she was talking about here. It really is trivial.
If she can defend her argument it might become clearer to the rest of the board.

*Which doesn’t auger well.

 

[Bill Williams]

Now, you made a point. That has to do in fact with my being elliptical in my responses, I omit things; I made the example of lying but in fact the concept of the witnesses not being on trial extends beyond. I thought that it was clear, albeit implicit, that this "not being on trial" is a concept itself, the case of lying is a case within the set of possible cases that I specified in other posts, yet I point out not being on trial as a concept itself, especially when referred to expert witnesses, a concept that is not even the same thing of the question about who has a burden of proof.

This "not being on trial" means, I would say it like that, that the trial may not be seen as a zero Su game between accusation witness/ police / expert on one side and defendant on another. That means, you may not turn the trial against a defendant into a trial about whether the investigation was good, or whether an expert is competent or if the investigators are skilled or trustful.
This is something you apparently don't understand, insofar you mistake this as I it was a rule saying that the defence cannot question the credibility of the accusation witness. No, the "not being on trial" doesn't mean this. It means that a discussion about the experts may not replace a discussion about the evidence.

You were not clear. You thought wrong if you thought you were clear.

And you admit what you said, and claimed I misquoted you. See the highlighted part.

Can you point to ONE example where the accusation has been about the expert, and not about the evidence that expert brought?

This is exactly why I use the example of Stefanoni, at cross-examination, being able neither to confirm nor deny Stefanoni's assertion that she was touching (therefore contaminating) the bra-hook - the one behind Stefanoni's thumb.

Once again, you are making a strawman argument. NO ONE is attacking experts just for the sake of attacking them. (That's what Mignini does.) Every example I have seen, like Stefanoni's cross-examination at the hands of Stefanoni, is where the evidence itself casts doubt on Stefanoni's competence.

However, I do appreciate your admission that you often argue elliptically.

 

[Dan O.]

When the contaminated clasp issue was recently brought up, Machiavelli claimed by his authority alone without backing evidence that it was the clasp that contaminated Stefanoni's glove.

That photo in the preeceeding post is from 054.jpg which was taken only seconds after the clasp was photographed on the floor.

00:34:26.64|053.jpg|15.52.32.80|clasp on floor
00.34.48.48|054.jpg|15.52.54.70|stef holding clasp, flashlight man pointing to it
00.34.51.08| | |stef holding clasp, pointing with pinkie
00.34.53.24|055.jpg|15.52.59.40|stef holding clasp
00.35.02.32| | |stef holding clasp in other hand
00.35.04.92| | |stef holding clasp
00.35.28.64|056.jpg|15.53.34.90|flashlight man holding clasp
00.35.34.68| | |flashlight man holding clasp
00.35.49 | | |<no flash> clasp illuminated by flashlight only?
00.36.27.88|057.jpg|15.54.34.10|Clasp on floor by Y
00.36.35.00| | |Clasp on floor by Y
00.37.20.44|058.jpg|03.55.26.70|Clasp in bag

00:34:42 Stef reaches down to pick up clasp with right hand
00:34:43 Stef holding clasp by hook between thumb and index finger of right hand
00:34:45 Clasp transferred to thumb and index of left hand holding fabric
00:34:46 Clasp turned over and transferred back to right hand
00:34:47 Clasp turned again, transferred back to left hand holding other hook
00:34:48.48 Flash from camera over Stef's sholder

Up to this point, the clasp was only touched by the lower surface of the index finger and thumb. The top surface of Stef's index finger where the debris on the glove is seen in the photo has not contacted the clasp.

So where dose Machiavelli's claim that the clasp contaminated the glove come from? Did Machiavelli make this up himself as a delibrate lie. Or, was this something Machiavelli was told and if so, who told him and why didn't he verify this before posting it as his own statement?

 

[anglolawyer]

Machiavelli:

Another point: Conti and Vecchiotti were not independent. They were dependant from a court, the work of which was completely discredited, in the most cathing way by the Supreme Court. Moreover, the Cassazione even censured C&V's intellectual dishonesty explicitly - in the event someone still needed this clarification.

Would you please remind us about this, Mach? I think I missed this.