Continuation Part 13: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Dan O.]

...
Okay speaking of keys, this I noticed - there are keys attached to every door, bathrooms included, with the exception of Meredith's door and (I can't tell from photos whether Filomena's door has a key). Don't know what significance, if any, there is to this but thought it was interesting.

To me it suggests that the roommates trusted each other. The keys are in the inside lock and not carried by the tennent which suggests that they were only used for privacy and not to secure their belongings while they were away.

 

[Machiavelli]

Italy has already unilaterally abrogated the extradition treaty. It has now placed the US in a position where the US can selectively apply the extradition treaty as it sees fit. Certainly, the US is fully-justified in interpreting the extradition treaty to yield to identifiable "human rights"/Bill of Rights values, such as the prohibition against double-jeopardy, coercive interrogation, prosecutorial non-transparency, etc. I would urge it to do so, because the state of the Italian court system is an even greater affront to human rights than the occasional US application of the death penalty.

The US is in the best possible position. It can raise any of these issues and there is no objection that Italy can principally raise, because Italy already went off half-cocked and abrogated the treaty in a way that was totally unnecessary since it could have obtained absolute assurances from the US anyway.

Put another way, it would take balls for Italy to request this extradition, but even if it has those balls, they might get kicked.

The US is not going to kick anyone. They may abrogate the rest of the treaty if they like. They may keep a murderer, and then we will refuse extradition on whoever we want.
For sure they are not going to "selectively apply" it in the future. Either they follow it, or they don't.

 

[Machiavelli]

At least you can be accurate. . . . .They clipped the cable car not flew under it. It was however what would be considered negligent manslaughter while possibly the shooting of the Indian fishing boat could be considered murder possibly if they actually aimed to kill. If they did it because they thought they were pirates, that does mitigate that. Kind of like what happened with Mario Lozano.

No no, they had the habit of flying under the cables for fun. It was not the first time they did so.
There's a reason why they destroyed the video.

As for the indian fishermen, well in my opinion the main problem in that case is jurisdiction. It might be a crime or not, but it was a military incident in international waters. You know you can't treat an international incident, like shooting on a border, as a domestic criminal case. This may be also valid for Lozano. But in the case of Lozano the problem was not of a criminal nature, it was that the US military covered up and lied instead of admitting of being responsible for the incident.

 

[AmyStrange]

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The following post refer: #1871, #1877 and #1881.

Wow, anyone would think I was the one the raised the case of Russ Faria, maybe you should direct your comments to the original posts?

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I agree with CoulsdonUK. Why are some of you giving her/ him a hard time about looking something up on Google? Anyway c, this is what I found:

FROM: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...cle_dd93f262-594e-5b88-b53f-097fc10033c8.html

Russell Faria's wife was stabbed 55 times, but was he the killer?
March 10, 2014 9:00 pm - By Robert Patrick

"LINCOLN COUNTY - The 911 call came in at 9:40 p.m.

"'I just got home from a friend's house and, and my wife, my wife killed herself. She's, she's, she's on the floor,' said Russell Faria, after giving his address and before alternately sobbing, wailing and answering questions.

"But no one who arrived at the scene on Dec. 27, 2011, believed that Betsy Faria had killed herself.

"She had been stabbed 55 times, with a serrated-edge MasterChef knife from her kitchen still sticking out of her neck. Her heart had stopped quickly, so there was less blood than the brutality of the wounds would suggest. Her body was cold... "

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ETA: How hard was getting that for her/ him? It's not like c comes in here looking for loads upon loads of information from the people who come here. Come on guys, this is not a hate forum, is it? A little courtesy is a nice thing. Aren't we nice people here?

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[Strozzi]

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Thank's Dan for the info.

In all actuality, if the neighbors are close enough that it's possible that they could hear the glass break, it wouldn't matter if they really could or not, what really matters is what Raffaele and Amanda thought (or imagined) was possible if they broke the glass.

With neighbors as close as you describe, why in God's name would they take even the slightest chance of bringing attention to a house with a dead body in it by breaking a window?

d

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Good point. If one wanted to create the appearance of a burglary-gone-bad without possibly being heard, simply mess up bedroom drawers, steal a few small but high-value items, and quietly exit while deliberately leaving the front door ajar. "Damn malfunctioning door lock!"

 

[AmyStrange]

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Good point. If one wanted to create the appearance of a burglary-gone-bad without possibly being heard, simply mess up bedroom drawers, steal a few small but high-value items, and quietly exit while deliberately leaving the front door ajar. "Damn malfunctioning door lock!"

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I know! That makes so much more sense than taking a chance of throwing a rock through the window and attracting attention to a house with a dead body in it.

I mean, I'd believe Meredith broke in herself long before I'd even begin to believe the rock throwing with a dead body in the house one,

d

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ETA: The rock throwing is something I've done to gain entry, but I still don't like that window (I'm a first floor kind of guy), but burglars do, do what they feel most comfortable doing, no matter how hard to do it may seem to other people. Some burglars like to do it while people are there, and sometimes they even get a sexual thrill from it. Go figure.

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[Numbers]

Of course, they "were" intiminated. But to maintain the conspiracy today you have to show that they still "are" intiminated. The boys don't live in Italy.

Has anyone talked to them about this and any other aspects of the case?

How well did they know Guede? How often did they play basketball with him?

Did Guede know they were going out of town for the holiday and weekend?

 

[Numbers]

The US is not going to kick anyone. They may abrogate the rest of the treaty if they like. They may keep a murderer, and then we will refuse extradition on whoever we want.
For sure they are not going to "selectively apply" it in the future. Either they follow it, or they don't.

There is a lot of "junk diplomacy" and/or "junk international law" in some of the statements here. Perhaps we're getting too rhetorical.

Not extraditing someone is not an abrogation of the treaty, whether done by Italy or the US. Denial of extradition is foreseen in the treaty as legitimate and to be accompanied by reasons provided for the denial. Neither country gave up its sovereignty in signing the extradition treaty.

The treaty may be abrogated or annulled by proper notice from one party to the other.

 

[Magister]

It was described as a video phone to the front door. But how would Rudy know that when he claimed he wanted to call but didn't know where a phone was.

I have seen it described as an intercom system connected to the front gate.

If that was a video phone then where is the screen and the outside camera?

Unlikely such a system would be installed right by the front door.....a spyhole in the door would suffice.

Anyone(eg Rudy) picking up the handset would immediately realise it was not an ordinary phone.

 

[Dan O.]

I have seen it described as an intercom system connected to the front gate.

If that was a video phone then where is the screen and the outside camera?

Let me clarify that statement: it was described as a videophone by one of the residents.

Unlikely such a system would be installed right by the front door.....a spyhole in the door would suffice.

The landlord may not have wanted to drill through that beautiful new wood door.

Anyone(eg Rudy) picking up the handset would immediately realise it was not an ordinary phone.

He doesn't even mention picking up the handset which would be a mitigating factor in his favor if he had.

 

[Planigale]

That's one way of putting it, another is 'exposing the fraudulent interpretation of Stefanoni with the exculpatory evidence she omitted.'

Numbers' dilligence suggests the ECHR has already ruled on this issue and Stefanoni's goose is already cooked. From what I have read on her dispute with Pascali, what she is trying to do is re-brand 'fraud' and 'constructive incompetence' as something akin to 'teaching the rest of the world how to do DNA forensics.'

Here's an article you might want to read, Stefanoni's malfeasance is hardly unprecedented and just part and parcel of the faulty practices that have arisen at several labs in this field worldwide, not just in Stefanoni's lab or the American ones. Here's another paper you've seen referenced dozens of times in these threads, give the whole thing a read. If you want to skip to the part on EDFs go to page 11.

The longer you keep reading the better it gets. The next section is on contamination and I'd give that one a long read too. My point here being is that the sort of malfeasance Stefanoni engaged in was not that uncommon and the problems associated with it have been identified, corrected and punished the world over. The rest of the world is showing Italy how to detect incompetence and fraud in DNA forensics.

Two excellent articles that show why it is essential that the defence are allowed to scrutinise the forensic evidence thoroughly, and why access to SOP, laboratory work records and electronic data are essential.

 

[Antony]

Mach,
If you are saying that Judge Micheli violated the Italian Constitution and the European Convention and ECHR case-law by not judicially forcing Stefanoni to turn over true copies of the EDFs to the court and the defense, I am totally in agreement. We shouldn't blame Stefanoni, just because she didn't want to turn over copies of these critical results of her testing, when it was the judge's responsibility, as the impartial supervisor of an adversarial process, to force her to provide true copies. And if and when this case reaches the ECHR, if will be Italy that will have been judged to have violated the Convention, rather than any individual.

And of course Hellmann ordered the disclosure of the EDFs, but Stefanoni failed to comply. In the event, Conti and Vecchiotti exposed the nonsense of Stefanoni's conclusions, just using the printouts that she did provide.

 

[Planigale]

First, I don't know on what basis you assume that ENFSI recommendations were not followed, such as keeping records or having written procedures. Is your source Vecchiotti?
Second, pleas refer to reccomendations already existing in 2007.



By the word "deny" I think you may be hinting again at some twist of Stefanoni's words.



I don't know anything about risks of the process of vacuum concentration, but I know it has never been an issue risen by any expert in the trial. As for the existence of a Qbit Fluorimeter, this is hardly an argument. Certainly the lab did not perform only LCN analysis.

A side note: by the way, experts Berti and Barni in Florence pointed out that the label "LCN" is considered obsolete. The relevant category of reference to them now seems to be whether a DNA profile is "in a complex condition".

In someways I agree with you. Stefanoni probably performed to the standards of the day for Italy (and as you can see from Chris's articles many other labs elsewhere). The problem arises that she stopped doing routine DNA typing and started doing 'complex' low copy or low transcription DNA typing. Which she was not trained in and the laboratory was not set up to do. The type of DNA typing she was doing was not the type she would have performed as a researcher.

Supposing a piece of equipment was regarded as being reliable in year X, and results from this resulted in conviction. Then in year X +2 well validated reports e.g. from the manufacturer, came out documenting that under certain circumstances the equipment produced false results (in fact this is true for the RTQPCR machine used for quantifying DNA; it has a known software bug, this is irrelevant to this case; but it shows this really occurs). Would it be acceptable legally to say that the result was false or because it had gone through the system would it be a legal fact although a scientific falsehood? Does Italy have an appeal system if new evidence comes to light once a conviction is finalised?

 

[Planigale]

Frankly I think you are making up testimony. There are no statements to this effect from Stefanoni's testimonies as far as I know.

As you well know these arguments about DNA research not bein "perfect" are extremely weak, to use an euphemism. Those arguments in law are called "in limine", preliminary arguments, and mostly they don't work.

I am also afraid they are unfonded, as for quality controls of reagents or cleaning.



But all this is already known.
One fact is, the knife sample had negative controls. And they were negative.


Probably we have different concepts of what is relevant or irrelevant in a trial. Stefanoni did document her work, within the procedures that were proper of the law at that time.
There isn't any legal requirement for being called to testify as an expert, except the fact of being knowledgable in a field, more knowledgable than the judge. And this is a principle. Anyone can be an expert, no title nor peer review is required.
However, Stefanoni was close to the state of the art available to the Perugia prosecution at that time and in that moment.
It makes sense that you may object in principle that that particular witness did not perform a work that belongs to a peer-reviewed category. However such objection could hardly work in a legal venue, because a trial is not something about Stefanoni, nor about science, and a courtroom is not a molecular laboratory or a contamination-free environment. The court will accept any meaningful evidence and judge about the meaning of pieces of evidence themselves, without requiring certificates.

Mach I know you do not work in a laboratory environment so i'll explain why the negative control was absent / inadequate. Controls essentially have to be treated the same as samples except for the active component, here the component from the knife.

Sample B was extracted. An extract control containing the same reagents was created. Sample B was quantified as too low. The negative control was presumably quantified as too low. (I have not seen this result others may have so I'll assume this is true). If the negative control at too low is assumed to have no DNA and is not further processed so should sample B. If sample B is further processed so should the control. Sample B was vacuum concentrated, a high risk procedure for introducing contamination, was the control similarly treated? It should be noted there is no contemporaneous record by Stefanoni of this process on either sample or control, Stefanoni does not claim to have done this for the control. Since the outcome was a low copy / transcription / complex DNA result it is essential to know which samples had gone through the vacuum concentrator, the cleaning schedule for this equipment, the date when this process happened. Then the concentrated sample B was put through ampificationand and typing. Was this done for the negative extract control - no it was not. Stefanoni has never claimed this happened there is no record of this happening. There were amplification controls, but these are not controls for the extraction and concentration process. If the extraction control had been put through amplification and typing and shown Meredith's DNA at a similar level to sample B this would have proven contamination. There is copious documentation that even in the best laboratories contamination happens. Without adequate controls Stefanoni should either not have reported the result or reported it with caveats, 'in the absence of an appropriate negative controls, in laboratory contamination can not be excluded as an explanation for this result'. Then the prosecution and defence could decide how to present this to the judges.

 

[carbonjam72]

No, only the aggravating circumstance (its full name is aggravating charge of continuance to be precise) is depending on the murder charge. The rest of the calunnia conviction will stand in any event.

Ok, I'm still not sure how this charge of "aggravating charge of continuance" wound up in front of Nencini?

Doesn't the charge have to go to a first level court, before getting to an appeal? When was this charge first raised against Amanda?

Does it automatically apply after the confirmation of Hellman's conviction for simple calunnia, or if I understand you, Hellman rejected the 'aggravated continuance' , and Hellman's rejection is what Nencini is rehearing?

It does raise the question though, if Hellman has agreed to convict on calunnia, but rejected 'aggravated continuation', and cassation rejects only the latter, than could Nencini really agree with Hellman, since cassation already rejected that outcome? Isn't this a requirement to find guilt on aggravated continuance?

And by extension, if the aggravated continuance charge is dependent on the conviction for murder, doesn't an instruction to convict on aggravated continuance also carry with it an implicit mandate to convict on the murder charge? The claims are tied together, no?

Lastly though, you still haven't answered this: could cassation annul Nencini's murder convictions, and not order a new appeal trial - and instead simply order the charges dismissed for insufficient evidence necessary to sustain a conviction of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt? Again, I'm asking this in theory.

Cassation sent the case to Nencini saying the testing of the last untested sample on the knife blade was "critical" or some language like that. But that test came back with only Amanda's DNA, so not inculpatory. They must have felt the knife from Sollecito's kitchen was compromised as evidence by Conti and Vechiotti.

So is annulling Nencini, and not ordering a retrial based on insufficient evidence, a possible outcome?

 

[Diocletus]

Sample B was extracted. An extract control containing the same reagents was created.

Actually, there is no indication that this happened for this batch. It does appear to have happened for batches that employed RT-qPCR.

Sample B was vacuum concentrated, a high risk procedure for introducing contamination, was the control similarly treated? It should be noted there is no contemporaneous record by Stefanoni of this process on either sample or control, Stefanoni does not claim to have done this for the control.

There's no way that she did this.

Since the outcome was a low copy / transcription / complex DNA result it is essential to know which samples had gone through the vacuum concentrator, the cleaning schedule for this equipment, the date when this process happened.

Not produced.

There were amplification controls, but these are not controls for the extraction and concentration process.

Exactly right. There is a single alleged negative control for this batch, which likely isn't even in the same amplification run as 36b. It's an amplification control.

Without adequate controls Stefanoni should either not have reported the result or reported it with caveats, 'in the absence of an appropriate negative controls, in laboratory contamination can not be excluded as an explanation for this result'.

But that would have made her results less impressive!

 

[Diocletus]

The Amanda Knox - Raffaele Sollecito case shows police and prosecution misconduct of an even more egregious kind than that in the OJ Simpson case. Evidence collection and handling was clownish. Evidence testing and analysis showed misconduct and outright fraud. Discovery was thwarted. The testimony by police included perjury. In addition, in the present case there is judicial misconduct and bias clearly shown.

It's the exact opposite, really. In the Simpson case, the defense basically invented the crime scene mishandling and capitalized on it. In Kercher, the police did mishandle the crime scene, and then prevented the defendants from using this in their defense.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

useless form of the negative controls

Pascali only said he needed to know the peaks areas, this is what he explained the judge on Oct. 4. Stefanoni also deposited the negative controls she had with her. Here I'm not stating that the judge would have said "yes" to any request on the part of Pascali, but the fact is Pascali and the defence did not make the request, and they did not explain the intent of their requests in terms compatible with how you explain them, the defence did not say anythig on the lines of seeking "contamination that was not revealed" and see possible "fraudulent behaviours". They did not describe such alleged purpose to expose omitted evidence to the judge in the terms that you describe. They describe their purposes in such terms that a further investigation in electronig data wouldn't seem necessary to the judge: they did not explain such alleged purpose to the judge.

I do not want to draw any conclusion as for what purposes Bongiorno and Pascali had in their minds. As for Stefanoni and prosecution I can well see many good reasons for not wishing to release raw data, without any neeed to think at any conspiracy or fraud. So I don' do mind-reading. I only limit myself to recording trial facts. Those are the facts.
Stefanoni did say she was ready to present log files, but she had reservations about the way they could be manipulated, the "offer" was known to the parties insofar it belonged to the court documentation available to them, and on the hearing the defence did not make some requests, and they did not express the motivations that you attribute to them.

Machiavelli,

Even if Stefanoni did release the negative controls in some form (which has never been shown), she did not release them as electronic data files, their most useful form. Paper copies would be almost worthless if the scale on the y-axis were wrong.

 

[Dan O.]

could those interested in continuing the OJ case ask the moderatore to split this side topic off into it's own thread

I really don't mind the discussion but there is a whole new sub forum out there that needs populating.

 

[Agatha]

A large number of posts have been split to AAH for being off-topic, and may still attract further moderator action. If you want to discuss the deaths of Indian fishermen, the tragedy of the cablecar at Cermis, or OJ Simpson, then open threads in the appropriate sub-forum(s). This thread needs to stay on topic.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Agatha