Continuation Part 13: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

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Wannaknow said:
Those "blood rings" couldn't have been caused by a cat and they couldn't have been caused by a human by chance. Some of the rings are nearly circular. So I think they were caused on purpose. Therefore, the rings aren't made of blood; they are markes made by the police, while the blood traces are located inside the rings.

Greetings
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We should take up a contribution to buy the police some blue crayons. Using reddish-brown crayons to mark potential reddish-brown blood drops is confusing.
 
Numbers said:
The cover-up of the downstairs evidence is consistent with the failure to test (or to acknowledge testing and report results) of the putative semen stain on the pillow found under Meredith, Dtefanoni's perjuries about contamination and test methods and quantities, and the denial of defense requests for the EDFs. Any evidence of potentially exculpatory value has been denied.
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My working theory is that Stefanoni was overwhelmed with the amount of forensic evidence to process and, after collecting 32 or so samples from downstairs and outside, she just stopped doing more of what was necessary. Explained away in court by telling the court that the cat with the injured ear drove them crazy collecting and analyzing cat-blood evidence - sending her lab techs down a dead end. Look Judge, a squirrel!

By day 2 of evidence collection Stefanoni would have known the police believed that the murder was an inside/upstairs matter involving Knox in some way, that the rock through the upstairs window was staged to cover up Knox's and the male agressor's role, and that forensic evidence from the murder room and upstairs bathroom was much more relevant and incriminating than post-murder movement in the downstairs flat.

Stefanoni of course knew that if Knox was a facilitator of a male sexual event that got out of hand and turned to murder, the police would jam her in some way to turn on the male killer and confess to a secondary role, suggesting that painstakingly piecing together what occurred downstairs post-murder would ultimately be irrelevant to the confessions and convictions.
 
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Diocletus said:
Well, no. But I do know that there are many intelligent Italian people, and I'm assuming that a couple might even be judges.
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I hope that there are intelligent and reasonable judges in the 5th Section of the CSC where this case will be heard. We shall find out in a few weeks.
 
Numbers said:
Both of you have good arguments that would apply to a rational court system.

Can either of you cite evidence of the rational behavior of the Italian courts, Hellmann excepted?

I think there may be some slightly increased probability of a 3rd 2nd-level trial in part because that will give more of the police, prosecutors, and judges who committed official misconduct in this case more time to arrange their retirement plans prior to any ECHR judgment.[/QUOTE]

Will the police, forensic police, prosecutors, and judges be in any trouble internally in Italy if the ECHR declares Italy violated the defendant(s) rights? Will any disciplinary steps be taken against the perpetrators of this massive fraud? Will it be determined that anyone engaged in official misconduct?
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Strozzi said:
Will the police, forensic police, prosecutors, and judges be in any trouble internally in Italy if the ECHR declares Italy violated the defendant(s) rights? Will any disciplinary steps be taken against the perpetrators of this massive fraud? Will it be determined that anyone engaged in official misconduct?
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The Italian judiciary should not need an external body to tell them that they have an internal problem. If they cannot recognize the problem before it goes to the ECHR, it's not likely that they will take any disciplinary action against one of their own because of an ECHR ruling.

Of course, they may just decide to roll somebody under the bus if they think it will help their image.
 
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Numbers said:
Both of you have good arguments that would apply to a rational court system.

Can either of you cite evidence of the rational behavior of the Italian courts, Hellmann excepted?

I think there may be some slightly increased probability of a 3rd 2nd-level trial in part because that will give more of the police, prosecutors, and judges who committed official misconduct in this case more time to arrange their retirement plans prior to any ECHR judgment.
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Diocletus and I are actually talking about two different things; I was referring to the likely position of the Italian Government expressed through its agent at the ECHR; Diocletus was referring to the likely conduct of Cassation in reviewing the Nencini convictions.
 
Strozzi said:
Numbers said:
Both of you have good arguments that would apply to a rational court system.

Can either of you cite evidence of the rational behavior of the Italian courts, Hellmann excepted?

I think there may be some slightly increased probability of a 3rd 2nd-level trial in part because that will give more of the police, prosecutors, and judges who committed official misconduct in this case more time to arrange their retirement plans prior to any ECHR judgment.[/QUOTE]

Will the police, forensic police, prosecutors, and judges be in any trouble internally in Italy if the ECHR declares Italy violated the defendant(s) rights? Will any disciplinary steps be taken against the perpetrators of this massive fraud? Will it be determined that anyone engaged in official misconduct?
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The idea may be to keep the main case from being finalized and thus reaching the ECHR until the statute of limitations for the official misconduct and/or abuse of power runs out. That is a typical Italian solution to official misconduct. Mignini was convicted, but the clock ran out, but in the run up to that, he was being tried in Florence. However, at the end of the trial (IIUC), it was suddenly realized that one of the Florence judges was actually one of his alleged victims. Thus, there was a conflict of interest. This potential conflict of interest must have been quite submerged (pardon the Narducci pun) because it was apparently not detected before the trial in Florence began. This method is also frequently used in Eastern European countries, BTW.
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Kauffer said:
Diocletus and I are actually talking about two different things; I was referring to the likely position of the Italian Government expressed through its agent at the ECHR; Diocletus was referring to the likely conduct of Cassation in reviewing the Nencini convictions.
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Oops. Missed that you were considering the Government position, sorry.
 
Dougm said:
Actually, it has total bearing on the conclusions platonov has come to about the case.

It is quite evident from his comments on this issue, that he noted the inconsistency in Raff and Amanda's statements (and probably the kissing, underwear purchase, etc.) and decided they are guilty. Case closed. Can't get past the night of the 5th/6th, because that tells us all we need to know. :rolleyes:

It also explains why it is so important to him when we defend Amanda (and Raff) against above stated behavior judgments, because he thinks that is what the case is about (see also "Britney" references, etc.).
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I disagree. Of course there are inconsistencies, but for intelligent people, there are easily identifiable innocent explanations for them. If Platonov were to say, "Convince me that Raf didn't really throw Amanda under a bus ( that he was really confused, disoriented, tricked etc etc) or convince me that he really does provide her with an alibi, then my position on the case would be different", then what you say about this issue bearing on his conclusions would be true.

But he's not saying that at all. His position is that whether Mr Sollecito alibis Ms Knox or whether he does not is irrelevant. He believes Mr Sollecito to be a murderer - actually to have stabbed her. He also believes Ms Knox to be a murderer. Nothing changes for him whether there is an alibi or there is not an alibi. One cannot derive his conclusions about the murder from the interrogations. He needs to have drawn on something else, since there were no confessions and no details about how the murder was committed, from those interrogations. Yet he will not discuss this.

Platonov's position would have some integrity if he were to believe that Mr Sollecito really did withdraw his alibi for Ms Knox AND he believed him to be true in what he was saying. In other words, if Platonov thought Mr Sollecito did in fact stay in on the night of the murder and is therefore innocent, there would be some relevance and meaning to his obsession with alibis or what he believes to be lacking in connection with them.

But what he's actually saying is that he doesn't believe anything Mr Sollecito says. In particular, he does not believe him when he says (according to Platonov, that is), he went out and she stayed in. His entire discussion is based on a premise, the truth of which, he does not himself accept! It cannot, therefore, be additional evidence of Ms Knox's guilt, which is what he wants to sell you. His actual position, though he does not understand it himself is, effectively: "Raf withdrew his alibi for Amanda. But Raf lied when he said Amanda went out on her own. He seeks to evade responsibility for what he did by heaping more onto Amanda; Raf has wronged Amanda. They are both guilty of murder."
 
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platonov said:
Hold on.
Just 1 day ago you were unaware of platonov’s position w.r.t the guilt or innocence of AK and RS.
Which is remarkable by any metric.

Now you can read my mind.
That’s a steep learning curve :)
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From what evidence did you conclude that Mr Sollecito stabbed Ms Kercher? Can't have been anything you got from the interrogations, can it? You will agree with me, however, that if Mr Sollecito did stab Ms Kercher, it follows that he didn't stay in on the night of the murder, right? I mean, it stands to reason doesn't it?
 
Numbers said:
I do not mean that Hellmann's motivation report and verdicts were entirely rational. The acquittals were rational; the calunnia conviction was not.

It is possible that Hellmann convicted Amanda for calunnia to:
1. avoid having to charge the police with criminal acts;
2. give her a conviction, which if finalized by the CSC, would enable her to apply to the ECHR about the violations of her rights by the police, prosecution, and courts;
3. placate the CSC by allowing them to find Amanda guilty of something, which might have satisfied their witch-hunting lust and ended the series of trials.
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Given the way the Italian judges vote, it is possible the amateur judges voting first, voted for guilt on calunnia, making Hellman's view irrelevant. One can think of many reasons why they may have voted for this slightly irrational verdict. The truth is unless they tell us we will not know.
 
Bill Williams said:
Here are prison excerpts of Amanda Knox's intercepted conversations, in English. If nothing else, this exposes John Follain as a journalist who does not mind changing dialog to suit the prosecution purposes. John Follain is an English journalist who had privileged access to Mignini's case in 2008-2009.

http://www.amandaknoxcase.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/English-excerpts-Amanda-Knox-prison-intercepts.pdf
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AMANDA: Yes, indeed. I mean, I didn’t have a lawyer with me there (---).
MOTHER: But did you ask for a lawyer in that situation?
AMANDA: No. Because I didn’t know I was suspected. They asked me questions and I responded to the questions. Then they said to me “No, you are a liar!” and me “What?”
MOTHER: Probably in that moment you should have asked for a lawyer!
FATHER: Eh, eh.
AMANDA: Then a lady asked me if I wanted a laywer. I said yes and she started to laugh, because I wanted a lawyer there. And me ... “Ok”
Evidence of these procedural rights violations keeps popping up from different sources and they are all remarkably damning. There's this, there's Hellmann, there's Chiefi etc etc. Frightening.
 
The assault on Ms Knox

Amanda Knox: Yes , I told him (Dalla Vedova) they beat me and he said: "What? They didn’t tell me that." And I: “Well, they did."
Edda Mellas: You just have to be careful about this because if we say ... We can say that the police threatened you but if we say that you were beaten, then, technically, we have to file a complaint against the police, which at this time would only make things worse. And especially because you have no visible signs...Amanda Knox: I know
Edda Mellas: It would then be difficult to prove it is true... The Consulate will take care of this later, so we have to work with the lawyer to understand when weare to talk about it. Amanda Knox: Yes , when I was with the police, the woman who beat me after I said what I believed was the truth, I said, "No, really! I don’t think that's true, I'm very confused now. I only said that because I thought it could be true," and they said: "No no, you will remember it, you will remember it!". And I ...

Is this not the most extraordinary thing:

1) Italian law requires the filing of a formal complaint in order for this crime (but not others) to be investigated.
2) As evidenced here, Ms Knox's parents have been made acutely aware that filing such a complaint, which is a right, will make matters worse for their daughter - what's known as a "double whammy".
3) The later recitation of the facts of the assault (mentioned here on 13th November - just a week after it happened and so hardly concocted, conveniently, months later) as part of the narrative of events offered as part of a criminal defence, results in charges being levelled against Ms Knox and then her parents for giving an interview to an English, not Italian journalist for an English not Italian newspaper, in which they simply state to him what their daughter has told them about the matter.

Where are we again? Burma? Somalia? N Korea? Saudi Arabia? Italy is supposed to be a modern, European Democracy.
 
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Kauffer said:
Amanda Knox: Yes , I told him (Dalla Vedova) they beat me and he said: "What? They didn’t tell me that." And I: “Well, they did."
Edda Mellas: You just have to be careful about this because if we say ... We can say that the police threatened you but if we say that you were beaten, then, technically, we have to file a complaint against the police, which at this time would only make things worse. And especially because you have no visible signs...Amanda Knox: I know
Edda Mellas: It would then be difficult to prove it is true... The Consulate will take care of this later, so we have to work with the lawyer to understand when weare to talk about it. Amanda Knox: Yes , when I was with the police, the woman who beat me after I said what I believed was the truth, I said, "No, really! I don’t think that's true, I'm very confused now. I only said that because I thought it could be true," and they said: "No no, you will remember it, you will remember it!". And I ...

Is this not the most extraordinary thing:

1) Italian law requires the filing of a formal complaint in order for this crime (but not others) to be investigated.
2) As evidenced here, Ms Knox's parents have been made acutely aware that filing such a complaint, which is a right, will make matters worse for their daughter - what's known as a "double whammy".
3) The later recitation of the facts of the assault (mentioned here on 13th November - just a week after it happened and so hardly concocted, conveniently, months later) as part of the narrative of events offered as part of a criminal defence, results in charges being levelled against Ms Knox and then her parents for giving an interview to an English, not Italian journalist for an English not Italian newspaper, in which they simply state to him what their daughter has told them about the matter.

Where are we again? Burma? Somalia? N Korea? Saudi Arabia? Italy is supposed to be a modern, European Democracy.
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1. Cops always play games to protect themselves so not surprising a formal system was created that makes reporting impractical. Is it wrong, sure but don't think we can really single out Italy too much.
 
Utterly delicious.

LondonJohn said:
Just out of interest, it's instructive to explore how platonov has taken two words of a post of mine (from mid-2011 no less! Obsessed much....?) entirely out of context.

Here's the whole content of the post. The two words at issue are the final two words of the post:

"Are you sure that this claim of Sollecito's that Knox was not in his apartment between 9pm and 1am wasn't an erroneous reference to the night before, when Knox went to a Halloween party without Sollecito?

Can you also point me towards the point in the first trial where testimony was introduced that had Sollecito placing Knox outside his apartment between 9pm and 1am on the night of 1st/2nd November? Because I'm having an awful lot of trouble finding any reference to it - either in press reports of the trial or in the Massei Report. I would have thought that this would be a very damning piece of evidence against Knox if it was true and admissible. Of course, if it either wasn't true or wasn't admissible, then it is utterly irrelevant."

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=7255928#post7255928


It shouldn't really come as a huge surprise that the two words have been entirely shorn of their critical context - including a rather important conditional proposition - in a specious piece of sophistry. But there you go.

With any luck, the words "utterly irrelevant" will be.... erm... utterly irrelevant to this debate now that everyone can clearly see the context in which those words were originally employed by me. At least, that's what should happen in a critical thinking forum. But there's no accounting for taste (or agenda) though, I suppose.........
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:):)

Obviously I didn’t get my point across with sufficient clarity, again.

The ‘utterly irrelevant’ post was primarily a marker to where the Matteini etc stuff was discussed at length.
As for this – it’s hard to forget the one of greatest ever arguments in Cartwheel world. It was very special. I’d even go as far as to say its delicious.

I see you bring up the immediate context [I had dealt with the larger context] which I had forgotten. Namely that unless platonov explained the admissibility issue to you then the statement was utterly irrelevant. That’s even better. Its utterly delicious.
Buy don’t worry, I’m sure that like cartwheels and retrocausality ‘utterly irrelevant’ will also be forgotten.

I note that the moratorium on responding to ‘creationists’ was short lived. TBH I’m relieved – I’m optimistic that further wonders await.
 
Desert Fox said:
1. Cops always play games to protect themselves so not surprising a formal system was created that makes reporting impractical. Is it wrong, sure but don't think we can really single out Italy too much.
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Well...ok. So then, in the interests of not singling out Italy too much, I'd be really like to hear from you the names of the top three modern, Western democratic states where, in your opinion, we might expect to see repeated this scenario of a suspect, who is allegedly assaulted by the cops and ends up being charged by them for saying so as part of a defence to criminal charges in which her arrest was occasioned by statements compelled during an illegal interrogation during which the alleged assault (which would be a criminal offence), took place. Which legislatures have instituted "formal systems" to protect police officers from the consequences of committing criminal offences whilst carrying out their professional duties?
 
Kauffer said:
Well...ok. So then, in the interests of not singling out Italy too much, I'd be really like to hear from you the names of the top three modern, Western democratic states where, in your opinion, we might expect to see repeated this scenario of a suspect, who is allegedly assaulted by the cops and ends up being charged by them for saying so as part of a defence to criminal charges in which her arrest was occasioned by statements compelled during an illegal interrogation during which the alleged assault (which would be a criminal offence), took place. Which legislatures have instituted "formal systems" to protect police officers from the consequences of committing criminal offences whilst carrying out their professional duties?
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Not arguing that there is a system but I argue that many police would not mind such a system in order to protect the police from such charges.

Reading commentary based on a group report posting of the transcripts and I am amazed at just how much venom and hatred there is with the pro guilt. I don't think we can assume that it is the Kercher family so why is there so much hatred?
 
Desert Fox said:
Not arguing that there is a system but I argue that many police would not mind such a system in order to protect the police from such charges.

Reading commentary based on a group report posting of the transcripts and I am amazed at just how much venom and hatred there is with the pro guilt. I don't think we can assume that it is the Kercher family so why is there so much hatred?
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When you realise that there's a group of hard-line nutters who are planning to literally pop champagne corks if the Supreme Court confirms the convictions of two people whom they don't know, for the murder of another person whom they never knew, you realise that something is very wrong indeed with such individuals' psychiatry. I think many of them have been personally affected by violent crime in the past, and that this case is a way for them to pour out all their bitterness and vengeance (with the added attractions of groupthink and group acceptance).

I feel confident in suggesting that the Kercher family themselves will not be cheering and "sipping champers" if the SC confirms the verdicts. Put it this way: if they are planning to do that sort of thing, I would be very surprised and very disappointed.
 
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