Continuation Part 13: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Desert Fox]

Oh Platonov - this is utterly hopeless and desperate.

I thought you had actually got it for a moment, but, nope, you didn't. The mutual alibis of the defendants are not germane to the case.

No-one, including you, thinks that Mr Sollecito stayed in and Ms Knox went out, and Mr Sollecito has never accused her of doing so. The bus throwing metaphor does not work. If Ms Knox had actually been 'thrown under a bus', this would mean her case had been dealt a fatal blow as a result. She must be found guilty because of it. And yet, here we are trying to find yet another way to get it through to you, that nothing Mr Sollecito has said or done has damaged Ms Knox's case.

Secondly, you do not understand Mr Sollecito's defence, which has been eloquently explained to you on numerous occasions.
Thirdly, the treatment of Curatolo's evidence really isn't difficult to understand either. You see everyone (except you and a few others) gets that Curatolo was a heroin addled unfortunate who made up a story presumably at the behest of the prosecutor, a year after the event. Its all utter nonsense, of course, but if the prosecution wants to rely on it, they should at least appreciate what he actually said - and this is to provide an alibi for both Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito - they were in the square and not the cottage. Have you not had this explained to you before?

Have you abandoned your illeisms, finally? Probably for the best...

It seems as if somebody who cannot understand Raff's defense is being willfully ignorant.

 

[Bill Williams]

I had a thought. . . .I am currently in a hotel room 200 miles and 4 hours from home.

I can see me going home tonight and two days later a woman is raped and murdered in the same hotel room. The odds are against it is pretty astronomical but could happen.

My DNA is around the room after being here for four days. The police check for DNA and find my DNA on her bra clasp.

The Italian legal system would arrest me and try me for rape and murder. They would somehow manage to fry the hard drive of the computer I was on during the period of time where the crime occurred.

My bet is that there's a convenience store owner within walking distance of your hotel who a year from now will say,...... oh never mind.

 

[Bill Williams]

Oh Bill - This is hopeless

You might need [like Raffy when he first threw her under a bus] to consult a calendar.
The section you quoted deals with the situation as it stood at the end of the Nencici appeal – here he is explaining his refusal of the request to split the defence.
We are currently dealing with RS’s Cassation appeal doc where he has again thrown AK under the bus.
Do you see?

The situation as it currently stands is summed up in this post;

You quoted the wrong post. The situation as it currently stands is not summed up in some guilter-fantasy, it is summed up in court documents which you, apparently, refuse to read:

The conclusion of this brief note is that, in the absence of defense assertions to the contrary on the part of Raffaele Sollecito and, moreover, noting the consistent spontaneous statements made by the defendant, who still places himself with Amanda Marie Knox between the evening of 1 November 2007 and the morning of 2 November 2007, the Court deems that it must consider the alibi provided by Amanda Marie Knox as the only version of events provided by the defendants and valid for both or, at least, not contradicted by either of them.​

Once again, if the situation since was as your imagination takes flights to, Porta a Porta would be over it like a dirty shirt, etc. Instead, Porta a Porta is running TV programs within Italy featuring Dr. Peter Gill..... who unlike Ms. Patrizia Stefanoni actually has a Ph.D.

The Porta a Porta programs openly mock those who try to say that Raffaele is involved in the murder. This means, BTW, that they believe he never left his apartment that night. You are probably the only one, even in guilter-and, who thinks Raffaele said something nefarious at his news conference of some months ago about Amanda. Strangely, Porta a Porta omitted that part too. Once again, your claim has never been accompanied by anything like proof (perhaps you are having budget problems and could not flip the switch on your VCR/PVR to record this, and upload it to YouTube.) The consistent methodology of guilter-land is to make accusations unaccompanied by proof, but made possible through sheer repetition.

I, too, am sincerely relieved you've cured yourself of illeisms, which I admit I knew nothing about until Kauffer brought it up. That one required a dictionary!

But please reread Kauffer and answer.

No-one, including you, thinks that Mr Sollecito stayed in and Ms Knox went out, and Mr Sollecito has never accused her of doing so. The bus throwing metaphor does not work. If Ms Knox had actually been 'thrown under a bus', this would mean her case had been dealt a fatal blow as a result. She must be found guilty because of it. And yet, here we are trying to find yet another way to get it through to you, that nothing Mr Sollecito has said or done has damaged Ms Knox's case.
Secondly, you do not understand Mr Sollecito's defence, which has been eloquently explained to you on numerous occasions.​

This means that if Raffaele's claim is that he never went out (with no reference at all to Amanda) - the case against both of them falls apart. This means that if Raffaele's claim is that he never went out (with the reference as per his appeals amendment) - the case against both of them also falls apart.

The second best thing which could happen to either of them, is that the other is eventually acquitted.

 

[Bill Williams]

Amanda Knox will be on the US TV program "Daybreak" on Monday, March 16.

Here's my prediction. The guilter PR-lobby will accuse her of lying. They'll call it a PR stunt. Platonov will accuse her of throwing Raffaele under a bus. Platonov will offer no video confirmation, though, but will start his message with the word, "Oh".

Remember - you heard it here first!

 

[carbonjam72]

I had a thought. . . .I am currently in a hotel room 200 miles and 4 hours from home.

I can see me going home tonight and two days later a woman is raped and murdered in the same hotel room. The odds are against it is pretty astronomical but could happen.

My DNA is around the room after being here for four days. The police check for DNA and find my DNA on her bra clasp.

The Italian legal system would arrest me and try me for rape and murder. They would somehow manage to fry the hard drive of the computer I was on during the period of time where the crime occurred.

Is your cell phone active, and showing your progress geographically? Can the time of death be determined sufficient to allow you to present alibi evidence?

When does the woman check in at the desk?

Does your car pass by any other points of identification? Do you get gas with a credit card? Pay cash at a convenience store with CCTV?

What were the injuries? If it was a violent crime, did other DNA profiles turn up?

The unlikelihood of the crime, combined with more police oversight & checks and balances makes it a little easier to defeat a false proposition.

Unless of course you did it.

OTOH, one of the reasons serial killers are often hard to stop, because they can move around, and use the road system.

 

[Dan O.]

Platonov is aparently still clueless when it comes to the facts of this case. For instance, it is a fact that Mario Alessi was a cell mate of Rudy's and it is a fact that Alessi claimed that Rudy confided in him what happened that night. Given these facts, it becomes imperative that this witness be heard and who the witness is or what crimes they may have commited in the past has little barring. When Alessi was heard, his account was not consistent with the known evidence so nobody (prosecution, defense, civil parties or the courts) believe Alessi is telling the truth. Only the pro guilt contingent continue to bring this up using trollish language referring to Alessi as the "baby killer" and the defense "star witness". Apparently they haven't got any better argument so they can't let it go.

 

[Samson]

This video is worth watching to see how the Italian people conduct a witch hunt, lusting after a deep family intrigue, jealousy and female violence, when the truth is simple, Miichele Misseri killed his neice, Sarah Scazzi. Luca Cheli has explained that the criminologist here, Roberta Bruzzone influenced him to incriminate his innocent daughter, Sabrina.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2jizca_sarah-scazzi-pap-02_school

Bruzzone also appears on Porta shows with Bruno Vespa as a staunch proponent for the guilt of Sollecito and Knox. Simonetta Matone is a judge, god help Italy.
My understanding is Cosima and Sabrina have rock solid alibis which have to be ignored to suit the complicated crime theory preferred by the people.

 

[Bill Williams]

English lawyer Fred Davies is a recent arrival to comment on the prosecutions associated with the horrible Kercher murder.

He's focussing on the wrongful convictions of Knox and Sollecito, and amongst other things has zeroed in on one of the more basic rights-issue violations against the pair.

From Fred Davies, Part 11:

"The Massei Court’s finding strikes against basic principles of fairness which applies to all criminal proceedings. Put another way, a criminal court is not generally entitled to bring in a verdict which differs markedly from the basis on which the prosecution puts its case. This is because the defence would not be able to adequately prepare and meet such an unexpected contingency. In plain English, the defence would be ambushed or taken by surprise. In this case, the defence were ambushed and the defendants’ rights (Knox and Sollecito) were fundamentally infringed."​

And fair reading of both the Massei motiviations report, as well as the Nencini report, shows how the judges, after the trial, simply abandon key elements of the various prosecutions (Mignini, then the non-entity Crini) and just make up stuff after the fact.

The best part of the Italian system, is that they are forced to, within 90 days, justify their reasons in writing. (Other systems, including my own, allow for it never to be known why a trier of fact comes to the decisions it does, so kudos to the Italians for this part of it.)

For instance, Crini developed a pseudo-narrative based on household cleanliness leading to murder. Nencini departed from that, using no less than Rudy Guede's "testimony", which was never cross examined, to invent that it was a narrative based on a dispute over rent money.

One basic element of fairness..... just when did either Sollecito or Knox at trial get to make full answer to this?

 

[Bill Williams]

Platonov is aparently still clueless when it comes to the facts of this case. For instance, it is a fact that Mario Alessi was a cell mate of Rudy's and it is a fact that Alessi claimed that Rudy confided in him what happened that night. Given these facts, it becomes imperative that this witness be heard and who the witness is or what crimes they may have commited in the past has little barring. When Alessi was heard, his account was not consistent with the known evidence so nobody (prosecution, defense, civil parties or the courts) believe Alessi is telling the truth. Only the pro guilt contingent continue to bring this up using trollish language referring to Alessi as the "baby killer" and the defense "star witness". Apparently they haven't got any better argument so they can't let it go.

Platonov also ignores that as far as the Knox-case is concerned, her case is only secondarily focussed on what a co-accused either does or doesn't say about her.

Her case, indeed both their cases, have to focus on what the courts say is convincing in convicting them. As the Judge Nencini motivations has established as a "judicial fact", is that they have both always should beside each other as each others' alibi.....

The conclusion of this brief note is that, in the absence of defense assertions to the contrary on the part of Raffaele Sollecito and, moreover, noting the consistent spontaneous statements made by the defendant, who still places himself with Amanda Marie Knox between the evening of 1 November 2007 and the morning of 2 November 2007, the Court deems that it must consider the alibi provided by Amanda Marie Knox as the only version of events provided by the defendants and valid for both or, at least, not contradicted by either of them.​

Raffaele could have at the news conference accused Amanda Knox of the Kennedy Assassination, but this would not be throwing Knox under a bus for that crime, if the courts have always held that both were responsible.

 

[Bill Williams]

“The Brutal Killing of Meredith Kercher” – A critical examination of the trials and subsequent appeal hearings of Rudy Hermann Guede, Amanda Marie Knox and Raffaele Sollecito by F G Davies BA, Barrister, Deputy Justices’ Clerk, Cambridgeshire. Originally posted on the Criminal Law & Justice Weekly website December 2014 – March 2015.

http://www.amandaknoxcase.com/a-critical-examination/

Parts 1 to 11.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

inconvenient DNA contamination

What she [thoughtful] says is

"...Indeed, the possibility of transferring a perfect, complete, single-person DNA sample, precisely of the victim in spite of all the people and places the policemen would have been in contact with all day, is minuscule. What the FOA fail to realize is that while yes, it is true that the possibility of DNA contamination is always present, and lab contamination exists and is frequent, it comes from random people and leaves partial traces."

I have been ruminating on this passage for a little while, and I am still trying to understand much of it. What does thoughtful mean by "random people"? The instances of contamination with which I am familiar are usually cases where another person's DNA gets transferred onto an item of evidence or comes into the process downstream of sampling. The person could be a lab technician, suspect, or alleged victim in another crime, but there is enough of a profile (whether complete or not) to obtain an identification of that person. The notion that contamination only leaves partial profiles is at best dubious, as I have discussed previously. Moreover, such a blanket statement runs counter to an axion of DNA profiling, that the mere presence of DNA does not indicate the time or manner of its deposition.

It seems to me that thoughtful may be following the lead of Dr. David Balding, who is a mathematician whose area of expertise is the calculation of probabilities in DNA profiling, not the collection of forensic evidence. The BBC quoted Professor David Balding: '"Every crime sample that was ever collected was contaminated. Even in the most pristine conditions in a laboratory, you cannot have a DNA-free environment,' he says.

"The point is you have to allow for that to do a correct evaluation of the evidence; all of that kind of contamination just isn't a problem, as it's not going to match. The only contamination that matters is something that would have got the suspect's DNA.'"

This passage presents a number of problems. One is that if a lab technician deposits the DNA from himself/herself or a suspect or victim (whose DNA happens to be in the lab) onto an item, a juror is entitled to discount the quality of work from that lab. That sort of contamination certainly should be a problem for the prosecution. Two is that Dr. Balding does not explain what happens when the FP do not collect reference profiles from other people at a home where the crime took place or when they do not keep a staff elimination file (DNA reference profiles from staff). Dr. Balding does not sufficiently explain what he means by match. Match whom and under what circumstances? It would be difficult to interpret the finding of unknown profiles on an item of evidence if the FP's collection of reference profiles were deficient in this way, as is true in this case. Three Dr. Balding does not explain how a person became a suspect in his scenario. Was it from the DNA evidence itself? If the DNA evidence is faulty or weak for any reason, then the presence of a person's DNA on an item is less meaningful or not meaningful at all.

Let's apply Dr. Balding's criterion to the Duke lacrosse non-rape case. David Evans' DNA was on some plastic fingernails found in the trashcan in the bathroom of his home (where the ill-judged party took place). The DNA of two other men is also evident in the YSTR profile, as discussed by Paul Giannelli. No one has ever publicly identified the other DNA donors. Since Evans was a suspect and since the profiles of the other party attendees were known, we can tentatively conclude that the other profiles came from unknown individuals. According to Dr. Balding these profiles mean nothing. However, such a position fails to answer the question, "If the other profiles came to be on the fingernails in a way that was unrelated to sexual assault, then how do we know that the same is not true of Evans' DNA?"

Let's also apply his reasoning to the Jane Mixer case. John Ruelas was only four years old and living in a nearby city when Ms. Mixer was murdered. Therefore his DNA on her body cannot be evidence of his culpability in her murder. Therefore, we can ignore it, right? I don't think Gary Leiterman would agree. His DNA was found on Mixer's clothing, and he was convicted of her murder, largely (perhaps entirely) on the strength of the DNA evidence. What Dr. Balding has done is to allow prosecutors to ignore inconvenient DNA.

 

[Numbers]

I have been ruminating on this passage for a little while, and I am still trying to understand much of it. What does thoughtful mean by "random people"? The instances of contamination with which I am familiar are usually cases where another person's DNA gets transferred onto an item of evidence or comes into the process downstream of sampling. The person could be a lab technician, suspect, or alleged victim in another crime, but there is enough of a profile (whether complete or not) to obtain an identification of that person. The notion that contamination only leaves partial profiles is at best dubious, as I have discussed previously. Moreover, such a blanket statement runs counter to an axion of DNA profiling, that the mere presence of DNA does not indicate the time or manner of its deposition.

It seems to me that thoughtful may be following the lead of Dr. David Balding, who is a mathematician whose area of expertise is the calculation of probabilities in DNA profiling, not the collection of forensic evidence. The BBC quoted Professor David Balding: '"Every crime sample that was ever collected was contaminated. Even in the most pristine conditions in a laboratory, you cannot have a DNA-free environment,' he says.

"The point is you have to allow for that to do a correct evaluation of the evidence; all of that kind of contamination just isn't a problem, as it's not going to match. The only contamination that matters is something that would have got the suspect's DNA.'"

This passage presents a number of problems. One is that if a lab technician deposits the DNA from himself/herself or a suspect or victim (whose DNA happens to be in the lab) onto an item, a juror is entitled to discount the quality of work from that lab. That sort of contamination certainly should be a problem for the prosecution. Two is that Dr. Balding does not explain what happens when the FP do not collect reference profiles from other people at a home where the crime took place or when they do not keep a staff elimination file (DNA reference profiles from staff). Dr. Balding does not sufficiently explain what he means by match. Match whom and under what circumstances? It would be difficult to interpret the finding of unknown profiles on an item of evidence if the FP's collection of reference profiles were deficient in this way, as is true in this case. Three Dr. Balding does not explain how a person became a suspect in his scenario. Was it from the DNA evidence itself? If the DNA evidence is faulty or weak for any reason, then the presence of a person's DNA on an item is less meaningful or not meaningful at all.

Let's apply Dr. Balding's criterion to the Duke lacrosse non-rape case. David Evans' DNA was on some plastic fingernails found in the trashcan in the bathroom of his home (where the ill-judged party took place). The DNA of two other men is also evident in the YSTR profile, as discussed by Paul Giannelli. No one has ever publicly identified the other DNA donors. Since Evans was a suspect and since the profiles of the other party attendees were known, we can tentatively conclude that the other profiles came from unknown individuals. According to Dr. Balding these profiles mean nothing. However, such a position fails to answer the question, "If the other profiles came to be on the fingernails in a way that was unrelated to sexual assault, then how do we know that the same is not true of Evans' DNA?"

Let's also apply his reasoning to the Jane Mixer case. John Ruelas was only four years old and living in a nearby city when Ms. Mixer was murdered. Therefore his DNA on her body cannot be evidence of his culpability in her murder. Therefore, we can ignore it, right? I don't think Gary Leiterman would agree. His DNA was found on Mixer's clothing, and he was convicted of her murder, largely (perhaps entirely) on the strength of the DNA evidence. What Dr. Balding has done is to allow prosecutors to ignore inconvenient DNA.

Your post is totally correct.

For completeness, I believe that what one should state is that "thoughtful" seems to be saying is that if the DNA profile of the person suspected of a crime is detected from a sample, that supports the guilt of that person, no matter that the DNA profiles of other "random" persons (meaning those that the police or prosecution don't wish to suspect) also are observed from the sample.

Under the laws and court practices of Western democracies, however, such samples with extraneous DNA profiles are generally considered contaminated and inadmissible as evidence.

 

[Bill Williams]

delete

 

[Desert Fox]

Is your cell phone active, and showing your progress geographically? Can the time of death be determined sufficient to allow you to present alibi evidence?
When does the woman check in at the desk?

Does your car pass by any other points of identification? Do you get gas with a credit card? Pay cash at a convenience store with CCTV?
What were the injuries? If it was a violent crime, did other DNA profiles turn up?

The unlikelihood of the crime, combined with more police oversight & checks and balances makes it a little easier to defeat a false proposition.

Unless of course you did it.

OTOH, one of the reasons serial killers are often hard to stop, because they can move around, and use the road system.

They can just do a Russ Faria and claim that I had my roommate carry my cell phone and use my credit card to pay for gas.

 

[MichaelB]

New translation of Mr "investigative intuition" Armando Finzi. http://www.amandaknoxcase.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Testimony-of-Armando-Finzi.pdf

This guy is a real dumbass imo. He's testifying in a high profile murder trial and has to consult his notes to answer the most basic of questions about what he investigated.

PR - Did you investigate on Meredith Kercher’s death?

W - In the first days

PR –What investigations did you do?
W – May I look it up in my documents?
PR – Yes.

 

[Samson]

New translation of Mr "investigative intuition" Armando Finzi. http://www.amandaknoxcase.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Testimony-of-Armando-Finzi.pdf

This guy is a real dumbass imo. He's testifying in a high profile murder trial and has to consult his notes to answer the most basic of questions about what he investigated.

PR - Did you investigate on Meredith Kercher’s death?

W - In the first days

PR –What investigations did you do?
W – May I look it up in my documents?
PR – Yes.

Comical,

I showed it to Dr chiacchiera and I said "To me, we should take this knife because my detective intuition suggests..."

There were many knives in the drawer, some bigger some smaller but the KNIFE was on top.

 

[Kauffer]

Comical,

I showed it to Dr chiacchiera and I said "To me, we should take this knife because my detective intuition suggests..."

There were many knives in the drawer, some bigger some smaller but the KNIFE was on top.

Comedy indeed. He's kidded an entire court.

PRESIDENTE - and what about the knife? Did it smell of bleach?
W - It was inside the drawer, I did not smell it, Mr. President, but when I open the drawer I felt a whiff of smell of bleach, however it was predominant throughout the room.

The bleach is detectable in the drawer too, apparently, over and above it's detectability in the rest of the flat, despite:

W – the first thing I noticed was a very strong odor of bleach in the kitchen, and diffused throughout the apartment, it was smelled by me and by all my colleagues.


The more we think about the kitchen knife, the more ridiculous the notion of its employment as a murder weapon becomes.

 

[Dan O.]

The siesure of the knife was documented and signed when they got back to the police station. Was the smell of bleach included in that document or was it created later when Mignini started constructing his case?

I would give Fenzi a pass if he reported the smell and simply doesn't know the difference between the smell of bleach and the smell of Lysofoam.

 

[Kauffer]

Art 192(2) Italian CCP

That's an indication of something different: Stefanoni should have repeated the entire (autosomic) process on the bra clasp from the beginning, i.e. take a sample, quantify/amplify it and run it through electrophoresis. That (differing RFU values but the same basic results) suggests that she just used the same amplified product from one sample and did two different electrophoresis runs, which is how she could end up with different RFU levels. That's what Conti and Vecchiotto figured and what Mehul Anjar thought was suggested as well ("different injection times of the same sample"). Note that this is not in reference to her doing two basic tests (autosomic and y-str) but that the autosomic had two different results generated through electrophoresis.

As for why she did that I've not yet read a good explanation, but from a cursory glance it looks like Diocletus has some ideas. Another is that she thought she'd attempt to fulfill the requirement for 'repeating the test' by running the same amplified product though electrophoresis again, but that doesn't actually repeat the test, it just repeats the results of the first.

We've discussed art 192 here before, in connection with this case, but Mr Sollecito raises it in relation to the bra clasp single amplification in his appeal summary.

Section 2 of the article states:

"The existence of a fact cannot be inferred from circumstantial evidence unless such evidence is serious, precise and consistent."

In his appeal, the summary of this point reads as follows:

"The Court of Florence has claimed that, while trace 36B is not an evidentiary element characterized by certainty, because of the lack of a second amplification, nevertheless it can be used as circumstantial evidence [indizio].
This is a major mistake, also from the point of view of law.
Indeed article 192 section 2 of the Penal Procedural Code prescribes that an indizio has to be precise to be usable, but the requisite of precision implies the certainty of its existence.It is a confirmed stance of Italian jurisprudence that before it can be used, the existence of an indizio must be ascertained with certainty, it is not enough that it may be likely or supposed.
Hence, absent a second amplification of trace 36B, the existence of the victim’s DNA on the knife lacks the prerequisite of certainty and hence it cannot be used to prove the guilt of the defendants.
A reasoning, like the one in the ruling, assuming that trace 36B could contain the victim’s DNA is not admissible."
The bra clasp "evidence" had no place at trial. It's use was contrary to Italian law and should, even at this late stage, be excluded by Cassation.

 

[Kauffer]

The siesure of the knife was documented and signed when they got back to the police station. Was the smell of bleach included in that document or was it created later when Mignini started constructing his case?

I would give Fenzi a pass if he reported the smell and simply doesn't know the difference between the smell of bleach and the smell of Lysofoam.

Well...yes, but he has testified here that the smell of bleach when he opened the drawer (whether bleach or lysofoam is not relevant in connection with this, as he is trying to convince the court that his "intuition" was a precursor to his actions), was detectable above and beyond the smell of the same within the whole apartment - as if, inside the drawer, the use of the chemical was particularly substantial and therefore a particular stimulation of Finzi's intuitive nature.

Does one use powerful cleaners, routinely, on the inside of a cutlery drawer, or on the items therein? He is testifying that he detected they had been so used at Mr Sollecito's apartment before he had even noticed, let alone selected, the knife.

This sort of testimony would elicit sniggering in a British Court.