Continuation Part 13: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[lonepinealex]

This doesn't make sense, the correct wording is:

After 46 days during which everybody and everything entered that room, how could that clasp not be dirty/dusty(if you wish)?

Contamination is a rare process, one star among billions. The logic above is like saying, "I'm a young beautiful teenage girl, how come for my 18th birthday i haven't received a love letter from a celebrity actor.

Citation?

 

[Samson]

Yes unfortunately my bet on next week's conclusion is that there won't be a conclusion. They won't confirm the convictions, but they won't annul them either. They'll send it all back for yet another trial - hey, why not spin this malarkey out for another two years? Then the world will see what a serious case this is and how seriously we, the ISC, are taking it!

Oh remember, you will be patient.

http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php...ediately_the_impossible_takes_a_little_longer

 

[carbonjam72]

Yes unfortunately my bet on next week's conclusion is that there won't be a conclusion. They won't confirm the convictions, but they won't annul them either. They'll send it all back for yet another trial - hey, why not spin this malarkey out for another two years? Then the world will see what a serious case this is and how seriously we, the ISC, are taking it!

Not sure this is how it works.

For the case to get sent back down for another appeal trial, the conviction from Nencini has to be annulled.
However, they could kick the case to a "united sessions" panel, which would (IIUC) not annul the convictions, but rather add 4 additional judges to the panel, and then they reconsider the case, which takes them another year or year and a half. (So this option would fit your thesis).

The other option is annul the convictions, without referring for retrial (best option).

However, if Nencini is annulled, and its sent back down for re-trial, many people are suggesting (Nadeau citing Maresca in her recent article), that a third appeal trial generally ends in acquittal because its assumed a third trial means there's probably enough reasonable doubt to acquit.

But Burleigh has written in her recent article that the confirmation of the convictions by cassation is all but assured. Pretty much a rubber stamp, since cassation already rejected an acquittal. However, her last line, is basically 'who the hell knows what an Italian court will do in this case?".

I of course, have aired my contrarian dietrologia, and am sticking to it: annulment of Nencini, without re-trial, on the grounds that "the charges should never have been brought, or continued" (thanks to Numbers for posting the CCP, but I forgot the # to cite).

 

[Samson]

Not sure this is how it works.

For the case to get sent back down for another appeal trial, the conviction from Nencini has to be annulled.
However, they could kick the case to a "united sessions" panel, which would (IIUC) not annul the convictions, but rather add 4 additional judges to the panel, and then they reconsider the case, which takes them another year or year and a half. (So this option would fit your thesis).

The other option is annul the convictions, without referring for retrial (best option).

However, if Nencini is annulled, and its sent back down for re-trial, many people are suggesting (Nadeau citing Maresca in her recent article), that a third appeal trial generally ends in acquittal because its assumed a third trial means there's probably enough reasonable doubt to acquit.

But Burleigh has written in her recent article that the confirmation of the convictions by cassation is all but assured. Pretty much a rubber stamp, since cassation already rejected an acquittal. However, her last line, is basically 'who the hell knows what an Italian court will do in this case?".

I of course, have aired my contrarian dietrologia, and am sticking to it: annulment of Nencini, without re-trial, on the grounds that "the charges should never have been brought, or continued" (thanks to Numbers for posting the CCP, but I forgot the # to cite).

Burleigh seems unreliable and a selfie woman. She had no reason to criticise Amanda in her book, given that Amanda was randomly selected by fate. There is no reason to think she has piercing insight into the case, and I generally agree with you that confirmation of Nencini is implausible.

 

[Desert Fox]

Contamination is a rare process, one star among billions.

Um, no it's not. Especially in Stefanoni's lab, where we have already documented contamination events in her PCR processes. You don't seem to be keeping up.

I wanted to add to this, when you listen to lab researchers, you realize that tehy are far from rare events.

Alice with Skeptics with a K has often talked out this with nothing to do with the Amanda Knox case.

 

[lonepinealex]

Not sure this is how it works.

For the case to get sent back down for another appeal trial, the conviction from Nencini has to be annulled.
However, they could kick the case to a "united sessions" panel, which would (IIUC) not annul the convictions, but rather add 4 additional judges to the panel, and then they reconsider the case, which takes them another year or year and a half. (So this option would fit your thesis).

The other option is annul the convictions, without referring for retrial (best option).

However, if Nencini is annulled, and its sent back down for re-trial, many people are suggesting (Nadeau citing Maresca in her recent article), that a third appeal trial generally ends in acquittal because its assumed a third trial means there's probably enough reasonable doubt to acquit.

But Burleigh has written in her recent article that the confirmation of the convictions by cassation is all but assured. Pretty much a rubber stamp, since cassation already rejected an acquittal. However, her last line, is basically 'who the hell knows what an Italian court will do in this case?".

I of course, have aired my contrarian dietrologia, and am sticking to it: annulment of Nencini, without re-trial, on the grounds that "the charges should never have been brought, or continued" (thanks to Numbers for posting the CCP, but I forgot the # to cite).

Well so far we seem to have opinions from various journalists that fit every possible outcome. One of them will be right!

Whatever happens the ISC is going to have to somehow square the circle they've created in Guede's conviction - the multiple attacker theory. Unless it's okay in Italy to just shrug your shoulders in the continental fashion and leave it all as a hot mess.

 

[js202]

This doesn't make sense, the correct wording is:

After 46 days during which everybody and everything entered that room, how could that clasp not be dirty/dusty(if you wish)?

Contamination is a rare process, one star among billions. The logic above is like saying, "I'm a young beautiful teenage girl, how come for my 18th birthday i haven't received a love letter from a celebrity actor.

After careful consideration, one concludes that this must be the latest version of stupid coming out of the PMF camp/s. I mean, after all, Dr. Gill is getting old and past his prime. Through attentive care to CSI re-runs, Ergon has this stuff all figured out.

 

[Kauffer]

Well so far we seem to have opinions from various journalists that fit every possible outcome. One of them will be right!

Whatever happens the ISC is going to have to somehow square the circle they've created in Guede's conviction - the multiple attacker theory. Unless it's okay in Italy to just shrug your shoulders in the continental fashion and leave it all as a hot mess.

It's interesting - whatever Cassation does is going to bring it a world of trouble in one form or another. But, if it wants to stay in as much control of its affairs as it can, which I suspect will be its strongest motivation, it will send the cases back to the appellate level.

But the problem of evidence is not going to go away easily - problems of unlawful exclusion and lack of discovery as well as problems of admissibility.

 

[Numbers]

One of the mysteries is the amount of 'preparation' the English girls were given by Mignini. The prosecution crafted its attack on Ms Knox with a spectacular lack of shame. As Dan suggests, the girls' views were inevitably coloured by their interrogators' public pronouncements on the case, at the very least.

There is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the portrayal of Ms Kercher's attitude to Ms Knox and it is evident from numerous sources.

Here's Natalie Hayward on Ms Kercher, in an interview, for example:

"She was very generous and open and had a very big heart."

Here's Hayward again, in the same interview:

"....she said tensions between the two women, who shared a flat, had been building up for weeks.

Miss Kercher, 21, was "frustrated" with Knox's refusal to do her share of the cleaning, and felt uncomfortable that Knox, 24, kept a vibrator in a transparent wash bag in their shared bathroom.

Relations were not improved by Knox's insistence on strumming her guitar all the time..."

So, according to Hayward, the big hearted, generous spirited Ms Kercher was rendered 'frustrated' and 'uncomfortable' by Ms Knox over these paltry matters. Really?

It doesn't sound very plausible.

How does this meme fit with the substantial evidence of a normal, friendly relationship between Ms Knox and Ms Kercher?

How does any of this come even a tiny bit close to explaining a motive for Ms Knox to kill Ms Kercher?

http://www.vancouversun.com/story_print.html?id=5459452

The bolded, highlighted figure for age is not correct for Amanda Knox's age in November, 2007. She had just turned 20 years of age in July.

 

[Numbers]

This doesn't make sense, the correct wording is:

After 46 days during which everybody and everything entered that room, how could that clasp not be dirty/dusty(if you wish)?

Contamination is a rare process, one star among billions. The logic above is like saying, "I'm a young beautiful teenage girl, how come for my 18th birthday i haven't received a love letter from a celebrity actor.

{Highllighting added to quote.}

Your statement (highlighted) is contrary to known forensic science information.

Where are your citations for your statement? Have you done experiments to support your allegation? Where are the results published? Are you aware that your statement contradicts all information from experts in DNA forensics, including, for example, John Butler, of the National Institutes of Science and Technology? What is your background in forensic science or DNA profiling?

Here is John Butler's CV:
http://www.cstl.nist.gov/strbase/butler.htm

Here is a list of the textbooks he has written on DNA forensics. He stresses the need to counteract contamination, which is an everyday concern in forensic DNA profiling.



Butler, J.M. (2001) Forensic DNA Typing: Biology and Technology behind STR Markers. Academic Press, London, 335 pages

Butler, J.M. (2005) Forensic DNA Typing: Biology, Technology, and Genetics of STR Markers (2nd Edition). Elsevier Academic Press, New York, 688 pages (review)

Butler, J.M. (2010) Fundamentals of Forensic DNA Typing. Elsevier Academic Press, San Diego, 520 pages

Butler, J.M. (2012) Advanced Topics in Forensic DNA Typing: Methodology. Elsevier Academic Press, San Diego, 704 pages

Butler, J.M. (2015) Advanced Topics in Forensic DNA Typing: Interpretation. Elsevier Academic Press, San Diego, 604 pages

 

[Machiavelli]

Machiavelli, are you aware that Meredith was "borrowing" condoms with Amanda's consent from Amanda's toilet bag so that Meredith and Giacomo could have safe sex? Meredith apparently liked Amanda enough to borrow condoms from her.

Yes I am aware (or at least that's Knox's claim). But obviously I don't draw you conclusion about it.

 

[Numbers]

Obviously if, like Stefanoni, you don't look for something, you are never going to find it.

But I'd need to see evidence that contamination is a billion-to-one event. Certainly more evidence than an unsupported assertion from a translator.

The DNA quantification data turned over to the defense, and available for viewing at www.amandaknoxcase.com, actually does have several instances of contamination detectable in the negative and positive controls.

So there is no "billion-to-one" event. Contamination is an everyday risk in DNA forensics according to experts who work in the field, and careful work is required to avoid contamination. The risk increases when the amount of DNA being profiled is very small - LCN levels. The alleged DNA evidence against Amanda was so small in quantity that Stefanoni could only detect "too low" for detectability, as measured by a Qubit fluorometer. For this instrument, "too low" may mean there was actually no DNA present in the sample. It is possible that Meredith Kercher's DNA entered the sample either before or after this measurement as laboratory contamination. Stefanoni presented no information on procedures in her lab to avoid contamination, procedurs which would be expected to be presented by the prosecution in a US court to demonstrate the degree of reliability of the results.

The experts stating the importance of avoiding contamination include, for example, Professor Peter Gill and Dr. John Butler.

 

[Antony]

Prediction time

Yes unfortunately my bet on next week's conclusion is that there won't be a conclusion. They won't confirm the convictions, but they won't annul them either. They'll send it all back for yet another trial - hey, why not spin this malarkey out for another two years? Then the world will see what a serious case this is and how seriously we, the ISC, are taking it!

The only thing we can be confident about is that we can't predict what they'll do. Here's my guess:

The ISC will rubber-stamp Amanda's murder conviction, but order a re-trial for Raff alone, steered towards convicting him of assisting an offender (by providing a "false alibi") with the sentence of time served - thereby avoiding Italian indignation at locking up one of their own while the American remains free. They will not pursue extradition, and find a way to represent signals from the US as indicating that it will not be successful for nationalistic reasons.

<semi-serious>
In the long term, Mignini will pursue a political career and become Italian Prime Minister. Meanwhile, the slow-grinding wheels of the ECtHR will finally get to rule on the case, and will announce its dismantling of the verdicts while he is attending a government summit in the US. He will then be arrested and charged with kidnap and extortion against a US citizen.

You read it here first.
</semi-serious>

 

[Machiavelli]

Machiavelli - you have to stop this. Massei described them as normal young adults, who in his view only became "abnormal" when they made a choice for evil to assist Rudy in his lust. An inexplicable choice, which Massei said could only be explained (not by abnormality) but by their drug use.

(..).

No he did not. Your old belief on this point is one or your particularly nonsense ones. Massei never made any finding about the mental health conditions of the accused. It's your illusion.
You mistake his considering character aspects related to generic mitigation for an assessment about their "psychological normality", but that's your invention.
And by the way, he does not mention only Rudy's lust, he also mentions their lustful motives, pointing out that they had a sexual motive/ interest too.

 

[Sonia]

This doesn't make sense, the correct wording is:

After 46 days during which everybody and everything entered that room, how could that clasp not be dirty/dusty(if you wish)?

Contamination is a rare process, one star among billions. The logic above is like saying, "I'm a young beautiful teenage girl, how come for my 18th birthday i haven't received a love letter from a celebrity actor.

What you wrote doesn't make sense. Household dust is composed mostly of shed human skin cells. If a small item has been shuffled through household dust for 46 days, ending up in a new place and touching other items, the presence of DNA from people who have been in that house is likely. We all slough off skin cells all the time.

The clasp getting shuffled around on the dusty floor for so long may also explain the extra random profiles.

 

[Bill Williams]

About contamination in this case:

http://www.amandaknoxcase.com/contamination-labwork-coverup/

 

[Bill Williams]

No he did not. Your old belief on this point is one or your particularly nonsense ones. Massei never made any finding about the mental health conditions of the accused. It's your illusion.
You mistake his considering character aspects related to generic mitigation for an assessment about their "psychological normality", but that's your invention.
And by the way, he does not mention only Rudy's lust, he also mentions their lustful motives, pointing out that they had a sexual motive/ interest too.

This is a game of whack a mole.

The prosecution presented many times assertions about the "mental health" of the accused. You yourself summarized Mignini's own closing, in court, on this point.

My point is, and has always been, none of that made it into Judge Massei's assessment of this case - even as he himself found for guilt.

The "psychological normality" of the suspects was not my invention. You wish to want to have it both ways..... here is your own words as you summarize Mignini's closing, where you summarize Mignini beginning with a psychological assessment of abnormality which Mignini claims (with no proof or independent assessment) that it is linked to the crime....

This looks like a citation from Mignini's 2009 closing arguments.
The prosecutor was slightly more articulate.

First, draws a psychological picture of Knox as nurturing a feeling of humiliation/ wounded self because of Meredith's behaviour gradually cutting her out from friendship circle, and suggests Meredith being disturbed by some of Amanda's sexual behaviours, or Amanda feeling offended by Meredith's attitude, may have plaid a role. At least the sexual theme plaid a role as an a trigger of an argument, or somehow as an instrument in Knox's "revenge":



Then Mignini draws a scenario where an argument between them degenerates, and this the context of the presence of Guede high on drugs and alcohol in a sexual ruse situation and Sollecito also high after using extensive drugs. Then draws a picture of what an instigation to sexual violence as a trigger moment could look like:



Mgnini calls Knox's behaviour: "aggressione sessuale da rivalsa" ("a sexual aggression as a revenge"), also suggested Knox may have felt Meredith as "una smorfiosetta" ("prissy").
Mignii suggests Knox may have taken advantage of her abilty to manipulate Guede and Sollecito through the sexual attraction they were both feeling for her, and thus from their "competition" to please Amanda, especially in their condition of being unchained and uninhibited due to use of drugs.

I don't believe Mignini's scenario has any meaningful difference from Nencini's reasoning about motives. Both portray a situation that has a sexual element, but the sexual context is a minor component, only a context and not itself the main motive. Both point out that "motives" are complex, different from each participants and made of multiple reasons. All judges conclude that the crime builds up gradually as an escalation, from a smaller conflict or a smaller aggression and as a degeneration of an argument.​

You simply cannot have this both ways. Mignini presented this in court, and there is nothing in Massei's motivations reports that supports Mignini on this point.

If there were you would post it. You wish to play the margins of rhetoric that implies that because Massei is silent about it, that he could possibly be in agreement! You wish to turn, "never made any finding about the mental health conditions of the accused," as license to continue with your own smear campaign - the point being that Mignini also tried to smear this way in court, and Massei (obviously) disagreed.

 

[Numbers]

About contamination in this case:

http://www.amandaknoxcase.com/contamination-labwork-coverup/

Here is information from www.amandaknoxcase.com put into a table presentation (yellow bands point out problems):

 

[Kauffer]

No he did not. Your old belief on this point is one or your particularly nonsense ones. Massei never made any finding about the mental health conditions of the accused. It's your illusion.
You mistake his considering character aspects related to generic mitigation for an assessment about their "psychological normality", but that's your invention.
And by the way, he does not mention only Rudy's lust, he also mentions their lustful motives, pointing out that they had a sexual motive/ interest too.

You've brought up a sexual motive again in recent posts - there is no evidence of it whatsoever. Cassation wanted this looked at again and the best anyone could come up with was that Ms Kercher was angry about Guede's stools and Ms Knox killed her for her anger. The other idea was that Ms Kercher was angry because her rent money was missing - and Nencini took this so called evidence from an account Guede had previously made of his time alone with Ms Kercher at the flat on the evening if the 1st, something he also decided could not have happened - and Ms Knox' slaughter of her was something to do with that.

You seem to be coming back to Mignini's Halloween fantasy, played out 24 hours too late. In proper courts of law we require rigorous accounts and actual evidence. We do not permit prosecutors to speculate.

 

[Kauffer]

Here is information from www.amandaknoxcase.com put into a table presentation (yellow bands point out problems):

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/6858954c5ab1a15095.jpg[/qimg]

But this shows contamination! - Eric thinks this would be a 1 in a billion chance. I guess Eric must be wrong.