Continuation Part 14: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Desert Fox]

Reid v Covert actually originated in the Uk so even I am slightly familiar with this very well known US case. Perhaps someone who knows about constitutional law can explain how and when 5th and 6th amendment arguments might come into play during an extradition process.

5th - Double jeopardy
6th - Right to challenge accusers

 

[TruthCalls]

truthcalls,

I am very hesitant to draw the inference that you are drawing with respect to primary transfer. However, PG commenters who stress that Raffaele's putative profile is more abundant than the additional contributors usually fail to interpret the fact that his profile is between 1/6 and 1/10 the amount of Meredith's profile, a fact which is problematic for their argument. In other words, there is a lack of consistency to their thinking. I am completely in agreement with the notion that these other contributors have to be explained. Novelli saw the additional YSTR alleles, as well as everyone who has examined the electropherogram. Even Nencini knows that they are present, even if he tied himself into a pretzel to explain them.

Thanks Chris. I didn't mean to imply there is a certain RFU one should expect to find from a direct contact transfer as there are far to many variables. However, assuming both their DNA traces are a result of fingers touching the clasp, and all things being equal, I would think it unlikely that Raffaele could have touched the clasp directly and left behind DNA that was nonetheless 10-16% percent that of what Meredith left behind. It just seems the discrepancy between the two is too great to be rationally explained in any other way than Raffaele's DNA was not a result of direct contact.

 

[Machiavelli]

The most generous way to look at that is that Mach is mistaken. He thought it was in Burleigh's book, but he actually heard it somewhere else. I really hope he figures out where, because even though it's completely irrelevant it seems to be one of the pegs upon which hangs the idea that Amanda Knox was really crazy enough to murder her friend for not liking her enough.

You know, like the testimony of the English women who didn't like Amanda. Their catty reports are also supposed to be evidence that Amanda resented Meredith (which she didn't).

Well in fact even Knox herself hints to the episode in her book, even if she paints her loneliness in soft distant colours ("social scene not for me", "nostalgy of friends") and pulls a curtain on details:

(...) Patrick poured me a glass of wine, and I hung out on the edge of the crowd for a while. But, for some reason, I was feeling a bit flat. I caught Patrick's eye and mouthed, "I'm leaving", waving goodbye. He gave me a nod, and I was out the door.
Around 12:30 A.M., when I met Spyros and his friends for drinks, I couldn't get into the good time they were having. Even on a blowout party night, Perugia's social scene didn't do much for me, and the whole evening felt like a dud. It made me nostalgic for the sit-around-and-talk gatherings of friends at UW. I was glad when Raffaele came to Piazza IV Novembre to walk me home. By that time it was 1:45 A.M., and most of my eyeliner whiskers had rubbed off. Thankfully, Halloween 2007 was over.

This "thankfully" the party was over is something you can't miss.
And you can guess why she doesn't have eyeliners anymore.
She calls Raffaele at 1am and she is glad Raffaele walks her home - she has no girl friend who does - she is glad, despite they had not been eager to spend the evening together. She was not so glad to spend the evening with him and apparently he too - so he says - preferred to remain closed at home rather than go out to party with Amanda on Halloween night.
Even from their own book, you bet she wanted to spend the night with Meredith.
This is what Sollecito wrote about that night:

October 31 was the first day since our meeting that Amanda and I spent almost completely apart. In the morning I was invited to a friend’s graduation ceremony, and I went to another friend’s house for much of the afternoon. Amanda had class, then focused on her plans for Halloween, a big deal for Perugia’s foreign students, though it meant nothing to us Italians. She and I did not meet up until late afternoon, at which point she drew cat whiskers on her face in makeup and, knowing my passion for Japanese comics, scrawled an abstract design on me. I didn’t feel like going out, so I worked on my thesis while Amanda walked over to Le Chic to meet up with some of her friends there. She had hoped to spend the evening with Meredith, but Meredith’s British girlfriends didn’t like her - they found her too unrestrained in the way she acted and talked and burst into song whenever she felt like it - and Meredith never responded to her text suggesting they meet.

Even Sollecito notes that she wanted to spend the night with Meredith.
The fact that even he knows Meredith didn't respond to her sms, it suggests that this must not have been a completely unimportant detail, must have had a consequence of some kind, some emotional importance.
Sollecito even adds that it was not a chance, it was not Amanda and it was not a forgetting on the part of Meredith, it was in fact that "Meredith's friends didn't like her".

Here it says really almost everything you need to know. Obviously Sollecito pins it on "her friends", it's they who appeared to dislike her, not Meredith. Such distinction is obviously pulling a compassionate curtain. The reader can well understand his distinction between Meredith and her friends makes no sense, Sollecito didn't know any of those girls and couldn't have a clue about what they actually thought, how could guess who didn't like who? He is making up this picture because it's the only thing he can say in order to keep Meredith out. The pro-Knox crowd will maintain that "didn't like" doesn't go for Meredith, she and her friends were separete entities with different views, that they only thought Amanda was a little "unrestrained" and that Amanda was only a bit nostalgic, but the public reading is not made of Kwills, the dynamic of a rejection of Amanda's feelings are clear, even just from these rather omissive accounts.

 

[Kauffer]

5th - Double jeopardy
6th - Right to challenge accusers

Yes, I'm aware of that. What I was asking about is the process and timing of making constitutional arguments as a defence against extradition.

 

[Diocletus]

Reid v Covert actually originated in the Uk so even I am slightly familiar with this very well known US case. Perhaps someone who knows about constitutional law can explain how and when 5th and 6th amendment arguments might come into play during an extradition process.

I think the general idea is the the government cannot enter into a treaty that would have the effect of excusing the government of its obligations under the bill of rights. Thus, for example, the government cannot enter into an agreement under which the government undertakes to snatch innocent citizens off the street and deliver them to a foreign power. There has to be some due process involved before the government can lay hands on.somebody, even if just to deliver the person to a third party, because due process is required under the 5th amendment.

What due process is required when somebody has been convicted in a foreign court does not seem to have been seriously tested. It might be necessary to allow a person to show actual innocence and/or alibi. Whether the person can show that they were railroaded and/or their human rights were violated is another interesting issue.

ETA: these arguments probably get raised and decided at the habeas corpus stage. I think that the double jeopardy issue, together with arguments about the use of in admissible evidence, probably get mixed in with some kind of human rights argument.

 

[Machiavelli]

I hope the guilters have read the transcripts of Amanda's bugged telephone conversations after the murder. I have, and have my opinions. What are yours, Eric, Machiavelli, Vibio, platonov? Have I missed anybody?

One thing I can notice is a glaring mistranslation: Guede doesn't say "Amanda wasn't there", he says "Amanda was not involved".

His words are:

"non c'entra" = she was not involved

Not to be confused with the Italian phrase "non c'era" which he does NOT say; that would be the sentence that means "she was not there", but he does not say that.

EDIT: I correct myself: Rudy also writes once (twisted grammar) "e lei non cera". So yes he does say once "was not there".

 

[Kauffer]

Well in fact even Knox herself hints to the episode in her book, even if she paints her loneliness in soft distant colours ("social scene not for me", "nostalgy of friends") and pulls a curtain on details:



This "thankfully" the party was over is something you can't miss.
And you can guess why she doesn't have eyeliners anymore.
She calls Raffaele at 1am and she is glad Raffaele walks her home - she has no girl friend who does - she is glad, despite they had not been eager to spend the evening together. She was not so glad to spend the evening with him and apparently he too - so he says - preferred to remain closed at home rather than go out to party with Amanda on Halloween night.
Even from their own book, you bet she wanted to spend the night with Meredith.
This is what Sollecito wrote about that night:



Even Sollecito notes that she wanted to spend the night with Meredith.
The fact that even he knows Meredith didn't respond to her sms, it suggests that this must not have been a completely unimportant detail, must have had a consequence of some kind, some emotional importance.
Sollecito even adds that it was not a chance, it was not Amanda and it was not a forgetting on the part of Meredith, it was in fact that "Meredith's friends didn't like her".

Here it says really almost everything you need to know. Obviously Sollecito pins it on "her friends", it's they who appeared to dislike her, not Meredith. Such distinction is obviously pulling a compassionate curtain. The reader can well understand his distinction between Meredith and her friends makes no sense, Sollecito didn't know any of those girls and couldn't have a clue about what they actually thought, how could guess who didn't like who? He is making up this picture because it's the only thing he can say in order to keep Meredith out. The pro-Knox crowd will maintain that "didn't like" doesn't go for Meredith, she and her friends were separete entities with different views, that they only thought Amanda was a little "unrestrained" and that Amanda was only a bit nostalgic, but the public reading is not made of Kwills, the dynamic of a rejection of Amanda's feelings are clear, even just from these rather omissive accounts.

And this is your argument supporting your earlier contention that Ms Knox was sobbing over a snub by Ms Kercher?? You have produced no citation for thus whatsoever. What you cite has nothing to do with your claim. The rubbing off of eyeliner whiskers (not eyeliner) is not even slightly linked to a sobbing event. You do not understand what she wrote.

I'd drop this in a hurry if I were you. It's very silly indeed.

 

[Bill Williams]

One thing I can notice is a glaring mistranslation: Guede doesn't say "Amanda wasn't there", he says "Amanda was not involved".

His words are:

"non c'entra" = she was not involved

Not to be confused with the Italian phrase "non c'era" which he does NOT say; that would be the sentence that means "she was not there", but he does not say that.

EDIT: I correct myself: Rudy also writes once (twisted grammar) "e lei non cera". So yes he does say once "was not there".

Thank you for correcting yourself.

 

[Kaosium]

Reid v Covert actually originated in the Uk so even I am slightly familiar with this very well known US case. Perhaps someone who knows about constitutional law can explain how and when 5th and 6th amendment arguments might come into play during an extradition process.

Because the US government cannot violate Amanda Knox's constitutional rights and it doesn't matter that the Senate ratified a treaty with Italy, that doesn't give Italy the right to do it either. I originally posted the case thinking in mind a quote from an Italian official who claimed something to the effect that because 'the American government' made a treaty that it then accepted Italy's system and must honor every result regardless of whether it would be considered a violation of her rights in the US. That's not true in case of Constitutional rights, the Senate doesn't have the power to do that, it is the exclusive domain of the US Supreme Court to make final rulings on Constitutional rights.

I attributed that quote to an article from Vogt, but come to think of it I believe it was at the end of that recent piece by Nina Burleigh instead. Note that I wasn't saying it was a slam dunk reason why she wouldn't be extradited, or that it couldn't be decided that double jeopardy doesn't apply, but what I'm saying is the argument that because the US Senate signed a treaty it couldn't be determined that Amanda Knox had faced double jeopardy won't fly, the US Senate doesn't have that power.

Every commentator I've seen that assumed the extradition of Amanda Knox will be a formality is operating under the assumption that there are no violations of Amanda Knox's rights by the Italian judiciary, no doubt completely unaware that the Italian judiciary regularly violates its own laws and is overruled (or whatever you want to call it) by the ECHR. As Numbers has posted, what the ISC did will likely be considered a violation of their own laws on double jeopardy as well, and is hardly the only violation they've made that would bar extradition.

Again note that I'm not saying that any case where Italy quashed an acquittal and re-convicted would be an automatic bar to extradition, but that it won't be Italy determining that and they don't get carte blanche to do whatever they like and expect the American government to hand someone over because there's a treaty.

 

[Bill Williams]

Even Sollecito notes that she wanted to spend the night with Meredith.
The fact that even he knows Meredith didn't respond to her sms, it suggests that this must not have been a completely unimportant detail, must have had a consequence of some kind, some emotional importance.
Sollecito even adds that it was not a chance, it was not Amanda and it was not a forgetting on the part of Meredith, it was in fact that "Meredith's friends didn't like her".

So? You build cases on the flimsiest of factoid. This means absolutely nothing - or, absolutely what you are predispositioned to read into it.

I'm with Kauffer. I'd drop this is I were you.

 

[RWVBWL]

<snip>
Sollecito even adds that it was not a chance, it was not Amanda and it was not a forgetting on the part of Meredith, it was in fact that "Meredith's friends didn't like her".
<snip.

Kinda odd that Meredith and 2 of her English girlfriends,
who did not like Amanda apparently,
sat at a table for 2 hours drinking wine.
On October 30, 2007, the day before Halloween.
At La Tana Dell'Orso.
With Raffaele too.


An interesting observation was from English woman Lucy Rigby,
who owned the restaurant with her husband Esteban:
Lucy, originally from Shrewsbury, England, remembered the customers because they made such a strange grouping: the "small, quiet American girl, drably dressed", accompanied by her much taller, plain-looking Italian boyfriend and the British girls in their pretty clothes, talking amongst themselves.

Lucy was surprised by the British girls aloofness.
"They could her my accent. They knew I was British. But they had no interest in me. After a while I didn't try to engage them."


Seems like the English girls did not like anyone except for their own little group...

 

[kwill]

Well in fact even Knox herself hints to the episode in her book, even if she paints her loneliness in soft distant colours ("social scene not for me", "nostalgy of friends") and pulls a curtain on details:

Amanda in WTBH
(...) Patrick poured me a glass of wine, and I hung out on the edge of the crowd for a while. But, for some reason, I was feeling a bit flat. I caught Patrick's eye and mouthed, "I'm leaving", waving goodbye. He gave me a nod, and I was out the door.

Around 12:30 A.M., when I met Spyros and his friends for drinks, I couldn't get into the good time they were having. Even on a blowout party night, Perugia's social scene didn't do much for me, and the whole evening felt like a dud. It made me nostalgic for the sit-around-and-talk gatherings of friends at UW. I was glad when Raffaele came to Piazza IV Novembre to walk me home. By that time it was 1:45 A.M., and most of my eyeliner whiskers had rubbed off. Thankfully, Halloween 2007 was over.

This "thankfully" the party was over is something you can't miss.
And you can guess why she doesn't have eyeliners anymore.
She calls Raffaele at 1am and she is glad Raffaele walks her home - she has no girl friend who does - she is glad, despite they had not been eager to spend the evening together. She was not so glad to spend the evening with him and apparently he too - so he says - preferred to remain closed at home rather than go out to party with Amanda on Halloween night.
Even from their own book, you bet she wanted to spend the night with Meredith.

I'm sorry. Where does it say that she wanted to be with Meredith?

Where does it say that she sobbed for two hours over being left out of the awesome group of English women? The one that stayed out drinking until 4 am?

Your problem is that you have a fantasy Amanda Knox who seems mostly unrelated to the person named Amanda Knox. When the person says something, you assign meaning wildly out of whack with reality.

ps . . . eyeliner usually rubs off after a few hours. They tell you that it won't, but it does. You don't need to sob for two hours, either. Did you find that quote somewhere?

 

[Matthew Best]

Also, it's not her eyeliner that has rubbed off because she was crying, it's her whiskers that have rubbed off.

(Probably because she was snogging with every Tom, Dick & Harry she came across, the hussy!)

 

[kwill]

This is what Sollecito wrote about that night:

October 31 was the first day since our meeting that Amanda and I spent almost completely apart. In the morning I was invited to a friend’s graduation ceremony, and I went to another friend’s house for much of the afternoon. Amanda had class, then focused on her plans for Halloween, a big deal for Perugia’s foreign students, though it meant nothing to us Italians. She and I did not meet up until late afternoon, at which point she drew cat whiskers on her face in makeup and, knowing my passion for Japanese comics, scrawled an abstract design on me. I didn’t feel like going out, so I worked on my thesis while Amanda walked over to Le Chic to meet up with some of her friends there. She had hoped to spend the evening with Meredith, but Meredith’s British girlfriends didn’t like her - they found her too unrestrained in the way she acted and talked and burst into song whenever she felt like it - and Meredith never responded to her text suggesting they meet.

Even Sollecito notes that she wanted to spend the night with Meredith.
The fact that even he knows Meredith didn't respond to her sms, it suggests that this must not have been a completely unimportant detail, must have had a consequence of some kind, some emotional importance.

Yes? Was this the part where Amanda sobbed for two hours? I can't find that detail in Raffaele's language.

Sollecito even adds that it was not a chance, it was not Amanda and it was not a forgetting on the part of Meredith, it was in fact that "Meredith's friends didn't like her".

Well, to be fair, he wrote this after the trial. He'd heard their catty remarks about Amanda in the courtroom. He doesn't say he knew it at the time. It would be sort of odd if he had, given that he barely spoke English and they didn't speak Italian.

Here it says really almost everything you need to know. Obviously Sollecito pins it on "her friends", it's they who appeared to dislike her, not Meredith. Such distinction is obviously pulling a compassionate curtain. The reader can well understand his distinction between Meredith and her friends makes no sense, Sollecito didn't know any of those girls and couldn't have a clue about what they actually thought, how could guess who didn't like who? He is making up this picture because it's the only thing he can say in order to keep Meredith out. The pro-Knox crowd will maintain that "didn't like" doesn't go for Meredith, she and her friends were separete entities with different views, that they only thought Amanda was a little "unrestrained" and that Amanda was only a bit nostalgic, but the public reading is not made of Kwills, the dynamic of a rejection of Amanda's feelings are clear, even just from these rather omissive accounts.

You're working way too hard here. The question we're trying to answer is this:

Do we have any evidence that Amanda Knox resented Meredith? You claimed earlier that Amanda spent hours "sobbing" over being rejected by Meredith. If this were true, it would at least mean that she was hurt. But the fact is that the best you can do is invent feelings for Amanda because her eyeliner was smeared.

There was no sobbing over this rejection. Come on, admit it. You have nothing whatsoever to show that Meredith herself didn't like Amanda, and nothing to show that Amanda didn't like Meredith. They were friends.

 

[Numbers]

Reid v Covert actually originated in the Uk so even I am slightly familiar with this very well known US case. Perhaps someone who knows about constitutional law can explain how and when 5th and 6th amendment arguments might come into play during an extradition process.

The 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments should come into consideration immediately upon a receipt at State of any extradition request. The Secretary of State and all executive officers (and all Senators and Representatives) take an oath to support the Constitution (required by US Constitution, Article VI). The President takes an oath explicitly defined in Article II, Section 1, "to ... faithfully execute the office of President and ... preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

 

[Dougm]

Here it says really almost everything you need to know. Obviously Sollecito pins it on "her friends", it's they who appeared to dislike her, not Meredith. Such distinction is obviously pulling a compassionate curtain. The reader can well understand his distinction between Meredith and her friends makes no sense, Sollecito didn't know any of those girls and couldn't have a clue about what they actually thought, how could guess who didn't like who? He is making up this picture because it's the only thing he can say in order to keep Meredith out. The pro-Knox crowd will maintain that "didn't like" doesn't go for Meredith, she and her friends were separete entities with different views, that they only thought Amanda was a little "unrestrained" and that Amanda was only a bit nostalgic, but the public reading is not made of Kwills, the dynamic of a rejection of Amanda's feelings are clear, even just from these rather omissive accounts.

This is nuts. Anyone that has ever been friends with different groups of people, especially when they are young, has experienced what was going on here. Meredith was friends with the British girls. She was also friends with Amanda. The British girls and Amanda did not act alike, and it seems clear, (from actual testimony) that the British girls did not understand Amanda, let's just say she was "not their cup of tea." So Meredith was starting to do some things with her girl friends, and some things with Amanda. Not so much together.

How often does this type of situation happen in people's lives? All the time.

How often does it lead to sexual assault. Almost never.

How often does it lead to murder? Almost never.

I've been in this situation many times in my life. In High School, I was often in the "Meredith" role -- I had a group of friends, who always wanted me to come out with them, but they didn't like to hang out with another guy, who I was also friends with. It would have been my preference to have everyone get along, but they didn't always, so I had to choose. There was nothing "wrong" with either the group or my other friend, they just didn't click together.

To extrapolate this into Amanda being angry to the point of committing a violent act on Meredith is completely crazy. It shows confirmation bias to the extreme.

 

[moije2]

Well in fact even Knox herself hints to the episode in her book, even if she paints her loneliness in soft distant colours ("social scene not for me", "nostalgy of friends") and pulls a curtain on details:



This "thankfully" the party was over is something you can't miss.
And you can guess why she doesn't have eyeliners anymore. She calls Raffaele at 1am and she is glad Raffaele walks her home - she has no girl friend who does - she is glad, despite they had not been eager to spend the evening together. She was not so glad to spend the evening with him and apparently he too - so he says - preferred to remain closed at home rather than go out to party with Amanda on Halloween night.
Even from their own book, you bet she wanted to spend the night with Meredith.
This is what Sollecito wrote about that night:



Even Sollecito notes that she wanted to spend the night with Meredith.
The fact that even he knows Meredith didn't respond to her sms, it suggests that this must not have been a completely unimportant detail, must have had a consequence of some kind, some emotional importance.
Sollecito even adds that it was not a chance, it was not Amanda and it was not a forgetting on the part of Meredith, it was in fact that "Meredith's friends didn't like her".

Here it says really almost everything you need to know. Obviously Sollecito pins it on "her friends", it's they who appeared to dislike her, not Meredith. Such distinction is obviously pulling a compassionate curtain. The reader can well understand his distinction between Meredith and her friends makes no sense, Sollecito didn't know any of those girls and couldn't have a clue about what they actually thought, how could guess who didn't like who? He is making up this picture because it's the only thing he can say in order to keep Meredith out. The pro-Knox crowd will maintain that "didn't like" doesn't go for Meredith, she and her friends were separete entities with different views, that they only thought Amanda was a little "unrestrained" and that Amanda was only a bit nostalgic, but the public reading is not made of Kwills, the dynamic of a rejection of Amanda's feelings are clear, even just from these rather omissive accounts.

I think you have misread. The quote was about "eyeliner whiskers" and not about "eyeliner".

Or perhaps you were trying to suggest that she cried so much that the tears ran down toward her mouth which is where whiskers would be drawn on?

You mentioned at least a few times the sobbing event. It's not to be found in Burleigh's book. Is this an invention from desire on your part or did someone who would actually have knowledge make a comment to that effect?

 

[Numbers]

...



You're working way too hard here. The question we're trying to answer is this:

Do we have any evidence that Amanda Knox resented Meredith? You claimed earlier that Amanda spent hours "sobbing" over being rejected by Meredith. If this were true, it would at least mean that she was hurt. But the fact is that the best you can do is invent feelings for Amanda because her eyeliner was smeared.
...

It was her EYELINER WHISKERS that came off. If not from kissing and/or rubbing cheeks and/or eating, just because make-up tends to come off after some time.

 

[Samson]

One thing I can notice is a glaring mistranslation: Guede doesn't say "Amanda wasn't there", he says "Amanda was not involved".

His words are:

"non c'entra" = she was not involved

Not to be confused with the Italian phrase "non c'era" which he does NOT say; that would be the sentence that means "she was not there", but he does not say that.

EDIT: I correct myself: Rudy also writes once (twisted grammar) "e lei non cera". So yes he does say once "was not there".

In fact the reason Guede says either one or other is because he expects Amanda to be released from custody. If he says she was there he commits callunia as well as slaughter.

 

[JREF2010]

I think the general idea is the the government cannot enter into a treaty that would have the effect of excusing the government of its obligations under the bill of rights. Thus, for example, the government cannot enter into an agreement under which the government undertakes to snatch innocent citizens off the street and deliver them to a foreign power. There has to be some due process involved before the government can lay hands on.somebody, even if just to deliver the person to a third party, because due process is required under the 5th amendment.

What due process is required when somebody has been convicted in a foreign court does not seem to have been seriously tested. It might be necessary to allow a person to show actual innocence and/or alibi. Whether the person can show that they were railroaded and/or their human rights were violated is another interesting issue.

ETA: these arguments probably get raised and decided at the habeas corpus stage. I think that the double jeopardy issue, together with arguments about the use of in admissible evidence, probably get mixed in with some kind of human rights argument.

I would think the US would allow the time for the ECHR to respond first on any charges in question. Surely, after 8yrs Italy's courts wouldnt be in a hurry.