Continuation Part 14: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[carbonjam72]

So, apparently the Kerchers mouthpiece was called out yesterday for misconduct in court. More dignified silence.

Where was this from? That's another good sign, if they're putting a lid on Maresca.

 

[katy_did]

It's one of the thoughts I had. But the negative TMB goes against any recent source being the cause of the luminol hit.

But I wonder how sure we can be of that: maybe the amount was too low, maybe they screwed up the tests somehow (I know it's a tough test to screw up, but I don't think it's beyond them. Massively over-applying the luminol probably didn't help).

What I keep coming back to is that by her own account, Amanda was walking around that house with dilute blood on her bare feet, the very morning the murder was discovered. One foot on the bath mat, one foot off, just as the prints are from only one foot. It seems too much of a coincidence to be, well, a coincidence. It would surely have been difficult for her not to leave any prints.

Not that it's going to happen, but I'd like to see an experiment to find out what sort of prints would be left if someone stepped on dilute blood and then walked across a floor, then repeated with other substances, and what test results you'd get. Of course, you'd have to make sure to follow the police procedure in this case exactly, like botching the luminol application, which would be the tricky part to get right.

 

[Kaosium]

Where was this from? That's another good sign, if they're putting a lid on Maresca.

Apparently he accused C&V of fraud or somesuch.

The Jackal has chutzpah, I'll give him that.

 

[Kauffer]

Apparently he accused C&V of fraud or somesuch.

The Jackal has chutzpah, I'll give him that.

Isn't that a calumny or something?

Can't we strip him naked, make him squat and cough and throw him in the slammer for four years?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

luminol overapplication

But I wonder how sure we can be of that: maybe the amount was too low, maybe they screwed up the tests somehow (I know it's a tough test to screw up, but I don't think it's beyond them. Massively over-applying the luminol probably didn't help).

It has been a while since I looked into this, but IIRC luminol is applied under basic conditions, and TMB is applied under acidic conditions. Therefore, there is a chance that over application of luminol might throw off the pH of the TMB test. It would be a hard question to investigate, unless one knows exactly how much over application was done. We discussed luminol extensively last November, in Continuation Thread 11. See for example this comment on overspray.

 

[Diocletus]

The more I think about it, the more I think the DNA issue really is the crucial one - the statements from the SC and Nencini that the defence need to prove the way DNA might have been transferred or items contaminated (it isn't enough to show that the scene was handled poorly), and the refusal to hand over documentation. That principle, that the defence need to prove contamination, is why they were convicted, so it's absolutely decisive. I'm not sure how that would fit into an application to the ECHR, what particular violation could be claimed; it would be nice to think the SC might refer the case to the Joint Section to sort the issue out, but that seems unlikely.

Agreed, this is a big deal. The defense did prove irregularities in the collection (defect in knife chain of custody/46 days and video of clasp collection) and processing (single amplification for knife/multiple contributors for clasp) that casts extreme doubt on these pieces of evidence. In a normal situation, where the prosecution has to prove the validity of its evidence that it is proffering, this is enough to exclude it; even in a situation where the burden of proof is flipped to the defense to show a problem with the evidence (if that's even proper, which I doubt), what else are they supposed to do? And if you are going to flip the burden of proof, the prosecution can't keep the raw data to itself. Seems obvious.

The principal that is violated is Art 6: Equality of Arms.

 

[Diocletus]

Isn't that a calumny or something?

Can't we strip him naked, make him squat and cough and throw him in the slammer for four years?

Well, by virtue of the communicative property, you would actually be doing that to poor Meredith, so no--Maresca gets to say whatever he wants.

 

[Diocletus]

I think I had a dream that Griffinmill was making arguments last night, but then I checked and couldn't find anything of substance. What happened?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Italy supposedly believes that suspects unconditionally need lawyers

Hopes that AK was provoked into a wild false accusation seem silly to me, as do her claims of physical abuse since she never filed a suit. Given her repeated, voluntary statements confirming her false accusation, I doubt the ECHR will even give it a second look.

griffinmill,

There was no independent body to investigate such claims in 2007, according to Amnesty International. Even by a one-sided reckoning of when she was a suspect, by the time someone was typing up her 1:45 AM statement, she was a suspect. She did not see a lawyer until more than two days later, right before the Matteini hearing; therefore, everything she said in between should be ruled inadmissible. Even if it were not, only a highly selective reading of her 6 November letter would see it as a repetition of her accusation against Lumumba. Her letter of 7 November reads as a full retraction, unless of course one simply cannot read.

 

[Kauffer]

griffinmill,

There was no independent body to investigate such claims in 2007, according to Amnesty International. Even by a one-sided reckoning of when she was a suspect, by the time someone was typing up her 1:45 AM statement, she was a suspect. She did not see a lawyer until more than two days later, right before the Matteini hearing; therefore, everything she said in between should be ruled inadmissible. Even if it were not, only a highly selective reading of her 6 November letter would see it as a repetition of her accusation against Lumumba. Her letter of 7 November reads as a full retraction, unless of course one simply cannot read.

Yes. The misrepresentation of the contents of the 1st memoriale is outrageous.

 

[Numbers]

Critical issue(s)

Well, I didn't like to say anything...

Your explanation above sounds a bit overly complex actually, in that you're saying the validity of Massei's ruling is the issue, rather than the fact there was an acquittal and then a conviction. Obviously if there's something about Massei's ruling which the ECHR would consider a violation, that in itself could be enough for them to rule in favour of A & R, regardless of what went on afterwards. The main thing would be that the conviction was based on a flawed consideration of the evidence, not that there was an acquittal at some point.

The more I think about it, the more I think the DNA issue really is the crucial one - the statements from the SC and Nencini that the defence need to prove the way DNA might have been transferred or items contaminated (it isn't enough to show that the scene was handled poorly), and the refusal to hand over documentation. That principle, that the defence need to prove contamination, is why they were convicted, so it's absolutely decisive. I'm not sure how that would fit into an application to the ECHR, what particular violation could be claimed; it would be nice to think the SC might refer the case to the Joint Section to sort the issue out, but that seems unlikely.

You are certainly correct that the DNA evidence, including all stages from its collection until its interpretation, is a major critical issue.

The ECHR has this boilerplate language (statements repeated in every judgment where applicable) that it does not evaluate evidence, that that is the function of the domestic courts. The ECHR evaluates the fairness of a trial in relation to the Convention and ECHR case-law. Its evaluation of evidence and the way it is used falls under this evalution of fairness. One must also recognize that the case-law is not fixed like a code of law, but evolves while being based on precedent.

So one should expect that the ECHR judgment of a real case, which may have unique features, may be complex and may involve extensions of previous case-law, if necessary, to obtain conformance to the ideals of fairness summarized in the Convention.

Real cases may have several sources of unfairness; the AK-RS case does. Conviction after acquittal on the same inculpatory evidence is one source of unfairness in the case. That the first instance judgment was a conviction is not relevant, because that judgment itself was unfair and did not reflect the reasonable doubt that is embodied but willfully ignored in the Massei court motivation report. ECHR judgments of such violations typically categorize them as violations of Convention Article 6.1.

The violations relating to preventing the defense from discovery of the best DNA evidence may be categorized as violations of equality of arms (Article 6.1) or denial of adequate facilities for defense (Article 6.3b).

The violations of the Massei trial in which guilt was wrongly proclaimed despite much more probable indications of innocence would be categorized as falling under violation of Convention Article 6.2, the presumption of innocence.

 

[kwill]

Here's a paraphrase of what went on in court:

Prosecutors - Our results are valid unless you can prove contamination.

Judge - that's right.

Defence - Give us the instrument readings so that we can demonstrate it.

Prosecutors - you can't have them.

Judge - that's right.

Re-posting because there it is, the elevator pitch for anyone who says there was reliable DNA. Simple, obvious, clear, perfect. Well done.

 

[Numbers]

OK then, how about this - being convicted of murder based on evidence tainted by illegality? Surely that is irreparable (aside from appeals, compensation etc which can repair everything except death so that 'irreparable' must have some special meaning).

I don't disagree with your statement.
Unfortunately, the ECHR relies on the domestic courts and other institutions since it is by Convention not an appeal court. I also suspect its resources are too limited to determine in a timely fashion which cases of violation of Article 6 it should intervene in before individuals are wrongfully imprisoned.

BTW, the original intent of the CoE founders was that the ECHR would be an appeal court with power to intervene directly in domestic court decisions. Ironically it was the Italian delegate to the CoE - ECHR founding convention that pointed out, no doubt on the instructions of his government, that this would reduce sovereignty. Italy and the other States agreed to give the ECHR a declaratory role and the States are responsible for carrying out its judgments under the supervision of the Committee of Ministers.

 

[Sonia]

Thanks for the video link Sonia!

Man,
Amanda is scared, you can tell it in her voice,
and the Mafia busting cops are not even yelling at her when she is interrogated in this video!

Link:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-released-Amanda-Knox-interrogation-tape.html

You're welcome. I guess we should we thankful that the police managed to scrape together enough funds to bankroll this little snippet of audio from Dec 2007. Or maybe the prison paid for it, since police finances were apparently so stressed that they were utterly unable to record any of the critical interrogations of their prime suspects in their own HQ.

 

[Diocletus]

In the hypothetical event that an ECHR ruling finds Italy at fault for a violation against Knox, we sould see in what the violation consists; in that event Italian courts would determine if, or how, such alleged violation may affect the merits of a trial (most violations don't cause a change in trial outcomes).

Yeah, that's not gonna matter.

All that will matter is this:

"We hold that Italy has violated the applicant's human rights."

That will make the Department of State's job too easy.

 

[Bill Williams]

Apparently he accused C&V of fraud or somesuch.

The Jackal has chutzpah, I'll give him that.

The fake "Edward McCal" wiki says that one reason to accept that 165B is a robust indication of Raffaele's guilt, is because:

Conti and Vecchiotti had two major criticisms of the bra clasp. The first was an abstract argument for unreliability based on a theoretical risk that was extrapolated from lapses in collection protocol that Conti and Vecchiotti had no evidence happened, but would like us to imagine the possibility that they did. That argument is as bad as it sounds, which is what led observers of the trial including the police and the lawyer representing the victim's family to wonder aloud that the independent experts were actually colluding with the defense.

Apparently, "wondering aloud" is now accepted as evidence refuting the integrity of what C&V found.

But more to the substantive point..... "theoretical risks"? The reason why police adopt anti-contamination protocols is to eliminate thos "theoretical risks"!!!!

This is another example of reversal of burden of proof. Also, as an aside, the fake-wiki's discussion of 165B is classic suspect-centric analysis- "Raffaele found, Raffaele guilty." Regardless of contamination discussions, Raffaele is found on that clasp, therefore he's guilty.

But it seems that all Maresca has, as reported in the fake-Wiki an in the ISC courtroom itself, is allegations of fraud.

This is the problem with this case. The guilt side only need make allegations. The other side has to disprove those allegations, even when the tools to do that are withheld (cf. EDFs.)

Here's a paraphrase of what went on in court:

Prosecutors - Our results are valid unless you can prove contamination.

Judge - that's right.

Defence - Give us the instrument readings so that we can demonstrate it.

Prosecutors - you can't have them.

Judge - that's right.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Bra clasp DNA issues

At themurderofmeredithkercher, the authors wrote, "The second criticism that Conti and Vecchiotti advance is that the forensic expert who analyzed the bra clasp for the police was incorrect to treat some peaks as stutters. This argument was based on claims that are not accepted by the scientific community but which can not be dismissed completely. Accepting Conti and Vecchiotti's criticism in this respect would have no impact on the fact that Sollecito's DNA is on the bra clasp but it would mean that a possible third faint male profile is also present. That is very likely but also useless information."

This passage is incorrect for several reasons. Even Dr. Balding (not exactly a friend of the defense) said, "Yes, Conti-Vecchiotti identified a further 12 above-threshold peaks at alleles that could not have come from Sollecito or Kercher. They correctly criticised the scientific police for ignoring these: many do appear to be stutter peaks which are usually ignored, but 4 are not and definitely indicate DNA from another individual. The extra peaks are all low, so the extra individuals contributed very little DNA. That kind of extraneous DNA is routine in low-template work: our environment is covered with DNA from breath and touch, including a lot of fragmentary DNA from degraded cells that can show up in low-template analyses. There is virtually no crime sample that doesn't have some environmental DNA on it, from individuals not directly involved in the crime. This does create additional uncertainty in the analysis because of the extra ambiguity about the true profile of the contributor of interest, but as long as it is correctly allowed for in the analysis there is no problem - it is completely routine." In other words, even Balding does not call all of the extra peaks stutter, and his paper acknowledges that some peaks fall into a gray zone. Some of the peaks in question are in the wrong position to be classed as stutter.

Two, The wiki ignores the YSTR electropherogram, which indicates at least two additional men contributed to the clasp. Novelli's table would allow the construction of one profile that is more than half complete (and one could include more peaks as true alleles on the basis of choosing a lower threshold). Three, as I have noted on several occasions, the presence of additional contributors may well influence the interpretation of Sollecito's putative profile, as the Gary Leiterman and Gregory Turner cases demonstrate.

 

[anglolawyer]

And three - the wiki also ignores the absence of any credible evidence of anything being found on the bra clasp.

 

[sept79]

You are certainly correct that the DNA evidence, including all stages from its collection until its interpretation, is a major critical issue.

The ECHR has this boilerplate language (statements repeated in every judgment where applicable) that it does not evaluate evidence, that that is the function of the domestic courts. The ECHR evaluates the fairness of a trial in relation to the Convention and ECHR case-law. Its evaluation of evidence and the way it is used falls under this evalution of fairness. One must also recognize that the case-law is not fixed like a code of law, but evolves while being based on precedent.

So one should expect that the ECHR judgment of a real case, which may have unique features, may be complex and may involve extensions of previous case-law, if necessary, to obtain conformance to the ideals of fairness summarized in the Convention.

Real cases may have several sources of unfairness; the AK-RS case does. Conviction after acquittal on the same inculpatory evidence is one source of unfairness in the case. That the first instance judgment was a conviction is not relevant, because that judgment itself was unfair and did not reflect the reasonable doubt that is embodied but willfully ignored in the Massei court motivation report. ECHR judgments of such violations typically categorize them as violations of Convention Article 6.1.

The violations relating to preventing the defense from discovery of the best DNA evidence may be categorized as violations of equality of arms (Article 6.1) or denial of adequate facilities for defense (Article 6.3b).

The violations of the Massei trial in which guilt was wrongly proclaimed despite much more probable indications of innocence would be categorized as falling under violation of Convention Article 6.2, the presumption of innocence.

Numbers, wouldn't the 'multiple attackers' brought in from Guede's fast-track trial be a concern to the ECHR?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

the list of problems with the clasp keeps growing

And three - the wiki also ignores the absence of any credible evidence of anything being found on the bra clasp.

anglolawyer,

I know you have explained your reasoning previously, but would you remind me of it?

Four, demonstrable problems with the equipment at the time that the clasp was run, as well as unanswered questions with respect to how the bra clasp electropherograms were produced.