Continuation Part 14: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Sergei Walankov]

Not for the first time Komponisto, I am in your debt.

 

[katy_did]

I provided a quote from Bongiorno yesterday that made it clear that they were not throwing Amanda under the bus. I think Raffaele's appearances helped, but I think Peter Gill might have helped concentrate some minds.

I agree Chris, I think Gill's involvement has been really important, both his comments leading up to the verdict and his book chapter on the case. For Gill - an internationally renowned DNA expert - to take the time to go to Italy and appear on Italian television was huge. I hope, like Hellmann, Zanetti, Conti and Vecchiotti, he's quietly satisfied with the verdict!

It will be really interesting to read the motivations report and to see the reasons for the acquittals - it wouldn't surprise me if the DNA evidence was right at the centre of things. Before the verdict I thought the only way an acquittal without retrial might be possible (not that I thought it a realistic possibility!) would be if the SC went back on its assertion about the defence needing to prove contamination, something they might have had reason to do with the additional evidence from Gill. If they changed their minds on that point, then the knife and bra clasp would again be out of the equation (not to mention the rest of the DNA evidence starts to look pretty shaky as well). And given that this one issue was the main difference between Hellmann and Nencini/Massei - Hellmann putting the burden on the prosecution to show evidence had been handled correctly, Nencini and Massei taking for granted that it had been - there would be absolutely no point in sending the case back for another retrial because they already knew how it would turn out: like the Hellmann trial. The only sensible option would be to acquit there and then, as they did.

 

[katy_did]

Ahem.

Whatever their enthusiasm for the task, I can assure you that we will be more than happy to provide a high-quality translation of that document, as we did for the Conti-Vecchiotti DNA report and the Hellmann-Zanetti motivation. (In the case of the former, ours is the only translation available, so far as I know.)

Indeed, you shouldn't be surprised if ours comes out before theirs.

I second this!

 

[Myriad]

Time for me too to thank the members who posted so much great information in these threads over the years. I rarely posted myself, and have only sporadically followed the thread (at least, since the more contentious earlier days when there was a lot more moderator involvement...) but over time, the truth became clear.

Here's how I'd sum up the case, for anyone who doesn't want to delve into those details but is open-minded about the overall picture.

There was and is no plausible accurate primary evidence against Knox. No crime scene evidence, no physical evidence on her person, no primary documentary evidence, no apparent motive, and no credible witnesses.

There was a lot of claimed evidence, but it wasn't evidence about the crime. It was all abstract, generated by the process itself. Claims about how she behaved while in custody. The scenarios that prosecutors and the press invented. Things people had said and written in other people's trials. The absence of exculpatory evidence that had vanished while under the control of the police. Things supposedly already "established" by earlier stages of the process.

The problem is, to sort out the two categories of claimed evidence, and see that overall pattern, one has to delve into the details. News articles almost invariably mix the two when describing "the evidence" and so could leave the impression that Knox was acquitted despite there still being some evidential "strikes" against her.

There are, in actual fact, none.

 

[Samzilla]

Killers have walked before and will walk again.
Must be hard to take for the Kercher family.


I see some posters are wondering what to do now. The option of attacking the ‘guliters’, cops, witnesses etc and more importantly the victim’s family and the victim herself long into the future is always available.

The bolded is true, Platonov. The good news is there's a few items you can take solace in:

1.) The killer in this case went to prison.

2.) The Kercher's got to see the killer convicted for his crime. A lot of families/loved ones never get that closure as many cases go cold.

3.) Two innocent people are no longer going to face prison (though unfortunately I believe they will still suffer due to notoriety) for a crime they didn't commit.

 

[Planigale]

Selene is rather special. Samson has suggested she was a friend of one of Meredith's British friends (I had heard she was a sorority sister).

Selene's writings have been described as 'psychotic' in some quarters.

I feel sorry for her. She's a young person, and she'll be forever linked to those silly guilter screeds. I always thought she was being used and manipulated by Quennel or McCall, or others in the tabloid world connected to the Kerchers, and that whole PR effort, which is what it was.

I feel no need to respond to those silly arguments anymore. The cassation ruling made them all irrelevant.

Salon should have done Selene a favor, and not have published. Or made her wait a day or two, until there was time to reflect. Not that it would have helped, but it might have. Anyway, I'm done with all that.

We don't have sororities or fraternities. It would be considered seriously uncool to belong to one if they existed. Oxford, Cambridge and Durham have colleges, but they are parts of the university.

 

[acbytesla]

This type of thinking shows a fundamental and deeply troubling level of conspiracy theorising.

Does "Yummi" think that the Italian Supreme Court - a body that is constitutionally at arm's length from the executive branch of government - was "nobbled" somehow, either by the Italian executive directly, or even by the US State Department indirectly? And does "Yummi" further think that the Knox/Sollecito families could have been party to the SC deliberations and essentially informed in advance of the decision?

Risible. If "Yummi" really does think this, or anything along these lines, then he ought to be turning his attention away from the Knox/Sollecito case and towards the fundamental issue that his country's criminal justice system is corrupt from the very highest level downwards, and cannot be trusted by the people to do its job independently and without fear or favour as required.

Anyone still of the opinion that "Yummi" is balanced, reasonable and informative in his arguments.........?

His logic always lacked balance and his latest post proves that again. His post basically says the fix was in because Sollecito acted so calm....but when has RS ever ever been seen in public not demonstrating calm? I can't remember anything but him acting calm. His other point is based on the fact that Amanda's family were seen buying beer and chips at th local supermarket. That they must be preparing for a party. I know that they were. But he fails to realize that there are more reasons to have a party than just to celebrate.

 

[JREF2010]

Killers have walked before and will walk again.
Must be hard to take for the Kercher family.


I see some posters are wondering what to do now. The option of attacking the ‘guliters’, cops, witnesses etc and more importantly the victim’s family and the victim herself long into the future is always available.

Innocent people will get accused, and cops are sometimes corrupt and cops sometimes get it wrong, and prosecutors are sometimes ego-maniacs with satanic sex orgy obsessions and possibly have some deep seated issues.

Seems like almost every week someone is in the news for being released after 15 or 39 yrs in prison, for a crime they didnt commit because some prosecutor was a ego-maniac, or the evidence was withheld, or the evidence was tainted, or some witness was found to have been coerced, or a corrupt deal made, or some ignorant interrogation gained the wrong results.

John Kercher asked for Rudy to talk, Maresca objected in court for Rudy to talk.
Thats a fact.

 

[komponisto]

And given that this one issue was the main difference between Hellmann and Nencini/Massei - Hellmann putting the burden on the prosecution to show evidence had been handled correctly, Nencini and Massei taking for granted that it had been - there would be absolutely no point in sending the case back for another retrial because they already knew how it would turn out: like the Hellmann trial. The only sensible option would be to acquit there and then, as they did.

It is somewhat chilling to contemplate that the only reason the Nencini (show-)trial happened at all was because of the asymmetry in the SC's powers: while it has the power to acquit on its own, i.e. replace a conviction with an acquittal, it doesn't have the power to convict on its own, i.e. replace an acquittal with a conviction. The most it can do is cancel the acquittal and order a retrial. Had it been otherwise, the 2013 ruling makes it pretty clear that they would have just convicted Knox and Sollecito on the spot.

My hope is that the motivation this time will be as clearly a rebuke of the prior SC ruling as of Nencini (who after all was just a puppet for the previous SC incarnation).

 

[Bill Williams]

Time for me too to thank the members who posted so much great information in these threads over the years. I rarely posted myself, and have only sporadically followed the thread (at least, since the more contentious earlier days when there was a lot more moderator involvement...) but over time, the truth became clear.

Here's how I'd sum up the case, for anyone who doesn't want to delve into those details but is open-minded about the overall picture.

There was and is no plausible accurate primary evidence against Knox. No crime scene evidence, no physical evidence on her person, no primary documentary evidence, no apparent motive, and no credible witnesses.

There was a lot of claimed evidence, but it wasn't evidence about the crime. It was all abstract, generated by the process itself. Claims about how she behaved while in custody. The scenarios that prosecutors and the press invented. Things people had said and written in other people's trials. The absence of exculpatory evidence that had vanished while under the control of the police. Things supposedly already "established" by earlier stages of the process.

The problem is, to sort out the two categories of claimed evidence, and see that overall pattern, one has to delve into the details. News articles almost invariably mix the two when describing "the evidence" and so could leave the impression that Knox was acquitted despite there still being some evidential "strikes" against her.

There are, in actual fact, none.

"It was all abstract, generated by the process itself."

That is an interesting, and frighteningly accurate, description of what went on. It is the reason why all of us should care about wrongful convictions - in the face of State machinery (which mostly works well), someone on the receiving end of this "generated by the process" stuff is helpless.

IMO - the way the guilt-movers-and-shakers put this is by constantly referring to, "all the other evidence." "All the other evidence" was all this abstract stuff, generated by the process itself. My own entry point to this was to try and chase this, "all the other evidence", as it receded into the horizon.....

...... all the way over the edge of the horizon where there were warning signs: "Thar be dragons."

One of the first websites I turned to to make sense of this was Peter Quennell's, "True Justice for Meredith Kercher," when I knew absolutely nothing. I'd initially thought Knox (and knew nothing of Sollecito) was guilty because, "that's what the DNA said. DNA is DNA is DNA."

I became involved in the late summer of August 2011 when newspapers were reporting that the DNA evidence was falling apart. WTF!?, I thought, how can DNA "evidence", fall apart?

Turning to TJMK back then as a source, Peter Quennell had front-page opinions, one of which said: "regardless of the DNA, there's all the other evidence."

One of the reasons I went after Machiavelli on the psychopathology thing, was that there was a poster to PQ's site named Ergon, who Quennell, apparently, turned to to establish that there were serious psychoanalytical misgivings in this case about the health of Amanda Knox. I assumed, never having checked the record, that this had been established either at the earlier trial (in 2009) and was just glossed over by the Hellmann court (because you still have to have evidence to convict psychologically damaged people!).

Ergon, it turns out, has never tried to hide who he is. Kudos to him.

Yet discovering his background was a shock - and he was one of Quennell's main sources to establish psychological factors of this crime.

IIRC - during my 7-post tenure at TJMK before I was banned, I asked Ergon (I think it was me) his credentials. He openly and without embarrassment said that he made evaluations based on astrology and "observational psychology."

Set aside astrology for a second...... "observational psychology"!? What is that?

It's a fancy word for "watching".

This last dust-up with Machiavelli is simply more of the same. In essence, Machiavelli reserved the right to keep "psychopathology" in the conversation because Mignini, in 2009, used it as part of his closing at trial. Literally no one since used it, not even Judge Massei even in convicting the pair in 2009. There had been, apparently, no evidence entered into trial, other than Mignini's somewhat exaggerated say-so. Not one word in 400+ pages of subsequent motivation report..... yet Machiavelli reserved the right to keep this as part of, "all the other evidence."

Or, to steal your phrase, keep it only because it was generated by some small part of the "process" (Mignini's mind), regardless that there was not one sentence from prison or the trial from a competent psychological professional suggesting such. Nothing. Nada.

Ok. All this drew to a close yesterday, and some are hanging on. As LondonJohn says, even the hardcore guilters are now talking about how corrupt the Italian system is to allow an acquittal (total innocence, really) at this late point.

Surely on a skeptics site like this one, the first thing one should think is: should we be trusting a system which some say is hopelessly corrupt with settling murder cases?

For Pete's sake, think of the Kerchers. They've been fed institutional lies for almost eight years about two people irrelevant to the crime. They've been told, "yes we have, no we haven't, yes we have, no we haven't" solved the brutal murder of their loved-one for almost eight years. Eight years.

Ok, seven years 5 months. Ever since Mignini asked John Kercher Snr. into his office, gave heartfelt condolences and then proceeded to bungle the investigation because Mignini's mind was filled with sex-games gone wrong, and because Mignini was trying to rescue his own career after the drubbing he took over the Narducci affair.

Some say, "I will not serve a life sentence just to further your career." I won't dare speak for them, but I imagine the Kercher's are coming around to some variation of that phrase for what they've endured at the hands of the keystone cops of Perugia, et al.

 

[Bill Williams]

John Kercher asked for Rudy to talk, Maresca objected in court for Rudy to talk.
Thats a fact.

The Kerchers wrote a letter to the Nencini court asking that the evidence be evaluated.

Nencini denied 18 of Sollecito's 19 requests for evaluation, further and otherwise, of the evidence.

It wasn't just Maresca. And platonov has the friggin' gall to say it is innocenters who are disrespecting the Kerchers.

 

[Antony]

I agree Chris, I think Gill's involvement has been really important, both his comments leading up to the verdict and his book chapter on the case. For Gill - an internationally renowned DNA expert - to take the time to go to Italy and appear on Italian television was huge. I hope, like Hellmann, Zanetti, Conti and Vecchiotti, he's quietly satisfied with the verdict!

It will be really interesting to read the motivations report and to see the reasons for the acquittals - it wouldn't surprise me if the DNA evidence was right at the centre of things. Before the verdict I thought the only way an acquittal without retrial might be possible (not that I thought it a realistic possibility!) would be if the SC went back on its assertion about the defence needing to prove contamination, something they might have had reason to do with the additional evidence from Gill. If they changed their minds on that point, then the knife and bra clasp would again be out of the equation (not to mention the rest of the DNA evidence starts to look pretty shaky as well). And given that this one issue was the main difference between Hellmann and Nencini/Massei - Hellmann putting the burden on the prosecution to show evidence had been handled correctly, Nencini and Massei taking for granted that it had been - there would be absolutely no point in sending the case back for another retrial because they already knew how it would turn out: like the Hellmann trial. The only sensible option would be to acquit there and then, as they did.

That sounds remarkably like reinstating the Hellmann verdict, which we were told was not possible. Come to that, the outcome of yesterday's hearing correspond exactly to Hellmann's verdicts - down to Amanda's (illegal) 3-year sentence for callunia.

 

[Bill Williams]

Here's the Seattle Times front page to which Kwill refers:

http://old.seattletimes.com/PDF/frontpage.pdf

Seattle Times - obviously a rag. Haven't reached 10 Pulitzers yet.

 

[platonov]

More of the Kercher family's "dignified silence":

http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...stem-has-failed-says-meredith-kerchers-family

Also Patrik Lumumba engaging in outright defamation:

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...rican-patrick-lumumba-meredith-kercher-murder

Well, now that Britney is completely innocent she has the option of using the civil courts to seek redress for this stain on her character.

I suspect she will have many such opportunities, whether she avails of then remains to be seen.
I doubt it somehow.

 

[platonov]

That’s that cleared up.

Lumumba comes across as a fairly stupid person. Can he really not work out that the police produced that false statement from her?

Let’s see if I have this right.
You are happy that the 2 ‘white kids’ went free but think the black African falsely accused of rape/murder who is better acquainted with some of the cops and prosecutors involved, his accuser and most likely the case itself is comes across as ‘a fairly stupid person’.

From your perspective perhaps.

 

[Desert Fox]

Well, now that Britney is completely innocent she has the option of using the civil courts to seek redress for this stain on her character.

I suspect she will have many such opportunities, whether she avails of then remains to be seen.
I doubt it somehow.

I do not know if this Britney you are talking about is innocent or guilty but Amanda Marie Knox has been exonerated.

 

[acbytesla]

I can't say that I believed in her guilt for very long. But certainly they must have some very compelling evidence since they arrested her...so I thought. Then I read that it was a Satanic ritual. WTF!!!! Seriously I thought? This middle class 20 year old girl from Seattle Prep. was engaged in Satanism? That never washed for me or that it was a sex orgy gone awry. It all sounded like bull. Then I went to TJX And it sure sounded like she was guilty. But they always had problems answering my questions..even beino offended by then. I always found that to be suspicious. I mean if you truly are an intellectual, you don't shy away from questions, you welcome them. Eventually like many of you I was banned. But this didn't make me 100 percent believe in their innocence, just that I didn't have enough information or had yet to comprehend the data. I then went to IIP, but while they didn't shy away from any of my questions, I was afraid that was too one sided as well. Then I found JREF, where the issues were debated in detail and for the most part with very little name calling. I found a home. A place where I could really learn what happened in Perugia. Back then it was much more balanced. There was more guilters that would try to debate the points. But over time they disappeared or converted knowing that their arguments didn't hold up. Machiavelli, is really the last who actually tried. He just could never see how barrel hiso logic actually was. Frankly, I want to thank those who helped me understand the case, particularly the DNA. That was always the hardest part.

 

[Strawberry]

Let’s see if I have this right.
You are happy that the 2 ‘white kids’ went free but think the black African falsely accused of rape/murder who is better acquainted with some of the cops and prosecutors involved, his accuser and most likely the case itself is comes across as ‘a fairly stupid person’.

From your perspective perhaps.

He comes across as stupid because he can't work out that someone can be induced to give a false statement during a police interrogation. Your pathetic attempt to play the race card, I will pass over in silence.

 

[carbonjam72]

Under Article 2 of the Convention, the Kerchers may be able to lodge a claim with ECHR that Italy has conducted an ineffective investigation of Meredith's death. That might bring them some answers as to what happened to Meredith.

btw, just saw an interview with Nina Burleigh on MSNBC I think, and she mentioned the trial file of Rudy Guede is still under seal for no explainable reason.

Nina suggested that journalists in Italy could help the Kerchers to understand the truth by demanding that the case file be unsealed and the information from Rudy's trial be accessible to journalists to report on.

Shows you what a phoney cover-up this case has been from the beginning. Seems like the dam is cracking, and now the truth will finally come out, and all the crawlies under the rock will be expose to the light of day.

That would be justice for Meredith.

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

Let’s see if I have this right.
You are happy that the 2 ‘white kids’ went free but think the black African falsely accused of rape/murder who is better acquainted with some of the cops and prosecutors involved, his accuser and most likely the case itself is comes across as ‘a fairly stupid person’.

From your perspective perhaps.

You know, platonov, race has nothing to do with it at all. Rudy broke in and murdered and sexually assaulted Meredith. Do you think he did it because he is black? I rather think that has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Patrik could have been purple for all it matters. The reason he was blamed was because of the texts exchanged between them which led to the police thinking he was involved. Do you really think he was accused because he was black.

This black/white thing is quite tiresome.