Continuation Part 14: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Ampulla of Vater]

This was a Google Translate, which produces strangle dialogue, such as;
It translated "Carmelo Lavorino" into "Carmelo work": Huh?????
Amanda acused Patrick because "he was in the state of rat scary cornered"

Lavoro is "to work" in Italian. It does the best it can considering the nuances inherent in a language.

 

[HumanityBlues]

What I love about some internet posters in this case is that they are always so sure of themselves. I think every rational person could see that Hellman would acquit AK and RS, but I made no predictions after that because I frankly had no idea. I was pretty shocked that they were acquitted, which I did not expect at all. But I kept my mouth shut. I really have to wonder though, why guilters were SO certain they'd be convicted at the highest level after everything that's happened in this case.

Here's one poster I found, I'll leave him nameless, but suffice it to say he is probably a Kink's fan. Note the absolute arrogance and confidence. There is no self doubt or humility to be seen:

"Judge Massei and Judge Nencini both found Sollecito guilty of murder. They are experienced trial judges. The Supreme Court will confirm both verdicts."

I'm travelling down south on Friday. I'm expecting a verdict between 9:00pm and 10:00pm GMT. I'll be celebrating justice being served in the evening.

The verdict could be announced tomorrow evening or Thursday morning. I've got a feeling it will be announced at around 10:00pm GMT. Make sure you put your bottle of champers in the fridge tomorrow afternoon.

I hope you've bought a bottle champers for 25 March. It might be a long night.

The case is over. The Italian Supreme Court will confirm the verdicts next week. Contacting the likes of David Cameron, Philip Hammond and the MPs for Croydon - Gavin Barwell, Steve Reed and Richard Ottaway - is more constructive than endlessly analysing the case.

Just make sure you have a glass of champers in your hand on 25 March. It will be packed on here, but the company will be good. Hopefully a few old friends like Kermit and Finn will turn up too.

I have no doubts that the Supreme Court will confirm the verdicts on 25 or 26 March. Make sure you pop into Aldi and buy yourself a bottle of champers. I guarantee that the bubbly will taste perfect that evening and it will be nice to be part of an international collective experience. It's been a long odyssey and it's important to celebrate justice being finally served.

Simonetta Matone's comments won't have any bearing on the legal proceedings. The Italian Supreme Court will confirm the verdicts on 25 or 26 March.

Please resist the temptation to imagine worst-case scenarios in the days leading up to 25 March.

Welcome back The 411!! You've been missed. Hopefully, the likes Kermit and other old timers will be back for the big day on 25 March and join the online party. Quite a lot of people will be celebrating justice being served with a glass of champers.

I have no doubts that the Italian Supreme Court will confirm the verdicts on 25 or 26 March. It will be a done deal when Sollecito is back with the other nonces on the sex offenders' wing in Capanne prison.

I hope you and everybody else who is part of this online community celebrate justice being served on 25 or 26 March. There will be no more appeals. Knox and Sollecito's convictions for murder will be carved in stone. This is worth celebrating.

and on and on and on it goes.

 

[Strozzi]

It was the "confession" that made me doubt totally what was going on in Perugia. As soon as I read that the police questioned until she told them what they knew to be correct I was suspicious. When what they knew to be true turned out to be false, well, I was convinced the rot was not in Denmark but Italy.

I will never understand how the PGP have no issue with it or other things like Curatolo, Quintavalle and Nara.

I became suspicious of the police and the "confession" when I realized that Knox had been with the police or at the police station for hours upon hours upon hours for four days when she was taken late at night into an interrogation room for questioning, the night before her mother was to arrive. That told me the police were working her into their version of the crime.

 

[Ammonitida]

What I love about some internet posters in this case is that they are always so sure of themselves. I think every rational person could see that Hellman would acquit AK and RS, but I made no predictions after that because I frankly had no idea. I was pretty shocked that they were acquitted, which I did not expect at all. But I kept my mouth shut. I really have to wonder though, why guilters were SO certain they'd be convicted at the highest level after everything that's happened in this case.

Here's one poster I found, I'll leave him nameless, but suffice it to say he is probably a Kink's fan. Note the absolute arrogance and confidence. There is no self doubt or humility to be seen:























and on and on and on it goes.

I almost feel sorry for the "machine". Just imagine the emotional hell he is going through right now.

 

[acbytesla]

I almost feel sorry for the "machine". Just imagine the emotional hell he is going through right now.

Almost ...but no.

 

[AmyStrange]

-

It was the "confession" that made me doubt totally what was going on in Perugia. As soon as I read that the police questioned until she told them what they knew to be correct I was suspicious. When what they knew to be true turned out to be false, well, I was convinced the rot was not in Denmark but Italy.

I will never understand how the PGP have no issue with it or other things like Curatolo, Quintavalle and Nara.

-

Mach wrote that the translation was wrong, but offered no proof (except her/his memory), as usual,

d

-

 

[anglolawyer]

Woahhhhhh. If Balding said that about EDFs, that implies he has an incredibly worrying lack of understanding of the whole process of generating DNA data, then filtering and interpreting those data to try to get meaningful outputs.

This raises a massive red flag for me over Balding's credibility.

Possibly stepping above my pay grade, no, I don't think so. He did not proclaim any expertise in DNA profiling in his paper, most of which went over my head, admittedly. But what I did get was that he is primarily a mathematician who has developed a statistical method for analysing mixed DNA results. Basically (hopefully not too basically) he claims to be able to give you the probability that a specific individuals DNA is present in a mixed sample and using his method he was able to aver that Raffaele's was almost certainly present in the bra clasp mix.

But he makes no claim to know anything of the fiddly business of actual sampling, extraction, quantification etc. He can tell you who will probably win the 4.15 at Haydock but he can't ride a horse himself.

ETA Ninja'd

 

[anglolawyer]

What I love about some internet posters in this case is that they are always so sure of themselves. I think every rational person could see that Hellman would acquit AK and RS, but I made no predictions after that because I frankly had no idea. I was pretty shocked that they were acquitted, which I did not expect at all. But I kept my mouth shut. I really have to wonder though, why guilters were SO certain they'd be convicted at the highest level after everything that's happened in this case.

Here's one poster I found, I'll leave him nameless, but suffice it to say he is probably a Kink's fan. Note the absolute arrogance and confidence. There is no self doubt or humility to be seen:

...and on and on and on it goes.

A friend of mine was a bookie with two or three shops a few years ago and I used to head over to see him in one of them most weeks to play chess and football after hours. I generally arrived before closing time and got to listen in to the saddos who hang out in these places. A good deal of their conversation was occupied with predictions about which dog would win the 6.30 at Crystal Palace and the rest of it consisted of boring monologues explaining how they knew in their gut that Fido would win, or how they saw the favourite was looking peeky before the race so they shrewdly backed an outsider. They didn't go on so much about the times they were wrong. None of them seemed rich.

 

[anglolawyer]

Jodi Arias claims self-defence in the killing of ex-lover Travis Alexander. She shot him in the face, inflicted over 25 knife wounds, including slitting his throat. She claimed self-defence.

The main thrust of her defence was to claim that Travis Alexander was a pedophile, porn addict, and a physical abuser. There was some evidence on his computer that he had likely looked at porn at some point, but all the other evidence of bad character was single-sourced from Jodi and one other witness who did not appear in person and whose affidavit contained several easily falsifiable assertions.

Her small group of followers continue to refer to Mr Alexander as abusive, and a pedo. One site posted a picture of his body bag captioned "Justice is served". I suppose that blaming him for his own murder is the only way to rationalize support for 'poor Jodi'.

I know that case well. It's a good example but the difference with this one is we know Jodi did in fact kill Travis, therefore (in the minds of her supporters) he must be a bad guy in order to excuse her from criminal responsibility. There is no need to perform the same gymnastics here since we don't think Knox or Sollecito had anything to do with it and I have not seen any suggestion of victim blaming in the discussion of this case.

Her elevation to sainthood on the hate sites is useful cover, conscious and unconscious, for the real psychological driver which is hatred of Amanda Knox.

 

[Sergei Walankov]

Here's one poster I found, I'll leave him nameless, but suffice it to say he is probably a Kink's fan.

Not the least of this fellow's outrages is having ruined one of my favourite songs.

 

[lonepinealex]

I know that case well. It's a good example but the difference with this one is we know Jodi did in fact kill Travis, therefore (in the minds of her supporters) he must be a bad guy in order to excuse her from criminal responsibility. There is no need to perform the same gymnastics here since we don't think Knox or Sollecito had anything to do with it and I have not seen any suggestion of victim blaming in the discussion of this case.

Her elevation to sainthood on the hate sites is useful cover, conscious and unconscious, for the real psychological driver which is hatred of Amanda Knox.

The weirdest guilter sub set is those who are "pro-victim" who are also pro-Guede. That's some serious delusion right there. Not only do you have to believe Guede's preposterous lies in order to take that position, but also you have to believe that saintly Meredith cheated on her boyfriend the second he was out of town with someone she barely knew. How offensive is that?

That's what's most inexplicable about platonov's obscure blithering on here. He makes snide comments about how racist Amanda and her supporters must be - so, does he believe Guede was involved or not? If he believes Guede's story then he's hardly being "pro-victim". Like it or not, Guede is black. It's irrelevant, but he is. So the racism canard makes no sense whichever way you look at it.

 

[codyjuneau]

Did the dead priest think there were multiple attackers?

http://www.blitzquotidiano.it/opinioni/nicotri-opinioni/meredith-kercher-uccisa-solo-da-guede-2145715/

This fasinating article by Italain criminologist Carmelo Lavorino starts by explaining why this case is a simple matter of Rudy killing Meredith by himself, and then going on to reduce guilter claims of staging, time of death, motive, and "other"(murders) to the absurdities that they are.
The best part is when he explains how the Italian Judiciary allowed itself to be led down an illogical path because they failed to recognize what Lavorino calls a "Deception structural, which occurs when you come to the wrong conclusions because an invisible and brilliant false assumption inserted into the core regent of the fact / event that is being analyzed. "
He says that the "deception structural" of this case was the fixing of the "others" as an irrefutable fact in all matters concerning the case, which led to adjusting the interperation of every peice of evidence to agree with the "deception structural" of "others".
This analysis is both articulate and perspective and explains the cause of the whole sorry mess about as well as anything that I have ever seen.

In other words, there was a "presumption of guilt". It didn't originate as thinking by the police and judiciary that Rudy Guede had accomplices or co-conspirators. It started with the desire by Mignini and others to frame Amanda Knox for the murder of Meredith Kercher. Then Mignini and others adjusted the case to accommodate their presumption that Amanda Knox was guilty, rather than looking at the facts of the case.

.
Mignini consulted spiritual medium Carlizzi who spoke to a dead priest. She told Mignini, that the priest had told her, that Meredith's murder was part of a satanic sexual ritualized killing.

That kind of implies multiple attackers,and may have been what influenced Mignini.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKOa6B7Vgj0

Cody
.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Finally the cartwheels are put to bed.

Apparently there are intelligent, rational judges on the Italian Supreme Court. There never was any convincing evidence, there still is no convincing evidence. It's sad the Kercher family has been deceived but there is no reason to keep trying to find meaning in meaningless evidence.

 

[Samson]

Finally the cartwheels are put to bed.

Apparently there are intelligent, rational judges on the Italian Supreme Court. There never was any convincing evidence, there still is no convincing evidence. It's sad the Kercher family has been deceived but there is no reason to keep trying to find meaning in meaningless evidence.

Congratulations.
I from time to time read that thread.

Riveting.
And thank you for the ride.

 

[Kauffer]

Finally the cartwheels are put to bed.

Apparently there are intelligent, rational judges on the Italian Supreme Court. There never was any convincing evidence, there still is no convincing evidence. It's sad the Kercher family has been deceived but there is no reason to keep trying to find meaning in meaningless evidence.

Oh I don't know about that....Quintavalle testifying that she DIDN'T buy any bleach, I thought that was relatively strong....certainly better than the idea that she might be 'lucerferina'.

Even Bongiorno seemed to wobble a bit...... She was quite prepared to believe in the logical possibility of guilt, she intimated, if only the prosecution could prove that her client was in fact a dragonfly.

 

[LondonJohn]

Possibly stepping above my pay grade, no, I don't think so. He did not proclaim any expertise in DNA profiling in his paper, most of which went over my head, admittedly. But what I did get was that he is primarily a mathematician who has developed a statistical method for analysing mixed DNA results. Basically (hopefully not too basically) he claims to be able to give you the probability that a specific individuals DNA is present in a mixed sample and using his method he was able to aver that Raffaele's was almost certainly present in the bra clasp mix.

But he makes no claim to know anything of the fiddly business of actual sampling, extraction, quantification etc. He can tell you who will probably win the 4.15 at Haydock but he can't ride a horse himself.

ETA Ninja'd

Oh yes I agree with all this. But if you're a statistician developing a system of analysing mixed DNA results, it's paramount that you understand what it is you're looking at when you're looking at "DNA results".

If Balding doesn't know that there's a difference between the raw EDFs output by the machine and the electropherograms (and associated charts) that he's given to work with, and (critically) that the difference is due to an applied subjective human filter, then he cannot claim that his own outputs are true representations of what was actually found.

Go back to the simplistic example I posted. If a statistician were given the "cleaned up" set of numbers to work with, one conclusion (s)he might reach would be that whatever the machine's algorithm was, it outputted the number 7 the most regularly. And if the statistician didn't even know that the numbers (s)he'd been given were not the actual numbers spat out by the machine - but instead that they were the result of a subjective human filtering exercise - then (s)he would be falsely confident. Because a look at the actual source data would quickly reveal that there's another distinct possibility for the most frequently outputted number: 4.

I don't doubt that Balding's method is statistically excellent at getting results from the data he's given to work with. But the point surely is that this is only an academic exercise until and unless those results are valid in respect of what was actually discovered on the sample in question - i.e. in respect of the EDFs. And if Balding doesn't even know what EDFs are, nor that they are the true source data rather than the filtered electropherograms, then his work really does risk being viewed as nothing more than an academic exercise with no real-world validity.

 

[anglolawyer]

Dr Balding's cross examination

Q. Dr Blading, when presented with the bra clasp results for analysis, did you make it your business to verify their reliability and completeness first?
A. No, I did not
Q why not?
A those questions lie outside my field of competence
Q so, in other words, your analysis simply assumes reliability and so forth?
A yes
Q unless there is anything else, I have no further questions of this witness
A there is just one thing
Q what?
A my name is not Blading.
Q I do most humbly and sincerely apologise.

 

[toto]

max from .net

I saw comments from Guede's lawyer that Guede did not know Sollecito but I doubt Guede will ever change his story. It is true though that he never clearly said that Sollecito was there. He was more clear about Knox​

not by max from .net

“Amanda had nothing to do with it….And she wasn’t there.”

 

[LondonJohn]

Q. Dr Blading, when presented with the bra clasp results for analysis, did you make it your business to verify their reliability and completeness first?
A. No, I did not
Q why not?
A those questions lie outside my field of competence
Q so, in other words, your analysis simply assumes reliability and so forth?
A yes
Q unless there is anything else, I have no further questions of this witness
A there is just one thing
Q what?
A my name is not Blading.
Q I do most humbly and sincerely apologise.

Haha classic!

But the first half of this excerpt illustrates the issue quite well. Balding absolutely needs to be aware of the nature and provenance of the data he's given to work with - otherwise his conclusions are no more than an academic exercise. He'll obviously be familiar with the "GIGO" (Garbage In - Garbage Out) principle.

To me, it's simply not acceptable for Balding to keep referring to what lies outside his "field of competence". To take matters to extremes in order to illustrate, suppose I were a particularly nefarious lab technician who had a set of EDF data showing peaks at virtually every locus, and I then (for my own reasons) decided to scrub everything except the peaks which matched a certain individual, then gave these filtered data to Balding together with a bunch of reference profiles, he'd come back and tell me that the data showed an exact - and exclusive - match with that particular individual.

 

[Antony]

I think you have it about right, but I would like to listen to the BBC program again with your point in mind. He seemed to be more cautious in his interpretations in his PNAS article and in the interview I did with him, but more expansive when the BBC interviewed him. If you read Thoughtful's interview with him, he seems to think that an electropherogram is as raw as the data get, which is not true:
9) This is actually my favorite one: it's about the EDF's, or "electronic data files", also known as "raw data files" -- those records of raw data produced by the machine that Halkides and others have made a great fuss over, saying that Stefanoni kept them secret and refused to hand them over to Conti and Vecchiotti, giving them only electropherograms labeled with peak heights and areas (with which they declared themselves satisfied, let it be mentioned in passing). I asked him (another of MisterPink's questions) whether they could contain information that could change his mind regarding the attribution of Sollecito's DNA on the bra clasp, Meredith's on the knife, or any other. His answer: "What are these electronic data files? What is raw data? I thought that the raw data was just the electropherograms labeled with those numbers."

As I have said many times, a proper case review must include the raw data, including the raw data associated with negative controls.

In my correspondence with the BBC complaints department over the "Is Amanda Knox Guilty?" pseudo-documentary, they asserted that "the programme is based strictly on evidence presented in court". Yet the only "scientist" featured was Professor Balding, whose contribution never made it into evidence. Not only that, but they skipped over the whole Conti-Vecchiotti analysis - which was part of the court record.