Continuation Part 15: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Kauffer]

Yes. Why is it 'either or' anyway? Why can't the defence attend tests (or decline to do so) and also demand any material they want? What is pernicious in the Italian system is the obligation to justify disclosure requests at the risk of being slammed with a lawsuit if the application contains an imputation of impropriety.

Yes. I agree with you. This is the essential problem. It seems to me that there should be a global discovery standard. The American bar association standards appear to lead the way on this.

 

[Grinder]

Yes. Why is it 'either or' anyway? Why can't the defence attend tests (or decline to do so) and also demand any material they want? What is pernicious in the Italian system is the obligation to justify disclosure requests at the risk of being slammed with a lawsuit if the application contains an imputation of impropriety.

You nailed a feature of their system that turns them 180 from other modern systems. That was one of the reasons IMO that the defense attorneys didn't say anything about the interrogation improprieties before and during the first trial or if they did it was very meek.

 

[Grinder]

So Numbers, how does a technician or other get charged in Italy? Is it possible that the ISC motivation could include instructions to someone to charge her or others?

It would be great if Marasca detailed some of the highly questionable acts of the PLE and ILE.

Do you know if the ISC ever does that?

 

[Numbers]

Numbers thanks for reading and reporting on Frank's lab articles as I haven't yet. It would appear that it verifies my recollection that the experts for the defense weren't there including Potenza. To me his reporting though a translation was clear that he was only analyzing the tests but hadn't been there.

Interestingly Mach made the argument that they didn't attend to make their later complaints about the methods etc.

Once again it verifies the serious faults in the Italian system. A non-repeatable test of this significance shouldn't be done with only a few hours notice to the defense, which was the case.

{Highlighting added to quote.}

Is there a citation available for when the defense received notification for each day of testing?

If I understand the code of criminal procedure correctly, the defense is to receive 2 days notice (CPP 398, paragraph 3) of the day, time, and place of the special evidentiary hearing. What is unclear to me is whether that applies to each day when the hearing (and is actual testing considered part of the hearing?) is over a number of days, and if CPP 400, Decisions for urgent cases, was used to justify short notice. (CPP 400 requires a reasoned decree by a judge for shortening time limits.) It is also unclear to me how the actual hearing in judge's chambers to review the evidence (CPP 401) was applied in this case.

 

[Numbers]

So Numbers, how does a technician or other get charged in Italy? Is it possible that the ISC motivation could include instructions to someone to charge her or others?

It would be great if Marasca detailed some of the highly questionable acts of the PLE and ILE.

Do you know if the ISC ever does that?

{Highlighting added to quote.}

The CSC is apparently allowed by procedural law to point out deviations or violations of law that took place in a trial it is reviewing under appeal (CPP 606). Whether in practice it does so, and with what frequency, I do not know.

The CSC is in each case under appeal those few judges (5 in a regular panel, 9 in a United Sections panel) who have been assigned to the case. I suspect there may be considerable variation in judgments based on the judicial philosophies of the judges in a particular panel, and whether or not the judges choose to follow all the laws of Italy (including the ECHR case-law) in their judgment.

 

[Numbers]

So Numbers, how does a technician or other get charged in Italy? Is it possible that the ISC motivation could include instructions to someone to charge her or others?
It would be great if Marasca detailed some of the highly questionable acts of the PLE and ILE.

Do you know if the ISC ever does that?

{Highlighting added to quote.}

Supposedly a prosecutor (PM) would bring charges. PMs do have authority to arrest someone who commits an offense during a hearing (CPP 476, para. 1), which I presume would include perjury. Arrests are not permitted at a hearing for offenses concerning content of testimony (CPP 476, para. 2).

I don't know if the CSC or a lower court would or could according to CPP indicate that someone should be charged.

 

[Bill Williams]

You nailed a feature of their system that turns them 180 from other modern systems. That was one of the reasons IMO that the defense attorneys didn't say anything about the interrogation improprieties before and during the first trial or if they did it was very meek.

The books by the two contain anecdotal accounts of how this filtered down to AK and RS as they deliberated with their lawyers.

 

[Bill Williams]

Curatolo did it twice before. Frank S seemed to think Quintavale knew he was lying, and I agree. And Mignini had built a career on it.

Seems to happen all the time. I truly believe its a cultural thing. Defendants are allowed and expected to lie in Italy. Its just different there.

I'll never forget Mach's saying that, 'In Italy, if no one dies, no one is held accountable'.

Its like living in an unending amateur theater production, where from time to time, people are obliged to play odd roles as needed for the national drama.

As much as this post makes no sense, CJ72, it describes the most closely what had happened throughout it all..... strange but true.

 

[RWVBWL]

$30 Euros per Dose?

Greetings,
As ACbyTesla did yesterday,
we long time followers of this horrible murder case
can each still learn of something new,
as I just did, again, a moment ago:

PERUGIA, Italy - A key witness who provided damning testimony against Seattle student Amanda Knox in her trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher has now been busted for dealing drugs, Italian media reported.

The witness, Antonio Toto Curatolo, was charged with dealing narcotics following a police investigation that allegedly caught him selling illegal drugs for 30 euros per dose.
* * *
Link here:
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/113522204.html


That link was found here,
http://www.amandaknoxcase.com/antonio-curatolo/
and there is much detailed info on "the tramp" too..

I gotta wonder how much coin "Super Witness" Antonio Curatolo
was making off of each dose of heroin he sold for $30 Euro?
betcha most went to the dealers frontin' the merchandise.,
for "the tramp" surely was not purchasing the drugs upfront for resale, was he?

In my humble opinion,
(formed from many, many years of growin' up + hangin' around Venice Beach + its famous Boardwalk),
Antonio was probably makin' just enough to keep on gettin' high himself,
for Perugia Shock found him diggin' in the garbage dumpsters 1 day.
But hey, maybe old habits die hard, right?
Just like "Toto" did in prison...
RW


PS - Speakin' of beaches,
here's a cool link to check out the action
for some of you folks who don't get to come to The Beaches of Southern California much.
Wish you too were here!

...

http://swellmagnet.com/surf-cams/

Just a FYI,
You might see my red Dodge truck parked when viewin' the Sunset camera,
where I often look for breaching Great White Sharks here in L.A.

 

[Grinder]

{Highlighting added to quote.}

Is there a citation available for when the defense received notification for each day of testing?

If I understand the code of criminal procedure correctly, the defense is to receive 2 days notice (CPP 398, paragraph 3) of the day, time, and place of the special evidentiary hearing. What is unclear to me is whether that applies to each day when the hearing (and is actual testing considered part of the hearing?) is over a number of days, and if CPP 400, Decisions for urgent cases, was used to justify short notice. (CPP 400 requires a reasoned decree by a judge for shortening time limits.) It is also unclear to me how the actual hearing in judge's chambers to review the evidence (CPP 401) was applied in this case.

Quite sure they were only given a few hours and as is becoming apparent my memory isn't too bad on this

 

[Numbers]

Too low = no DNA?

Quite sure they were only given a few hours and as is becoming apparent my memory isn't too bad on this

RW's links to Frank's blog provide some very useful information on the bad old days.

Here is Frank's report on the defense response when Stefanoni finally presented some of her quantification data:

[14 September 2009] Too low, too often, even for the main item, The Marietti Knife, aka Finding 36, whose blade someone postulated to have been in Meredith's neck in that nightmare evening of November 1.
Knox and Sollecito's defenses enjoyed the same reading during the summer. They found the bunch of papers hard to use since the 300+ pages were not even numbered. But the return policy of the publisher wasn't clear, so they kept it and passed it over to their experts.

The coroners {forensic genetics experts} found kind of strange that a too low result then becomes instead perfectly readable. Also they were not satisfied with data, which they thought were still not sufficient to justify the result. Apparently the defenses gave a big importance to this lack of data. Indeed I heard they had promised for today big issues (why nobody tells me things?).

And yes, both defenses tried to do something, they explained that without raw data, without knowing the setting of the machine we still don't know how we got to that result. And they filed a claim to the judge. A little claim, simply the annulment of Micheli's decree of trial. Which means to cancel the whole process and send everyone home, free. As a sub-claim they asked to invalidate the sole DNA results.

The defense requests were not granted and the trial resumed.
This report by Frank appears to contradict the misinformation from Mach, IIUC, that the defense was passive about the DNA evidence anomalies.

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20100806235709/http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2009/09/too-low.html

 

[RWVBWL]

Hi #'s!!!

Please,
if you get a chance,
have a read from the blog posts from May 20, 21, +22 of 2009,
Frank Sfarzo covered the 1st Trial well,
and really gave us a great description of the first presentation of The Knife,
and it's problems to be, from Judge Massei's Court:
http://web.archive.org/web/20100806235915/http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html

I'd luv to read more of yours, and others too,
current opinions of these posts...
RW

 

[Bill Williams]

And yes, both defenses tried to do something, they explained that without raw data, without knowing the setting of the machine we still don't know how we got to that result. And they filed a claim to the judge. A little claim, simply the annulment of Micheli's decree of trial. Which means to cancel the whole process and send everyone home, free. As a sub-claim they asked to invalidate the sole DNA results.

The defense requests were not granted and the trial resumed.
This report by Frank appears to contradict the misinformation from Mach, IIUC, that the defense was passive about the DNA evidence anomalies.

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20100806235709/http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2009/09/too-low.html

Now that this is all over, it becomes clear why the guilt-lobby went after Franks Sfarzo (and Candace Dempsey) so vociferously in those early days.

Here is Frank's contemporaneous account of how the defence not only reacted and raised objections - here they are asking that the charges against their clients be set aside. Thrown out!

For months' on end, though, Machiavelli here in this very thread would lie - that the defence never had objections to such things, as if Mach was implying that even the defence had had de facto conceded the veracity of the knife-evidence, and others......

We've been lied to all along about the case against RS and AK.

Post-exoneration guilters continue this tradition. It's just bizarre. I'm not sure who the likes of Machiavelli thought he was influencing with his lies for all those years - I mean, all that's left is Vixen here in a dark, obscure corner of the Internet.... .ORG is behind an iron curtain; .NUT is, well, .NUT..... and the only one singing the praises of TJMK these days is, well, Vixen.

Please don't tell me that the guilter PR-lobby has always been this small, and has always been this discredited.....

 

[carbonjam72]

RW's links to Frank's blog provide some very useful information on the bad old days.

Here is Frank's report on the defense response when Stefanoni finally presented some of her quantification data:



The defense requests were not granted and the trial resumed.
This report by Frank appears to contradict the misinformation from Mach, IIUC, that the defense was passive about the DNA evidence anomalies.

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20100806235709/http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2009/09/too-low.html

This is also described in AK's book, WTBH.

 

[Grinder]

Please don't tell me that the guilter PR-lobby has always been this small, and has always been this discredited.....

One of our embedded moles should give us a report from .org

 

[RWVBWL]

Greetings,
I like to read abit,
and a couple of weeks ago a local Los Angeles newspaper, The Daily Breeze,
in The South Bay, won an award for excellent reporting.
http://tbrnews.com/opinion/signs-of...cle_6accea16-e862-11e4-85bf-5f748dc4053c.html

You know,
sometimes as I read Old Perugia shock,
I feel that Francesco Sforza, aka Frank Sfarzo,
deserves a Pulitizer Prize for his in-depth reporting
of the aftermath of Miss Kercher's murder and the tragic imprisonment
and un-just convictions of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Solecito.

My opinion only,
RW

 

[Grinder]

Hi #'s!!!

Please,
if you get a chance,
have a read from the blog posts from May 20, 21, +22 of 2009,
Frank Sfarzo covered the 1st Trial well,
and really gave us a great description of the first presentation of The Knife,
and it's problems to be, from Judge Massei's Court:
http://web.archive.org/web/20100806235915/http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html

I'd luv to read more of yours, and others too,
current opinions of these posts...
RW

Back in the day we waited with bated breath for the next post. Frank always provided a different angle. It was also a great comment section with most all of us Anonymous. The PGP became so childish posting big sections of novels and plays to make reading the post impossible. Much to Frank's chagrin he had to monitor the posts.

Peggy sent an email to a Mike the butcher from Canada pleading for him to back her side and telling him that "Tara" had lost a child and he really should be nice to her, blah blah, blah and he posted it. She went ballistic about his bad form in sharing her private email.

 

[Bill Williams]

One of our embedded moles should give us a report from .org

I thought Peggy had purged all heathen and unbelievers?

 

[Grinder]

I thought Peggy had purged all heathen and unbelievers?

Would I mislead you?

 

[Strozzi]

What seems to happen in this case is that new people come along, who go back and read the media reports from 2007. They haven't participated in any of the discussion, new media reports, new expert reports, etc. that have happened over the past 7.5 years. They read TJMK and/or PMF, and those people pretty much say that the 2007 media reports were right, and it was an evil PR campaign that was able to lie and convince people that those reports were wrong.

Then those people come here and start arguing that position to people who have picked apart the case in detail for years, and we all go, "huh??".
Those arguments only make sense in a fantasy world where we can go back to 2007, freeze time, and assume there was no additional fact checking done after the initial newspaper reports.

Un ..... believable!

Dougm, I don't think the important newcomer is new to the case. Clearly not. She is someone who has probably been commenting online and creating and disseminating rumor and innuendo for years, but on a different board. Now that that board is no longer operating, she is homeless. The homeless serial witness has found a new park bench. This is it. Please slide down a little to make a little more room, OK?