Continuation Part 16: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Vixen]

How was she flaunting her "sex life and underwear"? She was buying underwear. You've done that, right? You've made some very peculiar claims today - apparently the act of buying underwear renders a woman euphoric and in and of itself is a public advertisement of her sex life. Very peculiar.

Yeah, yeah.

 

[Numbers]

Well sort of.



So you say it would serve no purpose which is a bit of an understatement as it would and did serve them badly. It raised legitimate suspicion.

Now just saying it doesn't prove anything is fine until you combine it with completely unrelated acts to the crime.

You ignored before but if he was guilty and the PLE had just ignored the statement what would the ILE critics say about that?
If it turned out he did it, would you change your opinion on what was suspicious on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc.

Nothing, because it was a statement only suggesting that nothing of value was noted as being missing based upon a superficial search. Whether or not somethings were missing could be determined by a more thorough police investigation with the assistance of the tenants.

Are you suggesting that Raffaele's comment could be interpreted by the police as, for example, nothing has been stolen, therefore don't hurry to come to the crime scene? But eventually Meredith's body would be discovered, so that makes no sense as a tactic by a guilty person.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Not sure why any decent person would want to publicly flaunt their sex life and underwear.

Must be attention hungry.

Let's not be so roundabout. A witch would. That's what witches do.

 

[Vixen]

In court he said it was not unusual behavior for a couple in love shopping for underwear, which doesn't look quite as skimpy as some have made it out to be. Maybe it's an Italian thing shared by a brash American with an Italian lover.

In any case I understand her desire to buy fresh underwear that was also pleasing to Raffaele.

Rather distasteful getting turned on by her room mate's murder whom Italian prosecutors believed them responsible for?

Hmm.

 

[Vixen]

Let's not be so roundabout. A witch would. That's what witches do.

I think your straw man has gone far enough. Awfully funny the first time, I'm sure.

 

[RoseMontague]

How was she flaunting her "sex life and underwear"? She was buying underwear. You've done that, right? You've made some very peculiar claims today - apparently the act of buying underwear renders a woman euphoric and in and of itself is a public advertisement of her sex life. Very peculiar.

It's interesting that Mignini thought it was important enough to drag this guy into court. To me it shows how his sex fantasy theory had become part of his strategy. The store clerk doesn't come across as the most reliable of witnesses. Then again, I can't think of too many of the prosecution witnesses that do. Even if his claim is true he overheard them talking about having sex, so what?

Just more character assassination simply because they have no real evidence to discuss.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Not at all. It's a citation. Crini cited David Balding for the prosecution. He wasn't cross examined. C and V cited Locard. He wasn't cross examined either. In fact, at the time, he was dead.

Dead? But did Mignini dig him up to check his pants size? It was most irregular if they prevented him from doing so!

 

[Vixen]

Generally, Grinder, I am siding with you on the issue of "suspicious" vs. "indicative of guilt."

Yet, let's at least begin with what John Follain reported, the one author who was closest to the very thoughts of the police/PLE.

Page 67 is where he reports on this:

​

It would be great, and even better, to put Follain's account side by side with Battistelli's trial testimony. Even Judge Massei found Battistelli, in the main, unreliable - witness the timing of their arrival!

One the face of it, Battistelli's paragraph six remark COULD have referred to an insurance fraud - not knowing whose room this was, and (at the time) NOT knowing if anything really had been stolen or not - not really - B. could have been thinking that, as the basis of his suspicions.

The owner of the room had not yet arrived to confirm or deny anything missing. And even then, on what basis would the PP believe Filomena?

Yet Follain tries to make even that seem far fetched - trying to belabour what for Follain is obvious - Amanda and Raffaele did this thing. Follain in writing his book is suspect-centric. They "said nothing" because as Follain tries to imply, they are now realizing their faking-of-a-break-in was not having its desired effect.

Follain is a weasel.

Nencini IIRC puts the timing as ten minutes slow thus the cops arrived 12:25.

 

[Numbers]

We know all the barristers were given twenty minutes each by ISC, whilst Avv Bongiorno for Raff was given all morning. No doubt she and Judge Bruno (whom she extricated from mafia charges IIRC) exchanged a nod and a wink.

Supposedly the CSC panel members review the appeals documents (briefs and reply briefs) before the hearing. They have them in their possession for weeks or months prior to the hearing, in accordance with Italian law and time limits set by the CSC.

 

[RoseMontague]

Rather distasteful getting turned on by her room mate's murder whom Italian prosecutors believed them responsible for?

Hmm.

Where did I say that? Where did the store clerk say that? Where did AK and RS say that?

They had nothing to do with her murder. Life goes on.

 

[acbytesla]

So it has not been found "the petitioners did not commit the act" after all except for the additional aggravating matter in the calunnia charge.

I predict the MR will be mediocre, dull, short and very, very abstract, as the ISC has demonstrated very little incisive legal reasoning. Pareto did say 80% are chaff. Poor, poor Meredith getting the chaff.

I kind of agree with you here it will be short and probably dull. But I don't think it will be abstract at all. They will crush Nencini, saying his decision not only makes little sense but over steps what his court was asked to do. The ISC instructed that 36I would be conclusive and it was in the sense it provided nothing incriminating. Therefore, Nencini had none authority in coming to the opposite conclusion.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Rather distasteful getting turned on by her room mate's murder whom Italian prosecutors believed them responsible for?

Hmm.

Right on! Even Dr. Mignini got excited against his will, can you believe it? It was because of the evil spell, not that which turned him into pig, another one.

 

[acbytesla]

Rather distasteful getting turned on by her room mate's murder whom Italian prosecutors believed them responsible for?

Hmm.

You act as if Meredith's corpse was in the lingerie store.

 

[acbytesla]

Nencini IIRC puts the timing as ten minutes slow thus the cops arrived 12:25.

Well Nencini's a moron. Needs to go back and take basic math.

 

[Bill Williams]

Nencini IIRC puts the timing as ten minutes slow thus the cops arrived 12:25.

Nencini has been annulled in its totality. Why are you taking **ANY** facts from Nencini?

 

[Katody Matrass]

You have made good points here. Also, on IIP, poster Katody has pointed out that the CPP Art. 620 para. 1a is only meant to apply to charge B, carrying the knife.

I believe that is a reasonable and conservative view of what the CSC intended here. I may have overreached in thinking ("momentarily") that the initial CPP Art. 620 para. 1a reference applied to the whole despositivo.

Also, CP Art. 61 para. 2 only applies to aggravating circumstances in general:



Source: http://www.diritto.it/codici/articolo/4281113-codice-penale-circostanze-aggravanti-comuni
Google translated

So indeed, I would agree that CPP Art. 620 para. 1L and CPP Art. 530 para. 2 must be referring specifically to the aggravating circumstances of the calunnia charge. The aggravating circumstances would only make sense if Amanda Knox were guilty of the murder or some other crime, so CP Art. 61 cannot remain.
This leaves a little mystery about the rest of the charges. The terminology "the accused did not commit it {the criminal act}" is found in CPP Art. 530 para. 1. So that would seem to be applied to charges A, D, and F, but there is ambiguity, as you point out. It could be that CPP Art. 530 para. 2 from the previous clause is meant to apply. I suggest that there is no real difference, in the sense that "insufficient evidence" includes "no reliable evidence of guilt" and that because of the presumption of innocence, any acquittal based on defects in evidence (including no reliable evidence) must mean that legally the criminal act was not committed by the accused.

We need to see the Marasca CSC panel motivation report to more fully understand the reasoning. They may decide not to mention the procedural law violations in order to save face or avoid conflict. The Hellmann court MR did not explicitly state that there were procedural law violations, although it came close in its statements about the Nov. 5/6 interrogation of Amanda Knox.

Thanks for your post, which has helped clarify the meaning of the dispositivo.

ETA: There is still the little mystery as to whether the CSC panel meant to apply CPP Art. 620 para. 1L or para. 1A to the charges A, D, and F. The more conservative view would be that they intended to apply para. 1L.

Not at all. It obviously refers to all the listed charges. It follows from the wording and also logically, as the charges (and the aggravation) are interdependent.

ETA: 530 II specifies lack of proof that the act took place, that the accused committed it etc. as reason for acquittal. It absolutely applies here.

 

[bagels]

So it has not been found "the petitioners did not commit the act" after all except for the additional aggravating matter in the calunnia charge.

I predict the MR will be mediocre, dull, short and very, very abstract, as the ISC has demonstrated very little incisive legal reasoning. Pareto did say 80% are chaff. Poor, poor Meredith getting the chaff.

You can always read Hellmann, which put this case to rest for the rational world years ago.

 

[RoseMontague]

Nencini has been annulled in its totality. Why are you taking **ANY** facts from Nencini?

I thought his poop theory, although insane, deserved applause for the incredible fantasy it was.

Torn asunder, shredded, obliterated, nuked, and flushed with the rest of his fallacies and fantasies.

 

[Dougm]

It isn't meaningless and in fact was a reasonable phrase to focus on. It's the 2nd of Nov. A woman was just found murdered. Ask you cop buddy if they look at the people that find a crime or call it in. Ask him if they listen to the 911 tape for clues.

Of course knowing that a break in had resulted in nothing taken is an odd piece of information. Can his remarks be explained or rationalized? Sure.

But it was the 2nd. Meredith had just been found. They were looking for any clue. The guy that called in a "real" break in said nothing was stolen.

If a guy called in an arson fire and said there was no sign of arson would that be suspicious?

What could Raf have said that would be suspicious? I think with you guys he could have said there may be a dead person with their foot showing and you would compare it to cartwheels and Ta-da.

I agree that Raffaele saying "nothing was stolen" is something for the police to think about, because how would he know? But suspicious? What does it indicate?

The reason it is not suspicious is that it doesn't benefit him in any way by saying it. If it was actually a break in that AK and RS staged, they would have taken some things, and when they called police, they would have said, "some burglar broke in, things are a mess, and things have been stolen". This might deflect the cops away from them.

Saying what he said doesn't protect him from being suspected in the murder, or anything else. At best we can say he shouldn't have said that because he doesn't know every item that Filomena had, but it looked like nothing was stolen because expensive things were still in plain sight. So he speculated when he maybe should not have. But that's all it was. This is another one of those "Oh my god, look how guilty they were acting" tid bits that, on closer examination, are not acting guilty at all. They both acted naive, like two people who had no idea what to say to cops.

 

[bagels]

You ignored before but if he was guilty and the PLE had just ignored the statement what would the ILE critics say about that?

If it turned out he did it, would you change your opinion on what was suspicious on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc.

If it turned out he did it and he made that statement I would think he is either really stupid or really crafty. If you stage a break-in it seems logical you would stage a state of ignorance over the crime scene. That he didn't is why I don't find that statement suspicious.

On the other hand there's things Raff did that are, if not suspicious, at least curious. His lie about Meredith pricking her hand with the knife, and some of his statements regarding what he was doing on the night of the murder. I think there's reasonable explanations (obviously) but those turn my head significantly more than his casual observation about the state of the cottage.