Continuation Part 16: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

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This 2010 article also says Chiari was president of the civil court.

http://www.lanazione.it/umbria/cronaca/2010/08/10/368386-caso_matteini_presidente_della_corte.shtml

Excluding criminal because all incompatible, to preside over the Assize Court of Appeal should be the president of the civil division, Sergio Matteini Chiari. A long career in the judiciary - joined in 1967 - much to aspire to the highest chair, that the Court of Appeal umbra. The Commission of the Palace of the Marshals had proposed him, then the plenum chose Wladimiro De Nunzio while Matteini Chiari should go to preside over the juvenile court (whose presidency has been vacant for a year).
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So again, it's pretty hard to believe Mignini wouldn't know that or that he'd try and pull a fast one saying Chiari was president of another division.

It's also strange disgraced cops Zugarini and Napoleoni joined in......Why would they care what's in some random article read by no one? The magazine has monthly sales of only 6000.
 
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Machiavelli said:
There is no argument here. This is waffling. I don't know what you are trying to say.

I stated clearly a few points of law, which you just can't disprove.

You made an egregiously false statement, when you asserted that Knox and Sollecito's legal representetion in Guede's trial ended the moment he choose the fast track trial. You should acknowledge your error and change your assertion consequently.

The Marasca/Bruno court have factually issued something which is not in the Code. They don't have a power nor to acquit neither to convict.

It's obviously your own delusion that there were "three items" and that "went the defence's way". I don't know what you mean by "three items" btw. We all know Nencini convicted them so nothing went quite in the defence's way.

The lower courts instead had a power to decide in the merits. They way they used their power of assessing evidence on the points they were requested to judge, may be an object of opinions. The fact that they had a power to call any witness they wanted and assess evidence, is out of question.

The SC does not have a power to question witnesses and assess evidence. Obviously they may not acquit nor convict, and never did that. Before.
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It's a great criminal justice system where the highest - and supposedly the best, most competent and most experienced - judges in the country make fundamental and dreadful errors in their own application of the law. Bravo, Italy! Its citizens must be terrifically proud :)
 
acbytesla said:
What I'm amazed about is how Italy can stomach the vexatious litigation that Mignini practices. My guess is that he is not alone as a PM that abuses his power in this fashion. My hope is that Ihe citizens of Italy fight against this judicial abuse. With a little luck something good can come from this farce. I've read his complaint and am left wondering specifically how he was defamed. He seems as if he is objecting to other people's opinion, not an identifiable falsehood.

In the US, this suit would be dismissed by pretty much any judge as frivolous and without merit. Mignini seems like he's whining to a referee over what he perceives as a bad call.No one cares and this usually results in the player being ejected,

But I guess they play the game differently in Italy. Nut jobs like Mignini don't get spanked, they get promoted. How sad.
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Oh it's easy to explain: Italy has a tinpot, unfit-for-purpose criminal justice system, which is riddled with corruption, conflicts of interest, political factions and patronage. And Italy's executive/legislative government (and its population, by extension) are simply too feckless, incompetent and/or corrupt to confront it and reform it properly.
 
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LondonJohn said:
Oh it's easy to explain: Italy has a tinpot, unfit-for-purpose criminal justice system, which is riddled with corruption, conflicts of interest, political factions and patronage. And Italy's executive/legislative government (and its population, by extension) are simply too feckless, incompetent and/or corrupt to confront it and reform it properly.
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With all due respect: I must disagree with your assessment of the Italian Justice system.
I agree that those that participate in the Italian criminal justice system are "riddled with corruption, conflicts of interest, political factions and patronage", but so are the prosecutors and police that participate in the criminal justice systems of many countries, but I find many of the rules and procedures that are written into the Italian criminal justice system to be commendable "fail safes" against unjust convictions that I would like to see adopted to other criminal justice systems, including that of the United States.
What I like most of all is the need for a "Motivation" that requires a clear statement of the reasons, by law, that the accused is guilty, and the automatic and serious appeals by the accused in the case that the "Motivation" is absolute nonsense, which certainly was the case for AK and RS.
It is certainly true that Italy allowed many incompetent and biased judges and prosecutors to participate in the trials of AK and RS, at every level, but the "Motivations" and scrutiny of the "Motivations" by the accused allowed the Italian criminal justice system to stumble, restart, stumble again, and then eventually arrive at the correct result.
It also seems clear that this case, because the system employed the most incompetent, corrupt, biased, and even psychotic court officers, led down a twisted path that revealed many of the weaknesses that still exist in the Italian criminal justice system, and need to be addressed and corrected.
Most of these weaknesses can be traced directly to the decisions of the ISC to fail to recognize the pitfalls of creating judicial truths, such as the multiple participants judicial truth, that led directly to overstepping its legal mandate to review the procedures of the appeal judge and create even MORE judicial truths relating to evidence evaluation, as overturning Hellmann and virtually directing Nencini to declare a guilty verdict with a "Motivation" that ignored both the evidence and the principles decreed by Italian law.
To my way of thinking, the final acquittal on March 27 represented the Italian criminal justice system saying "the mess that these idiots have created here is as apparent as the 'emperors new clothes' and we have to put a stop to it before it gets worse, if that is even possible".
I do not know if any rules or procedures protecting any system designed by human beings can save a the system from the procession of corruption and stupidity we have seen over the past seven years.
Yes, biased and corrupt idiots participated in the bumbling spectacle that Italy has presented, but the Motivations and the strict appeals eventually delivered justice to AK and RS, at least as far as the worst accusations were concerned.
And I think that the inevitable spanking that Italy will receive from the ECHR will, in good time, close out the whole sorry mess.
Just my opinion
 
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LondonJohn said:
Oh it's easy to explain: Italy has a tinpot, unfit-for-purpose criminal justice system, which is riddled with corruption, conflicts of interest, political factions and patronage. And Italy's executive/legislative government (and its population, by extension) are simply too feckless, incompetent and/or corrupt to confront it and reform it properly.
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In the US, it is often real hard to get an appeal heard. It almost has to be something super blatant. Is it better in the UK?
 
MichaelB said:
I'm skeptical Mignini wrote that document Quennell posted. I'm not convinced it's a forgery but something doesn't add up.

1) the author claims AK&RS didn't ask for annulment;

2) on page 4 is this:



Go to Chiari's CV https://www.unipg.it/amministrazion...laboratori?layout=documento&idcurriculum=1232

and it says he was "presidente della sezione civile"

It's pretty hard to believe Mignini didn't know or would make a mistake like that.

Just like it's pretty hard to believe Mignini didn't know AK&RS were asking for full annulment of their convictions.

So what's going on? Either Mignini is stupid or it's a forgery by the guilters.
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Why can't it be both?
 
Kauffer said:
This meme is rather disconcerting. The law first requires the court to make a decision about the weight of individual instances of curcumstantial evidence - to decide whether or not they each meet a standard - serious, precise and consistent - before they may be evaluated together.

Furthermore, as we have seen and as Hellmann made clear with apposite citation, merely because a court might find that a construction of the evidence provides even probability, this is not sufficient to convict since the reworked Art 533 requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Courts can no longer elect to convict even on the basis that culpability for the crime is the most likely scenario. They must rule out all other reasonable interpretations.

In this case, Hellmann did not even need to go that far. He said that all the individual elements of evidence collapsed - the "bricks" of the case against the defendants. You cannot consider osmotically the individual elements of evidence whose validity you have rejected.

The Chieffi court did not mention the notion of "reasonable doubt" once! Instead it asked the Nencini court to find a way to arrange the circumstantial evidence in a manner which would permit a guilty verdict, notwithstanding any other consideration.

Yet Chieffi himself said the court must "...require the trial judge to perform a twofold operation: first, he or she must evaluate the circumstantial piece of evidence individually, to establish whether or not the required precision is present and to determine its probative value..."

Yet Hellmann had previously stated:

"The condition required by.....law (C.P.P Article 533 effected by Article 5, Law no. 46 - Feb 20, 2006) to arrive at a verdict of guilty does not, therefore, allow one to formulate a belief in terms of probability: that is, to issue a guilty verdict, it is not sufficient for the probability of the prosecution hypothesis to be greater than that of the defense hypothesis, even when the former is significantly larger [notevolmente più numerose]; but [rather] it is necessary that every explanation other than the prosecution hypothesis not be plausible at all, according to a criterion of reasonability. In any other case, acquittal of the defendant is required."

This is the huge mistake with both the Massei and Nencini courts. They took it upon themselves, contrary to Italian law, to choose a version of events that they preferred, whereas what they should have done is attempted to rule out all innocent constructions of the evidence. They pulled this trick by relying on outmoded legal culture, swept away by the 2006 reform of Art 533.

As Hellmann cited:

Cass. Section 4, Ruling no. 48320 of 11-12-2009 (submitted 12-17-2009) Rv. 245879: “…In sum, the rule of beyond a reasonable doubt has definitively put in crisis that jurisprudential theory [orientamento] according to which, in the presence of more than one hypothesis reconstructing the facts, the judge was permitted to adopt one which led to conviction solely because he deemed it more probable than the others. That will no longer be permitted, because, to arrive at conviction, the judge must not only deem improbable any differing reconstruction of the facts which leads to the acquittal of the defendant, but must furthermore hold that the doubt about [i.e. arising from] this alternative hypothesis is unreasonable (that is, it must be an implausible hypothesis or at least devoid of any confirmation whatsoever).”
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Kauffer,
Thanks for posting this very clear explanation.
 
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Machiavelli said:
And the Chieffi court urged the courts to re-think the evidence in the case "osmotically" in non-parcelled out manner, so in a way contrary to what Hellmann did.
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Kauffer said:
[/HILITE]

This meme is rather disconcerting. The law first requires the court to make a decision about the weight of individual instances of curcumstantial evidence - to decide whether or not they each meet a standard - serious, precise and consistent - before they may be evaluated together.

Furthermore, as we have seen and as Hellmann made clear with apposite citation, merely because a court might find that a construction of the evidence provides even probability, this is not sufficient to convict since the reworked Art 533 requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Courts can no longer elect to convict even on the basis that culpability for the crime is the most likely scenario. They must rule out all other reasonable interpretations.

In this case, Hellmann did not even need to go that far. He said that all the individual elements of evidence collapsed - the "bricks" of the case against the defendants. You cannot consider osmotically the individual elements of evidence whose validity you have rejected.

The Chieffi court did not mention the notion of "reasonable doubt" once! Instead it asked the Nencini court to find a way to arrange the circumstantial evidence in a manner which would permit a guilty verdict, notwithstanding any other consideration.

Yet Chieffi himself said the court must "...require the trial judge to perform a twofold operation: first, he or she must evaluate the circumstantial piece of evidence individually, to establish whether or not the required precision is present and to determine its probative value..."

Yet Hellmann had previously stated:

"The condition required by.....law (C.P.P Article 533 effected by Article 5, Law no. 46 - Feb 20, 2006) to arrive at a verdict of guilty does not, therefore, allow one to formulate a belief in terms of probability: that is, to issue a guilty verdict, it is not sufficient for the probability of the prosecution hypothesis to be greater than that of the defense hypothesis, even when the former is significantly larger [notevolmente più numerose]; but [rather] it is necessary that every explanation other than the prosecution hypothesis not be plausible at all, according to a criterion of reasonability. In any other case, acquittal of the defendant is required."

This is the huge mistake with both the Massei and Nencini courts. They took it upon themselves, contrary to Italian law, to choose a version of events that they preferred, whereas what they should have done is attempted to rule out all innocent constructions of the evidence. They pulled this trick by relying on outmoded legal culture, swept away by the 2006 reform of Art 533.
As Hellmann cited:

Cass. Section 4, Ruling no. 48320 of 11-12-2009 (submitted 12-17-2009) Rv. 245879: “…In sum, the rule of beyond a reasonable doubt has definitively put in crisis that jurisprudential theory [orientamento] according to which, in the presence of more than one hypothesis reconstructing the facts, the judge was permitted to adopt one which led to conviction solely because he deemed it more probable than the others. That will no longer be permitted, because, to arrive at conviction, the judge must not only deem improbable any differing reconstruction of the facts which leads to the acquittal of the defendant, but must furthermore hold that the doubt about [i.e. arising from] this alternative hypothesis is unreasonable (that is, it must be an implausible hypothesis or at least devoid of any confirmation whatsoever).”
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It's good to have Machiavelli back.

Machiavelli at least gives it a go. My view is that M. is fully versed n something that eludes people from north of the Alps, or across the ocean - namely what Douglas Preston found out was unique to the Italian mindset, as related to him by an Italian Count of some description.

Namely: dietrology.

It's the uniquely Italian concept that "reality" is something always semi-hidden under the surface, than only an Italian with a keen eye can discern. As Preston explained, this means that if he and Mario Spezi innocently go on a search for the Monster of Florence, then of course they must have had some underlying sinister motive. It would be naive to accept them at their word.

Machiavelli gives something else a go, which one can truly appreciate if one is not Italian. M. tries to drag the dietrological world back into the light so that we lesser-lights can understand.

So it is, for example, when judicial truths were set in stone in the Rudy-fast-track-process, on the surface - for us uninitiated - it is obvious that neither Sollecito nor Knox had legal representation to challenge the evidence at that process: and further since it was "fast track", the normal evidence phase of evidence-testing and challenging was missing.

The dietrological world, though, says - how naive. Of course they had representation. The key is to spice up the dietrological claim by insinuating that anyone who declares otherwise is a liar. Key to the dietrology is to speak in distain against those who do not "get" what is obvious to the dietrologist.

So one can only maintain naively - if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it's probably a duck - which means that the undietrological view is obvious; if "multiple attackers" is a judicial fact, then it could not have got that way by implicating people who were not in a position to challenge the evidence against them.
On two counts:

  • Because K. and S. did not have representation, and had no ability to include written appeals as Rudy's case progressed up the chain to ISC for finalization.
  • Because as a fast-track process, there was no evidence phase to begin with and they most certainly did not stipulate that they were the other two attackers.
Sure as shooting, though, when drawn through dietrological filters, this will be proven wrong.

What's at issue is as Kauffer has observed:

This is the huge mistake with both the Massei and Nencini courts. They took it upon themselves, contrary to Italian law, to choose a version of events that they preferred, whereas what they should have done is attempted to rule out all innocent constructions of the evidence. They pulled this trick by relying on outmoded legal culture, swept away by the 2006 reform of Art 533.​

It is this, and perhaps ONLY this, that the 2015 Marasca/Bruno court has remedied. It is this, and perhaps ONLY this, which is at the heart of the obvious internecine war within the judiciary there.
 
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MichaelB and RW - since you both are diving into old Italian accounts perhaps some covering Guede's trial would shed some light as to what extent the kids' defense participated.

ETA - I have operated under the impression that the kids' defense did not participate in the Guede trial but I now wonder if that's true. Do those making that case now have some way to back it up?
 
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Machiavelli

I struggle with a court ruling that can somehow be "definitive, and valid" and therefore incapable of being overruled. If this were so the "courts" in Italy which ruled against Galileo would remain unchallenged ad infinitum, and the world "would lie at the centre of the universe". People and law evolve and Italian Law is not uniquely exempt from this.

"Three attackers" (or more - the argument for which extends to ludicrous assumptions and conclusions) is a court ruling based on evidence led at the time. It may have a judicial validity, but in no way can this validity be deemed to be absolute and infinite.

To argue that three attackers (not two, four, five or six?) as "definitive and valid" is an obvious and direct contravention of Knox and Sollecito's right to a fair trial. It beggars belief that a legal system even exists that entertains such an absurdity.

(Was there any police enquiry into the possibility of a fourth (or more) perpetrator and if not why not?). It just has to be three?!

I believe the ISC (Rome) will in their report, dismiss this "multiple attacker" absurdity once and for all for what it is - a Mignini creation. Should they not, the case remains open and police will be looking for an unknown number of additional perpetrators (wait a minute....it HAS to be two) who have left absolutely no evidence of their presence at the crime scene. This utter nonsense cannot prevail, and it won't. To bring home the absurdity of the "definitive and valid" nonsense let me pose the hypothetical scenario of a fourth and obviously guilty perpetrator being found.....(?)

The fact is there is zero evidence to remotely suggest that Knox and Sollecito were involved in any way in this crime.

Justice is not about making justice fit into law, it's about the "law" accommodating justice, and if that requires bold and precedent setting appeal judgements, so be it.
 
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Grinder said:
MichaelB and RW - since you both are diving into old Italian accounts perhaps some covering Guede's trial would shed some light as to what extent the kids' defense participated.

ETA - I have operated under the impression that the kids' defense did not participate in the Guede trial but I now wonder if that's true. Do those making that case now have some way to back it up?
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My understanding is that while they had representation, they did not have the rights of defence at trial and were further restricted by its abbreviated nature. They were not permitted to call witnesses in order to resist the establishment of judicial truths harmful to their own clients' defences elsewhere.

But since you've properly asked this question, this is a good opportunity for the forum to flesh out this matter. Nevertheless it remains true that a key plank of Amanda and Raffaele's defence was eradicated as a result of what was established at another guy's trial - multiple participants.
 
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Mike1711 said:
The fact is there is zero evidence to remotely suggest that apart from Guede, Knox and Sollecito (plus other/s) were involved in any way in this crime.
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hello welcome on board

Given the ineptitude of the ICSI and ILE in general I wouldn't rule out there being missed evidence or ignored evidence,

I think we know that there were other male traces on the bra clasp that weren't identified. I've been under the impression that some fingerprints and DNA found were not connected to their donors.

The way the defense approached the multiple killer theory makes it seem the Italian way forces that approach. Here it wouldn't seem necessary to prove there were no accomplices only that the kids couldn't be shown to be part of it. There if multiples accepted then it seems the defense is required to find more likely suspects therefore the defense had to focus on the not provable single attacker scenario.
 
Kauffer said:
My understanding is that they had representation but did not have the rights of defence at trial and were further restricted by its abbreviated nature. They were not permitted to call witnesses in order to resist the establishment of judicial truths harmful to their own clients' defences elsewhere.

But since you've properly asked this question, this is a good opportunity for the forum to flesh out this matter. Nevertheless it remains true that a key plank of Amanda and Raffaele's defence was eradicated as a result of what was established at another guy's trial - multiple participants.
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Thanks. As I just said in a post above, the need for the defense of the kids to even have to deal with the number of attackers is weird. I don't see how it can be proven that there was only one attacker. Proven. Yes one would expect some evidence but Locard didn't say the perp would leave behind evidence that the Italians could find.
 
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