Continuation Part 17: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

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Grinder said:
True but it took a long long time for a lot of the errors to come out. Knox's early legal work was done by lawyers not familiar with a high profile murder cases. One from Perugia, a local full service attorney and one a civil lawyer that was there because of his English skills.

I don't think the defense went all out from day one. Obviously the public never was given all the details of their early work and because the kids were locked up and their conversations recorded so they didn't know what was being done.

Maybe someone on the defense will write a book.
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The tenor I get from the two kids' books is that it was a calculated risk early on not to go, "all out" as you put it. The gist I get is that the on-site lawyers thought that eventually common sense would prevail, or that a Hellmann-like or Marasca-like court would surface early on.

ETA - and that there was no sense in angering a prosecution which eventually proved itself vindictive enough to launch periphetal lawsuits at the drop of a hat.
 
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Science has shown that the average person is only a bit better than chance at detecting a liar. Police investigators and judges, even those with training in techniques like the Reid Method are not significantly better. They are however much more certain that they are skilled at recognizing liars and guilty persons.

This is what started the Perugia investigation down the wrong track. They decided early on, long before the evidence had been studied, that Amanda was the culprit. They then fell into a trap known as investigator tunnel vision.

The signs of ITV are rather obvious. The shoe print matched to RS that had the wrong number of circles in the pattern. The partial shoe print that is clearly the same pattern as others in the murder room evaluated as a woman's shoe in Amanda's size. The assumption that lack of evidence is proof of a clean up. Ignoring all the evidence that Meredith was attacked almost immediately after arriving home.

What drove this investigation was a need to confirm the investigators early hunches. If they had followed the evidence there would have been no miscarriage of justice.
 
Grinder said:
Don't know. One would think that if this policy is so obviously against ECHR laws that we would have seen a hundred examples instead of a few obscure ones from Turkey and Estonia.

I hope that Hellmann's always obvious error is corrected by them.
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Most people don't have the resources to fight in the ECHR. Perugia's police probably only has to deal with poor gypsies most of the time.
 
Grinder said:
Don't know. One would think that if this policy is so obviously against ECHR laws that we would have seen a hundred examples instead of a few obscure ones from Turkey and Estonia.

I hope that Hellmann's always obvious error is corrected by them.
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Ceteris parabus the pair having been "absolved" and due in theory to receive €m's in compensation, assuming they did not lie to put themselves in their own predicament, the ECHR are likely to conclude Italy therefore has the necessary safeguards in place.

If Italy are forced to change the law, it would mean having to go soft on the mafiosi (one law for all) and it ain't gonna happen.

AIUI the ECHR application is still in the long backlog file. Not exactly a good example in due process, itself.
 
Vixen said:
If this was allowable under Italian law, then Mignini did nothing illegal. AFAIAA the police followed correct protocol. Personally, I consider Anna Donnino a little borderline.
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Vixen, what did Anna Donnino do that causes you to regard her actions as a "little borderline"?
 
Commodi's Fictional Cartoon

Methos said:
Here's the invoice: EUR 182.784,00 :eye-poppi
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Didn't the prosecution actually present this bill to the defendants as well? (For Mignini & Commodi to have to personally pay for this video would be just punishment, because its a decent chunk of money they could actually probably afford to pay, and a reminder of their own bad behavior).

Also on the animated video, it shows three people attacking Meredith. Yet the evidence at the scene shows only one person's footprints in wet blood, which Rudy admits were his own.
And Rudy's admission is consistent with the other evidence of his physical presence, including a palm print in wet blood, fingerprints (in wet blood?), and DNA on, in, and around the victim.

It was either Burleigh or Demspey I believe, who reported that the jury was mesmerized when the prosecution played the video over the objections of the defense (which ended with the entire screen going red).

Its absolutely amazing this type of intentionally prejudicial material, flatly contradicted by the actual evidence, would be allowed in a courtroom, and sprung at the last minute by surprise on the defense.
I also seem to recall that Commodi's brother in law(?) had a IT contract with the police dept and performed this animation service. The bill was thought to be so outrageous, was investigated, but no wrongdoing was found to have occurred.
 
Videos & Corner Time

Kestrel said:
Science has shown that the average person is only a bit better than chance at detecting a liar. Police investigators and judges, even those with training in techniques like the Reid Method are not significantly better. They are however much more certain that they are skilled at recognizing liars and guilty persons.

This is what started the Perugia investigation down the wrong track. They decided early on, long before the evidence had been studied, that Amanda was the culprit. They then fell into a trap known as investigator tunnel vision.

The signs of ITV are rather obvious. The shoe print matched to RS that had the wrong number of circles in the pattern. The partial shoe print that is clearly the same pattern as others in the murder room evaluated as a woman's shoe in Amanda's size. The assumption that lack of evidence is proof of a clean up. Ignoring all the evidence that Meredith was attacked almost immediately after arriving home.

What drove this investigation was a need to confirm the investigators early hunches. If they had followed the evidence there would have been no miscarriage of justice.
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There were two interesting TED talks, but I don't have the links handy.

One was about how facial expressions are universal, which people can use to see someone's true emotions. Expressions like disdain & contentment were displayed in the context of a negotiation over a rug sale in the middle east, IIRC.

So not on point in regard to people generally as you're referring to, but actually somewhat in the ball park. Although in this case, its been pretty well demonstrated (MOO) that Amanda & Raf weren't there at all. So imaginary findings in this regard is the province paranoids, IUAM.

Second, was a talk about how hard it is for people to imagine that they may be wrong. And that this effect is even harder to shake for people that think they're really smart.

Wish I had the links, but both were truly fascinating. Would make a good part of the criminal sentences of Mignini et als, and some of the worst of the stalking guilters that remain, if they were ordered to watch these videos, then given a "time-out" to reflect.
 
Mr Fied said:
Rudy's interrogation dated 26 March 2008 lasted roughly 3 1/2 hours and consisted of 115 pages.

Amanda's transcript of her "confession" consists of approx. 5 paragraphs.

The statement was signed as having finished at 01:45 with no indication officially of what time the interview started, unlike in Rudy's document.

Would it be safe to assume that the interview lasted somewhere in the region of 2 to 3 hours?


Do you think that maybe not everything that was said in Amanda's interview was written down? If this is the case then basically the police have written in Italian what they wanted Amanda to sign and not a minuted version of the unrecorded interview.

[understatement]Do you think that maybe the police had something to hide?[/understatement]
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What I've always wondered about is the timing of that supposedly 1:45 am statement that Amanda had signed?

If Amanda actually signed that statement at 1:45 am, then when did they start preparing the written statement, and how long did it take them to actually prepare that typed document for signing?

As for the speed-typist who had prepared the 1:45 am document, before Amanda signed it, who reviewed it before the grand signing? Did they use the first draft, or did the speed-typist's work need any revisions?

Once the document was typed out and approved for signing, did Dominino carefully explain to Amanda what the Italian document she was encouraged to sign actually said in clear English, and if so, how long did Dominino spend explaining the document to Amanda?

I suspect that 1:45 am is closer to the time that the police actually managed to get confused Amanda to admit she was at the cottage that night and NOT the time of that document's actual signing.

Likely the signing of the 1:45 statement happened as much as several hours later when Amanda was even more sleep-deprived and far too confused to comprehend what she was signing.

Is it any wonder why they had to bury Amanda's interrogation recordings?
 
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acbytesla said:
Even the Italian Supreme Court said that Amanda's statements were inadmissible to be used for the criminal trial It is only in strange Italy where they run the civil trial concurrently that they back doored this into the trial.

So no, you are wrong again. What a surprise.
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Which takes me back to my earlier question about how Amanda could have been CRIMINALLY convicted of slander after their Supreme Ct had already stricken those two ILLEGAL documents from the criminal portion of her trial?

If the prosecution tried to get around those two stricken 'confession' documents by having police officers testify to what the prosecution had claimed those two stricken documents had memorialized in writing, then the verbal testimony of officers should have likewise been fruit of that poison tree?

Italy's Supreme Ct had properly ruled that Amanda had been denied her legal right to an attorney since she had legally been considered to be a suspect before being interrogated on Nov 5th & 6th, so nothing Amanda said that night should have been used against her in the criminal portion of her slander trial.

Italy's Supreme Ct did say that Amanda's voluntarily later hand-written statements could be used against her, but neither of her written statements would support a criminal slander charge - indeed, they both seemingly undermined such a charge?

I'm still confused how Amanda could have been convicted of criminal slander when all the evidence supporting such a charge had already been stricken by Italy's Supreme Ct?

Maybe, the ECHR can figure that one out?
 
MDDVS said:
Most people don't have the resources to fight in the ECHR. Perugia's police probably only has to deal with poor gypsies most of the time.
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I thought Italy has like the third most cases. Most of them being length of trial.
 
Vixen said:
Ceteris parabus the pair having been "absolved" and due in theory to receive €m's in compensation, assuming they did not lie to put themselves in their own predicament, the ECHR are likely to conclude Italy therefore has the necessary safeguards in place.

If Italy are forced to change the law, it would mean having to go soft on the mafiosi (one law for all) and it ain't gonna happen.

AIUI the ECHR application is still in the long backlog file. Not exactly a good example in due process, itself.
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All things being equal Amanda IS convicted of calunnia unless I missed her being absolved of that.
 
Strozzi said:
That is equivalent to US $ 198,343 in today's dollar. That is GB pounds 126,958. I'll go with the price in pounds. It's cheaper. :p
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It was much more in US at the time. The Euro has fallen a bit since then.
 
Grinder said:
All things being equal Amanda IS convicted of calunnia unless I missed her being absolved of that.
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She was. Not that this makes much sense. Clearly there are more than a few people expect the ECHR will rule in Amanda's favor for that case. I'm not an expert on either Italian law or the ECHR, so I'll just have to waithe and see.
 
So Vixen while you are trying to find one case where the knife produced no blood but DNA could you comment on why Steffanoni hasn't become a star like Gill in the forensic game?

Also besides the Italian police employees and Novelli are there any reputable scientists that have come out backing her work?

Could you also explain why contamination needs to be proven rather than systems and protocols that all but eliminate the possibility? Do agree with special certifications for LCN DNA work?

I don't think you ever addressed whether you understand that the alleged DNA of MK on the knife was 1/500.000 of a grain of salt.
 
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