Continuation Part 17: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Antony]

Try it. Send it in as a possible script idea for 'Murder She Wrote'. It's silly enough.

More to the point, send in the prosecution's scenario as a script idea.

It's not even possible to work out a narrative of the crime. Then in "solving" it, when the investigators find themselves in need of evidence to support their pre-conceived hunches, they go and pick up the first item they think of and - hey presto! It's the "evidence" they need! Not once, but twice.

Go on, put that in your fictional crime novel and try to get a publisher.

 

[carbonjam72]

I have no story to tell. It makes no difference to say the gloves picked the dirt from the clasp or from the floor in the room, since the clasp got dirty itself from the floor, so dirt is from the floor anyway.
But this goes for DNA too. The gloves picked their dirt from inside the room. There us actually no reason to assume that the DNA was transferred on the metal hook from the gloves, such assumption would be itself not substantiated, but it doesn't change the picture, because that would indicate only son abundant presence of Sollecito's DNA in the room, which would be incriminating.

As many others have pointed out, including Dr Peter Gill, the simple presence of DNA in a sample, does not indicate how or when it got there.

Therefore Mach, the simple presence of Raf's DNA, or even Amanda's DNA, in the room where Meredith was killed is not by itself incriminating.

Amanda lived in the house, and Raf was there legitimately. Finding evidence that they lived in or visited the cottage, does not equate to finding evidence that they were present at the time of the crime, much less, does it indicate they participated in that crime.

The commission of that violent crime left large and widely distributed amounts of DNA from the perpetrator, and in addition, several varied physical indications of the sole perpetrator of that crime, Rudy Guede, set in the wet blood of the victim.

There is no comparable evidence against Amanda, Raf, or anyone else.

Its a bizarre flight of fantasy to believe this was a group crime, and a blight on Italian jurisprudence that any judge would endorse such unsupported speculation, and indeed, a tragic miscarriage of justice that such reckless fantasy was ever raised by a state prosecutor in a courtroom, as Mignini and his accomplices did.

Given Mignini's behavior here, regular psychological screenings would be an appropriate safeguard against such mentally unstable prosecutors in the future.

Soon enough we'll have the motivation report, and you can explain to us, why cows can fly, and fish can dance.

 

[carbonjam72]

More to the point, send in the prosecution's scenario as a script idea.

It's not even possible to work out a narrative of the crime. Then in "solving" it, when the investigators find themselves in need of evidence to support their pre-conceived hunches, they go and pick up the first item they think of and - hey presto! It's the "evidence" they need! Not once, but twice.

Go on, put that in your fictional crime novel and try to get a publisher.

Publisher? They don't need no stinkin' publisher! They got Amazon, start the revolution!

 

[Diocletus]

There is no "statement" from Vechiotti with this language in it. She says other things from which you infer this meaning.

Try to appreciate what a statement is, please.

So now we've caught Machiavelli out in yet another lie? Pathetic.

 

[Kauffer]

A few objections.
First, I would object the general address of your considerations: the knife is not "unique", there is no "uniqueness" of the item actually, not even within the borders of this trial. I have the feeling that your adress of a "uniqueness" may an ideological rationalization meant as a prelude to justify the plan of putting aside, "not considering" the evidence.

In the merits:
1) it's incorrect. First, as for testimonies, the imprint was not considered the imprint left by a "small clasp knife", and second, the officers had been specifically briefed about that a wound appeared as if it was caused by a "large" knife (Finzi's testimony).
2) Sollecito's flat was searched on Nov.6 by my knowledge, that is basically the day of his detention.
3) According to Finzi, the knife was picked primarily because it appeared as potentially fitting the victim's wound, as it had been described to Finzi (he did not see the wound, was briefed about it).
4) the knife was repackaged, but: a) it was hardly exposed to contamination from Meredith's DNA, since Meredith's biological fluids had no reason for being present in the environment during re-pacakging; b) contrarily to your statement, there was a good reason to re-package the knife in a hard cardboard box, an obvious security reason, so that the blade could not poke through the envelope, to provide for security of the object and of the people who would handle it.
5) the "mark" appeared as a potentially useful element because it was a scratch on the metal, therefore had some chance of retaining cells despite cleaning. It was quite interesting also because it looked as if the knife had been energically cleaned with a scratching sponge.
6) IIRC the test was recorded correctly, but at preliminary hearing Stefanoni didn not remember correctly about having used Qbit fluorimeter alone on A,B,C rather than PCR quantification. Prof. Potenza anyway was there.
7) sample B anyway had a DNA content and that was extracted.
points 8 and 9 are questions and would be good points for a cross questioning, which is defence's work; this would have required prof. Potenza to document the work, in a way that it could bring that to the attention of defence lawyers. But Potenza failed to provide any type of observation on the point. He observed the work and didn't think these details were worth to be documented.

So the knife was "energically" cleaned according to you, yet had multiple DNA traces on it and some bread. Doesn't sound like a very energic cleaning to me.

This is the prosecution argument essentially. We have a bleach cleaned knife which has removed all traces of blood but has left behind sub source DNA and starch.

Has anyone ever tried to recreate this outcome by experiment? Is there anything in the forensic literature which is even broadly supportive of this possibility.

Since the qubit had recorded a reading of "too low", why is it safe to conclude that the finding of Kercher's DNA is reliable?

Why should we believe it was safe for Stefanoni to proceed with her testing at that point?

 

[Strozzi]

I have no story to tell. It makes no difference to say the gloves picked the dirt from the clasp or from the floor in the room, since the clasp got dirty itself from the floor, so dirt is from the floor anyway.
But this goes for DNA too. The gloves picked their dirt from inside the room. There us actually no reason to assume that the DNA was transferred on the metal hook from the gloves, such assumption would be itself not substantiated, but it doesn't change the picture, because that would indicate only son abundant presence of Sollecito's DNA in the room, which would be incriminating.

Are you sure Stefanoni wasn't wearing the gloves in the living area or hallway touching objects or surfaces or moving equipment before she entered Meredith's bedroom? To know the answer to that we would need to see video of her first entering the bedroom with ungloved hands and then putting on gloves, or entering the bedroom wearing a different pair of gloves and then changing gloves. If the latter, I would like to see in the video exactly how she removed a first pair of gloves and how she put on a second pair. I would also like to see what else she touched with the same gloves she is videotaped wearing when she grips the fabric clasp precisely at the edge containing the metal hook.

The bra clasp was reportedly found on the floor under a rug. Is there video of that? Did Stefanoni find it wearing these gloves or did another person in the room lift up the rug, see the clasp, pick it up, and pass the clasp to Stefanoni?

While we are on this subject, why did Stefanoni handle the bra clasp, hold it up for the camera, place it on the floor to be photographed as if in original situ, pick it up again, and show it to the camera again? Was she grandstanding with the clasp or does she do that with all small items of evidence?

 

[Machiavelli]

You are kidding, right? You're not ruling out that the glove could have contaminated the bra-clasp.... did you REALLY mean to say that? I do not think you did. And there is nothing "abundant" about 165B.

You still have not accounted for the remaining Y-haplotypes presence on the clasp.... which is pure suspect-centric reasoning on your part.

Naked.

Suspect.

Centric.

Reasoning.

The only reason that you also do not similarly accuse the other men whose presence is on that clasp, is because you do not know who they are. So you have no other suspects to centre on.

And besides, acc. to Nencini, two of them are probably women anyway.

I really do not believe you think this through. Was Meredith's room forensically sterile before the crime? You do know that Monica Napoleoni admitted that the medical staff who came to attend the body, four of them, entered Meredith's room without forensic protection - booties and/or gowns?

But the real is that you now concede that it may have been the glove which contaminated the bra-clasp.

Your guilter world is really falling apart, isn't it.

My position is unchanged.
How is it that you hallucinate even about my opinions?

 

[Machiavelli]

We read words for meaning here and you have failed to provide a citation for Vechiotti making the very specific comment that she was not interested in the raw data. You posted a copy of a transcript purporting to contain such a statement, but it did not say this. We know that raw data is of particular interest to real forensic scientists - like Berti for example, and we know that Conti wrote to Hellmann asking for the CD raw data. So, it would be particularly strange if Vechiotti would believe something else to be true. But of course, since we always embrace evidence here, if you can produce a direct statement from Vechiotti, we will embrace it. But so far, what you have produced does not come close.

But it does. She is not interested. This is what she says.
She does not parse the phrase exactly in this syntactic structure. She says interesting data are others, she asked other thing and she has already all interesting data. But this is the unequivocal meaning of her response: she is not interested in raw data. Didn't ask them. Doesn't want them.
You need also to consider her whole answers, within the context of the questions by Bongiorno, Ghirga.
If you don't interpret her statements as unequivocal statements saying she is not interested in raw data and didn't ask them, I wonder how you interpret it.

 

[carbonjam72]

But it does. She is not interested. This is what she says.
She does not parse the phrase exactly in this syntactic structure. She says interesting data are others, she asked other thing and she has already all interesting data. But this is the unequivocal meaning of her response: she is not interested in raw data. Didn't ask them. Doesn't want them.
You need also to consider her whole answers, within the context of the questions by Bongiorno, Ghirga.
If you don't interpret her statements as unequivocal statements saying she is not interested in raw data and didn't ask them, I wonder how you interpret it.

That she (C&V) has enough information to establish that Stefanoni's DNA findings are unreliable and irretrievably discredited, based only on the limited data set that was provided by Stefanoni?

 

[Machiavelli]

Are you sure Stefanoni wasn't wearing the gloves in the living area or hallway touching objects or surfaces or moving equipment before she entered Meredith's bedroom? To know the answer to that we would need to see video of her first entering the bedroom with ungloved hands and then putting on gloves, or entering the bedroom wearing a different pair of gloves and then changing gloves. If the latter, I would like to see in the video exactly how she removed a first pair of gloves and how she put on a second pair. I would also like to see what else she touched with the same gloves she is videotaped wearing when she grips the fabric clasp precisely at the edge containing the metal hook.

I don't know what the videos show about that, but I disagree. There is no such burden of proof involving video. Testimonies should be sufficient. Moreover I don't share preoccupation involving "equipment", I think the element if relevance would be the existence of a bulk probability that would derive from touching "sensitive" surfaces

The bra clasp was reportedly found on the floor under a rug. Is there video of that? Did Stefanoni find it wearing these gloves or did another person in the room lift up the rug, see the clasp, pick it up, and pass the clasp to Stefanoni?

While we are on this subject, why did Stefanoni handle the bra clasp, hold it up for the camera, place it on the floor to be photographed as if in original situ, pick it up again, and show it to the camera again? Was she grandstanding with the clasp or does she do that with all small items of evidence?

The item was placed before cameras because the collection was an incidente probatorio where magistrates and parties lawyers and experts were assisting, in a video connection from a minivan outside the cottage. Picking and showing the clasp, is within an interaction with the people connected in the minivan.

 

[Machiavelli]

That she (C&V) has enough information to establish that Stefanoni's DNA findings are unreliable and irretrievably discredited, based only on the limited data set that was provided by Stefanoni?

Can't you see that this would contradict not only Vecchiotti's statement saying that she had all what she requested (even more than that), but above all, can't you see how thus would be catastrophically inconsistent with Conti&Vecchiotti's report? The position that the "limited data is sufficient for conclusions" is not sustainable, because Vecchiotti's conclusions hinge around negative controls for a main part.
How can you miss the implications?

 

[Kauffer]

Can't you see that this would contradict not only Vecchiotti's statement saying that she had all what she requested (even more than that), but above all, can't you see how thus would be catastrophically inconsistent with Conti&Vecchiotti's report? The position that the "limited data is sufficient for conclusions" is not sustainable, because Vecchiotti's conclusions hinge around negative controls for a main part.
How can you miss the implications?

Which means that your argument must actually be that the raw data is essential to properly understand the meaning of Stefanoni's work.

What you should be arguing for is that Stefanoni should release the data because it would only serve to verify her results. That, logically, should be your position.

But, let me give you a further opportunity to post the exact phrase or phrases, with your own translation if you like, to demonstrate exactly and precisely what Vechiotti said that you believe means that she was not interested in the data. I am of the opinion currently, like Carbonjam, that the independent experts concluded that in the absence of all the unreleased data, which Conti had asked for specifically at the outset, that they had enough to assess the evidence and come to very categorical conclusions that Stefanoni's results were unsustainable.

For example:

"Despite the negative result of the blood identification test and the failure to carry out cell tests (and therefore the failure to identify the material removed from Exhibit 36) the Technical Consultant hypothesized the presence of “presumed exfoliated cells” on the material sampled from the knife handle (traces A-D-F) and of “presumed biological material” of another nature (presumably blood, considering the tests aimed at the detection of haematic peroxidases) on the material sampled from the blade (samples B-C-E-G).

The hypotheses formulated by the Technical Consultant about the nature of the material analyzed are wholly arbitrary in that they are not supported by any scientifically objective confirmation."

Why are the independent consultants wrong in what they state here?

 

[Antony]

The item was placed before cameras because the collection was an incidente probatorio where magistrates and parties lawyers and experts were assisting, in a video connection from a minivan outside the cottage. Picking and showing the clasp, is within an interaction with the people connected in the minivan.

Fascinating. Did they do the same with every other potentially crucial item of evidence? At the time of collecting it they supposedly had no knowledge of what DNA would be found on it - so why was it given the special treatment?

If, as you say, it was filmed for the benefit of those watching in the van, why didn't they show it where it was originally found? Why didn't they pick it up with tweezers, hold it briefly for the camera, then put it straight into an evidence bag? Surely nothing more is needed than this.

Instead, how was it they failed to show it in situ; why did they pass it from hand to hand with dirty gloves; why did they shine a flashlight on it and point at it (as though saying "look, we can see the DNA right here"); why did they put it back on the floor and photograph it in a different location? Doesn't this last action call into question the accuracy of any record of the investigation?

No, "grandstanding" is a fair description. Somehow, this item was to be given a central role in the trial, regardless of the outcome of any later tests conducted.

 

[Machiavelli]

So the knife was "energically" cleaned according to you, yet had multiple DNA traces on it and some bread. Doesn't sound like a very energic cleaning to me.

To me it sounds like. No way the fact that an object is dirty could disprove that an energic cleaning occurred.

This is the prosecution argument essentially. We have a bleach cleaned knife which has removed all traces of blood but has left behind sub source DNA and starch.

See above. I don't know if bleach was used, but I see no contradiction. Traces can't be timed, thus you can't use the presence of a substance or of DNA to disprove another finding.

Has anyone ever tried to recreate this outcome by experiment? Is there anything in the forensic literature which is even broadly supportive of this possibility.

Since the qubit had recorded a reading of "too low", why is it safe to conclude that the finding of Kercher's DNA is reliable?

Because her profile was found. It's a rather more important finding compared to quantification.

Why should we believe it was safe for Stefanoni to proceed with her testing at that point?

This is not something anyone is "required to believe" in order to acknowledge evidence. Nothing is safe in life, driving a truck is not safe, a surgical operation is not safe. But a test found an important result, and there is no plausible innocent explanation that can account for it.

 

[Diocletus]

To me it sounds like. No way the fact that an object is dirty could disprove that an energic cleaning occurred.



See above. I don't know if bleach was used, but I see no contradiction. Traces can't be timed, thus you can't use the presence of a substance or of DNA to disprove another finding.



Because her profile was found. It's a rather more important finding compared to quantification.



This is not something anyone is "required to believe" in order to acknowledge evidence. Nothing is safe in life, driving a truck is not safe, a surgical operation is not safe. But a test found an important result, and there is no plausible innocent explanation that can account for it.

So, let's see: if it was cleaned then it will be dirty; if there's no DNA there then finding a profile is incriminating; traces can't be timed unless they match the victim.

Blah, blah, blah.

Your increasingly pathetic and self-contradictory arguments betray the bankruptcy of this prosecution.

 

[Diocletus]

The item was placed before cameras because the collection was an incidente probatorio where magistrates and parties lawyers and experts were assisting, in a video connection from a minivan outside the cottage. Picking and showing the clasp, is within an interaction with the people connected in the minivan.

Thank God for this particular process, otherwise we would have been deprived of the one truly impressive piece of comedy generated in this whole pathetic affair.

 

[Kauffer]

To me it sounds like. No way the fact that an object is dirty could disprove that an energic cleaning occurred.



See above. I don't know if bleach was used, but I see no contradiction. Traces can't be timed, thus you can't use the presence of a substance or of DNA to disprove another finding.



Because her profile was found. It's a rather more important finding compared to quantification.



This is not something anyone is "required to believe" in order to acknowledge evidence. Nothing is safe in life, driving a truck is not safe, a surgical operation is not safe. But a test found an important result, and there is no plausible innocent explanation that can account for it.

So, you would have to agree that Amanda's traces in her own bathroom cannot be "timed". Interesting.

 

[Machiavelli]

Machiavelli, you have stated repeatedly that C-V were deemed to be "intellectually dishonest". Is the following quote from the Chieffi report, the reference you describe?

The Court’s modus operandi, which with an unacceptable delegation of duty left the final decision of whether or not to test the new trace to the judgement of the expert, leaves it open to understandable and justifiable criticism, given that the test – ordered by the Court – needed in any case to be carried out, since it fell within the task assigned to the expert, subject to the result being called into question if not considered reliable. In any event, one member of the expert panel could not take [sole] responsibility for the decision to downgrade the scope of the task received, a task which should have been performed without hesitation or reservation, with full intellectual honesty, giving an account of the possibility of inadequate data or an unreliable result.​

I have the original Italian in my mind; if I had to work on a translation I would highlight it along with changes above. The phrase used by SC can only be understood in Italian as: the experts "were supposed to" perform it with intellectual honesty, they "should have done that" (but they didn't). The phrase is an "unreal hypothesis", says what should have been, and was not done.

 

[Antony]

This is not something anyone is "required to believe" in order to acknowledge evidence. Nothing is safe in life, driving a truck is not safe, a surgical operation is not safe. But a test found an important result, and there is no plausible innocent explanation that can account for it.

It doesn't matter how much you parrot the mantra "no plausible innocent explanation", the fact remains that the innocent explanations far outweigh any possible connection of this knife to the murder - which implies a quite implausible 2-way transportation of the knife from Raff's flat to the cottage and back. It's entirely possible that Amanda (or Raff) had some of Meredith's DNA on her hands or clothes from social contact, which were later transferred to the knife without it ever leaving Raff's flat.

But given the history of the knife and Stefanoni's obvious agenda, the most likely explanation for the DNA reading is far from "innocent". Since no other test revealed any trace of the victim's DNA, the reading almost certainly resulted from contamination of the sample itself within the laboratory, either through recklessness or deliberate planting. Otherwise, why did Stefanoni go on repeatedly testing the sample after multiple results of "too low"?

 

[Bill Williams]

My position is unchanged.
How is it that you hallucinate even about my opinions?

Why does saying your position is unchanged and accusing me of hallucinations save you from expressing suspect-centric views? It seems all you are doing is confirming such!

Please hone your argumentative skills.