Sorry, no.
You are quoting an attempt of spinning by a defence lawyer as it was proof of something, but here it's only Maori trying to "put words in the mouth" of the witness. Finzi here only says he saw it first because it was on top of other coutelry, while Maori tries to make a link suggesting "this is the reason" why he "picked" that knife and no others.
But this is false.
Finzi says very clearly that the reason why he picked that knife was not because he saw that first, but because it appeared interesting under an investigation viewpoint, insofar it appeared compatible with the wounds, and he also said that one reason why the object seemed compatible was because the wound was very deep and wide and this made him think it would be probably caused by a large knife.
Finzi also said he picked also another knife from Sollecito's apartment, while dismissed the other knives since at first sight they didn't look "compatible" with that type of wound. Finzi also said anyway they seized the whole apartment, with all its content.
Now have a look to what Finzi actually says:
Finzi says quite clearly that he had been briefed about Meredith’s wounds, that were described to him with terms “molto profonde”, and “larghe” and says thus he expected that a knife compatible with those wound would be probably “grande”.
p. 174
p. 177
p.183
Finzi says however that he also picked another knife from Sollecito’s flat that he thought could be compatible, and was much smaller.
If you look at video of Sollecito's apartment you realize the "othe knives" were some small steak knives and one serrated bread knife.
Unless you believe that murder could have been committed with a steak knife or a bread knife, those are not exactly items that you would consider interesting.
I rest my case; Finzi was badly briefed. He justifies his choice on the fact that he had been told the wounds were deep. BUT no dimensions, no description of a type of knife. In fact all the wounds were compatible with a smaller knife than the one he collected. Some wounds were ONLY compatible with a smaller knife. Can you say the smaller wounds were not compatible with a steak knife? What about the knives in Knox's kitchen and under her bed? By dismissing other knives as being too small he made an error. There must have been a smaller knife. He did not look for one because he jumped to a conclusion not supported by the evidence. This is characteristic of the police approach, jump to a conclusion, act on it, ignore what the evidence says. Because of his 'instinct' that the knife on top, the first knife he saw, was a possible murder weapon, the prosecution were forced in to the two knife theory, because this large knife could NOT have inflicted all the wounds.
Well Finzi only kept new gloves there. But Finzi had never been at the cottage.
So where did he get the gloves from? In the crime scene videos we see that the police use boxes of gloves, not individually packed pairs. So who pulled out gloves before him? Where had they been? Where had the box of gloves been? We have a source of contamination here.
It's not a kind of "ping pong" game where there if a certain move is done then "it becomes responsability of the prosecution", actually the trial is always focused on the suspect. The prosecution has always a responsability of checking whether evidence is substantial, but there isn't a something like move that causes some particular change in the rules. There isn't actually even a legal concept like "chain of evidence(custody)", there isn't any procedure rule on that.
I accept if you say so that there is no concept of chain of evidence in Italy. However if considering the interpretation of LCN touch or trace DNA the integrity of the sample and the collection process is crucial.
Gubbiotti re-packaged the knife, taking it out from the envelope, for a good reason, at least for a reason that seemd good and justified in their moment under their praxis.
According to Gubbiotti’s testimony, he took the knife out from the envelope before re-packaging, in order to do the procedure called “repertazione”, which consists in the bureaucratic part of taking record of what is collected: noting a short description like features and size of the knife, possibly taking pictures of it, assign a number and write a note about it to put on the outside of the cardboard box.
So this was a standard process? I assume then that most of the evidence was treated in the same way? Unpackaged at the police station, documented, and repackaged? Was this done in the same room? On the same desk? What were the cleaning processes between examination of each item? Was the box sitting in the office where the evidence underwent repertazione? Had Gubbiotti been to the crime scene? Had anyone else passing through that office? if you say this is routine procedure I accept that. Yet it is another opportunity for the knife or the box it was put in to be contaminated with MK DNA.
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Yet we know Meredith Kercher for sure didn't handle it, and Finzi has never been at the cottage.
But it's not something extraordinary anyway. Stefanoni packaged the mop in present paper. The Scientific Police also used the cottage freezer to store temporarily collected item packages.
I accept there was a great deal of poor practice, that the handling of the knife was not worse than the handling of most of the evidence.
I tend to believe those experts who say it's not that easy to transfer DNA, and that if you test random items inside a house "your will likely find very little DNA".
Reference please.
In contrast please see Goray, M. and R. A. H. van Oorschot (2014). "The complexities of DNA transfer during a social setting." Legal Medicine 17(2): 82-91. Where they document DNA transmission in a social situation not involving body 'fluids'. Interestingly one participant 'imported' DNA from an unknown individual which he subsequently spread first on to a glass (secondary transfer)then from that glass on to a table (tertiary transfer). If this had been a crime scene the finding of this unknown persons DNA would be argued as evidence they were there. However in a controlled experiment it has been demonstrated that an individual does not need to have been present for their DNA to be found on an object in a room. No body fluids here.
Frankly, I don't believe it's so easy to find whole cells with nucleus around the environment, it's not easy to transfer those cells from a place to another and it would be even less easy if there is no liquid mean (to detach such a small object from a surface without liquid means, and to transfer it without without a fluid); and above all, I don't think it's somehting probable: to transfer microscopic amounts of DNA (in the magnitude of less than nanograms or picograms) means be able to manage to "touch" an object the size of square micrometers by using an object with a surfact millions times bigger like a finger. And if you studied a bit of physics, you also know how unlikely it is for two surfaces to actually "touch" each other ("contact" of microscopic particles is something itself very improbable). Then you would have to transfer such microscopic particle by touching again with the same portion of finger (or shoe, cloth, or else) a specific item, a small portion actually that will be tested, such as the few millimeters of a metal hook, or the 1 square centimeter of a scratch on a knive blade.
So you have your belief. I reference empirical evidence.
All this is improbable.
It's not imbossible. But it's improbable.
You just cannot assume that this happens all the time, also because this is not what the result show. DNA analysis does on this case does not not show DNA from everyone likely to pass around on every items.
Sollecito's DNA was found n the cottage only on one, small, "wet" item such as a cigarette butt, which someone has certainly touched abundanlty transferring massive amounts of DNA on a small surface through wet saliva.
But there is no Filomena's DNA in filomena's room, for example. There is no other's DNA on most objects found in the flat.
Actually scratches are visible in photographies.
So why were not all the scratches tested? Perfectly reasonable to swab the blade. Not sure why anyone worries about whether there was a small scratch where Stef says she saw one.
In fact when she testified she was reading her report, she was looking at her pages on her pc. I think this is why she mistook: the error propagated from the report to the testimony.
It does not improve the issue. She submitted to court a document that was false. The hand written entry is supposed to have been contemporaneous. It is hard to see how she could have made that mistake if the document had been written at the time. Especially since subsequently documents were found that documented the use of the QUBIT. So the hand written note must have been made later. The fact that there is one 'error' justifies going through and checking all other facts she gave against the original data. Once this one 'error' was identified all the rest should have been reviewed. This review should have been led by the director of the laboratory, possibly with an external expert to independently review the data and ensure the report was otherwise true.
No no, the taking place of incidente probatorio can be objected before it takes place.
Potenza wrote observations in his own report. But did not raise any objection at the incidente probatorio. He also made no comments, he put no comments in the record, and also didn't document the testing.
We do not know what was said, I think what I quoted could be regarded as his comments on the record his report is 28 November 2007 reporting on the testing done over several days from 12 November.
I'm not saying that this behaviour by Potenza should cause the defence to be denied access to data, but it also doesn't mean one can "blame the prosecution" for what defence didn't do. Here, the defence did not try to "mend" an alleged mistake by their expert, instead they partly followed a strategy to exploit it, as a pretext for attempting to dismiss evidence, and they followed a line of conduct that shows, to those who have a grasp of the procedure, that their intent was clearly to try a treacherous game. Which is their right, it is actually what they are expected to do, since in the Italian system the accused and their defence have a right to lie. But this doesn't equate to say that one has to buy it.
Potenza raised the issue that Steffanoni did not follow standard protocols. We do not know what he said at the time but he certainly documented objections shortly after. I think this means that the argument that defence had to accept the findings of the incidente probatorio, because they did not object is not valid. They objected to the methodology. This was contested evidence not mutually accepted evidence.
PS I suspect my physics is better than yours.
