Continuation Part 18: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Ken Dine]

Does this suggest that rulings on the efficacy of scientific evidence (such as the infamous knife/bra clasp) should be made by an independent panel instead of a jury of 'clucks' and/or Italian judges?

Not necessarily, but drawing a jury of clucks would concern me should I ever be accused of a crime necessitating a jury trial.

I personally feel it was a mistake lowering the voting age across the board to 18 y/o since kids barely out of childhood could be your juror.

I also wasn't very pleased at being sent to Vietnam back before I could vote at 21 y/o (I turned 21 shortly after I returned), so if I had my druthers, I would say 21, unless you were actively serving in the military.

Of course, we do have the voir dire system here which does allow the trial attorneys the right to interrogate prospective jurors (and reject them within set limits), but that obviously has its set limits.

I was prosecuted only once (when I was younger) for resisting arrest. While in the Navy I inherited a Malibu beach house, and one day (in the early 1970s) Sheriffs' deputies kicked in my door (a no-knock entry) and arrested me for burglary ...basically, arresting me for burglarizing my own house – oops!

In a holding cell at the Malibu station as they were booking me, they finally realized they had kicked in the wrong door and that I owned the house (and was the only resident thereof), so they then offered to drop the burglary charges if I would sign a paper saying I wouldn't sue them, which I refused to sign.

Instead of charging me with burglary, they instead charged me with resisting arrest, which I certainly didn't do since 4 cops without warning, and with drawn guns, kicked in my door while I was sitting on my couch. I would probably be dead if I twitched.

I hired an attorney, and during a pre-trial hearing, the cops admitted they had made a no-knock entry (that surprised me), and the judge struck everything (all evidence and testimony) after their admitted no-knock entry.

I chose a trial by judge, and at trial every time the prosecutor started saying what a miserable cuss I was, my attorney stood and objected saying that they were testifying about matters that came after their no-knock entry.

Since everything that day essentially came after their no-knock entry, after a few minutes of my attorney's objections to everything they tried to introduce, the judge starting chewing out the prosecutor and cops for bringing this debacle to trial, and dismissed the case.

Instead of reading the newspaper I could have been hacking someone to death when the cops kicked in my door and skated on murder, but since the cops admitted to a no-knock entry without ever identifying themselves as police, they had no case.

In Italy I would have likely been convicted since the cops would have lied, and it would be my word against theirs.

Vixen, ya, ya, I know ...I weaseled out on a technicality.

 

[acbytesla]

Not necessarily, but drawing a jury of clucks would concern me should I ever be accused of a crime necessitating a jury trial.

I personally feel it was a mistake lowering the voting age across the board to 18 y/o since kids barely out of childhood could be your juror.

I also wasn't very pleased at being sent to Vietnam back before I could vote at 21 y/o (I turned 21 shortly after I returned), so if I had my druthers, I would say 21, unless you were actively serving in the military.

Of course, we do have the voir dire system here which does allow the trial attorneys the right to interrogate prospective jurors (and reject them within set limits), but that obviously has its set limits.

I was prosecuted only once (when I was younger) for resisting arrest. While in the Navy I inherited a Malibu beach house, and one day (in the early 1970s) Sheriffs' deputies kicked in my door (a no-knock entry) and arrested me for burglary ...basically, arresting me for burglarizing my own house – oops!

In a holding cell at the Malibu station as they were booking me, they finally realized they had kicked in the wrong door and that I owned the house (and was the only resident thereof), so they then offered to drop the burglary charges if I would sign a paper saying I wouldn't sue them, which I refused to sign.

Instead of charging me with burglary, they instead charged me with resisting arrest, which I certainly didn't do since 4 cops without warning, and with drawn guns, kicked in my door while I was sitting on my couch. I would probably be dead if I twitched.

I hired an attorney, and during a pre-trial hearing, the cops admitted they had made a no-knock entry (that surprised me), and the judge struck everything (all evidence and testimony) after their admitted no-knock entry.

I chose a trial by judge, and at trial every time the prosecutor started saying what a miserable cuss I was, my attorney stood and objected saying that they were testifying about matters that came after their no-knock entry.

Since everything that day essentially came after their no-knock entry, after a few minutes of my attorney's objections to everything they tried to introduce, the judge starting chewing out the prosecutor and cops for bringing this debacle to trial, and dismissed the case.

Instead of reading the newspaper I could have been hacking someone to death when the cops kicked in my door and skated on murder, but since the cops admitted to a no-knock entry without ever identifying themselves as police, they had no case.

In Italy I would have likely been convicted since the cops would have lied, and it would be my word against theirs.

Vixen, ya, ya, I know ...I weaseled out on a technicality.

Did you sue?

 

[Numbers]

It seems like Machiavelli was about right here in the context of the discussion since the underlying issue of the thread involves a murder. I still think it is likely that something akin to plea bargaining goes on in most cases even if it is not explicitly written in to law. In some form it seems to have gone on in this case.

Technically the fast-track trial is farther from a US-style plea bargain then the "application of punishment upon request of the parties", but it does have elements of a plea bargain. The extenuating circumstances that reduce the sentence in Rudy Guede's fast-track trial are, in part, similar to what occurs in a plea bargain. Thus, Guede's sentence was, if I understand correctly, reduced based upon 1. his expressing regret - not that he had murdered Meredith, but that he had failed to help her when she was mortally wounded, and 2. his false identification of co-conspirators - actually, innocent persons - in committing the murder.

 

[Ken Dine]

Did you sue?

Ironically, NO, since my attorney missed the filing deadline. I probably should have sued the attorney, but I was busy with college and chasing bikinis, and the such.

 

[Dougm]

I heard Trump speak to a large audience at The Washington Post newspaper's headquarters several years ago. He brought up the case of Amanda Knox. He said he had read quite a bit about it and said she is innocent. Trump added that "she said some stupid things". I wished that he had elaborated on it and informed the audience that it happened in a midnight interrogation where she was psychologically manipulated and abused by police.

Trump added that, "she said some stupid things".

Well, he's the expert on that!

 

[acbytesla]

Ironically, NO, since my attorney missed the filing deadline. I probably should have sued the attorney, but I was busy with college and chasing bikinis, and the such.

I can relate to that. Too bad, you probably could have made them pay for a semester or ten semesters.

 

[sept79]

.
.
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It was Fox News (GOP's Pravda) that seem to think that it would have been OK to send Amanda Knox back to Italy.

Not true! That statement puts you on a par w/Vixen . . .

 

[acbytesla]

Not true! That statement puts you on a par w/Vixen . . .

You're right. It certainly wasn't universal. Just every time I watched it, they had Nancy Grace or Dershowitz spouting off like idiots.

 

[Desert Fox]

You're right. It certainly wasn't universal. Just every time I watched it, they had Nancy Grace or Dershowitz spouting off like idiots.

Nancy Grace is just vindictive and never believes anybody is actually not guilty. The legal system operated by her would be that somebody would be considered guilty as soon as the cops bring them in and should be executed as soon as the enter the police station.

 

[acbytesla]

Nancy Grace is just vindictive and never believes anybody is actually not guilty. The legal system operated by her would be that somebody would be considered guilty as soon as the cops bring them in and should be executed as soon as the enter the police station.

I know I despise her. She use to regularly say on FOX that she had special info that she was privy to that proved conclusively that Amanda was guilty as sin. I would find myself shouting at the TV to tell us. Mostly because it would be so easy to prove that Nancy was a liar.

 

[acbytesla]

Nancy Grace is CNN . . .

My mistake. FYI: Nancy Grace"s wikipedia entry on Amanda Knox.

Grace commented on the Amanda Knox case: "I was very disturbed, because I think it is a huge miscarriage of justice. I believe that while Amanda Knox did not wield the knife herself, I think that she was there, with her boyfriend, and that he did the deed, and that she egged him on. That's what I think happened.....I just happen to know the facts...I'm not trying to get Amanda Knox's first interview because… my show does not pay for interviews...Second, I don't think she's going to tell the truth anyway, so what's the point?"[46]

 

[carbonjam72]

Corporations aren't people, not even bad ones...

You're right. It certainly wasn't universal. Just every time I watched it, they had Nancy Grace or Dershowitz spouting off like idiots.

Dershowitz and Nancy Grace are also used as counter arguments to generate the appearance of conflict.

That FOX or any station puts on a 'guilters' POV, is just a tactic to stir up an audience. It doesn't mean the network is "for" or "against".

Networks aren't 'people' so as to have consistent or coherent opinions on anything, even though people run them.

FOX is particularly 'audience centric' in that sense, where as the mainstream networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) will tend to take more of a coherent, fact based view, based on available information. Not necessarily outright declare one way or the other, but present information in such a way that it leads an audience to a specific conclusion.

Even the loathsome gutter British tabloids wrote articles in both directions, although their hysterical guilter screeds were actionable, IUAM.

 

[Desert Fox]

My mistake. FYI: Nancy Grace"s wikipedia entry on Amanda Knox.

Grace commented on the Amanda Knox case: "I was very disturbed, because I think it is a huge miscarriage of justice. I believe that while Amanda Knox did not wield the knife herself, I think that she was there, with her boyfriend, and that he did the deed, and that she egged him on. That's what I think happened.....I just happen to know the facts...I'm not trying to get Amanda Knox's first interview because… my show does not pay for interviews...Second, I don't think she's going to tell the truth anyway, so what's the point?"[46]

That I am aware of, Dershowitz never wrote anything that prejudicial. Everything i have seen, he seems to not really want to take a position on her being guilty or innocent, just how fair the Italian legal system is.

 

[sept79]

That I am aware of, Dershowitz never wrote anything that prejudicial. Everything i have seen, he seems to not really want to take a position on her being guilty or innocent, just how fair the Italian legal system is.

“In 50 years of practicing law, I have never seen a more one-sided presentation by the media in the United States of the case,” says Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. “Everybody is saying there’s no evidence against her and she’s totally innocent. It’s just not true.”

 

[Desert Fox]

“In 50 years of practicing law, I have never seen a more one-sided presentation by the media in the United States of the case,” says Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. “Everybody is saying there’s no evidence against her and she’s totally innocent. It’s just not true.”

There is a kernel of truth there however. There was evidence against her, it is just false and misleading.

The rest though is male bovine excrement. Still, it was not quite as inflammatory as Nancy Grace.

 

[sept79]

There is a kernel of truth there however. There was evidence against her, it is just false and misleading.

The rest though is male bovine excrement. Still, it was not quite as inflammatory as Nancy Grace.

Dershowitz bloviated before knowing the facts . . . Quite disturbing when one has or had a platform like his.

 

[Desert Fox]

Dershowitz bloviated before knowing the facts . . . Quite disturbing when one has or had a platform like his.

I do not really disagree. One problems humans generally have is an unwillingness to change our minds as well.

I just don't see him as quite having the same small-mindedness of Ms Grace.

 

[Bill Williams]

Dershowitz bloviated before knowing the facts . . . Quite disturbing when one has or had a platform like his.

Dershowitz did what lawyers do - represented a side, facts or no facts.

 

[anglolawyer]

Dershowitz did what lawyers do - represented a side, facts or no facts.

That's what we do? Oh, I see. Dershowitz probably got suckered into believing the hype around him and that the sun shone out of his nether parts so brightly that he could toss off an opinion without bothering to look at the facts.

 

[Desert Fox]

The only case where a lawyer is suppose to represent a side is if she is on the defense side. She can believe that her client is completely guilty and is suppose to defend them as if it is their own hide that is on the line.

Officially at least, a prosecutor who believe a defendant is innocent is obligated to drop all charged. Now many consider their career more important than the truth unfortunately.