Continuation Part 19: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[LondonJohn]

Yes, this is my understanding as well. The particular law was one designed to keep members of the Mafia from communicating with their lawyers prior to the first hearing. Using that law requires written reasons be deposited which Mignini failed to do. This is why he was sanctioned.

Indeed so. And the whole supposed safeguard against abuse of this power to deny access to counsel (as Mignini abused the power in this instance) is that a judge is supposed to see a written motivation from the PM immediately, and adjudicate whether the PM has sufficiently strong grounds to invoke this power.

But, just as apparently with so many other areas of Italian criminal justice, the checks and balances are either totally disregarded or cleverly circumvented - especially in the way that PMs are supposed to be overseen by judges. It's pretty clear to an outside observer that Italian criminal judges afford a HUGE amount of improper leeway to PMs - I would guess that this may be a hangover from the inquisitorial system, where the PM and the judges were effectively on the same "side".

In Italy, another serious (and seriously wrong) example of the failure of checks and balances is in the area of phone tapping and other surveillance. In theory at least, PMs have to have strict criteria for wanting phone taps and surveillance, and judges are meant to assess whether the PM has met the criteria before authorising the taps/surveillance. In practice, however, this almost never happens. PMs self-authorise taps/surveillance on a whim and judges effective turn a blind eye to all of it. The result is an EXTRAORDINARY level of phone tapping and other surveillance of private citizens in Italy. Indeed, exactly this happened in the Kercher case: a large number of private individuals - including Knox, Sollecito, the other housemates and various other sundry characters - all had their phones tapped within a day of the discovery of the body. And then Knox (and possibly also Sollecito) was apparently placed under visual surveillance. It appears that none of these taps/surveillance were set up or conducted under the proper procedures or safeguards.

 

[LondonJohn]

From the same article:

Bold: my emphasis.

But you don't really know what this means in practice, do you.

In practice, Sollecito was allowed to see his lawyer LITERALLY MOMENTS BEFORE his court appearance*. That is to say, he was denied access to a lawyer - improperly - from the point of his arrest in the early hours of 6th November, up until moments before he was brought before the court on 9th November. He was denied rightful access to his lawyers for proper consultation and discussion on all of the 6th, 7th and 8th November, and the brief meeting he was allowed on the 9th (moments before his court appearance) was obviously entirely insufficient and inadequate.


* And I, and others, have pointed this out several times already.

 

[LondonJohn]

Here is Mignini's original arrest application in English. The time was 8:40 am 6th Nov 2007. Can't find the article re the transcript.

http://themurderofmeredithkercher.c...rrest-Knox-Lumumba-Sollecito-translation1.pdf

Meaning that Sollecito should have been able to see a lawyer - as without doubt he would have wished to do - by mid-morning on 6th November at the latest. Only, he didn't get to see a lawyer then. Nor on the afternoon of the 6th. Nor all day on the 7th. Nor all day on the 8th. Nor any time until literally moments before he was brought into court on the 9th.

And why not? Because Mignini had unlawfully decreed that Sollecito should be denied access to counsel for all that time - presumably because Mignini hoped Sollecito would crack further while sitting in solitary confinement in a cell without any access to any help or advice, and that he might therefore "sing" even more to the police.

 

[Numbers]

Sorry Numbers, I was thinking more of the ECHR and how it may rule on Amanda's case, rather than Mignini's indiscretions.

The pro guilt argument about the pair being refused legal counsel has been that they were not suspects at the time, and therefore didn't have to be provided with a lawyer. However, as you have shown, CPP Article 104 states that they should have been provided with legal counsel as soon as they were detained.

The Italian authorities may try to argue that the pair were not suspects, but I can't see how they could argue that the pair were not being detained.

Knox and Sollecito were called in on Nov. 5 on the orders of VQA Giobbi according to his testimony. He also explains how Knox became a suspect early in the investigation, in particular, when he observed her wiggling her hips when she put on shoe protectors before entering the downstairs flat. He explains earlier in his testimony that he was focusing on those persons who knew Meredith and had what he considered weak alibis. He had concluded confidently that the break-in was staged because it would have been illogical for a burglar to break-in at the particular window that was broken; he did not provide any credible objective evidence in his testimony on this claim.

Absurd as some of Giobbi's statements may seem - he repeats, for example, that the blood in the downstairs flat, which apparently contained human DNA, was cat blood - I believe that the ECHR will take intense interest in his testimony and separate out the factual part relating to police misconduct.

There can be no doubt that Knox and Sollecito were de facto suspects as of the interrogations that began Nov. 5. The ECHR in its judgments claims to seek the substance of facts, and does not merely rely on a government's legal formalities.

 

[Vixen]

He was found carrying a little hammer at the nursery trespass. Those little hammers wouldn't do much on a large window that was made of safety glass which is what those little hammers are designed for.

Vixen doesn't want to admit that a strong in-shape athlete could throw a 9 pound rock ten feet through a window. Whether Filomena closed the shutters isn't clear but if she had it would have only taken a few seconds to reach up and open them. Rudi would have been able to see that they didn't close enough to be locked as was testified to.

After the rock went through the window, the inner shutters were blown apart and with them the window frame. Rudi just climbed up and through the open window, which he closed behind him along with the outer shutters.

Playing basketball now and then does not make someone "an athlete" (this implies someone who follows a rigorous training regime). Earlier you claimed Rudy was a "professional athlete". Are you able to provide a citation for this new claim?

 

[Vixen]

When Rudy was arrested for his crimes in Milan I'm sure the hammer was taken from him as evidence. Possession of burglary tools is even a criminal offense in some jurisdictions.

That's beside the point. Having one confiscated won't stop a burglar from obtaining another. That's if he ever was caught with one.

 

[Vixen]

First of all - does anyone know if this data dump is being made to any Italian language entity?

If not, the only reason I can think of such a thing is to actually hide stuff in the sheer volume. But what do I know.

The bare fact is as is - someone thinks it's good for the "guilter case" to have them be seen to have the complete record. In English.

Hoots! (Your complaint was obviously the omission of the exclamation point!)

Is that 'Hoots!' with a Scots accent?

 

[Vixen]

From what I've seen the entire file in Italian is being made available to the PGP and Bruce is angry about it.

Why would Bruce Fischer be angry about it, when he boasts about having had the case file for years?

 

[Vixen]

The stone was not 4kg.
In fact an average high school pupil can "shot put" a 12 pound weight about 30 feet. 50 feet is considered good. About 80 feet is the record. Google is your friend.
I reckon I could easily toss the pebble used in the break about 100 feet. Remember to use a "shot put" method is to severely handicap ones distance.

I am afraid it was 4 KG.

 

[Vixen]

I saw this. Is it not genuine?

Didn't a leading member of the PIP approach the tabloids offering to sell nude pictures of Amanda taken in custody? Wasn't it Maori, Raff's lawyer who released highly distressing autopsy pictures to Italian tv?

 

[Grinder]

Playing basketball now and then does not make someone "an athlete" (this implies someone who follows a rigorous training regime). Earlier you claimed Rudy was a "professional athlete". Are you able to provide a citation for this new claim?

http://basketball.eurobasket.com/player/Rudy_Hermann_Guede/Giplast_Alba_Adriatica/74129

5' 11" not exactly short - most likely taller than the climber.

 

[Vixen]

The real head-scratcher on this point is the Hellmann report. On his section on calunnia, he goes to great length to demonstrate that Knox was under duress - and that the translator, Anna Donnino, abrogated her role (as translator) for two things:

1) (Donnino) did not limit herself to translating, but induced (Knox) to force herself to remember, explaining that she [Amanda] was confused in her memories, perhaps because of the trauma she experienced, makes it wholly understandable that she was in a situation of considerable psychological pressure (to call it stress seems an understatement [appare riduttivo]), enough to raise doubts about the actual spontaneity of her statements....

2) That Donnino translated no questions from the Public Prosecutor (Mignini) to Knox, an admission that Mignini himself had to force out of Donnino to preserve the claimed "spontaneity" of Knox's statements.​

Part #2 is key - because for Mignini to claim that Knox simply blurted things out with no coaching.

​

So far Judge Hellmann is actually understanding things well. Calunnia requires both a mens rea as well as the knowledge of the innocence of the person being named.

So what does Hellmann say?

​

Does this satisfy knowledge of Lumumba's actual innocence? Even Hellmann doesn't really address it.

​

​

There is that annoying judicial habit of jumping to the end, "whom she knew to be innocent," without actually saying why he'd come to that conclusion. Just about everything even Hellmann says previous to this seems to be setting out the opposite - that Knox would not have opportunity to know if Lumumba was innocent or not!

If you read the police interception of Amanda's conversation with Mom, Edda, you'll see it is clear Amanda knew he was innocent.

 

[Grinder]

Didn't a leading member of the PIP approach the tabloids offering to sell nude pictures of Amanda taken in custody? Wasn't it Maori, Raff's lawyer who released highly distressing autopsy pictures to Italian tv?

I think you are thinking of Maresca putting naked pictures of Meredith's body on the screen in the court.

 

[Vixen]

So quote the news reports. What time and date do the "news reports" say that Sollecito was allowed to confer with his lawyers?

I suggest you can't even answer that question, "Vixen" (and what's with the stupid "inverted commas" for people's screen names anyhow? So strange.....).

And if you think that my asking you to defend what you've written, in a totally amenable manner (if slightly frustrated on account of you simply avoiding the questions entirely in your earlier attempt at an answer) is "bullying", then I think you ought to look up the definition of the word.

See earlier in my response to Rose Montague.

 

[Vixen]

It's not at all a serious matter to have a sizeable group of police literally shouting at you that a) they KNOW you were at the scene of a rape and murder, and b) they KNOW that met up with the murderer and let him into the cottage where the rape and murder took place, and c) you now MUST remember all of this and tell the police the "truth" - in order to protect yourself from even more serious criminal charges and imprisonment, to protect yourself and the community from this evil murderer whom you helped, and to help the police/PM to solve this crime. And at the same time to have the "interpreter" chiming in that you've probably suffered some sort of traumatic memory loss of the whole incident - with the "interpreter" giving a handy example of her own experience to help to convince you that your mind really can play such extreme tricks on you.

Under those circumstances, it's not at all a serious matter to "buckle" (the police's own words) and do nothing more than agree with the version of events that the police are shouting at you is the correct one. Not at all. As the ECHR will almost definitely acknowledge.

In your opinion.

 

[Vixen]

I think you are thinking of Maresca putting naked pictures of Meredith's body on the screen in the court.

Maresca was legally justified in presenting evidence in a murder trial.

How is it justified for an ordinary member of the public from Injustice Anywhere to offer confidential medical nude photos of Amanda to the tabloids for money?

This is supposed to be one of Amanda's most fervent supporters!

 

[Vixen]

Meaning that Sollecito should have been able to see a lawyer - as without doubt he would have wished to do - by mid-morning on 6th November at the latest. Only, he didn't get to see a lawyer then. Nor on the afternoon of the 6th. Nor all day on the 7th. Nor all day on the 8th. Nor any time until literally moments before he was brought into court on the 9th.

And why not? Because Mignini had unlawfully decreed that Sollecito should be denied access to counsel for all that time - presumably because Mignini hoped Sollecito would crack further while sitting in solitary confinement in a cell without any access to any help or advice, and that he might therefore "sing" even more to the police.

I don't believe that. Even Giacomo Silenzi on returning back to Perugia from the bank holiday, was driven to the nearest attorney by his father as soon as he stepped off the train. Laura and Filomena all immediately hired lawyers.

Your claim Raff was denied legal advice does not stand up to scrutiny.

The recent disciplinary of Mignini by CSM was to do with omitting to put the arrest right in writing. Raff had seen a lawyer before then.

 

[Grinder]

Maresca was legally justified in presenting evidence in a murder trial.

How is it justified for an ordinary member of the public from Injustice Anywhere to offer confidential medical nude photos of Amanda to the tabloids for money?

This is supposed to be one of Amanda's most fervent supporters!

I think that the Amanda picture meme is a factoid. It never happened but some members of the PGP kept telling this story.

Maresca had no moral right to put poor Meredith's pictures up for all to see. He also had no need as the judges had seen the pictures in a special closed session where only judges and the lawyers were present at the request of Meredith's family.

 

[Vixen]

http://basketball.eurobasket.com/player/Rudy_Hermann_Guede/Giplast_Alba_Adriatica/74129

5' 11" not exactly short - most likely taller than the climber.

According to police he was only 5'9" iirc. However, if he took size 44/45 in shoes then I concede he must be quite tall.

 

[Desert Fox]

I think that the Amanda picture meme is a factoid. It never happened but some members of the PGP kept telling this story.

Maresca had no moral right to put poor Meredith's pictures up for all to see. He also had no need as the judges had seen the pictures in a special closed session where only judges and the lawyers were present at the request of Meredith's family.

I think that prosecutors everywhere like to show pictures of the body even when not relevant because it tells the jury "Somebody has to pay for this."

It is much like with the West Memphis Three, the kid's bikes sat in the courtroom for the entire trial.