Continuation Part 19: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Grinder]

"Photoshopped" is a loaded term. What was done was what has always been done, since the days of flipping the negative. You mirror the picture rather than use the other because the molds or wear patterns might be different. Standard operating procedure; no need for an announcement. But yeah, that corner is pretty darned diagnostic.

You are aware that the Asics shoe was not Amanda's and was found new in a store. I repeat that even the police expert didn't say it had left the print only that the shoe demonstrated a width that conformed to a 37ish sized show which would have fit many of the residents past and present. I certainly would understand flipping the negative if there was a negative. What I was pointing to is that once the picture is put into a program to "flip it" it raises the question: What else may have been changed?

 

[Methos]

Please do not take my comment, "Massei bent over backwards" out of context.

The context was within an ever-present undercurrent of PIP claims, "the police, prosecutors and courts were biased against the kids and were too stupid to weigh up the evidence critically, but instead 'just took Mignini's word for it', and he's a fanatical RC nutter who sees satanism everywhere and saw Amanda as 'that American slut'" etc, etc.

It is important to understand Massei (the trial judge) did not "pick on the kids", but bent over backwards to accommodate all the defense demands, even contradicting Matteini in Rudy's trial naming Amanda and Raff as the main perps, by stating Rudy instigated the events out of some kind of frustrated lust after witnessing Raff and Amanda making out.

Clearer still?

[...]

No, not really.
Have you even read Massei's report? The problem with Massei is that everytime he had to make a decision about how to interpret the evidence he decided against the defense, coming up with sometimes ridiculous expainations why he had decided the way he had.
Take the "multiple attackers" question as an example. He quotes all the experts who had stated their opinions, based on the forensic evidence:

He excluded, finally, that the biological data alone could indicate the presence and action of several people against the victim.

As for the dynamic of the homicide, with particular reference to whether the action was performed by one or more persons, Dr. Liviero ruled out the existence of scientific elements that would allow us to formulate a response to this question.

He indicated that the biological data did not allow for a determination of whether the injuries were caused by one person or by several people, claiming they were compatible with both possibilities

All this led to the conclusion that one single person could not have carried out all the harmful actions which had occurred in this case.

He also stated that the action was that of a single attacker.

He maintained that "in any case there is nothing there which could lead me to think that there was more than one attacker"
(R.I.P.)

He was unable to provide an explanation for such a disproportion, which he held to be compatible with the presence of more than one person, but also with the action of a sole person who acts in a progressive manner

He has seven opinions and even if he would consider the three "paid by the parties" opinions as "unreliable" because they were paid to say what they said, he's still left with four opinions of "The forensic evidence can't tell us, both scenarios are possible." One would think that an impartial judge now would at least consider both options, not so Massei, he simply rules that it would be against Meredith Kercher's character to be overwhelmed by just one person even if this person were taller and stronger than her and armed with a knife. His take on the luminol hits is equally frightening... Massei found them guilty because "it was possible" not BARD. Judge Nencini ruled as he did because of his "beliefs":

We could have said that the two accused weren’t there, and then provided convincing reasoning, but we did not believe this to be the truth.”

Two things on the highlighted part:
- You should get your "Who is who" up to date, Micheli is the judge you mean...
- If Massei wasn't allowed - in your view - to contradict Micheli "naming Amanda and Raff as the main perps in Rudy's trial", why did the Massei trial happen? What was it good for?

 

[Bill Williams]

No, not really.
Have you even read Massei's report? The problem with Massei is that everytime he had to make a decision about how to interpret the evidence he decided against the defense, coming up with sometimes ridiculous expainations why he had decided the way he had.
Take the "multiple attackers" question as an example. He quotes all the experts who had stated their opinions, based on the forensic evidence:

He has seven opinions and even if he would consider the three "paid by the parties" opinions as "unreliable" because they were paid to say what they said, he's still left with four opinions of "The forensic evidence can't tell us, both scenarios are possible." One would think that an impartial judge now would at least consider both options, not so Massei, he simply rules that it would be against Meredith Kercher's character to be overwhelmed by just one person even if this person were taller and stronger than her and armed with a knife.

Of all the meaningless comments Vixen has posted here - this business of "Massei bent over backwards" for the kids is perhaps in the top 10 of ludicrousness. Aside from implying that Massei did not judge this case impartially - we can at least join Vixen in that sentiment. Massei simply sacrificed to innocents so as to allow a renegade prosecutor to save face.

I mean, when Massei invented out of whole cloth the scenario that Amanda must have carried that knife "for protection" was he neding over backwards for the kids? No. He was surmising something that no one had ever testified to, that Amanda carried large kitchen knives in Perugia for protection. Massei just invented it.

Why? Because Massei saw the crime as unpremeditated, and that Amanda had not carried the knife to the cottage with intent to inflict harm.

Two things on the highlighted part:
- You should get your "Who is who" up to date, Micheli is the judge you mean...
- If Massei wasn't allowed - in your view - to contradict Micheli "naming Amanda and Raff as the main perps in Rudy's trial", why did the Massei trial happen? What was it good for?

Perhaps another bone that the Italian judiciary threw to the defence - using a trial at which they had no representation to help convict them at another - with no chance to cross-examine Rudy!

Yup, I'd say those early courts had Raffaele's and Amanda's best interests at heart!

 

[Grinder]

I mean, when Massei invented out of whole cloth the scenario that Amanda must have carried that knife "for protection" was he neding over backwards for the kids? No. He was surmising something that no one had ever testified to, that Amanda carried large kitchen knives in Perugia for protection. Massei just invented it.

Why? Because Massei saw the crime as unpremeditated, and that Amanda had not carried the knife to the cottage with intent to inflict harm.

Whoa dude!! Are you saying that Massei concluded things that neither the prosecution or the defense advanced? Isn't that what Vixen is criticizing Marasca for?

Didn't Nencini come up with his own theory of the crime?

 

[acbytesla]

No, not really.
Have you even read Massei's report? The problem with Massei is that everytime he had to make a decision about how to interpret the evidence he decided against the defense, coming up with sometimes ridiculous expainations why he had decided the way he had.
Take the "multiple attackers" question as an example. He quotes all the experts who had stated their opinions, based on the forensic evidence:

He has seven opinions and even if he would consider the three "paid by the parties" opinions as "unreliable" because they were paid to say what they said, he's still left with four opinions of "The forensic evidence can't tell us, both scenarios are possible." One would think that an impartial judge now would at least consider both options, not so Massei, he simply rules that it would be against Meredith Kercher's character to be overwhelmed by just one person even if this person were taller and stronger than her and armed with a knife. His take on the luminol hits is equally frightening... Massei found them guilty because "it was possible" not BARD. Judge Nencini ruled as he did because of his "beliefs":

Two things on the highlighted part:
- You should get your "Who is who" up to date, Micheli is the judge you mean...
- If Massei wasn't allowed - in your view - to contradict Micheli "naming Amanda and Raff as the main perps in Rudy's trial", why did the Massei trial happen? What was it good for?

I'm of the belief that Vixen hasn't read the Massei report, or the Hellman report or the Conti Vechiotti report or the many others. My belief is that she is accepting the flawed talking points from the guilter sites and regurgitating them here. She obstinately refuses to do any critical thinking on her own.

Take the shoe print for example. I understand the argument that Rinaldi and Boemia are making about those two lines appearing to show a narrow heel. And if they were able to find a matching tread pattern to the bloody shoe print you would have to consider it. But it's very very clear why their analysisis is flawed to ANY layman and that is the similar actually identical tread pattern to the other shoe prints. It becomes clear that there is something wrong with the lines that at first glance look like a heel from a single print. But Vinci shows very persuasivly that the lines are from 2 prints not one.

So the question is, what is more likely? That it is two prints with the same tread pattern as all those other prints? Or that it is the only print of an unknown and identified shoe of a woman with precisely the same tread pattern of the larger Nike Outbreak 2?

I think the answer is clear who lied for a paycheck.

 

[Methos]

I'm of the belief that Vixen hasn't read the Massei report, or the Hellman report or the Conti Vechiotti report or the many others. My belief is that she is accepting the flawed talking points from the guilter sites and regurgitating them here. She obstinately refuses to do any critical thinking on her own.
[...]
I think the answer is clear who lied for a paycheck.

I think we'll be able to read about the topics Vixen brought up lately in the upcoming book of a certain true-crime writing team...

 

[Bill Williams]

Whoa dude!! Are you saying that Massei concluded things that neither the prosecution or the defense advanced? Isn't that what Vixen is criticizing Marasca for?

Didn't Nencini come up with his own theory of the crime?

Four things you bring up. All true. Yes, Vixen criticized Marasca for claiming things no one brought to trial.

The difference is, in Marasca/Bruno 9.2/9.3 they outlined why the attempted the synpotic almalgam. It was to show why it was impossible to convict, even though two previous courts had.

 

[bagels]

Why do you keep coming out with these false dichotomies? Amanda is neither the "luckiest murderer of all time" (she got caught, remember?) or that's she's "innocent". It is certainly not the either/or situation you claim.

Well I guess it depends on how you define it. I suppose a murderer that kills someone and is never caught or even suspected is "lucky." But Amanda leaves a bloody heel print, doesn't throw away her murder weapon, doesn't get a lawyer, is surprised mid-cleanup, has rehearsed no alibi, is turned in by her accomplice, incriminates herself in the interrogation room, staged an implausible break-in, failed to clean Meredith's DNA off the knife, is spotted by two eyewitnesses.

And yet for each and every one of these points, there is an equal and opposite point explaining it at above and beyond reasonable doubt levels. The print is a partial from Rudy with identical tread pattern. The police admit they coerced her with a story about trauma causing amnesia and getting her to say what they knew to be correct and refuse to release the interrogation tapes. The CCTV camera by the cottage was proven to have a broken clock allowing her to stick with the calling the police first story. The eyewitnesses both said they saw nothing in the days following the attack, suspiciously changing their story months to years later in time for the trial. Her accomplice just happened to have a history of equally implausible break-ins also involving climbing and rock throwing. The wound the kitchen knife supposedly made turned out to be more compatible with the same smaller knife of the other wounds. Stefanoni's DNA work was flawed and didn't follow basic procedures and two court appointed independent professors said the most likely result was contamination. Etc etc.

This is the equivalent of hitting a hole in one over and over throughout the back nine. I would call that the luckiest of all time. But the more likely explanation for this is the "evidence" was just a bunch of crap the police and prosecutors threw together to try to salvage their case after their initial pet Patrick theory turned out to have never happened and they had arrested three innocent people following a careless investigation and probably illegal interrogation.

 

[Mike1711]

It is not "misconduct", "Bill", because as I have explained before, judges have wide-ranging legal powers in how they come to their verdict. As you have seen no two judges will come up with the exact same reasoning and there are cases where one judges finds, "guilty" and another, "not guilty" in cases of similar circumstances.

This is why the losing side will demand "written reasons", and in Italy written reasons are mandatory, for this is the key document in which appellants can identify grounds for appeal which are usually limited to legal errors, perversity or "public interest" (miscarriage of justice) and even in rare cases "new evidence" which was not known of as of the time of the trial.

You will note, coming to an erroneous verdict because of deliberate and intentional biased reasoning falls under "perversity". (="misconduct")

What the appeal court will look at to assess this, is "Is the judge's reasoning within the bounds of reasonableness" and this is the sole criteria. If it is "within the bounds of reasonable" it will not be adjudged "perverse" even if the appeal judges might disagree with it. What they cannot do is substitute their own verdict (which Bruno and Marasca have done). They must send it back for the disputed issue in appeal to be reassessed with clear directions to the lower court of what to assess properly. This applies even if the reasoning is considered "perverse".

If a judge has committed "misconduct", for example, falling asleep, being drunk, failed to declare the defendant or victim a close relative, etc etc) then they may face judicial investigation and the case should go back for complete retrial.

This is not what Massei did. His reasoning falls within the bounds of "reasonable" which is within his remit and powers, even if other judges might disagree with it , and which is why no higher court has decreed his verdict "perverse" or "a miscarriage of justice".


Is it clearer?

Many judges will aim to screen out all potentially controversial points to be sure their verdicts and reasoning is as appeal-proof as possible. Hence, this is the most likely reason Massei excluded the statements taken without a lawyer present and humoured the defence wherever possible (eg, the shoe prints).

For you to say that the Court of Appeal "cannot" (that is proved false because they just did) overturn a guilty finding and substitute one of innocence is utter nonsense.

In the Oscar Pistorius case culpable homicide was thrown out and murder substituted by the Court of Appeal without referral to a lower court. As I have said before South African Law is Roman Law and Dutch Law so I strongly suspect there are similarities in both Italian and South African Law.

When you are wrong it is good manners to admit it.

 

[acbytesla]

Well I guess it depends on how you define it. I suppose a murderer that kills someone and is never caught or even suspected is "lucky." But Amanda leaves a bloody heel print, doesn't throw away her murder weapon, doesn't get a lawyer, is surprised mid-cleanup, has rehearsed no alibi, is turned in by her accomplice, incriminates herself in the interrogation room, staged an implausible break-in, failed to clean Meredith's DNA off the knife, is spotted by two eyewitnesses.

And yet for each and every one of these points, there is an equal and opposite point explaining it at above and beyond reasonable doubt levels. The print is a partial from Rudy with identical tread pattern. The police admit they coerced her with a story about trauma causing amnesia and getting her to say what they knew to be correct and refuse to release the interrogation tapes. The CCTV camera by the cottage was proven to have a broken clock allowing her to stick with the calling the police first story. The eyewitnesses both said they saw nothing in the days following the attack, suspiciously changing their story months to years later in time for the trial. Her accomplice just happened to have a history of equally implausible break-ins also involving climbing and rock throwing. The wound the kitchen knife supposedly made turned out to be more compatible with the same smaller knife of the other wounds. Stefanoni's DNA work was flawed and didn't follow basic procedures and two court appointed independent professors said the most likely result was contamination. Etc etc.

This is the equivalent of hitting a hole in one over and over throughout the back nine. I would call that the luckiest of all time. But the more likely explanation for this is the "evidence" was just a bunch of crap the police and prosecutors threw together to try to salvage their case after their initial pet Patrick theory turned out to have never happened and they had arrested three innocent people following a careless investigation and probably illegal interrogation.

Side note.
I once made 2 holes in one in the same round of golf. I've made 4 total in 40 years of playing hundreds of rounds of golf each year. So I know how rare they are.

 

[Mike1711]

You are aware that the Asics shoe was not Amanda's and was found new in a store. I repeat that even the police expert didn't say it had left the print only that the shoe demonstrated a width that conformed to a 37ish sized show which would have fit many of the residents past and present. I certainly would understand flipping the negative if there was a negative. What I was pointing to is that once the picture is put into a program to "flip it" it raises the question: What else may have been changed?

Nothing else changes when you produce a mirror image, whether by computer or with a photographic negative....or simply by using a mirror. If you're suggesting computer manipulation I would suggest that your mind is other thinking a simple issue.

 

[Grinder]

Nothing else changes when you produce a mirror image, whether by computer or with a photographic negative....or simply by using a mirror. If you're suggesting computer manipulation I would suggest that your mind is other thinking a simple issue.

Well, I don't think I was "other" thinking or over thinking that once the image is in a program that would allow other changes that we should be skeptical particularly considering the source(s).

Whether this was the police consultant or Kermit's work, neither is to be trusted. Naturally even an apparently unmanipulated photo could have been changed but when it clearly has been manipulated the odds increase.

Of course, only the PGP make the case that the print was left by Amanda's Asics shoe because she didn't own the model and the expert was only using them for sizing.

 

[Vixen]

For you to say that the Court of Appeal "cannot" (that is proved false because they just did) overturn a guilty finding and substitute one of innocence is utter nonsense.

In the Oscar Pistorius case culpable homicide was thrown out and murder substituted by the Court of Appeal without referral to a lower court. As I have said before South African Law is Roman Law and Dutch Law so I strongly suspect there are similarities in both Italian and South African Law.

When you are wrong it is good manners to admit it.

In the Oscar Pistorius appeal the facts found remained the same. What was faulty was Judge Masipa's judgment that it was "culpable homicide". The prosecution brought the appeal. The defense tried to argue the prosecution was trying to re-examine the facts. However, it was ajudged that this was within the context of the judge erring in her reasoning as to why it was culpable homicide instead of first degree.

We get it: you studied Roman and Dutch Law of which South African Law is a mixture.

The Supreme Court in the Pistorius case didn't substitute a 'not guilty' verdict.

 

[Vixen]

Side note.
I once made 2 holes in one in the same round of golf. I've made 4 total in 40 years of playing hundreds of rounds of golf each year. So I know how rare they are.

Logical fallacy #68: the non sequitur.

 

[Grinder]

Logical fallacy #68: the non sequitur.

Your whole effort is logical fallacy #69 - it's just a dream.

 

[Vixen]

Of all the meaningless comments Vixen has posted here - this business of "Massei bent over backwards" for the kids is perhaps in the top 10 of ludicrousness. Aside from implying that Massei did not judge this case impartially - we can at least join Vixen in that sentiment. Massei simply sacrificed to innocents so as to allow a renegade prosecutor to save face.

I mean, when Massei invented out of whole cloth the scenario that Amanda must have carried that knife "for protection" was he neding over backwards for the kids? No. He was surmising something that no one had ever testified to, that Amanda carried large kitchen knives in Perugia for protection. Massei just invented it.

Why? Because Massei saw the crime as unpremeditated, and that Amanda had not carried the knife to the cottage with intent to inflict harm.


Perhaps another bone that the Italian judiciary threw to the defence - using a trial at which they had no representation to help convict them at another - with no chance to cross-examine Rudy!

Yup, I'd say those early courts had Raffaele's and Amanda's best interests at heart!

Massei was never going to "please all of the people all of the time". What many judges do is throw out a crumb of comfort to the losing party. Massei excluded all the confession statements Amanda made, and Raff's. When you read them, you can see how incredibly incriminating they are, and how they contradict their sworn testimony.

Massei accepted Papa Raff's agents scouring all the shops in Italy trying to find a print that was not that of his boy but might fit Rudy. Massei rejected the shoeprint size 36.5 because no shoe was found, yet accepted the hypothetical Rudy shoe, based on Vinci photoshopping a size 44 Nike Outbreak to fit the print found, although, again, the shoe itself was never found. I cannot see the star-shaped defect on the heel the police identified as matching the same defect on Raff's shoe and being Raff's size 42. Raff's own counsel claimed it was not possible to distinguish the sole pattern definitively. Until Vinci miraculously came along.

Massei lopped off five years for the kids' youth.

Massei dropped the theft of Mez' rent charge.

Massei blamed Rudy for instigating the incident, when Micheli (soz, 'Matteini' was a typo; she was, of course, the remanding magistrate) said it was Amanda, and Rudy was just an accessory.

 

[Grinder]

Massei was never going to "please all of the people all of the time". What many judges do is throw out a crumb of comfort to the losing party. Masei excluded all the confession statements Amanda made, and Raff's. When you read them, you can see how incredibly incriminating they are, and how they contradict their sworn testimony.

No the supreme court threw out the "statements" of 1:45 and 5:45 but Massei allowed them in as part of Patrick's calunnia.

assei accepted Papa Raff's agents scouring all the shops in Italy trying to find a print that was not that of his boy but might fit Rudy. Massei rejected the shoeprint size 36.5 because no shoe was found, yet accepted the hypothetical Rudy shoe, based on Vinci photoshopping a size 44 Nike Outbreak to fit the print found, although, again, the shoe itself was never found. I cannot see the star-shaped defect on the heel the police identified as matching the same defect on Raff's shoe and being Raff's size 42. Raff's own counsel claimed it was not possible to distinguish the sole pattern definitively. Until Vinci miraculously came along.

Once again fallacy #69

Massei lopped off five years for the kids' youth.

Massei dropped the theft of Mez' rent charge.

And what was the evidence that they not Rudi stole the money?

Massei blamed Rudy for instigating the incident, when Micheli (soz, 'Matteini' was a typo; she was, of course, the remanding magistrate) said it was Amanda, and Rudy was just an accessory.

So was it a judicial truth before the Massei trial?

 

[bagels]

Vixen, every judge and prosecutor had a different theory about what happened because they were just making stuff up since their "evidence" doesn't reveal any coherent truth and is just a mess of random assertions floating in the ether detached from any reality.

Rudy Guede climbed the lower bars up into the window, Meredith came home, he raped and murdered her. The evidence against him, starting with the break-in identical to his MO, his prints and DNA around and in the body, and his actions after fleeing, are consistent with this singular coherent narrative, because it is what actually happened.

You can't process this plain and simple truth. You literally cannot comprehend it. This is why you're restarting your loop once again, this time with Raffaele's shoes being the contributor to the bloody prints, a silly piece of evidence dismissed 8 years ago.

 

[Grinder]

Vixen, every judge and prosecutor had a different theory about what happened because they were just making stuff up since their "evidence" doesn't reveal any coherent truth and is just a mess of random assertions floating in the ether detached from any reality.

Rudy Guede climbed the lower bars up into the window, Meredith came home, he raped and murdered her. The evidence against him, starting with the break-in identical to his MO, his prints and DNA around and in the body, and his actions after fleeing, are consistent with this singular coherent narrative, because it is what actually happened.

You can't process this plain and simple truth. You literally cannot comprehend it. This is why you're restarting your loop once again, this time with Raffaele's shoes being the contributor to the bloody prints, a silly piece of evidence factoid dismissed 8 years ago.

I think that's better

 

[Vixen]

"Raff wuz here."

Vixen, every judge and prosecutor had a different theory about what happened because they were just making stuff up since their "evidence" doesn't reveal any coherent truth and is just a mess of random assertions floating in the ether detached from any reality.

Rudy Guede climbed the lower bars up into the window, Meredith came home, he raped and murdered her. The evidence against him, starting with the break-in identical to his MO, his prints and DNA around and in the body, and his actions after fleeing, are consistent with this singular coherent narrative, because it is what actually happened.

You can't process this plain and simple truth. You literally cannot comprehend it. This is why you're restarting your loop once again, this time with Raffaele's shoes being the contributor to the bloody prints, a silly piece of evidence dismissed 8 years ago.

Seeing is believing. The bathmat footprint in Mez' blood was definitively identified as Raff's, excluding Amanda's or Rudy's.

-------quote
One of the pieces of forensic evidence found in the cottage was a bare footprint, apparently in diluted blood, on the bathmat in the small bathroom. Three samples taken from the bathmat were confirmed as Meredith's blood.[1] The footprint was measured and compared with prints taken from the right feet of Knox, Sollecito and Guede. The court examined the measurements in detail and concluded that the print was a near-perfect match for Sollecito's foot but could not have been attributed to Guede or Knox.

The correlation of the bloody footprint to the right foot of Raffaele Sollecito is extremely high in twelve separate individual measurements. In addition, there is a manifest lack of correlation to the right foot of Rudy Guede.
----ends

Source: http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/The_Bathmat_Footprint

I expect you will no doubt come up with "rational explanation blaming Rudy" #umpty-billion trillion.