Continuation Part 19: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Machiavelli]

These statements are not correct. An appeal to the CSC may be based on arguments that decisive evidence was not gathered or that the grounds of the judgment (including evaluation of evidence) are lacking, contradictory or illogical.

See Italian procedural law CPP Article 606, paragraph 1, letters (d) and (e) for the above allowed appeal arguments to the Supreme Court of Cassation (CSC).

CPP Article 606 specifies what cases may be brought before the CSC by an appeal. Obviously, if the case may be legally brought before the CSC based on a particular appeal argument, the CSC has the legal authority to judge on the merits of that argument.

No, Numbers, I'm afraid you are misreading. Letter d) refers to the a failure of the court to admit a piece of evidence decisive to the decision, despite one of the parties requested for it. If a recourse on letter d) is accepted, the result may only be the remand to a lower court with the order to include the evidence.
The letter e) refers exclusively to illogicality of motivation report, and specifies that illogicality must be "manifest" and can only be derived from motivation itself or from those trial documents that are included and specifically indicated in the reasons for recourse. (implication: it is not derived from assessment of the evidence itself).
It is obvious that based on art. 606 many reasons for appeal in Sollecito / Knox recourses were actually inadmissible. (if Bruno /Marasca court was a normal, "non-political" court, it would have had to declare them inadmissible).

 

[Machiavelli]

You're in denial.

Your theory about inference from TMB negative tests is manifestly illogical and unfounded, pretty much like the rest of your post(s).

 

[Machiavelli]

Truly, dude, you are operating at a level of "obviousness" inaccessible to most, even in Italy. Are you sure you're not engaging in the time-honoured, Italian pasttime of dietrology?

Just asking.

Why don't you ask for the meaning of words and phrases in the Bruno / Marasca report?

 

[Grinder]

Can't really post at length but just to say quickly: what tje Marasca Report actually wrote was that the shoddy and incompetent gathering of evidence and investigation made it impossible to prosecute this crime to the fullest extent (indeed, this is the crux of the annulment). It then went on to write that had the evidence and investigation been done properly, then it might have been at least possible to make a reasonable judgement on the guilt or non-guilt of Knox and Sollecito.

here is the original - Un iter obiettivamente ondivago, le cui oscillazioni sono, però, la risultante anche
di clamorose defaillances o 'amnesie" investigative e di colpevoli omissioni di attività
d'indagine, che, ove poste in essere, avrebbero, con ogni probabilità, consentito, sin
da subito, di delineare un quadro, se non di certezza, quanto meno di tranquillante
affidabilità, nella prospettiva vuoi della cotpevolezza vuoi dell'estraneità degli odierni
l-
i ricorrenti. Un siffatto scenario, intrinsecamente contraddittorio, costituisce, già in sé,
un primo, eloquente, segnale di un insieme probatorio tutt'altro che contrassegnato da
evidenza oltre il ragionevole dubbio.

Strangely the "or innocent" doesn't seem to be there.

It doesn't seem to be in any of the Italian coverage either.

Perhaps an Italian speaker could translate this short section 4.

 

[Grinder]

What are you? The minister of anal? OK, I should have said sometimes.

You make a deal out of where adjectives go in Italian and Spanish and I point out you are wrong and that's anal?

Yesterday it was the courts decide on defamation when in was the Congress.

Minister of Misinformation

 

[Grinder]

Mach I think you have already translated the section I posted above. Would you post a translation? Thanks.

 

[Bill Williams]

Why don't you ask for the meaning of words and phrases in the Bruno / Marasca report?

Sigh. I didn't have to. Two sets of translators had at it. Them seem to be in fundamental agreement. Two. Granted, they were neither mediators or diplomats like you-know-who.

 

[Machiavelli]

Me!? If you are saying I am trying to "avoid" the stuff you are presenting, all I can do is repeat:

You are the only one presenting it. Okay, there are two news outlets in all of Italy (that we've found so far) that even remotely sustain you. And they do it through the door of taking the 1st Memorale as an admission of presence.

The M/B report debunks that. And just so that you can stop suggesting that I have not read the /B report, for the last time, here it is:

​

"As shown below". Repeat after me, "as shown below". This is the "even if". Even if they'd been there, there still is no proof of guilt - as M/B arrives at with their synoptic presentation, where they merge the elements of prosecution/defence cases.

Now, repeat after me:
On page 45, and on page 49 (9.4.2) the text says:
It is a proven fact in the trial that Amanda Knox was in the house.
It is certain that she was in the house.

Repeat: proven fact, NO "even if".
NO "if".
NO conjunctive verb. NO hypothesis. Instead: certainty.

This is not my opinion, this is what the text states.

(the fact that the text contradicts itself through other statements, is not an excuse, and it's not an argument).

In addition, the Bruno/Marasca report also states that the fact that Guede did not commit the crime alone, but was helped by other people, is an "incontrovertible certainty" and that it is "confirmed" by the account of Knox hearing Meredith's scream.

(...)

I am avoiding nothing. What you are avoiding is clear - taking it into the legal realm in Italy. You'd prefer to argue this in an obscure forum, in the wrong language.

You have no clue about what I do in the legal realm in Italy. But Italians are able to read unequivocal phrases without explanation (in fact as you see the news article provided little explanation, they basically reported phrases and summarized the text).

But what the press reports or what other talk about doesn't matter, because my question is to you, I am talking to people on this forum, and my question is if those people want to understand the unequivocal meaning of those words, that content that I am bringing before your attention.

Because, the quoting of other paragraphs, which contradict, more or less, those paragraphs, it's not a reading. It's an avoidance, a by-passing.
I am pointing at paragraphs and pieces of reasoning from the text that contradict the couple of phrases that you pick from elsewhere.
What you wish to do maybe, is to try "interpret" those pesky paragraphs through the perspective of the paragraphs you like. But they cannot be interpreted that way. It's a contradiction. The text is inconsistent. It says "it's green", but it also says "it's read". It's nonsensical. But all what I am saying is that it's worth for you to read what its words actually say, read it yourself.
If you have read the true meaning of pages 25, 45 & 49, well then you should admit to what they actually say.

 

[Machiavelli]

Sigh. I didn't have to. Two sets of translators had at it. Them seem to be in fundamental agreement. Two. Granted, they were neither mediators or diplomats like you-know-who.

Not that paragraph, Bill.

 

[acbytesla]

Your theory about inference from TMB negative tests is manifestly illogical and unfounded, pretty much like the rest of your post(s).

What? That I believe that a negative TMB test means it's not blood? That's not illogical at all.

 

[acbytesla]

Why don't you ask for the meaning of words and phrases in the Bruno / Marasca report?

Who should he ask? You? You can't be serious.

 

[Numbers]

No, Numbers, I'm afraid you are misreading. Letter d) refers to the a failure of the court to admit a piece of evidence decisive to the decision, despite one of the parties requested for it. If a recourse on letter d) is accepted, the result may only be the remand to a lower court with the order to include the evidence.
The letter e) refers exclusively to illogicality of motivation report, and specifies that illogicality must be "manifest" and can only be derived from motivation itself or from those trial documents that are included and specifically indicated in the reasons for recourse. (implication: it is not derived from assessment of the evidence itself).
It is obvious that based on art. 606 many reasons for appeal in Sollecito / Knox recourses were actually inadmissible. (if Bruno /Marasca court was a normal, "non-political" court, it would have had to declare them inadmissible).

No, I have not misread. I have, however, summarized or abbreviated.

I have posted fuller quotations from this CPP Article 606 in earlier posts.

You are correct in stating that (d) refers to the lower court not properly accepting some decisive evidence. But whether or not that should result in a remand may depend on the specifics of the case. However, the CSC must itself evaluate the claimed evidence, in part to assure that it is "decisive". You may be missing the implication of that required examination.

You seem to be neglecting that there are three elements to (e): The grounds of the lower court judgment may be one or more of the following (1) lacking - that is, not sufficient; (2) contradictory - that is, the lower court missed that two alleged facts or pieces of evidence could not both be true; or (3) manifestly illogical - that is, the interpretation of evidence simply did not make sense or contradicted the rules of logical inference.

An example of (3) as pointed out by the Marasca CSC panel is, for example, the lower court claim that there was a selective clean-up of DNA in the AK - RS case; a selective clean-up of DNA is not physically possible. The point that you are apparently missing here is that to examine whether the evaluation of evidence was lacking, contradictory, or manifestly illogical, the CSC must gain an understanding of the evidence and its meaning in the case. To believe otherwise is manifestly illogical.

 

[Machiavelli]

here is the original - Un iter obiettivamente ondivago, le cui oscillazioni sono, però, la risultante anche
di clamorose defaillances o 'amnesie" investigative e di colpevoli omissioni di attività
d'indagine, che, ove poste in essere, avrebbero, con ogni probabilità, consentito, sin
da subito, di delineare un quadro, se non di certezza, quanto meno di tranquillante
affidabilità, nella prospettiva vuoi della cotpevolezza vuoi dell'estraneità degli odierni
l-
i ricorrenti. Un siffatto scenario, intrinsecamente contraddittorio, costituisce, già in sé,
un primo, eloquente, segnale di un insieme probatorio tutt'altro che contrassegnato da
evidenza oltre il ragionevole dubbio.

Strangely the "or innocent" doesn't seem to be there.

It doesn't seem to be in any of the Italian coverage either.

Perhaps an Italian speaker could translate this short section 4.

I would translate "estraneità" as "non-guilt" (or "non involvement").

But the disturbing, shocking aspect of this parragraph, is its utter idiocy from a legal standpoint.
What the court is saying here is: the existence of a "non-guilty" verdict (for murder) that was later annulled, itself is already (già in sé) an "intrinsically contradictory scenario" and an "eloquent indicator of reasonable doubt".
This means: this is a panel of SC judges saying that, an invalid verdict (a verdict that the SC themselves declared non-existent) is an indicator of reasonable doubt.

Would be hard to imagine how a judge could write something more nonsensical than this.
This is cretin. It's foolish.
This is not a verdict this is the Mad Hatter's toilet paper.

 

[Machiavelli]

No, I have not misread. I have, however, summarized or abbreviated.

I have posted fuller quotations from this CPP Article 606 in earlier posts.

You are correct in stating that (d) refers to the lower court not properly accepting some decisive evidence. But whether or not that should result in a remand may depend on the specifics of the case. However, the CSC must itself evaluate the claimed evidence, in part to assure that it is "decisive". You may be missing the implication of that required examination.

No, "decisive" means, that it would be used by the judge to decide. It is not assessed as decisive by the SC at all. The Court only deduces from the judge's reasoning that it would have been potentially decisive for the judge.

A typical example is DNA profile 36/I on the knife. Judges Hellmann/Zanetti stated that 36/B was no circumstantial evidence and also decided there was insufficient evidence to convict. At the same time, they did not analyze existing DNA sample such as 36/I. The SC found (correctly) that the first decision was not consistent with the second, since the first decision should have implied that 36/I could be decisive.
Sample 36/I was actually non decisive to other judges.
Whether a piece of evidence is decisive depends from the judge's reasoning, not necessarily from the evidence, not from a SC assessment of the evidence.

Also, if you look carefully, the letter d) cannot imply an assessment of evidence on the part of the SC also because, whenever a party mentions letter d) as areason for appeal, what we have is a party who complains because a certain piece of evidence that they claim was decisive was not accepted (we are talking thus about evidence that was never assessed), while the judge explains, through some logical (or less) rasoning, that the rest of the evidence body is sufficient for a conclusion and it couldn't be changed by that particular evidence, whatever that could be. So we have on one side the judge's explanation and reasoning about the evidence he already has, and on the other side his hypothetical argument about the possible additional evidence: what the SC has to assess is only the judge's reasoning, and they would do so through - hopefully - their common sense and knowledge about the world. They do not assess the evidence like a court of merits do, they actually don't even come to know the evidence.

You seem to be neglecting that there are three elements to (e): The grounds of the lower court judgment may be one or more of the following (1) lacking - that is, not sufficient; (2) contradictory - that is, the lower court missed that two alleged facts or pieces of evidence could not both be true; or (3) manifestly illogical - that is, the interpretation of evidence simply did not make sense or contradicted the rules of logical inference.

An example of (3) as pointed out by the Marasca CSC panel is, for example, the lower court claim that there was a selective clean-up of DNA in the AK - RS case; a selective clean-up of DNA is not physically possible.

But letter e) does not refer to evidence at all. Lacking, contradictory or manifestly illogical only refers to the motivazione, the judge's report about his assessment of the evidence. Not the evidence itself. Letter e) also specifies that such lack, contradiction or manifest illogicality can only be deduced from the text of the report of from a comparison between the report and those pieces of trial documentation which are specifically indicated and attached in the reason for recorse.
The SC will assess for consistency only those document submitted, and not the evidence.

 

[Numbers]

No, "decisive" means, that it would be used by the judge to decide. It is not assessed as decisive by the SC at all. The Court only deduces from the judge's reasoning that it would have been potentially decisive for the judge.

A typical example is DNA profile 36/I on the knife. Judges Hellmann/Zanetti stated that 36/B was no circumstantial evidence and also decided there was insufficient evidence to convict. At the same time, they did not analyze existing DNA sample such as 36/I. The SC found (correctly) that the first decision was not consistent with the second, since the first decision should have implied that 36/I could be decisive.
Sample 36/I was actually non decisive to other judges.
Whether a piece of evidence is decisive depends from the judge's reasoning, not necessarily from the evidence, not from a SC assessment of the evidence.



But letter e) does not refer to evidence at all. Lacking, contradictory or manifestly illogical only refers to the motivazione, the judge's report about his assessment of the evidence. Not the evidence itself. Letter e) also specifies that such lack, contradiction or manifest illogicality can only be deduced from the text of the report of from a comparison between the report and those pieces of trial documentation which are specifically indicated and attached in the reason for recorse.
The SC will assess for consistency only those document submitted, and not the evidence.

Thanks for your post, which is an illustration of manifest illogic. I will give an example of your illogic:

You are assuming that "decisive" in (d) applies to the opinion of the judge in the lower court. But the judge in the court has not admitted the evidence because in his opinion it was not "decisive" or of particular value. However, the appeal claims that that evidence would be decisive and should have been admitted. The CSC must make a decision about the weight of that piece of evidence and whether it should have been admitted.

Here is the full text (in English translation) of CPP Art. 606.1 (d), which will help ISF readers form their own opinion on this matter:

1. The appeal to the Court of Cassation may be lodged if it is based on the following arguments:
.....
(d) decisive evidence is not gathered, when a party has requested its gathering also during the trial evidentiary hearing, exclusively in the cases provided for in Article 495, paragraph 2;
....

Now to understand CPP Art. 606.1 (d) we need to look at the text of CPP Art. 495.2, which in English translation is as follows:

2. The accused has the right to the admission of pieces of evidence in his defense on the facts in issue presented against him. The Public Prosecutor has the same right regarding the pieces of evidence against the accused on the facts in issue presented in defence of the accused.
_____

To sum up, your presentation of the meaning of CPP Art. 606.1 (d) is shown to be incorrect when the actual full text of that law, and its reference law, are examined.

 

[bagels]

Your theory about inference from TMB negative tests is manifestly illogical and unfounded, pretty much like the rest of your post(s).

The lead forensic scientist working the case says if TMB is negative it's not blood. You literally have nothing else to offer. That's case closed.

 

[Bill Williams]

Now, repeat after me:
On page 45, and on page 49 (9.4.2) the text says:
It is a proven fact in the trial that Amanda Knox was in the house.
It is certain that she was in the house.

Repeat: proven fact, NO "even if".
NO "if".
NO conjunctive verb. NO hypothesis. Instead: certainty.

This is not my opinion, this is what the text states.

(the fact that the text contradicts itself through other statements, is not an excuse, and it's not an argument).

Sigh. This is where you need to read 9.2, where is says it is setting out below, a synoptic presentation of both prosecution/defence cases.

Yes, it is a proven fact she was in the house. No one contests that. Even the defence admits she was in the house at 10:30 am on Nov 2, and then later with Raffaele.

None of this proves she was part of the murder.

 

[Numbers]

here is the original - Un iter obiettivamente ondivago, le cui oscillazioni sono, però, la risultante anche
di clamorose defaillances o 'amnesie" investigative e di colpevoli omissioni di attività
d'indagine, che, ove poste in essere, avrebbero, con ogni probabilità, consentito, sin
da subito, di delineare un quadro, se non di certezza, quanto meno di tranquillante
affidabilità, nella prospettiva vuoi della cotpevolezza vuoi dell'estraneità degli odierni
l-
i ricorrenti. Un siffatto scenario, intrinsecamente contraddittorio, costituisce, già in sé,
un primo, eloquente, segnale di un insieme probatorio tutt'altro che contrassegnato da
evidenza oltre il ragionevole dubbio.

Strangely the "or innocent" doesn't seem to be there.

It doesn't seem to be in any of the Italian coverage either.

Perhaps an Italian speaker could translate this short section 4.

The questions are (1) what is the translation of dell'estraneita in context and (2) what are the differences in English (or perhaps in one's personal philosophy) between a) not guilty (of the crime), b) innocent (of the crime), c) not involved (in the crime), d) foreign (to the crime), e) alien* (to the crime) which may be some of the choices for the translation.

BTW, since in an earlier post you expressed concerns about someone - perhaps yourself - allegedly owing taxes to some other country, and being subject possibly to a court judgment to pay, I include here a cite for your benefit:

https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/treaties/Pages/treaties.aspx

There are many pages of tax treaties with many countries and the US dealing with issues of avoiding double taxation and assuring non-evasion of taxes.

* This translation (e) alien to the crime is an ETA. The root meaning of dell'estraneita is apparently close to "foreignness" or "alienness".

 

[bagels]

Would be hard to imagine how a judge could write something more nonsensical than this.
This is cretin. It's foolish.
This is not a verdict this is the Mad Hatter's toilet paper.

If it's any consolation, Amanda was never going to spend another moment in prison anyway. It was over with Hellmann, from a standpoint of justice, common sense, and for Amanda in the US.

 

[acbytesla]

If it's any consolation, Amanda was never going to spend another moment in prison anyway. It was over with Hellmann, from a standpoint of justice, common sense, and for Amanda in the US.

I'm not so sure about that Bagels. I'm glad for both Amanda and RAFFAELE it went the other way.