Continuation Part 19: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Grinder]

They didn't, they had the Conti-Vecchiotti report which strung up the ILE by their own petard. They took the statements from Stefanoni and co from the Massei court where they detailed their procedures, methods and standards and then C&V presented the evidence (usually video) they were lying and/or mistaken about how they conducted their forensic investigation.

Are you suggesting they evaluated evidence from previous trials?

 

[Bill Williams]

They didn't, they had the Conti-Vecchiotti report which strung up the ILE by their own petard. They took the statements from Stefanoni and co from the Massei court where they detailed their procedures, methods and standards and then C&V presented the evidence (usually video) they were lying and/or mistaken about how they conducted their forensic investigation.

Are you suggesting they evaluated evidence from previous trials?

How could they not? How do they know if the law had been applied properly by the lower courts if they were not familiar with the content of the evidence?

 

[Grinder]

How could they not? How do they know if the law had been applied properly by the lower courts if they were not familiar with the content of the evidence?

Well Bill in one of those rare moments in time we agree. Without bothering to go back it seems others here disagree.

Also it seems people are claiming that Massei and Micheli rulings produced judicial facts before the ISC ruled. I disagree.

 

[Welshman]

The USA has one of the most draconian human rights records for prisoners in the world (second only to China in death penalties). It shows what a jaundiced eye you have when looking at Italy, which bends over backwards for the defendant and has a prison population thirty times lower than the USA. Even Amanda said the prison was 'swell'.

This website https://amandaknoxauguriesofinnocence.wordpress.com/ details the numerous abuses committed against Amanda and Raffaele by the Italian justice system which makes a complete mockery of the notion the system bends over backwards for defendants.

 

[Desert Fox]

Italy is a great place to be a criminal, there's no doubt about it. Burglary, theft, holding stolen property, all while armed, carries no punishment. If you rape and murder a girl just trying to study for a test in her own home while in the process of your next burglary you can be out of prison within a dozen years.

It's not a great place to be an innocent person suspected of a crime however.

These are completely different things.

The United States has issues with its legal system but it often seems like Italy's legal system is just on crack.

 

[Bill Williams]

Well Bill in one of those rare moments in time we agree. Without bothering to go back it seems others here disagree.

Also it seems people are claiming that Massei and Micheli rulings produced judicial facts before the ISC ruled. I disagree.

<clutching chest and reaching for defibrillator>

Can. World. Peace. Be. Far. Behind?

Wanna do coffee during the thaw in the Cold War? I'll buy! Then again my petro-dollar sucks, so maybe you should buy.

 

[Vixen]

Ceteris paribus or caeteris paribus is a Latin phrase meaning "with other things the same" or "all or other things being equal or held constant" or "all other things being equal" or "all else being equal". A prediction or a statement about a causal, empirical, or logical relation between two states of affairs is ceteris paribus if it is acknowledged that the prediction, although usually accurate in expected conditions, can fail or the relation can be abolished by intervening factors.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceteris_paribus

Amazing that someone will post items that have no context given and thus simply make no sense.

Ceteris parabus Supreme Court Judges do not see the witness statements and nor are they expected to.

Sure it's a phrase used in school science to keep things simple, but it's a useful phrase in all walks of life.

You could say, 'except for ABC' for anything, but in broad terms we are not examining the exceptions to the rules. As nobody had made an appeal on the grounds of a disputed witness statement in this case, the exception to the rule you refer to is moot, and merely derails the discussion.

 

[Vixen]

Nonsense.

They were not charged with any such mandate. It's the lower court that created this "Judicial Fact". Why would the B/M Court give an opinion on this, other than to align themselves with that which is legally defined as fact already?

No, they haven't given it as an opinion, they have stated it as a fact. That is their job, and that is the purpose of a judgment; to settle the matter once and for all.

 

[Vixen]

Rubbish.

The appeal court gets to see ALL the court transcripts, including verbatim transcripts of cross examination of witnesses. If witness statements are admitted in the trial court as evidence then the appeal court gets to see them. If witness statements are not admitted as evidence in the trial court then such statements are not evidence in any court.

They do not. The court documents for an appeal (=the bundle) is made up from scratch and only contains material relevant to the issues under appeal.

There will be mandatory documents starting with the lower court verdict and MR and working backwards to the original pleadings.

A witness statement will only be included - under 'other' - if it is relevant to the appeal.

For the umpty-ninth time the Supreme Court does not assess the merits.

 

[Vixen]

You don't say that your cab driver friend was extradited to China, which is what was under discussion, and it seems unlikely as he was caught "at their border". Also, having a bag of heroin is also a crime in the UK (which was the other matter under discussion).

It's like you haven't really read or understood the post you're responding to.

Desert Fox gave an extreme example (involving other, moral, principles) of whether a western democracy would agree to extradite back to, say, Saudi Arabia for a law particular to Islam (for example, stoning for adultery).

You need to explain why the Italian criminal act of calunnia is analogous. We need a rationale as to why you think the US would refuse to extradite a US citizen charged with calunnia in Italy.

 

[Grinder]

Ceteris parabus Supreme Court Judges do not see the witness statements and nor are they expected to.

Sure it's a phrase used in school science to keep things simple, but it's a useful phrase in all walks of life.

You could say, 'except for ABC' for anything, but in broad terms we are not examining the exceptions to the rules. As nobody had made an appeal on the grounds of a disputed witness statement in this case, the exception to the rule you refer to is moot, and merely derails the discussion.

The lower court judges relied on the fact that Guede had told a friend in a chat message that he was in the house on via della Pergola at around 21/21:30, and on the fact that at 22:13, a nine second connection was registered on the victim’s cell phone which did not necessarily require human interaction, while the last [human] interaction happened at 21:58, after an attempt to call [Meredith’s] family at 20:56 to which there was no reply. The court therefore concluded that the young woman was not able to repeat the call to her family, due to an unexpected event. Hence the time of death was determined to be before 22:13, from which fact further doubts were cast upon the reliability of Curatolo’s testimony.

– The calunnia committed against Lumumba – clearly ascribable to the defendant Knox, whose guilt the second court reaffirmed – was not considered to be among the elements which could be used as evidence to support the more serious offences with which she was charged. Naming Lumumba as the perpetrator of the murder was the quickest and easiest way for the defendant to put an end to the stressful situation in which she found herself, having inevitably been subject to long and rigorous interrogations.

– The witness Curatolo – who was heard again by the second court on 26.3.2011, two years after he had been heard during the first trial – had testified about the two defendants being present in piazza Grimana. His testimony was viewed in a significantly different light [by the second court]: firstly due to the deterioration of the man’s intellectual faculties, perceived directly by the Court; secondly for his prior legal record, which was far from pristine, sprinkled as it was with violations of the criminal code; and [thirdly] for the type of life he led. Furthermore, the Court held that the presence of the two young people had been linked to the time at which buses left Piazza Grimana to take young people to the clubs, at around 23:00 to 23:30, while in fact it had been established that this bus service was not running on the evening of 1st November, having been run the previous evening for the Halloween celebrations.

 

[Grinder]

Desert Fox gave an extreme example (involving other, moral, principles) of whether a western democracy would agree to extradite back to, say, Saudi Arabia for a law particular to Islam (for example, stoning for adultery).

You need to explain why the Italian criminal act of calunnia is analogous. We need a rationale as to why you think the US would refuse to extradite a US citizen charged with calunnia in Italy.

What would the charge be in the UK/USA?

Are you sure there is another calumny charge against Amanda? If you have the details please provide.

 

[Vixen]

There is no legal ground to reject this evidence.

Just as in the Oscar Pistorius appeal the Supreme Court of Appeal overturned the lower court's decision to "reject" evidence given by state ballistics expert on the basis that this is unsound in law.

The legal ground in rejecting that 'evidence', was that they preferred the alternative evidence, being rather, the facts that can be inferred from the evidence.

In this instance they upheld the burglary was staged from the evidence available. There is nothing improper in this finding.

 

[Vixen]

Nonsense again.

Having studied English Law for a 6 month semester credit, you are absolutely wrong. It is clear that English Law has a hierarchy in terms of required written judgements whereby higher court judgements trump lower court judgements as precedent setting cases. These cases are recorded as case law and form volumes written work laying the foundation of English Law.

You continually wing your way with unfounded, unresearched and blatantly untrue statements.

Stop it!

No, they do not 'trump lower court judgments'. They merely examine whether the law was applied properly.

 

[Grinder]

They do not. The court documents for an appeal (=the bundle) is made up from scratch and only contains material relevant to the issues under appeal.

There will be mandatory documents starting with the lower court verdict and MR and working backwards to the original pleadings.

A witness statement will only be included - under 'other' - if it is relevant to the appeal.

For the umpty-ninth time the Supreme Court does not assess the merits.

For this reason the defence suggested that the witness had confused his memory of the evening of 1st November with that of 31st October, as well as because he had talked about a holiday period, with people wearing fancy dress and “young people kicking up a racket”. The fact that the witness added that the following day he noticed the appearance of men dressed all in white – a reference considered important by the first court – was therefore not held significant [by the second court], precisely due to the confusion expressed by the witness, who had mixed up his recollections. According to the Court, based on Curatolo’s testimony alone, the defendants had to be completely exonerated.

Sure seems like merits to me.

 

[Vixen]

Verdicts, by law have to follow laws to be binding. It is trite to say that a court making a finding of guilt where evidence of presence at the crime scene is absent as a legal nonsense.

The courts of appeal may well overturn a verdict if they "...disagree with it or don't like it.", provided there is a legal basis to do so.

In the AK/RS case it is abundantly clear that transgressions in law were evident. These transgressions were "disagreed with AND not liked" by the B/M court and rightly so.

You are incorrect. The appeal court can ONLY look at points of law appealed against. The onus is on the appellant to identify that specific point of law that is in error. That is all the court of appeal can look at. It is a legal error to substitute their own judgment if they might have drawn a different verdict. The correct protocol is to remit it back for the disputed issue to be examined for its merits. A court might overturn a verdict and substitute an opposite verdict if the first instance verdict is blatantly perverse, but that is vanishingly rare.

In this case, neither of the parties pleaded at either the first or second instance court in the alternative, that the pair were present (if so found by the court) but had no involvement. It is a serious legal error for Bruno-Marasca to rule that that was the case.

 

[Vixen]

Who said anything about the grounds for appeal being a non sequitur?

"...which is always a false premise..." - what are you talking about? This is so obviously false that doesn't need pointing out. Why am I doing this????��

You stated that the Supreme Court ' determined that the issue [of the defandants' presence] was a non sequitur'.

As they were only determining the appealed legal grounds, they were not determining any such thing, as a thing being a non sequitur is not a legal grounds for appeal.

 

[Vixen]

Are you trying to be dishonest?

This is about extradition. If the person is arrested in the country they are persecuted, there can be little which the nation which the person holds citizenship can do. However, once that person is outside the prosecuting nation, most nations will refuse to extradite.

If you are a British citizen and escape back to the UK, actually even a US citizen hiding in the UK, the UK will refuse to extradite until the United States pulls the death penalty off the table.

Are you? What makes you think the US secretary of state will object to extraditing someone on a common garden felony charge of calunnia, from a country with whom it has a mutual extradition treaty?

 

[Vixen]

Only if that direct statement is judged to be reliable and credible. Not if there is a reasonable suspicion that the statement was, for example, the result of unlawful coercion.

Perhaps I might direct you once again to the interesting documentary shown on Discovery Channel: "Secrets of Interrogation". It contains a textbook example of improper police coercion in the interrogation of a 20-year-old man of average intelligence.

Fortunately for anyone who has a serious and sincere interest in this subject, the interrogation was videotaped. I very strongly recommend that you watch it - you might well get educated and enlightened. The relevant part of the programme starts at around 26:00.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xr...of-interrogation-hdtv-xvid-diverge_shortfilms


The man is repeatedly and aggressively told that the police "know" he was present at a murder, and that they have evidence to prove that. The police then instruct the man to tell them the "truth" - i.e. that he participated in the murder in some way - or the consequences for him will me hugely more serious. The police instruct the man that admitting to them that he was present at the murder - and at the same time giving them information on the person(s) who actually killed the victim - will be massively to his benefit; if he does not do so, then the police will seek for him to be charged with the murder itself. The man is being given a Sophie's Choice.

Eventually, the man takes what seems to him to be the option which is the "least detrimental" to him. He states "OK, I was there", and makes exactly the "confession" that the police are ordering him to give. He includes details which do no more than mirror the things that the police have already told him.

In so many respects, this scenario is extraordinarily similar to the conditions under which Knox was interrogated on 5th/6th November 2007. Knox too was told that the police "knew" she was present at the scene of the murder. Knox too was told that if she didn't "remember the truth", then she would face far more serious and damaging consequences: telling the police the "truth" that she had met with and facilitated Kercher's killer would be far more beneficial to her than saying nothing and getting charged with (and convicted of) the murder itself.

In the case of the man in the documentary, however, incontrovertible evidence soon materialised to show conclusively that he was actually thousands of miles away in Brazil*. His whole "confession" could be proven beyond all doubt to have been a false confession, which had been improperly coerced from him in the interrogation.

I wonder how this cast-iron false confession sits with the (flawed) belief that "A direct statement by a defendant is treated as pretty much prima facie evidence".......? There are none so blind as those who will not see.


* Fortunately, the US police department investigating this case, despite their huge and obvious (and documented on video) misconduct and failings in the interrogation of this man, were apparently honest and diligent enough to set aside tunnel vision and confirmation bias in their quest to verify the man's confession. Unlike some other regional police forces in another country that might come to mind.........

We will soon find out if Amanda's claim of police brutality and forced confession has any merit. A cynic might think she is trying to wriggle out of having been caught bang to rights falsely accusing her boss of the rape and murder of her 'friend'.

 

[Vixen]

What would the charge be in the UK/USA?

Are you sure there is another calumny charge against Amanda? If you have the details please provide.

Verdict is due beginning of January 2016.

ETA the closest equivalent in the UK/USA would be perverting the course of justice, for example, in tampering with due process, witness intimidation, bribing witnesses to give false evidence etc.

We have to look at Italian calunnia in the context of its problems with dealing with the Mafia, who did all of the above. The establishment had to pass a law to make it specifically illegal to falsely claim the police were corrupt in an attempt to evade the due course of justice.