Continuation Part 20: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[bagels]

IMV Follian's book is one of the best on the market. In any book, one or two errors are bound to creep in.

I wrote to Encyclopaedia Britannica a few times about their errors. They replied they would correct them.

You should try Wikipedia they let you edit any article you want lol

 

[bagels]

you guys still at it!

The current issues:

1. Who left the luminol prints and when

2. Did Rudy get a ride from Koko up Ponte Rio after the murder

3. How will PGP react to an ECHR verdict in Amanda's favor, more mafia influence?

Perhaps another 20 continuations should do it

 

[Desert Fox]

I believe that Amanda was a secret CIA agent, trained in a special agent training center in Washington state. She had a special mission to assassinate Meredeth Kercher. She just screwed up and did not frame "The Black Guy" properly.

 

[Bill Williams]

you guys still at it!

It's a bit of an English-language phenomenon. I follow an Italian service originally set up fot the Monster of Florence. A sub-thread of it deals with this cae. Its traffic has fallen off more than here, which in the last year since the acquittals has fallen off by 85%.

Do you care to express an opinion on the case?

 

[Grinder]

IMV Follian's book is one of the best on the market. In any book, one or two errors are bound to creep in.

I wrote to Encyclopaedia Britannica a few times about their errors. They replied they would correct them.

Try that with Follain or any true crime novel writer - as Dempsey said she wrote her book like a screenplay not a documented historical record of the case.

In fact she went to a writers conference weeks after the murder for advice on how to cash in do such a book and was advised not to annotate it. Wonder why.

The difference is that Follain et al. know they made stuff up or at a minimum wrote uncorroborated material and crossed their fingers. While Owen wrote many falsehoods at least there was contemporaneous articles to compare and reporters were able to correct or at least write accurate articles during the same period. The novels are not put to the same public scrutiny.

 

[Grinder]

you guys still at it!

Good to see you. Not only us but the PGP sites are active and coverage in Italy of Rudi and Raf is ongoing.

The main topic of debate is whether or not the ruling was "innocent" or only "we are dropping the charges" and how do the Italian view the verdict. Btw, how do you?

Did you see Rudi's TV interview?

How is the verdict viewed there?

 

[Bill Williams]

Try that with Follain or any true crime novel writer - as Dempsey said she wrote her book like a screenplay not a documented historical record of the case.

In fact she went to a writers conference weeks after the murder for advice on how to cash in do such a book and was advised not to annotate it. Wonder why.

The difference is that Follain et al. know they made stuff up or at a minimum wrote uncorroborated material and crossed their fingers. While Owen wrote many falsehoods at least there was contemporaneous articles to compare and reporters were able to correct or at least write accurate articles during the same period. The novels are not put to the same public scrutiny.

Public scrutiny is the key because its a no-lose situation in relation to true crime non-fiction.

If there is enough public interest in it, then the checks and balances and comparisons are readily available. If not, then the non-fiction book quickly sinks into obscurity.

Or like with Barbie Nadeau's book, someone like Winterbottom buys the rights to it - which shuts up the author - then works with a screen-play which shows what a bed-hopping, drug-using tabloid hack she was.

These latest revelations from Knox's defamation acquittal show that there's not much in Follain's book which can be trusted. I don't know this for sure, but it is as if the PLE played him for a fool, he wrote what he believed factual - albeit only one side of the story - and now that the PLE themselves are having to relate things under oath, we find out - 5 years later - that what he wrote was bollocks.

True crime non-fiction is intended to be somewhere between the first-draft of history (newspaper reports) and scholarly researched works with citations. And not just ANY citations, because, for heaven's sake, even Vixen has citations.

 

[Bill Williams]

Good to see you. Not only us but the PGP sites are active and coverage in Italy of Rudi and Raf is ongoing.

The main topic of debate is whether or not the ruling was "innocent" or only "we are dropping the charges" and how do the Italian view the verdict. Btw, how do you?

Did you see Rudi's TV interview?

How is the verdict viewed there?

Marasca/Bruno's report uses the word "acquitted" twice in Section 10. There is no debate. The faux debate is whether or not they were acquitted or only slightly acquitted, and that is not a real debate either.

If CoulsdonUK wants to, he can read the reasons why Marasca/Bruno ruled that the case not be remanded (again) to the Appeals' level. At this point there is no evidence to consider and no realistic expectation that new evidence - exonerating, incriminating or whatever - would be forth coming.

The one thing that didn't happen a year ago was that the charges were dropped, waiting to be opened again.

And CoulsdonUK asks why people are still commenting? One reason is that folks keep misrepresenting what's what.

 

[Grinder]

Public scrutiny is the key because its a no-lose situation in relation to true crime non-fiction.

If there is enough public interest in it, then the checks and balances and comparisons are readily available. If not, then the non-fiction book quickly sinks into obscurity.

Or like with Barbie Nadeau's book, someone like Winterbottom buys the rights to it - which shuts up the author - then works with a screen-play which shows what a bed-hopping, drug-using tabloid hack she was.

These latest revelations from Knox's defamation acquittal show that there's not much in Follain's book which can be trusted. I don't know this for sure, but it is as if the PLE played him for a fool, he wrote what he believed factual - albeit only one side of the story - and now that the PLE themselves are having to relate things under oath, we find out - 5 years later - that what he wrote was bollocks.

True crime non-fiction is intended to be somewhere between the first-draft of history (newspaper reports) and scholarly researched works with citations. And not just ANY citations, because, for heaven's sake, even Vixen has citations.

Bill they aren't non fiction. Like many novels they are based on real events with fictionalized accounts within.

The Ficarro testimony wasn't from the defamation trial. It was from the 2009 trial. I've been telling you for years his work wasn't to be trusted if not corroborated. I told you your logic that because this didn't fit with what you perceived to be his agenda didn't add credence. Obviously, it didn't.

Obviously much of the material in all these novels is accurate and based on the crime and associated events.

Just as Capote's work is challenged for accuracy because IIRC he couldn't have known what the perps said to each other, this is the norm for TCN.

Certainly a TCB can be written with annotation that is non-fiction.

Do you believe Les Misérables is fiction even if it describes real events?

 

[Bill Williams]

Bill they aren't non fiction. Like many novels they are based on real events with fictionalized accounts within.

The Ficarro testimony wasn't from the defamation trial. It was from the 2009 trial. I've been telling you for years his work wasn't to be trusted if not corroborated. I told you your logic that because this didn't fit with what you perceived to be his agenda didn't add credence. Obviously, it didn't.

Obviously much of the material in all these novels is accurate and based on the crime and associated events.

Just as Capote's work is challenged for accuracy because IIRC he couldn't have known what the perps said to each other, this is the norm for TCN.

Certainly a TCB can be written with annotation that is non-fiction.

Do you believe Les Misérables is fiction even if it describes real events?

There's little point arguing this. They are non-fiction by definition.

Perhaps there is another genre called "true crime novel" but that's not what the genre under discussion is. That you'd raise Les Miz as an example proves the intransigent stubbornness.

Instead of providing dictionary definitions of "novel", at least go to a university English department for a definition of what something like Helter Skelter is..... sheesh.

It's non-fiction. The only issue is how successful any one of the authors is keeping it that way.

 

[Grinder]

Marasca/Bruno's report uses the word "acquitted" twice in Section 10. There is no debate. The faux debate is whether or not they were acquitted or only slightly acquitted, and that is not a real debate either.

If CoulsdonUK wants to, he can read the reasons why Marasca/Bruno ruled that the case not be remanded (again) to the Appeals' level. At this point there is no evidence to consider and no realistic expectation that new evidence - exonerating, incriminating or whatever - would be forth coming. The one thing that didn't happen a year ago was that the charges were dropped, waiting to be opened again.

And CoulsdonUK asks why people are still commenting? One reason is that folks keep misrepresenting what's what.

I'm sure someone else will point out that this is not what M&B said. Basically they said that the PLE made a mess of the investigation under pressure from worldwide media attention and it is too late to fix these errors. Coulsdon can read it and see.

Not only didn't they declare an acquittal by paragraph one of the code they made the case for multiple attackers and left the impression with many that they agreed with previous courts that Amanda and perhaps Raf were at the house during the murder.

Early synoptic alert.

 

[Vixen]

I believe that Amanda was a secret CIA agent, trained in a special agent training center in Washington state. She had a special mission to assassinate Meredeth Kercher. She just screwed up and did not frame "The Black Guy" properly.

It's no more preposterous than the PIP's usual convoluted theories.

 

[LondonJohn]

Good to see you. Not only us but the PGP sites are active and coverage in Italy of Rudi and Raf is ongoing.

The main topic of debate is whether or not the ruling was "innocent" or only "we are dropping the charges" and how do the Italian view the verdict. Btw, how do you?

Did you see Rudi's TV interview?

How is the verdict viewed there?

This is not the debate from my perspective.

From my perspective, the debate is whether the ruling was necessarily a "some evidence of guilt, but falling short of BARD" ruling, equivalent in most respects to a Scottish "not proven" verdict.

I argue strongly that the ruling was not equivalent to a Scottish "not proven". In fact, it was a standard "not guilty" (as used in E&W or US courts) - which runs the whole gamut from "zero evidence of guilt" to "just not quite enough evidence of guilt to meet the BARD standard".

No court could rule for "innocence" unless it could be proven that the defendant(s) could not have committed the crime (e.g. if the defendant(s) had a cast-iron alibi), or if the court determined that no crime had even been committed (e.g. in a rape trial where the court determines that the sexual activity was consensual and therefore no crime of rape even occurred). And in the matter of Knox/Sollecito and the Kercher murder, neither of these factors applied. But then again, neither of these factors would equally have applied to anyone in or near Perugia on the night of the murder who didn't have an unimpeachable alibi - or, for that matter, any couple who only alibi'd each other. And there'd be no credible, reliable evidence of guilt against any of THOSE people either - but no court could ever declare them innocent.

And on the "we are dropping the charges" issue, this is no more than ill-informed nonsense from a partisan perspective. The Marasca SC panel acquitted Knox and Sollecito, and annulled the lower courts' guilty verdicts. This is categorically NOT an instance of a court "parking" the case, with the possibility that it can be picked up and prosecuted again if new evidence comes to light. Obviously some people desperately wish that were so, but it isn't so.

 

[Vixen]

Try that with Follain or any true crime novel writer - as Dempsey said she wrote her book like a screenplay not a documented historical record of the case.

In fact she went to a writers conference weeks after the murder for advice on how to cash in do such a book and was advised not to annotate it. Wonder why.

The difference is that Follain et al. know they made stuff up or at a minimum wrote uncorroborated material and crossed their fingers. While Owen wrote many falsehoods at least there was contemporaneous articles to compare and reporters were able to correct or at least write accurate articles during the same period. The novels are not put to the same public scrutiny.

Dempsey wrote it like she hoped it would be, and to ingratiate herself. Pure screenplay fiction. Only problem is, she began to believe her own fantasies, of a poor Seattle girl being picked on by nasty bullies.

 

[Bill Williams]

I'm sure someone else will point out that this is not what M&B said. Basically they said that the PLE made a mess of the investigation under pressure from worldwide media attention and it is too late to fix these errors. Coulsdon can read it and see.

Not only didn't they declare an acquittal by paragraph one of the code they made the case for multiple attackers and left the impression with many that they agreed with previous courts that Amanda and perhaps Raf were at the house during the murder.

Early synoptic alert.

Define "many"? Yes there are those who define it this way. Overwhelmingly those are people who have also expressed an opinion that M/B didn't acquit, but merely dropped the charges, with a possible re-prosecution. Overwhelmingly those are people who believe the evidence is solid against RS and AK and that the M/B joined the Hellmann court in some sort of conspiracy to free the American.

Overwhelmingly those are people who believe the M/B report contradicts itself. Overwhelmingly those are people who believe the report begins and ends with Section 9.4, and stops just before Section 10 - a section which, incidentally, defines the acquittal.

If CoulsdonUK is one of those he's in good company. Yet M/B acquitted and there are NOT two classes of acquittal regardless of what anyone says. The second paragraph acquittal is not a, "well they were almost guilty" acquittal. No such thing exists, except for as LJ has noted perhaps in Scottish law.

There was no conspiracy to free "the American" despite the evidence otherwise being solid.

All of this is the counterpart to the way you've put things, and I happen to know you are not in that camp comprised of the counterpart.

 

[Vixen]

Public scrutiny is the key because its a no-lose situation in relation to true crime non-fiction.

If there is enough public interest in it, then the checks and balances and comparisons are readily available. If not, then the non-fiction book quickly sinks into obscurity.

Or like with Barbie Nadeau's book, someone like Winterbottom buys the rights to it - which shuts up the author - then works with a screen-play which shows what a bed-hopping, drug-using tabloid hack she was.

These latest revelations from Knox's defamation acquittal show that there's not much in Follain's book which can be trusted. I don't know this for sure, but it is as if the PLE played him for a fool, he wrote what he believed factual - albeit only one side of the story - and now that the PLE themselves are having to relate things under oath, we find out - 5 years later - that what he wrote was bollocks.

True crime non-fiction is intended to be somewhere between the first-draft of history (newspaper reports) and scholarly researched works with citations. And not just ANY citations, because, for heaven's sake, even Vixen has citations.

Heh! I quite like the British crime writer tradition. There are two types, the bleeding heart caring type, (Gitta Sereny re Mary Bell) or The Silent Twins, Marjorie Wallis, but best of all are those written in the style of SUN newspaper hacks, disparaging of the criminal, salacious and prurient. This satisfies their penchant for not having to worry about libel, for once. I hasten to add, the majority are piss poor.

As for US crime, I quite liked the Death Row interview books (Gacy). However, the books about Columbine, or In Cold Blood I have never managed to get beyond page 10 (although the film was chilling); the Charles Manson book was quite good. However, I never really liked the style eg, the Boston Strangler, or the ficitonalised ones, eg, Norman Mailer.

Waiting to be Heard is simply dreadful. Fatal Gift of Beauty wasn't bad, actually, if we ignore the one-sidedness.

It's not so much a case of whether they are fiction or fact, the irritating thing is when it is clear no effort at original research has been done, and is simply a rehash of haphazard facts, many of them wrong.

 

[Grinder]

Define "many"? Yes there are those who define it this way. Overwhelmingly those are people who have also expressed an opinion that M/B didn't acquit, but merely dropped the charges, with a possible re-prosecution. Overwhelmingly those are people who believe the evidence is solid against RS and AK and that the M/B joined the Hellmann court in some sort of conspiracy to free the American.

Overwhelmingly those are people who believe the M/B report contradicts itself. Overwhelmingly those are people who believe the report begins and ends with Section 9.4, and stops just before Section 10 - a section which, incidentally, defines the acquittal.

If CoulsdonUK is one of those he's in good company. Yet M/B acquitted and there are NOT two classes of acquittal regardless of what anyone says. The second paragraph acquittal is not a, "well they were almost guilty" acquittal. No such thing exists, except for as LJ has noted perhaps in Scottish law.

There was no conspiracy to free "the American" despite the evidence otherwise being solid.

All of this is the counterpart to the way you've put things, and I happen to know you are not in that camp comprised of the counterpart.

There are two (actually three) levels of acquittal in C.P.P. 530. One is a complete exoneration (para 1) and another which is the evidence wasn't sufficient for a BARD conviction which is what M&B used for acquittal.

Since the acquittal is based on paragraph 2 of article 530 of the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure, which provides for a judge to pronounce a verdict of acquittal “when evidence is lacking, insufficient or contradictory”, it was to be expected that it would not have been a clearcut, one-sided proclamation of innocence.

Also, by paying attention to the text of the verdict back in March, it was already clear to me that, since the acquittal for the charge of staging a burglary was due to the defendant not having committed the crime and not to the crime not existing, this new ruling was going to accept the theory of a staged burglary and hence, most probably, of multiple attackers.

It is a ruling with both lights and shadows, but indeed appreciation for it greatly varies if one looks at it only from the point of view of the specific case, or from the point of view of its potential effect on Italian criminal justice in general.​

and

Hence it isn’t particularly surprising that Marasca agrees with Guede’s ruling about the presence of multiple attackers and the burglary being staged: ruling otherwise would have caused a major “conflitto in giudicato”, and probably that was also one of the causes of the annulment of the first acquittal.

There is however a difference: while Marasca writes very few words, if any, in upholding the concept of a staged burglary, so much so that one derives it was deemed staged more from the verdict than from the ruling, he expands quite a bit on the reasons for supporting the multiple attackers theory.

Some of those reasons are the usual ones and have been debated for years, and I will not discuss them further now (lack of defensive wounds, just to quote one), but while this could just be a mechanical rehashing of corny arguments, there is also something new that makes me think the judges of the panel, or at least a majority of them, really believed in what they were writing.​

The above quotes come from an article written by an Italian Amanda supporter that has been highly regarded as a legal commentator.

I have read articles from Italy that question the article and Mach posted FB pages with over a thousand likes on posts questioning the verdict.

The fact that I believe they should have been found not guilty doesn't mean I must toe some line.

 

[acbytesla]

It's no more preposterous than the PIP's PGP's usual convoluted theories.

FIFY

 

[Bill Williams]

There are two (actually three) levels of acquittal in C.P.P. 530. One is a complete exoneration (para 1) and another which is the evidence wasn't sufficient for a BARD conviction which is what M&B used for acquittal.

Since the acquittal is based on paragraph 2 of article 530 of the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure, which provides for a judge to pronounce a verdict of acquittal “when evidence is lacking, insufficient or contradictory”, it was to be expected that it would not have been a clearcut, one-sided proclamation of innocence.

Also, by paying attention to the text of the verdict back in March, it was already clear to me that, since the acquittal for the charge of staging a burglary was due to the defendant not having committed the crime and not to the crime not existing, this new ruling was going to accept the theory of a staged burglary and hence, most probably, of multiple attackers.

It is a ruling with both lights and shadows, but indeed appreciation for it greatly varies if one looks at it only from the point of view of the specific case, or from the point of view of its potential effect on Italian criminal justice in general.​

and

Hence it isn’t particularly surprising that Marasca agrees with Guede’s ruling about the presence of multiple attackers and the burglary being staged: ruling otherwise would have caused a major “conflitto in giudicato”, and probably that was also one of the causes of the annulment of the first acquittal.

There is however a difference: while Marasca writes very few words, if any, in upholding the concept of a staged burglary, so much so that one derives it was deemed staged more from the verdict than from the ruling, he expands quite a bit on the reasons for supporting the multiple attackers theory.

Some of those reasons are the usual ones and have been debated for years, and I will not discuss them further now (lack of defensive wounds, just to quote one), but while this could just be a mechanical rehashing of corny arguments, there is also something new that makes me think the judges of the panel, or at least a majority of them, really believed in what they were writing.​

The above quotes come from an article written by an Italian Amanda supporter that has been highly regarded as a legal commentator.

I have read articles from Italy that question the article and Mach posted FB pages with over a thousand likes on posts questioning the verdict.

The fact that I believe they should have been found not guilty doesn't mean I must toe some line.

I've never noticed your aversion to agreeing with a prevailing view.

The remarkable thing about your quoted text above, is that none of it sustains your maverick opinion. The quote talks about Marasca having to write about "both lights and shadows", while navigating judicial truths generated by other courts.

Still, there is no "a paragraph 2 acquittal is less of an acquittal than paragraph 1" language there. The quote above is fully consistent with what M/B eventually conclude - even if the judicial truths are true, the Nencini court erred in convicting. The Nencini court should have acquitted.

If you're going to try to hold others to some fictitious party line, at least present a non-strawman version of it!

 

[Grinder]

I've never noticed your aversion to agreeing with a prevailing view.

The remarkable thing about your quoted text above, is that none of it sustains your maverick opinion. The quote talks about Marasca having to write about "both lights and shadows", while navigating judicial truths generated by other courts.

Still, there is no "a paragraph 2 acquittal is less of an acquittal than paragraph 1" language there. The quote above is fully consistent with what M/B eventually conclude - even if the judicial truths are true, the Nencini court erred in convicting. The Nencini court should have acquitted.
If you're going to try to hold others to some fictitious party line, at least present a non-strawman version of it!

Since the acquittal is based on paragraph 2 of article 530 of the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure, which provides for a judge to pronounce a verdict of acquittal “when evidence is lacking, insufficient or contradictory”, it was to be expected that it would not have been a clearcut, one-sided proclamation of innocence.