Continuation Part 20: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Bill Williams]

Bill you must have missed my question on O.J. I will put it another way. Do you believe all not guilty verdicts exonerate the defendant?

We know that here a not guilty verdict doesn't stop the defendant from being charged by a different jurisdiction for the same act. It also doesn't stop civil suits for the same act (see O.J.).

I would think a para 1 dismissal would be an exoneration and no further criminal or civil actions would be permitted.

I'm waiting for Mike1711 to wade in on why he as a lawyer from a Dutch-descended system is comfortable using "exoneration". However you're now implying there is a difference in "what's next" between 1 and 2. Every cite I read says there isn't. What there is, is chatter that judges/panels still want to send a message. Words are written about that in Italy. The vastly prevalent point of view about this case is that it sends the message that former courts ruled as if rolling dice, with no implied message about guilt.

Except to exonerate.

 

[Mike1711]

They meticulously cleaned all the shoe prints from Amanda but the one on the sheet under Meredith, they searched the room with Amanda's light for ???, they disposed of all clothing, shoes and cleaning rags, staged a break in, turned off their phones, etc. etc. but forgot to remove the blood from the faucet?
Mignini called her, what was it, very astute? Can you explain how the arrogant angle would have worked? At what point in the planning, murder, and clean up did they become arrogant?

...and then remembered it and showed it to the police. This brings "Dumb and Dumber" to new lows of stupidity.

How anybody can believe this is beyond me.

 

[Mike1711]

I assume you are a lawyer, within a descendent of a Dutch system.

Why do you use the word "exonerated" with regard to this case?

I was using Vixen's terminology.

I explained upstream that I studied law at university amongst other stuff. (I did graduate ) but I am in private practice as a professional relating to a BSc degree in another field but leaning towards the legal aspect. I am not being secretive but after a series of emails early in 2015 from a vitriolic and very public guilterr, I prefer to fly below the radar.

I have experience in civil courts and arbitration, including SA Supreme Court of Appeal.

 

[Mike1711]

O.J. was found not guilty in a system that does not have a two level acquittal. There was no higher level of not guilty he could have received.

Was he exonerated? Why do you refuse to answer? The only reason I can think of is that you don't believe he was exonerated, as the civil suit showed, and you can't bring yourself to admit a para two acquittal isn't an exoneration.

IIRC Mike took a legal class in 1985. What is a "descendent of a Dutch system"?

Wrong. I graduated in 1981. I studied for seven years.

 

[Vixen]

So she was bleeding but didn't notice and no one else noticed a cut. Okay. Was there blood in the sink?

A lot of Amanda's DNA was recovered. This indicates the presence of copious white corpuscles which are produced in blood, compared with other substances. Amanda herself claimed she was bleeding. In the basin, there was more of Amanda's DNA than Mez', which means there was a great deal of Amanda's blood.

It matters not a whit why Amanda was bleeding, because it proves that for whatever reason, Amanda bled the same time as Mez, in a bathroom that was clean as of that time.

Laura noticed the angry scratch on Amanda's neck. It's a hickey? OK so she had a hickey the same time Mez was bleeding to death and her DNA got mixed in with it.

How blind do you have to be? Amanda has told us in a thousand and one ways she was there.

 

[Vixen]

Ok. Enlighten me.

Reference the penal code section which contradicts the B/M authority to overturn the lower court verdict.

As you can see the B/M court are fully entitled to overturn the lower court ruling so I assume you are arguing a technical breach?

It reminds me of a court case in which I was involved. The plaintiff's counsel argued that the contract had been cancelled illegally because the cancellation notice referred to the incorrect clause in the contract. The Judge scornfully ruled in favour of the defendant stating that it doesn't matter that the incorrect clause may have been referred to in the cancellation notice as the contract should be read as a whole.

Is this your beef?

Mike, read section 530 para 2 for yourself. It doesn't use the Italian word for "annulled" but the Italian for "charges dropped".

Bruno-Marasca erred in using this jurisdiction. As you pointed out yourself, dropping charges is a tool of the preliminary courts or the first instance courts, not a post trial option.

 

[bagels]

A lot of Amanda's DNA was recovered. This indicates the presence of copious white corpuscles which are produced in blood, compared with other substances. Amanda herself claimed she was bleeding. In the basin, there was more of Amanda's DNA than Mez', which means there was a great deal of Amanda's blood.

It matters not a whit why Amanda was bleeding, because it proves that for whatever reason, Amanda bled the same time as Mez, in a bathroom that was clean as of that time.

Laura noticed the angry scratch on Amanda's neck. It's a hickey? OK so she had a hickey the same time Mez was bleeding to death and her DNA got mixed in with it.

How blind do you have to be? Amanda has told us in a thousand and one ways she was there.

Amanda was examined head to toe after her arrest and had no wounds from which she could have bled.

The day of the discovery she interacted with countless police officers face-to-face that spend their careers responding to domestic altercations and fights, not one of them thought she had been involved in such a thing.

She used that sink every day and used it that very morning. Her own DNA being found in her own sink is one of the silliest pieces in the PGP bag of tricks tbh.

You've got nothing here.

 

[sept79]

If the work done by the prosecution was valid, why were C&V able to find so many flaws in Stefanoni's work? What does this say about Stefanoni when supposedly clueless buffoons can rip Stefanoni's work to shreds. If Stefanoni's work was valid, why is that Machiavelli could not answer a simple question as to how much DNA was on the knife?

If Stefanoni's work was valid, why didn't she show her work by making the EDFs available?

 

[Vixen]

Amanda was examined head to toe after her arrest and had no wounds from which she could have bled.

The day of the discovery she interacted with countless police officers face-to-face that spend their careers responding to domestic altercations and fights, not one of them thought she had been involved in such a thing.

She used that sink every day and used it that very morning. Her own DNA being found in her own sink is one of the silliest pieces in the PGP bag of tricks tbh.

You've got nothing here.

Hello? That is Amanda's blood on the tap (faucet).

 

[Vixen]

If Stefanoni's work was valid, why didn't she show her work by making the EDFs available?

It wasn't a reasonable, or conventional, request by Vecchiotti & Conti. They were simply being vexatious by making ever more and more unreasonable "fishing expedition" demands. The only way to stop this type of harassing behaviour is to nip it in the bud. And the judge did.

 

[bagels]

Hello? That is Amanda's blood on the tap (faucet).

I honestly don't know about that.

 

[Planigale]

Bill you must have missed my question on O.J. I will put it another way. Do you believe all not guilty verdicts exonerate the defendant?

We know that here a not guilty verdict doesn't stop the defendant from being charged by a different jurisdiction for the same act. It also doesn't stop civil suits for the same act (see O.J.).

I would think a para 1 dismissal would be an exoneration and no further criminal or civil actions would be permitted.

I understand the point you are making but you are wrong. A para 1 determination would either be no crime had taken place - clearly nonsense here; or Knox and Sollecito had committed the act but had legitimate cause to do so or were not convictable for some other reason e.g. diplomatic immunity. So in a way paragraph 1 would not exonerate; if there was no crime, you cannot be exonerated. Alternatively para 1 might imply that they had committed the crime but were not convictable again not really an exoneration. Para 2 accepts a crime was committed but they were not guilty of it - that is an exoneration. It is as much an exoneration as anyone tried and found not guilty gets.

It is rather more of an exoneration that many innocent persons get in the US where at the end of the day they accept a conviction for a lesser offence and time served to save the uncertainty of retrial with continued incarceration pending the trial. It saves the prosecutor compensating for wrongful conviction and the prosecutor for having a reversed conviction on record pending re-election.

It would be interesting to see the proportion of para 1 findings vs para 2 in Italian courts.

 

[sept79]

Originally Posted by sept79 View Post
If Stefanoni's work was valid, why didn't she show her work by making the EDFs available?

It wasn't a reasonable, or conventional, request by Vecchiotti & Conti. They were simply being vexatious by making ever more and more unreasonable "fishing expedition" demands. The only way to stop this type of harassing behaviour is to nip it in the bud. And the judge did.

Others representing Knox/Sollecito were also denied access to the EDFs. Why?

 

[Bill Williams]

I was using Vixen's terminology.

I explained upstream that I studied law at university amongst other stuff. (I did graduate ) but I am in private practice as a professional relating to a BSc degree in another field but leaning towards the legal aspect. I am not being secretive but after a series of emails early in 2015 from a vitriolic and very public guilterr, I prefer to fly below the radar.

I have experience in civil courts and arbitration, including SA Supreme Court of Appeal.

I am sure Vixen would not use "exoneration" terminology.

Many people, including some innocentisti like Grinder, resist that word. You seem not to. That's all I was getting at.

 

[Mike1711]

Mike, read section 530 para 2 for yourself. It doesn't use the Italian word for "annulled" but the Italian for "charges dropped".

Bruno-Marasca erred in using this jurisdiction. As you pointed out yourself, dropping charges is a tool of the preliminary courts or the first instance courts, not a post trial option.

No....no court can drop charges. I did not say that a lower court could drop charges. A lower court can dismiss a case, but it cannot drop charges. Only the prosecuting authority can drop the charges if it is obvious that they're going to lose the case.

B/M were entitled to use 530.2 which they did. Your interpretation is incorrect.

 

[Mike1711]

It wasn't a reasonable, or conventional, request by Vecchiotti & Conti. They were simply being vexatious by making ever more and more unreasonable "fishing expedition" demands. The only way to stop this type of harassing behaviour is to nip it in the bud. And the judge did.

The defence are entitled to full disclosure. FULL.

 

[Mike1711]

I am sure Vixen would not use "exoneration" terminology.

Many people, including some innocentisti like Grinder, resist that word. You seem not to. That's all I was getting at.

This is what Vixen said, and I quote...

"Spot the two massive lies in Gill's opening statement alone. That sets us up for even more. The pair were NOT exonerated and a "miscarriage of justice" was NOT the grounds for acquittal.

Add all of that to Gill relying heavily on the discredited Conti-Vecchiotti report and we have the equivalent of a fart in a lift. (=elevator)"

Not sure why there is a fuss over the term exonerate??

 

[Bill Williams]

It wasn't a reasonable, or conventional, request by Vecchiotti & Conti. They were simply being vexatious by making ever more and more unreasonable "fishing expedition" demands. The only way to stop this type of harassing behaviour is to nip it in the bud. And the judge did.

The request for the EDF's (disclosure) predated C&V's arrival on the scene. The proper method was rehearsed at the Nencini trial when the RIS Carbinieri brought everything with them to the court concerning the testing of 36I. They had done their work properly and because of professional pride wanted the whole world to see that they'd done their job right, including (without being asked) making full disclosure.

The lack of disclosure on Stefanoni's part is only partly reflective on her. The judicialry, including Hellmann, caved in to the notion that to demand disclosure was tantamount to accusing Stefanoni of a crime.

This is a reversal of the burden of proof - amongst other things. It is up to the prosecution to show in the most transparent way possible that their case is valid, both in law and in science.

The best anyone can really say about Stefanoni's work is that she told us that her work was solid but gave no one the means to check her work. Massei is particularly alarming in the latitude he gives Stefanoni purely on her say-so, not because anyone has checked her science.

C&V checked her science. They said it was bogus. From Peter Gill on down, from the journal Forensic Science International:Genetics on down, , they say her work is bogus.

And that is without seeing the edf's. In point of fact there is no one outside the Italian legal community who vouch for Stefanoni's work.

Vixen has given us the reason why. Speaking metaphorically, she says they are all "like whores".

There it sits.

 

[Bill Williams]

This is what Vixen said, and I quote...

"Spot the two massive lies in Gill's opening statement alone. That sets us up for even more. The pair were NOT exonerated and a "miscarriage of justice" was NOT the grounds for acquittal.

Add all of that to Gill relying heavily on the discredited Conti-Vecchiotti report and we have the equivalent of a fart in a lift. (=elevator)"

Not sure why there is a fuss over the term exonerate??

Me neither. At first blush paragraph 1 vs. paragraph 2 acquittals are like two sides of the same coin. Heads it's an acquittal, tails it's also an acquittal.

Many claim it, but no one can show what different avenues on some hypothetical possibility trees there are flowing from paragraph 2 than from paragraph 1. Vixen is hanging her hat on her claim that paragraph 2 is a "dropping of the charges". Machiavelli has given similar nonsense. (Although Machiavelli has the considered advantage of being Italian, and knows his way around some of these issues - enough to spin things as he wishes; but that's another conversation.....)

No less that Francesco Maresca talks about the acquittal being definitive, and ends the matter. Sounds like an exoneration to me! Andrea Vogt quotes Maresca and says that arm-chair detectives who talk as if there's something else available, are actually adding to the victim's family's nightmare.

I'm just hoping that someone will say what all the fuss is about in saying the pair are exonerated. Some Italian newspapers are comfortable using the word, internationally renowned DNA experts use it too. Heck, Barbie Nadeau recently used it on CNN, when addressing that other murder, this time of an American which made the news.

Are they all reading from the PR handbook? That's an impressive reach that this fictional PR superpower has.

 

[acbytesla]

Bill you must have missed my question on O.J. I will put it another way. Do you believe all not guilty verdicts exonerate the defendant?
We know that here a not guilty verdict doesn't stop the defendant from being charged by a different jurisdiction for the same act. It also doesn't stop civil suits for the same act (see O.J.).

I would think a para 1 dismissal would be an exoneration and no further criminal or civil actions would be permitted.

I do. Definitely. A "not guilty" verdict is the very definition of "exoneration". If we choose to continue that he is guilty is our issue.