Grinder
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
- Messages
- 10,033
There truly is no hope for you. Did you even read what the lawyer said?
-
Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more
Continuation Part 21: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito
- Thread starter Numbers
- Start date
- Status
The "crime does not exist" also is in 530.2, only it is worded:
The judge shall deliver a judgment of acquittal also in case of insufficient, contradictory or lacking proof that the CRIMINAL ACT OCCURRED,....*
Furthermore, while I am not literate in Italian, I did study French in HS.
I was one of the worst students, however! I tended to pronounce the French words as though they were English. And, as a corollary, a Swede once told me that English is not (in his opinion) a Germanic language, and is merely French, very badly mispronounced.
But I can assure everyone reading this post that the Italian wording:
Visto l' art. 530 cpp
means:
In view of {the} art. 530 cpp = In view of article 530 cpp
The " l' " before the abbreviation "art." is the grammatical article "le" or "la" which in English would be translated literally as "the". The vowel ending the grammatical article is dropped in an elision, since the next word begins with a vowel. In idiomatic English one does not need that grammatical article in this phrase.
The " l' " is not the numeral "1".
*I should add that this is the wording of the translation as given by Gialuz et al.
Last edited:
To further the understanding (or for some, the confusion), over CPP Art. 530.2 compared to 530.1, there is no requirement explicit in 530.2 for the judge to "mention the cause" of the acquittal "in the operative part of the judgment", that is, to list the specification(s) motivating the acquittal in the short-form verdict and PQM (The "For these reasons" summation at end of the MR). Yet they do, using the same formulas for 530.2 as for 530.1. That is because, if one reads the text carefully, one sees that both paragraphs provide for an acquittal, and these are legally the same.
There may be differences in perception, as we have agreed.
It is only a small minority (one or two) posters here who have maintained that there a legal difference or alternatively, there may perhaps be a legal difference, and since no expert in Italian law is posting, we won't be able to know.
There may be differences in perception, as we have agreed.
It is only a small minority (one or two) posters here who have maintained that there a legal difference or alternatively, there may perhaps be a legal difference, and since no expert in Italian law is posting, we won't be able to know.
Methos
Muse
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2012
- Messages
- 870
*sorry* as a non native speaker of either the Italian or the English language, You and Grinder have to accept that I'm not playing "word games", have fun with yours...
Blame that one on the OCR software and the fact that "the file" is of p... p... quality for OCRing to begin with...
acbytesla
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2012
- Messages
- 41,166
Nope, no help for me. You're the one who said you were quoting the author of "The Prince".
I went with that.
*sorry* as a non native speaker of either the Italian or the English language, You and Grinder have to accept that I'm not playing "word games", have fun with yours...
Blame that one on the OCR software and the fact that "the file" is of p... p... quality for OCRing to begin with...
Here's the difference to Google translate:
Visto 1 art. 530 cpp = Seen 1 art. 530 cpp
Visto l' art. 530 cpp = In view of art. 530 cpp
In Italian, the grammatical article "Le" or "La" after "Visto" adds meaning.
Looking at the beginning of the document, where the charges are laid out and identified by Criminal Code (CP) article and paragraph numbers, it seems the practice is to list the paragraph number after its respective article number, rather than before.
Last edited:
Grinder
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
- Messages
- 10,033
I'm totally pleased as always with the information you bring. Thanks for the effort.
Grinder
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
- Messages
- 10,033
Perhaps if you followed discussions instead of just screeching a response you'd get stuff better.
I had posted that an Italian lawyer told me the paragraphs are the same in law but treated differently by the press. Bill in his brilliant fashion asked if it was Maresca (god only knows why) to which I responded with the Prince. He asked a stupid question and I gave him a suitable response.
Do keep up or ...
Bill Williams
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2011
- Messages
- 15,713
Grinder - truly you have to lighten up a bit. Someone way back when invited you to go to Maresca, because he's probably one of a dozen or so lawyers in Italy who is close to the case, is an Italian lawyer and has implied that the thing is over. You assumed you could not go to him without paying him a fee.
Yet, you return saying you've spoken to a lawyer. An Italian one. Whoever it was gave you the information which was sorely lacking from this thread, but which many of us assumed from the start - albeit an uninformed assumption, now verified by an informed source; albeit an anonymous one (to us at least).
Lighten up dude. Don't get so uptight. You did good. I thanked you for it. Now you've ruined the day!!!
ETA - acbytesla's response was justified given your response, which by your standards was just as stupid as mine.
Last edited:
Grinder
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
- Messages
- 10,033
You said it. You assumed nothing of sort. You have deferred to among others LJ who clearly at first thought it was a para 1 because that was the only way they could find not guilty without referral and later revised his opinion to it couldn't be a 1 because there was no way the kids could prove their innocence. Please produce your "from the start opinion".
I doubt I've ruined anybody's day with a post.
Think for once. If I had approached Maresca and he had responded that the paragraphs have meaning none of your gang would have accepted it. Also it should have been clear it wasn't our Mach (or the real Mach) because neither is a lawyer and one is long dead. In addition Mach had many times told us there is a difference.
I contacted a real Italian lawyer and relayed his educated opinion (can't wait for the appeal to authority poke) to the board. Also Maresca had already made clear he believes there is a difference.
Bill Williams
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2011
- Messages
- 15,713
Nonetheless, thank you for posting the lawyer's opinion. Finally, after all the jawing a real, live Italian lawyer's opinion.
And it's true, you have not ruined my day. You won't believe what I got done around here between posts.
LondonJohn
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- May 12, 2010
- Messages
- 21,464
And all of this hoo-ha over 530 strongly supports the contention that the entirety of 530 - and specifically the clumsy way in which 530.2 was (apparently) shoehorned into the code when the BARD standard and the presumption of innocence became enshrined in the Italian constitution - is an arcane and somewhat ridiculous bit of the Italian CCP which needs to be entirely rewritten as a simple form to indicate the circumstances under which a court shall pronounce acquittal. No subdivisions, no repetitions, no ambiguities between paragraphs. And it also strongly supports the contention that acquitting judges refer to a particular para of 530 only because it's a sort of convention to do so, and that a form of differentiation has grown around when to use 530.1 versus 530.2 - even though the legal implications are identical and even though there's massive ambiguity between the two.
Which is exactly what many of us have said for a very long time, and pretty much exactly what an Italian academic paper on jurisprudence said.
It's also indicative of just how unfit-for-purpose 530 is in its current form that even Italian lawyers appear misdirected on what the various paragraphs mean and do not mean - let alone the Italian media and public, who appear to be even more ill-informed and confused.
acbytesla
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2012
- Messages
- 41,166
It not my job to "keep up, or". For goodness sake, take a Valium or an antidepressant or have a drink or a toke or go get laid. Whatever it takes to relax. There is no need to be this grouchy.
Essentially your point is the same one. There is no real difference. Perception only. That said, do we know how the Italian press overall has responded to the acquittal and the motivation?
Last edited:
LondonJohn
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- May 12, 2010
- Messages
- 21,464
Well I'd argue that it's more nuanced that this. I'd argue that the stomach/intestine evidence strongly supports a ToD before 10.00pm, and more likely between 9.00-9.30pm, and that the cellphone evidence also strongly supports a ToD before 10.00pm. And that this in turn strongly supports an argument for the absolute (factual) innocence of Knox and Sollecito, on account of Sollecito's computer interaction evidence and the alleged group dynamics that would have necessarily had to take place prior to the supposed group (Knox, Sollecito, Guede) attack and murder.
But it's actually (IMO) still practically and feasibly possible for Knox and/or Sollecito to have been involved in the murder. Of course IMO (and in the view of any competent, reasonable court) they had absolutely nothing to do with it, but the fact that the timeline issues make it hugely improbable don't make it impossible. And therefore IMO it's impossible to state that the evidence shows proof of the absolute evidence of Knox and Sollecito.
That having been said, I'd reiterate that the combination of the total absence of any credible, reliable evidence of guilt, coupled with evidence which strongly points to Knox and Sollecito having been unable to participate in the attack/murder from a timeline analysis perspective, should lead all logical, reasonable, objective analysts to conclude not only that Knox and Sollecito were correctly and safely acquitted, but also that Knox and Sollecito almost certainly had nothing whatsoever in fact to do with the murder.
I'm aware of that, but as I wrote: "Blame that one on the OCR software and the fact that "the file" is of p... p... quality for OCRing to begin with...
ETA:
This is a 530.1.1:
it doesn't get easier than that
The language of the specification is the same, and is the "strong" language of 530.1 (that is, no BARD concepts are explicitly shown in the short-form verdict or PQM) whether Article 530.1 or 530.2 is used. So the language of the short-form verdict or PQM does not necessarily indicate which paragraph was meant. The "insufficient, contradictory or lacking" part does not appear, and need not appear, because an acquittal under lack of proof of guilt BARD is no different legally than an acquittal supposedly under a "proof of innocence".
I am repeating this, I know, but while it may seem a small point, it is an important one. CPP Article 530 is not 2, 3 or 4 separate levels of acquittal.
There are actually 5 different legal reasons - formulas, if you will - for acquittal, but they are shared among the paragraphs of Article 530.
The 5 legal reasons - called specifications - are:
1. The act (crime) did not occur
2. The act was not a crime (it had a legal justification, such as self-defense)
3. The accused did not commit the act (crime)
4. The act is no longer a crime because of a change in law
5. The accused did not have mental capacity (that is, the accused could be insane, or could be a minor, and thus did not have criminal responsibility)
The difference between Article 350.1 and 350.2 is that the former does not include any reference to evidence, while the latter includes a reference to the judge evaluating evidence according to what is approximately a BARD standard.
According to an essay by Mitja Gialuz, Professor of Criminal Procedure at the University of Trieste: The wording of Article 350.1 is a holdover from the CPP as it was written in 1930, during the fascist regime. It was intended for use in an inquisitorial judicial system. The wording of Article 350.2 was added to the CPP in 1988, as part of a reform of the Italian judicial system to conform to adversarial principles. This was followed up by a further reform in 2006, when the wording of Article 533 was added to the CPP, to instruct the judge to deliver a verdict of conviction if the accused is proven to be guilty of the alleged offense beyond a reasonable doubt.
Now all this may seem picky, historical, or academic, but it is relevant directly to the Knox - Sollecito case. Those familiar with some of the court transcripts may be aware that Mignini made an effort to minimize the importance of establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and in fact Massei and Nencini convicted on the basis of probabilities (and fraudulent, unreliable, and non-credible evidence). Hellmann in his MR wrote a number of paragraphs citing BARD and how it was to be used in Italian trials, despite apparently the urging of the prosecution to use a probability standard. The Chieffi CSC panel MR adopted the view that an "osmotic" evaluation of evidence was required, which apparently means to add together all the unreliable BS evidence to supposedly obtain a rationale for conviction.
Amanda and Raffaele have been victims of the survival in the Italian judicial system of arbitrary norms of justice which date back to the fascist system (and perhaps before) and only in the Hellmann court MR and the Marasca CSC panel MR were given the benefit of BARD.
Here is the text of CPP Article 530 in Italian:
Art. 530. Sentenza di assoluzione
1. Se il fatto non sussiste, se l'imputato non lo ha commesso, se il fatto non costituisce reato o non e' previsto dalla legge come reato ovvero se il reato e' stato commesso da persona non imputabile o non punibile per un'altra ragione, il giudice pronuncia sentenza di assoluzione indicandone la causa nel dispositivo.
2. Il giudice pronuncia sentenza di assoluzione anche quando manca, e' insufficiente o e' contraddittoria la prova che il fatto sussiste, che l'imputato lo ha commesso, che il fatto costituisce reato o che il reato e' stato commesso da persona imputabile.
3. Se vi e' la prova che il fatto e' stato commesso in presenza di una causa di giustificazione o di una causa personale di non punibilita' ovvero vi e' dubbio sull'esistenza delle stesse, il giudice pronuncia sentenza di assoluzione a norma del comma 1.
4. Con la sentenza di assoluzione il giudice applica, nei casi previsti dalla legge, le misure di sicurezza.
Source: http://www.normattiva.it/uri-res/N2...el.presidente.della.repubblica:1988-09-22;447
(reached from the "Normattiva" button of the CSC home website)
Last edited:
LondonJohn
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- May 12, 2010
- Messages
- 21,464
Yes and no. A finding of not guilty (or not proven in Scotland and a small number of other antiquated jurisdictions) is not a positive finding of innocence. But it does axiomatically result in the preservation of the presumption of innocence.
And, as I've written before, a presumption is different from a proof. I presume, for example, that HM Queen Elizabeth II is biologically female - after all, all the evidence supports that presumption (the gender identity of her name and honorific, the fact that she self-identifies as female, and so on and so on). But in order to gain positive evidence or proof of her biological femininity, it would be necessary to do biological tests such as DNA and blood analysis.
Stacyhs
Penultimate Amazing
Not really. The fact she gave birth 4 times is proof of her biological femininity.
Last edited by a moderator:
If you try and follow things through from the police / prosecution point of view it is interesting to see how the errors occurred. Now it is difficult to know exactly who knew what when so there are some assumptions.
One of the key problems seems to be that the police make assumptions and once made have difficulty in revisiting the assumptions. So very early the investigators conclude that the break in was false. It is not unreasonable to think this. Evidence pointing to this was the suggestion that the outer shutters were closed which would mean that the stone could have not been thrown through the window, the stone appeared big and the window high for a break in and other routes easier. The fact they were led to think nothing had been stolen (not true as it happened), clothes were scattered on the floor with glass fragments on the top as if the clothes had been thrown around first then the window broken. Although grounds for suspicion, none of these are proof of a staged break in. Detailed forensic examination of this room did not occur. There was not detailed examination of the route of entry from the outside, no one looked under clothing to see if glass was under clothing, the glass was not examined to confirm direction of breakage, and the distribution of glass fragments was not analysed which would have revealed the direction of breakage. The police went with first impressions, psychologically these are very strong and difficult to reverse. Our own Vixen is a good example, Vixen always references the first reports, and has difficulty moving on from the first impressions. This assumption of staging then led to the suspicion that the case was an 'inside job'. One confounding issue was they may not have initially been aware that Romanelli had entered the room , and removed item(s)disturbing the crime scene. (I suspect in addition to her computer she removed drugs as she was known to supply cannabis to Knox, and none was apparently found. So the police looked to Kercher's flatmates, indeed most murders are not by strangers, as was the case here. If we then add in the odd to the police behaviour of Knox and Sollecito their initial suspicions were reasonable.
I think that it was deliberately planned to bring Sollecito and Knox to the police station together for interviewing. To try and pick a hole in the story. I suspect the casual discussion in the corridor moving to an interview was a deliberate ploy to try and catch Knox off her guard. We know how Sollecito because of confusion over the day appeared to withdraw Knox's alibi, then Knox appeared to have an arrangement to meet someone that evening that she initially denied. leading to increasingly confrontational questioning the collapse of Knox and an apparent admission of involvement. Case solved, confessions trump evidence, then things started to go wrong. What never seemed to happen was a case review to say 'did we get this wrong?'.
Initial evidence supported the police view (and shows the why forensic scientists have to be neutral and not seek to provide evidence of guilt). The initial report on the bloody prints was that the prints matched Sollecito's shoes. This as everyone accepts was clearly an error. But it clearly demonstrates the bias of the forensic scientists. (In the UK the police have a statutory duty (PACE) to seek evidence to exonerate suspects). I suspect the postal police claimed time of arrival added to the evidence of guilt. The problems with computer forensics meant the police did nt have early evidence of Sollecito's being at home after 21.00.
Mignini should have followed the spirit and letter of the law, when rung the night of questioning he should have said arrest them and I will question them tomorrow in the presence of their lawyers. Instead trying to skirt round their right to counsel Mignini elicited a spontaneous statement, then kept Knox without access to counsel during which time she produced further written statements.
So what went wrong? Guede's friend reported him to the police as the possible murderer, forensic investigations came up with an unknown male, subsequently the handprint being identified with Guede. Lumumba had an alibi. The shoeprint evidence against Sollecito collapsed. The bloody print on the bath mat was not matched to Sollecito until later. The knife DNA result probably became available about this time. 17 November? The errors in documentation and oddities in processing suggest this was hurried through. The report from Steffanoni would have reinforced the police view that Solicito and Knox were involved. It is just at this point Guede is arrested and interviewed, presumably some recognition of his possible involvement in burglary comes to light.
What never seems to happen is a review and an attempt to question what the evidence says. But to be fair to the police, the bias in the forensics misled them.
Looking back, the pursuit of Knox and Sollecito is comprehensible. It was a consequence of an immediate assumption about the breaking that was never properly assessed or investigated. Mistakes in the forensic science that delayed exonerating evidence like the computer data (and possibly CCTV), and a focus on finding evidence to support the police assumptions rather than realising the importance of testing assumptions by looking for exonerating evidence and knowing the limits of interpretation of the evidence. (Luminal positive prints may or may not be due to blood, DNA does not necessarily mean direct contact, a blurry footprint is a blurry footprint.
Last edited:
- Status