Continuation Part 22: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Vixen]

Vixen,
The Court of Oyer and Terminer in Salem Town affirmed that Bridget Bishop, due to her "immoral" lifestyle and odd, black clothing and costumes, was a witch. This was a fact found by the court and she went to trial, was convicted, and was executed by hanging on June 10, 1692.

Was Bridget Bishop actually a witch, Vixen?

No. It illustrates how ignorant and bigoted the early New Englanders were.

 

[Vixen]

It is a fact that the Guildford Four are guilty, the Birmingham Six are guilty,Stefan Kiszko is guilty, Barry George is guilty. This must be true because if a court finds as fact, that decision is not open to debate.

Or do the courts that overturned these convictions not know how the law works.

You don't get it. The Motivational Report, or 'written reasons', as we call it is NOT an 'opinion piece' or a thesis. It is an EDICT; an order; a proclamation.

The Guildford Four verdict was annulled by the Home Secretary (not a court) as being unsafe, not because they are innocent.

Of course, courts make mistakes. That's why we have the safety net of a pardon.

 

[Vixen]

Vixen yet again lies and uses ridiculous arguments. There is no evidence that anyone returned later to alter the scene in Meredith’s room. This is shown in the link below :-
http://www.amandaknoxcase.com/meredith-kerchers-body/
If Amanda and Raffaele had killed Meredith, why on earth would they need to return to the room and move the body? How does exactly does this help them? If they did return to the room and altered the crime scene, is there not a risk they would be seen by witnesses and they would leave forensic traces in the room? Would Amanda and Raffaele both readily agree to this course of action considering the risks?
Contrary to what Vixen said, Amanda did show grief and emotion over the death of as can been seen from the testimony below from amandaknoxcase.com :-
Amanda’s reaction to hearing about Meredith’s murder
Testimony of Luca Altieri (Filomena’s friend)
Page 224:
Mignini: Listen, when… do you remember if you saw Amanda cry in the Police Station?
Altieri: Amanda had already cried outside the house, also going to the Police Station in the car, yes, at a certain point…
Mignini: When did she cry?
Altieri: Now, after I… she asked me this… I don’t remember well if she asked how, with what she had been killed, basically, how they had cut her throat, and when I gave her the answer to this question she burst out crying.
Page 229:
Dalla Vedova: One last clarification and I’ve finished. On the question of whether Amanda cried outside.
Altieri: Yes
Dalla Vedova: She was crying because she was in shock, do you think?
Altieri: Do I think?
Dalla Vedova: Your statement to the police [verbale] ends thus: she started crying.
Altieri: Yes
Dalla Vedova: As soon as you gave her this news, when you gave her the news that…
Altieri: Yes, I mean it certainly seemed to be a reaction to the thought of what I had said, then if it was or it wasn’t this other thing, I wouldn’t be able to say.
Dalla Vedova: No, I wasn’t asking for your opinion. You said to Amanda: I heard that there is a girl which it seems… killed because she has a cut on her throat and she started to cry as a result of this.
Altieri: Yes
Dalla Vedova: In that moment was Sollecito nearby?
Altieri: He was in the car, in the back seat.
Dalla Vedova: And he was trying to console her
Altieri: We were going to the Police Station
Dalla Vedova: He was trying to console Knox because she was crying?
Altieri: I don’t know, in that moment there I couldn’t tell you, when I said earlier that he was trying to console her I was referring to a scene outside the house, in the period when we were still there.
Dalla Vedova: However earlier you said that Amanda cried the first time when you were outside the house, then also in the car
Altieri: Yes, it’s there that… it’s there that I visually saw him console her, outside the house when she was crying
Dalla Vedova: And to you it seemed right that she behaved this way or did it seem strange to you?
Altieri: No, it seemed normal.
Testimony of Filomena Romanelli (Housemate)
Page 53 (At the police station):
Judge Massei: This breakdown how did she show it?
Romanelli: When one begins to cry and then stops themselves, how can I explain it? One chokes up, cries a little, but it’s not a liberating outpouring of emotion, it’s not crying openly.
Romanelli: My eyes were watery with dark circles around them… Yes (I cried), Marco yes, Paolo yes, Luca I don’t think so, Raffaele no, and Amanda fundamentally I would say no, I saw her just one moment breakdown where she almost cried but then she managed to maintain composure.

Yeah, Luca stuck up for the pair quite a lot, didn't he? The only real tears of Amanda were tears of pity for herself, or as an act. Watching a snivelling Pistorius on tv yesterday, I was struck by his ham acting skills. Perhaps he and Amanda should do a screenplay together and see who can out wooden the other.

 

[Vixen]

No. It is you who does not understand. If a court ruled that the earth was the centre of the universe it would not make it so. Oh, I forgot...that already happened so that means by Vixen's logic the earth is the centre of the universe. Why am I not surprised?

...and you completely misunderstood my referee analogy, which was meant to illustrate how "facts" may be wrong.

Keep trying.

There is a massive difference between a scientific treatise and a direction by a court.

IOW Marasca court was not pontificating, putting forward a hypothesis and trying to persuade its peers. It was stating its final word and laying down the law.

 

[Vixen]

And yet he did. And what remains is that you and I and everyone else get to decide who to line up behind.

We know where you line up. I know where I line up. There it sits.

You sit. I stand.

 

[Vixen]

On this we can somewhat agree. The last time the Dallas Stars won the Stanley Cup, it was their player Brett Hull who knocked the puck into the net (thus winning the series and the Cup) while clearly standing illegally in the goalkeeper's crease.

Trouble was, the Dallas Stars were so busy celebrating and they'd already presented the Cup to them before that was revealed. They decided to let the goal stand, even though it was clearly an illegal goal.

The "goal" was simply a fact. A judicial fact if you will. But the referee later admitted it should never have counted, because it was not a "goal" by the rules of the game.

I may not know the law, but I know ice hockey. To this day when the subject comes up (surprisingly often!) about Brett Hull playing on a Stanley Cup winning team, I remind them that it ain't necessarily so - but I now relate to them my friend Vixen who believes Judicial Facts are facts as if there was a 1 to 1 correspondence in the two concepts.

That brings to mind England winning the World cup against West Germany in 1966. Fans ran onto the pitch before the final whistle and the referee simply ended the game there. The Germans were bitter about it forever more.

However, we were not discussing when a fact becomes a fact, that is to change the context. We were talking about Bruno-Marasca's motivational report. You claimed that their penultimate Para 9 (para 10 being the short conclusion reiterating the verdict of acquittal under para 230.2) was simply a collection of the different views of various protaganists. I say, no, they are TELLING you the facts, not summing up 'the story so far', as you claim.

 

[Vixen]

No "judicial fact" is set in stone.

Imagine a murder trial where a suspect (Mr A) was on trial for shooting dead a man on a quiet street in broad daylight. Imagine if a key piece of evidence in the prosecution case was that of another person (Mr B) who happened to be walking down the same street at the time of the shooting, and had seen it all happen from close up. It so happened that Mr B knew Mr A quite well as they both regularly drank together in the same pub, and Mr B was able to say with complete certainty that he recognised Mr A as the man who had walked up to the victim, shot the victim three times, and ran away. Mr B formed an impressive and persuasive witness in court, and was not dented at all by defence cross-examination.

So we scroll on down to the deliberation and verdict of the court. The court determines that Mr B was a reliable eyewitness to the murder and had reliably identified Mr A as the culprit. This is direct evidence, so arguably this one "judicial fact", all on its own, might be sufficient to convict Mr A - and all without the need for any judicial inference whatsoever. In any event, Mr A is convicted of murder. If there were a motivation report (say this all took place in Italy, for example), the report would state as "judicial fact" that Mr B witnessed the murder, and that Mr B reliably identified Mr A as the murderer by virtue of having seen Mr A (whom he reliably recognised) fire the gun.

Now let's move forward a year after the conviction and sentencing. It suddenly comes to light that Mr B was actually mid-air on a six hour flight at the time of the murder (all of which comes to be unimpeachably supported by airline tickets, airline manifests and immigration records at the country in which Mr B landed that day).

Mr A appeals his conviction.

Question: is it still inalienable (and unchangeable) "judicial fact" that Mr B was an eyewitness to the murder and/or that Mr B identified Mr A as the murderer by virtue of seeing Mr A pull the trigger?

Answer: Well, I think that (almost) anyone with any intellectual firepower whatsoever can divine the answer to this one.

So Mr A pleaded guilty without bothering to provide evidence he was elsewhere as of the time of the murder? More fool him.

His conviction is hardly the court's fault.

 

[Bill Williams]

However, we were not discussing when a fact becomes a fact, that is to change the context. We were talking about Bruno-Marasca's motivational report. You claimed that their penultimate Para 9 (para 10 being the short conclusion reiterating the verdict of acquittal under para 230.2) was simply a collection of the different views of various protaganists. I say, no, they are TELLING you the facts, not summing up 'the story so far', as you claim.

I am sincere in thanking you for this. This is an honest attempt to actually address what Chapter 9.4ff means, given the introduction to it in 9.2 & 9.3. The best thing about your remarks is that they are potentially verifiable/unverifiable, meaning that people can go look for themselves and decide on their own which one of us is right.

So let me engage. M/B in 9.2 do not call what they're about to write, "simply a collection of the different views of various protaganists." The motivation report is not trying to assess the respective arguments made, as well as differing corpus of evidence each rests upon.

The motivation report builds a "synoptic" amalgam of all the evidence from both sides, into that fictional "osmotic whole" that the former 2013 Chieffi Section had ordered the Nencini court to use in reaching a guilt verdict. So suprise, suprise, Marasca/Bruno assemble an osmotic-whole of their own, only this time call it a "synoptic" whole....

9.2 The aspects of the objectively contradictory nature [of evidence] can be, as shown below, illustrated for each defendant, in a synoptic presentation of the elements favourable to the hypothesis of guilt and of the elements against it, as they are shown, of course, by the text of the challenged ruling and of the previous ones.

9.3 During the analysis of the aforementioned elements of evidence, it is certainly useful to remember that, taking for granted that the murder occurred in via della Pergola, the alleged presence at the house of the defendants cannot, in itself, be considered as proof of guilt. In the assessment of the problematic body of evidence, as described by the judge of the second appeal, one cannot but bear in mind the judicial concepts of merely not punishable connivance and of participation in a crime committed by others and of the distinction between them, as established by the indisputable teachings of the jurisprudence of legitimacy.

9.4. However, a matter of undoubted significance in favour of the appellants, in the sense that it excludes their material participation in the murder, even if it is hypothesised that they were present in the house on via della Pergola, consists of the absolute lack of biological traces attributable to them (except the clasp which will be dealt with further on) in the murder room or on the victim’s body, where instead numerous traces attributable to Guede were found.​

"Even if it is hypothesized that they were present in the house....." And then, surprise surprise, the motivation report (in the rest of Section 9) hypothesizes just that way..... they were present at the house, Knox cleans blood off of her hands.....

Even if that hypothesis were part of it, they're still not guilty.

Anyway, you expressed a differing point of view, and did it in a manner which is answerable. Thanks for that. Your "answer" is obviously different. And it allows others to draw their own conclusions.

 

[NotEvenWrong]

No. It illustrates how ignorant and bigoted the early New Englanders were.

Vixen, apparently you don't understand how law work. It's not like ice-skating, where a series of judges hold up their marks.

A fact found, is a fact settled. It doesn't become open to debate to all-comers. It's like Mike's imaginary referee. If he judges a goal, penalty or foul, then the 'fact' remains, no matter how controversial.

In this case, the Court of Oyer and Terminer in Salem Town found Bridget Bishop to be a witch. This is a settled fact. It doesn't become open to debate to all-comers.

In fact, I believe you said something similar recently:

You do not understand how law works. It's not like ice-skating, where a series of judges hold up their marks.

A fact found, is a fact settled. It doesn't become open to debate to all-comers. It's like Mike's imaginary referee. If he ajudges a goal, penalty or foul, then the 'fact' remains, no matter how controversial.

Oh. It looks like you didn't say something "similar". You said it "exactly".

Can you elaborate on this blatant contradiction please?

 

[Vixen]

Vixen, apparently you don't understand how law work. It's not like ice-skating, where a series of judges hold up their marks.

A fact found, is a fact settled. It doesn't become open to debate to all-comers. It's like Mike's imaginary referee. If he judges a goal, penalty or foul, then the 'fact' remains, no matter how controversial.

In this case, the Court of Oyer and Terminer in Salem Town found Bridget Bishop to be a witch. This is a settled fact. It doesn't become open to debate to all-comers.

In fact, I believe you said something similar recently:



Oh. It looks like you didn't say something "similar". You said it "exactly".

Can you elaborate on this blatant contradiction please?

Yes, Bridget was executed as a witch on the say-so of a 17 year old girl who 'sensed' she was a witch. However, others had their execution stayed and the law was changed in a hurry as they realised how unworkable it was.

PS You note how hastily Hellmann and Marasca were 'pensioned off', and Bruno moved sideways into a desk job. Their MR's are disastrously poor and an embarrassment to Italy's judiciary.

 

[NotEvenWrong]

Yes, Bridget was executed as a witch on the say-so of a 17 year old girl who 'sensed' she was a witch. However, others had their execution stayed and the law was changed in a hurry as they realised how unworkable it was.

I don't quite understand. The official Court of Oyer and Terminer found that Bridget Bishop was indeed a witch. Previously, you were absolutely adamant that a "found fact" by the court was an immutable fact and it was 100% settled. You specifically said it is not open to debate to all comers.

Yet here, you are taking a found, immutable fact, and claiming it is wrong. You are in fact disputing this found fact and saying the court was somehow... not true? How is that possible? Isn't the only possible way to find the truth of something in a matter of law by looking at and accepting the findings of the courts and trial judges? Aren't they the experts? Don't they have all of the relevant facts before them? Who are we to question them?

How can an immutable, settled fact found by the court be wrong? Vixen? Help us understand.

PS You note how hastily Hellmann and Marasca were 'pensioned off', and Bruno moved sideways into a desk job. Their MR's are disastrously poor and an embarrassment to Italy's judiciary.

I'm not talking about Hellmann and Marasca. We are talking about how you have repeatedly stated it is impossible for a judicial truth to be wrong. Above, you seem to be stating the found judicial truth by the Court of Oyer and Terminer is in fact wrong. They found Bridget to be a witch. That is the judicial truth. Who are you to debate with judicial truth?

 

[Mr Fied]

You don't get it. The Motivational Report, or 'written reasons', as we call it is NOT an 'opinion piece' or a thesis. It is an EDICT; an order; a proclamation.

The Guildford Four verdict was annulled by the Home Secretary (not a court) as being unsafe, not because they are innocent.

Of course, courts make mistakes. That's why we have the safety net of a pardon.

But your argument was that once a court declared something as fact, that fact was no longer open to debate.

To convict anyone of a crime, the court has declared, as a fact, the defendant was guilty.

If this "judicial fact" is not open to debate there would be no appeals, re trials quashed convictions or pardons.

 

[LondonJohn]

So Mr A pleaded guilty without bothering to provide evidence he was elsewhere as of the time of the murder? More fool him.

His conviction is hardly the court's fault.

I don't even know where to start to point out how illogical this "response" is, in so many different ways. So I won't bother.

But in passing, it also appears to show that you continue to hold the mistaken (and somewhat totalitarian-state) belief that it's incumbent upon an accused person to prove his/her innocence in court (and that if (s)he cannot prove his/her innocence, that should actively count against him/her in court).

 

[LondonJohn]

But your argument was that once a court declared something as fact, that fact was no longer open to debate.

To convict anyone of a crime, the court has declared, as a fact, the defendant was guilty.

If this "judicial fact" is not open to debate there would be no appeals, re trials quashed convictions or pardons.

Ah no, but if a court from the "olden days" created a judicial fact that any rational person today can see was ludicrous and incorrect, that's apparently different from a court in the present day creating a judicial fact that is subsequently shown to be wrong (and, in certain cases, also ludicrous).

Oh no, wait - that's a fundamentally irrational and logically inconsistent differentiation, isn't it? Oh well, never mind!

 

[Planigale]

Ah no, but if a court from the "olden days" created a judicial fact that any rational person today can see was ludicrous and incorrect, that's apparently different from a court in the present day creating a judicial fact that is subsequently shown to be wrong (and, in certain cases, also ludicrous).

Oh no, wait - that's a fundamentally irrational and logically inconsistent differentiation, isn't it? Oh well, never mind!

In fact it is so well recognised that the court system can be wrong that the Uk has an extra judicial system to review convictions of cases that have already been appealed. (criminal cases review commission) http://www.ccrc.gov.uk/
so the lawyers are obviously not as convinced as Vixen is by their infallibility.

 

[Mike1711]

You don't get it. The Motivational Report, or 'written reasons', as we call it is NOT an 'opinion piece' or a thesis. It is an EDICT; an order; a proclamation.

The Guildford Four verdict was annulled by the Home Secretary (not a court) as being unsafe, not because they are innocent.

Of course, courts make mistakes. That's why we have the safety net of a pardon.

When courts make mistake there is an annulment....NOT a pardon. A pardon is a completely different animal...and one you seem not to understand.

 

[Mike1711]

There is a massive difference between a scientific treatise and a direction by a court.

IOW Marasca court was not pontificating, putting forward a hypothesis and trying to persuade its peers. It was stating its final word and laying down the law.

Laying down the law has nothing to do with facts. It doesn't matter how a court rules it cannot alter truth. The court's truths CAN, and often is...simply....wrong.

People who don't understand the law should remain silent.

 

[Methos]

That brings to mind England winning the World cup against West Germany in 1966. Fans ran onto the pitch before the final whistle and the referee simply ended the game there. The Germans were bitter about it forever more.

However, we were not discussing when a fact becomes a fact, that is to change the context. We were talking about Bruno-Marasca's motivational report. You claimed that their penultimate Para 9 (para 10 being the short conclusion reiterating the verdict of acquittal under para 230.2) was simply a collection of the different views of various protaganists. I say, no, they are TELLING you the facts, not summing up 'the story so far', as you claim.

Please tell me what code you are refering to here? Italian Codice Procedura penale doesn't make sense:

Art. 230 - Attività dei consulenti tecnici
1. I consulenti tecnici possono assistere al conferimento dell'incarico al perito e presentare al giudice richieste, osservazioni e riserve, delle quali è fatta menzione nel verbale.
2. Essi possono partecipare alle operazioni peritali, proponendo al perito specifiche indagini e formulando osservazioni e riserve, delle quali deve darsi atto nella relazione.3. Se sono nominati dopo l'esaurimento delle operazioni peritali, i consulenti tecnici possono esaminare le relazioni e richiedere al giudice di essere autorizzati a esaminare la persona, la cosa e il luogo oggetto della perizia.
4. La nomina dei consulenti tecnici e lo svolgimento della loro attività non può ritardare l'esecuzione della perizia e il compimento delle altre attività processuali.

Art. 230 of the Italian Codice Penale doesn't make sense either:

Art. 230 - Casi nei quali deve essere ordinata la libertà vigilata
1) se è inflitta la pena della reclusione per non meno di dieci anni: e non può, in tal caso, avere durata inferiore a tre anni;
2) quando il condannato è ammesso alla liberazione condizionale;3) se il contravventore abituale o professionale, non essendo più sottoposto a misure di sicurezza, commette un nuovo reato, il quale sia nuova manifestazione di abitualità o professionalità ;
4) negli altri casi determinati dalla legge.
Nel caso in cui sia stata disposta l'assegnazione a una colonia agricola o ad una casa di lavoro, il giudice, al termine dell'assegnazione, può ordinare che la persona da dimettere sia posta in libertà vigilata, ovvero può obbligarla a cauzione di buona condotta.

 

[Vixen]

I am sincere in thanking you for this. This is an honest attempt to actually address what Chapter 9.4ff means, given the introduction to it in 9.2 & 9.3. The best thing about your remarks is that they are potentially verifiable/unverifiable, meaning that people can go look for themselves and decide on their own which one of us is right.

So let me engage. M/B in 9.2 do not call what they're about to write, "simply a collection of the different views of various protaganists." The motivation report is not trying to assess the respective arguments made, as well as differing corpus of evidence each rests upon.

The motivation report builds a "synoptic" amalgam of all the evidence from both sides, into that fictional "osmotic whole" that the former 2013 Chieffi Section had ordered the Nencini court to use in reaching a guilt verdict. So suprise, suprise, Marasca/Bruno assemble an osmotic-whole of their own, only this time call it a "synoptic" whole....

​

"Even if it is hypothesized that they were present in the house....." And then, surprise surprise, the motivation report (in the rest of Section 9) hypothesizes just that way..... they were present at the house, Knox cleans blood off of her hands.....

Even if that hypothesis were part of it, they're still not guilty.

Anyway, you expressed a differing point of view, and did it in a manner which is answerable. Thanks for that. Your "answer" is obviously different. And it allows others to draw their own conclusions.

It is not a hypothesis, no matter which way you try to word it. It is a fact found by the merits court (Massei/ Nencini).

Perhaps 'hypothesize' was the wrong word used to translate from the Italian.

 

[Vixen]

I don't quite understand. The official Court of Oyer and Terminer found that Bridget Bishop was indeed a witch. Previously, you were absolutely adamant that a "found fact" by the court was an immutable fact and it was 100% settled. You specifically said it is not open to debate to all comers.

Yet here, you are taking a found, immutable fact, and claiming it is wrong. You are in fact disputing this found fact and saying the court was somehow... not true? How is that possible? Isn't the only possible way to find the truth of something in a matter of law by looking at and accepting the findings of the courts and trial judges? Aren't they the experts? Don't they have all of the relevant facts before them? Who are we to question them?

How can an immutable, settled fact found by the court be wrong? Vixen? Help us understand.



I'm not talking about Hellmann and Marasca. We are talking about how you have repeatedly stated it is impossible for a judicial truth to be wrong. Above, you seem to be stating the found judicial truth by the Court of Oyer and Terminer is in fact wrong. They found Bridget to be a witch. That is the judicial truth. Who are you to debate with judicial truth?

It is settled. It is an immutable fact that poor Bridget was convicted of being a witch. It was surprisingly common in C17. Whilst researching family history in Northumberland, I was surprised to come across references to women tried and convicted of being witches for no other reasons than things going bump in the night.

As of that date, it was against the law to be a witch. No doubt thanks to the Bible condemning sorcerers, idolaters and astrologers. Fear of the female is not new. Just look at all the fairy stories full of wicked witches using artful spells to bewitch the unwary.