Continuation Part 22: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Bill Williams]

All one needs to know about Nick Pisa is his entirely false Mail online story declaring Amanda had been found guilty in 2011 complete with made up comments from lawyers, made up reactions to events that never occurred, and made up events themselves. He is an unscrupulous, lying hack. In other words, he's a tabloid reporter.

This one?
http://www.anorak.co.uk/295473/news...e-to-be-first-with-news-shames-tabloids.html/

Just for the record:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOvJLmZB4B8

Nick Pisa's misreporting even made the The Leveson inquiry (which was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. A series of public hearings were held throughout 2011 and 2012.)

The editor of The Mail appeared and said that it was common practise for newspapers to prepare skeleton-copies of things, which anticipated all the ways some big news outlet could go. Even he, though, conceded that the 90 seconds in which Pisa's wrong-story appeared was completely needless. Even he implied that the piece was not Pisa's finest hour, but the responsibility for it did not end with Pisa.

 

[Stacyhs]

Nick Pisa's misreporting even made the The Leveson inquiry (which was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. A series of public hearings were held throughout 2011 and 2012.)

The editor of The Mail appeared and said that it was common practise for newspapers to prepare skeleton-copies of things, which anticipated all the ways some big news outlet could go. Even he, though, conceded that the 90 seconds in which Pisa's wrong-story appeared was completely needless. Even he implied that the piece was not Pisa's finest hour, but the responsibility for it did not end with Pisa.

Preparing "skeleton copies" is just an excuse for piss-poor journalism. What was so incredibly awful about this false story was the out and out lying about reactions, quotes, and events that simply did not happen. The story was nothing but one big LIE and Nick Pisa should have been banned from every form of media in the UK. But that would have taken some integrity which the tabloids simply do not have.

 

[Bill Williams]

Preparing "skeleton copies" is just an excuse for piss-poor journalism. What was so incredibly awful about this false story was the out and out lying about reactions, quotes, and events that simply did not happen. The story was nothing but one big LIE and Nick Pisa should have been banned from every form of media in the UK. But that would have taken some integrity which the tabloids simply do not have.

Well, they reported that the prosecutors said, "justice has been done." Paired with an acquittal, I'll accept that!

 

[Matthew Best]

Science doesn't lie. But results are only as good as those who collect, analyze, and interpret the data and/or samples. The collection of the DNA samples was not done according to protocol unless one thinks using visibly dirty gloves and not changing gloves between handling evidence is correct. If one thinks that not changing shoe coverings between rooms is correct protocol, Stefanoni's team was great. If one thinks that storing evidence in a shoe box or wrapping it in gift wrap from the murder scene is correct protocol, then Stefanoni again was great.

I don't know about cadaver dogs' accuracy but drug sniffing dogs are not 100% accurate. In fact, just like luminol, dogs often give false positives.

"In 2010, a team of researchers at the University of California, Davis set out to test the reliability of drug- and bomb-sniffing dogs.

The team assembled 18 police dogs and their handlers and gave them a routine task: go through a room and sniff out the drugs and explosives.

But there was a twist. The room was clean. No drugs, no explosives.

In order to pass the test, the handlers and their dogs had to go through the room and detect nothing.

But of 144 runs, that happened only 21 times, for a failure rate of 85 percent."
(Las Vegas Review-Journal, July 9, 2012)

Although drug-sniffing dogs are supposed to find drugs on their own, the researchers concluded that they were influenced by their handlers, and that's what led to such a high failure rate.


"Dog handlers can accidentally cue alerts from their dogs by leading them too slowly or too many times around a vehicle, said Lawrence Myers, an Auburn University professor who studies detector dogs. Myers pointed to the "Clever Hans" phenomenon in the early 1900s, named after a horse whose owner claimed the animal could read and do math before a psychologist determined the horse was actually responding to his master's unwitting cues.

Training is the key to eliminating accidental cues and false alerts, said Paul Waggoner of Auburn's detector-dog research program.

"Is there a potential for handlers to cue these dogs to alert?" he asked. "The answer is a big, resounding yes."

(NPR Report: Drug-Sniffing Dogs Are Wrong More Often Than Right
January 7, 2011)

I like my coffee black if you're making it.

Thanks for providing the evidence that Vixen apparently couldn't be bothered to look up.

 

[Vixen]

Thanks for providing the evidence that Vixen apparently couldn't be bothered to look up.

Anyone can botch up scientific method if they want to. However, the cadaver dogs in the McCann case sat and barked (their Pavlovian trained-response to a cadaver sniff) and DNA markers of Maddie were found at those spots.

Of course a dog will love the smell of hamburgers and the whiff of a cat drives'em wild. But they are not trained to sit and bark when this happens.

As long as the dog handlers understand the limitations, your claim cadaver dogs are probably wrong is pure obfuscation.

 

[LondonJohn]

Anyone can botch up scientific method if they want to. However, the cadaver dogs in the McCann case sat and barked (their Pavlovian trained-response to a cadaver sniff) and DNA markers of Maddie were found at those spots.

Of course a dog will love the smell of hamburgers and the whiff of a cat drives'em wild. But they are not trained to sit and bark when this happens.

As long as the dog handlers understand the limitations, your claim cadaver dogs are probably wrong is pure obfuscatiion.

Did you not even bother to read that piece of evidence on this matter provided by Stacyhs?

And if you did read it, what part of

"The team assembled 18 police dogs and their handlers and gave them a routine task: go through a room and sniff out the drugs and explosives. But there was a twist. The room was clean. No drugs, no explosives. In order to pass the test, the handlers and their dogs had to go through the room and detect nothing. But of 144 runs, that happened only 21 times, for a failure rate of 85 percent."

or

"Although drug-sniffing dogs are supposed to find drugs on their own, the researchers concluded that they were influenced by their handlers, and that's what led to such a high failure rate."

did you fail to understand......?

 

[Vixen]

Did you not even bother to read that piece of evidence on this matter provided by Stacyhs?

And if you did read it, what part of

"The team assembled 18 police dogs and their handlers and gave them a routine task: go through a room and sniff out the drugs and explosives. But there was a twist. The room was clean. No drugs, no explosives. In order to pass the test, the handlers and their dogs had to go through the room and detect nothing. But of 144 runs, that happened only 21 times, for a failure rate of 85 percent."

or

"Although drug-sniffing dogs are supposed to find drugs on their own, the researchers concluded that they were influenced by their handlers, and that's what led to such a high failure rate."

did you fail to understand......?

Oh dear. One academic research paper looking into the effects of doghandler expectations which stacyhs has tried to extrapolate into the wider vocational world to condemn all dog sniffers and handlers.

If you are unable to understand an academic paper within the perspective, proportionality and context of how to eliminate error, then I can't help you.

 

[Vixen]

Preparing "skeleton copies" is just an excuse for piss-poor journalism. What was so incredibly awful about this false story was the out and out lying about reactions, quotes, and events that simply did not happen. The story was nothing but one big LIE and Nick Pisa should have been banned from every form of media in the UK. But that would have taken some integrity which the tabloids simply do not have.

As if any sensible person, let alone a court, takes into account what the DAILY MAIL thinks!

Here in the UK everybody knows it's the middle class equivalent of a tabloid comic. We thrive on the steady stream of 'illegal immigrants flooding into the country' in the same way a kiddie will thrive on what Roy of the Rovers will do next in BOY'S OWN. Nobody takes it seriously, it is pure entertainment.

As if Amanda and Raff were convicted on the word of Nick Pisa.

Hilarious!

 

[Bill Williams]

As if any sensible person, let alone a court, takes into account what the DAILY MAIL thinks!

Here in the UK everybody knows it's the middle class equivalent of a tabloid comic. We thrive on the steady stream of 'illegal immigrants flooding into the country' in the same way a kiddie will thrive on what Roy of the Rovers will do next in BOY'S OWN. Nobody takes it seriously, it is pure entertainment.

As if Amanda and Raff were convicted on the word of Nick Pisa.
Hilarious!

You perhaps should see Winterbottom's "The Face of an Angel". It's a failure at the box-office, but it did examine the tabloid press's, and Nick Pisa's, role in the miscarriage of justice.

 

[LondonJohn]

Oh dear. One academic research paper looking into the effects of doghandler expectations which stacyhs has tried to extrapolate into the wider vocational world to condemn all dog sniffers and handlers.

If you are unable to understand an academic paper within the perspective, proportionality and context of how to eliminate error, then I can't help you.

That final sentence is an unintelligible load of gobbledegook nonsense, unfortunately.

And the paper clearly shows that the "evidence" of sniffer dogs must be taken with extreme caution, and that it is absolutely not the case that a "positive" reaction by one of these dogs should be taken as solid evidence that it's a true positive. Which is, y'know, the actual point here......

(And, parenthetically, a belief in the guilt of the McCann parents is as boneheaded, ignorant, stupid, unsupported and witch-hunter-general-oriented as a belief in the guilt of Knox and/or Sollecito. It surprises me not one iota that a lot of individuals harbour both beliefs.)

 

[LondonJohn]

You perhaps should see Winterbottom's "The Face of an Angel". It's a failure at the box-office, but it did examine the tabloid press's, and Nick Pisa's, role in the miscarriage of justice.

And one ought perhaps to wonder just why the likes of Mignini and the police leaked so much prejudicial information (much/most of which turned out to be wholly unsupported or grossly overinflated) to the tame journalists waiting outside their doors. Sure, for some of the police I have little doubt that monetary gain was a significant factor, but for someone like Mignini, I suspect that his briefings were specifically aimed at "poisoning the well" and influencing public opinion in his case's favour. And if that's the case, then Mignini himself obviously believed that the media potentially has the capacity to influence the outcome of criminal trials.

 

[Vixen]

You perhaps should see Winterbottom's "The Face of an Angel". It's a failure at the box-office, but it did examine the tabloid press's, and Nick Pisa's, role in the miscarriage of justice.

I did see it. Journalists in the UK have a reputation for hard-drinking, phone hacking (tabloids), misrepresentation (Tulisa and the 'fake sheikh') and OTOH an excellent reputation for first class reportage and 'investigative journalism' Paul Foot (John Pilger is an Aussie, but made his reputation in the UK). They made excellent spies during WWII reporting from the front line.

DAILY MAIL reporters are notoriously two-faced, they'll fete you for your story and then stab you in the back by misquoting one, they'll befriend the vulnerable, inveigling themselves into people's confidence, and then dump that person as soon as they have the story. Even the best hacks, eg., Andy Beckett will ride roughshod over their subjects to present a 'story' that will sell.


It's the age old question: what comes first? Public demand for a salacious story or base human nature plumbing the depths of depravity and thus providing the press with their public interest stories?

 

[Vixen]

That final sentence is an unintelligible load of gobbledegook nonsense, unfortunately.

And the paper clearly shows that the "evidence" of sniffer dogs must be taken with extreme caution, and that it is absolutely not the case that a "positive" reaction by one of these dogs should be taken as solid evidence that it's a true positive. Which is, y'know, the actual point here......

(And, parenthetically, a belief in the guilt of the McCann parents is as boneheaded, ignorant, stupid, unsupported and witch-hunter-general-oriented as a belief in the guilt of Knox and/or Sollecito. It surprises me not one iota that a lot of individuals harbour both beliefs.)

Contemptible. I didn't mention the parents. You don't know what I think about them.

The issue was how sound scientific method in crime investigation is, yet ignored by people like Not Even Wrong and even yourself, claiming the forensic scientific evidence is bent and unreliable for Amanda and Raff yet solid proof for Rudy.


Hypocrisy and illogicality rolled into one.

It proves a complete inability to look at a situation objectively. Rejecting scientific method when it doesn't suit you and according to how it fits in with your prejudices and wishful thinking.

 

[bagels]

Contemptible. I didn't mention the parents. You don't know what I think about them.

The issue was how sound scientific method in crime investigation is, yet ignored by people like Not Even Wrong and even yourself, claiming the forensic scientific evidence is bent and unreliable for Amanda and Raff yet solid proof for Rudy.


Hypocrisy and illogicality rolled into one.

While I think if proper collection and contamination protocols for the knife were followed, and any LCN testing was done in a certified LCN lab, and all the testing data such as negative controls and the results of other runs were available - there wouldn't have been any MK DNA attributable to the knife - I also hold the opinion that the DNA result, taken at face value without any concern about lab contamination, isn't enough to prove anything about the knife beyond reasonable doubt.

The PGP view of the knife DNA might have a little more weight if the knife was a good fit and made sense as the murder weapon. If Meredith's fatal wounds were compatible with a large kitchen knife, and the bloody imprint looked like it was left by a large kitchen knife, that DNA would grow in inculpatory value.

But Meredith's wounds are not ambiguous. The early hesitation/subduing wounds give us an excellent forensic profile of the murder weapon, as does the bloody imprint. That's why the medical examiner on site concluded the murder weapon was a small penknife.

Then there is the issue of premeditation, something basically impossible given the logistics and circumstances of the alleged events, so how does a kitchen knife travel across town for no reason.

Finally, there was no blood on the knife, which has a 700x higher concentration than DNA containing white cells.

The DNA results are worth criticizing, but they aren't even the strongest criticisms of the knife, it's a red herring.

 

[Vixen]

While I think if proper collection and contamination protocols for the knife were followed, and any LCN testing was done in a certified LCN lab, and all the testing data such as negative controls and the results of other runs were available - there wouldn't have been any MK DNA attributable to the knife - I also hold the opinion that the DNA result, taken at face value without any concern about lab contamination, isn't enough to prove anything about the knife beyond reasonable doubt.

The PGP view of the knife DNA might have a little more weight if the knife was a good fit and made sense as the murder weapon. If Meredith's fatal wounds were compatible with a large kitchen knife, and the bloody imprint looked like it was left by a large kitchen knife, that DNA would grow in inculpatory value.

But Meredith's wounds are not ambiguous. The early hesitation/subduing wounds give us an excellent forensic profile of the murder weapon, as does the bloody imprint. That's why the medical examiner on site concluded the murder weapon was a small penknife.

Then there is the issue of premeditation, something basically impossible given the logistics and circumstances of the alleged events, so how does a kitchen knife travel across town for no reason.

Finally, there was no blood on the knife, which has a 700x higher concentration than DNA containing white cells.

The DNA results are worth criticizing, but they aren't even the strongest criticisms of the knife, it's a red herring.

Lalli is a pathologist, not a specialist in knife trajectory. If you read Massei in this it gives you all the arguments. You will see why Massei preferred the expert evidence of one view over the other.

Your claim that premeditation is impossible is rubbish, no doubt based on a false claim that 'premeditation can only happen if there is a clear plan weeks in advance' (perhaps you can explain why Amanda tore out the pages in her diary for 31 October).

The Rome labs were perfectly adequate, efficient and effective. Even your heroes Conti & Vecchiotti had to admit it.

Even Raff mentions how large Amanda's bag is in his early statements to the police. If she can cart a mop around the streets, why would that rule out a knife?

 

[LondonJohn]

Contemptible. I didn't mention the parents. You don't know what I think about them.

The issue was how sound scientific method in crime investigation is, yet ignored by people like Not Even Wrong and even yourself, claiming the forensic scientific evidence is bent and unreliable for Amanda and Raff yet solid proof for Rudy.


Hypocrisy and illogicality rolled into one.

You're still tragically unable to understand this:

The nature and quality of the forensic evidence against Guede was completely different from the forensic evidence against Knox or Sollecito.

I'll write that again, so that you might finally grasp it:

The nature and quality of the forensic evidence against Guede was completely different from the forensic evidence against Knox or Sollecito.

In Guede's case, the forensic evidence which was/is so utterly (and correctly) damning is: 1) his DNA in/around Kercher's genital area (and remember, this DNA was collected and analysed by a totally different team than not-a-real-doctor Stefanoni); 2) his palm print in Kercher's blood on a pillow case underneath Kercher's body (which reliably places Guede in time and space at the scene of the murder); 3) his shoe prints, made in Kercher's blood, in the hallway and on the pillow case under the body (which, let's remember, the incompetent police "experts" initially mis-matched to Sollecito's trainers until a pre-teen girl showed them how embarrassingly wrong they were....). When all of the above is married with Guede's own (bogus) version of events and the evidence of Guede out dancing in the bars and clubs of central Perugia within hours of the murder (having claimed in his version that he was in huge fear of the "real killers"), his guilt is entirely assured.

So, one more time:

The nature of the forensic evidence against Guede was completely different from the forensic evidence against Knox or Sollecito.

I'll trust that you won't again try to employ the ignorant and misleading canard that, in the eyes of pro-acquittal commentators, "the forensic scientific evidence is bent and unreliable for Amanda and Raff yet solid proof for Rudy".

And who do you think killed Madeleine McCann, if (as one would be justified in presuming) you think the cadaver dogs reliably picked up indications of a corpse in the McCanns' rental car? This should be interesting! Even contemptible perhaps!

 

[LondonJohn]

Lalli is a pathologist, not a specialist in knife trajectory. If you read Massei in this it gives you all the arguments. You will see why Massei preferred the expert evidence of one view over the other.

Your claim that premeditation is impossible is rubbish, no doubt based on a false claim that 'premeditation can only happen if there is a clear plan weeks in advance' (perhaps you can explain why Amanda tore out the pages in her diary for 31 October).

The Rome labs were perfectly adequate, efficient and effective. Even your heroes Conti & Vecchiotti had to admit it.

Even Raff mentions how large Amanda's bag is in his early statements to the police. If she can cart a mop around the streets, why would that rule out a knife?

You do realise that using words such as "heroes" immediately taints your arguments (and any pretence to their credibility) with infantile undertones of playground cat-calling and unobjective emotionalism?

Or maybe you don't realise that. Just letting you know

 

[LondonJohn]

It proves a complete inability to look at a situation objectively. Rejecting scientific method when it doesn't suit you and according to how it fits in with your prejudices and wishful thinking.

Haha! You have no idea how ironic this edited addition is! Priceless!!!!!!!

 

[Stacyhs]

Oh dear. One academic research paper looking into the effects of doghandler expectations which stacyhs has tried to extrapolate into the wider vocational world to condemn all dog sniffers and handlers.

If you are unable to understand an academic paper within the perspective, proportionality and context of how to eliminate error, then I can't help you.

Oh, dear. You're doing it yet again. Nowhere did I say or try to "condemn all dog sniffers and handlers". I just posted evidence that dogs are not 100% accurate. And they were from two studies, not one. When will you stop claiming I said or did things I have not done? As I said earlier, once or twice could be an honest mistake but repeated false claims are intentional.

If you cannot understand the results of two separate investigations that drug sniffing dogs are not 100% accurate (or anywhere near it), then we can't help you.

 

[NotEvenWrong]

Contemptible. I didn't mention the parents. You don't know what I think about them.

The issue was how sound scientific method in crime investigation is, yet ignored by people like Not Even Wrong and even yourself, claiming the forensic scientific evidence is bent and unreliable for Amanda and Raff yet solid proof for Rudy.


Hypocrisy and illogicality rolled into one.

It proves a complete inability to look at a situation objectively. Rejecting scientific method when it doesn't suit you and according to how it fits in with your prejudices and wishful thinking.

Well, then that clears it up. Vixen has objectively looked at the paper written by Peter Gill in Forensic Science: International regarding the faulty evidence used against Amanda and Raffaele. And she has objectively determined that the founding father of modern forensic DNA technology, the man who invented LCN analysis, the analysis used on the kitchen knife used to convict Amanda and Raffaele, the knife which didn't match the murder wounds, the knife which Gill said LCN was used improperly on. And Vixen has objectively determined that Gill was objectively paid off by Curt Knox (and/or the Freemasons and/or the Illuminati and/or Sollecito's dad) to write a paper in the most prestigious forensic science journal in the world to explain the limitations and misapplication (in this trial) of his own technique. That the man himself invented.

This is all objective, of course. Because that's how Vixen rolls. For what it's worth, this is how we can objectively determine that certain pro-guilt posters (not pointing out anyone in particular, of course. Referring to the group, as a whole. Because that is allowed) are objectively mentally ill and probably posting from the confines of a padded room with wifi.