Continuation Part 22: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Planigale]

It's hilarious that Vixen believes Mignini to be speaking objectively and dispassionately in his bizarre "collaboration" with a website run by an unhinged weirdo with a predilection for young Eastern European ballerinas. It's clear as day that Mignini realises he's let his ego and hubris run rampant in his interviews with the film makers, and that he's now desperately backtracking to try to spin it in the best possible light for him personally. The very fact that he, a public official of the Italian State, is giving statements to a crackpot website such as TJMK should raise a gigantic red flag in and of itself. And that applies to Mignini's warped and self-serving "interpretation" of the SC ruling too.

I look forward with anticipation to a scathing ECHR ruling, in which Mignini gets further excoriated. It would be good to think that he might be held properly accountable for his role in all of this (most particularly the way in which he so clearly abused the law in his refusal to grant Knox or Sollecito access to lawyers in the first days after their arrests, and the way in which he cunningly tried to obtain a "spontaneous declaration" from Knox). But, Italy being Italy, and well on its way to being a failed state, that's a pretty remote hope.

Sometimes a discrete silence is the best response. Mignini does him self no favours in this quote (if true). He shows little respect for the legal system of which he is part. It seems foolish to claim that validity for one part of the supreme court's report (e.g. Guede being part of a group that participated in a murder a 'judicial truth' confirmed by another sitting of cassazione) but dismissing the verdict. He seems to personally invested in this, he did a job, he prosecuted a case, it its the court's decision on guilt not his. He has got himself in to trouble by repeatedly giving interviews on the case to journalists, seeking his five minutes of fame.

 

[Planigale]

I suspect that is the case. They get the result they want without the hassle of overruling the previous court. I still cannot fathom how they can rule that Amanda washed her hands of Meredith's blood when not a single shred of evidence supports that. But the Italian courts often boggle the imagination.

I think the key phrase at the beginning of the discussion is "even if it is hypothesised that..."

Essentially the court argues that whatever way one argues the conclusion of not guilty remains. Here they argue that under Italian law presence at a scene of crime is not grounds for guilt if one did not participate, Knox in her 'confession' said she did not participate, there is no evidence that she did therefore even if the lower courts accepted the argument that she was present guilt did not follow. They also argued that the lower court if they believed curatalo's testimony was about the correct day should have regarded this as an alibi. So it can equally be argued the cassation argued it was a fact that Knox and Sollecito were elsewhere at the time.

 

[Welshman]

The support given by Vixen for Mignini shows how hypocritical the PGP are. They accuse Hellman and C&V of being corrupt but they worship a scumbag like Mignini who denied Amanda and Raffaele access to lawyers for three days, did not tell Amanda and Raffaele their rights during the interrogations and did not tape their interrogations. Mignini oversaw police/prosecutors who fed false information to the media, lied in court, committed perjuruy, lied to Amanda she had HIV and engaged in the massive suppression of evidence. Vixen and her fellow PGP think the sun shines out of Mignini's backside. TJMK attacks Amanda for an alleged PR machine but the site provides a PR machine for a corrupt prosecutor. If hypocrisy was an Olympic sport Vixen and her fellow PGP would win gold every time.

 

[Vixen]

And, by the way, the Marasca SC panel knew full well that if it had, for example, ruled that the murder was almost certainly committed by just one person - Guede - it would be flatly contradicting the SC-affirmed verdict from Guede's trial (in which the court concluded multiple killers within the bizarre situation where both the prosecution and defence desperately needed a verdict of multiple killers!!). This would have led to all sorts of constitutional issues, and an almost certain need to re-open Guede's case in order to try to square the verdicts. The Marasca SC panel likewise had its hands tied with Knox's criminal slander verdict and various other judicial facts established in the Guede trial process.

It's entirely reasonable to suspect (as I do) that the Marasca SC panel had no stomach for causing such judicial dissonance. They knew that the case against Knox and Sollecito was entirely flawed and without any substance, and therefore their overriding aim was to correct that injustice and annul without remand. They knew very well that they'd have been making an awful lot of work for themselves and for the SC and Constitutional courts if they'd gone the whole hog and attacked the rulings from Guede's trial process and from Knox's criminal slander conviction (neither of which were within its remit anyhow).

Lovely piece of fantasy. Unfortunately for you, complete and utter rot! Both Marasca and Bruno have been taken off the judiciary so haven't created any work for themselves at all. Actually.

 

[Vixen]

There's a tremendous amount of reliable evidence to support the contention that Mignini is a pompous, self-aggrandising egomaniac who is driven by a toxic combination of puritan religious fervour and his own self-interest and image. And there's already a significant amount of reliable evidence that he repeatedly acted unlawfully and unethically both in the way he ran the case and in the way he leaked to the media. "Honesty and integrity" are perhaps right down at the bottom of the list of character traits one would assign to Mignini...........

Hardly puritan. He's a Catholic.

 

[Vixen]

Sometimes a discrete silence is the best response. Mignini does him self no favours in this quote (if true). He shows little respect for the legal system of which he is part. It seems foolish to claim that validity for one part of the supreme court's report (e.g. Guede being part of a group that participated in a murder a 'judicial truth' confirmed by another sitting of cassazione) but dismissing the verdict. He seems to personally invested in this, he did a job, he prosecuted a case, it its the court's decision on guilt not his. He has got himself in to trouble by repeatedly giving interviews on the case to journalists, seeking his five minutes of fame.

Silence. Yeah, that's what the scurrilous Judith Bachrach was banking on, eh?

VANITY FAIR should immediately sack the two-bit hackette.

 

[Bill Williams]

Silence. Yeah, that's what the scurrilous Judith Bachrach was banking on, eh?

VANITY FAIR should immediately sack the two-bit hackette.

Vixen's PR campaign against the documentary heats up, as well as against anyone who supports it.

She'll eventually cite objective sources who are similarly against it, quoting perhaps Nick Pisa on behalf of tabloids and Giuliano Mignini on behalf of Italian law..

Hoots!

 

[Bill Williams]

I think the key phrase at the beginning of the discussion is "even if it is hypothesised that..."

Essentially the court argues that whatever way one argues the conclusion of not guilty remains. Here they argue that under Italian law presence at a scene of crime is not grounds for guilt if one did not participate, Knox in her 'confession' said she did not participate, there is no evidence that she did therefore even if the lower courts accepted the argument that she was present guilt did not follow. They also argued that the lower court if they believed curatalo's testimony was about the correct day should have regarded this as an alibi. So it can equally be argued the cassation argued it was a fact that Knox and Sollecito were elsewhere at the time.

It's true that the Marasca/Bruno report left clouds over this case - even as it exonerated the pair.

But none of those clouds are as the PGP claim. Read Luca Cheli's piece from amandaknoxcase.com.

 

[NotEvenWrong]

And there is absolutely no way Vixen will actually answer your question directly.

Well I can admit when I was wrong, Wilson. Vixen addressed your question clearly and succinctly... by writing a ****** knockoff of a Monty Python courtroom sketch.

Looking forward to the next time Vixen accuses someone of "tap dancing around" an inconvenient question. Only the highest form of intellectual debate from the guilter crowd (err... I guess by crowd I mean a single, solitary, lonely, sad person), as usual.

 

[LondonJohn]

It's true that the Marasca/Bruno report left clouds over this case - even as it exonerated the pair.

But none of those clouds are as the PGP claim. Read Luca Cheli's piece from amandaknoxcase.com.

Indeed. And nor are they as Mignini (who, as a public servant and a public prosecutor, ought to be acting with a huge deal more probity and honesty here) claims. It's something of a disgrace that Mignini is still trying to dishonestly spin this toward his own ends. But that's in keeping with what else we know about the man, I suppose.........

 

[Bill Williams]

Well I can admit when I was wrong, Wilson. Vixen addressed your question clearly and succinctly... by writing a ****** knockoff of a Monty Python courtroom sketch.

Looking forward to the next time Vixen accuses someone of "tap dancing around" an inconvenient question. Only the highest form of intellectual debate from the guilter crowd (err... I guess by crowd I mean a single, solitary, lonely, sad person), as usual.

Vixen has admitted she was wrong twice and that she'd posted the wrong source because of being rushed twice.

What is telling is the issues she claims as true with no source, and then ignores that she's been caught in a fabrication.

Still waiting for one peer reviewed yada yada yada. Mayne Vixen will cite Stefanoni as the expert who supports her work, like she did citing Mignini supporting his own!!

 

[Wilson85]

'It may helps'?

SCENE: Crown court / Assizes / Central Criminal Court

JUDGE: And who do I have in front of me?

BUD: Woof, woof!

...

------

<ends>

No need to have the dog in court.

The handler can write a protocol and hand it to the court (The dog sniffed drugs and gave according sign so we can be 100% sure he sniffed drugs.).

The police officer that opens a suspicious suitcase and finds drugs will not be in court to testify either. The court will only get the protocol written by the officers.

 

[Stacyhs]

Vixen has admitted she was wrong twice and that she'd posted the wrong source because of being rushed twice.

What is telling is the issues she claims as true with no source, and then ignores that she's been caught in a fabrication.

Still waiting for one peer reviewed yada yada yada. Mayne Vixen will cite Stefanoni as the expert who supports her work, like she did citing Mignini supporting his own!!

Not once has she ever conceded that she has misquoted me several times, even when presented with evidence she did.

 

[Bill Williams]

[INDENT=Bill Williams]It's true that the Marasca/Bruno report left clouds over this case - even as it exonerated the pair.

But none of those clouds are as the PGP claim. Read Luca Cheli's piece from amandaknoxcase.com. [/INDENT]

Indeed. And nor are they as Mignini (who, as a public servant and a public prosecutor, ought to be acting with a huge deal more probity and honesty here) claims. It's something of a disgrace that Mignini is still trying to dishonestly spin this toward his own ends. But that's in keeping with what else we know about the man, I suppose.........

Written a year ago, with its author now moved on to other things, the following are one Italian's opinion of what the shadows, the light, and the thunder of the Marasca/Bruno report are. Your mileage will obviously vary if you are PGP, but here are Cheli's words for what it is worth.....

http://www.groundreport.com/knox-and-sollecito-final-words/

Shadows left from the report:

1) "conflitto in giudicato” and it has always frightened the judges of Italy’s highest court. A “conflitto in giudicato” of the worst type happens when two definitive rulings, that is two different rulings issued by Cassation’s panels to close a case, conflict about the verdict on some element of the same case.

2) the calumny against Lumumba is based on Marasca saying that an interrogation in front of the prosecutor is a “context institutionally immune to anomalous psychological pressures”. Really? it is "institutionally immune"?

3) the inappropriate evaluation of both Knox’s “spontaneous statements” and her first memoriale. First of all the two statements should not be even quoted, having been declared inadmissible by Cassation itself, the first for use against Knox, the second for use against anybody.

4) Then there is the importance given by the ruling to Knox’s statement about being at the cottage while Kercher was killed and hearing her scream. As said before, this statement should simply not even be quoted, it being inadmissible, but since no one cared about the inadmissibility (which in Italy evidently exists only in theory, like many other things concerning justice), Marasca thought it was correct to do the same, possibly also because in this particular ruling no consequence (i.e. conviction) was to come in any case.
​

All these are in the context of the Light and Thunder the Marasca report shines/sends into the case and the way it was handled:

The Light:

1) According to the ruling there is an “unsurmountable monolithic barrier” against the conviction of the defendants for murder, namely “the total absence of biological traces attributable with certainty to the two defendants in the murder room or on the body of the victim”.

2) in every convicting ruling one read concerning the footprints, that these analyses could give only “probable” identification or compatibility, or that they were useful only for exclusions and not for positive identification, and yet they were used precisely to attribute them to Knox and Sollecito with a claim of certainty.

3) Meredith's phones found in a distant garden add nothing to guilt or innocence

4) None of the motives proposed have any grounding in anything resembling fact.​

But then the thunder that the Marasca report sends through the corridors of the judicial ineptness which characterized the handling of this case. From Marasca:

1) the shower, the lamp, the door Meredith never locked, the length of Knox’s calls to Romanelli, the kiss, the lingerie, Knox’s call to her mother when in Seattle it was night, Knox saying Kercher had been found “in the wardrobe”, the cartwheels are all dismissed summarily by Marasca because, "the use of logic and intuition cannot, in any way, compensate for the lack of evidence or the inefficiency of the investigations..... The judge must apply the law: that’s revolutionary, in Italy."

2) the treatment reserved for the investigators in Marasca's report, the Scientific Police first of all, but implicitly also the prosecutors (since they, in Italy, control the investigations and the police) is nothing short of a bomb thrown at them.

3) In 2014 Nencini (stated that) international protocols are not all that relevant. The Fifth Penal Section (Marasca's panel of the ISC) reversed all that, and while they never openly criticised the First Section, their arguments are the exact opposite of those of the Chieffi panel in 2013. For instance the case for innocence is even stronger than Marasca makes it: the police DID search for blood on the knife and found none.

4) three points are considered as particularly important for present and future cases:

1.judges have been reminded that they cannot compensate for lack of evidence with their own personal logic and intuition;

2.the serious criticism of the forensic investigations can pave the way to their improvement and make future judges more careful in blindly accepting the results presented by the prosecution;

3.the criticism of the influence of the media may help (hopefully) to limit such undue influence on the investigations and consequently on the trials themselves, an influence that in Italy has reached levels probably unheard of in most, if not all, Western countries.​

There it is. If you disagree with Cheli say why, and if you quote from the Marasca report, at least have the honesty to quote from it as a whole.

 

[Vixen]

Not once has she ever conceded that she has misquoted me several times, even when presented with evidence she did.

My number one pet hate is time wasting, so I shan't be wasting any time indulging in your 'you said/I said' -style bickering.

 

[Vixen]

Well I can admit when I was wrong, Wilson. Vixen addressed your question clearly and succinctly... by writing a ****** knockoff of a Monty Python courtroom sketch.

Looking forward to the next time Vixen accuses someone of "tap dancing around" an inconvenient question. Only the highest form of intellectual debate from the guilter crowd (err... I guess by crowd I mean a single, solitary, lonely, sad person), as usual.

Thank you for continuing to share your projected biography with us all.

I wish you well.

 

[Vixen]

[INDENT=Bill Williams]It's true that the Marasca/Bruno report left clouds over this case - even as it exonerated the pair.

But none of those clouds are as the PGP claim. Read Luca Cheli's piece from amandaknoxcase.com. [/INDENT]



Written a year ago, with its author now moved on to other things, the following are one Italian's opinion of what the shadows, the light, and the thunder of the Marasca/Bruno report are. Your mileage will obviously vary if you are PGP, but here are Cheli's words for what it is worth.....

http://www.groundreport.com/knox-and-sollecito-final-words/

Shadows left from the report:

1) "conflitto in giudicato” and it has always frightened the judges of Italy’s highest court. A “conflitto in giudicato” of the worst type happens when two definitive rulings, that is two different rulings issued by Cassation’s panels to close a case, conflict about the verdict on some element of the same case.

2) the calumny against Lumumba is based on Marasca saying that an interrogation in front of the prosecutor is a “context institutionally immune to anomalous psychological pressures”. Really? it is "institutionally immune"?

3) the inappropriate evaluation of both Knox’s “spontaneous statements” and her first memoriale. First of all the two statements should not be even quoted, having been declared inadmissible by Cassation itself, the first for use against Knox, the second for use against anybody.

4) Then there is the importance given by the ruling to Knox’s statement about being at the cottage while Kercher was killed and hearing her scream. As said before, this statement should simply not even be quoted, it being inadmissible, but since no one cared about the inadmissibility (which in Italy evidently exists only in theory, like many other things concerning justice), Marasca thought it was correct to do the same, possibly also because in this particular ruling no consequence (i.e. conviction) was to come in any case.
​

All these are in the context of the Light and Thunder the Marasca report shines/sends into the case and the way it was handled:

The Light:

1) According to the ruling there is an “unsurmountable monolithic barrier” against the conviction of the defendants for murder, namely “the total absence of biological traces attributable with certainty to the two defendants in the murder room or on the body of the victim”.

2) in every convicting ruling one read concerning the footprints, that these analyses could give only “probable” identification or compatibility, or that they were useful only for exclusions and not for positive identification, and yet they were used precisely to attribute them to Knox and Sollecito with a claim of certainty.

3) Meredith's phones found in a distant garden add nothing to guilt or innocence

4) None of the motives proposed have any grounding in anything resembling fact.​

But then the thunder that the Marasca report sends through the corridors of the judicial ineptness which characterized the handling of this case. From Marasca:

1) the shower, the lamp, the door Meredith never locked, the length of Knox’s calls to Romanelli, the kiss, the lingerie, Knox’s call to her mother when in Seattle it was night, Knox saying Kercher had been found “in the wardrobe”, the cartwheels are all dismissed summarily by Marasca because, "the use of logic and intuition cannot, in any way, compensate for the lack of evidence or the inefficiency of the investigations..... The judge must apply the law: that’s revolutionary, in Italy."

2) the treatment reserved for the investigators in Marasca's report, the Scientific Police first of all, but implicitly also the prosecutors (since they, in Italy, control the investigations and the police) is nothing short of a bomb thrown at them.

3) In 2014 Nencini (stated that) international protocols are not all that relevant. The Fifth Penal Section (Marasca's panel of the ISC) reversed all that, and while they never openly criticised the First Section, their arguments are the exact opposite of those of the Chieffi panel in 2013. For instance the case for innocence is even stronger than Marasca makes it: the police DID search for blood on the knife and found none.

4) three points are considered as particularly important for present and future cases:

1.judges have been reminded that they cannot compensate for lack of evidence with their own personal logic and intuition;

2.the serious criticism of the forensic investigations can pave the way to their improvement and make future judges more careful in blindly accepting the results presented by the prosecution;

3.the criticism of the influence of the media may help (hopefully) to limit such undue influence on the investigations and consequently on the trials themselves, an influence that in Italy has reached levels probably unheard of in most, if not all, Western countries.​

There it is. If you disagree with Cheli say why, and if you quote from the Marasca report, at least have the honesty to quote from it as a whole.

That's why we have a trial, so that everyman may have the opportunity to defend himself and to be judged by his peers. We had a Magna Carta in England to make it clear to King John of citizens' rights.

The pair had a trial, albeit n Italy, and I don't accept the underlying assumption that Italian justice is somehow inferior to the American brand.

Each of these trials (in Italy, it extends to the appeal court on limited issues, allowed to be appealed) found the kids 'Guilty'. As charged.

 

[Stacyhs]

My number one pet hate is time wasting, so I shan't be wasting any time indulging in your 'you said/I said' -style bickering.

Then I strongly suggest you stop making false claims about what I've said if you hate wasting time. Do you honestly expect to make false accusations and not be challenged about them? Hmm....maybe you do.

As for wasting time, how long did it take to write your dog trial post? But I agree about wasting time which is why I didn't bother to read past the first couple lines.

 

[Stacyhs]

That's why we have a trial, so that everyman may have the opportunity to defend himself and to be judged by his peers. We had a Magna Carta in England to make it clear to King John of citizens' rights.

The pair had a trial, albeit n Italy, and I don't accept the underlying assumption that Italian justice is somehow inferior to the American brand.

Each of these trials (in Italy, it extends to the appeal court on limited issues, allowed to be appealed) found the kids 'Guilty'. As charged.

Hellmann didn't find them guilty. Massei and Nencini were also annulled. Remember?

 

[Vixen]

Hellmann didn't find them guilty. Massei and Nencini were also annulled. Remember?

Hellmann is toast, brown bread, zippo. Massei and Nencini are not expunged. Marasca upheld the incriminating facts they found at trial.

Rejecting the DNA evidence without remission to trial level was illegal.