Who killed Meredith Kercher? part 23

[Bill Williams]

Basically, Massei ignored the input of the expert (Stefanoni), just as he did regarding the question of whether more than one individual committed the murder (only in that case it was seven experts). So if Vixen wants to go ahead with her "set in stone" approach, she has to decide which part of Massei was set in stone, as well as explain why none of Hellmann's ruling was set in stone when Nencini disagreed with it.

Nencini's "rationale" about how Amanda's DNA got mixed in with the blood in the small bathroom is utterly bizarre.

The presence of all three traces of blood, their position (on the mat as regards the foot print, on the bidet and the washbasin as regards the remaining traces) shows that at least one of the aggressors, but logically two of them – a man and a woman – entered the small bathroom in order to cleanse themselves of the victim’s blood, which evidently had soaked them on various parts of their bodies, and to wash themselves, using the bidet and washbasin. The presence of mixed Kercher-Knox traces on the cotton-bud box, on the bidet, and on the washbasin leads to the conclusion that it was Amanda Knox who washed her hands and feet, both stained with the blood of Meredith Kercher and, in so doing, by rubbing [her hands and feet], losing epithelial cells that were useful for DNA extraction.

The Court considers it extremely unlikely, in accordance with case record that is deeply rooted in the common experience of life, that the man or woman who washed his or her hands and feet in that bathroom could be someone other than Amanda Knox.​

One hopes it is a translation artifact, but note how Nencini starts with, "The presence of all three traces of blood...." without being clear as to whether or not:

1) they are traces from the same source
2) they are traces from two or more sources.​

But that's not the real problem with Nencini's bizarre reasoning. Why is it that Nencini concludes it had to have been Amanda Knox washing her hands of blood?

We would have to hypothesize, in fact, that the drops of blood – which were later diluted – fell in precisely three distinct spots where previously (although it is not known when or how) Amanda Knox had left her own DNA. While it is in fact true that the small bathroom in the apartment was precisely the one used by the defendant and the victim, it should not be forgotten that the loss of biological substances useful for the extraction of DNA is not a phenomenon that normally happens often and with regularity in the areas that a given person frequents​

He even admits that it is unknown how or when Amanda had left her DNA, in a bathroom she frequented with the victim.

Did Nencini reference any other part of the small bathroom which was checked for Amanda's DNA, to justify this amazing coincidence, which is amazing in his own mind only?

No.

Once one follows the deficiencies of logic in the Nencini report - which the ISC had in front of it in March 2015 - it becomes clear why the ISC annulled Nencini's conviction.

Nencini substituted himself - and his hunches and "logic" - for the evidence. Nencini truly thought it an unlikely coincidence that Amanda's DNA would be in only three places in the small bathroom, when those three places were the only ones referenced.

But - it was a room in which she frequented, in which she was the morning after the murder, etc.

 

[LondonJohn]

The appellate (lower) courts are allowed to examine facts (evidence) as well as law:






It is only the Court of Cassazione that does not review the evidence as well as the application of the law.

Thus, in Vixen's example (the purported hand-washing), Massei wrote that the court believed that circumstantial evidence supported the claim that Amanda washed her hands of Meredith's blood. Then Hellman wrote there was no way that could be determined, because the girls shared the bathroom and the evidence was all collected in one swipe. Then Nencini wrote that Amanda certainly DID wash her hands of Meredith's blood. Ultimately, Cassazione wrote that the mixed traces determined nothing other than that the girls shared the bathroom.

The irony in Vixen's assertions is that while it looks like Nencini and Cassazione disagreed with Massei, the Massei report also stated (just as did Hellmann and Cassazione):




Basically, Massei ignored the input of the expert (Stefanoni), just as he did regarding the question of whether more than one individual committed the murder (only in that case it was seven experts). So if Vixen wants to go ahead with her "set in stone" approach, she has to decide which part of Massei was set in stone, as well as explain why none of Hellmann's ruling was set in stone when Nencini disagreed with it.

Yes. And it's worth drawing out further the very important and relevant factor here: the Supreme Court cannot assess evidence from the lower courts per se, but it can assess whether the lower courts themselves assessed the evidence in accordance with the law.

Two astonishing clear examples in this particular case are the DNA evidence and Curatolo's testimony. In both examples, the lower convicting courts were utterly in breach of the law in the way in which they assessed this evidence/testimony. In the DNA example, the courts' own independent DNA experts stated unequivocally that the DNA evidence in this case was effectively worthless, and on top of that, the Carabinieri forensic experts in the Nencini trial also rode a coach and horses through not-a-real-doctor Stefanoni's shoddy, incompetent, misconduct-laden work. It's crystal clear that any competent court should have therefore assessed the DNA evidence in this case as worthless and tossed it out. And it's entirely within the remit of the SC to come to this conclusion.

Likewise, with Curatolo's testimony, Massei's, Hellmann's and Nencini's courts were given an extraordinarily vivid and utterly damning insight into Curatolo's extreme mental illness, his drug dependency, his delusional behaviour, his chaotic lifestyle, his "unusual" relationship with police and the authorities, and his numerous contradictions in police statements and court testimony in respect of this case. Yet only the Hellmann court properly factored this into its assessment of Curatolo's testimony - which was that it was worthless and should be entirely disregarded. The SC was, again, totally correct and totally within its remit to rule that the other courts in the case - most notably the final convicting appeal court of Nencini - should have applied the same proper standard of assessment and should have entirely disregarded Curatolo's testimony in adjudicating this case.

And so on, and so on.

 

[LondonJohn]

This point requires some clarification.

The CSC is authorized by Italian law to review the grounds of a judgment when an appeal claims those grounds are lacking, contradictory or manifestly illogical, when the defect is to be found in the appealed decision on any document of the proceedings - including the documentation of the evidence. (CPP Article 606.1E) Thus, in reviewing a decision, the CSC may consider the logic of its generation, including the validity of its premises - that is, the evidence as it was documented by the lower court.

Exactly. As per my previous post

 

[Vixen]

It's interesting that you didn't bother to adress the highlighted part... It's like you are willing to discuss the plate instead of the meal or the frame instead of the picture.


Apart from Meredith Kercher being the victim of 'thrill' (only a partial disagreement here because the killer might have gotten a thrill enough to leave that stain on the pillowcase...) murderers (should be singular not plural, if one goes by the evidence), I agree.


No problem here.


You are mixing up quite a few things here and it's interesting that no PGP urges Guede to "take the responsibility for the consequences of his actions", and if they do, it's more like "Tell us how Amanda killed her."
I'm not going to comment on the misconception of "truly exonerated and rehabilitated" as others have already done so. The frame seems to be more interesting than the picture.

You seem to have no idea what the "rito abbreviato" aka "fast-track" trial is, and what the consequences are. Otherwise you wouldn't be coming up with "They would be out in a few years".

It wouldn't have made sense for Knox and Sollecito to "go fast-track" even if they had been guilty. "Going fast-track" means that the defendand(s) leave the field to the prosecution and give up their right to a proper defense in excange for a one third reduction of the possible sentence.

In the case of Guede that meant that he escaped a life sentence (i.e. undetermined prison time, defendant's fate is in the hands of review and parole judges, could mean death by age in prison), seeing it reduced to thirty years because of "going fast-track", for murder and sexual assault only. It was a bit of a gamble (not really), because if he had been convicted of theft also, it could have been "life + solitary confinement" which is dicounted to just "life" by the rules of the "rito abbreviato".

I think you can do the math for Knox and Sollecito on your own from here.
No proper defense
+ additional charges of "staging Guede's burglary", "theft" and "Calunnia" for Knox
+ prosecution asking for "life + months of solitary confinement"
= "life + solitary confinement"
reduced to just "life" by going fast track.

So, if Knox and Sollecito would have gone "fast-track", they wouldn't be "out in a few years" as you suggested, but faced with review and parole judges standing between them and freedom, blackmailed to show remorse for (and maybe even confessing) a crime they did not commit (remember Matteini?)...


Nope, the trial courts - I guess you are refering to Massei and Nencini here - just accepted that the pile of empty boxes the prosecution had labled "evidence", really was evidence.
Massei just couldn't accept that Stefanoni was lying, even faced with the evidence of it right in front of him, and Nencini just followed the orders given to him by Chieffi.

What is truth? Something written on a piece of paper with the stamp of some authority on it?

The issue here is the Public Prosecutor (= 'District Attorney', USA; 'Crown Prosecution Service', UK) gets to draw up the charges. Amanda was given a clear chance to put her hand up and come clean, and almost certainly would have been charged with a lesser murder charge, such as manslaughter or murder, without the 'aggravated' tag (= second degree in the US).

So yes, an admission and a fast track, they would have soon been out, with hardly any notoreity on release.

 

[LondonJohn]

The issue here is the Public Prosecutor (= 'District Attorney', USA; 'Crown Prosecution Service', UK) gets to draw up the charges. Amanda was given a clear chance to put her hand up and come clean, and almost certainly would have been charged with a lesser murder charge, such as manslaughter or murder, without the 'aggravated' tag (= second degree in the US).

So yes, an admission and a fast track, they would have soon been out, with hardly any notoreity on release.

Uhhh.

1. She almost certainly wasn't involved in any way in the murder.

2. Regardless of (1), there never was a single credible, reliable piece of evidence pointing to her (or Sollecito's) involvement in the murder.

3. Therefore your argument is ridiculous on its face.

4. To add further ridicule, the notion that (a hypothetically guilty) Knox could have pled guilty and would have had "hardly any notoreity (sic) on release" is as laughable as it is ill-informed.

 

[Vixen]

That's because it is written into Italian Law that lower court judicial facts are not within the mandate of appeal. I have explained this to you on numerous occasions. Even if the Appeal Court disagrees 100 percent with the lower court "facts" it is beyond their scope to review them, much less reverse them.

Of course AK DNA was in the sink. It may shock you to learn this, but she used the sink for weeks before the murder. It would be more incredible were it that her DNA was NOT found in the sink. Whatever blood drips into the sink by whatever means will wind up mixing with that DNA. Now that is the logic that is Occam's Razor.

Do you think Stefanoni and the Rome labs were not aware of all these issues? It is a fact Amanda's blood on the faucet/tap was fresh from the night of the murder. She said so herself. There is no getting away from the fact Amanda and Mez were almost certainly bleeding at the same time, and Amanda in quite copious quantity that there was more of her DNA than Mez' in the mixed sample.

In addition, why do think Marasca found she washed her hands of Mez' blood? Shedding DNA that only comes from intense friction (rubbing of hands together). No, contrary to Conti's Netflix assertion, DNA does not fly around like dust.

 

[Vixen]

Nope, Massei was wiped out by Hellmann who has been annulled by Chieffi sending it to Nencini who has been "anulled" by Marasca...
So we can arm ourselves in this discussion on this board with quotes from all of the judges.
The important thing is that Marasca's "No credible evidence." is the last word when it comes to legal consequences...

Incorrect. As I explained, it is only the decision that has been overturned. All the facts presented, of the autopsy, the injuries, the times, etc., remain perfectly valid.

 

[Mary_H]

<snip>The irony in Vixen's assertions is that while it looks like Nencini and Cassazione disagreed with Massei, the Massei report also stated (as did Hellmann and Cassazione):<snip>

Correction: I meant Hellmann, not Nencini, in this paragraph.

 

[Vixen]

The most laughable part of Vixen's rationale is that she quotes the final Supreme Court as Gospel on some stuff, but calls it a travesty of justice on others.

The key - Vixen decides which is which on the basis of her pre-existing biases....... is that a coincidence?

As you have argued yourself, facts remain the facts and that Marasca (you yourself stated) was 'stuck with them'.

 

[Vixen]

Fx means "effects"; you mean stage directions, or film script directions, which would be shown by italicised text, perhaps indented into the main body.

I'll bear it in mind.

 

[Mary_H]

Do you think Stefanoni and the Rome labs were not aware of all these issues? It is a fact Amanda's blood on the faucet/tap was fresh from the night of the murder. She said so herself. There is no getting away from the fact Amanda and Mez were almost certainly bleeding at the same time, and Amanda in quite copious quantity that there was more of her DNA than Mez' in the mixed sample.

In addition, why do think Marasca found she washed her hands of Mez' blood? Shedding DNA that only comes from intense friction (rubbing of hands together). No, contrary to Conti's Netflix assertion, DNA does not fly around like dust.

How about some citations supporting these claims? Oh, wait. There aren't any, because you are just making stuff up.

 

[Vixen]

You're still not getting it are you, Vixen. The photos shown there are NOT of Vecchiotti's workplace, nor are they of any workplace over which she had jurisdiction. Those photos are of the morgue of the hospital that's attached to La Sapienza (in the same way as UCH is not the same as UCL - the place which didn't run those "creative writing for a pay-and-play turn-up fee" courses ). Vecchiotti did not, and does not, work for the morgue. She worked/works for the university.

(The fact that one of those photos has mendaciously and incorrectly been captioned "Vecchiotti lab" by one of the pro-guilt nutter websites is, of course, not worth the paper it's written on. It's not a photo of Vecchiotti's lab.)

Claim you. Vecchiotti is a legal medic, forensic pathologist, so she does indeed send most of her time in the morgue and the autopsy rooms.

 

[LondonJohn]

Incorrect. As I explained, it is only the decision that has been overturned. All the facts presented, of the autopsy, the injuries, the times, etc., remain perfectly valid.

You still, after all this time, cannot understand the difference between "facts" and "evidence". Pretty shocking.

Let me give you one example that I know you'll like (and that you'll almost certainly turn around and use for another unrelated purpose....): Aviello gave evidence in Nencini's court (in the form of testimony to the court) that his brother had actually been the one who killed Kercher. Is that a "fact", Vixen, or is it "evidence"?

See, the way it works is this (in deliberately simplistic terms, obviously, and probably necessarily): a court takes in evidence and testimonial evidence, and then it does two things. Firstly, it assesses each piece of evidence to determine whether that evidence is credible and reliable. And then it looks at the entirety of the evidence that it has deemed credible/reliable, in order to assess whether the charge(s) against the defendant(s) have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt on the basis of that evidence.

Thus, "evidence" only becomes "fact" (and "judicial fact" at that, rather than empirical fact) once the court has assessed it. The assessment is an integral part of the deliberation and verdict phase of the trial. When a court's verdict is thrown out by a higher court, all assessment of the evidence gets implicitly thrown out too. All that's left is the court as an evidence-gathering exercise - NOT an evidence-assessment exercise.

So, to go back to my example: the very fact that Aviello gave evidence to the court that his brother killed Kercher does (rather obviously) not make it a "fact" that Aviello's brother killed Kercher. It's for the court to assess the reliability/credibility of Aviello's evidence. In this instance, even the Nencini court was able to figure out that Aviello's evidence was fundamentally unreliable and worthless (as it should have done with Curatolo's evidence too.......).

Even something such as a pathologist's report, when entered in evidence in a court, needs to be assessed for credibility/reliability by the court before being "added into the mix" for assessing guilt/non-guilt. Obviously in the case of something like a pathologist's report, it's very highly likely that a typical court will almost automatically assess that particular evidence as credible and reliable (unless, for example, it was shown in court that the pathologist was grossly incompetent etc). But NOTHING becomes a (judicial) fact until and unless it's gone through that process of assessment. And once a higher court strikes out that assessment phase, then all we are left with is evidence and testimony. Not facts.

 

[Vixen]

Nencini's "rationale" about how Amanda's DNA got mixed in with the blood in the small bathroom is utterly bizarre.

​

One hopes it is a translation artifact, but note how Nencini starts with, "The presence of all three traces of blood...." without being clear as to whether or not:

1) they are traces from the same source
2) they are traces from two or more sources.​

But that's not the real problem with Nencini's bizarre reasoning. Why is it that Nencini concludes it had to have been Amanda Knox washing her hands of blood?

​

He even admits that it is unknown how or when Amanda had left her DNA, in a bathroom she frequented with the victim.

Did Nencini reference any other part of the small bathroom which was checked for Amanda's DNA, to justify this amazing coincidence, which is amazing in his own mind only?

No.

Once one follows the deficiencies of logic in the Nencini report - which the ISC had in front of it in March 2015 - it becomes clear why the ISC annulled Nencini's conviction.

Nencini substituted himself - and his hunches and "logic" - for the evidence. Nencini truly thought it an unlikely coincidence that Amanda's DNA would be in only three places in the small bathroom, when those three places were the only ones referenced.

But - it was a room in which she frequented, in which she was the morning after the murder, etc.

It is apparent Marasca substituted its reasoning for that of Nencini. A big no, no, as a judge has the wide ranging power to come to a decision as long as it lies within the bounds of reasonableness, even if another judge might have ruled differently. Even if Marasca considers Nencini to be 'perverse' (unreasonable), it is still not within its jurisdiction to change that verdict. Under the Italian Penal Code, it must pass it back to the Appeal Court with clear directions to try the disputed issue again.

 

[Bill Williams]

It is apparent Marasca substituted its reasoning for that of Nencini. A big no, no, as a judge has the wide ranging power to come to a decision as long as it lies within the bounds of reasonableness, even if another judge might have ruled differently. Even if Marasca considers Nencini to be 'perverse' (unreasonable), it is still not within its jurisdiction to change that verdict. Under the Italian Penal Code, it must pass it back to the Appeal Court with clear directions to try the disputed issue again.

It is not apparent at all. That was the whole point, which you did not address. Nencini's findings were outside the bounds of reasonableness. Read my post again.

 

[LondonJohn]

Claim you. Vecchiotti is a legal medic, forensic pathologist, so she does indeed send most of her time in the morgue and the autopsy rooms.

No. Know I. Backed up with ample evidence. And if you don't know the difference between a morgue attached to a university hospital and the academic medico-legal department of a university, then there's not much more I can do.

But to flip the coin one moment: you are the one making the assertion that Vecchiotti was either in charge of or in employment at the premises shown in those photos. Therefore it's entirely on you to support that assertion. So, how about it? Want to pony up some actual evidence which clearly and reliably links Vecchiotti to those photos (either in terms of responsibility or employment presence)?

Nope. Thought not. Strike yet another one out.

 

[Vixen]

Yes. And it's worth drawing out further the very important and relevant factor here: the Supreme Court cannot assess evidence from the lower courts per se, but it can assess whether the lower courts themselves assessed the evidence in accordance with the law.

Two astonishing clear examples in this particular case are the DNA evidence and Curatolo's testimony. In both examples, the lower convicting courts were utterly in breach of the law in the way in which they assessed this evidence/testimony. In the DNA example, the courts' own independent DNA experts stated unequivocally that the DNA evidence in this case was effectively worthless, and on top of that, the Carabinieri forensic experts in the Nencini trial also rode a coach and horses through not-a-real-doctor Stefanoni's shoddy, incompetent, misconduct-laden work. It's crystal clear that any competent court should have therefore assessed the DNA evidence in this case as worthless and tossed it out. And it's entirely within the remit of the SC to come to this conclusion.

Likewise, with Curatolo's testimony, Massei's, Hellmann's and Nencini's courts were given an extraordinarily vivid and utterly damning insight into Curatolo's extreme mental illness, his drug dependency, his delusional behaviour, his chaotic lifestyle, his "unusual" relationship with police and the authorities, and his numerous contradictions in police statements and court testimony in respect of this case. Yet only the Hellmann court properly factored this into its assessment of Curatolo's testimony - which was that it was worthless and should be entirely disregarded. The SC was, again, totally correct and totally within its remit to rule that the other courts in the case - most notably the final convicting appeal court of Nencini - should have applied the same proper standard of assessment and should have entirely disregarded Curatolo's testimony in adjudicating this case.

And so on, and so on.

Your objectivity and ability to remain rational is completely obscured by your jaundiced eye. Curatalo was assessed by the court to be a credible witness. His lifestyle is his choice. He saw Amanda and Raff that evening and an independent witness corroborated that he was there when he said he was.


Compare and contrast to Amanda and Raff's Star Witnesses: Alessi, child killer, who kidnapped a little boy for ransom and killed him by hitting him over the head with a shovel, and petty mafioso Aviello where even a solemn judge in court was moved to joke that he had five versions of every lie.

These serious criminals were Amanda and Raff's alibi - in fact, their only alibi! Raff got Aviello to claim that it was his brother and an Albanian, 'what done it'. Aviello claimed - like Kokomani -that Bongiorno had offered him £100K to pervert justice. Bongiorno threatened to sue, but surpise! suprise! she never did. At least Curatalo seems like a nice guy next to this pair.

 

[Methos]

The issue here is the Public Prosecutor (= 'District Attorney', USA; 'Crown Prosecution Service', UK) gets to draw up the charges. Amanda was given a clear chance to put her hand up and come clean, and almost certainly would have been charged with a lesser murder charge, such as manslaughter or murder, without the 'aggravated' tag (= second degree in the US).

So yes, an admission and a fast track, they would have soon been out, with hardly any notoreity on release.

Really? With the math of the rito abbreviato in mind, why do you think PM Mignini appealed against judge Massei's mitigating circumstances, basing the appeal when it comes to Knox on an online article of the Daily Mail, insisting that the punishment has to be ergastolo + solitary confinement? Do you really think that he would have gone for anything less than ergastolo even if Knox had been stupid enough to go "fast-track" and had given up her right to be defended properly?

 

[Vixen]

How about some citations supporting these claims? Oh, wait. There aren't any, because you are just making stuff up.

Do read Marasca's reasoning.

 

[Vixen]

You still, after all this time, cannot understand the difference between "facts" and "evidence". Pretty shocking.

Let me give you one example that I know you'll like (and that you'll almost certainly turn around and use for another unrelated purpose....): Aviello gave evidence in Nencini's court (in the form of testimony to the court) that his brother had actually been the one who killed Kercher. Is that a "fact", Vixen, or is it "evidence"?

See, the way it works is this (in deliberately simplistic terms, obviously, and probably necessarily): a court takes in evidence and testimonial evidence, and then it does two things. Firstly, it assesses each piece of evidence to determine whether that evidence is credible and reliable. And then it looks at the entirety of the evidence that it has deemed credible/reliable, in order to assess whether the charge(s) against the defendant(s) have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt on the basis of that evidence.

Thus, "evidence" only becomes "fact" (and "judicial fact" at that, rather than empirical fact) once the court has assessed it. The assessment is an integral part of the deliberation and verdict phase of the trial. When a court's verdict is thrown out by a higher court, all assessment of the evidence gets implicitly thrown out too. All that's left is the court as an evidence-gathering exercise - NOT an evidence-assessment exercise.

So, to go back to my example: the very fact that Aviello gave evidence to the court that his brother killed Kercher does (rather obviously) not make it a "fact" that Aviello's brother killed Kercher. It's for the court to assess the reliability/credibility of Aviello's evidence. In this instance, even the Nencini court was able to figure out that Aviello's evidence was fundamentally unreliable and worthless (as it should have done with Curatolo's evidence too.......).

Even something such as a pathologist's report, when entered in evidence in a court, needs to be assessed for credibility/reliability by the court before being "added into the mix" for assessing guilt/non-guilt. Obviously in the case of something like a pathologist's report, it's very highly likely that a typical court will almost automatically assess that particular evidence as credible and reliable (unless, for example, it was shown in court that the pathologist was grossly incompetent etc). But NOTHING becomes a (judicial) fact until and unless it's gone through that process of assessment. And once a higher court strikes out that assessment phase, then all we are left with is evidence and testimony. Not facts.

Nothing Aviello or Alessi testified was accepted as a fact by the court as they were both found to be unreliable witnesses.


Curatalo was found to be a reliable witness.