Who killed Meredith Kercher? part 23

[Vixen]

Vixen, you so funny.

Et tu, brute?

 

[bagels]

You see your reasoning is utterly flawed, don't you?

I think you can see there is nothing remotely scientific in your "deduction".

By applying your logic, any existing practice or protocol ever applied in the past some time would be scientifically correct or useful, just because someone applied it.

LOL now you're throwing out the lead forensic scientist' own process and procedures as worthless just to salvage a piece of evidence you desperately need to justify your belief about some random American girl.

 

[Diocletus]

Absolutely yes. It does - and also consider its jurisprudence.

The statute itself clearly addresses scope of review and not finality of judgment.

The only jurisprudence I need to consider is the opinion of the Court of Casszione, which in fact addresses the issue that you said was previously precluded by a "final judgment", which means that the judgment was not "final" and the prior opinion was not preclusive (it was also not sensible, but that's besides the point).

 

[Vixen]

Italian Constitution:

Art. 15
Freedom and confidentiality of correspondence and of every other form of
communication is inviolable.
Limitations may only be imposed by judicial decision stating the reasons and
in accordance with the guarantees provided by the law.

Thus this not mean that words written in one's own diary may not be given to unauthorized person(s) and published, of private information, without one's consent, even if one is a prisoner?

The judgment of the Court of Milan in 2014 apparently recognized this provision of the Italian Constitution in finding against Sarzanini and her publisher.

Prisoners do not have constitutional rights in the UK, and almost certainly not elsewhere in western Europe. Prison officers can and do read and censor incoming and outgoing letters, your cell can be searched at any time, you can be body searched at any time. You do not have the right to vote, you can be evicted from your home if a tenant whilst you are a prisoner, your spouse can divorce you on those grounds.

Reading Amanda's laugh-out-loud prison diary, we can see clearly she writes it for the benefit of the nosey police, whom she knows fully well will read every word.

The page full of Italian profanities is particularly hilarious as we can see she is saying to them, '**** YOU!'

 

[acbytesla]

No it would be only an attempt to distract the attention, away from the evidence of Knox's guilt.

You warm the cockles of my heart. It's comforting watching such hubris in being wrong. It reminds of the Christians who believe that evolution is false and the earth is 6 to 10,000 years old. Thanks.

 

[acbytesla]

Et tu, brute?

Si.

 

[Vixen]

A barrister friend explained that in England at least and I think in other jurisdictions making a claim of ill treatment against the police is a quick way of losing the sympathy of a jury. If you are going to do this you have to be able to back it up, appeal courts may subsequently take it more seriously if raised initially but it may be better to argue the case and get your client off, then pursue the police in a separate action; always easier if the claimant is not a convicted felon.

So the defence may have been right not to pursue this issue. Equally it appears in the Italian system the lawyers have to be careful not to impune the honour of the witnesses. For instance. The defence were prevented from pursuing acoustic studies because it implied the earwitnesses were lying (a wrong opinion by the judge as it was about the interpretation by the prosecution of the witness testimony e.g. if a scream was heard (accepting the witness as truthful), was it possible the scream was that of the victim as claimed by the prosecution or must it have originated in a street nearby as argued by the defence, an entirely reasonable situation to seek an expert opinion.) In the UK or the US I suspect the defence would have pursued far more aggressively the reason why the knife was removed from its envelope and examined at the police station contrary to good practice, who and what had been through the office etc. If the knife need to be boxed for transit the unopened envelope should have been placed in the box. Steffanoni should have been far more aggressively pursued by the defence why she stated in written and verbal testimony that sample c from the knife was tested by RTPCR when quantification was by Qubit. Why she testified that there was a significant amount of DNA found when quantification showed non detectable. This was not a simple slip as Steffanoni said the sample was concentrated the only reason for concentrating a sample is because the DNA content is low (or in this case undetectable).

My suspicion is what Steffanoni did not want to say was the bald fact. "I tested sample C from the knife blade; quantification found no DNA in this sample. After concentrating with vacuum extraction but without a negative control to detect contamination I amplified and typed sample C and a low level of the victim's DNA was then found to be present. My interpretation is that an undetectable level of DNA was present in the original sample, the lack of a negative control through subsequent processing means that subsequent laboratory contamination cannot be excluded, however I believe contamination is unlikely because it is six days since another sample of the victim's DNA was processed and these are the SOP for cleaning, the records of this being carried out and the environmental sampling records for the week before and after showing no contamination, of note we tested for environmental contamination to a level of 10pg which would detect a contamination at the low level compatible with level of DNA found in sample C"

A complaint against the police should have nothing to do with your trial. In the UK a police complaint goes to the Independent Police Complaints Committee (or similar). It is not a public process, unlike a court of law.

There is no need for anyone at your trial to even know you have lodged a police, prison officer, or medical professional complaint.

As to your last point, Stefanoni tested the DNA in the presence of defence witnesses.

(They did not raise any objections at the time.)

 

[Vixen]

We wouldn't be where we are Vixen if that was true. At some point you have to open your eyes and accept reality. Machiavelli may sound authoritive but he clearly is not.

This is textbook cognitive dissonance.

Machiavelli may sound authoritive but he clearly is not...because..?

You really must stop making these didactic statements.

 

[bagels]

Machiavelli may sound authoritive but he clearly is not...because..?

M&B's decision did not trigger any reaction in Italy, and Amanda and Raffaele are free citizens.

I would have thought that obvious.

 

[Vixen]

More Italian Constitution:

Art. 24
Anyone may bring cases before a court of law in order to protect their rights under civil and administrative law.Defense is an inviolable right at every stage and instance of legal proceedings.The poor are entitled by law to proper means for action or defense in all
courts.
The law shall define the conditions and forms of reparation in case of judicial errors.

The second clause above is the foundation for the presence of a lawyer during an interrogation in Italy, for example, as expressed in CPP Articles 63 (person who makes an incriminating sentence during a witness interview is advised to appoint a lawyer and that an investigation will be started against him) and 64 (the suspect is interrogated in the presence of his lawyer).

You really do not understand how an appeal works.

Take my free legal advice. If you ever have to go to trial, make sure you present all of your defence material at the trial. That might be your one and only opportunity.

You only get an appeal on a point of law, not because you forgot to mention something.

 

[Machiavelli]

You don't think her list of sexual partners is truthful: You think she slept with another man she had met but you seem to concede that finding someone beautiful does not necessarily mean she slept with him.

I said that I would not trust the list if I were an investigator. There would be no reason to assume it is truthful.
From this, I also assume there would be no point for an investigator in trying to obtain such a list, since the source woulbe not reliable.
I don't trust the list and that means I don't know if it's truthful or not - therefore I would never take it at face value, I would never assume that it's truthful.

From the point of view of someone writing her list of sexual partners because she was advised to by her prison guard (as she did relate in her prison diary, as I quoted a few pages back) and because she was scared very much by the fact that she might have HIV, and from someone who was later aquitted of the crime of murder, then there is no reason to believe her list was inaccurate. You don't agree with any of this of course, but it is a logical possibility : she was interested in her sexual partners because of the HIV scare- other aquaintances would be irrelevant.

Just a moment. What I can read in her diary is that she talks about her HIV test results at page 43, and she doesn't say anything about someone advising her to make a list.
As far as I recall, she does not say someone advised her to write a list. She just goes on and writes a list.

Nobody could rule out in theory that the "vice-capo" suggested she made a list of sexual partners since he's obviously a pervert - but there is no record of that in her Diary. In particular there is no record of that prior of her writing the list. When she talks about the vice-capo in the context of the HIV test it's only later at page 50, and she only says he arranged another meeting with the doctor (who reassured her for a second time).

 

[Vixen]

LOL. Really? I must have been confused by the fact that Chieffi remanded the matter to the lower court and then there was a subsequent supreme court decision in the very same case. So, if by "final" you mean "final except for the subsequent decision that ends the case", then yeah, I guess you're right. Otherwise, I'm afraid you're clueless.

You are confusing 'final' with 'last'.

By stating Chieffi's judgment as 'final' we mean that it is res judicata, except for the issues remitted back to the second level appeal courts who made the defective reasonings.

Chronologically, yes, Marasca's is the last one.

 

[Welshman]

This is where some basic logic might be helpful. If what you said was true, there would be no reason to ever use TMB, let alone use it following the application of luminol.

Since TMB was used following luminol, it means what you said isn't true.

Machiavelli has constantly argued negative TMB results don't disprove the footprints were made in blood. If this was the case, why did the prosecution never argue this. If TMB can give false negatives and there is scientific literature to support this, surely the prosecution would have used it. In addition, if TMB can give false negatives, why did Stefanoni have to lie about the negative TMB results.

If Amanda had made bloody footprints, why is it Amanda did not seem the slightest bit concerned she had left highly incriminating evidence when she went to the cottage the next morning.

 

[Machiavelli]

The statute itself clearly addresses scope of review and not finality of judgment.

The only jurisprudence I need to consider is the opinion of the Court of Casszione, which in fact addresses the issue that you said was previously precluded by a "final judgment", which means that the judgment was not "final" and the prior opinion was not preclusive (it was also not sensible, but that's besides the point).

We have a word in Italian, that is conflitto di giudicati.

 

[Vixen]

Agreed. The case against Guede was clearly proven, albeit the chronology and motivation can not be definitively pinned down. What was hopelessly bungled was aspects of the investigation/prosecution whose sole motivation was to link Amanda and Raffaele to the crime. If the police/prosecution had admitted their mistake of implicating Amanda/Raffaele/Lumumba without even looking at the forensic evidence, and then followed where the unquestionable evidence found at the scene led them, Guede would have received a 30 year sentence, Amanda/Raffaele/Lumumba would never have been accused and no one would be talking about how badly the case had been handled.

That's just your opinion, as there is no evidence the police investigation was bungled. Of course mistakes were made, but that is bound to be the case in any complex murder case with several hundred officers involved.

If it is true the police bungled the investigation, please point me to the public inquiry which has been set up in this matter.

 

[Vixen]

One of the things I admire about the Italians is their ability to keep the country functioning at a high level with effective industry, excellent railways, great food and fashion despite a disastrous legal and political system. Almost as if the calibre of society is of greater importance than the institutions inflicted upon the people. If they had the brakes removed one might think they were capable of ruling the world!

With amazing singers such as Pavarotti, and spaghetti bolognese, you can forgive them anything.

 

[bagels]

That's just your opinion, as there is no evidence the police investigation was bungled. Of course mistakes were made, but that is bound to be the case in any complex murder case with several hundred officers involved.

If it is true the police bungled the investigation, please point me to the public inquiry which has been set up in this matter.

Well you see, the students were acquitted, even though they were allegedly guilty, meaning the police and prosecution failed by definition, either by screwing up the existing evidence, or there not being enough evidence for them to satisfy a conviction in the first place. Of course, alternatively, you could believe the police and prosecution did not fail, but the mafia working with the free masons took over the Supreme Court to change the verdict. The latter would be considered a minority viewpoint not taken by most people, since it is a rather outlandish view based on faith and not evidence.

 

[Diocletus]

We have a word in Italian, that is conflitto di giudicati.

And we have a saying in English: "He who laughs last, laughs hardest."

 

[Machiavelli]

Machiavelli has constantly argued negative TMB results don't disprove the footprints were made in blood. If this was the case, why did the prosecution never argue this. If TMB can give false negatives and there is scientific literature to support this, surely the prosecution would have used it. In addition, if TMB can give false negatives, why did Stefanoni have to lie about the negative TMB results.

It's all circular. You don't try to verify anthing directly. It's always "if it's so, why did this one say this and that one say that...".
There is scientific literature period. What else do you need?
There are also other obvious TMB false negatives in the trial, by the way - that is obvious blood traces that yielded negative TMB results.

You are circular about Stefaoni: she simply did not lie. Actually the defence started raised an objection about the TMB negative test only after the prosecution agreed to hand over to them the documentation - which they already had a right to access through all the time of the investigation. So they know it because Stefanoni told them.
Not only that, but Stefanoni actually had already told they had done other kinds of tests on the footprints besides luminol, she said that in 2008, and she said that they were negative.

If Amanda had made bloody footprints, why is it Amanda did not seem the slightest bit concerned she had left highly incriminating evidence when she went to the cottage the next morning.

What kind of question is that?

 

[Diocletus]

You are confusing 'final' with 'last'.

By stating Chieffi's judgment as 'final' we mean that it is res judicata, except for the issues remitted back to the second level appeal courts who made the defective reasonings.

Now that's what I call pulling oneself up by the bootstraps.