Who killed Meredith Kercher? part 23

[acbytesla]

There is science and then there is faith. Claiming a Luminol positive trace was made with Meredith's blood despite a negative TMB test and no DNA from Meredith is faith, not science. The analogy is actually quite appropriate.

Faith is the reason people give when they have no credible reason. No, it only reveals itself to if you want to believe and if it doesn’t reveal itself, you don't really want to believe. It is the most dishonest cheat of all time.

 

[Machiavelli]

Ironically, all of the above were mentioned by the Marasca panel specifically because they WERE res judicata - inasmuch as they were part of the final judgements in the Guede trial process and the Knox criminal slander trial process.

(....)

FALSE.

(The res iudicata is other things).

Marasca / Bruno actually emphasized their own agreement with certain findings on the part of the lower court, namely they stated they agree that Knox actually heared Meredith's scream and that the fact that multiple murderers killed Meredith was not just res iuidicata, but was also confirmed in the merits in the Knox Sollecito trials. The B/M address explicitly the "confirmation" and "double verification" of these and others conclusions by Nencini.
The B/M panel even addresses a quite technical point of law, a category of "non-active partecipation", at the beginning of their legal reasoning, claiming that the judges should have set their reasoning around the element of such category.

 

[TruthCalls]

FALSE.

(The res iudicata is other things).

Marasca / Bruno actually emphasized their own agreement with certain findings on the part of the lower court, namely they stated they agree that Knox actually heared Meredith's scream and that the fact that multiple murderers killed Meredith was not just res iuidicata, but was also confirmed in the merits in the Knox Sollecito trials. The B/M address explicitly the "confirmation" and "double verification" of these and others conclusions by Nencini.
The B/M panel even addresses a quite technical point of law, a category of "non-active partecipation", at the beginning of their legal reasoning, claiming that the judges should have set their reasoning around the element of such category.

What was the evidence on which the court(s) concluded Amanda heard Meredith scream?

Nara said she heard a scream at 23:30 but M/B agrees death came before 22:13. The lower court opined on the scream based in part on Nara's testimony. Other witnesses near the cottage testified there was no scream. How do you suppose M/B would be able to explain these contradictions? How do you?

 

[Numbers]

Do you think I am contradicted by the code of criminal procedure?
The word interrogation (interrogatorio) in the Italian Criminal Procedure only refers to a procedure of questioning a suspect carried on by a judicial authority, that is a Public Minister or a Judge.
Also the police may carry on an interrogatorio, but only as a proxy of a Magistrate that is on a written order from a PM or a Judge.
Police questionings are normally called sommarie informazioni, this term may replace the word interrogatorio when the police perfomrs them even when they are based on art. 64.
So an interrogatio ex art.64 is not an investigation activity; it is no police activity, it is a judicial activity. It is only performed by jurdiciaries or by authorities who act as proxies (with a mandate and written questions), and only of formal suspects. Police have no power and no discretion in those.
All this may only have to do with a person who is already a formal suspect. The interrogatorio in all these variants (art. 64) is basically meant in the Italian code as a defence right, it is a procedure by which the juddicial authority guarantees the person they accuse a right to respond.

The first interogatorio of Raffaele Sollecito was by Clauia Matteini on Nov.8, the first interrogatorio of Amanda Knox was by Mignini on Dec. 17.

Police questionings are called sommarie informazioni and the people interrogated within discretion of detective activities are not formal suspects - or if they are, they may be in the immediacy of the crime or anyway in the impossibility to have immediately a judicial authority and a lawyer, so in a condition of diminished defence but of urgency.
If they are already formal suspects, they may still release a spontaneous statement, this also can occur in conditions of diminished defence rights, but not necessarily in the immediacy of a crime.

It is also possible that it is acknowledged only later that a "police witness" was in fact already a suspect, this can re-assessed only later, in that event the provisions and limitations of usability of art. 350 apply to his spontaneous statements or to his questioning.

Well, Mach, you make many claims but the language of CPP Article 64 does not specify whether it is conducted by the police or a judicial authority. And Article 350, which specifically is directed to a questioning carried out by the police, very clearly states that the police must use the procedure of Article 64. Therefore, the word applies to questioning carried out by the police. You have wrapped yourself in another contradiction.

Your argument in the quoted post above appears to be a rather desperate attempt to avoid admitting to an error.

Here's the text of CPP Article 64 in Italian:

Art. 64 - Regole generali per l'interrogatorio1. La persona sottoposta alle indagini, anche se in stato di custodia cautelare o se detenuta per altra causa, interviene libera all'interrogatorio, salve le cautele necessarie per prevenire il pericolo di fuga o di violenze.
2. Non possono essere utilizzati, neppure con il consenso della persona interrogata, metodi o tecniche idonei a influire sulla libertà di autodeterminazione o ad alterare la capacità di ricordare e di valutare i fatti.
3. Prima che abbia inizio l'interrogatorio, la persona deve essere avvertita che:
a)le sue dichiarazioni potranno sempre essere utilizzate nei suoi confronti;
b) salvo quanto disposto dall'articolo 66, comma 1, ha facoltà di non rispondere ad alcuna domanda, ma comunque il procedimento seguirà il suo corso;
c) se renderà dichiarazioni su fatti che concernono la responsabilità di altri, assumerà, in ordine a tali fatti, l'ufficio di testimone, salve le incompatibilità previste dall'articolo 197 e le garanzie di cui all'articolo 197-bis.
3-bis. L'inosservanza delle disposizioni di cui al comma 3, lettere a) e b) rende inutilizzabili le dichiarazioni rese dalla persona interrogata. In mancanza dell'avvertimento di cui al comma 3, lettera c), le dichiarazioni eventualmente rese dalla persona interrogata su fatti che concernono la responsabilità di altri non sono utilizzabili nei loro confronti e la persona interrogata non potrà assumere, in ordine a detti fatti, l'ufficio di testimone.

It begins "La persona sottoposta alle indagini" which Google translate gives as "The person under investigation" or "The person being examined" which Gialuz, Luparia, and Scarpa translate as "The suspected person". In English, the suspected person is equivalent to the person being investigated, and would be different than a witness. The text of Article 64.3 includes warnings traditionally found in English law, such as "you {the person suspected and under investigation} have right to remain silent" and "anything you say may be used against you" that are directed to a suspect. The questioning is referred to as "l'interrogatorio" which may be translated as "questioning" or as "interrogation" according to Google translate. Article 64 does not explicitly state that the person under investigation is an officially recorded suspect, but perhaps that is to be assumed.

However, the CSC and Italian law recognize that one may be a de facto suspect (not officially) and have the rights of an official suspect: CPP Article 63.2, "If the person should have been heard as an accused or a suspect from the beginning, his statements shall not be used."

As you may know, the European Court of Human Rights and the CSC do not agree that one must be officially recorded as a suspect to be a suspect for purposes of requiring a lawyer and being given the legal warnings such as those of Article 64.3 before questioning. Rather, it is the facts of the person's condition that determine this status.

For example, Judge Boninsegna states that Knox became, or was shown to be a (de facto) suspect when her cell phone was taken by the police on Nov. 5/6, 2007, before she made any statement against Lumumba, and thus entitled to defense rights at that point. The CSC also considered Knox a de facto suspect during the questioning by the police on Nov. 5/6, apparently at the point she made an incriminating statement, and therefore her defense rights were activated at that point. That is why her statements could not be used against her in the murder/rape trial (although the CSC found an exception to allow their use in the calunnia trial).

 

[Chris_Halkides]

A person could make a quiet living discussing the DNA errors alone

With the publication of the book Forensic Science Reform, edited by Koen and Bowers, we can add Dan Krane's and Simon Ford's names to the list of international DNA experts who have written academic articles or chapters in books on this case. That list includes David Balding, Carla Vecchiotti, and Peter Gill. A high-profile case such as this one is useful in pointing out the some of the problems at the cutting edge of DNA profiling.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Barker, Chamberlain, Novelli, and Knox

Here is a portion of prosecutor Ian Barker's summing up in the Lindy and Michael Chamberlain trial: "Mrs. Kuhl says it is foetal blood, and I suggest to you that she ought to know, and Dr Baxter ought to know what it is he is dealing with, because you know really, if the suggestions made bout their work in this court have any substance, people in New South Wales are in constant danger of being wrongly convicted whoever there's some blood involved." This passage is from p. 177 of the book Lindy Chamberlain the Full Story, by Ken Crispin. Mr. Crispin worked of the defense.

Does this passage strike others as it struck me? Change blood to DNA and Kuhl to Stefanoni, and it is pretty much what Professor Novelli said about the Knox/Sollecito case. Now my view is that both Barker and Novelli are wrong, and for much the same reason. In the case of Mrs. Kuhl, she attempted a wholly new technique that would have challenged the best immunochemist in the world at that time to solve. It was hardly routine work. Likewise, Mrs. Stefanoni was attempting low template DNA work, not standard (in terms of the amount of DNA) profiling. Ten years from now, the technique will have changed, but the same argument will be trotted out.

 

[acbytesla]

With the publication of the book Forensic Science Reform, edited by Koen and Bowers, we can add Dan Krane's and Simon Ford's names to the list of international DNA experts who have written academic articles or chapters in books on this case. That list includes David Balding, Carla Vecchiotti, and Peter Gill. A high-profile case such as this one is useful in pointing out the some of the problems at the cutting edge of DNA profiling.

Amen, science strikes again. Thanks Chris.

 

[Planigale]

I'd say a defence objection, in order to be credible, needs to take into account the default points of the system and so it has to be construed based on reality of past events. So if they want to question the process, they would have to do it in a way that is credible.



As far as I know the defence can be allowed to videotape or document the test in the way they see fit, as the forensics documentation might be flawed or insufficient, and they may also request documentation during the investigation phase.

Vixen, please pay attention.

I agree with what Mach writes here. Clearly any criticism of the police methodology has to be serious and credible and based in reality. Now I may differ with Mach with what fulfils the above criteria, but not with the principle.

However, the important point is the presence of the defence OBSERVERS does not mean they have to accept the process was not flawed, nor do they have a duty to stop the police from making errors. Nor can they direct the police in their investigatory process.

So for any discussion about the laboratory process the presence of defence observers is irrelevant.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

some problems in observing the workings of a lab

As Dan Krane mentioned a long time ago, a defense observer who sees a flaw in the procedure is put into an odd position with respect to whether or not he or she should seek to correct the flaw. Of at least equal significance is his point that observing the test is no substitute for having complete documentation.

 

[Vixen]

Faith is the reason people give when they have no credible reason. No, it only reveals itself to if you want to believe and if it doesn’t reveal itself, you don't really want to believe. It is the most dishonest cheat of all time.

TMB and luminol are presumptive tests for blood.

• TMB is sensitive to 1:10,000.
• Luminol is sensitive to 1:1,000,000.

TMB is sensitive to 1:10,000 parts of blood, Luminol is sensitive to 1:1,000,000.

The luminol highlighted areas of footprints, identified as Amanda's and Raff's, found admixture-DNA traces of Mez and Amanda in some of them.

Now to have found those individual profiles, Stefanoni had to choose either a DNA test or a TMB as one negates the other.

TMB tests as a false negative in 50% of positively identified luminol highlighted blood stains. You can now understand why luminol is the test of choice for forensic police. Which test provides the most information? (Clue: see above.)

Maths strikes again. Amen. Faith not needed.

 

[Diocletus]

Do you think I am contradicted by the code of criminal procedure?
The word interrogation (interrogatorio) in the Italian Criminal Procedure only refers to a procedure of questioning a suspect carried on by a judicial authority, that is a Public Minister or a Judge.
Also the police may carry on an interrogatorio, but only as a proxy of a Magistrate that is on a written order from a PM or a Judge.
Police questionings are normally called sommarie informazioni, this term may replace the word interrogatorio when the police perfomrs them even when they are based on art. 64.
So an interrogatio ex art.64 is not an investigation activity; it is no police activity, it is a judicial activity. It is only performed by jurdiciaries or by authorities who act as proxies (with a mandate and written questions), and only of formal suspects. Police have no power and no discretion in those.
All this may only have to do with a person who is already a formal suspect. The interrogatorio in all these variants (art. 64) is basically meant in the Italian code as a defence right, it is a procedure by which the juddicial authority guarantees the person they accuse a right to respond.

The first interogatorio of Raffaele Sollecito was by Clauia Matteini on Nov.8, the first interrogatorio of Amanda Knox was by Mignini on Dec. 17.

Police questionings are called sommarie informazioni and the people interrogated within discretion of detective activities are not formal suspects - or if they are, they may be in the immediacy of the crime or anyway in the impossibility to have immediately a judicial authority and a lawyer, so in a condition of diminished defence but of urgency.
If they are already formal suspects, they may still release a spontaneous statement, this also can occur in conditions of diminished defence rights, but not necessarily in the immediacy of a crime.

It is also possible that it is acknowledged only later that a "police witness" was in fact already a suspect, this can re-assessed only later, in that event the provisions and limitations of usability of art. 350 apply to his spontaneous statements or to his questioning.

Nobody really cares about these vagaries of Italian procedure at this point, because everybody except you knows that the ECHR says that when the cops suspect that someone is involved in a crime, they cannot question that person in contravention of the person's right to counsel, and if they do, the fruits of the interrogation cannot be used against the person at trial.

You will be taught this when Amanda Knox wins her case against Italy, and eventually you will learn to accept it.

 

[Vixen]

Vixen, please pay attention.

I agree with what Mach writes here. Clearly any criticism of the police methodology has to be serious and credible and based in reality. Now I may differ with Mach with what fulfils the above criteria, but not with the principle.

However, the important point is the presence of the defence OBSERVERS does not mean they have to accept the process was not flawed, nor do they have a duty to stop the police from making errors. Nor can they direct the police in their investigatory process.

So for any discussion about the laboratory process the presence of defence observers is irrelevant.

You are coming from a false premise: that police forensic scientists are 'out to frame innocents', when it is perfectly reasonable to expect they are performing their duties to the highest professional standards of integrity.

There is no way Stefanoni could have plucked Mez' DNA out of thin air as the PCR polymerase test is analysed by a machine electronic printout.

Torres had a good mosey around the labs before she started and found no signs of contamination (for example, poor upkeep, such as that found in Vecchiotti & Conti's appalling laboratories, forcibly closed down).

 

[sept79]

.
.
Nencini is absolutely correct. The (alleged) TMB negatives itself do not reduce at all the probabilities that luminol traces are blood, due to the properties of TMB and luminol (there is no known alternative substance that reacts to luminol but not to TMB, even less a plausible substance, they have the same false positives while luminol is more sensitive and more specific than TMB).
There is in fact no plausible alternative substance at all to explain the bare feet prints, no plausible alternative dynamic, and there are even other bare foot prints on the scene that are proven to be in diluted blood and to be related to the murder (but not showing to be related to Rudy Guede).

To disregard the negative results of confirmatory TMB testing in favor of the presumptive results of luminol goes to show what a kangaroo court Italy is capable of conducting.

 

[Diocletus]

At that point provisions of § 7 may kick in, spontaneous statements, which can be released and collected also in conditions of diminished defence rights and without a lawyer by a person who is already a suspect.

Definition of spontaneous statement:



http://www.brocardi.it/dizionario/5828.html

It will be up to the courts of merits to assess whether the statement was factually spontaneous, and anyway the law provides that those statements are not usable in the trial; also, the provisions of art.350 about formal suspects may apply also to people who were not formally declared suspect, if a posteriori we deem that the investigators at the time had already sufficient evidence to consider them suspects.

Summary jurisprudence:

http://www.brocardi.it/codice-di-procedura-penale/libro-quinto/titolo-iv/art350.html

And furthermore, nobody cares about spontaneous statements. The ECtHR only cares about knowing and voluntary waivers of the right to consult with counsel, and there is nothing even close to that in this case.

 

[Diocletus]

You are coming from a false premise: that police forensic scientists are 'out to frame innocents', when it is perfectly reasonable to expect they are performing their duties to the highest professional standards of integrity.

There is no way Stefanoni could have plucked Mez' DNA out of thin air as the PCR polymerase test is analysed by a machine electronic printout.

Torres had a good mosey around the labs before she started and found no signs of contamination (for example, poor upkeep, such as that found in Vecchiotti & Conti's appalling laboratories, forcibly closed down).

That's funny, because we found contamination and machine malfunction just by looking at Stefanoni's own records.

 

[Diocletus]

And you know it is now a proven fact Amanda Knox was on the scene of murder, washed her hands from Meredith's blood, she heared Meredith's scream and it is incontrovertible that Meredith was killed by multiple persons. (Guede was not holding the murder weapon).
And all this, is definitive.

But the last laugh hasn't been had yet. That will be the ECtHR finding that Italy violated AK's human rights. In the end, that is all that anyone will remember about this case.

 

[acbytesla]

TMB and luminol are presumptive tests for blood.

• TMB is sensitive to 1:10,000.
• Luminol is sensitive to 1:1,000,000.

TMB is sensitive to 1:10,000 parts of blood, Luminol is sensitive to 1:1,000,000.

The luminol highlighted areas of footprints, identified as Amanda's and Raff's, found admixture-DNA traces of Mez and Amanda in some of them.

Now to have found those individual profiles, Stefanoni had to choose either a DNA test or a TMB as one negates the other.

TMB tests as a false negative in 50% of positively identified luminol highlighted blood stains. You can now understand why luminol is the test of choice for forensic police. Which test provides the most information? (Clue: see above.)

Maths strikes again. Amen. Faith not needed.

You are simply pulling those figures out of your ass. So no, math does not strike again.

 

[bagels]

You are coming from a false premise: that police forensic scientists are 'out to frame innocents', when it is perfectly reasonable to expect they are performing their duties to the highest professional standards of integrity.

You literally believe professional judges are out to sell their judgement to the highest bidder, so I don't see the big deal with a frame job.

 

[Vixen]

To disregard the negative results of confirmatory TMB testing in favor of the presumptive results of luminol goes to show what a kangaroo court Italy is capable of conducting.

It is not disregarded. Stefanoni explained it in court under cross-examination. It is a scientific statistical fact - and forensic academics are enthusiastic that statistical probability should be fully employed - that 50% of TMB tests show a negative result on known blood particles, but which luminol picks up even at 1,000,000 to one, dilution.

Luminol reacts with the iron element in red blood cells, so even if the red element has been bleached out, washed off and the blood invisible, it will often identify blood at crime scenes.

TMB testing as negative means only that yet another test needs to carried out to make sure it is not a 'false-negative'.


The fact that the highlighted footprints also highlighted DNA of Mez and Mez/Amanda, shows clearly there was blood present.

The fact there was a murder which involved a lot of blood spillage reinforces the forensic police' logical and compelling conclusion: that Raff and Amanda waded around in Mez' blood; the fact there were only a few footprints found, indicates they did successfully eliminate some of the blood, probably by using the correct type of bleach (the oxidising type that reacts to change the chemical structure of the haemoglobin).

Police were so baffled by this, they constructed a possible explanation that Amanda and Raff had surfed the net googling, 'bleach'to discover ways of covering up blood.

Raff, being an IT boff, no doubt knew had to fry the hard drives to cover their tracks.

 

[acbytesla]

It is not disregarded. Stefanoni explained it in court under cross-examination. It is a scientific statistical fact - and forensic academics are enthusiastic that statistical probability should be fully employed - that 50% of TMB tests show a negative result on known blood particles, but which luminol picks up even at 1,000,000 to one, dilution.

Luminol reacts with the iron element in red blood cells, so even if the red element has been bleached out, washed off and the blood invisible, it will often identify blood at crime scenes.

TMB testing as negative means only that yet another test needs to carried out to make sure it is not a 'false-negative'.


The fact that the highlighted footprints also highlighted DNA of Mez and Mez/Amanda, shows clearly there was blood present.

The fact there was a murder which involved a lot of blood spillage reinforces the forensic police' logical and compelling conclusion: that Raff and Amanda waded around in Mez' blood; the fact there were only a few footprints found, indicates they did successfully eliminate some of the blood, probably by using the correct type of bleach (the oxidising type that reacts to change the chemical structure of the haemoglobin).

Police were so baffled by this, they constructed a possible explanation that Amanda and Raff has surfed the net googling, 'bleach'to discover ways of covering up blood.

Raff, being an IT boff, no doubt knew had to fry the hard drives to cover their tracks.

Oh, isn't that cute. You think Stefanoni is an expert and has a clue.