Who killed Meredith Kercher? part 23

[Vixen]

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.

People who go into law are studying the humanities. People in forensics are hard scientists.

I worked closely with lawyer types in insolvency practice. I had to calculate their maths for them.

Law is all about learning things off by heart and having persuasive and oratory powers.

Scientific tests are measurable. Law victories are hit and miss (cf the recent government appeal against the Brexit verdict).

The jokes about corrupt lawyers are legendary and endless. So, no, a bent Judge in Italy is not as remarkable as a bent forensic scientist would be.

 

[bagels]

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.

Yeah but everything you're saying is incorrect. Stef was asked about TMB and did not say it's a test with a lot of false negatives. This is what she actually said:

Judge: However where the result is negative I’m given to understand that it’s almost certain that it is not [blood]?
Stefanoni: Yes, it’s not blood, it is not, yes.

That's really the end of the road for this as evidence. You can't pick and choose what evidence matters, you simply can't.

And for the record, the footprints were not identified and couldn't be, they were roughly in the shape of half the world's feet - and Meredith's DNA was not found in any of them. It was found in an unidentified shoe print tho.

Like, there's a reason this evidence didn't convince the judges of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. And there's a reason there's not a single reputable person in the world speaking out against the final acquittal.

 

[bagels]

People who go into law are studying the humanities. People in forensics are hard scientists.

I worked closely with lawyer types in insolvency practice. I had to calculate their maths for them.

Law is all about learning things off by heart and having persuasive and oratory powers.

Scientific tests are measurable. Law victories are hit and miss (cf the recent government appeal against the Brexit verdict).

The jokes about corrupt lawyers are legendary and endless. So, no, a bent Judge in Italy is not as remarkable as a bent forensic scientist would be.

But you literally believe in two bent scientists in this very case - the professors C&V who were appointed by the court to take a neutral view of the forensic evidence.

You literally believe they are corrupt and will deliver a false scientific report on demand.

It seems like you are willing to believe anything if it supports the belief you already have. Like that's just how I see it atm.

 

[Vixen]

Yeah but everything you're saying is incorrect. Stef was asked about TMB and did not say it's a test with a lot of false negatives. This is what she actually said:

Judge: However where the result is negative I’m given to understand that it’s almost certain that it is not [blood]?
Stefanoni: Yes, it’s not blood, it is not, yes.

That's really the end of the road for this as evidence. You can't pick and choose what evidence matters, you simply can't.

And for the record, the footprints were not identified and couldn't be, they were roughly in the shape of half the world's feet - and Meredith's DNA was not found in any of them. It was found in an unidentified shoe print tho.

Like, there's a reason this evidence didn't convince the judges of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. And there's a reason there's not a single reputable person in the world speaking out against the final acquittal.

That is a poor translation, which has reverted to the English rule that a positve and a negative equals a negative. In other languages, there is a negative form of 'yes' to highlight you are agreeing it is negative.

"You are not...?"

"Yes, I am not..."

In Italian, they often use double negatives, which translates to a positive in English, that was not intended in the original.

If you look at the whole context of the cross-examination, Stefanoni is referring to generalities, not to the specific example in question.

We know this, because Stefanoni is of the opinion it IS blood.

 

[acbytesla]

That is a poor translation, which has reverted to the English rule that a positve and a negative equals a negative. In other languages, there is a negative form of 'yes' to highlight you are agreeing it is negative.

"You are not...?"

"Yes, I am not..."

In Italian, they often use double negatives, which translates to a positive in English, that was not intended in the original.

If you look at the whole context of the cross-examination, Stefanoni is referring to generalities, not to the specific example in question.

We know this, because Stefanoni is of the opinion it IS blood.

Just like in every religion. The text is unerring until it is erring and then it's doublespeak.

 

[Vixen]

But you literally believe in two bent scientists in this very case - the professors C&V who were appointed by the court to take a neutral view of the forensic evidence.

You literally believe they are corrupt and will deliver a false scientific report on demand.

It seems like you are willing to believe anything if it supports the belief you already have. Like that's just how I see it atm.

C&V are bent in the legal context, as they sought to favour the defence and did little to hide it. They tried to assemble a secret DVD to help out the defence. They wined and dined with the defence during the proceedings. They warmly greeted Raff's defence team and family in full view of the court.

They refused to follow due legal process, making decisions they had no authority to make.


As you know, Vecchiotti and Gill's pal, Pascelli were each found by a court of law in 2013 of being guilty of gross professional negligence in refusing to test the DNA of a murderer who thus maintained his freedom for nineteen years and ordered to pay €150,000 to the victim's husband.


Vecchiotti and Conti are legal medical advocates. Legal bods.

Stefanoni was not an advocate for either party.

 

[bagels]

That is a poor translation, which has reverted to the English rule that a positve and a negative equals a negative. In other languages, there is a negative form of 'yes' to highlight you are agreeing it is negative.

"You are not...?"

"Yes, I am not..."

In Italian, they often use double negatives, which translates to a positive in English, that was not intended in the original.

If you look at the whole context of the cross-examination, Stefanoni is referring to generalities, not to the specific example in question.

We know this, because Stefanoni is of the opinion it IS blood.

Oic I guess that wraps it up for the defense. BTW speaking of translation google quietly rolled out a new technology for doing machine translations based on something called deep learning neural nets (IDK what that is but it sounds impressive) but atm it's only for French, German, Spanish, Chinese and a couple others, no Italian yet. From what I tested with French it seems really improved from their old system. We could soon be reading about the finer technicalities on sex games from a very sophisticated AI. I thought that was interesting and will update the thread when the Italian is out

 

[Vixen]

Just like in every religion. The text is unerring until it is erring and then it's doublespeak.

I am speaking of a linguistic fact. In many European languages, the affirmation has to agree with a negative verb.

English just has 'yes'.

When translating Italian into English you need to be aware that it often cannot cope with how Italians deal with negatives and translates it incorrectly.

 

[acbytesla]

I am speaking of a linguistic fact. In many European languages, the affirmation has to agree with a negative verb.

English just has 'yes'.

When translating Italian into English you need to be aware that it often cannot cope with how Italians deal with negatives and translates it incorrectly.

You seem to have a religious thirst. Try Matt. 13:44 for an answer to your question and you'll see it has nothing to do with vernacular.

No, you're dancing . Doing the twostep. The fact is as you said originally, Luminol is a PRESUMPTIVE test for blood. A positive test in conjunction with negative TMB test is considered negative. That is a fact in forensic science.

There is no thirst for silly superstitions.

 

[bagels]

I am speaking of a linguistic fact. In many European languages, the affirmation has to agree with a negative verb.

English just has 'yes'.

When translating Italian into English you need to be aware that it often cannot cope with how Italians deal with negatives and translates it incorrectly.

You seem to have a religious thirst. Try Matt. 13:44 for an answer to your question and you'll see it has nothing to do with vernacular.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQVkq0HJGWI&t=0m10s

 

[LondonJohn]

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.

1) The "Knox heard Kercher scream" nonsense was actually entirely bound in with the criminal slander conviction: it was related to those Knox police statements, and was used (in a nasty and unlawful circular sleight-of-hand) as part of the "proof" that Knox had knowingly lied about Lumumba.

2) Of course the Marasca verdict mentioned the fact that the Nencini verdict in turn concluded that there were multiple killers. Why would it not do so? After all, this was already part of the res judicata from the Guede trial process. But the Marasca verdict then went on to say that, in any case, there was zero evidence that Knox or Sollecito participated in the murder. Which is, y'know, what actually counts in respect of Knox or Sollecito.....

3) The Marasca verdict in no way states (or even implies) that had Knox and/or Sollecito been charged with some sort of crime related to "non-active participation", then they might have been safely convicted. The Marasca SC panel was set exactly the same task as every other court in the Knox/Sollecito trial process: to judge whether there was sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Knox and/or Sollecito had committed the various criminal offences with which they had been charged. The Marasca SC panel judged - correctly - that there was in fact no credible/reliable evidence (not "quite a lot but not not quite enough" evidence) that Knox or Sollecito had committed the crimes with which they'd been charged. Even though it appears that plenty of Italian criminal courts (and, it seems, you) still labour under the misapprehension that courts have the latitude to "seek the truth" or somehow define the rules as they see fit if they think the end justifies the means, that's simply not how it works (and there are extremely sound jurisprudence - and ethics/morality/philosophy - reasons why this should be so).

 

[acbytesla]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQVkq0HJGWI&t=0m10s

I love Homer. He is so profound.

 

[Numbers]

The reasoning of the Marasca CSC panel's annulment of the Nencini court verdict is stated in their motivation report, but in a rather wordy statement under point 3 of the "In Matters of Law", page 23 of the English translation [Supreme Court Motivation Report, PDF link in http://www.amandaknoxcase.com/].

In summary, the Marasca CSC panel states that the Nencini court misunderstood the Chieffi CSC panel annulment of the Hellmann verdict, which was on the basis of its illogical reasoning in the view of Chieffi, to be an obligation to adopt a particular evaluation of the merits even under improper reasoning, that is, one that must produce a guilty verdict, rather than exercising the authority of a referral court to judge the merits under the same authority as the original Hellmann court. Any CSC comments on the merits of the annulled judgment are to be understood as examples, rather than directives to the referral court.

The Marasca CSC panel does not specifically mention CPP Article 609.2 and in fact, earlier in the MR, appears to maintain that any CSC judgment on law in an annulment must narrow grounds for appeal, perhaps even binding a second CSC review. But Marasca goes on later to state that any CSC judgment relating to defective logic or reasoning is not equivalent to one on law.

Here are some excerpts.

...{I}t is an indisputable application of jurisprudence that, in the presence of such grounds for annulment, pertaining to the deficiency in reasoning, the referral judge is responsible for the examination of the entire body of evidence, that he is expected to review in complete freedom to form judgments, without any type of constraints, being only required to produce motivations devoid of deficiencies of obvious lack of logic or patent contradictoriness that had caused the annulment of the first appeal verdict. In the jurisprudence of this Court of Legitimacy {the CSC}, in fact, the assertion is repeated according to: “following an annulment for deficiency of reasoning, the referral judge is not bound by founding the new verdict on the same arguments considered illogical or deficient by the Supreme Court of Cassation, but is free to arrive at, based on different arguments from those rejected in the Court of Legitimacy or rather integrating and completing those already carried out, to the same decision of the annulled pronouncement. That because it is the judge of the lower court who is expected to have the task of reconstructing the facts emerging from the results of the trial and to appreciate the significance and value of the various sources of evidence (amongst others, Section 4, n. 30422 of 21/06/2005, Poggi, Rv. 232019; Section 4, n. 48352 of 29/04/2009, Savoretti, Rv. 245775).
....
All of this is at the basis of the recurring lesson of this Judge of Legitimacy, on the consolidated point constituting ius receptum [established law], according to which the powers of the referral judge differ depending on whether the annulment was pronounced because of violation or erroneous application of penal law, or due to a patent lack of logic in the reasoning, since in the first case the judge is bound by the principle of law expressed by the Court, subject however that the evaluation of the ascertained facts remain unaltered in the appealed sentence; in the second case they can proceed with a new assessment of the body of evidence, with the limit of not repeating the motivational faults of the sentence that has been annulled. (Inter alia Section 3 n 7882, of 10/1/2012, Montali Rv. 252333).

3.1. As we will see, the judge a quo [of the trial from which this appeal is being heard], in further points, remains conditioned by the prospect of the factual profile unexpectedly included in the annulled sentence; such that the stringent and analytical evaluation of the Supreme Court might unavoidably become forced towards affirming the guilt of the two accused. Misguided by this basic misunderstanding, the same judge is drawn into logical inconsistencies and obvious errores in iudicando [errors in judgment] that are here reported.

 

[Numbers]

Delete - Duplicate

 

[Vixen]

No, you're dancing . Doing the twostep. The fact is as you said originally, Luminol is a PRESUMPTIVE test for blood. A positive test in conjunction with negative TMB test is considered negative. That is a fact in forensic science.

There is no thirst for silly superstitions.

Wrong. Both Luminol AND TMB are presumptive tests. TMB is sensitive to blood 1:10,000, luminol 1: 1,000,000 (bottom end), 100,000,000 (top end). Kimo sabi?


Think about it logically. If there is only 1 in 1m parts of blood, the luminol will pick it up, TMB will not.

In addition, the added presence of DNA points to blood, as white blood cells are particularly rich in DNA. Unless, of course, Amanda 'gobbed' copiously and spat into Mez' blood. Even then it puts her at the scene of the murder.

Do the maths.

 

[Vixen]

I love Homer. He is so profound.

It breaks my heart and makes me ache to know he is not real.

 

[bagels]

Wrong. Both Luminol AND TMB are presumptive tests. TMB is sensitive to blood 1:10,000, luminol 1: 1,000,000 (bottom end), 100,000,000 (top end). Kimo sabi?


Think about it logically. If there is only 1 in 1m parts of blood, the luminol will pick it up, TMB will not.

In addition, the added presence of DNA points to blood, as white blood cells are particularly rich in DNA. Unless, of course, Amanda 'gobbed' copiously and spat into Mez' blood. Even then it puts her at the scene of the murder.

Do the maths.

What do you suppose the thought process was for Stefanoni after achieving a positive luminol reaction deciding to run a TMB test?

I've always found the luminol results curious. It seems they really flashed hotly, which implies a strong reaction. It wasn't the "slow even reaction" you'd expect from latent blood. I think this surprised even Stefanoni and she ran the TMB to confirm her suspicions (that it wasn't blood). Of course, she had to present the evidence as blood anyway since she worked for the prosecution and had a duty to help convict their suspects.

But that's just my speculation, I don't really know much about it and you'd be surprised how hard it is to research the finer technicalities of luminol and TMB without ending up with results from this very case.

At any rate several posters in this thread have speculated the possibility it is diluted blood, either from Meredith on the night of the murder, or from some other person and time. Grinder and Katy_Did were in this group IIRC. Possibility inadvertently created by Amanda herself after her morning shower and walk to her bedroom.

It's difficult to conclude because they can't be positively matched, positively identified as blood, positively identified as whose blood, and positively dated, which is why it was considered extremely weak evidence at best by the acquitting court(s).

 

[acbytesla]

Wrong. Both Luminol AND TMB are presumptive tests. TMB is sensitive to blood 1:10,000, luminol 1: 1,000,000 (bottom end), 100,000,000 (top end). Kimo sabi?


Think about it logically. If there is only 1 in 1m parts of blood, the luminol will pick it up, TMB will not.

In addition, the added presence of DNA points to blood, as white blood cells are particularly rich in DNA. Unless, of course, Amanda 'gobbed' copiously and spat into Mez' blood. Even then it puts her at the scene of the murder.

Do the maths.

As I said before, you are pulling those figures out of your ass. In fact, not just you but everyone is guessing about the sensitivity of the tests. Second, you are ignoring that luminol reacts with numerous other substances. Also, the so called luminol blobs are not prints, they are tracks and cannot be attributed to anyone. It is worthless.

 

[bagels]

Here's what we know:

Stefanoni sprayed some luminol and immediately got bright flashes of reaction, with visibly concentrated hot spots. This is typical of luminol reacting with cleaners such as bleach, not latent blood.

She decided to run a TMB test.

The results were negative for every single sample.

She did not do any additional confirmatory testing of any kind.

IMO the conclusion is straightforward. She was suspicious based on the reaction that there wasn't latent blood but something else. She ran the TMB test to confirm her suspicion. No further testing was needed, she was satisfied ("you can be certain") it was not blood. She then mislead (lied) in court to help her employers.

 

[TruthCalls]

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.

Do you actually work at being so wrong or does it come naturally?

There are dozens of studies available that document TMB being sensitive to blood up to 1:1,000,000. Luminol up to 1:5,000,000. Luminol is no doubt more sensitive but TMB is still considered sufficiently sensitive so as to be considered a confirmatory test (when negative, it's susceptibility to false positives, just as with Luminol, is what keeps it a presumptive test)

The prints were not identified and per court testimony they COULD NOT be identified.

Most of the prints either had no DNA or didn't have Meredith's DNA.

Testing with TMB does NOT nullify DNA analysis. There are dozens of research papers readily available that bear this out. I know you are bright enough to find this on your own but should you choose to feign ignorance I'll certainly be happy to provide several links.

You are trying to quote Stefanoni's court testimony and screwing it up royally. What Stefanoni claimed was that 50% of the traces she has identified with Luminol tested negative with TMB. She does not say that in those cases she performed confirmatory tests against the samples which tested negative and confirmed they were actually blood. So, what one could infer from this is that Luminol is actually very prone to false positives and the TMB results confirm this. I invite you to cite a credible research paper that suggests TMB has a 50% false negative rate though I can assure you I won't be holding my breath.

Luminol is the initial test of choice because it is extremely sensitive and can be sprayed over large areas at one time. No other reason. It remains a presumptive test and is prone to false positives. It can never be used alone as evidence of blood.

But you continue to ignore the elephant in the room. There are three footprint traces in Amanda's room which reacted to Luminol. These traces tested negative for blood using TMB. But even more damning for the prosecution is that they tested positive for Amanda's DNA but not Meredith's. So what does this mean? Well, it means whatever made the print was not broken down with bleach because Amanda's DNA was present. And since there was no known source of blood from Amanda that could have resulted in her leaving three prints in her own room, there can only be one logical conclusion - the prints were made by something other than blood, and certainly something other than Meredith's blood.

Your contortionist efforts to claim a TMB negative, DNA negative trace is still Meredith's blood is almost as entertaining as your claiming scientists are honest and ethical but judges are not, except when we are discussing scientists who find in favor of Amanda and Raffaele, such as C&V (and, I assume, Gil, Hampikian, Waterbury, etc.) in which case they to become corrupt as well.