The Trials of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito: Part 25

[Machiavelli]

That is my conclusion as well.

It seems the problem is political in which direction? Your claim is they secretly believed her guilty of murder but were forced to find her innocent. My claim is, perhaps they were correcting what they saw as a genuine injustice, but were politically constrained by the workings of the higher court, especially those set into motion by Chieffi.
(...)

It is not a consistent scenario, in my opinion. Why not? Because it manifestly contradicts facts. It makes no sense to assume that B/M had to maneuver around findings constrained by the need to avoid a clash with Chieffi. Because what B/M actually do is to run like goats heads down into a clash against Chieffi, causing a conflict between res judicata.
The violation is so egregious, so manifest, that no avoidance maneuver could be assumed.
While on the other hands, there are parts of the B/M verdicts in which they could have taken a position favourable to Knox/Sollecito without risking any clash against Chieffi, like for example the parts where B/M say Nencini trial found further confirmations about the fact that Guede did not kill alone. B/M were not forced to agree with Nencini on this, and judges were not forced by the law to agree with previous findings by other courts, as B/M explains.
The fact that Guede's trial found that Guede did not kill alone, would not force B/M to agree with that findings and would not have forced Nencini - thisi is what B/M says. But they say instead that there were further confirmations in Knox/Sollecito trial, and that they agree with the findings of Nencini on that.

B/M do not avoid to point their finger against Knox/Sollecito when they could have avoided it without causing any legal clash, and they cause a clash on legal points on which they were not allowed to rule.

 

[bagels]

It is not a consistent scenario, in my opinion. Why not? Because it manifestly contradicts facts. It makes no sense to assume that B/M had to maneuver around findings constrained by the need to avoid a clash with Chieffi. Because what B/M actually do is to run like goats heads down into a clash against Chieffi, causing a conflict between res judicata.
The violation is so egregious, so manifest, that no avoidance maneuver could be assumed.
While on the other hands, there are parts of the B/M verdicts in which they could have taken a position favourable to Knox/Sollecito without risking any clash against Chieffi, like for example the parts where B/M say Nencini trial found further confirmations about the fact that Guede did not kill alone. B/M were not forced to agree with Nencini on this, and judges were not forced by the law to agree with previous findings by other courts, as B/M explains.
The fact that Guede's trial found that Guede did not kill alone, would not force B/M to agree with that findings and would not have forced Nencini - thisi is what B/M says. But they say instead that there were further confirmations in Knox/Sollecito trial, and that they agree with the findings of Nencini on that.

B/M do not avoid to point their finger against Knox/Sollecito when they could have avoided it without causing any legal clash, and they cause a clash on legal points on which they were not allowed to rule.

It's still not clear to me that this is the case. For example the Chieffi report specifically directs the next court to converge the findings of multiple attackers in Guede's trial with any conclusions made in Knox's new trial. This looks like Chieffi telegraphing a verdict he wants based on a trial where Knox had no representation. Nencini happily obliges. Then M&B comes along and covers for him...Nencini was wrong about some of this stuff but he was wrong in an honest way based on a reasonable view of the evidence... etc.

IDK if that's what happened but it seems plausible to me. I am not going to invest much effort into studying it either way. Keep in mind that if M&B found Knox guilty, and confirmed 100% of Nencini, it wouldn't have changed my view on the case, so this is all academic.

Really if the PGP want to actually dismantle the PIP position you should be working on Hellmann, not M&B. The Chieffi report does not help btw.

 

[Machiavelli]

You would have to believe the US State Department was threatening to strong arm Italy over Italy having the nerve to convict a Ted Bundy. While I do believe the leaks that said the State Department was never going to extradite, the idea that they would outright force Italy against their will to issue a certain domestic verdict is pretty bold. But even if they did, that's an uncomfortable thought for the PGP, because it implies the upper apparatus of the US government viewed Knox as special, important, and possibly even innocent. Which conflicts with their own view of her as a worthless killer nobody but 10 groupies care about.

Generally I think most PGP view M&B as being bought out by the mafia, because I guess the mafia wasn't clear enough the first time around with Hellmann. But then the M&B motivation report has their little bit of defiance against the mob. You may have bullied a verdict, but you can't bully our ambiguous insinuations five people will read! Very daring of them.

Raffaele must be a real Don. The things the PGP have to believe. So exhausting.

Not it's not that simple. It's not that the US actually forced Italy to issue a domestic verdict. It's a problem of a different nature.
And it's not actually about "Italy". It's about some specific persons in Italy.

The situation that would have make a guilty verdict become politically unsustainable, is the combination of the following facts: 1) that on a guilty verdict Sollecito would have gone into prison (while Knox would have stayed out); but this is combined with the fact that 2) the Hellmann trial was corrupt, it was designed to release Amanda Knox and let her go back to the USA, and the corruption was organized thanks to both Sollecito's channels - and possibly money - and with political cover up in Italy at a very high levels with intercession of the US embassy.

Given that background, the "very high levels" could not afford to have Sollecito in prison, as Bongiorno would in the position of blackmailing them and bringing them down.
The real corruption occurred at the time of the Hellmann trial. But it is a corruption that needs a cover up, and B/M is forced to release Sollecito because the highest levels of politics need cover up - and Marasca is a politician who was saved himself from a corruption trial at his time, he can't fail to return the favour.

 

[Bill Williams]

Not it's not that simple. It's not that the US actually forced Italy to issue a domestic verdict. It's a problem of a different nature.
And it's not actually about "Italy". It's about some specific persons in Italy.

The situation that would have make a guilty verdict become politically unsustainable, is the combination of the following facts: 1) that on a guilty verdict Sollecito would have gone into prison (while Knox would have stayed out); but this is combined with the fact that 2) the Hellmann trial was corrupt, it was designed to release Amanda Knox and let her go back to the USA, and the corruption was organized thanks to both Sollecito's channels - and possibly money - and with political cover up in Italy at a very high levels with intercession of the US embassy.

Given that background, the "very high levels" could not afford to have Sollecito in prison, as Bongiorno would in the position of blackmailing them and bringing them down.
The real corruption occurred at the time of the Hellmann trial. But it is a corruption that needs a cover up, and B/M is forced to release Sollecito because the highest levels of politics need cover up - and Marasca is a politician who was saved himself from a corruption trial at his time, he can't fail to return the favour.

In other words, it's a conspiracy.

 

[bagels]

Not it's not that simple. It's not that the US actually forced Italy to issue a domestic verdict. It's a problem of a different nature.
And it's not actually about "Italy". It's about some specific persons in Italy.

The situation that would have make a guilty verdict become politically unsustainable, is the combination of the following facts: 1) that on a guilty verdict Sollecito would have gone into prison (while Knox would have stayed out); but this is combined with the fact that 2) the Hellmann trial was corrupt, it was designed to release Amanda Knox and let her go back to the USA, and the corruption was organized thanks to both Sollecito's channels - and possibly money - and with political cover up in Italy at a very high levels with intercession of the US embassy.

Given that background, the "very high levels" could not afford to have Sollecito in prison, as Bongiorno would in the position of blackmailing them and bringing them down.
The real corruption occurred at the time of the Hellmann trial. But it is a corruption that needs a cover up, and B/M is forced to release Sollecito because the highest levels of politics need cover up - and Marasca is a politician who was saved himself from a corruption trial at his time, he can't fail to return the favour.

But this still has the dangling problem, which is why the US wouldn't just extradite Knox. According to the extradition treaty it should be a straight forward procedure. The PGP view is the case against her is incontrovertible, and only a dozen idiot groupies like me are dumb enough to think she could possibly be innocent. Broadcasting to Italy "we're not going to extradite Amanda Knox, forget about it" undermines that position a bit wouldn't you say? I suppose this is where the Cantwell conspiracy comes into play?

 

[Machiavelli]

It's still not clear to me that this is the case. For example the Chieffi report specifically directs the next court to converge the findings of multiple attackers in Guede's trial with any conclusions made in Knox's new trial. This looks like Chieffi telegraphing a verdict he wants based on a trial where Knox had no representation. Nencini happily obliges. Then M&B comes along and covers for him...Nencini was wrong about some of this stuff but he was wrong in an honest way based on a reasonable view of the evidence... etc.

IDK if that's what happened but it seems plausible to me. I am not going to invest much effort into studying it either way. Keep in mind that if M&B found Knox guilty, and confirmed 100% of Nencini, it wouldn't have changed my view on the case, so this is all academic.

Really if the PGP want to actually dismantle the PIP position you should be working on Hellmann, not M&B. The Chieffi report does not help btw.

But B/M does not say Nencini was wrong, it says Nencini was right. It insults Nencini, because it says they caved to Chieffi on some alleged conclusions. But it says that it agrees with Nencini, on points that it had no necessity to agree with, and B/M emphasize their agreement by linking it to a series of arguments.

Well the pro-Knox positions are basically made of erroneous assumptions, in which there is a large amount of false facts which are not in Hellmann, not in Massei nor in any trial paper: there used to be a huge amount of propaganda based on made up stories and conspiracy theories of various nature.
An example of not acknowledging facts, is their refusal to admit the content of B/M.

Hellmann is absolutely unacceptable, and Chieffi is actually the cleanest preliminary way to dismiss it preliminarily, but to understand why it is unacceptable one needs to know something about the law.

 

[Machiavelli]

But this still has the dangling problem, which is why the US wouldn't just extradite Knox. According to the extradition treaty it should be a straight forward procedure. The PGP view is the case against her is incontrovertible, and only a dozen idiot groupies like me are dumb enough to think she could possibly be innocent. Broadcasting to Italy "we're not going to extradite Amanda Knox, forget about it" undermines that position a bit wouldn't you say? I suppose this is where the Cantwell conspiracy comes into play?

I don't get your point. I'm afraid that there may be points of view about the United States that could be predominantly different from other countries and places of the world. The US is an imperialist power. From the point of view of the periphery, the empire itself is a conspiracy. I think Italians in general don't expect the USA to decide on things based on principles of justice - especially things that have to do with other countries. Not even on principles of democracy or transparency, nor truth or equality. Not even of rationality.
A simple fact that a US senator like Cantwell takes a position in an issue, and that secretary of State "thanks" Italy for a release, indicates that there is a domestic political issue and there will be a political problem for a candidate (such as Clinton, for example) that would have to take a position on that issue. I think that the US SoS wanted Knox to be released and declared "not guilty" (at the time of Hellmann trial) because a guilty verdict would have been controversial, and this was the consequence of the nationalist, racist and xenophobic tones injected into a media narrative by the pro-Knox media campaign. The US media portrayed Knox not much as an innocent but rather as an incarnation of the US average young woman victim of an unfair trial by ugly backward prejudicial misoginistic Italians. Because of these tones, it would have put US politicians in a difficult position, and politicians fear to be damaged from having to deal with controversial issues: they didn't want the Knox issue to be used against them, this is why they worked to have her released through diplomatic channels.

 

[bagels]

But B/M does not say Nencini was wrong, it says Nencini was right.

Well, obviously they said Nencini was wrong with regards to the verdict.

It insults Nencini, because it says they caved to Chieffi on some alleged conclusions. But it says that it agrees with Nencini, on points that it had no necessity to agree with, and B/M emphasize their agreement by linking it to a series of arguments.

It is your view, but it is based on the implausible idea that M&B is writing a secret code that Knox is guilty but got away with it, for no reason at all, except possibly to implicate themselves in overt corruption.

My view is they are doing their best to smooth over and sanitize a messy investigation and prosecution in a way that rocks the boat as little as possible. It is a view that is at least plausible and consistent from a procedural standpoint.

Well the pro-Knox positions are basically made of erroneous assumptions, in which there is a large amount of false facts which are not in Hellmann, not in Massei nor in any trial paper: there used to be a huge amount of propaganda based on made up stories and conspiracy theories of various nature.
An example of not acknowledging facts, is their refusal to admit the content of B/M.

Hellmann is absolutely unacceptable, and Chieffi is actually the cleanest preliminary way to dismiss it preliminarily, but to understand why it is unacceptable one needs to know something about the law.

The pro knox position is based on an abundance of physical evidence against Kercher's actual killer, combined with the transparently corrupt behavior of the police and prosecutor during the interrogation which lead to the initial arrests, which lead to gathering flaky evidence in support of those arrests which didn't stand up to any scrutiny and never solved the problem of why Knox and Raff were needed at the scene of a burglary gone bad homicide with a stranger neither knew and never were connected to, except that they had already been arrested and the police didn't want to let them go.

Meanwhile the Chieffi report annulling Hellmann is so bad it simply stands on its own without need for additional comment: Chieffi writes that Curatolo is a reliable witness because he was able to recognize Knox in court, by pointing out the most famous defendant in Italy, sitting next to her lawyers, on trial, in the most widely publicized trial of the year.

We could play a game of finding neutral peeps and quoting them passages from Massei/Nencini or Hellmann and seeing which one they view as the least credible. I don't think this would go your way tbh.

 

[bagels]

I don't get your point. I'm afraid that there may be points of view about the United States that could be predominantly different from other countries and places of the world. The US is an imperialist power. From the point of view of the periphery, the empire itself is a conspiracy. I think Italians in general don't expect the USA to decide on things based on principles of justice - especially things that have to do with other countries. Not even on principles of democracy or transparency, nor truth or equality.
A simple fact that a US senator like Cantwell takes a position in an issue, and that secretary of State "thanks" Italy for a release, indicates that there is a domestic political issue and there will be a political problem for a candidate (such as Clinton, for example) that would have to take a position on that issue. I think that the US SoS wanted Knox to be released and declared "not guilty" (at the time of Hellmann trial) because a guilty verdict would have been controversial, and this was the consequence of the nationalist, racist and xenophobic tones injected into a media narrative by the pro-Knox media campaign. The US media portrayed Knox not much as an innocent but rather as an incarnation of the US average young woman victim of an unfair trial by ugly backward prejudicial misoginistic Italians. Because of these tones, it would have put US politicians in a difficult position, and politicians fear to be damaged from having to deal with controversial issues: they didn't want the Knox issue to be used against them, this is why they worked to have her released through diplomatic channels.

This is an exaggerated view of the US political agenda. We can see that by replacing Amanda Knox with Ted Bundy. Would the US refuse to extradite Ted Bundy because a few dumb hicks in WA thought he was innocent? Would they thank a foreign country for the psychopath's release? Get real.

You cannot hold a view that the US worked for Knox's release and that the evidence of her guilt was overwhelmingly incontrovertible. It is a contradictory position. It's why very view, if any, of your friends on PMF take that position.

The US literally kills people it claims are murderers, the idea that they would turn one of these killers into a saint because they happened to do their killing in the far away land of Italy is absurd.

You're creating beliefs out of nothing to satisfy your emotional need for Amanda to be guilty. Maybe one day you'll understand that.

 

[Machiavelli]

Well, obviously they said Nencini was wrong with regards to the verdict.

It is your view, but it is based on the implausible idea that M&B is writing a secret code that Knox is guilty but got away with it, for no reason at all, except possibly to implicate themselves in overt corruption.

My view is they are doing their best to smooth over and sanitize a messy investigation and prosecution in a way that rocks the boat as little as possible. It is a view that is at least plausible and consistent from a procedural standpoint.(...)

No no, B/M does not write in a secret code. It states overtly that it agrees with some findings, that some facts are certain, and that's it.
This is a fact not a view. It is true that in B/M there is also additional stuff that is further placing suspicion on Knox & Sollecito while leaving something fuzzy in the language. But there are also statements that are unequivocal.

The points of B/M do not stand on a procedural point of view at all, actually, they violate principles of procedure in a way that is very gross, very primitive. It also doesn't stand from a logical point of view, as you may notice yourself. But they also quite don't sanitize, on the contrary they point their fingers and cry loud trying to blame someone, calling the scientific police "guilty", it looks like they are looking for scapegoats ("they are the ones to blame that we had to release the murderers"). In other words the boss has to blame someone and blames the dog.
It's a pathetic charade.

If you are curious of things behind the scenes, you shall know that Marasca actually did not write the motivations. The report was written entirely by Bruno. Marasca's job was to just appoint Bruno, who is a character very friendly to politicians but never wrote verdicts and was suffering from serious mental issues, suffered a brain stroke and was almost disable.

 

[bagels]

No no, B/M does not write in a secret code. It states overtly that it agrees with some findings, that some facts are certain, and that's it.
This is a fact not a view. It is true that in B/M there is also additional stuff that is further placing suspicion on Knox & Sollecito while leaving something fuzzy in the language. But there are also statements that are unequivocal.

The points of B/M do not stand on a procedural point of view at all, actually, they violate principles of procedure in a way that is very gross, very primitive. It also doesn't stand from a logical point of view, as you may notice yourself. But they also quite don't sanitize, on the contrary they point their fingers and cry loud trying to blame someone, calling the scientific police "guilty", it looks like they are looking for scapegoats ("they are the ones to blame that we had to release the murderers"). In other words the boss has to blame someone and blames the dog.
It's a pathetic charade.

If you are curious of things behind the scenes, you shall know that Marasca actually did not write the motivations. The report was written entirely by Bruno. Marasca's job was to just appoint Bruno, who is a character very friendly to politicians but never wrote verdicts and was suffering from serious mental issues, suffered a brain stroke and was almost disable.

I think we're reaching the same problem we have with the ECHR case, which is since you view it always from your starting perspective, and I from mine, we are incapable of seeing a neutral context.

Like your starting position is that Knox is guilty and manipulated the police during the interrogation, so of course you cannot see how the ECHR could ever find significant violations.

Here you can't see how M&B could have written the report finding Knox innocent without these massive contradictions. Like the contradictions are a natural result of the core of Knox's guilt to you. This whole time I'm thinking, if M&B thought Knox was guilty, but were required to find her innocent, why didn't they just channel Hellmann in their report? But you probably don't see that as possible, because Hellmann to you is a transparently corrupt mess, whereas I see it as consistent and non-contradictory.

We have totally incompatible perceptions of the reality of this case. That's actually interesting if you think about it.

 

[Numbers]

Regarding the totally artificial controversy about the translation of some Italian words to English, it appears that a Collins Reverso example uses "ipotizzato" as a verb and not as an adjective. But Collins Reverso states that the word "ipotizzato" is a past participle, which means it can be either be used as either a verb or an adjective (or both).

The transitive verb is "ipotizzare" (according to Collins Reverso).

Here's an explanation of past participle (as used in English):

past participle ►

n.
A verb form indicating past or completed action or time that is used as a verbal adjective in phrases such as baked beans and finished work and with auxiliaries to form the passive voice or perfect and pluperfect tenses in constructions such as She had baked the beans and The work was finished. Also called perfect participle.

Source: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=past+participle+definition&t=ffab&ia=definition

This "controversy" clearly arises from the agenda of PGP to distort the meaning of the Marasca CSC panel motivation report. It is as bizarre and meaningless a "controversy" as the one claiming that a positive luminol (presumptive blood test) response alone definitively indicates human blood. On the contrary, it is a well-established forensic science fact that only confirmatory blood testing - such as an antibody-antigen assay - proves that a sample showing a positive luminol response is from human blood. Furthermore, a negative independent second presumptive test (such as a negative TMB test) on a sample with a positive luminol response shows that the sample is not blood. It's that simple.

 

[Matthew Best]

I wonder what Bruno and Marasca have to say about this now. Has anybody asked them?

 

[Machiavelli]

Regarding the totally artificial controversy about the translation of some Italian words to English, it appears that a Collins Reverso example uses "ipotizzato" as a verb and not as an adjective. But Collins Reverso states that the word "ipotizzato" is a past participle, which means it can be either be used as either a verb or an adjective (or both).

(....)

Yes it can be used, but in common speech ipotizzato exists only as part of a verb. Whereas if it is used as an adjective, that is only in technical speech. In common speech the only adjective used is ipotetico.
As I say, I may demonstrate through text examples that ipotizzato has a neutral value, it's merely technical and you cannot infer anything about the position of the writer/speaker about it.

But maybe, you forgot to acknowledge that I am right on the point about conclamato.

 

[Machiavelli]

This "controversy" clearly arises from the agenda of PGP to distort the meaning of the Marasca CSC panel motivation report. It is as bizarre and meaningless a "controversy" as the one claiming that a positive luminol (presumptive blood test) response alone definitively indicates human blood.

No, itself it does not. But within a context, it can.

On the contrary, it is a well-established forensic science fact that only confirmatory blood testing - such as an antibody-antigen assay - proves that a sample showing a positive luminol response is from human blood.

This is one route to establish evidence. Not the only one. Not necessarily evidence comes from chemical or biological analysis.

Furthermore, a negative independent second presumptive test (such as a negative TMB test) on a sample with a positive luminol response shows that the sample is not blood. It's that simple.

No. This is false. This assertion is contrary to science.

 

[Machiavelli]

I think we're reaching the same problem we have with the ECHR case, which is since you view it always from your starting perspective, and I from mine, we are incapable of seeing a neutral context.

Like your starting position is that Knox is guilty and manipulated the police during the interrogation, so of course you cannot see how the ECHR could ever find significant violations.

Here you can't see how M&B could have written the report finding Knox innocent without these massive contradictions. Like the contradictions are a natural result of the core of Knox's guilt to you. This whole time I'm thinking, if M&B thought Knox was guilty, but were required to find her innocent, why didn't they just channel Hellmann in their report? But you probably don't see that as possible, because Hellmann to you is a transparently corrupt mess, whereas I see it as consistent and non-contradictory.

We have totally incompatible perceptions of the reality of this case. That's actually interesting if you think about it.

In fact, look, my starting point is actually that I can't see how M&B could find anyone innocent. The Supreme Court of Cassazione cannot find people innocent (or guilty).
The SC does not deal with evidence. The SC does not have the evidence.
The SC cannot say "this witness is credible" or "this piece of evidence is good/not good". If says so, the verdict is nonsense.

 

[bagels]

The SC does not deal with evidence. The SC does not have the evidence.
The SC cannot say "this witness is credible" or "this piece of evidence is good/not good". If says so, the verdict is nonsense.

Agreed, that's why my view is the case went off the rails with Chieffi.

 

[TruthCalls]

Furthermore, a negative independent second presumptive test (such as a negative TMB test) on a sample with a positive luminol response shows that the sample is not blood. It's that simple.

No. This is false. This assertion is contrary to science.

It's only false in as much as it is not definitive. However, a negative result with a presumptive test is usually considered conclusive enough to halt further testing. Thankfully in this case Stefanoni didn't stop with TMB, she actually tested the samples for DNA and it turned out several of those Luminol traces revealed no biological trace. Combined with the negative TMB this does make the results definitive. Then there were other traces that resulted in Amanda's DNA profile. These traces can't be said to definitively not be blood but they can be said to be definitively not Meredith's blood.

Still waiting to see whether it will be you or Vixen who will be first with a scientific explanation for how TMB negative, DNA negative traces can still be made from Meredith's blood. No rush now... it's not even ten years yet - take your time.

 

[TruthCalls]

The SC does not deal with evidence. The SC does not have the evidence.
The SC cannot say "this witness is credible" or "this piece of evidence is good/not good". If says so, the verdict is nonsense.

Agreed, that's why my view is the case went off the rails with Chieffi.

...and now we get to hear Mach explain how Chieffi did not do this while Marasca did.

 

[Vixen]

This is an exaggerated view of the US political agenda. We can see that by replacing Amanda Knox with Ted Bundy. Would the US refuse to extradite Ted Bundy because a few dumb hicks in WA thought he was innocent? Would they thank a foreign country for the psychopath's release? Get real.

You cannot hold a view that the US worked for Knox's release and that the evidence of her guilt was overwhelmingly incontrovertible. It is a contradictory position. It's why very view, if any, of your friends on PMF take that position.

The US literally kills people it claims are murderers, the idea that they would turn one of these killers into a saint because they happened to do their killing in the far away land of Italy is absurd.

You're creating beliefs out of nothing to satisfy your emotional need for Amanda to be guilty. Maybe one day you'll understand that.

Some dumb hick from New York, now in the White House, might well pay Bundy's legal fees, proclaim his innocence and demand we all boycott Italy, whilst taking out eight-page ads demanding the death penalty for the exonerated (black) Central Park jogger defendants.