Stacyhs
Penultimate Amazing
The Trials of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito: Part 25
- Thread starter acbytesla
- Start date
- Status
Methos
Muse
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2012
- Messages
- 870
Do you mean the "Headsup" box on TJMK?
It reads:
The "headsup" box above is based on two posts in the comments to TJMK's latest post (unrelated to the original post's subject).
The first one reads:
PQ's response is this post:
When it comes to Raffaele Sollecito, the last time we heard in the real media about the "book trial" (diffamazione) against Sollecito's book "Honor Bound" was in June 2015, IIRC there were some posts on TJMK about the parties fighting in subsequent hearings about the correct translations, but it looks like PQ has removed them...
The latest from Raffaele Sollecito is, that he is suing PM Mignini and others (dated April 2017), so at least to me it doesn't look like Sollecito
If you have information I don't have (like a court date) please share...
When it comes to the highlighted parts of PQ's comment, lacking something substantial, I guess his "There is to be" is - just as usual - wishful thinking.
When it comes to the "bodes very badly for Knox as her book is far more defamatory - and amazingly was re-released with all defamations intact." I'd suggest the Italian Codice Penale as reading material, as there are Articles 595, 597 and especially Article 124:
ETA: Your "book calunnia" shows, that you have no idea what you are talking about...
Last edited:
Sherkeu
Illuminator
Regarding the luminol prints (again!)
Is there some reason why the neg TMB test was the last test done if the prints were still presumed to be in blood? I mean, if a forensic scientist is really super sure it must be blood could they then do further testing/viewing on a molecular level to see what it really is?
If there are no fresh samples to be had, would they not cut out the porous grout where any 'presumed blood' is sure to have settled... and tested that?
They seemed to just call it a day on what they claimed to be one of the most incriminating points of evidence they had! The murderers footprints in (presumed) blood! No need to confirm it!
They must have done some enzyme test to deem 13 of 14 luminol samples at Sollecitos apartment as 'saliva' (and no added test for blood?). Was this not done for the cottage samples as well?
I recall that after they had the knife dna (and no blood), the police forensics resisted opening up the the knife handle where it would be nearly impossible to clean. Too much bother to fully test the presumed murder weapon where evidence is most likely to remain?
Is there some reason why the neg TMB test was the last test done if the prints were still presumed to be in blood? I mean, if a forensic scientist is really super sure it must be blood could they then do further testing/viewing on a molecular level to see what it really is?
If there are no fresh samples to be had, would they not cut out the porous grout where any 'presumed blood' is sure to have settled... and tested that?
They seemed to just call it a day on what they claimed to be one of the most incriminating points of evidence they had! The murderers footprints in (presumed) blood! No need to confirm it!
They must have done some enzyme test to deem 13 of 14 luminol samples at Sollecitos apartment as 'saliva' (and no added test for blood?). Was this not done for the cottage samples as well?
I recall that after they had the knife dna (and no blood), the police forensics resisted opening up the the knife handle where it would be nearly impossible to clean. Too much bother to fully test the presumed murder weapon where evidence is most likely to remain?
Stacyhs
Penultimate Amazing
They could have done a confirmatory blood test such as the Takayama or Teichman tests. But, unless you subscribe to the Mach/Vixen version of forensic science, these are not administered after a negative TMB test. Which is why Stefanoni didn't bother with a confirmatory test.
Regarding the knife, it does not make sense for them not to have removed the handle to check for blood in that protected area. As you said, if there was going to be blood that a cleaning could not remove, it would have been there. My guess is that Stefanoni didn't think she needed to as she thought she'd found Kercher's DNA on the blade.
bagels
Master Poster
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2015
- Messages
- 2,273
Stacyhs
Penultimate Amazing
Well, that's one way of putting it
I don't think Stefanoni was ever out to deliberately frame Knox or Sollecito. I think it's more likely that she felt pressured, either consciously or subconsciously, to support the prosecution/police theory and her choices reflected that. Of course, if I were like some PGP, I could say "undoubtedly", "clearly", "almost certainly", etc. instead of "I think", but I freely admit this is just my personal suspicions and that I have no true knowledge of what Stefanoni was feeling.
I suspect that mostly an antibody based test is used as a confirmatory test nowadays.
Nice little presentation on forensic testing for blood here.
http://projects.nfstc.org/bsw/presentations/02_BioScreening_Blood_012010_CBS_JMS.pdf
Sherkeu
Illuminator
I looked over the file of test results (it's all in Italian). It lists most items as receiving dual tests of TMB and the anti-body test you are talking about. Samples that are luminol positive do not get those two tests (the luminol 'bloody footprints' show no TMB testing in this particular list). They go straight to dna testing.
Except!..... for 2 samples from Sollecito's kitchen floor, 104 and 105. Those two were luminol positive and followed by negative human anti-body tests. So, she does do it...sometimes.
What was special about 104 and 105?
Isn't 'framing' and 'supporting the prosecution/police theory' really the same thing? Certainly the results are the same.
TruthCalls
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2011
- Messages
- 1,960
I don't think they're the same. Framing is a deliberate effort to implicate someone. Supporting the prosecution/police is more like not following normal protocols if in doing so you might actually stumble across something that might help. For example, 36B and 36C tested identical and those test results were definitive that they contained nothing yet Stefanoni recorded 36B as positive for DNA and went on to amplify it. Lab contamination resulted in a faint trace of Meredith's DNA, but I doubt she deliberately contaminated things. More likely it was legitimate contamination, a very common occurrence when doing LCN profiling in a lab that has done extensive testing of the victim's DNA, and why best practices for LCN profiling is to use a dedicated facility where the victim's DNA has not yet been examined. If she doesn't test 36B she has to report back to the investigation that nothing was found on the knife, so it was an act of desperation by Stefanoni in support of the police and they got lucky.
Likewise, the Luminol traces. Unless Stefanoni is an idiot she had to know once the TMB tests were negative she HAD to run a confirmatory test to PROVE the traces were human blood. She didn't do this because I suspect she already knew it wasn't and it was better to not test and leave some doubt than test and prove it. Of course, she then performed DNA testing which failed to detect Meredith's DNA (in most of the samples) and for all but the most staunch (bias blind) PGP this was equally definitive. Again, she didn't do anything to frame them but she clearly didn't follow proper protocols either in what can best be described a desperate effort to find something to link them to the crime.
Stacyhs
Penultimate Amazing
No, because as I said, it could have been conscious or subconcious. Additionally, even a conscious bias does not mean she knowingly falsified results. A conscious decision, for example, would be to continue forcing the "too low" results on the knife sample in order to get a "result".
From the Las Vegas Sun, June 13, 2009:
Machiavelli
Philosopher
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2010
- Messages
- 5,844
There is one false thing and one true thing in this statement.
The true thing is that this is not a case about forensics - it has never been, it has not been so to the guilters, and it has never been so to the courts - and it is not supposed to be so. Forensics has indeed a fundamental role in establishing guilt in this case, but it is meant as forensic whole documentation, not laboratory forensics about a single physical detail (the focus on a few details is the defence frame).
The false thing is that I think Knox is guilty because of what "I feel". This is absolutely false: "feelings" have no place. This is not a case built on feelings, this is a case built on circumstantial evidence.
It is the paradigm of circumstantial evidence, that idea that indirect information has the logical power to draw to conclusion beyond reasonable doubt - it's not a problem if each of the single pieces of information have a degree of incompleteness if you parcel them out. Circumstantial evidence is something that the pro-Knoxes apply only to Guede, but in a warped, fuzzy and prejudicial way, inventing information that doesn't exist and ignoring inconsistencies and gaps - while at the same time they draw an equally nebuolus curtain on the evidence against Knox and Sollecito throug the same method.
This connects to another point: to understand that the concept of piece of evidence is that of an object of logical nature. It is a piece of logic, a piece of reasoning, an inference, a relation between findings, not a physical object. And so it is defined by Italian jurisprudence.
As for the code, evidence is not "brought in" or "brought at" the trial, but it is "formed" within the trial - the investigators only collect and bring "elements", and then it is the magistrates and the judge, the court, who make inference about the whole elements to form the evidence.
(This also implies the interesting - imho - concept that evidence may not be immediately obvious and self-evident to everyone)
Another point, is that in Italian proecedure code and jurisprudence, there is no concept of the "admissibility" of a piece of evidence. Or better, there is a concept of "usability" but it is merely on procedural grounds, about specific circumstances about the evidence that are made explicit by the code (there can be no concept of "usability" regarding the content or the nature of evidence).
Last edited:
Machiavelli
Philosopher
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2010
- Messages
- 5,844
Let's not forget that the formula is also subjected to art. 530.2 - which is understood as reasonable doubt - and that the judge finds proven fact that Meredith was killed by multiple persons, that it is a proven fact Knox was at the scene of crime when Meredith was killed, says he agrees with the courts of merits that she heared Meredith's scream, and that there is also some "eloquent proof" that Knox had contact with Meredith's blood and washed her hands of it.
Machiavelli
Philosopher
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2010
- Messages
- 5,844
No no, if you talk like "the defence didn't have to lift a finger", you are not talking about forensic science. You are talking about law. And if you talk about law, you are wrong.
It's not exactly about what the defence needs or doesn't need to do. The point is evidence is a logical structure based on dual alternatives. This is the nature of evidence, and the concept of "need of plausible alternative" was also made explicit recently by a Supreme Court United Sections verdict of 2008. Not necessarily the defence, but just someone, even prosecutors judges or experts, needs to be able to envision a credible alternative explanation, in order to build a doubt.
Machiavelli
Philosopher
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2010
- Messages
- 5,844
It has been shown in the trial that more than 100 tests were performed by the same machine over six days in which no trace of contamination from Meredith's DNA turned out, before the amplification of sample 36B.
It is proven there was no laboratory contamination.
Nobody ever found laboratory contamination on this case. No courts of merits found laboratory contamination. It is a pro-Knox invention.
Your use of the word "desperation" is amusing, nonsensical.
The testing of sample 36B was within an incodente probatorio, a procedure open to scrutiny and documentation by all parties, and prof. Potenza (Sollecito's defence consultant) took part to the tests.
Stefanoni, on 8th Oct. 2008 hearing, declared that several confirmatory tests on samples from luminol footprints were performed, and they turned out negative. She also warned the judge that those tests usually turn out negative when they are collected from latent traces, thus it was not possible to draw a definitive conclusion through biological tests.
Your allegations against Stefanoni are false.
Stacyhs
Penultimate Amazing
The Supreme Court disagrees with you. This case was fundamentally about the forensics and certainly not about the circumstantial evidence. M/B's acquittal is largely based on the lack of forensic evidence.
9.4. However, a matter of undoubted significance in favour of the appellants, in the sense that it excludes their material participation in the murder, even if it is hypothesised that they were present in the house on via della Pergola, consists of the absolute lack of biological traces attributable to them (except the clasp which will be dealt with further on) in the murder room or on the victim’s body, where instead numerous traces attributable to Guede were found. It is indisputably impossible that traces attributable to the appellants would not have been found at the crime scene had they taken part in Kercher’s murder (the room was of small dimensions: 2.91 x 3.36m, as shown in the plan reproduced in f: 76).
In fact the biological traces on items of investigative interest are of minuscule magnitude, and as such, incompatible with amplification and, thus, destined not to give reliable, certain answers, whether in terms of identity or in terms of compatibility.
Contrary to what you claim, this case was primarily about the forensics.
Machiavelli
Philosopher
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2010
- Messages
- 5,844
There is a late 2005 publication about the Canada Police being not satisfied about the use of TMB as confirmatory test to reduce false positives, because of the lower sensitivity of TMB, and the article was anticipating that the method of second TMB test was to ba abandoned adn a new antibody method would be introduced. That implies that still in 2005 no sensitive enough antibody test was being employed systematically by forensics in North America.
bagels
Master Poster
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2015
- Messages
- 2,273
The prosecution has to connect the stains to the crime first through some sort of corroborating evidence. Otherwise they might as well ask the defense to explain the UFO spotted out the window. In your mind they did that, I get it. That's what you believe, that there was corroborating evidence the stains were relevant to the crime. But there wasn't. That's why Amanda was acquitted (twice for those keeping score at home) and you believe in a massive multi-agency ocean-spanning conspiracy.
Stacyhs
Penultimate Amazing
Let's not forget that the multiple killers "fact", Knox being at the scene of the crime when Meredith was killed, and that she heard Meredith scream were all judicial facts previously finalized by a Supreme Court. M/C had to deal with them. I have never been shown, despite having asked multiple times since 2015, an example of a SC openly disagreeing with another SC's findings in the same case. They had no choice but to incorporate them.
As for the "eloquent proof" that Knox had contact with Meredith's blood and washed her hands of it, neither the courts nor any other person, including you and Vixen, have ever provided any forensic proof that this ever happened. Despite being asked for the actual evidence of this on multiple occasions, this proof has never been presented. Exactly what was the "eloquent proof"?
- Status