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The Trials of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito: Part 25

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TruthCalls said:
Bill, do you have the original edit by Vixen?

ETA: Never mind.. was able to view the history. Are you sure this was Vixen? The original edit included "...which resulted in their acquittal, in March 2015." while Vixen continues to insist it wasn't an acquittal.

Adding here in case anyone else was interested.

Mignini came to wider public attention as the prosecutor who led the 2007 investigation into the murder of Meredith Kercher, and the subsequent prosecution of Rudy Guede, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito. The conviction of Knox and Sollecito was eventually annulled by the Supreme Court of Cassation invokeing the provision of art. 530 § 2. of Italian Procedure Code ("reasonable doubt") and ordered that no further trial should be held, which resulted in their acquittal, in March 2015. The Court, however, acknowledged that it is a "proven fact" that Knox was at the murder scene when the murder was committed while it was not proven "beyond reasonable doubt" that Knox and Sollecito had an "active participation" to the "killing action", and invoked the legal categories of "non punishable connivence" or "concurring in the crime committed by others"; the sentence also acknowledges as "incontrovertible" the fact that Kercher was killed by more than one person and that Guede concurred in committing the murder "together with others"
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Correction alert, I did not claim that that edit had been done by Vixen, just that she had referred to it in this thread as authoritative.

That edit had originally been done by Aki_01, whose only other edits to Wiki in this case was back before the 2009 verdict to the Italian version. Those four edits similarly were reversed for lack of citation, which made the edits "personal opinion", and therefore not verifiable.
 
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Bill Williams said:
Correction alert, I did not claim that that edit had been done by Vixen, just that she had referred to it in this thread as authoritative.

That edit had originally been done by Aki_01, whose only other edits to Wiki in this case was back before the 2009 verdict to the Italian version. Those four edits similarly were reversed for lack of citation, which made the edits "personal opinion", and therefore not verifiable.
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And we all wonder who "Aki_01" might be (under, perhaps, another screen name...) among the online commentator community on this case......... ;)
 
Bill Williams said:
Correction alert, I did not claim that that edit had been done by Vixen, just that she had referred to it in this thread as authoritative.

That edit had originally been done by Aki_01, whose only other edits to Wiki in this case was back before the 2009 verdict to the Italian version. Those four edits similarly were reversed for lack of citation, which made the edits "personal opinion", and therefore not verifiable.
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Sorry Bill, I misunderstood. It didn't help that the edit that was removed read exactly like something Vixen would write.
 
Acc. to that edit 21 Oct 2008, even before the first trial, this was the state of the evidence against the three - the edit on the Italian-version of Wikipedia was an unsourced "opinion" as to what the case was.

Against Lumumba:
- had been arrested because of Knox's testimony (note: no mention as to where that "testimony" came from)
- Knox had mis-accused because of taking narcotics
- Lumumba released, charges dropped​
Biggest difficulty of the investigation is establishing exact role of the participants, and potentially others. Reconstruction based on scientific polic expertise and inconsistencies of stories. Very little has been added to this which is trustworthy.

Against Sollecito
- His kitchen knife with Kercher's DNA, although defence contests it as damaged and insufficient.
- Presence of Meredith's blood on knife admitted to by Sollecito
- his passion for knives and violent (sexual) manga comics
- no alibi, he says he'd been with Amanda but she says she does not remember being with him
- the shoeprint in Meredith's room is compatible with Sollecito​
Against Knox
- she twice changed her story, and inbetween the changes wrote that she cannot trust her memory; possible her involvement was because of a narcotics-induced confused state
- She'd lied about not being in Meredith's room, her shoeprint was found
- Her DNA was on the kitchen knife handle
- In bathroom Meredith's blood contained Amanda's DNA (note: even early on, they were not talking about "mixed blood"!)
- Amanda's sexual fantasies revealed in her writings of a girl killed with a knife during sex
- The Harry Potter book Knox claimed to be reading at Raffaele's was, in fact, at the cottage​
Against Guede
- He admits to being at cottage during the crime
- His faeces in the toilet, although reconstructing why he'd use the toilet in those circumstances was "not easy"
- His DNA found on bra and victim, Rudy admits to intercourse with victim
- Guede has provided prosecution only with lies, falsehoods and "highly unlikely fantasy"
- Rudy's ID'ing of the other assassins does not match any of the other suspects.
- Rudy fled to Germany following the murder​
Overall clues to the suspects:
- Crimescene heavily altered, body moved and stripped after the fact
- on bed are "various pressures not attributable to Guede"
- window glass was broken maybe to simulate a break-in
- Moving the body suggests more than one person intervened after the crime.​
It's interesting reading this, there is no citation and it seems almost certain that because this is Oct 2008, all this must have been because of leakage from the prosecution itself.
 
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Bill Williams said:
Acc. to that edit 21 Oct 2008, even before the first trial, this was the state of the evidence against the three - the edit on the Italian-version of Wikipedia was an unsourced "opinion" as to what the case was.

Against Lumumba:
- had been arrested because of Knox's testimony (note: no mention as to where that "testimony" came from)
- Knox had mis-accused because of taking narcotics
- Lumumba released, charges dropped​
Biggest difficulty of the investigation is establishing exact role of the participants, and potentially others. Reconstruction based on scientific polic expertise and inconsistencies of stories. Very little has been added to this which is trustworthy.

Against Sollecito
- His kitchen knife with Kercher's DNA, although defence contests it as damaged and insufficient.
- Presence of Meredith's blood on knife admitted to by Sollecito
- his passion for knives and violent (sexual) manga comics
- no alibi, he says he'd been with Amanda but she says she does not remember being with him
- the shoeprint in Meredith's room is compatible with Sollecito​
Against Knox
- she twice changed her story, and inbetween the changes wrote that she cannot trust her memory; possible her involvement was because of a narcotics-induced confused state
- She'd lied about not being in Meredith's room, her shoeprint was found
- Her DNA was on the kitchen knife handle
- In bathroom Meredith's blood contained Amanda's DNA (note: even early on, they were not talking about "mixed blood"!)
- Amanda's sexual fantasies revealed in her writings of a girl killed with a knife during sex
- The Harry Potter book Knox claimed to be reading at Raffaele's was, in fact, at the cottage​
Against Guede
- He admits to being at cottage during the crime
- His faeces in the toilet, although reconstructing why he'd use the toilet in those circumstances was "not easy"
- His DNA found on bra and victim, Rudy admits to intercourse with victim
- Guede has provided prosecution only with lies, falsehoods and "highly unlikely fantasy"
- Rudy's ID'ing of the other assassins does not match any of the other suspects.
- Rudy fled to Germany following the murder​
Overall clues to the suspects:
- Crimescene heavily altered, body moved and stripped after the fact
- on bed are "various pressures not attributable to Guede"
- window glass was broken maybe to simulate a break-in
- Moving the body suggests more than one person intervened after the crime.​
It's interesting reading this, there is no citation and it seems almost certain that because this is Oct 2008, all this must have been because of leakage from the prosecution itself.
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Ya think?

It's interesting to note just how much of this was later proved incorrect.
 
Stacyhs said:
Ya think?

It's interesting to note just how much of this was later proved incorrect.
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I need to back way, way up on this with a whole host of caveats, not the least of which that this is only a summary from a machine translation from the Italian. That alone qualifies this as being approached with caution.

On top of that, it is impossible, really, to tell the source of the info. Is it simply one, isolated summary of what was "known" in Oct 2008 from some extremely peripheral, Monday-morning amateur crime-blogger: a description that probably belongs to all of us here remaining these days on ISF?

I mean, just how connected was this Wiki-editor? Probably not much to begin with.

So this is what one unknown Wiki-editor (in Italian) in Oct 2008 thought of the evidence. With all that said, yes, it is amazing how much early on was simply wrong.

For example: were the police in Oct 2008 still relying on the shoeprint in the murder room as being Raffaele's? Or had the anonymous blogger missed that that had been ruled out long since.....

Had the police/prosecutor really been advancing that Knox "accusing Lumumba" was because of narcotics? Was the prosecution really saying that Guede had refused to ID AK and/or RS as late as Oct 2008?

Anyway, if I'm going to list it all, it's only fair to list all the cautions and caveats as well.
 
Bill Williams said:
. . . . . . So this is what one unknown Wiki-editor (in Italian) in Oct 2008 thought of the evidence. With all that said, yes, it is amazing how much early on was simply wrong.

For example: were the police in Oct 2008 still relying on the shoeprint in the murder room as being Raffaele's? Or had the anonymous blogger missed that that had been ruled out long since.....

Had the police/prosecutor really been advancing that Knox "accusing Lumumba" was because of narcotics? Was the prosecution really saying that Guede had refused to ID AK and/or RS as late as Oct 2008?

Anyway, if I'm going to list it all, it's only fair to list all the cautions and caveats as well.
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It's no wonder that Massei came into the court room ready to convict . . .
 
Still waiting for that quote and citation from Vixen regarding Gill and the transference of DNA after 24 hours.

Are those crickets I'm hearing?
 
Stacyhs said:
Still waiting for that quote and citation from Vixen regarding Gill and the transference of DNA after 24 hours.

Are those crickets I'm hearing?
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Still waiting not for what a court said about Knox sloughing blood from her hands, but how they proved it. Also, why M/B is wrong when it wrote that if this was true, then Knox must have picked up the blood in another part of the cottage other than the murder room.

Finally, been waiting for months for one, just one, forensic DNA scientist who agrees with Stefanoni's work.

Do I have to get in line?
 
Bill Williams said:
Still waiting not for what a court said about Knox sloughing blood from her hands, but how they proved it. Also, why M/B is wrong when it wrote that if this was true, then Knox must have picked up the blood in another part of the cottage other than the murder room.

Finally, been waiting for months for one, just one, forensic DNA scientist who agrees with Stefanoni's work.

Do I have to get in line?
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Take a number.
 
Stacyhs said:
Take a number.[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_7166959728ed8c55d8.jpg[/qimg]
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Oh crap. I have number 736.

3-digit-take-a-number-display.jpg
 
Bill Williams said:
Consider this post by Machiavelli made last month......

​
Despite the contortions of rhetoric, note how Machiavelli actually refutes the very point he was trying to make about the word "ipotizzato"....

It is a neutral word, in the sense that it does not express any position on the part of the judge

It is in fact meant to express the absolute neutrality of the judge within a specific phrase, his being external to it

It does not mean that the judge agrees with the hypotheses, nor that he disagrees with it​
Wait a minute, hold on..... I thought Machiavelli was arguing that Marasca-Bruno were (in turn) stating the factuality of those things hypothesized?

These are the contortions used to justify a PGP reading of the M/B report. (This was pointed out by one of the neutral Italian speakers who saw this, someone otherwise who knows little of the case itself....)
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Your problem is, you have difficulty distinguishing legal forms of words from their colloquial/common or garden equivalents.

We have had much nonsense from you as to the meaning of:

  • Synoptic
  • Acquitted
  • Exonerated
  • Hypothetical
  • "Even if"

The legal meanings are exact and invariable.
 
LondonJohn said:
Ok..............

You see the bit where it says "it (the death penalty) will be retained for certain specific types of murder"?

Well, guess what? One of those "specific types of murder" for which the death penalty still WAS very much in force in Ireland in 1980 was........ well, can you perhaps guess?

Probably not.

So I'll enlighten you:

One of those "specific types of murder" for which the death penalty still WAS very much in force in Ireland in 1980 was THE MURDER OF A POLICE OFFICER (member of the Gardai) IN THE LINE OF DUTY.


Can you perhaps guess the crime for which Pringle was convicted - and SENTENCED TO DEATH - in 1980.....?

Ah! The penny drops!!
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The last person to be executed in Ireland was 1954.

The Irish made clear their intention to abolish by law the death penalty as far back as 1964. One of the main reasons cited was Ireland was fed up of its executed political prisoners turned into hero-worshipped martyrs.

Various bills came up for discussion to abolish it by law in 1980.

William Pringle was convicted with two others of the aggravated murder to two gardai (police officers) during a botched INLA (terrorist organisation-sponsored) robbery. (=Note the 'political' element.)

The death penalty was abolished in law 1981.

On paper, as I said, in theory - note the word 'in theory' - for things such as treason, military disobedience and killing gardai were listed as exceptions.

A government declaration that commuted all death penalties for these remaining categories to 40 years without parole was made. However, there is some question over the legality of this, as Pringle and his fellow death-sentencers never had their sentences commuted by the Supreme Court.

Pringle got his conviction overturned - as is so common - on a technicality of some sort, claiming he had been rolling drunk at the time, so could not have done it (or something) in 1995.

As Ireland did not even have a trained executioner, you can see from this, that at no point was Pringle ever in any remotest danger of being executed by the State.

Compare and contract to 'Sunny Cloudy' Jacobs in the USA where, if you get a death sentence you can expect to be topped, albeit with fifteen attempts at appeal (which includes confessing your crime and showing remorse for it) and a long delay in some States.


Well spotted.
 
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Bill Williams said:
Why then are we (me included!) even engaging with Vixen when she claims that 530.2 is a lesser acquittal than 530.1, on the wrong grounds that 530.2 is reserved for "not enough evidence" acquittals only?

It is clear from reading the Marasca-Bruno report, that they say that the one irresistible, unassailable fact of this case is that no forensics of either AK or RS are found in the murder room - thus they should never have been convicted.

Note, they should never have been convicted even if it were true that they were at the cottage, because the signs that they might have been would have had to have placed them there after the murder and in another room....

..... which no one contests!
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This is not so. 'Insufficient evidence' is one of several grounds for an Art 530,2 verdict.

The words 'did not do it' are still missing .

This silence speaks volumes.

The words appear on Art 530,1.

It means Art 530,2 would be unnecessary if 'did not do it' was the case.

In fact, it would repudiate itself making it a legal nonsense.

Leaving aside the plentiful forensic evidence found (including the bra clasp with Raff strong DNA imprint there upon) according to you, no-one could ever have been convicted of murder.

Fact is, forensic evidence is a minor part of the solving of the crime, compared to witness and alibi accounts. It is often however, the 'clincher'.

For example, Piers Morgan interviewed a woman convicted of murder, Davaloo (_sp?), her husband survived the attempt at murder by her and police discovered she was having an affair with the same man as that of another woman, who was the victim of an unsolved murder.

Her DNA found at the crime scene clinched it. However, she was the victim's work colleague, so all police had to go on was jealousy over this guy, her attack on her husband (=history of violence) and that the jurors recognised her voice as being the same as the anonymous 'neighbour' calling 911 to report an attack on her 'neighbour'.

So, to solve a crime it can be any number of factors. There is no compulsory requirement for any specific DNA, bearing in mind, this, hair, clothing, personal ID and fingerprints are things no intelligent perpetrator will leave behind, if they can help it.

And Raff was a cold calculating IT boff.
 
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LondonJohn said:
It's not a question of "engagement" as such, Bill.

It's more a question of simply reiterating the absolute facts that a) a 520.2 acquittal is exactly the same type of acquittal in Italian law as a 530.1 acquittal, and b) unless the crime never even took place, or unless the person on trial can factually PROVE his/her innocence, then if that person is acquitted it will effectively have to be under 530.2. That's the case whether there is plenty of evidence of guilt but just "insufficient" to prove guilt BARD, or whether there is ZERO evidence of guilt presented to the court.

It's not a matter of debate any longer. Sad really that the facts need to be continually rammed home in the face of ignorant or wilfully-deceptive "arguments" to the contrary.
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Wrong! Art 530,1 has the proviso, 'did not commit the act', Art 530,2 does not.

Clear now?
 
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