Cont: The Trials of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito: Part 27

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Welshman said:
I feel there is major factor behind miscarriages of justice which explains what happened to Amanda and Raffaele. I read an article by Steve Moore which talked about a phenomena called imprinting which is when people become fixated on the first suspects in a crime. It is possible that it is human nature for people to become fixated on the first suspects and it is impossible to remove this fixation. Lets say the police investigate a murder and they have a first suspect. Evidence comes along the first suspect didn’t commit the murder and someone else committed the murder. Due to imprinting the police are totally fixated on the first suspect and can’t accept he is innocent and are determined to convict the first suspect. This may partly explain why innocent people are convicted and police/prosecutors railroad suspects. Imprinting means relatives of victims become fixated on the first suspects and will never accept they are innocent regardless of what the evidence says. The public become fixated on first suspects and will always believe a suspect is guilty again regardless of evidence.

I feel Imprinting happened with Amdanda and Raffaele. Amanda and Raffaele were the police’s first suspects and due to imprinting they were always going to believe Amanda and Raffaele were guilty even when the evidence showed Guede was the killer. The police/prosecution were determined to obtain a conviction which explains why Amanda and Raffaele were so viciously railroaded. As the first suspects the Kerchers would always believe Amanda and Raffaele were guilty due to imprinting. Due to imprinting many in the public would always believe Amanda and Raffaele were guilty regardless of the evidence. The result of this is are the TJMK/PMF hate sites.
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Imprinting? Perhaps you could illustrate this by having newly hatched chicks swimming after a dog.
 
LondonJohn said:
I believe that the processes and psychology driving the actions of Mignini and the State Police during November/December 2007 can all be reasonably explained with reference to the following propositions, with my suggested inferences alongside each one:

1) Mignini and the police were in the truly international spotlight from November 2nd onwards, with the whole of Perugia in uproar, the prospect of hoards of students deserting the city in panic, and the world's media rolling into town; IMO this made Mignini and the police extremely eager to be seen to be competent "super sleuths", solving the crime in quick time and basking in the glory of their achievements in doing so.

2) Mignini (and a small subsection of the police in this case) had previously found themselves in the national (and lower-key international) spotlight in respect of the Monster of Florence case - and Mignini in particular had suffered professional (and some personal) humiliation over his handling of that case; IMO this made Mignini determined to show everyone that his handling of the Kercher case.

3) The Perugia prosecutors and police had dismally failed to solve what had, in fact, almost certainly been a straightforward murder case almost exactly a year previously, when an Italian female student had been killed: the PM and police abjectly failed to investigate the woman's boyfriend properly or collect evidence in a timely/professional fashion, when he almost certainly was the culprit; IMO this also fed into the desire/need to solve the Kercher murder quickly, professionally and brilliantly.

4) I think Mignini and Giobbi in particular thought of themselves as highly intuitive sleuths, who could figure out crimes by connecting abstract pieces of "evidence" and the behaviours of potential suspects; IMO this was a crucially important factor in the way that they decided so early on (in the total absence of any proper evidence, of course) that Knox in particular was heavily involved in the murder.

5) I believe that Mignini and the police had a well-practised system for "solving" crimes, which they employed in the Kercher case: they intuitively figured out who the culprits were, they brought the culprits in - without formally declaring them a suspect - and extracted a confession from them*, they then tried to get a trial-admissible confession by engineering a "spontaneous declaration" to the PM, and they then went searching for physical evidence to bolster their case; I'm sure that they'd secured many legitimate convictions using this method, and in Italy's unfit-for-purpose justice system where courts still acted in a quasi-inquisitorial manner where prosecutors were impartial "truth seekers" and it was effectively the defence's job to disprove the prosecution case, this would have been a highly effective method.


So what do I think most probably happened in this case? Well, I genuinely believe that Mignini and Giobbi sincerely thought they'd correctly identified Knox as a prime culprit in the Kercher murder. I think they thought Knox had met up with another man (at what precise point they concluded that this other man was Lumumba is still unclear, but the evidence shows it was at least most definitely before Knox made her first "confession/accusation") and had taken him to the cottage to assault and kill Kercher. I think that prior to 5th November, they were unclear as to Sollecito's role: he was either innocent of participation in the murder but lying about Knox's whereabouts to protect her, or he was a co-perpetrator and was lying to protect both himself and Knox.

I think that the PM and police carefully orchestrated a plan for the evening of 5th/6th November. The original plan was a multi-staged approach. They knew (from surveillance and other means) that Knox was staying in Sollecito's apartment. Firstly they would bring Sollecito in on his own and extract from him, at the very least, a confession that he'd been lying about Knox being with him in his apartment throughout all the evening/night of the murder.

This would obviously give the police/PM ample probable cause to send the cavalcade into town (probably having tipped off the media before hand so they'd be there to witness everything) to arrest Knox and take her back to the police HQ. And once confronted with Sollecito's confession and the force of authority of the police interrogators, Knox herself would "buckle" in turn and confess to her participation in the murder, as well as naming the "third man". The police would then go and pick Lumumba up (they knew he lived a long way from Knox and it was the middle of the night, so there'd be almost no chance that he'd have even been aware of Knox's arrest).

And having extracted these confessions (coupled with "spontaneous declarations" which they hoped to be able to use in court), the PM and police would simply dot the i's and cross the t's by collecting a bunch of evidence to bolster their case in court. After all, they'd correctly solved the crime, so almost by definition there would be supporting physical evidence and witness evidence pointing towards the culprits. In their minds, the confessions (or, more accurately, "confessions") simply served to prove their Holmes-esque hunches. They were geniuses. They'd solved the crime and put the culprits behind bars pending further investigation and the inevitable charges, and all within just over five days of the murder itself. The triumphalist press conference on the morning of 6th November is an important indicator of the mindset and motivation of the PM and senior police in this case. As, of course, were the ill-judged words to a group of journalists spoken by Perugia police chief De Felice (clearly pumped up with hubris and excitement), who served to provide extremely strong evidence that the PM/police had indeed already decided that at least Knox was involved in the murder (and that Sollecito was at least guilty of a serious criminal offence) BEFORE they were brought in for interrogation the previous night: he indicated explicitly that the authorities "knew" that Knox/Sollecito were lying, but that the interrogators successfully made them "buckle" and tell them "the truth".....

And we know for sure (from various testimony and evidence) that the PM and police employed highly suspect-centric methods in the ways in which they collected/analysed physical evidence and witness statements. Everything which supported their a priori conclusion was accepted near-automatically as reliable and credible, and anything contradicting their case was discarded. So when they seized Sollecito's kitchen knife, then instructed Stefanoni to find incriminating evidence on it, and then Stefanoni (owing to contamination and/or malpractice at some point in the chain of evidence and her own improper lab methods/protocols) "found" Kercher's DNA on the knife, the PM and police concluded the Sollecito must have played a more active part in the murder. This shift in view was further bolstered by evidence in respect of Sollecito's mobile phone: the police misinterpreted (possibly wilfully) the signal dropout of Sollecito's phone that evening to infer that Sollecito had actively turned off his mobile at around the time of the murder - and why would Sollecito have done that unless he too was an active participant....?

So Mignini and the police thought this one was totally in the bag, that corroborating evidence would clearly be forthcoming, that the convictions in court would be a slam-dunk, and that their (Mignini and the senior police) reputations would be gilded and elevated by their brilliance in the way they'd solved this case.

Until

Two things happened: it turned out that Lumumba had a very strong alibi (despite the police's active attempts to frustrate the alibi - and indeed to find a "witness" to state that Lumumba had left his bar at around the time of the murder (when in fact he'd stayed in his bar all that evening), and one of Guede's friends came to them to tell them that Guede had effectively made a form of confession to being at the murder scene (and that Guede had mysteriously fled to Germany).

Now, by this time, I believe that Mignini and the police had huge amounts of professional and personal pride invested in their version of events. To have radically changed their position at that point would IMO have seemed like professional suicide to them. And (improper) physical evidence was starting to come in which apparently cemented the Knox/Sollecito link. What to do? Well, the answer was obvious: the PM and police could effectively maintain their version of events (and thus safeguard their reputations of super-sleuthing in this case) by simply swapping out Lumumba and swapping in Guede - and (darkly brilliantly) blaming the "evil and manipulative" Knox for the initial focus on Lumumba.

All of this only scratches the surface IMO, and it's before we even address the improper and unlawful ways in which the convicting lower courts heard and assessed the evidence and reached their verdicts (mistakes which, fortunately for justice, the Supreme Court was ultimately able to identify and correct). But I've already written a gargantuan post and it's getting late!


* And remember (as I've linked to several times in these threads) the European Criminal Bar Association long ago identified this institutionalised malpractice in Italy of the police/PM deliberately failing to declare as a suspect people whom they actually did view as a suspect, meaning that they could question those people without any access to a lawyer or understanding of their rights, in order to obtain confessions.
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Would, could, should... Unfortunately for you, a case is decided by the court, not the prosecutor or the police.
 
Stacyhs said:
Excellent theory, LJ.

" So when they seized Sollecito's kitchen knife, then instructed Stefanoni to find incriminating evidence on it, and then Stefanoni (owing to contamination and/or malpractice at some point in the chain of evidence and her own improper lab methods/protocols) "found" Kercher's DNA on the knife,"

It's always amazed me that Vixen, Quennell, and other PGP claim over and over again that world respected experts like Gill, Hampikian, and Douglas, who had no personal or professional stake in the case, were "bent" and "shills" for Knox. On the other hand, those (of much less renown) like Stefanoni (who worked for the cops) and the cops who fried the 3 computers were totally above board, competent, and unerringly honorable.
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Stefanoni and the IT forensics all took the stand during the trial and were cross examined by all parties.

Gill, Hampikian and Douglas are paid shills with an agenda.
 
Vixen said:
Stefanoni and the IT forensics all took the stand during the trial and were cross examined by all parties.

Gill, Hampikian and Douglas are paid shills with an agenda.
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As, I suppose, are Conti and Vecchiotti and the Supreme Court panel who excoriated the forensic analysis and, in fact, the entire investigation into this crime.

Cloud-cuckoo-land thinking
 
Vixen said:
C&V were severely criticised by the Supreme Court.
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Sigh.

Not true. The 2015 acquitting court accepted C/V. The 2013 Chieffi panel criticized Judge Hellman!

But welcome back. Do you have anything to say about Quennell being wrong about Mignini "winning" his defamation suit against Gumbel/Sollecito? Remember Quennell said G/S would apologize after "losing", when they in fact won?

Do you approve of Quennell harrassing Roanoke college?
 
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Vixen said:
Stefanoni and the IT forensics all took the stand during the trial and were cross examined by all parties.

Gill, Hampikian and Douglas are paid shills with an agenda.
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Yes, Stefanoni and the IT guys were cross-examined. And how embarrassing and revealing it was when Stefanoni was cross examined by the defense. First they revealed her...shall we say, "lack of forthrightness"...when they produced the negative TMB tests she had (ahem) forgotten to mention? Then her claim that she changed her latex gloves between handling evidence was proven untrue when the police video showed she did not. Conti and Vecchiotti completely discounted her findings on the two crucial pieces of evidence as unreliable. The IT forensics? You mean the "experts" who failed to find the 9:26 Naruto cartoon and who fried 3 hard drives destroying possible evidence? Oh..right...you think Sollecito fried them himself although no testimony by the police ever claimed any such nonsense.

And would you care to produce your evidence that Gill, Hampikian, or Douglas were paid anything whatsoever for their professional opinions on this case, much less by anyone associated with Knox or Sollecito? Nah, I don't think you do.
 
Bill Williams said:
Sigh.

Not true. The 2015 acquitting court accepted C/V. The 2013 Chieffi panel criticized Judge Hellman!

But welcome back. Do you have anything to say about Quennell being wrong about Mignini "winning" his defamation suit against Gumbel/Sollecito? Remember Quennell said G/S would apologize after "losing", when they in fact won?

Do you approve of Quennell harrassing Roanoke college?
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Why, thank you. I am sure Pete has reliable contacts and that his report is correct.

Is he 'harrassing Roanoke college'? It depends on whether you believe it morally right that a convicted criminal should be paid for claiming they are innocent and/or 'exonerated' when they most emphatically are neither.

The legal position is that Knox correctly spent three years plus one year on remand in prison and she has no hope of compensation for 'wrongful imprisonment' (cf. Sollecito in Florence Feb 2017).

Son of Sam laws prohibit convicts from financial gain as a result of their crime/s.

Sure, it might be 'novelty value' for Ted Bundy or Jody Arias to turn up at a law school to give a talk for money, but can you blame good decent people for protesting about it?
 
Stacyhs said:
Yes, Stefanoni and the IT guys were cross-examined. And how embarrassing and revealing it was when Stefanoni was cross examined by the defense. First they revealed her...shall we say, "lack of forthrightness"...when they produced the negative TMB tests she had (ahem) forgotten to mention? Then her claim that she changed her latex gloves between handling evidence was proven untrue when the police video showed she did not. Conti and Vecchiotti completely discounted her findings on the two crucial pieces of evidence as unreliable. The IT forensics? You mean the "experts" who failed to find the 9:26 Naruto cartoon and who fried 3 hard drives destroying possible evidence? Oh..right...you think Sollecito fried them himself although no testimony by the police ever claimed any such nonsense.

And would you care to produce your evidence that Gill, Hampikian, or Douglas were paid anything whatsoever for their professional opinions on this case, much less by anyone associated with Knox or Sollecito? Nah, I don't think you do.
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Micheli laughed at the defence's weak argument that the forensic teams didn't change their gloves every five seconds.

Pathetic clutching at straws.
 
Vixen said:
Why, thank you. I am sure Pete has reliable contacts and that his report is correct.

Is he 'harrassing Roanoke college'? It depends on whether you believe it morally right that a convicted criminal should be paid for claiming they are innocent and/or 'exonerated' when they most emphatically are neither.

The legal position is that Knox correctly spent three years plus one year on remand in prison and she has no hope of compensation for 'wrongful imprisonment' (cf. Sollecito in Florence Feb 2017).

Son of Sam laws prohibit convicts from financial gain as a result of their crime/s.

Sure, it might be 'novelty value' for Ted Bundy or Jody Arias to turn up at a law school to give a talk for money, but can you blame good decent people for protesting about it?
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Nice pivot.
 
Vixen said:
Micheli laughed at the defence's weak argument that the forensic teams didn't change their gloves every five seconds.

Pathetic clutching at straws.
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The courtroom laughed at Stefanoni when cross-examined, and she could not say if she'd actually touched the evidence with obviously dirty gloves, in the film her own department took of the collection.



 
Vixen said:
Guilty as charged, and upheld by the Appeal Court.

Enter the doddering old fools Marasca-Bruno...
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Such selective memory. Let me remind you:
guilty as charged, and not upheld by the Hellmann Appeal Court.
Nencini Appeal Court? Thrown out by the Supreme Court with no remand to another appeal court. Done and done.

Doddering old fools? Are you still claiming Marasca was an octogenarian? Marasca was 71 when he heard the case. Bruno, born 12 March 1952, turned 63 the same month he acquitted Knox and Sollecito. Hmmmm...are you saying a 63 year old is a "doddering old fool"? If so, I can think of someone who should considering getting a walker.
 
Vixen said:
Why, thank you. I am sure Pete has reliable contacts and that his report is correct.
Is he 'harrassing Roanoke college'? It depends on whether you believe it morally right that a convicted criminal should be paid for claiming they are innocent and/or 'exonerated' when they most emphatically are neither.

The legal position is that Knox correctly spent three years plus one year on remand in prison and she has no hope of compensation for 'wrongful imprisonment' (cf. Sollecito in Florence Feb 2017).

Son of Sam laws prohibit convicts from financial gain as a result of their crime/s.

Sure, it might be 'novelty value' for Ted Bundy or Jody Arias to turn up at a law school to give a talk for money, but can you blame good decent people for protesting about it?
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LOL. Talk about "clutching at straws"! How long has it been since Slick Pete claimed RS and AG would be issuing apologies to Mignini? Oh, yes...that claim was made back in October and this is January. A full three months. So much for his "reliable contacts".

What IS wrong is for a bunch of self-righteous, obsessed fanatics to wage a campaign of harassment against Knox by trying to get colleges to cancel her speaking there when the colleges themselves have invited her knowing full well the circumstances. You know...LAW SCHOOLS.

The Son of Sam law has no bearing on this case as the US does not recognize her conviction in Italy for calunnia. We've been over that many, many times. Or have you, Petey, Naseer, or any of the rest of the TJMK gang been able to produce her criminal record in the US? Nah...didn't think so.
The TJMK nutters really do need to move on. You lost. Go find someone else to harass. Maybe a ballerina or two?
 
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A little bit more info on the "doddering old fool" Bruno. Seems the Italian judiciary feels a bit differently:

April 20th 2016 CITTA , Reggio Calabria

By resolution passed unanimously yesterday, the Superior Council of Magistracy appointed the judge of Reggio Calabria Paolo Bruno as President of the Chamber of Cassation.
This is a prestigious executive position, which marks an important stage in a bright and rewarding career."
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http://www.strill.it/citta/2016/04/...sidente-di-sezione-della-corte-di-cassazione/

You can read about his respected and accomplished career in the link above.
Somehow, they failed to mention he was a "doddering old fool" and was paid off by the massive Knox PR machine or the US government.
 
Stacyhs said:
LOL. Talk about "clutching at straws"! How long has it been since Slick Pete claimed RS and AG would be issuing apologies to Mignini? Oh, yes...that claim was made back in October and this is January. A full three months. So much for his "reliable contacts".

What IS wrong is for a bunch of self-righteous, obsessed fanatics to wage a campaign of harassment against Knox by trying to get colleges to cancel her speaking there when the colleges themselves have invited her knowing full well the circumstances. You know...LAW SCHOOLS.
The Son of Sam law has no bearing on this case as the US does not recognize her conviction in Italy for calunnia. We've been over that many, many times. Or have you, Petey, Naseer, or any of the rest of the TJMK gang been able to produce her criminal record in the US? Nah...didn't think so.
The TJMK nutters really do need to move on. You lost. Go find someone else to harass. Maybe a ballerina or two?
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You forgot the basic assumption these nutters make. Knox is a witch.

No mention at all from them of Rudy Guede, the man who left his DNA inside the victim. It's all about harassing people for inviting Knox to speak about the two sorts of harassments she's received. Judicial harassment for a crime she did not commit, and internet harassment which continues to this day. Vixen, Peter Quennell et al. make the case for Knox before she even gets there.
 
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Bill Williams said:
You forgot the basic assumption these nutters make. Knox is a witch.

No mention at all from them of Rudy Guede, the man who left his DNA inside the victim. It's all about harassing people for inviting Knox to speak about the two sorts of harassments she's received. Judicial harassment for a crime she did not commit, and internet harassment which continues to this day. Vixen, Peer Quennell et al. make the case for Knox before she even gets there.
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So True. Where is there campaign of outrage against Guede for getting out of prison to work as an intern at the Criminal Studies Center? Where are their telephone calls and emails decrying Guede freely eating lunch with friends outside prison? Nowhere to be found. Why? Because they never gave a damn about him. It's always been all about Knox for them. They are just obsessed with her and they can't see it. Instead, they hide behind their self-righteous claims of being "good, decent people" and that it's "all for Meredith". Yeah, sure it is.
 
Vixen said:
Guilty as charged, and upheld by the Appeal Court.

Enter the doddering old fools Marasca-Bruno...[/QUOTE]

What makes your "doddering old fools" quip even more ludicrous is that your beloved Mignini is two years older than Bruno, and only 6 years younger than Marasca.
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Stacyhs said:
So True. Where is there campaign of outrage against Guede for getting out of prison to work as an intern at the Criminal Studies Center? Where are their telephone calls and emails decrying Guede freely eating lunch with friends outside prison? Nowhere to be found. Why? Because they never gave a damn about him. It's always been all about Knox for them. They are just obsessed with her and they can't see it. Instead, they hide behind their self-righteous claims of being "good, decent people" and that it's "all for Meredith". Yeah, sure it is.
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Honestly, people like Quennell worry me. They're the type of people where society often finds itself asking why we didn't see the signs 'before', except in this case we've been seeing the signs for a long time. It's one thing to be obsessive as it pertains to an active investigation and trying to influence its outcome, but quite another to continue on as these people have after the case is definitively closed. What does Quennell possibly hope to accomplish? Amanda has been definitively acquitted and can never again stand trial for the crime. These groups - law schools, innocence projects, etc. - know the story and they want Amanda to come speak, so they can't hope to expect to alter the demand for her. There is no logical, reasonable objective I can think of. But then, that's the problem - obsession isn't reasonable, it's not logical... it's an illness and it almost never leads to good things. I don't mean to sound like the prophet of doom but I really do hope law enforcement at some level have these people on their radar.
 
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