Stacyhs
Penultimate Amazing
The Trials of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito: Part 29
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Bill Williams
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Stacyhs
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Why would anyone, outside perhaps Silenzi, be touching that bra hook? Especially males? In the past, I've asked that question but the PGP just ignore it. The choices are that it's either contamination or Meredith had more than just Silenzi touching her bra hooks.
LondonJohn
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This little vignette illustrates succinctly the current systemic problem with the Italian judiciary, IMO.
See, the criminal courts in Italy "grew up" with this inquisitorial system, in which they, as the inquisitors, were tasked with revealing "the truth" about the crime in front of them. And it seems crystal clear to me that, as often as not, the inquisitorial courts found this "truth" from a top-down, rather than bottom-up, analysis. In other words, they came to an overarching conclusion about who had committed the crime and why, and then they just made sure that all of the evidence in front of them supported that conclusion (or, at least, none of the evidence in front of them contradicted that conclusion....).
Whereas, in a (far, far less error-prone and significantly fairer) adversarial system, the courts are supposed to start from a position of innocence, and it's ONLY if the combined weight of evidence supports a belief BARD in guilt that they should ever convict. All they are required to do is decide whether the evidence presented to them proves guilt BARD of the person(s) before them on the specific charges with which they've been accused. And an important part of that process is to incorporate contradictory evidence - or evidence which in and of itself throws into doubt the reliability/credibility of other evidence - into their overall assessment of guilt. Furthermore, it's absolutely the duty of courts in the adversarial system to afford significant weight to the testimony of expert witnesses - and where expert witnesses for the prosecution and defence tend to contradict, the court must (everything else being equal) give preference to the defence opinion.
Nencini's court, however, displayed all that is wrong with an adversarial court which just abandons the rules (and the rule of law) and decides to behave like an inquisitorial court. As has been well documented and supported here and elsewhere, Nencini's court was more-or-less directed to convict before it had even sat (an egregious fault of Chieffi), and there are plenty of other data points to suggest that Nencini started from a position of belief in guilt, and then did what it could to make the evidence fit that belief.
And the bra clasp is, for me, a discgracefully clear example of the fundamental flaw (and unlawfulness) of Nencini's approach. For a start, previous courts had been shown that the DNA admixture on that (tiny) clasp hook contained male DNA from at least two different (but most probably three or even more) male contributors. Yet Nencini either overlooked or chose to ignore that evidence in his ridiculous conclusion that it "might reasonably have come from Meredith's girlfriends". But even if it HAD been mixed female DNA on that tiny hook, Nencini's conclusion is still utterly unreasonable: why on Earth would a woman like Kercher have had that tiny hook on her bra clasp handled by multiple other women?? Does Nencini submit that Kercher and some female friends were having some sort of party where they were handing round each other's bras and comparing the sturdiness of the hooks on the clasps or something....? When one understands that it was actually multiple mixed male DNA on that tiny hook, the explanation becomes even more fantastical.
Of course, what a properly-constituted court should (very obviously) have done in respect of this evidence is reason along the following sort of line: "So, there's reliable evidence of multiple mixed male DNA on that tiny metal bra clasp hook. OK, so what reasonable conclusion can we draw from that? Well, given what we know about Kercher's lifestyle, it's clearly highly unlikely that multiple males touched that tiny hook in her life up to the evening of Nov 1. And obviously women typically wash their bras fairly frequently, so we can consider that as well. Now, from what we know of the crime, and given that Guede is not among the other male contributors on the hook, it's also extremely unlikely that these multiple male DNA transfers all took place during the commission of the crime itself. So what are we left with? Obviously the only reasonable conclusion here is secondary or tertiary contamination. And if that's the case, then it clearly also cannot be held that Sollecito's DNA contribution on the hook is reliable evidence of primary transfer either. Therefore, it's impossible to assess the presence of Sollecito's DNA on that bra clasp hook as evidence that he ever even touched the hook."
Nencini's court took a *rather different* approach..........
Stacyhs
Penultimate Amazing
Agreed, LJ, which is why I could never get a PGP to give me a logical answer that did not support their 'no contamination' claim AND didn't basically say Meredith was fooling around with more than just Silenzi.
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Stacyhs
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LondonJohn
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Ha! Well I'm supposed to be going to the Red Sea to scuba dive for 10 days, leaving next Thursday, and my flights were with Thomas Cook Airlines (though nothing else was with Thomas Cook). So I'm now hoping I'll be able to cadge a lift out on one of the emergency aircraft that are being sent out to bring people home to the UK, and find a seat on an aircraft home somehow. Grrrr! If only I had a $2m war chest that I could dip into to charter my own flights there and back, like Amanda Knox and her family did.......
Stacyhs
Penultimate Amazing
Ha! Well I'm supposed to be going to the Red Sea to scuba dive for 10 days, leaving next Thursday, and my flights were with Thomas Cook Airlines (though nothing else was with Thomas Cook). So I'm now hoping I'll be able to cadge a lift out on one of the emergency aircraft that are being sent out to bring people home to the UK, and find a seat on an aircraft home somehow. Grrrr! If only I had a $2m war chest that I could dip into to charter my own flights there and back, like Amanda Knox and her family did.......
I'm flying on Condor (Cook subsidiary) to Frankfurt next week. Thank goodness they're flying as usual ...for now. Seeking bridge loan from German gov't as they were the only profitable business for TC. They have the only decently priced BC fare from the US West Coast to Europe.
TruthCalls
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Completely agree, but I always found the (ahem) logic employed by both Massei and Nencini to find Curatolo credible to be one of the most "disgracefully clear" examples of the fundamental flaws in their approach. I can't tell you how many times I've read those passages, only to have my BP rise as my head spins over the sheer ignorance and bias used in their reasoning. It is clear they started with the premise that Curatolo saw Amanda and Raffaele on the night of the murder, they then work backwards in a desperate effort to rationalize or minimize all of the various contradictions in order to make it work.
Bill Williams
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One's eye-balls roll out when reading Massei's description of what Curatolo might have meant when he used the phrase, "before midnight". There must be something lost in translation - even the PMF translation from Italian into English!!! - because while considering the apparent Italian idiom, "before midnight", Judge Massei finally settles on a time of 23:00 (11 pm) for the latest time Curatolo would have seen Amanda Knox in the Piazza Grimana.
It is no wonder that Massei's overall report if over 430+ pages, with these kinds of nonsensical gymnastics. It is also no wonder that the final Marasca-Bruno report comes in at about 55+ pages. This was tragically a very straightforward crime.
Rudy did it - unless one wants to prove that other factoids factor in....
Stacyhs
Penultimate Amazing
I completely agree. Finding Curatolo in any way credible was ridiculous. Equally ridiculous was Nara Capezalli. This woman claimed to have seen posters of Guede, Knox, and Sollecito the next morning! She says she was told about it by some boys also the next morning after hearing the scream but the crime had not even been discovered yet.
I also note that the same journalist, Antioco Fois, incredibly
'discovered' not only Curatolo and Capezalli, but also Quintavalle. All came forward with his urging.LondonJohn
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Oh absolutely. I wasn't meaning to imply that the Nencini bra clasp rationalisation was by any stretch the ONLY disgracefully clear example of shocking "reasoning" in this sorry trials process........
TomG
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This is going to sound a bit nuts and it's probably been discussed before, but according to the judicial facts of the case is Meredith even legally dead?. It was concluded in Rudy's fast-track trial that there were multiple attackers and that Rudy didn't deliver the fatal blow. We have K&S acquitted primarily since there is no evidence of them in Meredith's room. Any other suspects who came to light would have to be acquitted in the same way as K&S, the same goes for the bra-clasp. The contamination was described as "blatant" by M/B so the other male traces would have to be thrown out too. We have multiple DNA traces of Rudy and none of K&S in Meredith's room and none of anyone else. I know M/B goes on about "culpable omissions of investigative activity" but the scientific cops made two separate attempts to find other incriminating evidence of others in Meredith's room and found none. So who legally killed Meredith?
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Stacyhs
Penultimate Amazing
These are two separate points. Of course Meredith is 'legally dead' but as of now, no one is convicted of the actual act of wielding the knife that killed her.
According to judicial fact, Guede is only convicted of being an accessory even though there is no evidence of anyone else in that room but him.
LondonJohn
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Yes - it would appear that Guede's murder conviction (and it IS a murder conviction) had had a little "joint enterprise" leger-de-main special sauce applied to it by the ever-surprising Italian criminal justice system, with the (totally unnecessary and unrequired in the adversarial system it's supposed now to be*...) "judicial truth" of the crime being that Guede was a party to the murder but did not actually stab Kercher himself. All, of course, because the prosecution knew full well that the defence (obviously) and the courts would never object to a proposition in which someone other than Guede had done the stabbing, and that therefore this would give the prosecution a clear mandate and rationale for continuing its pursuit of Knox and Sollecito as "vicious knife-wielding maniacs".......
I am pretty sure I've made this point before, but (in a different context, admittedly) I happened upon a repeat of an old episode of "Air Crash Investigation" (I believe it's called "Mayday" in North America) late last night after I got home. It was the episode dealing with the Italian disaster known as the "Ustica Massacre", in which an aircraft exploded and broke apart at altitude over the sea, with dozens killed, in around the early 80s (IIRC). The judicial investigation went on - shockingly and unnecessarily - for decades.
The Italian Government became convinced that the aircraft had been shot down (accidentally) by a French Navy ship that had been in the general area. But three separate international expert investigations showed conclusively that the aircraft had instead been brought down by a bomb placed onto the aircraft before its departure (and a bomb whose precise position on board the aircraft could even be determined with high scientific accuracy). The scientific evidence of a bomb was so accurate and reliable that the international expert reports were unequivocal and certain in their conclusions.
But..... Italy "preferred" the story of a missile discharge from a foreign navy to the story in which its own airport security had been compromised to allow a bomb to be placed onto the aircraft. So, when the Supreme Court issued its final judgement on the case, in something like 2013 or 2014, it decided that the "judicial truth" was that the aircraft had been destroyed by an inadvertant French missile strike.
One (and maybe two) well-qualified commentators to the programme remarked explicitly that if you want courts to do their jobs properly in determining responsibility, Italy is perhaps the very worst country which pretends to "first world" status in which to expect that to happen. It IMMEDIATELY brought to mind the farcical Chieffi SC panel, together of course with the Massei and Nencini courts, in the Knox/Sollecito trials process.
Thank goodness - and thank justice - for the (apparently very rare) shining examples in the Italian criminal justice system such as the Marasca SC panel and the Hellmann court.
*And we can remind ourselves again here that ALL that the Italian courts were required to decide in the Guede case - nothing more and nothing less - was simply whether there was sufficient credible, reliable evidence to constitute (in the courts' opinions) proof BARD that Guede had committed each of the crimes with which he was charged. That's all. On the murder charge, for example, all the courts needed to conclude was that there was sufficient credible, reliable evidence that Guede had been wholly party to the murder** to pronounce him guilty on that charge - there was no need whatsoever to speculate upon whether or not he'd actually stabbed Kercher, when there was ZERO evidence to show whether he had or he had not done so.
**and there was: the combination of the bloody handprint on Kercher's pillowcase, the Skype call to Benedetti, the huge holes in Guede's story, his clea attempt to construct an alibi by going out dancing in discos mere hours after the murder (in giant contradiction with his claims to have been feeling frightened and panicked), and his flight to Germany)
Stacyhs
Penultimate Amazing
I worded it poorly. I meant that Guede was convicted of murder in conjunction with others but he was not identified as the one who actually dealt the fatal blow.
LondonJohn
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And of course (as I alluded to in my previous post), the very next question that any competent jurist would ask at this point is:
Upon what actual (credible, reliable) evidence are you - the various convicting courts in Guede's trial process - basing that conclusion that Guede did not actually stab Kercher?
Because firstly, you clearly cannot consider any of the testimony of Guede himself to be credible or reliable (for reasons which, uhhh, ought to be rather obvious...).
And secondly, this conclusion cannot be based upon anything said by Knox or Sollecito, since both denied being anywhere near the murder scene.
And thirdly, it can't be based upon any other witness (to the crime) testimony, since there is/was no such testimony and no such witnesses.
And fourthly, it can't be based upon any physical evidence, since it had already been established that the (ludicrously incorrect) Sollecito kitchen knife which the prosecution wanted to place in Knox's hand couldn't POSSIBLY be the knife which actually caused the most serious (and undeniably fatal) wound to Kercher's neck - Sollecito's kitchen knife's blade was too wide and long to have inflicted that wound. So even if one were to (incorrectly) accept that Knox had stabbed Kercher in the neck with Sollecito's kitchen knife, it was still known with total certaintly that (at least) one other knife was involved, and that in fact another knife made the most serious, undeniably fatal wound in Kercher's neck. And there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever indicating who might or might not have held that knife. There's certainly no way that any court could ever possibly conclude that it couldn't have been (or wasn't) Guede who held and wielded that shorter, thinner, narrower-bladed knife.
So, in short, the various courts (up to and including the SC panel) in the Guede trial process had absolutely no evidence of any sort upon which to base their "judicial fact" that Guede had not actively participated in the fatal stabbing in the neck of Meredith Kercher.
(Of course, the overwhelmingly-likely factual truth in this case is that only one knife was ever used in the restraint and stabbing of Kercher. This was the knife with the shorter, thinner, narrower blade. The knife which was wholly compatible with each and every one of the knife wounds in Kercher's neck. The knife which left its impression in Kercher's blood upon Kercher's bed sheet. The knife which - almost certainly - was owned, was brought to the cottage, was used to control and then fatally stab Kercher, and was then discarded somewhere that's never been discovered, by just one person. Rudy Guede.)
Stacyhs
Penultimate Amazing
RS's kitchen knife was compatible with the largest wound... but only compatible as would have been almost any non-serrated knife. MY kitchen knife would have been compatible. As would likely Mignini's, Comodi's, Profazio's, Sophie's, etc.
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