The Trials of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito: Part 31

[Stacyhs]

Criminal Law does its 'peer review' in the court room. The merits hearing is all.

Normally, I say anyone who said this had to be joking. But.....

I guess the highlighted means there's no need for appellate courts then?

 

[Vixen]

I'm sorry, but did I mention "rape" somewhere? I do believe I always refer to his action against Meredith as a sexual assault. You're free to look up that definition if you wish.

Yes, good question... who knows. Can you prove that wasn't new sheets that Meredith brought along, or can you prove they weren't perfectly clean before the attack? You can't. You simply make something up in a desperate effort to excuse an inexcusable error by the SP.

Yes, just one more prime example of the illogical reasoning exhibited by the Nencini court. If DNA was useless if undated, then why test for DNA at all... you can't ever date when it was deposited.

I do not know why that pillow was not tested. All I can suggest is that at the preliminary stages of the trial, neither the prosecution nor the defence listed it as an issue for the trial. Once the trial is well under way, and all of the testing done and expert witnesses submitting their reports, it becomes a matter of making a special application to the court. The judge at that stage may well ask, what will this achieve (given Guede had already been found guilty of sexual assault). This would not preclude anybody else from further sexual abuse. The courts considered the late application and didn't see that it would achieve anything further.

 

[Bill Williams]

The courts considered the late application and didn't see that it would achieve anything further.

And thus, 15 years later, one's own personal opinion on the issue becomes a litmus test on their own analytical abilities.

You review the judicial history of the way that presumed semen stain was ignored by 'the courts', and:

Your mouth gapes open at the judicial stupidity, or....

You make silly arguments defending the stupidity.

The judicial history of that one item shows how 'the courts' bent over backwards to save people like Mignini from embarrassment, at the expense of justice for the victim, and judicial persecution of two innocents.

 

[TruthCalls]

I do not know why that pillow was not tested. All I can suggest is that at the preliminary stages of the trial, neither the prosecution nor the defence listed it as an issue for the trial. Once the trial is well under way, and all of the testing done and expert witnesses submitting their reports, it becomes a matter of making a special application to the court. The judge at that stage may well ask, what will this achieve (given Guede had already been found guilty of sexual assault). This would not preclude anybody else from further sexual abuse. The courts considered the late application and didn't see that it would achieve anything further.

And as I and many others have noted, a suspected semen stain found at the scene of a sexual assault should AUTOMATICALLY be tested, no questions asked. It should not come down to someone asking for it, or for a court to question what the benefit would be. It underscores the incompetence of the investigation that it was never tested (or was, and the results buried). Further, it underscores the incompetence of both Massei and Nencini to argue DNA can't be dated and to ask how it would help. Clearly if it was Guede's it would prove things went well beyond petting, and if it was Raffaele's, it would have been a box worth of nails in his coffin.

I'm beginning to feel like Bill or Stacy, but... for the 5th time (or is that 6?...) can you offer up a rational explanation for why Amanda and Raffaele would stage a sexual assault, as you claim they did, when a sexual assault had already taken place?

 

[TruthCalls]

Have you considered writing fiction? Oh, you have!



No, he did not 'admonish them for interrupting his meal'; he was irritated at being called in at 10:00 at night to reiterate, yet again, what he'd already told them more than once.



Hmmmmm...yet you think this young man who is "among the brightest" and whowasn't "a mouth-breathing drooling wilting flower" was so stupid and weak that he agreed to engage in a sexual assault and murder of a girl he barely knew at the behest of a girl he'd known for a week! So which is it, Vixen? As previously said, "pick a lane". If this thread were a car with 'lane alert' , it would be going off continuously.

Let's not forget, this "among the brightest" young man also, according to Vixen, collaborated on the murder with someone he had never even met. You'd have to be an idiot to do that.

 

[Bill Williams]

Further, it underscores the incompetence of both Massei and Nencini to argue DNA can't be dated and to ask how it would help.

Add this to the way they treated Knox's DNA found in the very bathroom she had used for weeks. When the victim's blood was deposited atop that DNA, then all of a sudden the assumption was that the DNA must have been date-able to the night of the murder.

Add all that to the order Mignini himself gave that the victim's body temperature not be taken in situ... thus ruining a vital test to establish time-of-death.... a time which became vital at trial....

Why the need to actively keep key evidence from the courts? And why the courts inability to sanction investigators, prosecutors and others - indeed Massei and Nencini made excuses for them!

One being saying that the DNA of the semen stain could not be dated, but claimed Knox's in her own bathroom could.

 

[Vixen]

And this is precisely the sort of bollocks put forth by people who clearly have no understanding whatsoever about coerced statements (especially when those coerced statements are extracted through the use of authority and threats).

Sollecito, in his 5th November interrogation, was told by the police that they (the police) were certain Knox was at the cottage at the time of the murder. And then they told Sollecito that he'd better stop lying (Sollecito had consistently, up to that point, told the police that he and Knox had been together in his apartment all evening/night of 1st/2nd November) or else he would find himself in very serious legal trouble. We know for sure that the police told Sollecito to stop "covering" for Knox - the police were by that point convinced that a) Knox was at the cottage at the time of the murder, and therefore b) Sollecito must have been lying to protect Knox when he'd stated that he and Knox had been alone together in his apartment throughout the critical evening/night.

There's plenty of information - in the form of academic research and investigate journalism - about coerced false confessions/statements, most of which involve police interrogations. There's also video evidence of police unlawfully coercing a healthy young adult man into admitting to a murder - when (luckily for him) unimpeachable documentary evidence (in the form of airline tickets) proved that he was thousands of miles away from the murder scene at the time of the crime.

I suggest you might benefit from doing some decent research into coerced false confessions/statements. It sounds like you might be both surprised and educated by what you'll find.

You have been watching too much crime drama.

1st COP: Hey, Luigi, we have a right one here!

2nd COP: What Guiseppe, another African migrant?

1st COP: Nah!

2nd COP: Romani?

1st COP: Nope!

2nd COP: I know, one of them thar 'drifters'...

1st COP: Nah, we got ourselves one of us!

2nd COP: Whoa.

1st COP: Not only that, its one of those bleeding wealthy middle classes -

2nd COP: Now you're talking.

1st COP: 'E's got a maid. Dad's a urologist?

2nd COP: A urologist! Bloody hell, you hit the jackpot there, Guiseppe! Bloody urologists!

1st COP: So, yeah, let's get out the nutcrackers and cattle prods.

2nd COP: I'll go get that ultra-bright spotlight.

1st COP: "Ve have ze Vays of making you talk!"

We-eeeell! Really! Forced confession. False memory. Ha-ha.

 

[Vixen]

There's plenty of material available online about appellate courts, and their role/remit/function/responsibility/powers. If you're interested in looking into this area properly, that is....

The appellate court in Italy acts as a merits court when so directed by a Supreme Court. Otherwise, Appeal Courts are on points of law only.

 

[Vixen]

What Nencini thought is utterly irrelevant. His findings and verdict were totally expunged by the Supreme Court verdict. Didn't you know that?






And as you have been told, multiple times now, the Supreme Court verdict not only struck out every single decision/determination/finding of fact of the lower courts.... it also explicitly admonished the lower courts for the way they "properly dealt with" the forensic evidence presented by the prosecution.






Once again: everything Nencini's court decided is now utterly null and void. Judicially, it no longer exists. So maybe you should stop using the Nencini (and Massei) MR to support your argument. Those lower courts were (correctly) found by the SC to have been grossly errant in their determinations wrt the forensic evidence in this case.






And once again: please stop using the discredited, worthless and judicially non-existent verdicts of the lower courts to support your arguments.

Incorrect. Nencini is not expunged. It is the court together with Chieffi and Massei on which Maresca-Bruno hangs its verdict.

 

[Vixen]

Well, CONGRATULATIONS , Vixen! You've FINALLY quoted and cited supporting evidence of a claim! Is this progress? However, since you have shown that you actually do understand how this is done, it just further demonstrates that you failure to provide evidence of innumerable other claims, despite numerous requests to do so, is because you can't do so.

But, let me ask you this: Just how does this support Knox's guilt?



What accusations of wrongdoing did I make, Vixen?



YOU made a claim that "How it works, is the stain is test and THEN the profile is matched to whatever suspect.[/HILITE] Not' Oh I say, Carruthers can you keep testing everything until you find something on this guy I want to nail?'"

I gave two examples where they were doing exactly that. Both of which you ignored. Or do you really want to claim that the SP didn't go back to get the bra clasp 6 weeks later only AFTER Sollecito's shoe prints were ruled out and sample 36i was ordered tested AFTER the alleged Kercher DNA on the knife was ruled not credible?

Been there. Done that.

 

[Vixen]

First, it's not my story, it was Amanda's and Raffaele's account of the evening.

Second, you made the claim "Knox, in her first statement to the police stated that she had met Patrik in he baseball court and they had returned to the cottage together" when clearly that was not the first thing she told the police. Not even close. But I'm sure you have your reasons for lying about that.

Third, phone logs did NOT place her near the basketball court. If you think otherwise then prove it. Just remember, we all have her phone log so we know what towers were handling her calls, and besides, the last entry in the log for that night was at 20:35:48 and we know Popovic sees her at Raffaele's just five minutes later, which makes your claim impossible.

Finally, I've asked you at least three times in the past 1.5 days WHY would Amanda and Raffaele stage a sexual assault if they already knew one had happened. You keep claiming the scene was staged, so you should have an answer for this question.

If you read Micheli, who heard Guede's case, you would know that the facts found that support the verdict is that the three of them participated together. There was no prior sexual assault or consensual activity between Guede and the victim. Whilst Guede was restraining the victim, Knox and Sollecito were bullying Kercher with their knives and he took the opportunity to sexually assault her.

According to Micheli, Massei, Nencini and Marasca, Knox & Sollecito returned later to stage a scene of burglary (as Knox bragged she had once done to bully a classmate). To throw police off the scent, they tried to make it look as though the motive was rape and burglary (done by an outsider rather than a resident, i.e, herself).

Read the court documents, Therein lies all of the evidence.

 

[Vixen]

So, then you're now claiming that women have Y-haplotypes, like Nencini wrote in his motivations report.

That was an obvious typo and which was not picked up by the proof readers.

 

[Vixen]

And thus, 15 years later, one's own personal opinion on the issue becomes a litmus test on their own analytical abilities.

You review the judicial history of the way that presumed semen stain was ignored by 'the courts', and:

Your mouth gapes open at the judicial stupidity, or....

You make silly arguments defending the stupidity.

The judicial history of that one item shows how 'the courts' bent over backwards to save people like Mignini from embarrassment, at the expense of justice for the victim, and judicial persecution of two innocents.

You don't know it was semen. Could have been anything, saliva, coffee, tea, you name it.

 

[Vixen]

Let's not forget, this "among the brightest" young man also, according to Vixen, collaborated on the murder with someone he had never even met. You'd have to be an idiot to do that.

He did write on FaceBook he was desperate for 'extreme experiences' and appeared wearing a shroud and wielding a butchers knife.

 

[Bill Williams]

That was an obvious typo and which was not picked up by the proof readers.

That is a galactically idiotic thing to post.

The other typo was Nencini's guilty declaration.

 

[Bill Williams]

Incorrect. Nencini is not expunged. It is the court together with Chieffi and Massei on which Maresca-Bruno hangs its verdict.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

 

[Bill Williams]

If you read Micheli, who heard Guede's case, you would know that the facts found that support the verdict is that the three of them participated together. There was no prior sexual assault or consensual activity between Guede and the victim. Whilst Guede was restraining the victim, Knox and Sollecito were bullying Kercher with their knives and he took the opportunity to sexually assault her.

'Knives'? As in plural!?

For one who keeps saying, 'read the court documents', please point to any reference to 'knives'. Of course you won't, because that was not the purpose of your claim. It was to flood this thread with noise.

 

[Bill Williams]

You don't know it was semen. Could have been anything, saliva, coffee, tea, you name it.

Oy vey.

You're right, no one knows what it was. BECAUSE A SPERMAZOIC-LOOKING SAMPLE UNDER THE HIPS OF A SEXUAL ASSUALT VICTIM WAS NOT TESTED ON THE VERY FIRST DAY.

Masking the identity of that sample was part and parcel of how Mignini and the investigators booted the investigation right from the get-go.

And you claim confidence in their work!? That alone marks how your posts should be regarded.

Or as the final Supreme Court put it, when trying to explain why the lower courts were all over the map in deciding things, that it had to do with the very first investigation in the first hours and days:

An objectively wavering process, whose oscillations, however, are also the result
of clamorous failures, or investigative “amnesia” and of culpable omissions of
investigative activity.

 

[Bill Williams]

Hey Vixen....

Please don't forget to provide a citation that supports the view that police forensic experts are exempt from peer review.

It seems that the appointment of Conti & Vecchiotti by the Hellmann court puts the kibosh on that. Indeed, in early 2011 no one from the guilter websites opposed their appointment, not at all - and certainly not on procedural grounds. The guilt sites simply assumed that Conti & Vecchiotti would sustain Stefanoni.

As usual - the guilters only opposed the appointment on the basis of what they reported!

Indeed, not even the 2013 Chieffi panel said there was anything wrong with independent, outside 'peer review'. What Chieffi objected to was Hellmann's judicial role, for abdicating the decision about further testing on the knife to Conti & Vecchiotti.

Not the right for outside people to do their own peer review of Stefanoni.

As others have asked, why is it that outside of the court - when reading the same court documents that you appeal to - that they universally pan Stefanoni's work, and universally agree with Peter Gill?

Why is that, Vixen?

The following is what peer review looks like. Every other forensic DNA expert is free to follow Gill's reasonings and expose weaknesses. That they don't means something.

https://www.fsigenetics.com/article/S1872-4973(16)30033-3/fulltext

 

[TruthCalls]

If you read Micheli, who heard Guede's case, you would know that the facts found that support the verdict is that the three of them participated together. There was no prior sexual assault or consensual activity between Guede and the victim. Whilst Guede was restraining the victim, Knox and Sollecito were bullying Kercher with their knives and he took the opportunity to sexually assault her.

According to Micheli, Massei, Nencini and Marasca, Knox & Sollecito returned later to stage a scene of burglary (as Knox bragged she had once done to bully a classmate). To throw police off the scent, they tried to make it look as though the motive was rape and burglary (done by an outsider rather than a resident, i.e, herself).

Read the court documents, Therein lies all of the evidence.

o Was it within the Micheli court's mandate to rule on the guilt or innocence of Amanda and Raffaele? -NO
o Were Amanda and Raffaele represented at Guede's trial? -NO
o Did both the prosecution and the defense in Guede's trial have a vested interest in finding multiple people involved? -YES

Guess what, I don't give a rats butt what Micheli thought wrt Amanda and Raffaele. There was no evidence to support such a theory. It was nothing more than a baseless, speculative narrative. It allowed Guede the opportunity to minimize his culpability, while it gave Mignini a platform on which to prosecute Amanda and Raffaele.

And once again I see you're moving the goal posts. So now it wasn't returning to stage the sexual assault, it was to stage a break-in. But that's not what you have continually claimed. In fact, you claim they moved and undressed the body. Are you now saying they didn't stage anything in Meredith's bedroom, that they only returned to stage a break-in?

And NO, Marasca did NOT rule they returned to stage a burglary. In fact, Marasca acquitted them of that charge (E). Oops.

And NO, Amanda never "bragged" of the prank she, in conjunction with other roommates, pulled off at UW, nor did she ever indicate it was to "bully" a classmate. Oops.