"...the approach of the interrogators from the start if that interrogation was to get him to disavow his previous statements that Knox had been with him at the time of Kercher's death. That interrogation had some coercive elements as well. Again this shows that Knox was a suspect before the interrogation..."
I agree 100% with this statement.
"is not inconsistent with the hypothesis that the police and prosecutor were seeking to frame Knox and perhaps Sollecito."
True...it's no inconsistent with the hypothesis but I still see no evidence that they were trying to frame them. I see no motive for that. It was early days and they were still waiting for the forensics to come back. As I've said many times before, they have admitted they already suspected them as early as Nov. 1 and Nov. 2.
"The motivation of the authorities to jointly accuse Sollecito would be that as a co-accused, his alibi for her presence in his apartment at the relevant time would be devalued"
Obviously. In order to remove her alibi, they had to make Sollecito a co-conspirator.
"Also, whether his statement was true or not, Giobbi claimed in his testimony during the Masse court trial that he had planned having Knox and Sollecito come to the police station for special questioning."
I think that's true and is just more proof that the two were already suspects in reality, if not technically. I think they deliberately wanted Sollecito alone so they could get him to turn on Knox more easily.
Stacyhs, I am confused by these
statements. Is there a difference in your definition of "frame" and mine? Perhaps the meaning of "frame" needs some discussion.
First, "frame" is a colloquial legal term, and not a term specifically used in a formal criminal code of laws. Framing someone would generally include one or more of the following, which are generally criminal acts as defined in criminal codes: 1. false accusation and/or perjury, 2. using or fabricating false evidence, including forensic evidence, 3. official misconduct directed toward making the person appear guilty (for example, by hiding exculpatory evidence, ignoring or preventing disclosure of evidence from valid defense witnesses or experts, or manipulating witness identification of suspects, and 4. official misconduct (reaching an unlawfully high level of coercion*) directed toward gaining a false confession or false statement from the person or an alleged witness or an alleged co-conspirator.
The motive for any of these crimes may vary depending on the circumstance and who is committing the crime. A private individual, A, may frame someone, B, by, for example, a false accusation, to divert police attention from A's involvement in a crime, or to get revenge on B. On the other hand, police and prosecutors may frame someone for other possible motives, for example: because of a strong belief that the person is guilty or is likely to be guilty, but that obtaining real evidence may be too difficult or costly - that is, the chosen suspect is convenient; because an arrest and/or conviction would satisfy public concerns in a notorious case; because their professional status and chances for promotion would be increased by an arrest and/or conviction; because of a bias or hatred toward the person or that person's race, nationality, or ethnicity; or because of a desire to cover-up a crime committed by one or more police officers. These lists are not all-inclusive of possible motives. Furthermore, if one examines the texts of the laws underlying the actual crimes that can be lumped together as "framing", motive is not an element. It is the act(s) that make the crime.
* The level of coercion that is lawful in Italy appears to be equal to or lower than in US states, based upon Italian law CPP Article 188.
The National Registry of Exonerations presents data on the known factors for exonerations of wrongful convictions in the US. For all the 3659 exonerations recorded by the Registry as of 5 April 2025, 64% involve false accusation or perjury, 60% involve official misconduct (not further broken down in the graph), 29% involve false or misleading forensic evidence, 27% involve mistaken witness identification, and 13% involve false confession. (Not all mistaken witness identifications are the result of police misconduct; many may be due to the difficulty of identifying after a relatively long period of time a stranger encountered relatively briefly during a possibly traumatic experience.)
See:
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/ExonerationsContribFactorsByCrime.aspx
So, while I disagree with any proposal that we must identify the "motive" for the police and Mignini to have "framed" Knox and Sollecito, I suggest that there are several possibilities. For example, as Mignini stated in the Netflix film on the case, he envisions himself as a "Sherlock Holmes". Based on his behavior in the Monster of Florence case as well as the Knox case, to him this means generating "hunches" (hypotheses formulated without any attempt at proof) which he becomes convinced are absolutely true in reality. For the Knox-Sollecito case, these hunches include, but may not be limited to: 1. Kercher, because her body was covered by a duvet, was murdered by a woman; 2. It was impossible to climb up to the broken window at the cottage (apparently Mignini and the police ignore the grill positioned under the window, which could and was demonstrated to be climbable to the window); 3. The broken window had been broken from the inside by the rock (despite a glass shard stuck in the wood casement that was not compatible with this scenario, and no attempt by the authorities to scientically verify their hypothesis); 4. Knox and Kercher had some type of sexual relationship and competition, which led to a sex game between Knox, Sollecito and Kercher, that resulted in Kercher's death.
The fourth item in the paragraph above is especially memorable to me, because I recall first hearing of this case in a TV news broadcast, probably on or about November 7 or 8, 2007. The brief announcement was that a young American woman and her Italian boyfriend had been arrested for the murder - the result of a sex game with a bad ending - of her housemate, a young English woman, in a small town in Italy. And I recall, on hearing that announcement, thinking that people can do strange things. All these years later, I still think that people can do strange things - but now I believe that, besides the real murderer, Rudy Guede, the people doing strange things were the police and the prosecutor - and even, many of the judges who wrongully provisionally convicted Knox and Sollecito, and finally convicted Knox of calunnia.
BTW, calunnia CP Article 368, is an Italian crime that describes certain types of "framing": 1. False accusation and 2. Creating false indications or evidence of a crime (directed against a specific person). Creating false indications or evidence of a crime in general (not directed against a specific person) is a different crime, CP Article 367. If the false accusation or false indications/evidence is directed toward the person who is making the accusation, that is Autocalunnia, yet another crime, CP Article 369. These are all considered under the category of crimes against the administration of justice in the Codice Penale. I add that because I recall a guilter here once posted that calunnia has such sever penalties because it was considered a crime against honor, which crimes are taken very seriously in Italy. That's not at all true. Crimes against honor such as defamtion are listed in a different section, Crimes against the Person, of the Codice Penale.
See:
Sollecito, such a gentleman. so caring. So chivalrous.
