Cont: The Trials of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito: Part 32

[Bill Williams]

Vixen - if you can, please answer these questions.

Why did Nencini say that the other three male-profiles on the bra-clasp, were NOT evidence of those males being in the room when the victim was murdered? Compare and contrast that with why Nencini found that RS's profile found on the bra-clasp WAS evidence of him in the room at the time of the murder?

Given that Nencini had just established a judicial-fact with those claims, why did he further say that those other three male profiles, were, acc. to him, from 'amica'? Girlfriends, who he claimed regularly handled the bra? Obstensively, handled it in another place at another time? Why did that reasoning not apply to RS's profile?

Or is contamination an easier explanation? If not, why not?

What is the role of an appeal's court (cf. the Marasca-Bruno ISC panel) when presented with judicial facts like that?

 

[Vixen]

Then, given Judge Nencini's rulings about that, you must accept the three other unidentified males were also at the crime scene, in the room during the cruel murder.

Except that Nencini treated those differently, including i.d.'ing those males as 'amica' of the victim, girlfriends of the victim who had handled the bra at another time.

Yes, you read that right, that's what Nencini found as a judicial fact. Nencini never explained why that same reasoning shouldn't apply to RS....

Can you?

Given Mez had been into kickboxing and it's not likely she would succumb to an attack without a fight, then it is clear she was held down whilst others attacked. In fact, this puts one in mind of the similarly horrible behaviour of Susan Atkins, who didn't actually stab Abigail (Manson murders) but rightly was detemined to be equally culpable as Crenwinkle (_? IIRC) who delivered the mortal wounds, for no reason at all except for thrills. Nencini made a typo-type error in confusing Y-chromosomes and any multi-page report is bound to contain some error or other, which like here is of little consequence. The nature of the multiple attackers, and who they were, becomes clear when we look at all of he other evidence together. It becomes clear the 'burglary' was not random it was personal - very personal - to Mez; only her possessions were removed. So, at least one of the attackers knew Mez to have had feelings of antipathy towards her. One of the attackers seems to have had a thing about knives, given the sheer number of knife flicks used to bully her with and ripping off her bra. I note the problem with the PIP is that they always focus on 'this little bit here': oh there's a few extra alleles - fragments that have no legal status - typos by Nencini and an obsession with the height of RFU's, yet when one points out that the mixed AK/MK DNA found in Filomena's room indicates Mez' blood - due to the high RFU's, suddenly the height of the RFUs no longer matter and it's a case of, 'Oh they both lived there'.

 

[Disbelief]

Given Mez had been into kickboxing and it's not likely she would succumb to an attack without a fight, then it is clear she was held down whilst others attacked. In fact, this puts one in mind of the similarly horrible behaviour of Susan Atkins, who didn't actually stab Abigail (Manson murders) but rightly was detemined to be equally culpable as Crenwinkle (_? IIRC) who delivered the mortal wounds, for no reason at all except for thrills. Nencini made a typo-type error in confusing Y-chromosomes and any multi-page report is bound to contain some error or other, which like here is of little consequence. The nature of the multiple attackers, and who they were, becomes clear when we look at all of he other evidence together. It becomes clear the 'burglary' was not random it was personal - very personal - to Mez; only her possessions were removed. So, at least one of the attackers knew Mez to have had feelings of antipathy towards her. One of the attackers seems to have had a thing about knives, given the sheer number of knife flicks used to bully her with and ripping off her bra. I note the problem with the PIP is that they always focus on 'this little bit here': oh there's a few extra alleles - fragments that have no legal status - typos by Nencini and an obsession with the height of RFU's, yet when one points out that the mixed AK/MK DNA found in Filomena's room indicates Mez' blood - due to the high RFU's, suddenly the height of the RFUs no longer matter and it's a case of, 'Oh they both lived there'.

That's some crazy fanfic right there.

 

[Bill Williams]

That's some crazy fanfic right there.

Vixen never dealt with why Nencini admitted that there were three extra profiles on the clasp, but never explained why RS's was evidence of guilt, but that the other three were not.

Yes, it's better to wander off into FanFic.

 

[Numbers]

Vixen never dealt with why Nencini admitted that there were three extra profiles on the clasp, but never explained why RS's was evidence of guilt, but that the other three were not.

Yes, it's better Oto wander off into FanFic.

Obviously, it was the three "amica" who raped and murdered Kercher! See, I've solved the case, Italian court style!

 

[Numbers]

Here you go:

AI overview

• Material Facts:
  The court focuses on establishing material facts, which are facts that are relevant to the legal issues in the case.
• Conclusive Findings:
  Once the court makes a finding of fact, it is considered conclusive, unless overturned on appeal due to clear error.

4. Role of the Trier of Fact:

• Judge or Jury: The "trier of fact" is the entity that decides which facts are established. In many cases, this is a jury. In other cases, particularly in bench trials (where there is no jury), the judge serves as the trier of fact.

Please provide a source for these statements. What country's court system do they pertain to? Italian courts make provisional judgments that don't change the assumption of innocence until there is a final verdict - one that cannot be appealed. Your statements do not mention that or many other relevant aspects of Italian law.

You have in previous posts written about "merit courts". You haven't defined those. All Italian criminal courts, including the CSC, examine cases on their merits. The merits are the evidence, inferences from evidence, and the laws. The Courts of Appeal and CSC have limitations on the range of their examination as specified under CCP Articles 593 - 605 and CPP Articles 606 - 609, respectively.

Why do you not quote from Italian criminal procedural law (Codice di Procedura Penale, CPP) to support your (fallacious) arguments? The CPP is available online.

 

[Stacyhs]

What? Since when were any of these persons present at the trial?

Jesus Christ on a pogo stick! Where did I say they were present at the trials of AK and RS? Nowhere. Unless you have a severe reading comprehension problem, it's clear that I never said that:

1. "Krane is one of the world’s foremost DNA experts, testifying as an expert witness in more than 100 criminal trials in which DNA evidence was presented."

Were there more than 100 trials in the Kercher case? Did I even mention the Kercher trials in that sentence? whoooo-oooosh!

2. "Dr. Greg Hampikian is a forensic DNA expert and case consultant with more than 30 years of experience.He served as a DNA expert in more than 3 dozen exonerations.
In both Idaho cases, his lab worked with police to identify new DNA genealogy matches that led to new convictions decades after the crimes. He testified as a forensic expert in the Chad Daybel murder trial. As a forensic DNA expert, he has worked on DNA cases both nationally and worldwide, with many of those cases leading to exonerations of individuals on death row."

Again, where in the above did I mention the Kercher trials? Don't play these silly games; they don't work.

If they were not court appointed by the trial judge, they certainly do not count as expert witnesses. It seems - whoooo-oooosh! - once again it has gone over your head.

That's an obvious red herring as that was not our discussion. whoooo-oooosh!

You claimed that:

Vixen said:
You have been told several times now that there are more professions than academia. Only an ignoramus believes a research fellow is better qualified than a professional expert.

My response was to what comprises "a professional expert" by proving that Krane and Hampikian qualify as professional experts. But I think you know that.

 

[Stacyhs]

Why? Because too many posters are content with logical fallacy debating based on ad hom, whataboutism (tu quoche), non sequiturs and they rarely deal with the points in debate. It's as if people prefer a bunch of emojis and flame wars rather than the matter at hand.

Damn! There goes yet another irony meter!

 

[Disbelief]

Damn! There goes yet another irony meter!

Hyperbole, bad analogies, misrepresentation and lying are much better debating techniques...

 

[Stacyhs]

Given Mez had been into kickboxing and it's not likely she would succumb to an attack without a fight, then it is clear she was held down whilst others attacked.

I can find no evidence that Meredith was "into kickboxing." It was Amanda who had taken kickboxing lessons:

So passive was Knox, the parents said, that she couldn't even continue a kickboxing class because she felt it was too violent.

Meredith had earned a beginner's belt in karate when she was 17. An orange belt in karate is not sufficient to fend off a man with a knife.
If she was held down while other attacked, then where is the evidence of that? How could they leave no forensic evidence while Guede couldn't manage that? And don't bring up the bra clasp as Marasca has dealt with that. It's one of your beloved 'judicial facts'.

In fact, this puts one in mind of the similarly horrible behaviour of Susan Atkins, who didn't actually stab Abigail (Manson murders) but rightly was detemined to be equally culpable as Crenwinkle (_? IIRC) who delivered the mortal wounds, for no reason at all except for thrills.

Red herring. Plus, the prosecution claimed it was Knox, not Guede, who delivered the fatal wound.

Nencini made a typo-type error in confusing Y-chromosomes and any multi-page report is bound to contain some error or other, which like here is of little consequence. The nature of the multiple attackers, and who they were, becomes clear when we look at all of he other evidence together. It becomes clear the 'burglary' was not random it was personal - very personal - to Mez; only her possessions were removed. So, at least one of the attackers knew Mez to have had feelings of antipathy towards her. One of the attackers seems to have had a thing about knives, given the sheer number of knife flicks used to bully her with and ripping off her bra. I note the problem with the PIP is that they always focus on 'this little bit here': oh there's a few extra alleles - fragments that have no legal status - typos by Nencini and an obsession with the height of RFU's, yet when one points out that the mixed AK/MK DNA found in Filomena's room indicates Mez' blood - due to the high RFU's, suddenly the height of the RFUs no longer matter and it's a case of, 'Oh they both lived there'.

I'm going to ignore all the rubbish above except for this one:

...yet when one points out that the mixed AK/MK DNA found in Filomena's room indicates Mez' blood - due to the high RFU's, suddenly the height of the RFUs no longer matter and it's a case of, 'Oh they both lived there'.

You're confusing Garofano's claim regarding the high RFU's in the mixed samples in the bathroom with the TMB negative samples in Filomena's room.

 

[Numbers]

To illustrate that the problems of the Knox - Sollecito case are rather general to the Italian judicial system, here's a case recently Communicated to Italy by the ECHR (Google translation):

SUBJECT OF THE CASE

The application concerns the criminal proceedings against the applicant, who, at first instance, was found guilty of manslaughter – for having acted involuntarily in excess of self-defense – and was convicted by the Assize Court of Appeal of murder.

Relying on Article 6 § 3 (d) of the Convention, the applicant criticizes, in particular, the appeal court for having convicted her without hearing her personally and without hearing the witnesses who had given statements before the court of first instance.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. In light of the Court’s case-law on the matter, did the applicant’s conviction by the Milan Assize Court of Appeal, without a personal hearing, breach the principles of a fair trial, as guaranteed by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (Constantinescu v. Romania, no. 28871/95, §§ 55-61, ECHR 2000-VIII; Popa and Tănăsescu v. Romania, no. 19946/04, §§ 45-46 and 52, 10 April 2012; Maestri and Others v. Italy, nos. 20903/15 and 3 others, §§ 37-44 and 50-58, 8 July 2021; and Deliktaş v. Turkey, no. 25852/18, § 44, 12 December 2023)?

2. Furthermore, did the failure of the said Assize Court of Appeal to rehear the witnesses who had given statements before the court of first instance constitute a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (Lorefice v. Italy, no. 63446/13, 29 June 2017)?

See: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-244301

 

[LondonJohn]

I can find no evidence that Meredith was "into kickboxing." It was Amanda who had taken kickboxing lessons:


Meredith had earned a beginner's belt in karate when she was 17. An orange belt in karate is not sufficient to fend off a man with a knife.
If she was held down while other attacked, then where is the evidence of that? How could they leave no forensic evidence while Guede couldn't manage that? And don't bring up the bra clasp as Marasca has dealt with that. It's one of your beloved 'judicial facts'.

Vixen (plus some of the incompetent lower-court judges in this case) has an embarrassingly low level of comprehension on this matter.

Which is strange, because it's a scenario that even slow people are capable of understanding:

1) A strong man holding a large knife corners a much smaller, weaker woman in a secluded place.

2) The strong man intones that he will not hurt the woman unless she resists or calls out.

3) The woman makes a quick (and easy) mental weighing of her options: either she a) struggles or calls out, and then gets (perhaps fatally) stabbed, or she b) complies and hopes that whatever the man intends to do is at least preferable to her death.

4) The woman decides - wholly understandably, in the circumstances - to comply, and not to call out or struggle.

 

[LondonJohn]

Why? Because too many posters are content with logical fallacy debating based on ad hom, whataboutism (tu quoche), non sequiturs and they rarely deal with the points in debate. It's as if people prefer a bunch of emojis and flame wars rather than the matter at hand.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA physician, heal thyself AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

[Numbers]

To illustrate that the problems of the Knox - Sollecito case are rather general to the Italian judicial system, here's a case recently Communicated to Italy by the ECHR (Google translation):

SUBJECT OF THE CASE

The application concerns the criminal proceedings against the applicant, who, at first instance, was found guilty of manslaughter – for having acted involuntarily in excess of self-defense – and was convicted by the Assize Court of Appeal of murder.

Relying on Article 6 § 3 (d) of the Convention, the applicant criticizes, in particular, the appeal court for having convicted her without hearing her personally and without hearing the witnesses who had given statements before the court of first instance.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. In light of the Court’s case-law on the matter, did the applicant’s conviction by the Milan Assize Court of Appeal, without a personal hearing, breach the principles of a fair trial, as guaranteed by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (Constantinescu v. Romania, no. 28871/95, §§ 55-61, ECHR 2000-VIII; Popa and Tănăsescu v. Romania, no. 19946/04, §§ 45-46 and 52, 10 April 2012; Maestri and Others v. Italy, nos. 20903/15 and 3 others, §§ 37-44 and 50-58, 8 July 2021; and Deliktaş v. Turkey, no. 25852/18, § 44, 12 December 2023)?

2. Furthermore, did the failure of the said Assize Court of Appeal to rehear the witnesses who had given statements before the court of first instance constitute a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (Lorefice v. Italy, no. 63446/13, 29 June 2017)?

See: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-244301

BTW, this was a problem with the Nencini Court of Appeal judgment, but it was not final.

 

[LondonJohn]

Here you go:

AI overview

• Material Facts:
  The court focuses on establishing material facts, which are facts that are relevant to the legal issues in the case.
• Conclusive Findings:
  Once the court makes a finding of fact, it is considered conclusive, unless overturned on appeal due to clear error.

4. Role of the Trier of Fact:

• Judge or Jury: The "trier of fact" is the entity that decides which facts are established. In many cases, this is a jury. In other cases, particularly in bench trials (where there is no jury), the judge serves as the trier of fact.

Quit with the AI Overview crap please. Do some proper research instead (not that you know how to do that....bur hope springs eternal...)

 

[Stacyhs]

Vixen (plus some of the incompetent lower-court judges in this case) has an embarrassingly low level of comprehension on this matter.

Which is strange, because it's a scenario that even slow people are capable of understanding:

1) A strong man holding a large knife corners a much smaller, weaker woman in a secluded place.

2) The strong man intones that he will not hurt the woman unless she resists or calls out.

3) The woman makes a quick (and easy) mental weighing of her options: either she a) struggles or calls out, and then gets (perhaps fatally) stabbed, or she b) complies and hopes that whatever the man intends to do is at least preferable to her death.

4) The woman decides - wholly understandably, in the circumstances - to comply, and not to call out or struggle.

Holding a knife to a woman's throat might make her comply with his demands? Oh, go on with ya, silly boy!

 

[TruthCalls]

Your fantasy that Guede did it alone is purely a fictional uncorroborated unsupported one, based probably on the late-Ron Hendry's claims. The aim was to provide an 'alternative scenario'. Why is it conjecture?

• The pathologists report which showed 48 wounds, including numerous knife flicks, stab wounds in the neck of two different sizes, one of which was mortal, breaking the hyoid bone, with which it met resistance. Little to no defence wounds. When someone comes at you with a knife, the reflex is to grab it to deflect it away - it can take your fingers off - yet Mez had just one or two small cuts to her hand where she had tried to do just that. The wounds to her shoulder and wrists, shows both arms were forcibly held back behind her back (hence, the zero defence wounds. Think about it.) Finger marks around her mouth where someone had tried to stop her from screaming (probably) and strangle marks. As the police demonstrated this would not be possible for one sole attacker.
• Judges, who are legally trained to be objective and to just concentrate on the evidence presented before the court all agreed there were multiple attackers. This includes Massei, Micheli, Giordani, et al, and this remains the legal position and entered into legal fact.
• The legal position as decreed in court is that Guede did not apply the fatal wound but was guilty of aggravated murder because he did nothing to stop the other attackers and was likely the person who restrained Mez' arms, from the DNA on her sweatshirt cuffs. I note AK/RS fans never claim this DNA is contaminated, despite being collected the same time by the same team of forensic police.
• The team of luminol police headed by Insptr. Ilpoti [_sp?] found at least three sets of footprints highlighted by luminol. One set, booted, of Guede and two sets, bare-footed of Knox and Sollecito. A ladies size 37-trainer was imprinted on the pillow beneath the body.
• The burglary took place after the murder, This is because paper the 'burglar' scattered over Filomena's room is also scattered on top of the body on top of the duvet. A shard of glass from the burglary that happened after the murder is trailed into the murder room. Knox DNA mixed with Mez is identified in Filomena's room.
• There is no forensic trace at all of Guede in Filomena's room.
• Guede never even tried to conceal his presence, yet one side of his booted footprints have been cleaned from the hallway.
• Yet London John thinks he hopped along the hallway to hide he was there and also came back to mop up the footprints leading up to the bathmat.
• When the 'third person' was caught Knox asked her father Curt, 'Is it Rudy?' when even he didn't know at that stage having kept glued to the news.
• Knox informed everyone at the Questura after the body was found, of course Mez suffered, she had her '◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ throat slashed'.
• AK and RS both switched off their phones from about 20:45 until 6:00am next morning (RS) and 12:00pm next day (AK) whereupon she quickly rang up Mez' phones to preclude her knowing anything about Mez' death the night before.
• When AK rang up Filomena, Filomena urged her to ring up Mez but AK failed to mention she already had. Didn't tell Filomena her window was smashed until Filomena herself rang AK after the plainclothes police arrived.

So yes, your conspiracy theory that the sole killer was Rudy Guede who hopped about on one leg to avoid detection is an extremely simple one. Not one defence expert witness bothered arguing this. It also employs the logic fallacy of flippancy, a subset of the non sequitur. You actually think it's amusing to pretend AK is 'innocent' in the same way anti-vaxxers find it fun to deny COVID. Maybe even exciting to be part of a nod-wink conspiracy club, where you all bounce off each other.

Like LJ, I'm not going to address all of these previously, and thoroughly debunked claims. However, I would like to address one of them.

• The legal position as decreed in court is that Guede did not apply the fatal wound but was guilty of aggravated murder because he did nothing to stop the other attackers and was likely the person who restrained Mez' arms, from the DNA on her sweatshirt cuffs. I note AK/RS fans never claim this DNA is contaminated, despite being collected the same time by the same team of forensic police.

I'm curious, on what basis would you say the court was able to conclude Guede did not deliver the fatal wound? Remember, this was Guede's trial, so Amanda and Raffaele had not yet been to trial. Clearly there was no evidence that would prove he didn't, so the only basis I can think of would be that the court was aware the prosecution planned to try Amanda and Raffaele, and that they planned to introduce Raffaele's kitchen knife as the murder weapon. The problem is, the knife was not entered into evidence in Guede's trial, which should mean it can't be use as a basis for ruling Guede did not inflict the wound.

So on what basis did the court conclude Guede did not inflict the fatal wound???

Regarding your last point... there are several differences between Guede's DNA and Raffaele's.

1. Guede was never in the upstairs half of the cottage, so it's not possibly his DNA got there accidentally.
2. Guede's DNA was of sufficient quantity to perform normal PCR analysis. LCN traces are inherently more likely contamination, not so much when significant quantity of DNA exists.
3. Numerous massive mistakes were made with the collection of the bra clasp. I am not aware of any mistakes made with the collection of the sweatshirt.

 

[TruthCalls]

Holding a knife to a woman's throat might make her comply with his demands? Oh, go on with ya, silly boy!

Then again, a surprise assault before Meredith had a chance to defend herself might also have something to do with it.

Reading Vixen's commentary, you'd think Meredith was the first female to be killed by a lone male without leaving significant defensive wounds.

 

[Stacyhs]

Then again, a surprise assault before Meredith had a chance to defend herself might also have something to do with it.

Reading Vixen's commentary, you'd think Meredith was the first female to be killed by a lone male without leaving significant defensive wounds.

Meredith did have some cuts on her hands that could have been defensive wounds or from her bringing her hands up to her throat when Guede inflicted the fatal wound.

 

[Stacyhs]

Amanda and Raffaele together at yesterday's premiere of The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox in NYC. So much for some PGP claims I've seen that they have not remained friends.


There were a couple mistakes in the article including this:

After a series of appeals and more convictions, Knox and Sollecito eventually proved their innocence and their conviction was overturned in 2015 after it was determined Guede had acted alone.

There weren't "more convictionS" before Marasca. There was only one: Nencini. Before someone starts having a snit fit, they weren't determined to be legally "innocent", just "not guilty". And, of course, we know that it was never determined legally that Guede acted alone because of the Giordano ruling in 2010.