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Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

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http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C339/

This is a site which is dedicated to finding justice for Kerchner: but, acknowledging that, it seems to be serious in how it approaches things and there is a lot of good information there, including links to discussions of the DNA evidence and its status.

I do not know the qualifications of what they describe as their "DNA experts": the information may be there but I have not had time to read it all.

Wait...you mean there's an opposing viewpoint? Such arrogance! Haven't you read the thread? "Skepti"-girl has informed us that there is no doubt Knox is innocent. How dare you suggest otherwise!
 
I find it fascinating and somewhat comical that you believe it is "an ignorant behavioral assessment".....
OK, give us your premise then as to just how the behavior was evidence of guilt. Was doing cartwheels a sign of nervousness, or, was it a sign of total sociopathic depravity concerning the murder? Or is it that acting weird must mean a person is guilty just on that basis alone?
 
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Do you have any source for your claim Knox was accused of a crime before departing for Italy? This is the first I have heard such an accusation.

It's mentioned in several articles including this one:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091204/wl_time/08599194543000

It isn't an "accusation" either. It's a fact.

As for incriminating an innocent person in the murder, that has been addressed.

Again, all I'm discussing is the character of Ms Knox. You're not in a place where you have access to the Seattle media. It's as though Ms Knox was about to ascend to heaven as Elijah or something.

My take on it is that if the motive appears to be missing and the evidence scant in the trial itself (both things under dispute here) then the character of the criminal is certainly missing here.

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By the way, the defence witness claiming that the window was broken from the outside admitted during cross-examination that his theory (which was proposed through a video recreation) did not take into account the shutters.

And that's another piece speaking to character. Not only accusing an innocent man who she obviously knew (he had been her employer) but deliberately staging a break-in to throw police off the trail.

I doubt we'd even be talking about this case if it weren't an attractive American woman in a foreign country but instead a fat bald man slitting the throat of his roommate in Wisconsin and setting it up to look like his boss did it.
 
Doug Preston's book in which he covers the circumstances of the insane prosecutor attempting to accuse innocent people of crimes they had nothing to do with was written well before the Amanda Knox case.

The Amanda Knox case is exactly the sort of case you would expect to happen after reading about this man. He sees conspiracies everywhere and is obsessed with Satanic cult murders, to the point that he views everyone through that lens of suspicion.

I've been following Knox's case since the very beginning and it has always been clear to anyone willing to assess the evidence objectively that the only things linking her to the crime are imagination and inference. The physical evidence makes it abundantly clear that it was a sadly typical murder performed by a single male intruder.

And the comments about trusting judges and juries more than yourself are scary. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the remarkable miscarriages of justice that have occurred in this country, let alone a country like Italy where the justice system is based in archaic notions of the supremacy of the prosecution and the inferiority and lowly position of the accused, would know that juries and judges can accomplish remarkable and unbelievable feats of stupidity.

As far as her false accusation of the innocent bartender, any shock at that reveals a profound ignorance of the behavior of people being falsely accused and held in isolation and questioned under extreme duress.
 
Is it simpler? Sure.....
More common? Yep....

But from what I have read of the case the circumstances and subsequent actions/reactions would cause me to doubt this. I believe the other two are involved.

Of course to be honest I actually don't care either way...if they are guilty then they should go to prison...if not then no. I have no ax to grind here...but for me (so far at least) I just don't buy that they weren't involved.

That's the weird part, isn't it?

The supporters of Ms Knox are trying to paint the Italian justice system (police, investigators, jurors, prosecutors, judges) as incompetent and unable to 'properly' assess a case.

But then, having Guede in prison for the crime already, why not just fudge the rest of the evidence and stamp the file "Case Closed"? Why go through the expense and possible embarrassment of ensnaring two other innocent people? Heck, if they were incompetent clowns, why even go as far as getting Guede? They already had Lumumba and, if entirely loopy and reckless, could have just hit him with hoses until he confessed.

Instead, and contrary to the Seattle media accounts, the Italians worked tirelessly to obtain justice for the Kercher family and to get the evidence right.

(Note, too, that the Italians will be unable to allow Ms Knox to serve her sentence in the USA, closer to her family and supporters, because that country still puts people to death for capital crimes. So much for the uncivilised Italians theory!)
 
The Amanda Knox case is exactly the sort of case you would expect to happen after reading about this man. He sees conspiracies everywhere and is obsessed with Satanic cult murders, to the point that he views everyone through that lens of suspicion.

And so did the police? The investigators? Heck, didn't an Italian write The Divine Comedy? Obviously their justice system doesn't work. :boggled:

I've been following Knox's case since the very beginning and it has always been clear to anyone willing to assess the evidence objectively that the only things linking her to the crime are imagination and inference. The physical evidence makes it abundantly clear that it was a sadly typical murder performed by a single male intruder.

Except for the jurors, I suppose. Are they in on it too?

As far as her false accusation of the innocent bartender, any shock at that reveals a profound ignorance of the behavior of people being falsely accused and held in isolation and questioned under extreme duress.

Yes. This is what Ms Knox' uncritical defenders call him.

He wasn't any old bartender or some random individual she picked out of a line-up. No. Ms Knox tried to frame someone whom she knew and had worked for. She will still be in prison or indebted for the remainder of her life for that alone.

You just don't get it, do you?
 
It's mentioned in several articles including this one:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091204/wl_time/08599194543000

It isn't an "accusation" either. It's a fact.

What, the thing about throwing a noisy party? Am I missing something?

Also from the article:



"Their behavior at the police station seemed to me really inappropriate ... They sat opposite each other, Amanda put her feet up on Raffaele's legs and made faces at him. Everyone cried except Amanda and Raffaele. I never saw them crying. They were kissing each other."

These types of comments irritate me to no end. I can't believe the degree to which human beings lack the understanding of just how pathetic their abilities are to assess the inner emotions and thoughts of others based on absolutely ridiculous factors like whether or not they were crying.

I didn't cry at my little sister's funeral, because that's just not me, even though it was ripping me apart inside beyond anything I'd experienced. Someone came up to me and said "you don't seem very bothered by the fact that your sister died." I couldn't believe someone was that callous and clueless. It seemed like something a child would say, just as all of the similar statements about Amanda's behavior seem to be.
 
I continue to be astounded at how willing people are to put a 22 year old girl in jail for 26 years on the flimsiest of evidence. Doesn't anyone else believe in protecting the innocent? I would rather that a few killers go free than one innocent person have their life chucked away in an italian prison.

I would be completely in favor of jailing her is there was any evidence AT ALL that she was violent criminal. Anyone who hasn't looked into the prosectuor (who btw is under indictment for misconduct) should look at this issue more closely.

1) We already have a guy tied by the physical evidence to the crime.
2) no motive
3) crazed prosecutor who sees conspiracy theories about satanists everywhere
4) 30 hour police interrogation with no lawyer present (and people wonder where the odd behavior and accusations against others come from)

Come on people, if she commited this crime it was almost perfect!

Can anyone expain the motive in this case? Can anyone show me any evidence she has ever commited violence against anyone?

Acting odd while under the pressure of a murder investigation is simply not evidence of anything.

IMHO we should be bending over backwards to get these types of cases correct. The italian system of justice seems extremely crappy looking in from outside. I fully admit the US has it's problems as well but the algorithm that the italian system uses is just plan broken.
 
I didn't cry at my little sister's funeral, because that's just not me...

Close to being a strawman.

We're talking about a rape and murder of a roommate and your subsequent framing of your boss. I'll bet you've never experienced any of that and that your behaviour at your sister's funeral would have had no bearing on it either.

Again, the "thing about throwing a noisy party" wasn't to you but to SG, who'd never heard about it before. I threw wild parties when I was in university, too, but never got a citation. Maybe I was just lucky.

Just remember that it's not the Italian justice system that was on trial. It was a young woman who had tried to frame her boss for the rape and murder of her roommate. And the issue of her character is only one of the things clearly glossed over in the Seattle media.

If you want to talk about personal experiences, why not offer up any anecdotes you have about being in police custody, or even being falsely accused of a crime by an ex-employee? That would have more weight in the discussion.
 
I continue to be astounded at how willing people are to put a 22 year old girl in jail for 26 years on the flimsiest of evidence. Doesn't anyone else believe in protecting the innocent?

There will be an appeal. I don't have the cite but I believe it's actually automatic in Italy or close to it. Perhaps we have a legal beagle here or someone familiar with the Italian justice system.

I fully admit the US has it's problems as well but the algorithm that the italian system uses is just plan broken.

This is where you go off track. You do know, don't you, that the US still sentences people to death. Italy doesn't.

The sentence is in line with those in the US such as the recent one involving record producer Phil Spector.

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It sounds as though there are two issues here: (1) Is Ms Knox guilty? (2) Is the Italian justice system too primitive to properly handle rape-murder cases?

On the first, we have to agree with the judgement without any better evidence than what was presented and examined. On the second, we really need a legal expert or someone better acquainted with it. We cannot judge it on the basis of a single case or someone's book.
 
I'm judging the Italian system as being broken because the algorithm they use for running the court seems like it would tend to convict innocent people. See my description above in the thread re: how the jury works for example.

The system seems biased towards the prosecution due to the way the jury decides punishment and votes. I would expect it to generate sentences less than a place like the US but to more often convict innocent people.

Also again I'm not saying that the US system is perfect. The US has more peope in prison than any other first world country. It's not IMHO because of a corrupt court system but because of the nanny state crap we pull as well as tendency towards harsh punishment by the right wingers.
 
Well, obviously she wouldn't kill you, because she has never killed anyone. Apparently we know that as a fact, with no room for doubt. :rolleyes:

I don't think anyone is saying there is no doubt that she is innocent.

But at least in the US, the burden of proof is not on the defendant. There is certainly very much reasonable doubt that she is guilty.

There is no physical evidence placing Knox in the victim's room even though there plentiful physical evidence and Guede's own testimony placing Guede in the room.

The only physical evidence placing Solecito in the room is DNA on Kercher's bra clasp which was recovered from the flat 46 days after the murder after the place had been greatly disturbed.

The knife that the prosecution claims was the murder weapon was found in Solecito's apartment so supposedly Knox and Solecito brought the weapon back to Solecito's apartment after murdering Kercher with Guede.

The prosecution supposedly found Kercher's DNA on the tip of the knife, but the sample was too small for the DNA test to be repeated by analysts for the defense and the knife tested negative for blood.

Defense experts testified the bloody footprint elsewhere in the flat was more consistent with Guede's foot than Solecito's.

The existence of stains of Kercher's and Knox's blood in the bathroom while there was none of Knox's DNA in the murder room is more consistent with two menstruating women sharing a bathroom than Knox being injured in the scuffle in the bedroom and then leaving her own blood and Kercher's blood in the bathroom.

The blog post quoted by Agatha makes many unsubstantiated claims. Any statement made by Knox or Solecito that is not verified by the prosecution is claimed to be lie rather than a mistake or confusion from a night in which they admittedly smoked pot. It assumes the broken window in the other flatmate's bedroom was due to a faked break-in and that Knox was the person that faked the break-in.

That the apartment could be broken into without neighbors noticing is proven by the fact that the empty apartment has been broken into at least twice since the murder and the mattress from Kercher's bedroom has been stolen.

The blog post makes extraordinary claims about Knox's and Solecito's characters that are contradicted by their friends and families and academic records. It even places significance on the nickname Foxy Knoxy which according to friends and family dates back to her childhood and described her soccer skill at the time, not sexual prowess.

What the hell is with that anyway? Are there a lot of Puritans here? Even if Knox had sex with multiple men, that's not evidence she'd murder someone in a drug and sex game.

Some people seem to be assuming the Perugia jury must have been reliable and no more prone to bias than a US jury.

The Perugia jury was selected from the general Perugia population with no attempt being made to screen the jury member for biases or prior influences as would have been done in a US jury trial.

The jury was not sequestered from news reports and outside discussion of the case during the months long trial.

Apparently the burden of proof is far weaker in the Italian courts, bacause only a majority of jurors is required - not unanimity.

I could go on, but I'd be repeating more of what I put in my long previous post that was apparently ignored by those who have cited evidence that has been repeatedly discredited earlier in the thread.

I could maybe understand how some posters from countries with a far weaker burden of proof by state in their legal system might say they're suspicious of the defendants hence the posters would convict the defendants, but I don't see how any US poster could say "The defendants had inconsistent stories and behaved in a manner I wouldn't have, so I would declare them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."

And yes, you can find cases in the US where juries have convicted persons based on flimsy evidence too. Those convictions were also travesties of justice just as the conviction of Knox and Solecito is a travesty of justice.
 
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It was a young woman who had tried to frame her boss for the rape and murder of her roommate.

The accusation of Luhumba came at the end of what was 30 hour interrogation (a 41 hour interrogation according to her father) with no food, no sleep, and no lawyer and with some physical abuse. According to Knox, the police suggested she include Luhumba. If, as you say, she was trying to "frame" Luhumba, why didn't she mention him earlier and save herself 30 to 41 hours of abuse.

Even if the broken window and scattered belongings in the other bedroom was a faked breakin, there's no reason to ascribe it to Knox instead of Guede, and it makes no sense to claim that Knox did all this with plans to implicate Luhumba after a day-and-a-half-long interrogation.

As I mention previously, I've said crazy things too under the influence of extreme sleep deprivation.

If you want to talk about personal experiences, why not offer up any anecdotes you have about being in police custody, or even being falsely accused of a crime by an ex-employee? That would have more weight in the discussion.

I have been falsely accused of a crime outside of the legal system where the accuser didn't even have the excuse of extreme duress, but I didn't assume my accuser committed the crime of which I was accused.

Tell me, do you really think the evidence against Knox reaches the US standard of proving her "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt".

She wasn't convicted of not being an angel; she was convicted of murder.
 
After thirty hours with no sleep, food, and under constant harsh questioning, you'd probably blurt out whatever came to mind just to make it stop so you could eat and sleep and stop the suffering.

It's well known you can get people to say virtually anything under enough stress (one of the reasons torture is so dramatically ineffective).
 
The accusation of Luhumba came at the end of what was 30 hour interrogation (a 41 hour interrogation according to her father) with no food, no sleep, and no lawyer and with some physical abuse. According to Knox, the police suggested she include Luhumba. If, as you say, she was trying to "frame" Luhumba, why didn't she mention him earlier and save herself 30 to 41 hours of abuse.

You do realise, I hope, that the Perugia police have filed a defamation suit over the allegations of abuse levelled by the Knox family. Assuming I was beaten, threatened, deprived of amenities, and isolated from assistance, I would likely confess to any crime myself. The last thing I could ever contemplate is to create a fictional account and naming someone that I knew or worked for.

Maybe we're made of different stuff.

I would have to dig for cites but people falsely accused and subjected to physical and mental abuse will almost always confess to doing the crime themselves rather than to implicate someone else. That's how people are. They accept responsibility, often, even when they know they are innocent.

Anecdotally, didn't KSM confess to additional crimes he couldn't possibly have committed after being abused?

I have been falsely accused of a crime outside of the legal system where the accuser didn't even have the excuse of extreme duress, but I didn't assume my accuser committed the crime of which I was accused.

I sure hope you sued after overcoming your shock.

Tell me, do you really think the evidence against Knox reaches the US standard of proving her "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt".

It certainly appears to. I don't have expertise on how much DNA is supposed to be conclusive. Ms Knox' defense team merely argued that it was too little. If that position was rejected then it was probably indefensible.
 
After thirty hours with no sleep, food, and under constant harsh questioning, you'd probably blurt out whatever came to mind just to make it stop so you could eat and sleep and stop the suffering.

The length of the interrogation by Perugia police is certainly disputed. I have seen it, in the sympathetic Seattle press, variously set at six, fourteen, and more than 24 hours. Which was it? I've noticed that her defenders nearly always set it as long as possible. Why?

We're certainly painting the Italian police as kind of a Keystone Kops crew who, finding the victim's roommate, beat her into providing Lumumba's name and then let him go after he spends two weeks in prison for lack of evidence that they apparently don't need to convict someone anyways. If they wanted to investigate, prosecute, convict and sentence someone carelessly, then why wouldn't they just take Ms Knox' allegations on their face? Why continue to see if the story about the broken window fits the evidence? Why worry about whether anything was stolen? Why pursue Guede after they already had one to three culprits in hand? (The list goes on and on.)

They certainly went to elaborate lengths after the initial interrogation to disprove the "confession" they'd already extracted.
 
<snip>It certainly appears to. I don't have expertise on how much DNA is supposed to be conclusive. Ms Knox' defense team merely argued that it was too little. If that position was rejected then it was probably indefensible.

No, they argued that the only DNA from Knox was on a knife which wasn't even the murder weapon.
 
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