Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[shuttlt]

A comment on this page says there was 1.4 nanograms. I don't know if that's a lot or a little (it doesn't sound like much but this is DNA after all).

Thanks for that. 1.4 nanograms seems like quite a small amount to me. I definately had the impression the sample was larger. Thanyou for the clarification.

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

Also Raf's potential lie about the knife DNA doesn't suddenly make that evidence valid. I'm extremely skeptical of any test which can't be repeated like in that case. It's just weak evidence.

I'm interested by this. Why would the defendant in a murder trial lie in a fashion which bolsters the prosecution's case?

What scenario would make it useful to cause the validity of the DNA evidence to become irrelevant when the doubt of it's validity is a strong effort in his favor.

You speak much of things not making sense. This makes no sense.

<snip>
IMHO this is a weak circumstantial case with very little theory of the crime. No motive and no theory as to why all three would work together. Random 20 year old female college students aren't exactly world renowned for murder.

If the crime was unplanned, and an unintended consequence of other, less homicidal activity then there would be no motive. I don't understand what is so far-fetched about this hypothesis.

There is no need to conjecture that the three of them plotted to commit a murder and then carried through with such a plot unless you are trying to begin with a premise which is intended to fail.

 

[Matthew Best]

Do we know what had they been handling with those gloved hands before they picked up the clasp?

I don't and it doesn't seem possible to tell from the video. But the page I linked to says that people collecting DNA samples from crime scenes should not be touching them even with gloved hands - why that should be a no-no I have no idea, but apparently it is.

 

[Matthew Best]

If the crime was unplanned, and an unintended consequence of other, less homicidal activity then there would be no motive. I don't understand what is so far-fetched about this hypothesis.

There is no need to conjecture that the three of them plotted to commit a murder and then carried through with such a plot unless you are trying to begin with a premise which is intended to fail.

I'm curious how the prosecution explained the use of a knife which as far as we know belonged in Sollecito's flat as the murder weapon. If they used that knife they surely must have brought it with them to the scene - and doesn't that imply premeditation?

 

[quadraginta]

I confess, I am not one of the hard working folks who have labored through all the documentation relating to the case, but wasn't the material on the clasp described as if it was more than simply a trace resulting from accidental contamination in the way you imply? I got the impression that it was a decent amount of some undisclosed substance that was stuck on pretty good.

A comment on this page says there was 1.4 nanograms. I don't know if that's a lot or a little (it doesn't sound like much but this is DNA after all).

Thanks for that. 1.4 nanograms seems like quite a small amount to me. I definately had the impression the sample was larger. Thanyou for the clarification.

The description of the amount of DNA on the clasp has routinely been "abundant". None of the Knox apologists' hired gun "experts" has bothered to contest that description. Instead they have moved their strategy in that case from "not enough" to "contaminated".

I think that the DNA protestations are a manipulative distraction. If this case had been tried fifty years ago, when there was no DNA evidence to consider, I think that Knox and Sollecito would still have been convicted. The only benefit that an absence of DNA evidence would have provided them is that they would have avoided situations like the lie Sollecito was caught out in trying to explain it away.

 

[quadraginta]

I'm curious how the prosecution explained the use of a knife which as far as we know belonged in Sollecito's flat as the murder weapon. If they used that knife they surely must have brought it with them to the scene - and doesn't that imply premeditation?

That's a good point. I'd like to know that, too.

 

[Micromegas]

It's probably from unfortunate experience with truthers and the like, but my BS detector goes off whenever I hear amateurs making sweeping pronouncements about specialized disciplines like forensics and DNA analysis. Knox's supporters have tried to propagate the myth that there is no physical evidence tying her to the murder scene: "all because of a cartwheel." When presented with the evidence, the goalposts move and now they say there isn't sufficient physical evidence. I guess I'm supposed to believe that literally anyone is an expert on forensic detective protocol as well as DNA lab work. The experts that the Knox family has employed to make pronouncements on evidence they've never seen only say that "contamination can't be ruled out," but her defense seems to want it to mean "contamination is absolutely certain."

Also smelling a little of woo is the off-the-cuff psychology that Knox's supporters use in explaining away the wildly divergent statements she has offered investigators, each more fanciful than the last. Any lecture on "false confession syndrome" should at least be prefaced by recognizing that Knox has never, in fact, offered a confession of her guilt. If she had given a statement admitting guilt that later was found to conflict with certain facts of the case, I might accept that intense interrogation methods had made her concoct a false confession. However, incriminating an innocent man only qualifies as a confession in the minds of Knox's most credulous supporters.

-Mike

 

[shuttlt]

There isn't NO evidence, there just just a lot of circumstantial evidence. We need a theory of the crime to make this evidence make sense. Otherwise it could just be coincidence.

I fail to follow your logic. Even with a theory of the crime it could still be a coincidence.

Like I said I'm completely willing to believe Amanda committed this crime. However, the circumstances of them working together are EXTREMELY UNUSUAL to the point where I personally need a plausible explanation of why they worked together on this.

The whole thing is unusual. I strongly suspect most of us would have estimated the a priori odds of Amanda Knox being involved in killing her room mate would as very low, based on the background we have on her. Once that's acknowledged you are comparing different very low odds events. If at lest a few low odds events hadn't happened Meredith wouldn't be dead and Amanda wouldn't be in prison.

Which is more unlikely, that she somehow became involved in the violent death of her roomate, or that she returned with a mop and bucket from cleaning her boyfriends house only to bump into police who discovered a crime scene at her appartment that somebody had been busy cleaning on the same day that both of them turned on their mobile phones at an uncharacteristic hour and for the police and cctv both to agree on the wrong time?

Without that the rest of the very circumstantial case just wouldn't be enough to convict.

Knox and Sollecito get drunk with Guede and invite him back to the appartment, maybe they think it would be funny to try to get Guede into bed with Kercher. Something happens between Guede and Kercher, perhaps while Knox and Sollecito are in the kitchen he rapes her. Perhaps Guede has been led to expect Kercher will react differently. Knox and Sollecito realize what has happened, but Guede has a knife and in any case still drunk and having set the whole thing up they aren't too keen on calling the police and maybe Kercher is blaming them for having let Guede in. At some point Kercher is stabbed. Guede flees. Knox and Sollecito believe Kercher is fatally wounded and that they will be blamed take the phones, lock her in and leave. Later they come back and clean up.

I realize this doesn't explain the **** in the toilet, and probably a bunch of other things. It's also pure speculation and might be miles from the truth. I just don't see a problem with believing that they could have got involved by royally ****ing up and then making a lot of bad choices once the situation was beyond fixing. Young people kill people by being stupid and then not taking responsability all the time.

Of course the whole thing could still be a coincidence and Knox did spend the night with Sollecito and had nothing to do with the murder.

Anyway I still haven't heard a plausible theory of why Amanda would get involved in the rape and murder of a room-mate with someone she barely knows.

I can't immediately think of one if you need her to have set out with that intention.

Honestly I think I'm being more skeptical than many people on this board. It's up to the prosecution to prove they committed this murder and the proper place for skepticism is to apply it to that.

Nonsense. The proper place for scepticism is wherever insufficient scepticism is being applied.

 

[NoZed Avenger]

I'm interested by this. Why would the defendant in a murder trial lie in a fashion which bolsters the prosecution's case?

What scenario would make it useful to cause the validity of the DNA evidence to become irrelevant when the doubt of it's validity is a strong effort in his favor.

You speak much of things not making sense. This makes no sense.

You are assuming the defendant is aware of the evidence, thinking logically, and mapping some sort of strategy in forming answers.

It is possible -- I do not assign probabilities -- that a young guy or girl confronted with a police officer waiving a knife with claims that "dna from the victim was found on the knife; you may as well admit it" would try, essentially in panic, to throw out some sort of explanation, even if it ultimately hurt his/her case. Once those statements are made, the defense attorney may well feel trying to fight the dna would only make their client look worse by allowing yet another credibility attack on the explanation (and having to change stories again) than to suck it up and argue other points.

Again, just throwing out a possible scenario. The lying looks bad. But not all liars are murderers.

On balance, I presently think the evidence favors guilt, but the attempt to explain away what could have been seen as potentially damning evidence is not that strong. (IMO)

 

[Trigood]

Yep. If Joe's DNA is on the shoe, and Bill picks the shoe up, then that magically converts Joe's DNA to Sam's. Which is also what OJ's lawyers argued. Sadly, the idiot jury in that case bought it.

No, but it might convert it to Marquis de Carabas's.

I'm popping in again here. Hi JREF! Missed ya guys!

(But don't get me started on Amanda Knox, that lying murderer. OK, now you've done it! You're going to regret this!!!! )

 

[stilicho]

I'm curious how the prosecution explained the use of a knife which as far as we know belonged in Sollecito's flat as the murder weapon. If they used that knife they surely must have brought it with them to the scene - and doesn't that imply premeditation?

The investigators went to Sollecito's to examine his place while he was in custody. He read about the knife in the media and volunteered his own theory as to how Meredith's DNA might be found on it.

The exact sequence of events leading to Meredith's murder (including when the murderers formed the intent to kill) is still speculative. This seems to bother a lot of people posting both here and at PMF but it doesn't appear to bother the defence teams for Knox and Sollecito. The issue of premeditation or motive hasn't come up in their court presentations.

The relationships among the four people in the cottage have come up extensively, though. So have their lifestyles, personalities, and behaviours.

 

[Matthew Best]

The exact sequence of events leading to Meredith's murder (including when the murderers formed the intent to kill) is still speculative.

Yes. And if it is suggested (as it is) that they brought a large knife with them from Sollecito's flat to the crime scene which was then used to murder Kercher, that does tend to suggest that the intent to kill was formed quite early, doesn't it?

 

[Fiona]

I don't and it doesn't seem possible to tell from the video. But the page I linked to says that people collecting DNA samples from crime scenes should not be touching them even with gloved hands - why that should be a no-no I have no idea, but apparently it is.

Let us concede for the sake of this discussion that this was not best practice: not even good practice, perhaps. I have no quarrel with giving the defence every advantage and every benefit of every reasonable doubt.

We have already agreed that the failure to collect this clasp on the first occasion was a significant problem and very, very regrettable.

Now let us also agree that they way they handled the clasp was not good either. Their own video is what has given us that information, and so at the very least we are not looking at a plot against anyone. I hope we can agree on that as well.

From your link in Forensic Magazine

the key thing is to guard against contamination.

Obviously

If you pick up one piece of evidence and then pick up another piece of evidence you can transfer evidence from the first item to the second item.

Again that is fair enough. But you cannot transfer what is not there. There is no other dna from either Knox or Sollecito in that room. None.

You can also transfer evidence if you pick up an item then touch your face or hair, etc., with your gloved hand and then touch the item,

Indeed. And there was no such contamination. It has been said here that there was other, unidentified, DNA on this sample. I have not found the source for that as yet and it is certainly important. But we have clear testimony that no DNA from the team was there: and if there was other trace DNA then than could not be stated if the DNA of the team was not on record. I would expect that to be routinely the case for this kind of work, though I do not know enough about it to state that categorically. The fact remains this was given in evidence, and the propriety of the procedures was independently confirmed. You may not accept that any of that is true: and I cannot prove that it is. But personally I find it harder to accept that this is all lies, because I cannot see any reason for telling such lies. I mentioned before that it is possible the whole thing was a mess, and that every part of the testimony from every expert witness involved in the forensics was a lie to cover that incompetence. You must make your own judgement on that. But note that this team is not from Perugia: it is from Rome. I may be naive but I take the view that they are brought in from Rome for a reason: and that reason is likely to be related to expertise.

never place any evidence that may contain DNA in plastic bags because plastic will retain moisture that will damage DNA.

This point was also raised before. I do not see where it says "plastic bags will turn one person's DNA into another person's DNA" I see that it says it will damage it. That is a separate problem from contamination. It may be possible that such damage might interfere with the spikes making them different: but how unlucky would you have to be if the particular profile produced did not resemble that of the person the dna belonged to, AND just happened to be a good match for somebody else who just happened to be part of the investigation? I really don't know how likely that is but I would be very interested to hear from those who do have knowledge of the field

The following two paragraphs also deal with with damage and it is clear that the problem there is that the DNA will be unusable either through mistakes in handling or because of features of the scene itself

But this DNA was NOT unusable.

I suppose you could argue that the gloves had been used before: and so had the masks; and that they were not put on at or near the scene but in some remote place. Or any number of other things which have been denied in testimony but could have happened. But that is a level of incompetence/malice I just find impossible to accept. And so did several judges and the jury, who saw the reports and heard the evidence. Maybe they are all wrong; but it also requires major incompetence from the defence legal team and I do not see how they could be in on it. YMMV

So even if I concede everything which can plausibly(to me) be put forward: even if I accept that what we see on that video is piss poor and that everywhere else in the world where such evidence is used these errors are not made; I still do not see how it helps the defence case with respect to this piece of evidence.

 

[Matthew Best]

There is no other dna from either Knox or Sollecito in that room. None.

How can you know? Was every single thing in the room tested for DNA?

And the other point is - shouldn't there be some, if they've both been in the room murdering someone?

 

[Fiona]

That's a good point. I'd like to know that, too.

I mentioned somewhere up thread that this is not clear at all. Early on it was mentioned somewhere that at one point Knox said the knife was hers. She is reported to have said she did not know how it got to Sollecito's place. This was put to the two Italian women, who said they had never seen it at the cottage. From then it seems to have been accepted it was Sollicito's and I have not seen that mentioned again.

I have not time to find the reference at present: perhaps Stilicho can help? Or someone else?

 

[Fiona]

How can you know? Was every single thing in the room tested for DNA?

And the other point is - shouldn't there be some, if they've both been in the room murdering someone?

That has not been contested at all by either side. As you show in your second question, it is in fact a major plank of the defence argument.

As to shouldn't there be some? There is not much even of Guede's: I do not know if everything was tested for dna: 460 samples were taken IIRC ( I may be misremembering that) and I have no idea how much dna should be around in normal circumstances. Upthread one poster said that DNA should be everywhere in a house if folk live there: but the fact is that at least for Sollecito they only found one other sample (on the cigarette butt in the kitchen).

What I do know is that it is idle (for me) to speculate how much should be there: because I thought there would be lots of Knox's fingerprints in Knox's own room and in the kitchen etc. I was wrong about that, and to pretend I have any better knowledge of how DNA ought to be distributed given that fact, would be folly

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

Again, just throwing out a possible scenario. The lying looks bad. But not all liars are murderers.

On balance, I presently think the evidence favors guilt, but the attempt to explain away what could have been seen as potentially damning evidence is not that strong. (IMO)

Oh, I agree. There isn't any one thing that is damning evidence. It's just another stone.

But it's a pretty good sized wall, all told.

 

[stilicho]

In most states, all it requires is the signature of the Governor of the State.

Ah, I should have been more specific. In this example in New Hampshire, of 224 pardons, only 3 have been accepted: http://www.keeneequinox.com/2.12191/n-h-pardon-process-a-complex-unique-path-1.1661560. I am quite sure the NH state governor signs more than two per cent of the paperwork that crosses his desk.

So what other requirements are there to obtain that signature for a second-degree murder conviction?

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Yes. And if it is suggested (as it is) that they brought a large knife with them from Sollecito's flat to the crime scene which was then used to murder Kercher, that does tend to suggest that the intent to kill was formed quite early, doesn't it?

Upthread it's been mentioned that Guede had been arrested with a knife not long before Kercher's murder. Perhaps, and again this is speculation, the knife is actually Guede's. That places it at the murder scene. Guede panics after he realizes that Meredith is dying and exits stage right. Knox and Sollecito work to clean up the scene - scrubbing everything they can to remove traces of fingerprints/DNA. The knife is scrubbed and moved from the scene to Sollecito's house. In a later attempt to explain Kercher's DNA on a knife found in his house, he testifies that the knife is his and she had cut herself while cooking at his house.

Sollecito's trapped. If he claims the knife is Guede's, then he must explain how it got to his house. If he claims the knife is his, then he must explain how it got Kercher's DNA on it.

ETA: This removes the pre-meditation and puts us back in the realm of sex prank/rape gone awry.

 

[Suddenly]

How can you know? Was every single thing in the room tested for DNA?

And the other point is - shouldn't there be some, if they've both been in the room murdering someone?

If they walked through the room, there would be DNA there. Testing of really, really tiny amounts is a developing field. Because these amounts of DNA material are so easily deposited and moved around, they are more or less forensically irrelevant if there is an innocent reason for the person ever to be in the area.

Only when DNA is found in decent amounts in important locations does it become forensically relevant. The problem with the DNA evidence in this case is the amount found. The knife handle is a pretty relevant location, but the amounts at issue are nearly laughable. If it were possible that at any time she would have used the knife for an innocent purpose, her DNA on the handle becomes useless as all it shows is that at some time she touched the knife. DNA tests have no way of telling how old a sample is. Heck, it isn't that unlikely that someone else innocently tracked her DNA there, be it the police via bad collection procedures, or someone else six months before.

We've got to a point where people don't want to question DNA testing, and we've probably gone too far in considering DNA testing as infallible. If done by an honest lab, with confirmed knowable samples (like in a paternity test), DNA testing is as watertight as evidence gets. The problem is that crime scenes often result in unclear, and sometimes combined, samples, bad lab procedures can cause cross-contamination from a known sample to the sample to be tested. Plus some tests just aren't useful evidence because the presence of DNA isn't evidence of a crime, rather just evidence that a person was at a particular place some time in the past.

The DNA aspect of this case is a joke...