Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[piktor]

A judge judging is not like you and me

halides1 @ #1136,

Your arguments and facts do not operate in a void but within a context. You can exclude the clasp and the knife and you still have the accused obfuscating, ''forgetting'', behaving different from the other young people witnesses to this tragedy. You add up all the elements and there is a convincing case based on circumstantial evidence.

One judge that denied bail for Knox said she ''could kill again'' if left free. That is one strong opinion of a suspect.

Guede was convicted with mostly the same evidence and the judge gave a 106 page reasoned opinion and a 30 year sentence.

What a trained judge sees is not what a scientist sees. A judge's world view is based on judicial experience and reasoning. Human behavior is not necessarily scientific and predictable.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

What other items were collected at this same time as the bra clasp?

When did Sollecito enter the apartment/room after all the other items were collected?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

amount of DNA

Fulcanelli,

You wrote,
Quote:
he Perugia News Digest on 18 July 2009 reported the testimony
the examination of the bra-clasp followed incorrect protocols (4): in the collection of the evidence, in its analysis, and in interpretation (4): the evidence can be given no weight: ‘it cannot be considered as bona fide evidence” (4) “given the inappropriate and anomalous collection methodology” (3, 4) [end quote]
But quoted 'who' as saying that? Not the judge, that's for sure. It wasn't the experts for the prosecution or the victims either, so who's left?

Quote:
Many of these points are similar to those brought up in the petition. The petition claims that one cannot deduce how the DNA came to be on the clasp from how much is there. I do not know whether Professor Tagliabracci made this point or not.
In other words, they are arguing that if DNA is found anywhere it's meaningless, essentially? A sort of saying...using DNA as evidence is bunk, full stop?

To your first question, the answer is Professor Tagliabracci, whose comments I was asked to review by another commenter.

To your second, the answer is no; they are taking issue with the contention that the amount of RS’s DNA on the clasp rules out secondary transfer. You have made that claim here, IIRC. Can you support it, preferably with a reference from the primary forensic literature?

Chris

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Fulcanelli,

You wrote,
Quote:
he Perugia News Digest on 18 July 2009 reported the testimony
the examination of the bra-clasp followed incorrect protocols (4): in the collection of the evidence, in its analysis, and in interpretation (4): the evidence can be given no weight: ‘it cannot be considered as bona fide evidence” (4) “given the inappropriate and anomalous collection methodology” (3, 4) [end quote]
But quoted 'who' as saying that? Not the judge, that's for sure. It wasn't the experts for the prosecution or the victims either, so who's left?

Quote:
Many of these points are similar to those brought up in the petition. The petition claims that one cannot deduce how the DNA came to be on the clasp from how much is there. I do not know whether Professor Tagliabracci made this point or not.
In other words, they are arguing that if DNA is found anywhere it's meaningless, essentially? A sort of saying...using DNA as evidence is bunk, full stop?

To your first question, the answer is Professor Tagliabracci, whose comments I was asked to comment upon by another commenter.

To your second, the answer is no; they are taking issue with the contention that the amount of RS’s DNA on the clasp rules out secondary transfer. You have made that claim here, IIRC. Can you support it, preferably with a reference from the primary forensic literature?

Chris

So then, if not by primary contact, how did the DNA get there?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

BobTheDonkey,
I wrote about the evidence of secondary transfer, pro and con, more extensively in post #1136.
Chris

 

[Kestrel]

When did Sollecito enter the apartment/room after all the other items were collected?

He didn't have to. All it would take is one of the evidence technicians being contaminated with his DNA from the living room.

Regardless of the claims made in this thread, they could not have tested everything in the apartment. If they did, the number of tests would have to be in the thousands. Notice that even in the room where the murder occurred, they didn't remove all the objects for testing.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

A boulder

halides1 @ #1136,

Your arguments and facts do not operate in a void but within a context. You can exclude the clasp and the knife and you still have the accused obfuscating, ''forgetting'', behaving different from the other young people witnesses to this tragedy. You add up all the elements and there is a convincing case based on circumstantial evidence.

One judge that denied bail for Knox said she ''could kill again'' if left free. That is one strong opinion of a suspect.

Guede was convicted with mostly the same evidence and the judge gave a 106 page reasoned opinion and a 30 year sentence.

What a trained judge sees is not what a scientist sees. A judge's world view is based on judicial experience and reasoning. Human behavior is not necessarily scientific and predictable.

Piktor,

I did not deal with this issue in #1136, thinking it outside the purview of a review/summary. However in a previous post (#1134), I found an interesting quote in the link Stilicho gave me, from someone who likened the DNA to a boulder over the heads of RS and AK. IIRC he did not sound friendly to the defendants. Reasonable minds on all sides of this case can come to different conclusions about the importance of the DNA evidence.

Chris

 

[BobTheDonkey]

BobTheDonkey,
I wrote about the evidence of secondary transfer, pro and con, more extensively in post #1136.
Chris

How did it get onto the clasp and nothing else?

 

[BobTheDonkey]

He didn't have to. All it would take is one of the evidence technicians being contaminated with his DNA from the living room.

Regardless of the claims made in this thread, they could not have tested everything in the apartment. If they did, the number of tests would have to be in the thousands. Notice that even in the room where the murder occurred, they didn't remove all the objects for testing.

How did it get onto the clasp and nothing else?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

No we don't. Aside from being a member of the FOA, Waterbury's PhD is in engineering, nothing to do with Genetics, micro-biology or any related field. In other words, he's no more qualified then anybody else and has an agenda to boot.

There is no noise on the sample. All the peaks match Meredith's locus. Even Amanda and Raffaele's own experts are not arguing that it isn't Meredith's DNA, that's beyond doubt. Their argument is that it may have been as a result of contamination. Yet, they offer no viable path for that contamination to have occurred. Somehow though, we are supposed to believe that everyone in this case (convicted and accused) has some kind of unique homing DNA with artificial intelligence that everyone else on the planet lacks.

The other problem is, you seem to be holding up the knife and the bra clasp as some sort of 'smoking gun' on which the whole case rests and that if you could only remove those the case collapses. They are not. And I suppose it also serves to prevent everyone talking about all the 'other' evidence.

Fulcinelli,

You wrote, “There is no noise on the sample. All the peaks match Meredith's locus. Even Amanda and Raffaele's own experts are not arguing that it isn't Meredith's DNA, that's beyond doubt.”

My friend, I think you are using the word “noise” differently from spectroscopists. None of the peaks in the electropherogram in question had a signal-to-noise value that was greater than about 100; therefore, the noise could not have been zero. Whether the signal that is observed is Meredith’s DNA is exactly what is in dispute here.

Chris

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Fulcinelli,

You wrote, “There is no noise on the sample. All the peaks match Meredith's locus. Even Amanda and Raffaele's own experts are not arguing that it isn't Meredith's DNA, that's beyond doubt.”

My friend, I think you are using the word “noise” differently from spectroscopists. None of the peaks in the electropherogram in question had a signal-to-noise value that was greater than about 100; therefore, the noise could not have been zero. Whether the signal that is observed is Meredith’s DNA is exactly what is in dispute here.

Chris

And, yet, it doesn't matter because Sollecito admitted that Meredith's blood was on the knife...

 

[Kestrel]

How did it get onto the clasp and nothing else?

When the investigators went back the second time to get the bra clasp, what else did they collect and test for DNA?

 

[BobTheDonkey]

When the investigators went back the second time to get the bra clasp, what else did they collect and test for DNA?

At what point was the DNA in abundance enough to attach itself to the clasp and yet not contaminate any other item tested?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

How did it get onto the clasp and nothing else?

Why was DNA found just the on bra clasp and not on Meredith's body?

Chris

 

[Chris_Halkides]

no blood

And, yet, it doesn't matter because Sollecito admitted that Meredith's blood was on the knife...

BobTheDonkey,

The knife tested negative for blood.

Chris

 

[Kestrel]

At what point was the DNA in abundance enough to attach itself to the clasp and yet not contaminate any other item tested?

It's rather clear at this point that you don't understand the problem. Assume one of the technicians accidentally contaminated himself with DNA from the living room. Perhaps sitting on the couch while putting on his suit. He then goes into the Meredith's bedroom and handles the bra clasp. While doing so, some of the material from the living room is transferred to the clasp. Since the contamination happened during the second evidence collection, it would not affect any items from the first collection.

We do know that the bra clasp was contaminated to some extent, because the tests picked up DNA from unknown persons.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

BobTheDonkey,

The knife tested negative for blood.

Chris

And, yet, we have testimony that it pricked Meredith's finger.

Regardless of the type of DNA, Sollecito has admitted that Meredith had contact with the knife.

Are you going to claim that Sollecito was merely trying to explain why the DNA could have showed positive for Meredith? Because if so, why would he choose to admit that the DNA was hers instead of arguing that the test was inconclusive?

He admitted that the knife pricked Meredith.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

It's rather clear at this point that you don't understand the problem. Assume one of the technicians accidentally contaminated himself with DNA from the living room. Perhaps sitting on the couch while putting on his suit. He then goes into the Meredith's bedroom and handles the bra clasp. While doing so, some of the material from the living room is transferred to the clasp. Since the contamination happened during the second evidence collection, it would not affect any items from the first collection.

We do know that the bra clasp was contaminated to some extent, because the tests picked up DNA from unknown persons.

There was sufficient DNA on the couch to contaminate the bra clasp, but not to contaminate the other 400+ swabs?

Majic DNA ftw!

 

[Fiona]

Well I have been doing some more digging about and I have been rather confused today. The "open letter" is no longer available on some sites and I get a message that it has been removed for breach of copyright. This was not on sites hostile to Knox, I hasten to add. I find that rather curious for an open letter but perhaps this is standard practice? I do not know

One of the posters at PMF also found this:

http://tdcaa.infopop.net/4/OpenTopic?a=tpc&s=347098965&f=2623030567&m=8811064581&inc=1

It startled me that such a thing could be stated on a public board, but there it is.

Further poking around gave me some inkling into why this might have happened, because it appears that Elizabeth Johnson was wrongfully dismissed from her job in Houston because she would not support the prosecution and the police department. At least that is what was claimed and it appeared that she won a suit against her employers and was awarded $375,000 dollars.

Whether one is overworked or not it does not seem right to me to claim to have done work which you have not done: but of course it is not certain that she would have followed through and given evidence in the case referred to by the texas attorney: that is a board for lawyers it is not a court of law and such things must be treated with caution

There is irony in this early, rather partisan, report about her dismissal in the Houston News, however

http://www.houstonpress.com/1997-01-09/news/bloodletting/

After the initial charges were dismissed, the D.A.'s office took the extraordinary step of having five of Johnson's case files subpoenaed by another grand jury and requesting that outside experts scrutinize her groundbreaking but controversial DNA testing techniques.

It would appear that Johnson herself did not stick with standard procedures when she was working in the field. The independent scrutinisers vindicated her findings (which is better than having an independent expert present at a single test and agreeing with both the procedure and the conclusion, certainly) but it is clear that she used non-orthodox techniques at that time (1996). In DNA testing terms that is a very long time ago indeed.

The article is very supportive of Johnson and it may well be a very accurate account of what happened. It may indeed show her as a determinedly professional scientist with a great deal of integrity: or one can read it very differently. Those with employment rights are hard to get rid of and it is sometimes the case that an employer would not wish to pursue the real reasons. It makes me wonder: the boss from hell and a corrupt department? Or a scientist pursuing her own agenda and failing to deliver her day to day work?

It is impossible to say, but it is certainly interesting

 

[BobTheDonkey]

You've gone and shifted the goal posts. Absence of evidence is not proof of innocence (despote the fact your statement isn't true - footprint on the pillow matching Amanda's size and Raffaele's and Amanda's DNA on the bra clasp). So little evidence was left because Meredith was unable to fight back being restrained by 3 people. And lets take the physical attack (exclude the sexual attack for the moment) there is only two forensic traces of Rudy on Meredith. 1. We would expect to see more were he the lone attacker and 2. it proves an attack can take place leaving next to no evidence at all...none at all, is only marginally different then only two traces. You also ignore all possibilty that two of the attackers may have been wearing gloves.

Your limited arbitrary perspective also serves to conveniently ignore the wealth of other evidence that puts them at the cottage on the night of the murder and involved in the crime scene staging, staging they would only have reason to do if they were involved.


You also ignore the fact that those other profiles were so weak a profile couldn't even be made from them, indicating it was by third party transfer simply by existing in a shared domicile with shared laudry facilities. While in contrast, Raffaele's sample was large, complete and could only have occurred via direct vigorous contact.

The time it took before the sample was tested is not an issue. If they did take the sample on day one to the lab and put it in a sealed box for weeks, then they tested it, would it still be invalid?

Just in case you missed it the first time it was posted...