Fulcanelli
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By the way, this is Amanda's lamp when it 'was' in her room (her only light source). Do you really think she wouldn't notice it missing?:
Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel
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quadraginta
Becoming Beth
You couldn't expect her to notice something like that in the dark, could you?
I think you're being unreasonable.
Fulcanelli
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stilicho
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Absolutely, Fiona. And I didn't mean, previously, to suggest that AK didn't overrule her lawyers' opinions. Even in North America, people sometimes take the stand when it isn't in their better interests. Colin Thatcher most definitely comes to mind.
In this case, RS comes across to me as the smart one, or perhaps his father is and he appears to listen to him. This is aside from their clumsy attempt to provide him with an alibi, of course.
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@Fulcanelli: I am glad that you posted that picture. The rooms are so small (in fact, the whole cottage is) that it would be virtually impossible not to notice important things such as the only source of light excepting the window. AK appears to be one of the few people on the planet who doesn't instinctively reach for the light switch upon entering a room. She even goes to lengths to explain that she only uses her lamp when the sun is down.
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Speaking of bad planning or hubris, has anyone brought up AK's mother's unusual court testimony only a week after AK's? ( Source: http://www.kirotv.com/news/19800356/detail.html ) There's another person I never would have called to the stand but there she was, explaining in lurid detail all the alleged contents of the phone call that her daughter couldn't even remember making.
I think at that point, if I were allowed to make spontaneous statements as AK could, I might leap to my feet and simply tell my Mom to shut up. Love her to pieces but please don't undermine my testimony when I'm on trial for murder.
The assumption of hiding something may prevail among spectators, but when you're sitting on a jury & the judge instructs you that you're to draw no conclusions from a defendant not taking the stand, it's a different matter; your perceptions of everything change when you're charged with the responsibility for someone's fate and you take that very seriously.
My experience as a juror is limited, & I realize it's a logical mistake to generalize from that, but it gave me an appreciation of the trial system that I hadn't had before I served.
quadraginta
Becoming Beth
Your faith in human nature, and the ability of people to perfectly set aside their natural instincts and basic inclinations at the behest of a jury instruction is touching. In my opinion and in my experience, however, it is touchingly naive.
Were this not true I suspect that it would have not been necessary to develop case law defending the principle, and the history of that case law is surprisingly recent and not without controversy.
Even in the most relevant SCOTUS case, Griffin v. California, decided only 45 years ago, the Justices were not unanimous in the viewpoint that prosecutors and judges should be restricted from explicitly suggesting that the jury could and should consider refusal to testify as a factor in their decision, much less that the jury should be explicitly instructed not to.
If Supreme Court Justices struggle with the concept to that degree in formal review of the law it is somewhat unrealistic to assume that the average citizen on a jury would be able to so peremptorily and unreservedly abandon all inclination towards such a suspicion.
My jury duty experience seems to be a bit different than yours. I don't think they do. Some of them may actually even try, but I think that the attempts are mostly less than successful. Certainly on a subconscious level if not on a conscious one.
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Well, I realize that I may have been speaking mostly for myself. I also realize that the trial I was on may have exemplified the system at its best - a jury of relatively intelligent & conscientious New Yorkers, and a judge who was sharp, articulate & efficient. I've read & heard enough to know that you don't always get all of these things in every trial, & I've seen judges in other proceedings that made my skin crawl.
In any event, a defendant's silence didn't prevent us from acqutting him of the most serious charge we had to consider, because it was clear that the prosecution's evidence for that charge was extremely weak. What surprised me was how quickly the consensus emerged on that point. I was impressed by the amount of common sense on display in that room.
Anyway, this has little to do with the Knox case, except it's part of why I tend to be skeptical of those who argue that juries are easily bamboozled. No question that it happens, of course, and one must always be on guard for it, but it's not an argument I'll accept in any given case without good evidence.
In any event, a defendant's silence didn't prevent us from acqutting him of the most serious charge we had to consider, because it was clear that the prosecution's evidence for that charge was extremely weak. What surprised me was how quickly the consensus emerged on that point. I was impressed by the amount of common sense on display in that room.
Anyway, this has little to do with the Knox case, except it's part of why I tend to be skeptical of those who argue that juries are easily bamboozled. No question that it happens, of course, and one must always be on guard for it, but it's not an argument I'll accept in any given case without good evidence.
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quadraginta
Becoming Beth
I agree.
I suppose it's a good thing that no one is making such an argument here concerning the Knox case. The consensus appears to be that it might have been better for her if such an argument could have been made, so that it could be refuted just as you have done. But she chose the chatterbox route instead. This route suffers from its own, entirely separate pitfalls.
Which brings us full circle. If you don't say anything you can't get caught out in lies. Jury adherence to instruction aside, there remains that simple fact, similar to the old adage "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak, and remove all doubt."
I thought that someone had made that argument earlier, or was starting to do so. Also, on the PMF site, there was a link to an interview where some "expert" was making that argument, which is why I've had it in mind recently.
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/414529_knox22.html
The Prosecutor in this case has been convicted of abuse of his office during the investigations around the serial killings in Florence mentioned upthread. The charges relate to unauthorised phone tapping of journalists, but details are sketchy as yet.
The Prosecutor in this case has been convicted of abuse of his office during the investigations around the serial killings in Florence mentioned upthread. The charges relate to unauthorised phone tapping of journalists, but details are sketchy as yet.
Dan O.
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Now that you have accepted that there is also a window providing light into the room, who is making the claim that the window and the lamp are still the only light sources? If you look at that picture you will see a diffuse shadow behind the lamp and above the book shelf.
The photo taken by the police after the murder shows that there was plenty of light in the room (and gives a pretty good hint where it was coming from). That Amanda didn't replace the bulb in the celling is a strong indication that additional light was rarely needed.
I think this is a response to the assertion that Amanda couldn't have missed her lamp having gone since it was the only light source.
scissorhands
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Where do you think that light casting those shadows in the photograph was coming from?
Do you think Amanda had another lamp?
Or do you think the photographer might have used some lighting to illuminate the room and to compensate for the window overexposing and the rest of the room then appearing underexposed.
Dan O.
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Back on page 53, Fulcanelli claimed that the lamp was the only source of light in the room. On this page, stilicho is still casting the spin that that lamp would be necessary for illumination during the day such as on the morning that Amanda stepped into her room to check if a thief had been there the previous night.
Why do you call my pointing out verifiable facts trivia and let Fulcanelli and stilicho slide on bringing up such trivia and making unsupported inferences from it in the first place?
Why do you try to shut down the search for the truth of what really happened that night? Do you like the thought that a young girl could be sitting out a major portion of her life in a foreign prison for a crime she didn't commit? Or is this your way of denying that their could be such evil in the police and prosecution that they could railroad a conviction against anybody, including you, that happens to be near by when a crime is committed.
No Dan. I never entertained for one moment that knox lived in a cupboard. There are laws about that here and I assume there are laws about it in Italy as well. If you honestly thought that she did live in a cupboard; or that anyone else thought she lived in a cupboard, then why not just ask the question directly? /That is the cooperative thing to do.
It was said in court that the overhead light in that room did not work. That is what was meant by "no other source of light". Depending on the size and orientation of a room one might need additional lighting during the day or one might not. I do in my bedroom though it has a sizeable window: I don't in my living room: I need it in my kitchen before about 10 and after about 4. (depending on the time of year)
Knox may or may not have needed her lamp during the day: I have no idea. The question was could you miss the lamp if you were looking for signs of disturbance: and the answer depends on your point of view: I think you might not notice it was missing, but it is unlikely. Others think it could be easily done.
But nothing hangs on it and that is why it is trivial. All we can say is that she might or might not have noticed it. The important point is that the lamp was in Kercher's room. So far as i have read I think the flex ran out of the door into the corridor. I may be wrong about that. But if that is correct I cannot think one would not notice that when one was worried enough about the situation in the house to try to break the door down: which RS and AK say they did.
I would like it if you pointed out the inferences being drawn from each little point in isolation: I do not think anyone is doing that. It is the weight of lots of little things and it is certainly true that you can try to overturn each of them in turn: but this lamp is not amongst the reasons which persuade me to believe I would have convicted them had I been on the jury: and I do not think it is for anyone else either. Neither the lamp nor phone call you have made so much of are major issues for me. I will not ignore their potential significance in the context of the whole but you can sling them for me and my list of what I believe to be important facts is not touched
It was said in court that the overhead light in that room did not work. That is what was meant by "no other source of light". Depending on the size and orientation of a room one might need additional lighting during the day or one might not. I do in my bedroom though it has a sizeable window: I don't in my living room: I need it in my kitchen before about 10 and after about 4. (depending on the time of year)
Knox may or may not have needed her lamp during the day: I have no idea. The question was could you miss the lamp if you were looking for signs of disturbance: and the answer depends on your point of view: I think you might not notice it was missing, but it is unlikely. Others think it could be easily done.
But nothing hangs on it and that is why it is trivial. All we can say is that she might or might not have noticed it. The important point is that the lamp was in Kercher's room. So far as i have read I think the flex ran out of the door into the corridor. I may be wrong about that. But if that is correct I cannot think one would not notice that when one was worried enough about the situation in the house to try to break the door down: which RS and AK say they did.
I would like it if you pointed out the inferences being drawn from each little point in isolation: I do not think anyone is doing that. It is the weight of lots of little things and it is certainly true that you can try to overturn each of them in turn: but this lamp is not amongst the reasons which persuade me to believe I would have convicted them had I been on the jury: and I do not think it is for anyone else either. Neither the lamp nor phone call you have made so much of are major issues for me. I will not ignore their potential significance in the context of the whole but you can sling them for me and my list of what I believe to be important facts is not touched
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Dan O.
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We have no attribution for the photo posted above so we don't know who the photographer is or when the photo was taken. [Note: the photo is hot linked from the PMF site and unless that site has given explicit permission to allow hot linking it is in violation of JREF rules.] The PMF site provides no source or identity of this photo. On another board it was suggested that this photo was taken long before Amanda arrived in Italy. Alternatively, it could have been taken by Amanda on the day she moved in.
Over exposure of the bag and the shadow cast by the bag handle is indication of a flash above and right of the camera lens. The light creating the diffuse shadows must come from considerably lower. Light coming through the patio door and falling on the bedroom floor would provide excellent lighting for the room during the day and would also account for the diffuse shadows seen in the photo.
In the police photo of Amanda's room after the murder, you can see the photographer's reflection in the mirror and the translucent curtains of the patio door behind him.
No.
If you look few lines down in the transcript of Amanda's testimony, you should notice it's pointed out, probably by Amanda's lawyer, that she gave both reasons during the interrogation:
Note that this came from page 40, the same page of the interrogation that the prosecutor quoted earlier claiming she had changed her story.
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BobTheDonkey
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Where in the interview does she say that she had turned it off to save the battery?
The way it reads to me is:
"I didn't want to be disturbed. Also, I didn't want to be called into work."
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