Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[tsig]

From Sollecito's prison diary:

He wrote: "The fact there is Meredith's DNA on the kitchen knife is because once when we were all cooking together I accidentally pricked her hand. I apologised immediately and she said it was not a problem."

Snip

Sollecito added: "When I saw the knife on TV that was in my kitchen and on which they found traces of Amanda and Meredith, my heart jumped into my throat.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-DNA-knife-pricked-cooking.html#ixzz0dxVNgRex

Do you have a cite which says his story about cooking together predated his knowledge about the test results?

Why would it have to predate it?

 

[stilicho]

Alt+F4 does appear to be making this claim.

Well, she isn't making a claim. She asked for the origins of RS's alibi about Meredith's DNA on a knife from his kitchen. You forgot the clarification just one post later.

We all replied (yourself included) that he voluntarily wrote it while in prison. No "injected false memories".

QED

 

[Fiona]

The problem with this bit of evidence is that 50 picograms of DNA is less than a dozen cells. Below the threshold for LCN DNA even when done under proper circumstances. That is in a separate facility with a positive air pressure system and filtration to keep any microscopic particles floating around the room out of the equipment. It was instead processed in the same lab and prepared on the same work surfaces used to process dozens of other samples containing Meredith's DNA. All it takes is a dust spec to contaminate the sample.

Been through this. So what is the claim? We cannot know that it was Kercher' DNA? Follows from the charge that LCN testing is unreliable and is at odds with every expert who saw the evidence. Or it is hers but it is due to contamination? Make your mind up what the claim is and someone might take you seriously. All this "might have been" is not good enough given how much we have been through this and I though we had actually agreed pages ago that it is in fact hers.

So what do you expect Sollecito to do when he hears about this evidence? If he and Amanda are innocent, would you expect him to simply state he had no idea how the DNA got on that knife?

Yes, that is what an honest, innocent person would do.

After all, from this thread it's clear that few people believe that DNA contamination exists. Most people seem to think it works just like it does on CSI. Where DNA is never present unless it came from a criminal or victim and it's always traceable to a crime.

Nonsense: and quite insulting, in line with your usual implicature.

 

[stilicho]

Why would it have to predate it?

I'll let halides1 field that.

But, importantly, when you read the full text of RS's prison diary, he's sitting in there waiting patiently for the "stupid policemen" to catch RG. In the meantime, of course, the fact (his words) of Meredith's DNA found on his knife in his kitchen drawer causes his heart to leap. I will guarantee you it did a great deal more than that. If he really did think that the police were as stupid as he claimed, then they were rapidly tying him to the murder whereas that's the last thing he wanted.

The rest of his entries show he is now trying desperately to distance himself from AK since, if they don't catch RG, they won't find the person he suggests that she gave his knife to.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

setting limits

Her so called "pioneering technique" consisted of operating a device beyond it's scientifically established limits without doing any studies to determine reliability of the readings so obtained. It's a classic problem of results oriented "forensic science", where the overriding goal is to produce evidence supporting the prosecution.

Kestrel,

Good point. Stefanoni's lab went below their threshold of 50 RFU. The textbook An Introduction to Forensic DNA analysis, 2nd ed. (Rudin, N. and Inman, K., CRC Press 2002, p. 121) wrote, “It is important to have some predetermined limit to distinguish what is signal and what is noise.” (emphasis added).

Chris

 

[Fiona]

Fixed your link first of all. Second, it might help if your source spelled the judge's name correctly. Third: Where is the cite? Did Micheli really take the conspiracy for granted? Finally, it may help for you to locate original quotes rather than the opinion of a columnist who is joined at the hip with the FOA/Marriott PR machine.

Thanks Stilicho. The article is full of inaccuracies but I cannot see the claim halides1 refers to.

ETA: I found it

. Judge Paolo Michelli, during the pretrial, took the conspiracy for granted. He boasted that he began his reasoning with all three suspects in the murder room. So much for innocent until proven guilty.

That is a straightforward lie.

From the translation of Micheli's report at PMF. Micheli first devotes many pages to the arguments made for and against Guede and he concludes that Guede's account is not believable. He then goes on to consider whether to commit RS and AK. He gives full consideration to the "Lone Wolf" idea and gives detailed reasons why he rejects it

Micheli rules out Lone Wolf Theory, implicates Knox and Sollecito in Meredith's murder.

Right at the outset of his Sentence Report on the conviction of Rudy Guede, Judge Micheli stated that it was neither the place, nor his intention to make the case against either Raffaele Sollecito or Amanda Knox. He said he must necessarily involve them to the extent that they were present at the discovery of Meredith's body. He said he must also examine evidence against them where he saw it as indicating that Rudy Guede was not a lone wolf killer and implicated them as his possible accomplices in Meredith's murder.

<snip>

Micheli then dedicates quite a few pages of his report detailing the exact locations, positions, descriptions and measurements of all the items, blood stains, pools and spots etc.etc. found in her room when the investigators arrived. He also goes into precise details of the injuries, marks, cuts and bruises etc. which were found by Lalli when he examined Meredith's body in situ at the cottage before she was moved. Despite their extent, it is obvious these details are only a summary of the initial police report and also a report made by Lalli on the 2nd November.

<snip>

*the following points are a summary of the points which led Micheli to his decision and are not a faithful translation of the report itself: the numbers form no part of that report. I have taken only the main points even from that summary:

1)After hearing both prosecution and defense arguments about Meredith's and Amanda's DNA on the knife and Raffaele's DNA on Meredith's bra clasp, he accepted the prosecution argument that that both were valid evidence.

2)In his report he explains that blood evidence proves that Meredith was wearing her bra when she was killed. Nor is it just the blood on her bra which demonstrates this. It's also where the blood isn't on her body. [ ]Micheli reasons in his report that it could only have been done by someone who knew about Meredith's death and had an interest in arranging the scene in Meredith's room. Who else but Amanda Knox? She was the only person in Perugia that night who could gain entry to the cottage, and the clasp which was cut with a knife when Meredith's bra was removed was found on November 2nd when Meredith's body was moved by the investigators. It was right under the pillow which was placed under Meredith when she was moved by someone from the position in which she died. On that clasp and it's inch of fabric is the DNA of Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox. Micheli reasons in his report that Raffaele and Amanda returned to the cottage some time after Meredith was dead, cut off her bra, moved her body and staged the scene in Meredith's room.

3.He says that Rudy's entry through the window is a very unlikely scenario and the evidence also indicates otherwise.....He says the broken glass and marks on the shutter both demonstrate the window was broken from the inside, some of the glass even falling on top of Filomena's clothes which had been thrown around the room to simulate a robbery......his major reasoning for believing Rudy's entry was through the front door are the bloody bare footprints which show up with luminol and fit Knox and Sollecito's feet.

4)4)Micheli examines the evidence of Antonio Curatolo.

5)5)Micheli examines the evidence of Hekuran Kokomani

Micheli found that all this evidence implicated Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito as accomplices of Rudy Guede in the murder of Meredith Kercher.

http://perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=115&p=3518&hilit=michelli+reasons#p3518

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Sollecito's story

Why would it have to predate it?

The key issue is that Sollecito offered his story in response to being given information about the knife. It was not spontaneous. I have already offered my objections to BobTheDonkey’s argument that the testing does not matter. If Sollecito’s comment had been made prior to his hearing of the results, I would give more weight to Bob’s point.

 

[Fiona]

Kestrel,

Good point. Stefanoni's lab went below their threshold of 50 RFU. The textbook An Introduction to Forensic DNA analysis, 2nd ed. (Rudin, N. and Inman, K., CRC Press 2002, p. 121) wrote, “It is important to have some predetermined limit to distinguish what is signal and what is noise.” (emphasis added).

Chris

So you are relying on an introductory textbook which cannot (almost by definition) address the issues in this case? Well done

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Blood test more sensitive than DNA test

'Unlikely' or not, that is indeed what was done. I have no problem with that since 'unlikely' does not translate as 'impossible'.

"if someone had a knife covered in blood and they tried to
clean it very well, they would remove their ability to detect the DNA before they removed the ability to detect the chemical
traces of blood." The segment can be viewed at http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/AmandaKnox/amanda-knox-lawyer-prosecutorswitched-
motives/story?id=9215634.

 

[Fiona]

Can someone fix that link for me as well, please.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Textbooks versus feelings

So you are relying on an introductory textbook which cannot (almost by definition) address the issues in this case? Well done

You are relying on nothing but your own gut instincts. That is not science, and it is as unconvincing an argument as I have seen in this thread.

 

[Fiona]

You are relying on nothing but your own gut instincts. That is not science, and it is as unconvincing an argument as I have seen in this thread.

That is also a straightforward lie. The evidence which refutes you is all over this thread and I expect an apology

 

[Kestrel]

Been through this. So what is the claim? We cannot know that it was Kercher' DNA? Follows from the charge that LCN testing is unreliable and is at odds with every expert who saw the evidence. Or it is hers but it is due to contamination? Make your mind up what the claim is and someone might take you seriously. All this "might have been" is not good enough given how much we have been through this and I though we had actually agreed pages ago that it is in fact hers. .

The post you are responding to was about the possibility of contamination. I wasn't discussing the issue of interpreting the results. Do you admit that contamination is possible? If not, please explain how the Italian lab made it impossible for contamination to occur?

Also, where is the rule stating a skeptic should explore only one possibility when multiple possibilities exist?

 

[Fiona]

The question of contamination has been extensively discussed. It is hardly worth repeating and I am not about to put a lot of thought into it (you can read the thread for more extensive argument) but briefly:

There has been no instance of contamination in that lab in the last 7 years
There is no contamination from anyone else, nor on any sample bar those that are inconvenient to the defence
The protocols were observed by independent expert witnesses who confirmed they were fine
Controls were done which did not show any contamination

As was said at about page 10 or earlier: any dna test can be attacked in this way. But unless you can show even one tiny scinitilla of evidence that contamination did happen then it didn't. So where is this evidence?

There is no rule stating a sceptic should only explore one possibility: but when they are mutually exclusive it is clumsy to conflate them

 

[rockinkt]

You are relying on nothing but your own gut instincts. That is not science, and it is as unconvincing an argument as I have seen in this thread.

Relying on a book that was published in 2001 (2nd edition) to refute what is considered new and groundbreaking in forensic DNA testing in 2009 is absurd.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Relying on a book that was published in 2001 (2nd edition) to refute what is considered new and groundbreaking in forensic DNA testing in 2009 is absurd.

lol.

I thought the same thing when I first read that post.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Contamination

Fiona wrote, “There has been no instance of contamination in that lab in the last 7 years
There is no contamination from anyone else, nor on any sample bar those that are inconvenient to the defence
The protocols were observed by independent expert witnesses who confirmed they were fine
Controls were done which did not show any contamination

As was said at about page 10 or earlier: any dna test can be attacked in this way. But unless you can show even one tiny scinitilla of evidence that contamination did happen then it didn't. So where is this evidence?”

Let’s look at these five points.

(1) For Stefanoni to claim that no contamination has occurred is dubious. “The occasional ‘contamination event’ is inevitable, said [Ed] Blake, the California scientist, but crime labs aren't routinely disclosing those miscues.”

“’Who can believe the only contamination they have is those (cases) where they can detect it? There's inevitably lots more,’ [Professor William] Thompson said.
 That contention was recently confirmed by a study in the May 2004 Journal of Forensic Sciences that found that clean controls don't guarantee contaminant-free evidence.”

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/183007_crimelab22.html

(2) The bra clasp has the DNA from five individuals on it. It is hard to rule out contamination in this instance.

(3) Dr. Donald Riley wrote, “Full profile contaminants have been documented on multiple occasions and in multiple laboratories. Partial profile contaminants are more common and sometimes constitute a poorly recognized risk in using partial profiles in evidentiary samples as evidence. When contamination occurs there is rarely any way to confirm how it happened.” http://www.scientific.org/tutorials/articles/riley/riley.html

(4) Negative controls do not show every instance of contamination. Riley wrote, “Alternatively, the blank may show no profile, consistent with, but not proving that contamination didn’t occur… Negative controls also can't rule out contamination of individual samples. The individual samples lack individual signs of contamination if it occurs.” Moreover, contamination cannot be observed with the naked eye, so the presence of observers means little.

(5) It would help to have an independent analysis of the work. The defense asked for this but was denied.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

peer review

Relying on a book that was published in 2001 (2nd edition) to refute what is considered new and groundbreaking in forensic DNA testing in 2009 is absurd.

If the work is pathbreaking, let Dr. Stefanoni submit it for publication where it will be peer reviewed.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

The key issue is that Sollecito offered his story in response to being given information about the knife. It was not spontaneous. I have already offered my objections to BobTheDonkey’s argument that the testing does not matter. If Sollecito’s comment had been made prior to his hearing of the results, I would give more weight to Bob’s point.

So, was the blood Meredith's or not?

 

[quadraginta]

Fiona wrote, “There has been no instance of contamination in that lab in the last 7 years
There is no contamination from anyone else, nor on any sample bar those that are inconvenient to the defence
The protocols were observed by independent expert witnesses who confirmed they were fine
Controls were done which did not show any contamination

As was said at about page 10 or earlier: any dna test can be attacked in this way. But unless you can show even one tiny scinitilla of evidence that contamination did happen then it didn't. So where is this evidence?”

Let’s look at these five points.

(1) For Stefanoni to claim that no contamination has occurred is dubious. “The occasional ‘contamination event’ is inevitable, said [Ed] Blake, the California scientist, but crime labs aren't routinely disclosing those miscues.”

“’Who can believe the only contamination they have is those (cases) where they can detect it? There's inevitably lots more,’ [Professor William] Thompson said.
 That contention was recently confirmed by a study in the May 2004 Journal of Forensic Sciences that found that clean controls don't guarantee contaminant-free evidence.”

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/183007_crimelab22.html

(2) The bra clasp has the DNA from five individuals on it. It is hard to rule out contamination in this instance.

(3) Dr. Donald Riley wrote, “Full profile contaminants have been documented on multiple occasions and in multiple laboratories. Partial profile contaminants are more common and sometimes constitute a poorly recognized risk in using partial profiles in evidentiary samples as evidence. When contamination occurs there is rarely any way to confirm how it happened.” http://www.scientific.org/tutorials/articles/riley/riley.html

(4) Negative controls do not show every instance of contamination. Riley wrote, “Alternatively, the blank may show no profile, consistent with, but not proving that contamination didn’t occur… Negative controls also can't rule out contamination of individual samples. The individual samples lack individual signs of contamination if it occurs.” Moreover, contamination cannot be observed with the naked eye, so the presence of observers means little.

Taken as a whole, this and other posts of yours to the same effect would lead a reasonable person to believe that you feel it is impossible for any DNA testing to be presented as reliable evidence in court under any circumstances.

(5) It would help to have an independent analysis of the work. The defense asked for this but was denied.

I was under the impression from earlier comments in this thread that the defense had been offered the opportunity to have their own experts present at the original testing, but declined. If this is the case don't you think that it is somewhat disingenuous for the defense to claim error or impropriety and demand a review at a later date.