Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[Chris_Halkides]

evidence

Evidence, please.

Stilicho,

You claimed that the fsa files were a red herring without even knowing what they were. That is all the evidence I need to conclude that anything you say about DNA forensics is not worth a plugged nickel.

Chris

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Stilicho,

You claimed that the fsa files were a red herring without even knowing what they were. That is all the evidence I need to conclude that anything you say about DNA forensics is not worth a plugged nickel.

Chris

...says the guy who can't decide if the knife is worthless as evidence because it's not Meredith's blood or it was contaminated with Meredith's blood.

No true scotsmen in this thread right here.

 

[stilicho]

Stilicho,

You claimed that the fsa files were a red herring without even knowing what they were. That is all the evidence I need to conclude that anything you say about DNA forensics is not worth a plugged nickel.

Chris

I didn't make a single claim about the "fsa files", you did. I haven't allowed a site to create the illusion that I am a DNA forensics expert, you did.

We are all waiting with bated breath to hear which of your colleagues have supervised your relevant DNA forensics research at UNCW. Should I canvass them myself?

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

What would we expect Biondo to say? He is Stefanoni’s superior and is a prosecution consultant.

I'd expect Biondo to say that he stands by the work of his subordinates regardless of who is doing the consulting, because by definition he is responsible for the work of his subordinates. If he didn't stand by it, and permitted that work to be be issued as product of record then he would be equally, if not more responsible for any errors or failures.

Are you suggesting that this facility took instruction from Mignini and crafted their lab procedure with the intent to produce evidence incriminating Sollecito? That is a rather serious charge, and I think that if you are you need to bring forward more substantial evidence than a biased blogger's innuendo.

If not then you need to explain what mysterious process takes place which negates the independent quality of a laboratory's work and personnel simply because the results which they develop fall to one side or the other of any case.

It is the nature of forensic investigation that a laboratory is going to get some sort of results. Barring issues of integrity those results are going to be what they are, and that is not of itself an indication of bias by the technicians, or their bosses.

If the same lab had determined that none of Meridith's DNA was present on the knife your arguments would suggest that they must therefore be biased against Mignini. Since the same lab determined the absence of Sollecito's DNA in many more places than they determined its presence, or Knox's, or Guede's for that matter your logic would indicate that they were actually far more biased in the defense's favor, regardless of where Biondo was sitting in the courtroom.

Because of the doubtful nature you claim invalidates the DNA tests, under only marginally different circumstances it is not impossible that the defense could have used testimony from Biondo's lab that the DNA might not be Meridith's to demolish Sollicito's claim that he knew for certain it was. But that could have proven a bit awkward.

Would that have made Biondo biased toward the defense?

 

[Kermit]

Charlie Wilkes said: "My larger point is that every bit of evidence against Knox and Sollecito is under a cloud for one reason or another."

The judges and jury didn't think so.

- "Every bit" .... mmmm ...... Let's start with the alibis. Raffaele said he had received a call and/or SMS from his father at the time of the murder, when that wasn't the case. They both said they were sleeping the next morning, although their phones had activity early in the morning of 2 Nov 2007.

- In spite of Charlie's insinuation, Raffaele, once arrested after "admitting" (or "accusing"?) in his 5 Nov 2007 questioning that Amanda had left his flat, has never retracted that, leaving only the wishy-washy, sit-on-the-fence comment in his "prison diary" that maybe she left for a shorter period of time (Amanda states that she neither left for a long nor short period of time). That prison writing doesn't have the same weight in the pile of evidence as his police witness statement that Amanda wasn't in his flat the whole period of time (although I admit that Raffaele's statements in general don't hold much weight).

- Amanda's and Meredith's DNA is mixed in stains ranging from Filomena's room to the bathroom.

- Raffaele's DNA is on the bloodied bra clasp, in a high quantity (some pro-AK poster said there was only dust on the clasp, no blood .... not true - I can't yet post images, but the clasp is bloodied). No one other than forensic investigators - clothed in the same way that I have seen forensic investigators in US cases - accessed the room from the moment of discovery.

Etc. etc. The only clouds which drift over the evidence are the ones being seeded with silver by FOA and the Million Dollar PR Campaign: remember Paul Ciolino screaming and sputtering vehemently that Amanda "didn't know" Rudy and had "never set eyes on him"? Well she testified that she "partied" (or went to a party, for those who were arguing earlier about the symantic implications of "a") with Rudy, smoking marijuana with him, in a limited group of friends in the small boys flat on the lower floor of the cottage.

The FOA / Marriott silver-laden clouds - in spite of the heavy cost - don't seem to have swayed the legal proceedings.

 

[Kermit]

BTW, all this hullaballoo about "fsa" files - it seems that Amanda's case depends on Fulcanelli admitting that they must be distributed without asking to the defence, and if that doesn't happen, the case is null and void. My question is: has Luciano Ghirga, Amanda's principal lawyer, actually ever asked the prosecution for a "fsa" file? This man is an experienced, expensive lawyer. I haven't actually seen any information that he has made such a request. Maybe he (and his expensive team of technical advisors) doesn't consider it all that important. Maybe he's more interested - from a professional legal defence point-of-view - in trying to get a defendable perimeter around Amanda's leaky alibi.

His widely published advice to her early in the case - that she must get a straight story, and that she should be careful to not accuse unjustly - was and still is quite sound.

 

[shuttlt]

BTW, all this hullaballoo about "fsa" files - it seems that Amanda's case depends on Fulcanelli admitting that they must be distributed without asking to the defence, and if that doesn't happen, the case is null and void. My question is: has Luciano Ghirga, Amanda's principal lawyer, actually ever asked the prosecution for a "fsa" file? This man is an experienced, expensive lawyer. I haven't actually seen any information that he has made such a request. Maybe he (and his expensive team of technical advisors) doesn't consider it all that important. Maybe he's more interested - from a professional legal defence point-of-view - in trying to get a defendable perimeter around Amanda's leaky alibi.

His widely published advice to her early in the case - that she must get a straight story, and that she should be careful to not accuse unjustly - was and still is quite sound.

Kermit, I think there is also the question of when such a request, if it was made, was made and who to. I find it hard to see how this argument of data being withheld can hold water if it wasn't until October that the defense officially made the court aware that they hadn't received it. That's around 5 months after Steffanoni gave evidence. How could they effectively cross examine her if they were ignorant about the most basic aspects of what she had done, like whether adequate controls were in place.

 

[shuttlt]

Shuttit,

Here is a helpful link:

http://www.nfstc.org/pdi/Subject06/pdi_s06_m01_02.htm

Chris

Thanks, so the .fsa files are just the data that the graphs we have all seen derive from?

Going back to the file extension one last time:

fasta seems to be the standard extension for generic fasta files. Other extensions can be fa, seq, fsa. If Wikipedia is to be believed, fasta is being superceded by fastq which encodes the quality data (whatever that may be) in with the data contained in fasta file.

Anyway, that's as much about these file formats as I'm interested to know. The only reason they are of any interest to me at all was the thought that a number of discrepencies between the positions of the defence (and their supporters) and the prosecution could be resolved (without anybody actually lying) if one or the other were speaking a technical and pedantic truth while at the same time being deeply misleading, like saying that the .fsa files are being withheld when in fact fastq files have been handed over (not that I have any reason for believing this is what has happened).

 

[Kermit]

BTW, all this hullaballoo about "fsa" files - it seems that Amanda's case depends on Fulcanelli admitting that they must be distributed without asking to the defence, and if that doesn't happen, the case is null and void. My question is: has Luciano Ghirga, Amanda's principal lawyer, actually ever asked the prosecution for a "fsa" file? This man is an experienced, expensive lawyer. I haven't actually seen any information that he has made such a request. Maybe he (and his expensive team of technical advisors) doesn't consider it all that important. Maybe he's more interested - from a professional legal defence point-of-view - in trying to get a defendable perimeter around Amanda's leaky alibi.

His widely published advice to her early in the case - that she must get a straight story, and that she should be careful to not accuse unjustly - was and still is quite sound.

Kermit, I think there is also the question of when such a request, if it was made, was made and who to. I find it hard to see how this argument of data being withheld can hold water if it wasn't until October that the defense officially made the court aware that they hadn't received it. That's around 5 months after Steffanoni gave evidence. How could they effectively cross examine her if they were ignorant about the most basic aspects of what she had done, like whether adequate controls were in place.

.
I quite agree, and will take your observations a step further: when you question how could the defence effectively cross examine Steffanoni about her work carried out .... well, they wouldn't have to cross examine her at all had they attended the DNA testing, an activity to which they had been invited.

Just imagine:

1) you're a suspect in a murder, a 33 cm knife is being tested as the possible murder weapon, and your technical team declines the invitation to attend and observe the testing.

2) the incriminating results of the testing are presented by prosecution in the trial, along with a pile of other evidence which is not in your favour.

3) the long, drawn-out trial continues through the spring, summer and fall, mundanely dealing with the rest of the evidence. Five months after the incriminating DNA results had been presented in court, and just as the trial is winding down and closing arguments are being drawn up, a bunch of noise is made (in my view, more outside of the courthouse than inside) about detailed Double DNA Knife testing data

4) inspite of the last minute noise, it seems that Amanda's lawyers didn't ask for the all-important ".fsa" file which FOA bloggers have decided was a key procedural breakdown in the managing of the trial ....

¡¡¡¡¡ CASE DISMISSED !!!!!

(yeah, right)

 

[shuttlt]

.
1) you're a suspect in a murder, a 33 cm knife is being tested as the possible murder weapon, and your technical team declines the invitation to attend and observe the testing.

I've seen it claimed that the defence were given minimal warning. I'm not sure that it matters hugely though.

.
4) inspite of the last minute noise, it seems that Amanda's lawyers didn't ask for the all-important ".fsa" file which FOA bloggers have decided was a key procedural breakdown in the managing of the trial ....

I've no idea whether they asked the prosecution, or the lab, for these files at some point. It doesn't look like they can have asked the court for the documents though until well after Steffanoni's testimony - presumably the documents requested before the summer recess would give the earliest possible date for this.

 

[tsig]

That story isn't even proof that Raffaele made the claim that he went partying on the 1st. It might simply be a reporter getting her notes crossed and attributing to the 1st what Raffaele said he was doing a night earlier. He had already told the police in multiple interviews where he was that night so why would he be changing his story, especially if there is no evidence to back up the new version?

It's really odd that everyone gets it wrong but Amanda. But wait what was her story again? Take your pick she has many of them.

 

[shuttlt]

It's really odd that everyone gets it wrong but Amanda. But wait what was her story again? Take your pick she has many of them.

That's not quite what she claimed though. As I recall, she said she could remember her boss killing Meredith, but that she had doubts about the reliability of her memory. Given the trouble we've had with party/a party, we need to be clear on this distinction.

 

[tsig]

Or maybe, it's just a typo and she missed out the word 'a'.

We've gone from "Amanda Knox guilty-all because of a cartwheel" to just "Amanda Knox guilty- because of "a".

When we eliminate the "a" we may have the truth.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

not high

- Raffaele's DNA is on the bloodied bra clasp, in a high quantity.

Meredith's DNA is in high quantity, in the range of 1200 RFUs. Raffaele's DNA is in the range of 200 RFUs, not high at all. However, the problems with the bra clasp are related to how the evidence was collected, a problem which you fail to mention.

 

[Kestrel]

It's really odd that everyone gets it wrong but Amanda. But wait what was her story again? Take your pick she has many of them.

Why don't we listen to the recording of her interrogation by the police and confirm what she actually said in the context of how the questions were asked?

 

[Fulcanelli]

Why don't we listen to the recording of her interrogation by the police and confirm what she actually said in the context of how the questions were asked?

Oh, Kestrel's back to playing that worn out old record then.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

two arguments that are both valid

...says the guy who can't decide if the knife is worthless as evidence because it's not Meredith's blood or it was contaminated with Meredith's blood.

No true scotsmen in this thread right here.

BobTheDonkey,

You misunderstand the two arguments against taking the knife profile as good evidence. The first is that the signals are too weak (and have other problems) to be accepted as a good profile of Meredith’s DNA. Before we get to the second argument, let’s be clear about one thing. The knife was tested for blood using tetramethylbenzidine, which is a very sensitive assay. There was no blood on the knife. Period.

The second argument starts with this lack of blood. If a bloody knife were cleaned to the point of not having detectable blood, it is somewhere between unlikely and impossible that there would be DNA left on the blade. Therefore, any DNA that one observed probably came from contamination. This argument is equally valid for a strong or a weak profile, IMHO.

The two arguments do not contradict each other; I accept both of them. Either one is enough to make one dubious of the claim that the knife DNA profile is solid evidence.

Chris

 

[Kermit]

Meredith's DNA is in high quantity, in the range of 1200 RFUs. Raffaele's DNA is in the range of 200 RFUs, not high at all. However, the problems with the bra clasp are related to how the evidence was collected, a problem which you fail to mention.

I think that 200 RFUs is more than enough to convince the court that there was a part of Raffaele on that bra clasp. If there was more of Meredith's DNA, I suppose it's because it was her bra.

There's a problem with how the evidence was collected? While I agree that it would have been better to have tagged and removed it in the first visit, there is no convincing argument concerning contamination:

- the cottage was sealed, any intrusion would have been quickly detected, as happened the next year.

- forensic personnel wore appropriate clothing.

- the forensic personnel at the cottage did not coincide with searches or seizures at Raffaele's home.

- although there are images of a forensic technician without a hairnet, if the testing didn't reveal her DNA, then I don't think there's a problem, although some FOA commenters think so. I've seen many images of US forensic investigators in similar apparel.

- wild descriptions of Raffaele's dundruff flying under the crack in the door and landing like a Lunar Module just on the clasp, or of an investigator stepping on a drop of Raffaele's sweat on the floor in the hallway and then grinding into the clasp from the sole of their shoe don't convince many.

 

[shuttlt]

BobTheDonkey,

You misunderstand the two arguments against taking the knife profile as good evidence. The first is that the signals are too weak (and have other problems) to be accepted as a good profile of Meredith’s DNA. Before we get to the second argument, let’s be clear about one thing. The knife was tested for blood using tetramethylbenzidine, which is a very sensitive assay. There was no blood on the knife. Period.

I really want to avoid being a partisan turd about this, but do you have any more information on how sensitive the TMB test is? The figure quoted in the open letter is 1:10,000, which is bloody hard to interpret. Two experts have said something along the lines of "the blood test is more sensitive than DNA tests, so it's unlikely to be blood". The motivations report apparantly says that there was not enough material for the negative result to mean there was no blood. Do you have any information that can take this forward, or are we just repeating single line statements from our preferred experts at one another? What I'm looking for is, what is the minimum sized blood spot/number of red blood cells that can be detected by TMB?

 

[Fulcanelli]

Looking at the Massei Report, I can also tell you that everyone was assigned into teams before entering the cottage. Each team was assigned and restricted to one particular room, no member of which was permitted to enter any of the other rooms. This was done to further restrict any possible cross contamination.