Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[HumanityBlues]

Can you supply examples of these? A comparison and contrast among various legal systems would be helpful. Just as an example, in which jurisdictions would AK's memorandum have been declared inadmissible?

Asking whether AK's memorandum would be declared inadmissible in American court is an impossible question to answer because the police are under different rules with how to treat suspects and witnesses, and when certain rights attach and what violations lead to exclusions are different. I could make certain comparisons, but you could never come to a very conclusive answer. For example, while there is a right to attorney in Italy, Miranda rights don't attach because of course, there is no such thing as a Miranda warning in Italy--though the right to an attorney attaches similarly.

We could attempt to answer this theoretically from an American perspective only if you allowed certain assumptions. If that's a discussion you want to explore I'm happy to discuss it (and Guadraginta can probably weigh in). So just give the scenario in an American context and we can work from there.

To your second question about inadmissibility, a simple example. The criminal procedure code for instance, mandates that all evidence be pertinent in order to be admissible. This is not a constitutional right in Italy but one that is codified in the Italian criminal code. If we were to compare it to the American system (that seems to be what you might be asking for, I'm not sure honestly), we have Constitutional rights that will lead to exclusion, and evidentiary rules codified separate from the constitution that will make evidence inadmissible. It is of course possible to violate both the constitution and rules of evidence simultaneously.

All this being said, much more evidence will be admissible within the Italian system. There is much more leeway for a judge, as has already been discussed.

Also, somewhat irrelevant but something interesting: Italy has plea bargaining for crimes with sentences below 7 years (not the same as a fast track trial). A little off topic, but anyone who is critical of the American plea bargaining system (and I am one of them) should watch a documentary called "The Plea", which I think was put out by PBS. I don't have a link unfortunately.

 

[stilicho]

Asking whether AK's memorandum would be declared inadmissible in American court is an impossible question to answer because the police are under different rules with how to treat suspects and witnesses, and when certain rights attach and what violations lead to exclusions are different. I could make certain comparisons, but you could never come to a very conclusive answer. For example, while there is a right to attorney in Italy, Miranda rights don't attach because of course, there is no such thing as a Miranda warning in Italy--though the right to an attorney attaches similarly.

We could attempt to answer this theoretically from an American perspective only if you allowed certain assumptions. If that's a discussion you want to explore I'm happy to discuss it (and Guadraginta can probably weigh in). So just give the scenario in an American context and we can work from there.

To your second question about inadmissibility, a simple example. The criminal procedure code for instance, mandates that all evidence be pertinent in order to be admissible. This is not a constitutional right in Italy but one that is codified in the Italian criminal code. If we were to compare it to the American system (that seems to be what you might be asking for, I'm not sure honestly), we have Constitutional rights that will lead to exclusion, and evidentiary rules codified separate from the constitution that will make evidence inadmissible. It is of course possible to violate both the constitution and rules of evidence simultaneously.

All this being said, much more evidence will be admissible within the Italian system. There is much more leeway for a judge, as has already been discussed.

Also, somewhat irrelevant but something interesting: Italy has plea bargaining for crimes with sentences below 7 years (not the same as a fast track trial). A little off topic, but anyone who is critical of the American plea bargaining system (and I am one of them) should watch a documentary called "The Plea", which I think was put out by PBS. I don't have a link unfortunately.

Can you try to find out what would have been excluded without question in the US that was included as evidence in Italy? "I don't know" is an acceptable answer.

I'm interested in this because, as a Canadian, it might be interesting to know what I could get away with in the US as opposed to Italy. Not that I'm picking your pocket right now but just in case.

 

[stilicho]

For example, while there is a right to attorney in Italy, Miranda rights don't attach because of course, there is no such thing as a Miranda warning in Italy--though the right to an attorney attaches similarly.

Obviously there's no Miranda in Canada either. We have this thing though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_Ten_of_the_Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms

Is that pretty much the same thing? Is ours better or worse than yours? Or Italy's?

You can "lawyer up" pretty easily in Canada and after that the police can't say anything to you. I have no experience at all in what AK did by writing something after being arrested. Sounds stupid in any country but would it have been any different in Canada or the USA?

 

[HumanityBlues]

Can you try to find out what would have been excluded without question in the US that was included as evidence in Italy? "I don't know" is an acceptable answer.

I'm interested in this because, as a Canadian, it might be interesting to know what I could get away with in the US as opposed to Italy. Not that I'm picking your pocket right now but just in case.

Can you try to find out what would have been excluded without question in the US that was included as evidence in Italy? "I don't know" is an acceptable answer.

I'm interested in this because, as a Canadian, it might be interesting to know what I could get away with in the US as opposed to Italy. Not that I'm picking your pocket right now but just in case.

Haha. Well I'll say this, I've spent a lot of time in Vancouver BC (I'm here right now actually), and the police turn a blind eye to a lot here. I can think think of a couple things right off that bat that would be excluded absolutely no question. Let me mull on it some more to see what I can come up with.

 

[Kermit]

With your reference to the Stefanoni charts, you point out a supposed point of noise/contamination on the chart .... Let's do just that, an overall comparative of Meredith's control DNA sample, and the sample of DNA taken from near the point of the Double DNA Knife:

That point of noise on the chart isn't just a spec of dust but represents millions of copies of a specific fragment of DNA. We know it's DNA because it was amplified by the PCR process and bound to the florescent tag designed to bind to a specific DNA sequence. This also isn't a random piece of a broken fragment because in order to get a blip that high you need to start with 10 or more of the same fragments. It's also not a shadow because it doesn't have corresponding peaks in the other channels.
... using the correct terminology. I provided a link to an online course on forensics that would really help. You should look into it.The known sample of Meredith's DNA is called a "reference"

Thanks Dan-O for correcting my terminology. I will try to get around to the on-line course someday. In fact, I have replaced the word "control" with "reference" in my overlay of the Double DNA Knife blade sample on Meredith's reference sample, as that is was the point of my prior post:


Now you'll be able to comment on my observation that if we don't crop the image down to specific pixels and thereby remove the overall view, the overall image in fact points to a nearly perfect correspondence between the DNA sample from the blade of the knife and Meredith's reference sample.

Does that not appear to be the case?

 

[HumanityBlues]

Obviously there's no Miranda in Canada either. We have this thing though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_Ten_of_the_Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms

Is that pretty much the same thing? Is ours better or worse than yours? Or Italy's?

You can "lawyer up" pretty easily in Canada and after that the police can't say anything to you. I have no experience at all in what AK did by writing something after being arrested. Sounds stupid in any country but would it have been any different in Canada or the USA?

That is VERY similar to Miranda. The basics of Miranda (although keep in my mind some states will offer more protection) is that once a suspect is in custody, they must be read their Miranda rights (right to remain silent, right to attorney, anything you say can and will bla bla bla, if you can't afford an attorney one will be appointed). If Miranda isn't given properly, then any evidence obtained in violation of Miranda will be excluded.

The basic phrase to remember is: Once Miranda attaches, the exclusionary rule will come into effect.

After Miranda is read, if you ask for an attorney (you must assert your right clearly and unequivocally), any interrogation or questioning must cease until the attorney is present.

So if Miranda was not read while AK was in custody, or she asked for an attorney and didn't get one, every statement made afterwards would most likely be inadmissible.

Again, any analysis is fatal here because the rules are different and many facts in the case are in dispute.

Keep in mind this is just an analysis from a point of view if Miranda rights were violated. There of course could be other elements or factors that could lead to exclusion. For example, if admissions or confessions during the interrogation of AK or RS were the result of coercion, they will be excluded. Then of course the question becomes what is considered coercive. Physical threats, or harmful bodily contact, are obviously coercive (even a scapoli could be enough for exclusion)--so would not being allowed to go to the bathroom for hours, or being without food for hours (again, these are things in dispute where people will believe what they want about what occurred, but I state them here just for information purposes). However, police can lie to a suspect, or inform them of likely punishment if they are charged and convicted of a crime.

As far as evidence from this trial that would be excluded, I'll make a list in good faith but it'll be a couple days because I'll be gone most of this weekend.

Edit: Sorry, you asked which is better. They look nearly identical at a superficial glance. But if you want advice: don't talk to police.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

That is VERY similar to Miranda. The basics of Miranda (although keep in my mind some states will offer more protection) is that once a suspect is in custody, they must be read their Miranda rights (right to remain silent, right to attorney, anything you say can and will bla bla bla, if you can't afford an attorney one will be appointed). If Miranda isn't given properly, then any evidence obtained in violation of Miranda will be excluded.

The basic phrase to remember is: Once Miranda attaches, the exclusionary rule will come into effect.

After Miranda is read, if you ask for an attorney (you must assert your right clearly and unequivocally), any interrogation or questioning must cease until the attorney is present.

So if Miranda was not read while AK was in custody, or she asked for an attorney and didn't get one, every statement made afterwards would most likely be inadmissible.

Again, any analysis is fatal here because the rules are different and many facts in the case are in dispute.

Keep in mind this is just an analysis from a point of view if Miranda rights were violated. There of course could be other elements or factors that could lead to exclusion. For example, if admissions or confessions during the interrogation of AK or RS were the result of coercion, they will be excluded. Then of course the question becomes what is considered coercive. Physical threats, or harmful bodily contact, are obviously coercive (even a scapoli could be enough for exclusion)--so would not being allowed to go to the bathroom for hours, or being without food for hours (again, these are things in dispute where people will believe what they want about what occurred, but I state them here just for information purposes). However, police can lie to a suspect, or inform them of likely punishment if they are charged and convicted of a crime.

As far as evidence from this trial that would be excluded, I'll make a list in good faith but it'll be a couple days because I'll be gone most of this weekend.

Keep in mind that in the initial interview, Knox and Sollecito were not considered suspects - in the US there would be no requirement to read them their rights. Regardless, this testimony was not allowed to be submitted because it was given prior to being named a suspect (the point at which they would have been read their rights in the US, and likely the same happened in Italy).

That they continued to incriminate themselves through prison diaries and further interrogation sessions is what hurt the two during the course of the trial as these were what were submitted as evidence.

I see no major difference between the Italian and US justice systems in this regard. In Italy, a statement given as a witness is not usable after the witness is deemed a suspect - in this case, the point at which the initial interview with Amanda was terminated. The same holds true for the US. Should you be interviewed was a witness without being informed of your Miranda rights, your statement is not admissible as evidence should you later be made a formal suspect.

 

[stilicho]

Again, any analysis is fatal here because the rules are different and many facts in the case are in dispute.

Keep in mind this is just an analysis from a point of view if Miranda rights were violated. There of course could be other elements or factors that could lead to exclusion. For example, if admissions or confessions during the interrogation of AK or RS were the result of coercion....

We know the "Vision Quest" wasn't coerced. Or is that still in dispute too? She repeated it in her testimony.

I've never heard of the "Vision Quest" defence before but I am almost too well acquainted with the Halcyon defence which is equally futile. How does the "Vision Quest" defence go over in the US?

 

[HumanityBlues]

Keep in mind that in the initial interview, Knox and Sollecito were not considered suspects - in the US there would be no requirement to read them their rights. Regardless, this testimony was not allowed to be submitted because it was given prior to being named a suspect (the point at which they would have been read their rights in the US, and likely the same happened in Italy).

That they continued to incriminate themselves through prison diaries and further interrogation sessions is what hurt the two during the course of the trial as these were what were submitted as evidence.

I see no major difference between the Italian and US justice systems in this regard. In Italy, a statement given as a witness is not usable after the witness is deemed a suspect - in this case, the point at which the initial interview with Amanda was terminated. The same holds true for the US. Should you be interviewed was a witness without being informed of your Miranda rights, your statement is not admissible as evidence should you later be made a formal suspect.

You're working under a false assumption in comparing the two about what constitutes a suspect in Italy the United States, and what rights such classifications would engender under each country's criminal procedure rules.

"The same holds true for the US. Should you be interviewed as a witness without being informed of your Miranda rights, your statement is not admissible as evidence should you later be made a formal suspect."

This tells me you don't understand Miranda (I don't mean this offensively btw. If I recall you live in England, which has different rules and for someone unfamiliar there is bound to be confusion). If you are not in custody, Miranda does not attach, and thus anything you said could later be used against you should you later for some reason become a suspect in custody, where Miranda would then attach.

 

[stilicho]

Edit: Sorry, you asked which is better. They look nearly identical at a superficial glance. But if you want advice: don't talk to police.

This edit was added while I was responding.

Seriously, there's no problem at all talking to police. But don't tell them you were sitting in your kitchen while a bushy-haired stranger was killing your roommate. I don't know if that should be something parents need to tell their kids because it's just common sense.

The one thing you have to do (if you're innocent, that is) is quickly tell them you were lying about that instead of leaving an innocent man behind bars. This stuff isn't even legalese. It's common sense. It's a lot easier to get off afterwards if you don't look like a complete *******.

 

[stilicho]

This tells me you don't understand Miranda (I don't mean this offensively btw. If I recall you live in England, which has different rules and for someone unfamiliar there is bound to be confusion). If you are not in custody, Miranda does not attach, and thus anything you said could later be used against you should you later for some reason become a suspect in custody, where Miranda would then attach.

I guess I don't get it either. It sounds like you can rape and pillage to your heart's content in the US as long as you "lawyer up". But this is in stark contrast to the reality that there are a whole lot of people in prison in the US. Are American lawyers completely incompetent? Are the police just a whole lot more clever?

 

[HumanityBlues]

I guess I don't get it either. It sounds like you can rape and pillage to your heart's content in the US as long as you "lawyer up". But this is in stark contrast to the reality that there are a whole lot of people in prison in the US. Are American lawyers completely incompetent? Are the police just a whole lot more clever?

Uh what?

You're assuming the only evidence that can be gathered is the testimony of a suspect while in custody? You have the right to rape and pillage to your heart's content and then not talk to the police--or to ask for a lwyer. Just because you lawyer up doesn't mean there's not enough evidence against you that can be used. You're going a little overboard here I think in trying to make some rhetorical point.

For example, if you found drugs on a person, you don't need any statement from that person. You have enough evidence to convict that person of possession right there. I use drug laws as an example because one of the reasons US prisons are so crowded is our draconian drug laws (which is why I love Vancouver BC!).

 

[Fiona]

I'm sorry, but the burden of proof is on you for this one. There is plenty of proof that Mignini did make claims of a Satanic ritual. It's been reported numerous times regarding this case and the Monster of Florence. In fact, it's been said so much that if it weren't true, don't you think Mignini would have spoken up and denied it? Are you saying Nadeau lied when she writes that he tried to use the same argument in his closing arguments? She was there for that. Your argument that everyone is a liar simply doesn't cut it.

Well he did deny it, did he not? You may not believe him, of course.

 

[Fulcanelli]

I'm sorry, but the burden of proof is on you for this one. There is plenty of proof that Mignini did make claims of a Satanic ritual. It's been reported numerous times regarding this case and the Monster of Florence. In fact, it's been said so much that if it weren't true, don't you think Mignini would have spoken up and denied it? Are you saying Nadeau lied when she writes that he tried to use the same argument in his closing arguments? She was there for that. Your argument that everyone is a liar simply doesn't cut it.

Just like I said Malkmus, if he ever said it and there's so much 'proof' he said it, then it won't be difficult for you to provide us with a direct quote of him saying so.

Since the day Meredith was murdered, not one person, not on paper, not one source has ever quoted Mignini saying anything in regard to 'Satanic'...with two exceptions, two outlets, one of which was the BBC in interview with Julian Joyce, asked Mignini directly if he had every had any Satanic theories on the case and in both instances he flat out said he had never had any such theories and he had never said so.

Therefore, we can say, that the whole Satanic thing is no more then groundless rumour.

 

[quadraginta]

That is VERY similar to Miranda. The basics of Miranda (although keep in my mind some states will offer more protection) is that once a suspect is in custody, they must be read their Miranda rights (right to remain silent, right to attorney, anything you say can and will bla bla bla, if you can't afford an attorney one will be appointed). If Miranda isn't given properly, then any evidence obtained in violation of Miranda will be excluded.

The basic phrase to remember is: Once Miranda attaches, the exclusionary rule will come into effect.

After Miranda is read, if you ask for an attorney (you must assert your right clearly and unequivocally), any interrogation or questioning must cease until the attorney is present.
So if Miranda was not read while AK was in custody, or she asked for an attorney and didn't get one, every statement made afterwards would most likely be inadmissible.

<snip>

This is a bit deceptive. Not intentionally, but the inferences are more broad reaching than is actually the case. Miranda is full of loopholes and pitfalls, and one should not assume such blanket protection. This, from theWiki article on "Miranda warning^WP", is a better summation.

An elicited incriminating statement by a suspect will not constitute admissible evidence unless the suspect was informed of his/her "Miranda rights" and made a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary waiver of those rights.

There's a whole mind-numbing collection of ways to get around the Miranda strictures, and police are quite carefully trained to take full advantage of all of them. This doesn't even include the obvious error of a suspect just casually volunteering information while waiting for an attorney to be present. Note the use of "elicited" above. If the cops can trick you into saying something without actually "interrogating" you then they're clear. And the legal views of "interrogation" are not as straightforward as one would think, or to the suspect's advantage. SCOTUS has found that deception doesn't necessarily invoke protection. Also, what is protected by Miranda is an extension of Fifth Amendment rights. They can still ask you all day long about things which are not self-incriminatory (say, for example, what you know about someone else's activities.) If you goof and say something which is while responding that may or may not be inadmissible.

One interesting thing to note re. the Knox case is that Miranda is a policy which applies to parties under arrest (i.e. "in custody"), as you have pointed out, and statements prior to that status are not similarly protected. If Knox had been in the U.S. her statements made as a witness, prior to her classification as a suspect, would have been perfectly (and gleefully) admissible. A U.S. court would probably not have disallowed them.

But if you want advice: don't talk to police.

This is good advice. About the only effective way to take advantage of Miranda is to clam up completely until your lawyer is at your side.

If you haven't been actually been arrested this is still true, maybe even more true, sad to say. Unfortunately you don't exactly have a right to a lawyer until you are.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Now, I haven't bothered much in trying to defend or deflect such allegations. But I've now tired of seeing people claim it isn't true without much reason to think so. The truth of the matter is, we have several reports of Mignini introducing the notion of Meredith being murdered during a "Satanic ritual" during the pre-trial,[/qote]

The Micheli Report....the Micheli Report...the Micheli Report! Why oh why is it that people who keep making these dumb allegations always ignore the only authoritative document on the issue?

If Mignini had alleged Satanism in the pre-trial hearing it would be in the Micheli Report. The Micheli Report tells us what he instead DID suggest and that was 'ritual' or 'ritualistic'. Ritual and Satanism are not the same thing (otherwise that would make every Catholic, Buddhist or Born Again Christian a Satanist, since they engage on a great deal of 'ritual') and you can see where certain parties (Raffaele's lawyers) have taken the term 'ritual', twisted it to their own ends and then ran to the media with it who were in turn only too happy to run with it, because THAT's a story and none of them were in the pre-trial hearing themselves with it being behind closed doors anyway, and spoon feed it to the gullible.

And it's a lovely story if one is determined to smear Mignini. Unfortunately for those people, the Micheli report proves it to be false.

 

[Fulcanelli]

This was a photo that Kermit was already familiar with. He didn't need to see the whole thing again. I included the relevant portion that I was discussing and enough of the context to place it in the original. You already have access to the original so nothing was being hidden (unlike the negative controls which we have yet to see evidence of).

And obviously, you didn't bother to read the article I recently posted the link to which makes clear that negative controls are not a national, international or universal standard, that indeed even in the whole of the entire USA only TWO labs use negative controls as a standard part of their protocols and that labs do not provide documentation of their protocols die to their regarding it as proprietary information. You wilfully ignore it because you are determined to continue to promote the myth that the Rome lab has broken some sort of convention or committed some sort of foul. Unfortunately for you, everyone else here HAS bothered to read the article and therefore realise your arguments to be complete pants.

 

[HumanityBlues]

This is a bit deceptive. Not intentionally, but the inferences are more broad reaching than is actually the case. Miranda is full of loopholes and pitfalls, and one should not assume such blanket protection. This, from theWiki article on "Miranda warning^WP", is a better summation.


There's a whole mind-numbing collection of ways to get around the Miranda strictures, and police are quite carefully trained to take full advantage of all of them. This doesn't even include the obvious error of a suspect just casually volunteering information while waiting for an attorney to be present. Note the use of "elicited" above. If the cops can trick you into saying something without actually "interrogating" you then they're clear. And the legal views of "interrogation" are not as straightforward as one would think, or to the suspect's advantage. SCOTUS has found that deception doesn't necessarily invoke protection. Also, what is protected by Miranda is an extension of Fifth Amendment rights. They can still ask you all day long about things which are not self-incriminatory (say, for example, what you know about someone else's activities.) If you goof and say something which is while responding that may or may not be inadmissible.

One interesting thing to note re. the Knox case is that Miranda is a policy which applies to parties under arrest (i.e. "in custody"), as you have pointed out, and statements prior to that status are not similarly protected. If Knox had been in the U.S. her statements made as a witness, prior to her classification as a suspect, would have been perfectly (and gleefully) admissible. A U.S. court would probably not have disallowed them.




This is good advice. About the only effective way to take advantage of Miranda is to clam up completely until your lawyer is at your side.

If you haven't been actually been arrested this is still true, maybe even more true, sad to say. Unfortunately you don't exactly have a right to a lawyer until you are.

All good points. Again, I think it needs to emphasized that the comparison is somewhat moot because the standards are different. I don't know what your experience is (it sounds like you are either in law enforcement or have legal education) but Miranda is something in my experience that does not come up as often as people think. In a vacuum I suppose it could be answered, but it's somewhat meaningless. Other forms of hearsay evidence with respect to the confrontation clause I think are more easily differentiated. A few things come to mind in this trial, but I'll make that list later like I said.

There's a very interesting discussion panel from about 15 years ago with Justice Scalia and some other attorneys, some defense lawyers, some prosecutors. One of the questions was whether a client who murdered someone comes to you and says they did it, even though someone else had been convicted of the crime (I'm thinking of the Lumumba situation), I'll try to find the video but, can any of you think of what the members of the panel said with regard to what advice to give?

 

[Dan O.]

Now you'll be able to comment on my observation that if we don't crop the image down to specific pixels and thereby remove the overall view, the overall image in fact points to a nearly perfect correspondence between the DNA sample from the blade of the knife and Meredith's reference sample.

I already did make that comment but it's not what you wanted to here so you ignored it.

It does look like the supposed knife DNA was derived from Meredith's reference DNA and it's the differences in the heights of the peaks that shows what happened.

After the PCR amplified sample of Meredith's DNA is split into fragments at specific boundaries. There is a solution containing billions of these little fragments in the proportion shown in the reference chart. If one were to dip a pair of tweezers into that solution and extract just a few dozen fragments, you will get a random representation of the different fragments. When this selection is amplified millions of times and charted, the peak heights will reflect the representation of that random selection instead of the true representation in the original DNA.

You can try this experiment at home if you haven't lost all of your marbles: From a large bag of mixed colored marbled, grab a small handful and count the number of each color. Do this several times and compare the results.

Now sort the marbles into little bags with one marble of each color in each bag. Then repeat the earlier experiment by drawing a handful of the little bags of marbles and counting the number of marbles of each color you end up with. Can you see the difference between the results?


The supposed knife DNA chart is the result of a random selection of fragments and not the amplification of whole genomes.


It is also not conclusive that this DNA was ever on the knife. The minute quantity of DNA is too small to see visually so chain of custody is lost. This is typically remedied by showing that the experiment is repeatable and showing negative controls that show there is not a persistent contamination. By doing that, it is then possible to show that the statistical probability of lab contamination contributing to the result is small. Since the test was not repeated and no negative controls were presented, lab contamination cannot be ruled out.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

You're working under a false assumption in comparing the two about what constitutes a suspect in Italy the United States, and what rights such classifications would engender under each country's criminal procedure rules.

"The same holds true for the US. Should you be interviewed as a witness without being informed of your Miranda rights, your statement is not admissible as evidence should you later be made a formal suspect."

This tells me you don't understand Miranda (I don't mean this offensively btw. If I recall you live in England, which has different rules and for someone unfamiliar there is bound to be confusion). If you are not in custody, Miranda does not attach, and thus anything you said could later be used against you should you later for some reason become a suspect in custody, where Miranda would then attach.

Actually, I live here in the US...and I know all about how the Miranda Rights work - i.e. you're pulled over for speeding, the officer asks how fast you were going. If you state anything over the speed limit, he has you guilty by admission.

I find it interesting that you simply look to counter what others say.

You attempt to claim that had Amanda been here in the US, she would have been subject to Miranda Rights...but since she was in Italy, there's no telling if she has the same, or similar, rights. And then turn around and in the next breath point out that her original statement to the Polizia would have been admissible in the US court system whereas in the Italian system it is/was not. Little ethno-centrism showing again