Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[shuttlt]

Dan O.

Isn't your post dependent on a bunch of assumptions that none of us can say with certainty are true, or false.... lack of negative controls, reuse of lab equipment between reference sample and test sample etc...

If it turns out no controls were done and the previous sample that was tested was a Meredith reference sample then I suspect most people here would broadly agree with you.

 

[HumanityBlues]

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

I was just answering Stilicho's question without even making a value judgment--which was seemingly a quite amicable discussion until you put your little head into the middle where it didn't belong in the first place. He asked me to compare the systems and I did so and unequivocally stated that you could not give a definitive answer anyways. I didn't say one way was better or worse. Your lack of reading comprehension skills or your inability to understand Miranda is not an excuse to start throwing around your "ethnocentrism" card like a little child.

You can throw around ethnocentrism all you want because you're not even capable of using it in a proper context. I'm not sure you even understand what you think it to means. And as long as you're going to use the word, idiotically and foolishly as you do, you don't need to put a dash in the middle every time. So next time just say "Humanityblues, I don't understand what people are saying, so I'm just going to call you ethnocentric." That will really hurt my feelings if you say it like that.

"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".

Again, you stated this: ""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." Being that this is untrue, you actually do NOT know all about Miranda.

And then you say this: " 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." ????????? What?????? What does that have to do with anything we were talking about?

"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."

I said this?

 

[Kermit]

we have several reports of Mignini introducing the notion of Meredith being murdered during a "Satanic ritual" during the pre-trial, the closing arguments of the trial, the Monster of Florence/Narducci case, and consulting a psychic about "Satanic signs and symbols". ....
Here are the quotes from Nadeau's book:
"He is quick to suspect Satanism in some of the more grisly crimes he investigates. In the early days of his involvement in the Monster of Florence case, Mignini called in a Roman sorceress named Gabriella Carlizzi to advise him personally on Satanic signs and symbols"
".... that theory never made it past the preliminary hearings, though Mignini tried to reintroduce it in the closing arguments."

Malkmus, just a couple of observations on my part:

1) This is the first time that I have heard that Mignini tried to refer to Satanism in the trial. No reporting (not even by Nadeau with her reporter's cap on, rather than her author's cap) mentioned it at the time of the closing arguments. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but maybe it was more a reference to the coincidence of the crime with Hallowe'en or something like that, rather than a full blown Satanic summary of a trial where no mention of Satanism had occurred (that's what closing arguments are for, ¿no?, to summarise what has been presented).

2) When we look at press reports of this case and stories about the principal characters, we should in general give more weight to articles which have taken into account all angles of any particular event or character, and we should especially value reporting which has consulted, and can hopefully quote the persons involved.

Otherwise, for example in the case of Amanda we would all believe that she had sex with a stranger on an Italian train, or that her MySpace username "Foxy Knoxy" refers to something other than her soccer skills as a young child.

3) When we go a step beyond, from press descriptions of the principal characters to would-be bestselling books we have to be especially careful.

On one hand, a perhaps 300 page summary of a major, complex case like this where Nadeau is trying to resume all the antecedents, background, actual events, characters, legal explanations and such, requires shortcuts and paraphrasing. If Barbie assembled her own telegraphic reporting on this case, she would have much more that 300 pages ... now try developing that into a continuous readable story. This effort contrasts with a reporter's objective of meeting a deadline with fresh news about some event (rather than selling books), adding incremental information as it comes out.

On the other hand, we have to be careful about the authors who include themselves in the actual story, like Preston.
===============================
The BBC interviewed Mignini: this has a lot more weight for me that Nadeau's book:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7883286.stm
HEADLINE: Kercher prosecutor 'not unstable'

By Julian Joyce
BBC News

Mr Mignini is angry at what he perceives as interference in the trial
The prosecutor in the Meredith Kercher case has hit back at American supporters of accused student Amanda Knox who say he is "mentally unstable".
Giuliano Mignini told the BBC he had "never visited a psychologist" and he was taking legal action against a US paper that carried the allegations.
Mr Mignini also said Ms Knox's backers were trying to "influence" the trial....
No-one at the West Seattle Herald could be reached for comment.
Mr Mignini confirmed he has started an action for defamation against the newspaper....
Mignini is also quoted as being "in thrall to a sort of delirium" in his handling of the Florence case, in which he "fantasized amazing and complex Satanic conspiracies."
This is believed to be a reference to Mr Mignini's involvement in an inquiry connected to the infamous "Monster of Florence" serial killings, during which Mr Mignini is said to have consulted an alleged psychic, Gabriella Carlizzi.
Said Ms Bremner: "We have concerns that the prosecutor has in the past relied upon a medium."
But Mr Mignini said he was "not friendly" with Mrs Carlizzi, and did not share her views, even to the point of having her arrested in 2005."

Okay, Malkmus, you say Mignini has a "relationship" with Mrs. Carlizzi. The connotation / insinuation of that is that he is on friendly terms with her. Maybe instead of "relationship", you should 1) use the less comfy term "relation" (or "contact" or something like that), and 2) describe that this relation is not friendly, as stated by Mignini.

Add to that the fact that Mignini has been very outspoken against other allegations such as Amanda and her abuse claim, her parents, Preston, Spezi, the press, etc. The point is, he doesn't just sit back and take the punches. He retaliates every time

If in a very public way someone decried your professionalism, and in addition, published information in newspapers that you are "mentally unstable", I think that you would want to denounce such a treatment. I don't call that "retaliation".

One thing is Mignini as a person defending his own honour. Another thing is the automatic investigation he must call when illegalities are decried. If someone makes statements that police officers hit witnesses or suspects, that is very serious, and those statements should be investigated. Either they are correct and the police officers involved should be sanctioned, or the statements are false, and the false accusation should be pursued.

I think Mignini had no choice but to pursue those accusations .... otherwise the police union would be after him. Or did the people who made those accusations just want to make them without any proper followup?

As for your reference to Preston, I don't see where Mignini has been outspoken. It's Preston who in interview after interview has decried being run out of Italy by Mignini (if that's the case, why did Preston return to Italy to film with an NBC crew in the fall of 2006?)

In fact, in interviews Mignini has been quite generous to Preston, repeating time and again that Preston misunderstood the Italian in that spring 2006 questioning, that he (Preston) was not being invited to take the midnight express out of Italy, nor that he would be arrested should he return (why did Preston return with NBC but continues to write about not being able to return to Italy???)

Not sure how you can say he is investigating Narducci's death and not call it the Monster of Florence case. What, did he suddenly have an interest in a drowning case from 1985 fifteen years later just by coincidence?

Mignini did not take up the Narducci case in Perugia with any particular objective to link it to the old Monster of Florence case.

Narducci had been dead for 15 years or so, his death declared a drowning at the time (with better or worse police work at that time).

15 years later, an organised crime gang's conversations which were being monitored made reference to a link to Narducci's death, with the implication that it wasn't an accidental drowning. Mignini, who is a Perugian prosecutor, takes it on.

As the investigation (the new investigation into the reopened Narducci case) evolves, the supposed links with the MoF crimes comes out.

You make it sound like Mignini himself reopened the Narducci case, not with the reason I just describied, but just because he felt one day like linking it to MoF.

 

[shuttlt]

Dan O.

I had wanted to edit my last post to remove the mention of controls, since I suspect your argument doesn't in fact depend on that... but too late.

Anyway, I've been thinking about what you wrote. Are you saying that the distribution, if your tweezers pick some random DNA fragments and amplify them is different to if we just amplify a genuine sample (with the well known random processes of fragments getting missed off early amplification steps)?

Is this a standard method of detecting lab contamination?

 

[Kermit]

It does look like the supposed knife DNA was derived from Meredith's reference DNA ...

.
Now we're starting to agree!

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

.
I don't understand ... you're saying that Stefanoni put her tweezers in some beaker, and pulled out partial DNA chains, some of which coincided with Meredith, and as a whole provided the same peaks as Meredith, but different heights?

Are we aware if Amanda's technical team presented such an explanation to the court, or are they waiting for the appeal?

 

[Kestrel]

Mignini did not take up the Narducci case in Perugia with any particular objective to link it to the old Monster of Florence case.

Narducci had been dead for 15 years or so, his death declared a drowning at the time (with better or worse police work at that time).

15 years later, an organised crime gang's conversations which were being monitored made reference to a link to Narducci's death, with the implication that it wasn't an accidental drowning. Mignini, who is a Perugian prosecutor, takes it on.

As the investigation (the new investigation into the reopened Narducci case) evolves, the supposed links with the MoF crimes comes out.

You make it sound like Mignini himself reopened the Narducci case, not with the reason I just describied, but just because he felt one day like linking it to MoF.

Mignini did however launch into full conspiracy theory mode during that investigation. Claiming that Narducci was the guardian of the fetishes for a Satinic cult, that he was killed by other members of the cult and that police officials were helping the cult cover up the crime.

 

[Kermit]

Mignini did however launch into full conspiracy theory mode during that investigation. Claiming that Narducci was the guardian of the fetishes for a Satinic cult, that he was killed by other members of the cult and that police officials were helping the cult cover up the crime.

"Guardian of the fetishes" is a google translation, but more or less conveys the idea. At least I'm glad you recognise that Mignini didn't reopen the Narducci case because of some satanic fetish of his own, as insinuated by the poster who wrote: "What, did he suddenly have an interest in a drowning case from 1985 fifteen years later just by coincidence?"

Indeed, the closed occult society (satanic sect) theory proposed by Mignini in the Narducci case is not a standard explanation for someone found apparently drowned in a lake 15 years earlier.

Keep in mind however, that there were many elements in this case which helped push Mignini in that direction: the link between Dr. Narducci and certain people in Florence, his frequent trips there, his frequent use (addiction?) to synthetic opiates, the fact that an autoposy wasn't performed, links between his own family members and elements of the MoF case, etc.

If Mignini believed that other persons killed Narducci, it's because he had wiretaps with organised crime references in that direction.

And I suppose that if he felt that some police officers were involved, it's because of the surprising lack of an autopsy on Narducci, along with other issues.

I'm not saying I support that theory but Mignini did have references to build it in that direction.

Now, to take the Narducci case, the Hallowe'en and violent Japanese comic elements of the Kercher case, and spin that into a "Satanic obsession", as sound pro-Amanda Mignini detractors have done IS far-fetched.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

partial profiles

.
Now we're starting to agree!

Kermit,

With respect to the knife DNA profile, I am in close agreement with the wording in the Johnson/Hampikian letter, “An extremely low level, partial DNA profile was developed for the blade swabbing using the Identifiler kit. The alleles detected were consistent with the DNA of the victim. The highest peak in the electropherogram was approximately 100 relative fluorescence units (rfu), while 21 of the 29 peaks that were detected and labeled as alleles fell between 20 and 50 rfu.”

You continue to ignore the shortcomings of the partial profile from the knife that I outlined most recently in message #5370, and which are stated or implied in the open letter. There are two problems with doing so, IMHO. First, the knife profile deserves less weight as evidence because it fails to meet the generally accepted standards of what good profiles are. Second, the fact that this is a partial profile gives a suggestion of its origin. Dr. Donald Riley wrote (http://www.scientific.org/tutorials/articles/riley/riley.html):
“(1) A partial profile essentially proves that one is operating outside of well-characterized and recommended limits.
(2) Contaminating DNA usually presents as a partial profile, although not always. For this reason, the risk that the result is a contaminant is greater than for samples that present as full profiles.”

Chris

 

[stilicho]

Uh what?

You're assuming the only evidence that can be gathered is the testimony of a suspect while in custody?

I'm not being rhetorical at all. What is the point of the police asking anyone any questions? Let's be careful about this "while in custody" thing, too. Each time RS and AK went to the Questura they did so completely willingly. RS even brought along his knives!

Why would the police interview them if they knew that at some point one or both of them would blurt out something stupid?

Also, how do undercover assignments fit into this? Police get unsuspecting criminals to blurt out all kinds of things without any lawyer present. Are all such statements thrown out in the US?

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!).

The common defence on the oilpatch, if you're caught with a bag of weed in your coat, is to claim it was someone else's coat because all those plaid jackets look the same. Don't ask me how I know that but it's been a very successful tactic.

 

[Dan O.]

Dan O.

Isn't your post dependent on a bunch of assumptions that none of us can say with certainty are true, or false.... lack of negative controls, reuse of lab equipment between reference sample and test sample etc...

If it turns out no controls were done and the previous sample that was tested was a Meredith reference sample then I suspect most people here would broadly agree with you.

We have what we've been provided. The Italian state has taken the freedom of two people. They say they have evidence to justify the imprisonment. I say their word isn't good enough and they need to provide proof.


They claim the DNA lab in Rome has never had contamination. That is an unbelievable claim that requires serious proof because no other DNA lab in the world has been shown to be contamination free. I don't have to prove that their lab is contaminated. It is their burden to prove that their lab is clean enough to prevent contamination of the tests they ran.


I provided an argument based on statistical sampling that the variation in peak heights is likely the result of the sampling variation from a post PCR pool. The counter argument would be that this variation is solely the result of stochastic amplification of the LCN DNA sample. A little bit of modeling, math and laboratory verification would be able to assign a probability to each scenario. (Any grad students around looking for a project?)

In either case, a duplicate run is necessary to assign certainty to the DNA coming from the knife. We know that there was no duplicate run so we aren't just making that assumption. Therefore, there is no certainty that the DNA in the profile came from the knife and there never can be because the entire sample was consumed.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

answered already

This is not an Impasse, Chris.

Is blood the only source of DNA?

That was already answered in the message you quoted, #5367.

 

[stilicho]

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.

I suppose it is good advice but I was thinking about RS-as-innocent. The police had Meredith's English friends and her other roommates down at the Questura, too. None of them seemed to experience any difficulties when talking to the police without legal representation. Two of those at the cottage even worked for lawyers and neither of them saw any reason to "lawyer up".

Now, on the other hand, if we think about RS-as-guilty, then absolutely I wouldn't have gone anywhere near the Questura without being taken there in custody and with a lawyer in tow. To use HB's drug dealer example, a lot of those thusly employed have their lawyer's number on speed dial.

I don't know how the police managed to get them down there: "We just have a few things to clear up, no worries, and we have candy!" I would immediately be suspicious, especially when none of the others had similar "invitations".

 

[stilicho]

We have what we've been provided. The Italian state has taken the freedom of two people. They say they have evidence to justify the imprisonment. I say their word isn't good enough and they need to provide proof.

I think that's what the trial was for, Dan O.

 

[stilicho]

They claim the DNA lab in Rome has never had contamination. That is an unbelievable claim that requires serious proof because no other DNA lab in the world has been shown to be contamination free. I don't have to prove that their lab is contaminated. It is their burden to prove that their lab is clean enough to prevent contamination of the tests they ran.

And this is what audits are for. Have you scrounged up any of them yet?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Stefanoni and Johnson

BobTheDonkey,

In message #4889 you said:
“You somehow think you're more capable of reading the results from DNA testing than Stefanoni and her trained lab technicians?

There is a point where we must realize our own limitations and thereafter rely on the expertise of someone with significant experience in the field and direct access to the data - in this case, Stefanoni.

Why is it that the FoA crowd are so anti-Stefanoni? This is not some backwards, 3rd world nation's DNA lab.”

In message #5358 you wrote,
“As quoted above, the test is not absolute. The results can either be inconclusive, positive, or negative or (and this, kids, is an important distinction) too small for detection.

Note that ‘negative’ is not a result on it's own. It's Negative OR Too small for detection. That means that the result cannot be simply negative, especially not in this case where we're talking about so few cells.

Dr Johnson's failure to acknowledge this important result correctly tells me that her opinion on the DNA involved in this case isn't worth a plugged nickel”

In message #5362, you wrote, “And to do that, you're going to claim that it's a conspiracy theory to point out that Dr Johnson has a vested interest (ties to the FoA) for her involvement in the letter?”

There are several things wrong with your arguments. One is to equate being critical of Dr. Stefanoni with claiming that Italy is a 3rd world nation with respect to DNA forensics. Most of the problems I have documented here with respect to DNA forensics come from cases in the U.S. or Australia, which are not 3rd world nations either. Two is to implicitly argue that only Dr. Stefanoni has sufficient expertise to analyze these data. Others have at least as much expertise as she does. If she (and you) are confident about her findings, she should be glad to have them reviewed. Three is to create a scientifically invalid argument in an attempt to discredit Dr. Johnson, as I have previously discussed, Fulcanelli's objections to the contrary notwithstanding. Four is to make an allegation that Dr. Johnson is benefiting financially from this case without factual substantiation of any kind.

Dr. Stefanoni’s poor technique at forensic swabbing has been documented in photographs. That is one of many things one can criticize about her work here. Your criticisms of Dr. Johnson are not based in fact, so what is their basis?

Chris

 

[quadraginta]

We have what we've been provided. The Italian state has taken the freedom of two people. They say they have evidence to justify the imprisonment. I say their word isn't good enough and they need to provide proof.

<snip>

When the sovereign state of the United States takes someone's freedom through due process of law, and you choose to disagree with that judgment on the basis of a selected subset of newspaper reports, the protestations of the convict's family, and bloggers' journals do you always say, "... their word isn't good enough and they need to provide proof."?

Maybe we could while away our time waiting for translations by contemplating the probable outcome of a Knox-Sollecito trial in the U.S. Same circumstances, same evidence, different country. Personally I think she would have ended up wishing she had been tried in some other country. Italy, perhaps. Felony murder can buy a ticket on a needle ride in many states here.

 

[stilicho]

Maybe we could while away our time waiting for translations by contemplating the probable outcome of a Knox-Sollecito trial in the U.S. Same circumstances, same evidence, different country. Personally I think she would have ended up wishing she had been tried in some other country. Italy, perhaps. Felony murder can buy a ticket on a needle ride in many states here.

These are musings that bear some scrutiny. I had asked HB at the top of the page whether the memorandum would have been declared inadmissible in the US. I've retreated a bit on the needle ride possibility because there was not sufficient evidence to try any of them of first-degree murder.

On the other hand, especially where remorse is not expressed, even second-degree murder can result in dangerous offender status (in Canada) and I am sure there is a similar status in the US. Here's an example of a woman who was given that status in Canada for considerably less than murdering her roommate:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/1999/07/01/neve990701.html

 

[stilicho]

Dr. Stefanoni’s poor technique at forensic swabbing has been documented in photographs. That is one of many things one can criticize about her work here. Your criticisms of Dr. Johnson are not based in fact, so what is their basis?

How is it that the DNA evidence is correct when exonerating Patrick and convicting RG but is contaminated when identifying Meredith, AK or RS?

 

[Megalodon]

How is it that the DNA evidence is correct when exonerating Patrick and convicting RG but is contaminated when identifying Meredith, AK or RS?

Black man resistant to police mind rays vs. white kids tortured and brainwashed by the mean officers... The former sheds tampering-proof DNA, also

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Farah Jama

Black man resistant to police mind rays vs. white kids tortured and brainwashed by the mean officers... The former sheds tampering-proof DNA, also

Megalodon,

One of the cases of probable DNA contamination I have documented here concerns Farah Jama, a black muslim Australian man accused of rape. Therefore, let us agree that race is not an issue in this case, at least with respect to critiques of the forensics presented here. With respect to the evidence against Guede, let's see what the electropherograms look like and discuss them.

Chris