Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

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RWVBWL said:
Too funny Mary H!!!

"shuttlt, after giving the matter some thought, I have decided to grace you and stilicho with the evidence I used to decide that the Perugian police and prosecutor were sexually attracted to Amanda.

First, I was able to establish attraction by closely observing the investigators' psychological and behavioral reactions during the investigation. I didn't need to rely on other kinds of investigation as this method has enabled me to get to conclusions in a very quick time."

Thanks for the laugh,
RWVBWL
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Thank you, RWVBWL! :) I should have known you would get my little joke.
 
Perhaps it's only me who finds such jokes distasteful.
 
BobTheDonkey said:
What would you like changed about the Italian Justice System?

Do you have evidence that the media influenced this trial?
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  • There is no presumption of innocence under Italian criminal law
  • Under Italian criminal law, the defense has no influence on the jury selection process, so there is practically no protection against jury poisoning
  • In the prosecution's closing statement, they were allowed to make bold assertions unsupported by evidence, and contrary to the evidence
  • The story was spoon-fed to the Italian media by the prosecution
  • Information irrelevant to the basic facts of the case--like Knox's shopping spree on the day after the discovery of her flatmate Ms. Kercher's body, her sexual history, and her acrobatics at the police station--were thus widely reported in the media, and exploited at trial by the prosecution
  • The jury was not sequestered during the trial, or prevented in any way from reading or hearing sensationalized information about the case in the media
  • The confession was obtained under duress and absent of an attorney on behalf of Ms. Knox, yet it was still admitted as evidence in the trial
Now I'm not saying that a lot of these problems don't exist here in the US, but the Italian system appears to me rather crude by comparison.

BobTheDonkey said:
I'd argue that what little we've seen of the reasoning behind the verdict is well thought out and based on the evidence as presented by both sides.
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That's my opinion, and you're entitled to yours also.
 
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John Albert said:
  • There is no presumption of innocence under Italian criminal law
  • The story was spoon-fed to the Italian media by the prosecution
  • Information irrelevant to the basic facts of the case--like Knox's shopping spree on the day after the discovery of her flatmate Ms. Kercher's body, her sexual history, and her acrobatics at the police station--were thus widely reported in the media, and exploited at trial by the prosecution
  • The jury was not sequestered during the trial, or prevented in any way from reading or hearing sensationalized information about the case in the media
  • Under Italian criminal law, the defense has no say in the jury selection process so there is practically no protection against jury poisoning
  • The confession was obtained under duress and absent of an attorney on behaqlf of Ms. Knox, yet it was still admitted as evidence in the trial
  • In the prosecution's closing statement, they were allowed to make assertions unsupported by and contrary to the evidence
Now I'm not saying that a lot of these problems don't exist here in the US, but the Italian system appears to me rather crude by comparison.

That's my opinion, and you're entitled to yours also.
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I really don't know where you're getting some of your information.

1). There is presumption of innocence under Italian law.
2) What story was spoon fed to the media by the prosecution?
3) The shopping trip was relevant to the basic facts of the case, hence why the owner of the shop actually gave testimony on the stand in the trial.
4) In the Italian system there is no jury to sequester. Italian courts have only judges. And in terms of sequestering juries, even in America, juries are not sequestered, read this: http://www.slate.com/id/2091241/
5) Under Italian law the defence has no say in jury selection because they don't have a jury, only judges.
6) The 'confession' (accusation) was not obtained under duress, certainly not the legal definition for it. Amanda gave her statement as a 'witness' and even in in America witnesses are are not afforded attorneys.
7. What were the assertions made by the prosecution in their closing arguments that weren't supported by evidence and that contradicted the evidence? Can you give us specifics please?
 
HumanityBlues said:
Crude and distasteful? BobtheDonkey who is always looking to get a rise out of anyone who disagrees with him and laugh at their expense can't even take a joke. What a drama queen.
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I don't look to get a rise out of anyone. I'm not sure where you got that impression.


I do find some of the absurd arguments to be angering, though.
 
Fulcanelli said:
I really don't know where you're getting some of your information.

2) What story was spoon fed to the media by the prosecution?
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Barbie Latza Nadeau covered the case in Perugia. She wrote:

"From the moment they were arrested, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were a circulation bonanza for the Italian media and a front-page staple of the British tabloids. The Italian press funneled leaks from the lawyers and prosecutors to embellish the crime story and quickly dubbed Knox 'Angel Face,' fostering a cult of morbid fascination with this most unlikely killer."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-04-02/how-the-media-got-knox-wrong/

On the TLC documentary, she also said the prosecution (or maybe it was the police) "were practically handing out pictures of the crime scene" to reporters.

3) The shopping trip was relevant to the basic facts of the case, hence why the owner of the shop actually gave testimony on the stand in the trial.
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How so?

6) The 'confession' (accusation) was not obtained under duress, certainly not the legal definition for it. Amanda gave her statement as a 'witness' and even in in America witnesses are are not afforded attorneys.
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Amanda very credibly said it was. In her written statement to the police, she asked the police to stop yelling at her because it only made her more confused. She wrote it before she knew she was going to stand trial for the murder, so she had no reason to embellish.
 
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Mary_H said:
Barbie Latza Nadeau covered the case in Perugia. She wrote:

"From the moment they were arrested, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were a circulation bonanza for the Italian media and a front-page staple of the British tabloids. The Italian press funneled leaks from the lawyers and prosecutors to embellish the crime story and quickly dubbed Knox 'Angel Face,' fostering a cult of morbid fascination with this most unlikely killer."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-04-02/how-the-media-got-knox-wrong/

On the TLC documentary, she also said the prosecution (or maybe it was the police) "were practically handing out pictures of the crime scene" to reporters
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Stuff like that never happens for other cases i'm sure :rolleyes:

Amanda very credibly said it was. In her written statement to the police, she asked the police to stop yelling at her because it only made her more confused. She wrote that before she knew she was going to stand trial for the murder, so she had no reason to embellish.
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If she had nothing to hide, she wouldn't have had reasons to be confused. It's not like the police were asking here to remember details from an obscure day for an event that happened years ago.
 
Fulcanelli said:
7. What were the assertions made by the prosecution in their closing arguments that weren't supported by evidence and that contradicted the evidence? Can you give us specifics please?
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Here's one lawyer's take on it:

"As a former prosecutor I was deeply troubled by Giuliano Mignini’s failure to produce any motive in this case. Consider the closing argument of the Italian prosecutor. He surmises that Knox wanted to get back at Kercher (the victim) for saying she was not clean and for calling her promiscuous. He argued: “Amanda had the chance to retaliate against a girl who was serious and quiet… She had harbored hatred for Meredith, and that was the time when it could explode. The time had come to take revenge on that smug girl.” See story. I really have a hard time with that. What college kid gets along with their roommate perfectly anyway? Does he really expect a jury to believe that Amanda Knox (who has no criminal history) stabbed to death her roommate because she was “smug”? While there are times in our life that we might feel tempted to slap a smug person, Amanda Knox’s record shows no propensity for violence. Stabbing someone to death is not an “entry level job”; the people who perpetrate such crimes have worked their way up to such deeds by committing school yard fights, animal cruelty, brandishing weapons, unlawful threats, etc. Giuliano Mignini “described what he called “an unstoppable crescendo of frenzied violence,” which began with Knox and Sollecito trying to take off Kercher’s clothes and threatening her.” See story. Female on female murder is extremely rare and makes up only 2% of the homicides in this country. See source. Giuliano Mignini’s explanation as to motive is pure conjecture, and just does not have the ring of truth."

http://www.grahamlawyerblog.com/tag/giuliano-mignini/
 
Amazer said:
Stuff like that never happens for other cases i'm sure :rolleyes:
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What's that got to do with it?

If she had nothing to hide, she wouldn't have had reasons to be confused. It's not like the police were asking here to remember details from an obscure day for an event that happened years ago.
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No, they were just asking her to remember something that hadn't happened. That's a little more challenging.
 
Mary_H said:
What's that got to do with it?
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It's par for the course... In the end it does nothing to make Amanda guilty or not guilty. That is decided by evidence presented to the courts.


No, they were just asking her to remember something that hadn't happened. That's a little more challenging.
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Not difficult at all. It's easy as apple pie.

If they're asking you to remember something that happened, while it didn't happen, just keep telling them it didn't happen. That's what most innocent people do. People who are somehow involved on the other hand....
 
Amazer said:
It's par for the course... In the end it does nothing to make Amanda guilty or not guilty. That is decided by evidence presented to the courts.
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John Albert claimed the story was fed to the Italian media by the prosecution. Fulcanelli asked him to back up his claim. I offered evidence to support it.

If the press had nothing to do with the progress of the trial, we have to wonder why the prosecution bothered giving them information about it.

Not difficult at all. It's easy as apple pie.

If they're asking you to remember something that happened, while it didn't happen, just keep telling them it didn't happen. That's what most innocent people do. People who are somehow involved on the other hand....
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I believe Amanda did tell them for quite awhile that it didn't happen. They punished her until she said it did, then they stopped punishing her.

Do you know more than all the people who have researched and witnessed the rather common phenomena of false confessions?
 
Fulcanelli said:
I really don't know where you're getting some of your information.

1). There is presumption of innocence under Italian law.
2) What story was spoon fed to the media by the prosecution?
3) The shopping trip was relevant to the basic facts of the case, hence why the owner of the shop actually gave testimony on the stand in the trial.
4) In the Italian system there is no jury to sequester. Italian courts have only judges. And in terms of sequestering juries, even in America, juries are not sequestered, read this: http://www.slate.com/id/2091241/
5) Under Italian law the defence has no say in jury selection because they don't have a jury, only judges.
6) The 'confession' (accusation) was not obtained under duress, certainly not the legal definition for it. Amanda gave her statement as a 'witness' and even in in America witnesses are are not afforded attorneys.
7. What were the assertions made by the prosecution in their closing arguments that weren't supported by evidence and that contradicted the evidence? Can you give us specifics please?
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Yeah.

A jury trial in Italy is called a Corte d'Assise. It consists of 2 professional judges and 6 "lay judges" selected from the populace. The lay judges have no legal or jurisprudential training. They serve essentially the same function as jurors, but in cases with widespread media attention there is no function analogous to sequestration as in the UK and US. These 'lay judges' are chosen without consultation or input from the defense, therefore there is no safeguard against jury tampering or jury poisoning. In the case of a deadlock, the lead judge gets an extra vote to break the tie.

Italian legislation may proclaim "Presumption of Innocence," but it frankly rings hollow when the prosecutor is allowed to pillory the defendant in the press, the 'lay judges' are allowed to read that press, irrelevant issues such as the defendant's sex life are allowed in court in attempts to malign their character, and the prosecution is allowed to make allegations in closing which are unsupported by the evidence in review.

In America, witnesses are indeed afforded attorneys during questioning if they ask for one, and they cannot be held against their will unless the police charge them with a crime. Such is obviously not the case in Italy, where witnesses can be held for up to 48 hours before being charged.

Other posters have already addressed the rest of the points in your list there.

I've read and re-read the facts of this case many times in this thread and in many other places over the past several months, and feel I have given a lot of consideration to this case for somebody not directly affected by its outcome. The facts are the facts and they've been amply covered already.

I'm not saying Amanda Knox is innocent or guilty. For all the stuff I've read, I still can't make heads or tails of this case. It's frankly very confusing for such a high profile case. This is probably due to all the speculation, public debate and loads of misinformation which has been reported through the media on both sides of the verdict.

As I said, I have my opinion and you are allowed yours. I have no desire to engage you any further on this topic. Thanks for your reply!
 
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Mary_H said:
Do you know more than all the people who have researched and witnessed the rather common phenomena of false confessions?
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Mary, what is your take on the distinction here between false confessions and false memories in this case?
 
Supernaut said:
Do you really need to have the impossibilty of 'proving a negative' explained to you? Or are you (yet again) simply demonstrating your disingenuousness?
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shuttlt said:
Are we back to the question of why spoons from the draw weren't tested?
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No, I was referring to Fiona's rather worn mantra of "I see no evidence of absence" - in this case, the absence of controls run by Stefanoni - identical (equally unorthodox) tests run concurrently on other items, ideally taken from the same location.

Perhaps you both DO actually need the rules of logic explained.

I cannot PROVE that a fusion-reactor powered by banana skins is impossible. The onus is on someone who claims otherwise to prove that it IS.
 
I don't believe for a moment that there weren't controls, I do believe that some keeep recycling this nonsense. Nonsense in large part because the defense chose to not send an agent to observe the testing. (this is done all the time) Unfortunately defenders often choose not to attend themselves or send an agent so that they can cry about the testing. Just gamesmanship rubbish. Happens all the time.
 
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