Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[odeed]

From Candace Dempsey's book, the Sollecito family started getting together to strategize their support for Raffaele in the spring of 2008. They knew from the previous November that there was no blood found on Raffaele's shoe. His cousin, 21 year old Annamaria, came up with the idea of counting and measuring the circles on the sole of the bloody footprint. The footprint had 11, Raffaele's shoe only 7. Their expert, Francesco Vinci, knew the police had found an empty Nike Outbreak 2s box at rudy's apartment. Raffaele's family went out and bought a pair and, as we all now know, the Outbreak 2s matched the bloody footprints and rudy confessed on May, 15, 2008 to wearing them the night of the murder.

Umm, a 21 year old solved the mystery of the bloody shoe prints. What happened to the professionals, the investigators and/or scientific police in this instance? What this girl did wasn't rocket science. Wasn't it obvious that the soles of Raffaele's Nikes absolutely did not match the bloody prints? All they had to do was count.

Can I clarify this story, sometime in May 2008 (6/7 months after the arrest of Raffaele), his cousin proves that the footprints are infact Rudy Guede's (something the defense own expert couldn't be bothered to work out).

The simple point is, the authorities were using the shoe print to place Raffaele at the the scene of the crime. The shoe prints were not properly investigated. Of course when it was proven that all the prints belonged to Rudy Guede, The authorities went out and found the clasp. They did not investigate that piece of evidence properly either. Are you seeing the trend?

and the police knowing that they couldn't prove the footprints in the future (but not at the time because as you say they were not properly investigated), somehow found the evidence on the bra clasp to implicate Sollecito, 6 weeks after his arrest?

 

[bucketoftea]

How about you quadraginta, want to take a crack at why the police didn't know immediately that the bloody shoe prints weren't Raffaele's?

It depends upon what you mean by "immediately". Immediately they would have absolutely no idea, now, would they? When did they start collecting everyone's shoes?

Why didn't they find any of the material from Guede's dried faint shoeprints on anyone's shoes?

 

[HumanityBlues]

We all agreed on that, too, since HB provided an example from an interview with an expert. We know that AK was not legally a suspect until well after she blurted out Patrick's name. Do you have anything more to offer than what we already agree upon?

AK's defence teams have better things to be concerned about than what happened between the time she was doing homework by the elevator and the time at which she legally became a suspect. More important to her appeal will be determining what she did and where she was on the evening of 01 NOV 2007.

Stilicho, I appreciate yours (and Shuttlt's) ability to be open minded on this. I usually just skim Fulcanelli's posts at best, but this really needs to be addressed, because what he is saying can't actually be true, because if it was, the suspect/witness dichotomy in Italian law would be the most, for lack of a better word, retarded law in all of Italy:

"I've tried to explain this many times and you seem to keep ignoring it. A suspect in Italy is not made or designated one on how they are 'treated'. They are not a suspect until they have FORMALLY been made one."

This has been repeated by him several times, and I believe Kermit came in and gave his endorsement. Regardless of the fact that no one asked him to cite what treatise or statute he was getting it from. My guess is Fulcanelli has it backwards, and it's not when they have "formally been made one", but when they "formally become a suspect". I don't think he is being intentionally dishonest, but it's pretty obvious he has a misunderstanding.

Regardless of what the rule actually states, it's pretty obvious it isn't the former version as Fulcanelli described. Seriously just think of this practically speaking. The law in itself would be self defeating as to its own necessity. Police would just never formally make you a suspect, and then every problem is solved. I see no credible reason to accept the validity of Fulcanelli's statement on this matter. It would be the most laughable law of all time.

In fact, from Maffei's description, who is actually an Italian lawyer, it seems pretty obvious it's not really that simple. This is moreover substantiated by the fact that Amanda's lawyers, who both have better understandings of Italian law than anyone on this forum, are arguing in her appeal that she was a suspect earlier as well. so it obviously can't be that simple.

In closing on this certain point, the statement: "One is not a suspect until formally made one", is obviously deficient and inaccurate.

Fulcanelli writes:
"Say you're going to get married. You can have been partners for a long time. You can actually regard each other as husband and wife, you can treat each other as husband and wife and do all the things husbands and wives tend to do...you can even be regarded as 'common law' husband and wife. But until you go through a full legal wedding ceremony you are not legally husband and wife...it's not just a personal, social and oft religious designation, it's a legal one. Once legally married, then you are legally entitled to the full rights and responsibilities conferred by the state on married couples."

That's not how common law marriages work at all. One IS legally married for purposes of dissolution when you have a common law marriage. There is no formalization and yet you are still a legally married couple under the common law. This is basic law school 101. That's why it's called a common law marriage, because you haven't formalized it, but are still considered married. That is how most states who recognize common law marriages, whose common law is derived right from England. When you are legally married without the formal requirements of solemnization, marriage certificate, etc., that is a common law marriage. Ironically, Fulcanelli makes the same inverse mistake as he did in his description of the witness/suspect formalization, which again, if it was the law was as he described it, would be one of the most irrational laws I've ever seen.

So, we definitely have an inaccurate understanding of this law as per Fuclanelli's description. And it is an important aspect of the case since it's being raised on appeal. We can get to the bottom of this, but if we can't admit our understanding of the law here is deficient, then we never will.

 

[stilicho]

"I've tried to explain this many times and you seem to keep ignoring it. A suspect in Italy is not made or designated one on how they are 'treated'. They are not a suspect until they have FORMALLY been made one."

....

In closing on this certain point, the statement: "One is not a suspect until formally made one", is obviously deficient and inaccurate.

....

So, we definitely have an inaccurate understanding of this law as per Fuclanelli's description. And it is an important aspect of the case since it's being raised on appeal. We can get to the bottom of this, but if we can't admit our understanding of the law here is deficient, then we never will.

I think it's important enough to get right, too. I've now read so many differing opinions that I can't be entirely certain.

It sounds as though AK incriminated herself some time around 01:45 and that then the police were trying to accomplish two goals: (1) to obtain written documentation they thought they might be able to use; (2) get the appropriate authorities involved so that anything else she said could also be used. I think, therefore, that she was already a suspect at 01:45 but not formally so until hours later.

This is why I keep getting confused about those signed statements. And, don't ask me for the direct cite, I remember reading that Mignini was dismayed at some of the procedural blunders made at the Questura. I think Micheli even talked about them although I find the translation of his report even now a little cryptic.

It sounds as though a judge ought to have been summoned as well as the legal representation for the events of 03:30 and 05:45 and that this is why those signed statements were not admissible.

A further issue I have is that there now appears to be three signed statements, by Amanda, from throughout the day on 06 NOV 2007. Two of those (I believe) were only admissible in the legal claims of Patrick Lumumba. There is even a furour in AK's testimony when they are mentioned at her trial.

The timeline of 05 - 06 NOV 2007 has to be a lot more detailed, with cites, and with footnotes to their appropriate use in any of the legal documentation that came afterwards. There are just too many irregular and informal terms surrounding them.

 

[Bruce Fischer]

...I thought I must have accidentally gone to a much earlier page by accident. Had to check the date. While you've been asleep the defense has had to concede over the lone wolf interpretation.

Really?

 

[Bruce Fischer]

In New York City the use of LCN DNA has been allowed.



Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/queens_judge_case_use_jamaica_new_dxCMIjWlJqXITqrEmE1bPP#ixzz0nGyZvq00



Because according to them only Amanda an Raffaele are allowed to be confused or have their statements mean nothing important to the case.

The LCN DNA testing that was allowed in New York was done in a certified lab.

I know that TJMK has been running with the New York LCN DNA story but it is apples and oranges.

 

[Mary_H]

Just to underline the importance of this thread, we are currently being beaten by this one:

Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth.
12,665 posts, 281,775 views

That isn't even the only active thread on essentially the same topic with significant posts. If you added up all the current threads trying to demonstrate that the Christian God exists, you'd certainly exceed 25,000 posts and 500,000 views.

That thread was started over a year before this one.

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Are you just making this stuff up as you go? Regardless what country the crime occurred, one of the salient arguments of the FOA crowd is that the evidence against AK and RS would be thrown out in the USA. If you want to add that it will be thrown out in Italy, too, that's your choice.

How does it follow that the evidence against RG is any clearer or more likely to be admissible? There is absolutely no evidence against him for the staged burglary. That's just one example.

On what are you basing your claims? Is there something in the sentencing report?

Actually one thing that you will find about me is that I am very consistent. I repeated that the evidence would most likely be thrown out in the US and the UK. I also believe that Italy's supreme court will throw it out also if this case reaches that level.

Where exactly did I make anything up? Where did my opinion change?

Guede left evidence on the victim and in the victim. He also left shoe prints set in Meredith's blood. He admitted that he was at the scene of the crime and he fled the country.

There is no credible evidence that Amanda or Raffaele were in the room at the time of the murder.

 

[HumanityBlues]

The LCN DNA testing that was allowed in New York was done in a certified lab.

I know that TJMK has been running with the New York LCN DNA story but it is apples and oranges.

I would not put much stock in this decision anyway. The Supreme Court of New York is actually the lowest level, and the precedential value of that decision is pretty low, even if it was published.

 

[Mary_H]

This seems relevant:

http://xkcd.com/386/

LOL! Very funny and very true.

 

[Alt+F4]

The LCN DNA testing that was allowed in New York was done in a certified lab.

I know that TJMK has been running with the New York LCN DNA story but it is apples and oranges.

I live in NYC and that story just caught my eye when I was reading The Post. Can you explain more about labs in NYC being "certified" to do LCN DNA testing? Which agency in New York City or New York State does this particular certification?

 

[Mary_H]

Hardly. Candace Dempsey is FOA and from the very beginning she has been trying to make out that the prosecution is concerned about irrelevancies rather then actual evidence for they have none. Therefore, I find it no coincidence that apologists for Amanda like yourself are regurgitating Candace's pap.

The reaction to the cold sore was in the blogs. It was not mentioned by Mignini. I don't know whether or not it was mentioned in the legitimate media; let's hope not. As a phenomenon of the blogs, it was appropriate to discuss it in the blogs. As mentioned before, I offered Candace's blog to point out the similarity between her take on the subject and stilicho's take on it.

I guess I could have gone to tjmk or pmf, but god knows what I would have found written there about Amanda's cold sore.

 

[Mary_H]

In addition to her obvious slant (a slant which at least she admits to having) she was caught attending the Knox fundraiser at Saltys Restaurant in January 2009 and not as a reporter or blogger, but as a guest. She then lied on her blog by claiming she never went, despite the fact her arrival and entry was witnessed by at least five PMF members and a couple of other parties doing so. I'm not quite sure where that fits in the journalistic code of ethics.

This is creepier than ****. If I go to Candace's book signing at the University Book Store, should I wear a bullet-proof vest, a la abortion doctors?

Edited by LashL: 

Please see Rule 10 of the Membership Agreement and the explanatory notes thereto.

 

[Alt+F4]

The reaction to the cold sore was in the blogs.

Mary, no one previous to you in this massive thread posted anything about anyone involved with the case having a cold sore, never mind what that could possibly mean.

YOU are the one that is spreading this nonsense, even after myself and other posters said they knew nothing about it.

 

[Alt+F4]

This is creepier than ****. If I go to Candace's book signing at the University Book Store, should I wear a bullet-proof vest, a la abortion doctors?

Way out of line. Reported.

 

[Mary_H]

Why, does a nonsense claim require an incisive argument to dispel it? Better it is treated as it deserves and is called the nonsense that it is. But anyway, here you are...your claim is nothing more then an asserted statement of opinion for which you offer no evidence making it nothing more then paranoid mud slinging.

Then why did it take Guede four months to accuse Amanda and Raffaele?

False. Rudy's train on which he was found was heading for Italy.

Cite?

I can't seem to see the 'quotes'.

Have you had your glasses checked lately? Or are you insisting these reports must be verbatim statements from the horse's mouth? The leaks from the investigators aren't good enough for you?

What, the category of 'I can't actually find any quote, but I'll simply therefore assert it for it suits my mud slinging'? Mignini never said the term 'Satanic', he never used the term 'orgy', those were words made up by the press and Raffaele's lawyers in the case of the former. Neither Mignini nor Comodi have argued a sexual attack carried out by a group. The normal term for which in the Anglo world is GANG RAPE/MURDER.

This point is as absurd as your claim to RWVBWL that Rudy's DNA was only found in, not on, Meredith's body, as if a rape can be committed without touching the victim. Instead of replying to the intent of the poster's comment, you change the subject and attack minute details and semantics.

In Micheli's sentencing report, he writes about rejecting the prosecution's claims of the murder having a ritualistic aspect. Maybe Micheli was too embarrassed to include the word, "Satanic" in his report, but the meaning is clear.

In which case he would have accused them from day one.

On Day One he was claiming he was not there. It would not have been particularly useful to put himself at the crime scene by accusing the others.

RHG: "Listen, you know I knew those girls, I knew them both, Meredith and Amanda, but nothing more, you know that. I've been to their house twice, the last time a few days before all this business, but I didn't do anything. I have nothing to do with this business. I wasn't there that evening. If they have found my fingerprints it means I must have left them there before."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2915151.ece

Before he had his wits -- and his lawyers -- about him.

 

[Bruce Fischer]

The PMF crowd is obsessed with Candace Dempsey. They hate the fact that she is right. They know she wrote a good book and quite frankly they are jealous.

PMF has embarrassed themselves with their conversations about Candace Dempsey.

Everyone on this thread should read Candace's book. You will all learn something about this case.

 

[Mary_H]

Way out of line. Reported.

Oh, thank you, Alt+4. That WAS a pretty intense profanity. Hardly anyone has ever heard it before.

 

[quadraginta]

How about you quadraginta, want to take a crack at why the police didn't know immediately that the bloody shoe prints weren't Raffaele's?

Not really. To be honest I don't think it matters. What would change if they could never be certain whose footprint it was? Was the assertion that the print belonged to Sollecito part of the evidence argued in court?

I'd like to know how someone could smash a shuttered second story window, climb up to and crawl through and ransack the room beyond without leaving any evidence of their presence in the room or passage through the window.

I realize that some may find this bewildering, but none of the wild flights of fancy or contorted hypotheses offered in this thread have managed to explain it to my satisfaction. Those attempts have been effectively demolished. This is representative of the defense arguments here in a nutshell, a microcosm of the case as a whole. The only way this has been approached is to take separate aspects in isolation and try and refute minute details, one at a time.

The efforts to refute the entire case has been handled in the same fashion. The problem is that the reasonable doubt of guilt is overwhelmed by the total accumulation of many different pieces of information assembled into a pattern of behavior.

It is possible to tear down a wall by removing enough of the stones that comprise it. It is not as effective to criticize the shape of the individual stones, one at a time in isolation, and that largely is what we have seen here. In between distorted and patently false hyperbole. And character assassination.

There is a flip side to "reasonable doubt" of guilt, and that is the straining of incredulity that so many innocent or harmless acts could be misinterpreted or misconstrued by happenstance or intent to paint such an accidental picture of guilt. At some point it becomes apparent that there may be a chance of guilt. Beyond that comes the concession that a probability exists. Then there comes a plateau where the likelihood of guilt is a much more rational explanation of events than a sum of the probabilities of all the many explanations needed to arrive at any other conclusion. This is what "beyond reasonable doubt" means. Not certainty. Not a smoking gun.

Contrary to other unsupported assertions made here it is not unusual for a conviction to result from such an aggregation of facts. It is actually quite routine.

If the Knox/Sollecito defense can remove enough stones through their appeal to make a hole in the wall I will quite cheerfully revise my opinion. I have no vested interest in Knox's guilt. I feel sorry for the girl. I'd like to see her found not guilty. I'm just not going to let my emotions overwhelm my critical faculties.

There have been over 11,000 posts in this thread, no few of them by people who, like me, began with no preconceptions or axe to grind. Many who, like me, have attempted to discern what facts are available amidst all the rhetoric, who have judged arguments based on their own merits and not through the lens of belief. This is a board frequented largely by skeptics inclined to evaluate facts and evidence, not advocates, not true believers. Most participate here specifically for the opportunity to learn new things. To have their minds informed, sometimes even changed.

Why do you think that so many of us have found the Italian court's conclusions to be reasonable ones? Why does the adamant chorus of innocence seem for the most part to be the increasingly desperate voices of single-issue posters visiting in greater and greater numbers from unflinchingly partisan advocacy blogs?

There is one very simple explanation for that. I have a premonition that you would not like it.

 

[Mary_H]

Mary, no one previous to you in this massive thread posted anything about anyone involved with the case having a cold sore, never mind what that could possibly mean.

YOU are the one that is spreading this nonsense, even after myself and other posters said they knew nothing about it.

Yes, I know, and no one on this thread ever thought about sex before until I came along. You know us people from Seattle -- we are just out of control.

I am not spreading the nonsense. I used the reference appropriately. Anyone who brought it up after that is spreading it. All hoping they can fool people into thinking they weren't among those who ridiculed Amanda at the time.

You guys sure do spend a lot of your waking hours chastising and reprimanding other people. It's no wonder you don;t have any time to look at yourselves.

never mind what that could possibly mean.

Ah, I see what this is all about. It took me awhile -- I ain't nearly as sneaky as you.