Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

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Bruce Fisher said:
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.
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Consistency ought to regard all those arrested equally. Evidence was collected against each of them--and you have to include Patrick among the four. Nobody is arguing here that RG is innocent or that Patrick is guilty but we don't all agree with the evidence and the processes by which they were convicted or set free.

You maintain the fantasy that the authorities and/or the courts simply batted .500 even though they worked by the same rules. On what basis do you claim that any of the Italian courts will throw out the evidence against AK and RS? What do you know that the rest of us don't? Include cites.

Additionally, was leaving the country included in the court's verdict and sentencing of RG?

@HB: I don't cling limpet-like to the NY decision largely because it has no bearing on the case in Italy. It doesn't also automatically follow that the Rome crime lab techniques would be admitted in the US. What I object to is the certainty in which it is declared that this would/wouldn't happen here/there. How do these people know?
 
HumanityBlues said:
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.
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I am not sure what the confusion is with this. I am probably not following your argument well. And perhaps also it is because this aspect seems to be used in different ways by different people.

As I understand it Knox was being interviewed as a witness at the outset. In this country the rules for witness interviews are contained in the PACE guidance and it is clearly laid out in the HSE guidance. Though that refers to HSE procedures it is based on PACE and it is is easy to follow

http://www.hse.gov.uk/enforce/enforcementguide/investigation/witness-witness.htm

12. The witness should be asked if s/he agrees to give you a voluntary statement. If they do, their evidence should be recorded on an LP70. The statement may be handwritten or typed. You should ensure that the witness has the opportunity to check the contents of the statement and make any corrections before s/he signs it. You should also ensure that the witness understands the perjury declaration (see above) contained in a s9 statement before signing.

13. In most cases, witnesses will be willing to cooperate with your investigation. If a witness is unsure as to whether they wish to provide a voluntary statement, you will need to carefully explain your reasons for interviewing him/her and that s/he is not being treated as a suspect. You may explain that, if s/he will not volunteer relevant information or feels that circumstances prevent him/her from doing so, you can use your powers to require that information.

14. Where you have grounds to suspect that a person may have committed an offence, you should not treat him as a witness but should offer him/her an interview under caution instead. If a witness becomes a potential suspect in the course of taking a witness statement from him/her, you must stop the interview and offer to conduct an interview under caution[5].
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This seems to be exactly what happened in the period from the start of the interview until the interview was stopped at 1:45. When Knox placed herself at the scene she became a suspect. The interview ended, just as it would in this country, and knox was advised that she was now a suspect. It is at that point she became a suspect. It seems that the suspect has more protection in Italy than in this country because here the police can then offer to continue under caution: that option is not open to the Italian police, as far as I understand it. They cannot continue to question a suspect and must wait for a prosecutor.

It has to be noted that the guidance specifically says that

14. When there are grounds to suspect that a person has committed an offence, you must caution them before any questions about it are put to them to ensure that the answers (or any failure to answer) are capable of being admissible in evidence in a prosecution.

15. If you put further questions to a person at a later time you must caution again.

16. "Grounds for suspicion" are more than vague unsubstantiated feelings or a hunch; they require some basis, but this can be less than evidence supportive of a prima facie case. 8
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This idea seems to be causing some difficulty in this thread but I do not see why.

A witness statement given voluntarily can only be admitted as evidence in itself in court, providing it is accepted by the defence. Otherwise live evidence from the witness is required.

Even if it is given voluntarily a witness statement is not admissable in Italy if it is self incriminatory. And that is the reason the 1:45 statement is not admissable in this case. That does not appear to be true in the UK but it does apply to compelled statements. Both provisions probably depend on interpretation of article 6 of the european convention on human rights: the uk position does, anyway.

Once a person becomes a suspect they are cautioned and placed under arrest. An arrest places you under the care and control of the law and this also seems comparable with what happens in Italy. In the uk the police can hold you for 36 hours before they must either charge you or release you: and you have the right to a solicitor provided free of charge. During this period of detention they may continue to question you: but once charged they should not ask you any further questions unless further information has come to light. This part is very different in italy because theirs is an inquisitorial system and the police are out of the picture once you are formally suspected.

So far as I can tell the early part of this procedure is quite similar in Italy and in the UK. It may be very different in america: I do not know. But I see nothing odd about what happened in this case from the perspective of my very limited acquaintance with procedure here. What is it that you find so strange?

As to the common law argument: common law marriage has no legal force whatsoever in england: in Scotland it used to but "habit and repute" marriages were abolished here too, though quite late. This is clearly a difference between the uk and america, and has probably led to the failure of fulcanelli's analogy: but he is perfectly correct in a uk context
 
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quadraginta said:
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.
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I see view this case the case way that you do but I view it from the other side. People see things differently.

You seem to put most of your belief on the behavior aspect.

The physical evidence against Amanda and Raffaele simply isn't there.

I have been working on the measurements of the window. I am just behind in my many projects. The shutters were not a factor because they were opened. Guede had plenty of height to reach under the broken glass and open the window. He had enough height to easily climb in.

The room was also not ransacked. The photos clearly show that no ransacking took place.

I understand why people think they are guilty. They were convicted after all.

I think they were wrongfully convicted. We disagree.
 
Fiona said:
Even if it is given voluntarily a witness statement is not admissable in Italy if it is self incriminatory. And that is the reason the 1:45 statement is not admissable in this case. That does not appear to be true in the UK but it does apply to compelled statements. Both provisions probably depend on interpretation of article 6 of the european convention on human rights: the uk position does, anyway.

Once a person becomes a suspect they are cautioned and placed under arrest.
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This goes along with what I suspected (no pun intended). AK made herself a suspect by claiming to have been at the crimescene.

So, the next step: What happened at 03:30 and 05:45 that made those documents inadmissible? No lawyer present? No judge present? Something else?
 
Before we get to that can we actually clear up what statements were made. It is my understanding that thre is one statement signed at 1:45 and one signed at 5:45. There is a third statement which is often described as a "gift". I have become confused as to when that one was made: I originally thought it was the 5:45 one: but that is wrong. I then understood it was the one she wrote in prison on the 7th. Now it appears there was a third one on the 6th. But I do not know if she wrote it in prison or not. I do not have time now to go through all the sources to find this again. Does anyone know exactly how many statements there are and the times and dates they were made?
 
quadraginta, what I see in the bloody shoe prints is that a 21 year old girl seems to be a better investigator than all the police put together. And that leads me to wonder about the said police's investigative abilities, and that leads me to question their findings FOR THE ENTIRE CASE.
 
Fiona said:
As to the common law argument: common law marriage has no legal force whatsoever in england: in Scotland it used to but "habit and repute" marriages were abolished her too, though quite late. This is clearly a difference between the uk and america, and has probably led to the failure of fulcanelli's analogy: but he is perfectly correct in a uk context
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Ok, you are correct about the common law marriage.

I'm not going to put your entire quote because it is so long, but suffice it to say, both you and Stilicho have the wrong idea about what I am arguing I think. Fulcanelli has put us all under the misapprehension that when someone is technically a suspect only depends on when authorities "formally" do this. He offers no citation of law by treatise, statute, or discussion from a legal expert in Italian law, no explanation of why if this is so simple Amanda's attorneys are arguing otherwise in her appeal, etc. etc. etc.

I also restated the law in the verbatim terms that many of you have gobbled up as fact, when I think there are very credible reasons to say what was stated is not true. How we can go about analyzing when Amanda was a witness and when she was suspect with out a compelling explanation of what the legal explanation is for this gray area?

We are still left with the question of what qualifies someone as a suspect, and it is certainly not "whenever the police decide to formally make you one". So I don't know why we are even pretending to know how to analyze when Amanda was a witness or suspect under Italian law.
 
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Well my point is that it seems to be very similar to the way that is determined in the uk. I have no idea how it is settled in america, though. I am not very sure what you are getting at. In the uk the police determine when one is a suspect, and that is when they have evidence one has committed a crime. I posted another link upthread, which I now can't find, but which related to the kind of evidence which would stand for the purpose of bringing a charge. There has to be something which would constitute evidence in a court of law. Up till Knox incriminated herself they had no such evidence. If that is not an answer to your question then I do not understand the problem

What happens in america?
 
Bruce Fisher said:
I see view this case the case way that you do but I view it from the other side. People see things differently.

You seem to put most of your belief on the behavior aspect.
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Behavior is perhaps an unfortunate choice of words on my part. Too easily misconstrued. I am not referring to demeanor. I think I made my feelings about that perfectly clear in the very first pages of this thread. I am referring to the pattern of lies and evasion exhibited by Knox and Sollecito, and the desperately transparent efforts to regroup as their various deceptions were exposed.

The physical evidence against Amanda and Raffaele simply isn't there.

<snip>
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I know you want to believe that. I don't share that belief. Even Sollecito didn't believe that. That's why he made up a lie about cutting Meredith while he was cooking for her.
 
Fiona said:
Well my point is that it seems to be very similar to the way that is determined in the uk. I have no idea how it is settled in america, though. I am not very sure what you are getting at. In the uk the police determine when one is a suspect, and that is when they have evidence one has committed a crime. I posted another link upthread, which I now can't find, but which related to the kind of evidence which would stand for the purpose of bringing a charge. There has to be something which would constitute evidence in a court of law. Up till Knox incriminated herself they had no such evidence. If that is not an answer to your question then I do not understand the problem

What happens in america?
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I think it is a distraction to bring in American law in this aspect. The stakes of being a witness versus a suspect do not carry the same significance with respect to exclusion of evidence as it seems they would have in Italy, so this would only further the confusion IMO. The significance of a witness versus a suspect seems much more enunciated in Italian criminal procedure. If they are the same name, the definition and meanings can still be very different. Even the British example that you have decided seems like it would be different than Italian law as well.

Edit: Hastily written. Out for the night.
 
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HumanityBlues said:
I think it is a distraction to bring in American law in this aspect. The stakes of being a witness versus a suspect do not carry the same significance with respect to exclusion of evidence as it seems they would have in Italy, so this would only further the confusion IMO. For example, a right to an attorney does not automatically attach here if you are a suspect. Moreover, the significance of a witness versus a suspect seems much more enunciated in Italian criminal procedure. If they are the same name, the definition and meanings can still be very different. Even the British example that you have decided seems like it would be different than Italian law as well.
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I am sorry HumanityBlues: I genuinely do not understand your point.

Pehaps someone else can pursue this with you.
 
el buscador said:
quadraginta, what I see in the bloody shoe prints is that a 21 year old girl seems to be a better investigator than all the police put together. And that leads me to wonder about the said police's investigative abilities, and that leads me to question their findings FOR THE ENTIRE CASE.
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Sounds like a frenzied pursuit of a justification to me. If that's all ya got then cherish it well. It ain't much.

And you don't need to shout.
 
quadraginta said:
Behavior is perhaps an unfortunate choice of words on my part. Too easily misconstrued. I am not referring to demeanor. I think I made my feelings about that perfectly clear in the very first pages of this thread. I am referring to the pattern of lies and evasion exhibited by Knox and Sollecito, and the desperately transparent efforts to regroup as their various deceptions were exposed.
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I still have not seen anyone offer any evidence that Amanda and Raffaele had any differences between their alibis BEFORE they were interrogated by the police. After the interrogations, all bets are off, because they were then operating from the "information" the police gave them about each other.
 
Mary_H said:
I still have not seen anyone offer any evidence that Amanda and Raffaele had any differences between their alibis BEFORE they were interrogated by the police. After the interrogations, all bets are off, because they were then operating from the "information" the police gave them about each other.
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How would we know what alibi's they gave the police before the police asked them? I thought they went straight to the police station to answer some questions after the "discovery" of the body. I don't understand your point.
 
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