• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

Status
Not open for further replies.
Charlie Wilkes said:
The prosecution's footprint expert was a guy named Rinaldi. Here are his reports:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/rinaldi1.pdf
http://www.friendsofamanda.org/rinaldi2.pdf

I agree that you need information to reach a conclusion. With that in mind, it is significant to note that Rinaldi did not get reference footprints from Meredith, from her boyfriend Giacomo, or from Laura and Filomena. Was he on a quest for truth, or was he paid to draw speculative conclusions that would help his client, the prosecutor?
Click to expand...

Charlie. Is Rinaldi the same idiot who attributed the shoe prints to Raffaele until it became so obvious that even Rudy himself had to admit they were his shoeprints?
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
The prosecution's footprint expert was a guy named Rinaldi. Here are his reports:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/rinaldi1.pdf
http://www.friendsofamanda.org/rinaldi2.pdf

I agree that you need information to reach a conclusion. With that in mind, it is significant to note that Rinaldi did not get reference footprints from Meredith, from her boyfriend Giacomo, or from Laura and Filomena. Was he on a quest for truth, or was he paid to draw speculative conclusions that would help his client, the prosecutor?
Click to expand...
Personally, I find it hard to believe that the police did not take all of the housemates and their boyfriends fingerprints, footprints and DNA. Jezz, we're talking about a brutal murder case, killer unknown and on the loose.
It's just hard to believe that they did not do better work!
Hmmm...
RWVBWL
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
<snip>

I agree that you need information to reach a conclusion. With that in mind, it is significant to note that Rinaldi did not get reference footprints from Meredith, from her boyfriend Giacomo, or from Laura and Filomena. Was he on a quest for truth, or was he paid to draw speculative conclusions that would help his client, the prosecutor?
Click to expand...


Why do I keep getting this sense of dichotomy? All the "experts" who say things favorable to Knox are "on a quest for truth", and all of the testimony for the prosecution are "paid to draw speculative conclusions that would help his client".

Just a coincidence, I guess.
 
quadraginta said:
Why do I keep getting this sense of dichotomy? All the "experts" who say things favorable to Knox are "on a quest for truth", and all of the testimony for the prosecution are "paid to draw speculative conclusions that would help his client".

Just a coincidence, I guess.
Click to expand...

The problem is the other side says the exact opposite about the defense experts, and uses the fact that they are "paid" as a guise against examining anything they've said. Everyone for the prosecution is just an "expert"--and there is no need to evaluate what they said and how they arrived at their conclusions. (Stilicho is a perfect example of this) The defense is just made up of hired hands, so why even bother with what their experts said (not like the media paid much attention to the defense experts anyways)?
 
Last edited:
Fine said:
_________________

Thanks Charlie for addressing this issue. And thanks for posting a link to a photo of the bathmat so others can understand this issue.

Sure the bathmat could have been moved from it's original location. But judging from the amount of blood left in the remainder of the bare footprint, that on the bathmat--even after the bathmat absorbed some of the blood---one would think that the missing heelprint would be quite visible. Quite THICK blood, in fact. But it was never seen and never detected with Luminol. And if I were a cop investigating that scene I'd sure look hard for that heelprint, knowing that it would show a sharper anatomical impression than the fuzzy print on the bathmat.

In my opinion, there was no need for the culprits to dispose of the bathmat, once the heelprint (and others) had been cleaned up from the floor. The bloody print on the bathmat was fuzzy enough---they thought!---to prevent any positive identification as to its owner. Say, wasn't there a lot of debate in court about just THAT topic?

I don't know whether the amount of blood left "in place" was designed to facilitate the incremental discovery of the murder. But I know that if I'd done what LondonJohn suggested---make the whole damn cottage outside of Meredith's room spic-and-span--- that would have surely been incriminating, telling the police that something's fishy. (So....don't ever commit a murder with LondonJohn as accomplice. You'll be sorry.)

///
Click to expand...

Oh dear. I haven't read down to the bottom of the thread yet to see if anyone else has remarked upon this, so I'm sorry if I'm duplicating. In any case, I wanted to answer directly for myself here, since the last paragraph from this quote directly concerns my post.

You might already know this from other sources, but I was suggesting exactly the OPPOSITE to what you said above was my position. I argued that AK/RS's better strategy, in my view, would have been to MESS UP the entire common area of the apartment - not to make it "spic-and-span". Please read my post again.

But then again, maybe reading someone's post properly before commenting on it (and subsequently representing that poster's position accurately) is either unfashionable or positively frowned upon. Who knew...?
 
HumanityBlues said:
The problem is the other side says the exact opposite about the defense experts, and uses the fact that they are "paid" as a guise against examining anything they've said. Everyone for the prosecution is just an "expert"--and there is no need to evaluate what they said and how they arrived at their conclusions. (Stilicho is a perfect example of this) The defense is just made up of hired hands, so why even bother with what their experts said (not like the media paid much attention to the defense experts anyways)?
Click to expand...


Are you presenting this as a justification, an explanation, or as evidence of something?

Do you know what tu quoque means? You just offered a classic example.

Certainly there are people on both sides of issues like this impugning the motives of the other side's authorities. It is generally wise to discount such criticism from both sides unless evidence of such bias can be offered. This is not the same thing as discussing the substance of those authorities' arguments.

On the subject of credibility (a different topic from motive) I confess to a certain bias towards professionals who are offering their testimony under oath in a courtroom, as opposed to people who are giving their opinion to news outlets half a world away. I extend that same favorable inclination to both the prosecution and the defense experts.

One direction this line of thinking goes to is "ineffective counsel". It's hard to image such a wealth of incontrovertible authority with the ability to so completely demolish each and every detail of the case against Knox and Sollecito being untapped by a competent defense.
 
Oliebol said:
Why would the heel print still be there? Amanda dragged the bathmat to her bedroom and back again. Or was she lying about that?
Click to expand...

So...Amanda shuffled herself to her bedroom on the bathmat with the bloody footprint?

That doesn't seem a bit...I don't know...odd...to anyone?

If I'm wet and don't have a towel, I'll walk wet to the bedroom. I most definitely won't do the bathmat boogie with a bloodied bathmat. Maybe I'm just OCD like that *shrug*
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
Which audit reports do you refer to? Can you provide a link or a citation?
Click to expand...

In every single media report produced by halides1 (and I produced a few extras on my own), the proof of contamination, falsification, or other hanky-panky, the lead paragraph includes details of audit reports that revealed the problem. This is standard in any type of business and forensics laboratories are no different. It took me two minutes to read through and post several examples.

Kestrel has previously claimed that there are no audit reports at all--not simply no negative ones--because he says that the Rome crime lab is exempt from audit requirements. Dan O has moreover claimed that the technician who provided the data is not even a real doctor but instead holds a bachelor's degree in the general arts.

I certainly don't want you to dig through the 12,000+ posts to find this but you should be aware that the advocates have made nothing short of outrageous claims against the Italian authorities without a shred of evidence to support them. I just picked a couple of the worst ones.
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
The prosecution's footprint expert was a guy named Rinaldi. Here are his reports:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/rinaldi1.pdf
http://www.friendsofamanda.org/rinaldi2.pdf

I agree that you need information to reach a conclusion. With that in mind, it is significant to note that Rinaldi did not get reference footprints from Meredith, from her boyfriend Giacomo, or from Laura and Filomena. Was he on a quest for truth, or was he paid to draw speculative conclusions that would help his client, the prosecutor?
Click to expand...

Why would he? The blood was deposited sometime between when Amanda left on the 1st and returned on the 2nd. Everyone else was out of town/had solid alibis. The only other person who's foot it could have been is Meredith's...except I'd bet the size didn't match ;)

Another strawman, methinks.
 
RWVBWL said:
Personally, I find it hard to believe that the police did not take all of the housemates and their boyfriends fingerprints, footprints and DNA. Jezz, we're talking about a brutal murder case, killer unknown and on the loose.
It's just hard to believe that they did not do better work!
Hmmm...
RWVBWL
Click to expand...

Really? As I just posted...everyone else had solid alibis. Nice strawman though.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
I'm not sure I'd describe it as perfectly logical, because as a theory it seems to me to have a couple of holes. There's no plausible motive, but more importantly there's no physical evidence of his presence in the room at the time of the murder at all other than on that one bra clasp, and there's no explanation for that lack of evidence.

The prosecution's story as I understand it was that it was some kind of four-way sexual assault thing that got out of hand, and I just don't find it very plausible that after a four-way sex thing turned into a four-way struggle and an unplanned, bloody murder that there was no trace of two of the supposed assailants left behind.
Click to expand...

Until Fiona posted it, I'd originally thought that people leave all kinds of physical evidence at the scenes of a crime. We had been specifically discussing fingerprint evidence because it seemed odd that there were very few of Amanda's prints even in her own room. You find it unusual that there isn't more physical evidence whereas cases are sometimes solved without any physical evidence. We're accustomed to Columbo or CSI style murder investigations where physical evidence is plentiful.

Then there's the issue of motive. Again, I don't expect you to dig through 12,000 posts but that's been examined over and over again too. There was a group dynamic involved which, as the violence against Meredith escalated, allowed all three to participate with less individual responsibility. There has been some discussion of substance abuse which could have also led to a lowering of inhibitions in the assailants.

I'd recommend reading some murder cases to find out just how few of them have plausible motives and plentiful physical evidence. Reena Virk was murdered either because of a jacket or a note. Joanne Wilson's murderer was convicted without any physical evidence and no murder weapon.
 
A word on "hotshot legal eagles".

There's been a great deal of to-and-fro on here recently about credibility/capabilities both of expert witnesses (particularly in the field of forensics) and of lawyers/attorneys/judges. My opinion is this: while jurors and the wider public are entitled to believe that experts, lawyers and judges know more about their relative areas of expertise/experience than most other people on the planet, their opinions and actions are far from inviolable, and can often be downright illogical or plain wrong.

To start with, I'll discuss the lawyer/attorney/judge side of things. I take as a template the OJ Simpson trial. I assume everyone is familiar with the case and its outcome. Anyhow, the LA DA's office (i.e. state prosecutor) was acutely aware of the importance of this case - it was probably the US's (and almost certainly California's) most famous murder trial for a decade. There was huge pressure on the LA DA's office for a conviction, the world was watching everything unfold, and they assigned those whom they regarded as their very best trial attorneys to the case.

So how did these "hotshot" prosecuting attorneys - LA's finest and probably among the State of California's finest - handle things? Well, "appallingly" might be too mild a word. They made numerous egregious errors in procedure, argument, presentation of evidence, handling of a jury, direct handling of witnesses, cross-examination of defence witnesses, and on and on... Jeez, at one point they even apologised to the jury for putting them in the awkward position of having to sit judgment on OJ, and stated that they themselves (i.e. the prosecutors) wished they weren't having to prosecute him! This in itself can't be interpreted as anything other than a green light to acquit.

And it wasn't only the prosecution "hot-shots" that showed themselves up. Numerous procedural errors were made by OJ's super-expensive defence team, and they very nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by alienating various jury members. It can be argued that they only won the case because of the number of errors made by the prosecutors and trial judge - rather than much that they themselves did.

Talking of judges, the trial judge himself was not much better than either team of attorneys. Many of his rulings were injudicial, and some were positively prejudicial (mostly in favour of the defence). Perhaps his single biggest mistake was a mis-ruling on prior evidence regarding the now-notorious detective Mark Fuhrman - he inflamed the racial elements where none should have been introduced (indeed, Furhman had personally gone easy on OJ after a previous altercation with Nicole, and was to all intents star-struck by the famous former football star). He also of course incorrectly allowed the famous Johnny Cochrane instruction to the jury after the farcical glove-fitting fiasco to stand: "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit!".

I'll post a bit more some other time on how the "experts" hired by both sides in this high-profile trial often managed to either contradict themselves (plus, of course, each other), or to allow themselves to be discredited on cross-examination.

So what's my point among all this? It's that the professional characters involved in a criminal trial can and do make sometimes serious errors. And even (or maybe especially...) in high-profile cases where the stakes are high and the world is watching.
 
Last edited:
quadraginta said:
Are you presenting this as a justification, an explanation, or as evidence of something?

Do you know what tu quoque means? You just offered a classic example.

Certainly there are people on both sides of issues like this impugning the motives of the other side's authorities. It is generally wise to discount such criticism from both sides unless evidence of such bias can be offered. This is not the same thing as discussing the substance of those authorities' arguments.

On the subject of credibility (a different topic from motive) I confess to a certain bias towards professionals who are offering their testimony under oath in a courtroom, as opposed to people who are giving their opinion to news outlets half a world away. I extend that same favorable inclination to both the prosecution and the defense experts.

One direction this line of thinking goes to is "ineffective counsel". It's hard to image such a wealth of incontrovertible authority with the ability to so completely demolish each and every detail of the case against Knox and Sollecito being untapped by a competent defense.
Click to expand...

Really, my argument was tu quoque, yet you were unsure of what my argument was anyways?

In a sense though you are right, but perhaps then you are acknowledging your own hypocrisy. You had plenty of chances when prosecution patsies on here were making analogous statements about defense experts under oath, so the timing of your great rhetorical splash seemed suspect.

"On the subject of credibility (a different topic from motive) I confess to a certain bias towards professionals who are offering their testimony under oath in a courtroom, as opposed to people who are giving their opinion to news outlets half a world away. I extend that same favorable inclination to both the prosecution and the defense experts."

Fair enough. But then what are you really saying then in response to Charlie? That because Charlie is in the United States, he can't say Rinaldi was negligent in not taking reference samples? That Charlie can't draw the inference that this seems to indicate a nonobjective investigation? How does an expert testifying under oath in Italy change any of this?

Sorry I just don't agree with this. No one needs to be in Italy to say reference samples should be taken in an objective investigation considering the facts of the case like this. Do you have an opinion on this, or do you we need to fly down an Italian prosecution expert to come to our forum and write down his opinion on it under oath?
 
Last edited:
BobTheDonkey said:
Really? As I just posted...everyone else had solid alibis. Nice strawman though.
Click to expand...
Greetings BobtheDonkey,
Sorry that I did not preface my statement,
but I was speaking about the first day right after Miss Kercher's body was discovered.
I would have thought the police would have identified, fingerprinted, DNA sampled and possibly footprinted ALL of the housemates and their boyfriends, as soon as possible, if not immediately.
This, I would think, would have helped cancel out any chance of an unattributed fingerprint, footprint or DNA thereby belonging to another housemate.
That they did not do this that first day, makes me wonder why they did not do better work. Correct me if you feel I am wrong, even if the police might have "followed the book", so to speak...
RWVBWL
 
Last edited:
BobTheDonkey said:
Why would he? The blood was deposited sometime between when Amanda left on the 1st and returned on the 2nd. Everyone else was out of town/had solid alibis. The only other person who's foot it could have been is Meredith's...except I'd bet the size didn't match ;)

Another strawman, methinks.
Click to expand...

Except there's no proof that the footprints were made with blood, and if they were not made with blood, they could have been made at any time in the days or weeks before the murder.
 
BobTheDonkey said:
Really? As I just posted...everyone else had solid alibis. Nice strawman though.
Click to expand...

It's far more than whether "everyone else had solid alibis" though. Firstly, police should - as a matter of course - have requested voluntary provision of fingerprints, footprints, hair, blood and cheek-cell DNA from everybody with regular access to the girls' apartment. This is "police investigation 101", and would have been used to cross check against all the prints, hair, blood and trace DNA found at the murder scene.

Furthermore, this request should have happened long before the police were sure of anyone's alibi - it probably should have taken place by the 3rd or 4th of November at the latest. Also, bear in mind that these requests would have had to have been for purely voluntary samples at that point. But of course, any refusal to comply would - and should - have been taken by the police as indicative of ulterior reasoning on behalf of those who refused.
 
Last edited:
LondonJohn said:
A word on "hotshot legal eagles".

...

So what's my point among all this? It's that the professional characters involved in a criminal trial can and do make sometimes serious errors. And even (or maybe especially...) in high-profile cases where the stakes are high and the world is watching.
Click to expand...

You're right. The prosecution ****ed up the OJ case pretty badly. Fortunately that didn't happen in Perugia and the three murderers are behind bars where they won't menace anyone else for quite some time.
 
LondonJohn said:
It's far more than whether "everyone else had solid alibis" though. Firstly, police should - as a matter of course - have requested voluntary provision of fingerprints, footprints, hair, blood and cheek-cell DNA from everybody with regular access to the girls' apartment. This is "police investigation 101", and would have been used to cross check against all the prints, hair, blood and trace DNA found at the murder scene.
Click to expand...

How do you know who they interviewed or what they asked for? Nobody in their right mind would volunteer any of those things without a lawyer present.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom