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Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

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Kevin_Lowe said:
I'm not sure what you'd call a spurious positive result due to accidental lab contamination if not a false positive, but that was certainly my intention.
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In this wonderful world where we announce spurious lab results with nothing more then loud assertion ;)

Kevin_Lowe said:
I'm not sure what you'd call a spurious positive result due to accidental lab contamination if not a false positive, but that was certainly my intention.
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Oh my God, they handled it! Say it's not so!!! They were gloved were they not? And being different people, they have different DNA to Raffaele do they not? And being forensic police they are meant to handle the evidence are they not? I therefore await enlightenment in regard to 'Theyhandleditgate'. Why does other DNA on the clasp require explanations regarding Ninjas or cross contamination via handling? Did not Meredith's bra exist in the real world before she was murdered, as opposed to in a vacuum where everything is sterile aside from the traces of the 'murderer'?

Kevin_Lowe said:
I wouldn't say irrelevant. I'd say inconclusive at best and character assassination aimed at frightened grannies at worst. The overwhelming majority of people who buy knives don't rape or murder anybody, hence the fact that a person has such a knife is not evidence they are more likely than anybody else to have committed a rape or murder.

Lots of martial arts enthusiasts own weapons like that. Possibly I'm biased in that I've known many, many law-abiding martial arts enthusiasts but I just don't see them as evidence of anything at all.

For the record I've never owned such a knife myself.
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I see, like everything else that's bad news, we'll just brush that aside as meaningless then :rolleyes:
 
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Charlie Wilkes said:
But then why destroy the heel print? It seems to me you have to follow a narrow path of reasoning that ignores some obvious problems. Moreover, this path is speculative, because no evidence of a cleanup was presented during the trial, or at least, none that I know about. Was such evidence presented?
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Actually it was, it must have been, since Massei includes the clean-up in his report. He must have got the idea from someone, therefore it must have been raised in the trial.
 
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.

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.
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What if, and I'm just going out on a limb here, the Police were already sure of all the other's alibis by the 3rd or 4th? Given that everyone else was provably out of town with no conflicting alibis, your argument doesn't stand.

While I may agree that it would have presented a more full picture of the DNA test results, it still fails to do two very important things:

1) Explain Raffaele's DNA in Meredith's bedroom

and

2) Explain Meredith's DNA on the kitchen knife


The most further reference samples would have provided is maybe a better understanding of who stepped where...Except that we're talking about footprints in Meredith's blood. Thus, unless you don't believe the other roommates alibis, there is no reason to suspect they had ever tracked Meredith's wet blood around the room/cottage.
 
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?
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They didn't need them from Meredith, she had no blood on the soles of her feet. As for Filomena and Laura all their shoes were confiscated. They had their shoe sizes, which were different to those of all the prints, so they were easily ruled out.
 
HumanityBlues said:
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?
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Rudy didn't admit they were his. He said the print was probably his. There's a difference.
 
Fulcanelli said:
Oh my God, they handled it! Say it's not so!!! They were gloved were they not? And being different people, they have different DNA to Raffaele do they not? And being forensic police they are meant to handle the evidence are they not? I therefore await enlightenment in regard to 'Theyhandleditgate'. Why does other DNA on the clasp require explanations regarding Ninjas or cross contamination via handling? Did not Meredith's bra exist in the real world before she was murdered, as opposed to in a vacuum where everything is sterile aside from the traces of the 'murderer'?
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Ahh, watch for the sidetracking of the argument, the real question still remains: How did Raffaele's DNA come to be in Meredith's room?
 
stilicho said:
This is from NZ but I know it's no different in Canada:

Ü Police requests for a DNA sample
When the Police ask to take a sample for DNA analysis, they must give you a written notice and tell you the following things:
· the offence the sample request relates to;
· that they have reasonable grounds to believe the sample will confirm or disprove your involvement in the offence;
· you do not have to give the sample;
· you can change your mind about giving the sample at any time before it is taken;
· you are able to speak to a lawyer before deciding;
· the sample may be used as evidence;
· if you don't consent to giving the sample, and there is good cause to suspect you committed the offence they are requesting the sample for, the Police may apply to the Court for an order requiring you to give a sample.​

(Source: http://www.communitylaw.org.nz/fileadmin/documents/dna_and_the_police.doc )

In the US can they simply seize anyone and force them to submit to a DNA test without their consent? Sounds barbaric.
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No. Well, more accurately, sometimes. Sort of. Much the same as your list

Some states require a DNA record of people arrested for felonies. At least one, California, requires samples from everyone arrested. Taking DNA from convicted felons is becoming common.

Requiring DNA from someone who hasn't been arrested is somewhat more problematic. In many jurisdictions a warrant can be issued, similar to and subject to the same strictures as any search warrant, even if the person in question is not under arrest.

Just last month in a nearby city a rape/murder was solved because the suspect dropped a cigarette butt that they were able to recover DNA from to match what was left at the crime scene. The person they caught had brought attention to himself specifically because he had declined to provide a sample voluntarily when a canvas was done of the neighborhood where the crime took place.
 
stilicho said:
No way you'd ever do that without consulting an attorney or being placed in custody. That's an appalling infringement on an individual's rights if it were true.
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No it's not an infringement. Such requests are always accompanied by a set of written commitments that the samples will not be used for any other purpose than the specific investigation of the specific named crime. Written assurances are also given that all samples will be destroyed at the end of the police investigation.

I can only conclude that you're making an unsupported assertion based on your own assumptions. Because it has happened - and continues to happen - in many, many cases, without hundreds of lawyers bringing the process to a grinding halt.
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
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.
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By both Amanda and Raffaele? The same who you are great pains to keep telling us were together only a week. The same Raffaele that only visited the cottage two or three times and only then to wait for Amanda to collect her stuff and the other time (so they say) to cook lunch? All without giving us any viable candidate for the prints or a scenario for how it may have gotten on the soles of both their feet? Now, I ask you, is it any wonder both of them were found guilty...is it?

The old, much repeated 'many other things' argument simply doesn't wash, neither in a court room, or here.
 
Mary_H said:
There has been some continued misuse of the term "straw man" in the last couple of pages. Here is the definition of a straw man argument:

Description of Straw Man

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
3. Person B attacks position Y.
4. Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

I think LondonJohn would agree that many of the arguments against his claims have been straw men. Here is another example:

Charlie wrote: "But that takes us back to the central problem of this whole case: what could possibly precipitate this mad impulse? Why would Amanda and Raffaele depart from a quiet evening alone together, in the first stages of a fresh love affair, and team up with Rudy to kill Amanda's housemate? The answer is that they wouldn't, and they didn't."

Fulcanelli wrote: "Nobody has ever suggested that they teamed up with Rudy with the intention of murdering Meredith. That's really a straw man."

Fulcanelli responds to Charlie as if Charlie had said that Amanda and Raffaele would have teamed up with the intention of murdering Meredith, when Charlie did not actually say that, and that was not his meaning. Charlie has not set up a straw man, Fulcanelli has.
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You actually pre-empted me: I was about to make exactly the same point. It seems very "de rigueur" to use the term "strawman" fast and loose and as often as possible. I are confuserated.
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
You're right, the police usually get DNA from everyone in the household where a murder takes place, including children. That way they can exclude samples of no value to their investigation.

In this case, they had cigarette butts in the kitchen with unidentified DNA, and they had bloody tissues in the driveway with unidentified DNA. But hey, it would be a nuisance to investigate that stuff, and if it won't help them nail Amanda and Raffaele, why bother?
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And since the 'unidentified' DNA on the cigarette butts match none of the profiles on/in Meredith, in her room, are mixed with her blood anywhere in the cottage, or are not on any of the murder weapons (both established or potential) how do those profiles matter?
 
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Mary H said:
Kevin, I wish you were on Amanda's defense team.
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Sure, he can waffle on to the judges about how Satanic cults are bunk...'So, please let Amanda and Raffaele go'.
 
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Kevin_Lowe said:
The three-way conspiracy theory with Guede was pants-on-head crazy because Raffaelo and Amanda didn't even know Guede.
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Rudy knew Amanda, Amanda knew Rudy. It's okay, we'll correct you when you get the facts wrong ;)
 
Alt+F4 said:
Ok, according to you and Wiki there has only been three miscarriages of justice in Italy since 1969. Quite the jewel indeed.
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I CLAIM A STRAWMAN!!!!

My post was in direct response to a pretty definitive-sounding statement from you, which said, verbatim:

"If Amanda is innocent of this murder than why was she found guilty in a court of law?"

My response, therefore, provided a list of miscarriages of justice - I.E. THOSE WHO WERE FOUND GUILTY IN A COURT OF LAW BUT WHO WERE SUBSEQUENTLY ACQUITTED. It had nothing to do with Italy in particular. It was to do with showing you that your statement made (in my opinion) no logical sense whatsoever.

In other words (since I feel I need to explain it again in this instance): one cannot claim that since someone was convicted in a court of law then BY DEFINITION they cannot be innocent (or not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for that matter). But thank you all the same for providing an excellent example of a real strawman argument :)
 
LondonJohn said:
No it's not an infringement. Such requests are always accompanied by a set of written commitments that the samples will not be used for any other purpose than the specific investigation of the specific named crime. Written assurances are also given that all samples will be destroyed at the end of the police investigation.

I can only conclude that you're making an unsupported assertion based on your own assumptions. Because it has happened - and continues to happen - in many, many cases, without hundreds of lawyers bringing the process to a grinding halt.
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And are you making assertions based on English law? Just askin'.
 
quadraginta said:
No. Well, more accurately, sometimes. Sort of. Much the same as your list

....

In many jurisdictions a warrant can be issued, similar to and subject to the same strictures as any search warrant, even if the person in question is not under arrest.
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OR

LondonJohn said:
No it's not an infringement.

....

Because it has happened - and continues to happen - in many, many cases, without hundreds of lawyers bringing the process to a grinding halt.
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So it appears that it's only in the UK that you are denied the right to refuse and denied the right to a lawyer. That is, unless LJ is wrong.
 
Fulcanelli said:
And are you making assertions based on English law? Just askin'.
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I still think he's wrong anyhow. I think he's mistaking the issues over the national DNA bank with the rights of the individual to refuse to submit to a test unless many provisions are made and not just the ones LJ thinks are OK.

I can tell he's working from hearsay because he's also jumbled in an anecdote about first responders being swabbed. That's a written condition of their contract in most jurisdictions. You don't become a peace officer or first responder unless you agree to submit to the DNA tests.
 
stilicho said:
This is from NZ but I know it's no different in Canada:

Ü Police requests for a DNA sample
When the Police ask to take a sample for DNA analysis, they must give you a written notice and tell you the following things:
· the offence the sample request relates to;
· that they have reasonable grounds to believe the sample will confirm or disprove your involvement in the offence;
· you do not have to give the sample;
· you can change your mind about giving the sample at any time before it is taken;
· you are able to speak to a lawyer before deciding;
· the sample may be used as evidence;
· if you don't consent to giving the sample, and there is good cause to suspect you committed the offence they are requesting the sample for, the Police may apply to the Court for an order requiring you to give a sample.​

(Source: http://www.communitylaw.org.nz/fileadmin/documents/dna_and_the_police.doc )

In the US can they simply seize anyone and force them to submit to a DNA test without their consent? Sounds barbaric.
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The strawmen are coming thick and fast!!!

Neither I nor others were arguing that police can (or should) COMPULSORILY demand DNA (or other) samples from relevant people. And your pejorative use of words like "seize" and "force" are making the strawman-o-meter go berserk!

It's commonplace for the police to V.O.L.U.N.T.A.R.I.L.Y. ask (not force) people to give samples for the process of helping the investigation. Everyone is informed that the provision of samples in no way presumes any element of guilt.

However, while refusal to give a sample also should not imply directly any evidence of guilt (there are lots of other reasons why people might be uncomfortable giving samples), police might reasonably take a closer look at "refuseniks" as a result. Of course it would take other evidence to give police probable cause to demand samples from such people.

And as regards lawyers, of course the police must say that all potential sample-providers have the right to consult their lawyers before proceeding. But I have the right to consult my lawyer before going to the supermarket tomorrow. All those potential sample-providers who DID consult their lawyers would likely be given the advice that they should do so, provided they were provided with written (and enforeceable) safeguards.

Your list from the NZ police code (or similar) exactly corroborates my (and others') position. But your strawman is looking mighty fine!
 
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