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.
Maybe it's the language barrier, but it seemed very much like you were making claims about audit reports specifically about this lab or even this case. Now it sounds like all you are saying is that you found some stories about audits of other labs, and you presume from those other stories that the lab that carried out these tests is therefore so thoroughly audited that mistakes (or falsification) can be ruled out for now.
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.
Has any evidence about audit procedures in the Rome lab been posted at all, or is everyone trying to extrapolate from random news stories about unrelated labs?
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.
I'm not arguing that it's absolutely inconceivable that they left no evidence, although the wealth of evidence placing Rudy at the scene stands in distinct contrast to the lack of evidence placing Amanda and Raffaele there. I do think that maybe you are trying to generalise from Generic Murder Scene A to this murder scene where supposedly three people raped someone who the forensic evidence said put up a serious struggle.
According to
wikipedia (I paraphrase) they found Rudy Guede's fingerprint left in Kercher's blood, Guede's bloody left-hand print on a pillow found under the victim's back, Guede's DNA on and inside Kercher's body, Guede's DNA on Kercher's shirt and bra (right side and severed strap) mixed with Kercher's blood splatter and more of Guede's DNA on Kercher's handbag (purse). Yet they found nothing to implicate Amanda or Raffaele at all until that fortuitous bit of DNA on a bra clasp that also had three other unidentified people's DNA on it forty-seven days into the investigation.
I
am arguing that lack of evidence is lack of evidence.
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.
It seems to me that you are arguing that you don't need physical evidence because sometimes there is no physical evidence, and you don't need a motive because sometimes there is no motive.
Lack of evidence is still lack of evidence.
Kevin probably would have let Rudy go for lack of evidence, too. He has extremely high standards of reasonable doubt.
Are you going to retract that accusation, or are we done? This is getting way too lengthy for me to waste my time on people who aren't prepared to be civil and stick to the facts. This accusation is ridiculous, unfounded and offensive.
What is all this obsession with motive? reading you one would think motive is more important then the actual evidence. What's with that? We don't know 'why' they did it, so that means they didn't do it? Courts deal with facts and evidence, not mind reading. In regard to 'reason's, senseless murders happen all the time, having spun out of control for the most petty of reasons. Sometimes the reasons are never known, especially when those involved are all saying they 'didn't do it'. That's life. The establishment of a motive is not a requirement for a conviction.
While all this is true, lack of evidence is lack of evidence and lack of motive is lack of motive. It's perfectly reasonable to think that lack of evidence and lack of motive add up to doubt about someone's guilt.
This is a defensive on the back foot argument. I never claimed it was evidence, I stated they could be responsible for any of the unattributable traces. Those traces are of people, people who could be Amanda and Raffaele, just as easily as of anyone else. It is not correct to describe the room as some 'Bermuda Triangle' where they certainly left no evidence. It can only be stated they left no evidence that can be attributed to them, aside from Raffaele's DNA (along with Amanda's actually) on the clasp, Amanda's footprints on the pillow and partial female barefoot footprints that were certainly not Meredith's (and Rudy Guede's)
It's not a "defensive on the back foot argument". Lack of evidence is lack of evidence.
Also those alleged footprints can't be linked to Amanda Knox, which is a bit of a problem if you are trying to use them as evidence of guilt.
Sorry, this reads like sophistry to me. If you are going to allege wrongdoing, you need to evidence it...it's as simple as that.
You can make up your own rules for this debate, but I'm not obliged to observe them. I'm perfectly happy to believe that falsification or serious error is possible without direct evidence that it actually happened. I believe all sorts of things to be possible every day without having direct evidence they actually happened and I don't see anything wrong with that.
Rudy knew Amanda, Amanda knew Rudy. It's okay, we'll correct you when you get the facts wrong
From what I have read Amanda knew Rudy by sight as someone who lived nearby but not by name. Can you point us to any evidence that Amanda and Rudy knew each other better, preferably evidence that they knew each other well enough to consider hatching rape plots?
Otherwise it seems to me to be massaging the facts to say "Amanda knew Rudy".
Here we go again. Provide an alternative, viable, explanation for them then. If it's plausible, how hard can it be?
The prints are a match for Raffaele and Amanda and were proven to be so in the trial. You can assert and assert, but the house of bricks will still stand
Is this the fifth time? Luminol is not a conclusive test for blood. Followup tests did not show the presence of blood. There are lots of things it could have been and you don't know any more than we do what it was or how it got there. It proves nothing either way. Nor are luminol results precise enough to let you say that a given footprint is identical to another footprint.
I'm saying, Amanda and Raffaele have been found guilty because they left footprints in Meredith's blood which forms only a SMALL part of the evidence against them, the WHOLE of which convicted them, in a fair trial. That's what I'm saying. But back to the prints...establishing something as fact isn't just about what you can rule 'in' but also what can can be ruled OUT and since all other candidates for the prints can be ruled out, only blood remains, reinforced by the clear bloody print on the mat, the fact the prints happen to match the two convicted and the fact and the fact that the only viable source...BLOOD, was in rich supply on the night of the murder.
Once again you are asserting factual claims which the evidence simply does not support. You have not ruled out everything other than blood, nor have you demonstrated that the prints match anyone with enough accuracy to prove anything.
You offer no other candidate or explanation because you have none. That makes your argument invalid...and you know it is. Accept the truth...they murdered Meredith, you may not like it bit that's no excuse, that's life!
I think you and Stilicho might need a bit of a time out. I'm prepared to discuss this civilly but it seems that both of you resort to asserting things which simply aren't true and making unfounded personal attacks, and life is too short to deal with a case this complicated unless both sides have a genuine commitment to sticking to the facts and not making things up, either about the evidence or about the other posters in this thread.
As for the print on the mat, from that I draw no firm conclusions of whether Rudy (or anyone else) attempted to clean or not. The trick is is to not only look at each individual piece of evidence, but to put them together to create a whole. This provides a picture, a picture of the crime. Some want to take each piece in isolation and keep them there, ensuring a picture is impossible. This is be design, for the alternative, for them, is unthinkable.
There's a known human tendency to be more impressed by a large number of bad arguments than a small number of good arguments. There are lots and lots of bad arguments for Amanda and Raffaele's guilt, to be sure, but lots and lots of bad arguments don't add up to a good argument.
I don't pretend to be able to know what happened that night, although I do think it's blatantly hypocritical of you to demand detailed reconstructions of luminol evidence from us while making no effort whatsoever to come up with anything resembling a plausible story about how Amanda and Raffaele decided spontaneously to team up with a near-total stranger to rape their housemate. All we have to paper over that huge gap in your narrative is irrelevant nonsense about comic books, knives and whatnot which smell very distinctly of McMarten-style moral panic.
Then we've got the nice big pile of evidence putting Rudy right at the scene of the crime, which I enumerated for you, and the total lack of similar evidence for Amanda and Raffaele who were supposedly right there alongside him struggling with Meredith Kercher. Either those two are incredibly lucky, or they are the greatest DNA cleaner-uppers in history in that they could remove all trace of their own DNA while leaving all of Rudy's, or they just weren't there when it happened.
If you want a plausible narrative, I put it to you that there is none that explains why Amanda and Raffaele would team up with Rudy to rape Meredith in the first place nor any that explains the lack of physical evidence tying them to the murder. I wouldn't say that there's proof of their innocence but I'd certainly say that there was reasonable doubt.
