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Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

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Fulcanelli said:
No...as I've said, he has to work with what he has as best he can. In this case, he has a witness he was unable to examine and had only the written testimony from and Rudy's lawyers were not present to point out why that witness is false. You see...this Italian system 'can' work in your favour.
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I can imagine that the Judge for the appeal will take a rather dim view of this.
 
Fulcanelli said:
Cite.
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From page 32 of Massei's report:

Marie Antoinette Salvadori Del Prato, at the hearing on 27.6.2009, reported that on Saturday 27 October 2007, on entering the kindergarten located in Milan Via Plinio 16 where she was director, noted that from her office came a person she did not know, and whom she then identified as Rudi Guede. There were no signs of forced entry. From the box where she kept money a few dollars were missing. Rudi Guede had a backpack which contained a computer. The police immediately called him to open the backpack in which was a kitchen knife about 40 centimeters long. She remembered that there were other items in the backpack: a bunch of keys, a small gold woman's watch, and a small hammer like those found in buses to break the glass. The police said that the computer appeared to have been stolen in Perugia, from a law firm.
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Fulcanelli said:
Judge Massei wasn't involved in the pre-trial/Rudy's trial...it had to be all done fresh. He was unaware of those events. Secondly, Rudy's defence were not present during Raffaele's and Amanda's trial to object. Moreover, the defence didn't admit him as a witness for cross examination (I wonder why)...instead they handed over a written letter from him. Massei was only able to judge what was put in front of him at the time. But it doesn't change the fact that your witness has been well and truly discredited and shown to be a lying money grabbing perjurer. So, don't even 'try' to present him to us as remotely reliable.
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So basically, either Massei relied on a discredited witness and didn't bother doing any research into the original context of Barrow's remarks, which doesn't exactly fill me with confidence as to the thoroughness and accuracy of the rest of his reasoning; or Barrow is reliable and Guede was known to hassle women. I can see why neither option appeals.
 
Well, an awful lot seems to have happened since I was last here (I had to go to Birmingham - not the country's prettiest city - for a meeting, but that was compensated by great tickets for Crowded House last night in B'ham's fantastic Symphony Hall....).

Anyway, I wanted to make a point on the by-now-near-mythical translation of the Massei Report:

The English translation of the Massei Report seems to be being held up as a) some near-superhuman labour of love from certain members of PMF; b) some sort of either intellectual or moral oneupmanship on behalf of certain members of PMF; c) a report which, when it's "published" in translation will settle the case and confirm AK's/RS's guilt ONCE AND FOR ALL.

Actually, I'd argue that the reality couldn't actually be much more different. Why do I say this? Because I follow this line of reasoning: Firstly, it's ALREADY KNOWN that Massei and the other members of the judicial panel found AK and RS guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Secondly, it's therefore known that Massei et al must have decided that the evidence presented at trial (and the way in which it was presented, and their evaluation of its presentation) warranted guilty verdicts. Thirdly, It's already long a matter of public record (in both Italian and English) which evidence WAS presented at trial, and the way in which it was presented.

So, in fact I'd argue that a translated report showing the way in which Massei et al actually decided the case based on their evaluation of the evidence is only interesting (or useful) in two discrete ways: 1) It will show which bits of evidence they found more compelling and/or indicative of guilt - and conversely which parts they disregarded; and 2) It will by extension show where the prosecution's case was weak or strong (in the eyes of the judicial panel) and where the defence's case was weak or strong.

I would go so far as to argue that the publication of these sorts of reports are ONLY of potential help to the defence in any appeal (assuming, of course, that the first trial verdict was "guilty"). If the defence team know, for example, that the judicial panel in the first trial placed great importance in certain specific areas of evidence, then they will be able to specifically attack these areas in the appeal. Conversely, I can't see how it can help the prosecution side whatsoever.

In this regard, the publication of such reports is a positive aid (in my opinion) to the side that lost the original trial. Whether this adds to the fairness of the judicial process as a whole is open to another debate, but I might argue that it PROBABLY does.

And, finally, it's completely inconceivable that AK's defence team hasn't been studying this report in minute detail since the hour of its publication in Italian. I'd say it's also extremely probable that a professional English language translation was prepared within days for the benefit of AK and her family. The fact that "Team AK" haven't released an English copy of the report into the public domain cannot be interpreted as a sign that either a) they haven't had a translation done, or b) they don't like what they read in the report, and are therefore unwilling to publicise it. It seems instead to me far more likely that the defence have got their act together since the first trial verdict (in matters of the legal system and the appeal, at least).
 
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katy_did said:
Are you mistaking centimetres for millimetres? According to the foot size/shoe size table on the TJMK powerpoints, size 42 equals a foot size of 26cm, while size 46 is a foot size of 28.4cm. That's a 2.4cm difference while there were only 3mm between Rudy and Raffaele's footprints.

Of course, these are footprints rather than foot sizes, so that's different again.
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A note about shoe sizes and their relation to foot sizes (apologies, by the way, if this has been cleared up between Katy's post quoted above and now - but I'm responding "on the hoof" as I scroll through the posts I've missed):

First, the shoe sizes in question are quoted in the Continental European system. In this system, the size of the increment (known as a Paris Point) is 2/3 of 1cm. So this means that a 4-Paris-Point difference in shoes sizes (here, sizes 42 and 46) equates to a 2.7cm (4 x 2/3 = 8/3 = approx 2.7) difference in shoe size.

Second, the Continental shoe sizing system is based on last length, and NOT FOOT LENGTH). Of course, it's arguable that this wouldn't make any difference when talking about RELATIVE sizes, but it does make a significant difference in another area:

And the issue where it makes a difference is the whole area of the relationship between foot size and shoe size. A "size 42" shoe is far from a standard definition - whether in external or internal dimensions. I myself often buy shoes in European sizes (although the UK has its own sizing methodology which is also a fluid system), and I can take anything from size 42 to 45 - a theoretical difference of 2cm!

In addition to this technical issue, there's also of course this point to consider: different people fit shoes to their feet in different ways - some people like there to be plenty of space between the end of their toes and the toe end of the shoe inner, while others like the end of their toes to touch the inner.

So, in summary, it's only of limited value to know that one person takes a size 46 shoe, while another takes a size 42 shoe - IF ONE IS ATTEMPTING TO DETERMINE THE DIFFERENCE IN THEIR FOOT SIZES. It's of even less value if these shoe sizes are only linked to one specific pair of shoes from each person (rather than, say, an average of all the shoes that they own).
 
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LashL said:
I am reasonably well acquainted with this case, and I did, in fact, know that Ms. Kercher's body was locked inside her room in a rental accommodation. I don't know ever gave you any impression to the contrary.

And my point still stands - which is that the Perugia police ought to have requested voluntary DNA samples from all of the tenants of the cottage, and from all known visitors. That they deliberately chose not to do so is, in my view, a very poor reflection on them and their investigation.


Oh, spare me the condensension and the strawman-building, will you?

I told you that it is commonplace for police investigators to ask for voluntary DNA samples from people in the course of their investigations, and I told you that the compliance rate is generally quite high. I specfically said that generally, such requests are made on a relatively small scale (e.g. tenants and known visitors) when the crime scene is known and limited (such as in the case under discussion here), and added for your edification regarding the use of this investigative technique in Canada, that sometimes requests are expanded beyond the immediate if the case warrants it, and cited an example of such an expansion.

That you read my prior post and somehow turned it into what you wrote above is really quite astounding.
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Thank you for your insertion into the debate here. And it goes without saying that I wholeheartedly endorse your opinion - not only about case-related or legal issues, but also about the "tactics" and misrepresentations employed by a small number of easily-identifiable posters. I myself am thoroughly sick and tired of it, and I think that many, many other posters on here are as well.

PS What's even more astonishing (in many ways) is that the particular poster to whom you were replying here seemingly either doesn't even realise how egregious and unbalanced his behaviour is, or he doesn't care........
 
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Belz... said:
And apparently, I'll never know!
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Hi Belz. Sorry for my belated answer to your question (I was away from this thread for 26 hours - i.e. 300,000 words ;) )

Again, I'll only speak for myself: I am personally indifferent (in a strict legal sense, rather than an emotional one) as to whether Amanda Knox and/or Raffaele Sollecito actually committed (or were even involved in the committing of) this murder.

However, I believe that significant areas of the prosecution's case against them may have had major flaws - flaws that were either not revealed at trial, or - in some cases - were not even realised at the time of the trial).

And, for this reason, I argue that there may be sufficient reason to reverse their guilty verdicts upon appeal - if some of the evidence that originally helped to convict them is overturned.

Hope this helps!
 
katy_did said:
Fulcanelli said:
Cite.
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From page 32 of Massei's report:

Marie Antoinette Salvadori Del Prato, at the hearing on 27.6.2009, reported that on Saturday 27 October 2007, on entering the kindergarten located in Milan Via Plinio 16 where she was director, noted that from her office came a person she did not know, and whom she then identified as Rudi Guede. There were no signs of forced entry. From the box where she kept money a few dollars were missing. Rudi Guede had a backpack which contained a computer. The police immediately called him to open the backpack in which was a kitchen knife about 40 centimeters long. She remembered that there were other items in the backpack: a bunch of keys, a small gold woman's watch, and a small hammer like those found in buses to break the glass. The police said that the computer appeared to have been stolen in Perugia, from a law firm.
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Dollars? By whom was this translated?
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
It's something you learn if you read about criminal investigations. One case that comes to the top of my mind is the Central Park Jogger. They got a DNA sample from her boyfriend that matched some DNA on her clothing. They didn't suspect him of being involved in the crime. They wanted to eliminate those samples as relevant to their investigation.
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I'd add something more here: certain other posters seem still to be wedded to the view that police requests for voluntary DNA (or other bodily) samples are ONLY (or - being generous to them - mainly) used in a DIRECT search for suspects. In other words, if the police recovered (for example) semen DNA from the body of a murder victim, they could use the voluntarily-obtained samples to cross-check to see whether any of their volunteers was the culprit.

And this is indeed SOMETIMES the reason for a voluntary request for DNA etc. For example, this was exactly the reasoning behind the mass voluntary DNA request in the World's very first DNA case - The Colin Pitchfork conviction in 1988.

BUT..........often (and in fact probably more often than not), voluntary provision of DNA, prints and/or hair is for a very different purpose. It's NOT in order to either "eliminate from the inquiry" or "put in the frame" the sample volunteers. Instead, it's to enable the police to quickly check whether evidence that they collect at the crime scene is worthy of further investigation.

I have explicitly given an example of this before, but I'll do so again:

Suppose that the police in the Meredith Kercher case were just starting to forensically examine the murder apartment on the 2nd November 2007.

Suppose they suspected that they might reasonably find fingerprints on door handles and light switches (for example).

Suppose they suspected that these fingerprints might reasonably not be in blood, but might instead be normal latent fingerprints.

Suppose the police now voluntarily requested a primary database of fingerprints (in this instance) of all those people who might INNOCENTLY have touched that light switch over the past few weeks - i.e. all the girls who lived there, their boyfriends (if they'd visited the girls' apartment), the boys from the flat below, any friends who were known to visit.

If the police subsequently DID find any latent prints on any light switches (or, for that matter, ANY DNA, hairs or prints), then they could quickly and easily cross-check those prints against their database of voluntary samples (plus of course samples from the victim herself).

In this way, the police would be able, quickly and efficiently, to determine which forensic evidence was worthy of immediate further investigation. For example, if a fingerprint on a hallway light switch could immediately be identified - via the voluntary samples - as coming from Laura (who, incidentally, I'm imagining might not have her prints on any existing police databases, which could enable comparison via another route), then the police could virtually discount this print as potential evidence.

Why could they discount it? Because Laura had every reason and opportunity to have left this print entirely innocently (EVEN IF she HAD subsequently been suspected of involvement in the murder). So the print would have most likely had NO evidential value in court - regardless of whether Laura herself ended up on trial based on other evidence.

On the other hand, if a fingerprint on a hall light switch did NOT match anyone on the police's volunteer database, then clearly it would be worthy of immediate further investigation. The person who deposited might still have an innocent explanation for doing so (purely for example: perhaps the police might subsequently find that the print belonged to a washing machine repair man who'd visited the flat a week previously and had turned on the light in order to repair the machine). But the unidentified print was more likely in this instance to belong to someone who had no innocent reason to place him/herself in the girls' apartment.

So there IS another very important reason why the police could have (and should have) obtained bodily samples from the housemates/boyfriends/etc - and it's nothing to do with evaluating their own (i.e. the housemates/bf's/etc) levels of guilt or innocence.
 
Sherlock Holmes said:
I'm in the same camp as well, but if it wasn't for that darn locked door I'ld be around 50 / 50. There is just too much evidence pointing to Rudy not locking it, and that leaves only Amanda to lock it.
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But does the locked door issue take you from 50/50 to 100/0 in favour of guilt? Because even if it takes you up to 95/5, you'd have to vote to acquit if you were on the judicial panel for this trial....
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
This whole bathmat issue I find quite interesting, but more for how the Amanda-is-guilty brigade are behaving than for its evidentiary value (which is near zero).

It's exactly like the 9/11 deniers staring at Youtube videos until they see something they can't immediately understand, and then running to post about this new "evidence" they have unearthed, and being congratulated by their fellow deniers on their sterling detective work.

**** Etc......... ****
.
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This is an OUTSTANDING post (in my belief), if I might say. And apologies for the belatedness of my comment here about it.

Everything you say in this post - not only about particular points of evidence, but also about the behaviour of other posters - resonates 100% with me. And while your post was undeniably long, you probably said all these things using around half the number of words that I'd have taken to make the same points ;)

PS My mouth literally hung open for about five seconds when I first read the utterly breathtaking straw man about Rudy's racial classification that you refer to in this post. That grotesque misrepresentation of your position, on its own, tells everyone pretty much all they need to know about certain posters and their motivation.
 
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Supernaut said:
Fulcanelli's malign presence now accounts for for 2,523 posts of a total of 14,478 on this thread, which is 17.5% or over 1 in 6.

Wow.
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That's impressive, but he's not the leader. Here is a list of the top ten posters based on average posts per day since they joined the JREF. Posters marked with an asterisk include their posts made on other threads.

Mary H - 23.8
Bruce Fisher - 16.7
Fucanelli - 15.3
London John - 15.3
* Quadraginta - 8.3
* BobThe Donkey - 6.1
RWVBWL - 4.6
Kermiit - 3.8
* Humanity Blues - 3.7
Halides 1 - 3.4

I did not include Dan O, Fiona and Alt+F4 because they have been around well before this thread started and thus their posts per day would be meaningless with regard to this thread.
 
HumanityBlues said:
Third, your folding knife argument is just plain desperate. I hope you're not all high on this stupid idea because some weirdo made a post about it on your favorite blog. I own folding knives. I'll bet a lot of people on this forum have a similar knife.
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Last weekend I ordered online - for reasons that I'm still trying to fully understand(!) - a 14-inch hunter's axe! It's a fantastically made (and fantastic-looking) tool, made by genuine craftsmen. I plan to use it on some garden work and perhaps when hiking. I don't however have plans to strike anyone in the head with it to inflict a fatal injury (although my wife still thinks this might be a possible motive for its purchase ;) )
 
LondonJohn said:
<snip>

Actually, I'd argue that the reality couldn't actually be much more different. Why do I say this? Because I follow this line of reasoning: Firstly, it's ALREADY KNOWN that Massei and the other members of the judicial panel found AK and RS guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Secondly, it's therefore known that Massei et al must have decided that the evidence presented at trial (and the way in which it was presented, and their evaluation of its presentation) warranted guilty verdicts. Thirdly, It's already long a matter of public record (in both Italian and English) which evidence WAS presented at trial, and the way in which it was presented.
<snip>
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This third point is what, I suppose, makes the first two somehow meaningful. I couldn't agree with it less.

The "public record" of which you speak is usually the record as presented by the over-all media coverage. Perhaps even more so for English speakers following this case who aren't also fluent in Italian. My experience has been that when I search more deeply into primary sources concerning instances which ... as presented in the media ... seem to exemplify egregious error on the part of the judicial system they are more often than not misrepresented, misinterpreted, misunderstood, or just blatantly lied about. I think that, rather than your assertion that only more of the same is to be expected it is possible, if not even likely that many of the areas of dispute encountered here can be cleared up. As a general rule it is the accumulation of those journalistic misses that are the impetus for most of the disagreement in the first place.

It may be that this will not be the case this time, but I see no reason to dismiss the possibility out of hand as you are doing, because my own experience has established that the opposite result is quite common.
 
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LondonJohn said:
But does the locked door issue take you from 50/50 to 100/0 in favour of guilt? Because even if it takes you up to 95/5, you'd have to vote to acquit if you were on the judicial panel for this trial....
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Perhaps I am not getting your point correctly. You seem to be suggesting that "beyond reasonable doubt" is the same thing as "absolute certainty".
 
I have tried to find numbers of murder cases where a PR company is hired, and murder cases 'overseas' where a hometown PR company is hired. If anyone has done any work on this could you post your 'finds'? This is an unusual aspect of the case, though I realize many may not be interested. Just looking for help if anyone has found anything along these lines.
 
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