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Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

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capealadin said:
Hi, Odeed. Yes, I was referring to your post. I see what you mean. BTW, Talking about that lamp. I wonder how Amanda hopped, boogied to her room and back with the lamp in the way?
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IIRC, I think the prosecution asserted that the lamp was probably used by Knox and Sollecito when they moved the Kercher's body, and cutting off the bra clasp, but I cannot remember if the evidence of the footprints was before moving the body or after.

In Rudy Guede as the lone murderer scenario, I have not seen an explanation of why or when Guede would of moved the lamp, and it does not fit with the evidence of his shoe prints leading straight out of the room and down the hall.
 
I have several questions for those of you in the UK. Fulcanelli had mentioned how the papers had stopped calling RG such things as a small-time drug dealer after threat of a libel suit. Yet in one of the more recent articles that we were discussing in reference to Mark Waterbury's post about RG as a possible police informant, this paper listed him as a small-time drug dealer in this article of 19 April, 2010.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/170053/Killer-of-Meredith-Kercher-s-crimes-were-ignored

It also states that RG had six serious crimes in 33 days prior to Meredith's murder and doesn't even use the word alleged. I have several questions about this.

1. What is the reputation of Bob Graham as a journalist in the UK?
2. What is the reputation of the Express in the UK?
3. What 6 crimes are they referring to? I can only see a few possibles mentioned.
4. They say Mignini said Guede should have been in jail at the time of Meredith's murder. Is this a factual statement, and do we know where he is quoted as saying that?
5. Are any of these 6 "crimes" still being investigated and is Rudy considered a suspect?
6. Have they been asked to retract these allegations or face a lawsuit?
 
Sherlock Holmes said:
Let me put this another way, in this case, the broken window, I see no proof one way or the other on who did it, it could have been Rudy, it could have been RS/Amanda, 50 / 50. I don't believe the room was trashed, just messy, 90 / 10 but I am 99% sure Rudy did not lock that door when he left, and I can not picture anyone else other than RS/Amanda doing it, but if they did it, then that window is 99% done by them as well because Rudy wouldn't have done it if he came in with Amanda.
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Why do you find the locked door issue so unlikely from Rudy's perspective, Sherlock?

If we assume Rudy acted alone, then we also have to assume he removed his shoes at some point (due to the bare footprint, obviously). I think it may have been Rose who suggested elsewhere that Rudy probably sat at the end of the bed to take his shoes off, leaving the knife print on the bed sheet. His motive for doing so would have been to try and avoid leaving blood evidence outside the bedroom (because he was leaving bloody shoe prints everywhere). If you think about it from the perspective of Rudy in the house with Meredith alone, he wouldn't have known when her three housemates were getting back, and it would certainly be to his advantage to delay the discovery of her body as long as possible. What if Amanda or Laura had come back later that evening, raised the alarm, and Rudy had been caught (literally) red-handed? Far better to leave as little evidence as possible outside the room, and hope it would at least be a day or two before she was discovered, giving Rudy time to clean himself up, get rid of evidence, even skip town.

He would have locked the door for the same reason, making it more difficult for Meredith's housemates to discover what had happened. If he was barefoot, the lack of shoe prints outside the door (presuming there aren't any, and that they weren't just partial or missed) isn't an issue; it would just mean Rudy put his shoes back on in the corridor immediately before he left. The phones would also have taken in order to delay the discovery of Meredith's body, ensuring they couldn't be heard ringing inside the room (which is what Massei concludes, too).

And a further reason for Rudy taking the keys is that, in all likelihood, Meredith would have locked the front door with her key when she arrived home, meaning Rudy wouldn't have been able to get out (who knows, this may have precipitated their confrontation in the first place). If Meredith's front door and room keys were on the same key ring - as they likely were, since they would both have been given to her by Filomena - locking the bedroom door may just have been opportunistic for Rudy; he had the keys anyway, so why not lock the bedroom door too?

Overall, I think Rudy's motives for locking the bedroom door were far stronger than those of Knox and Sollecito.
 
I agree, Sherlock. And, I don,t believe the shower either. The police noted how badly Amanda smelled. And looking at the pictures outside the cottage, her hair didn't look blowdried either. It did in Court though. In the pics, Amanda is missing one of her earrings. The lamp was needed, imo, to look for evidence left behind. It was forgotten, the key had been discarded, no way to retireve it. Very difficult to pull of the perfect murder.
 
Sherlock Holmes said:
And, me and you could agree on everthing, but you say 90% and I say 70%, if you know what I mean.

Bruce Fisher seems 100% sure she's innocent, while Fulcanelli is the exact opposite. Imagine both on the jury, both looking at the same evidence, both being so far off from one another.

To me, if I'm 75% sure she's guilty, I have to convict, regardless what the judge has told me, I have to live with my verdict and have to feel I made the right choice.
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I'm afraid the burden of proof and the requirement of guilt beyond reasonable doubt apply exactly equally to each and every criminal case - whether they are a cheque (check) fraud case that results in a year in prison or a capital murder case that results in a death penalty.

I think that some people here still don't understand what "reasonable" in "reasonable doubt" actually means in a jurisprudence context. Another way to re-write the phrase for the avoidance of ambiguity is this: "Beyond ALL doubt that a reasonable person could conceive of". This is what it means, and this (or very similar) is what judges are advised to instruct any lay jurors.

Also, there may be some confusion when discussing "75% certainty of guilt" etc. If, by that assertion, one means "I accept 75% of the prosecution's evidence, but reject 25% of it", then of course there's a further question to be asked: Does the 75% "accepted evidence" by itself constitute proof beyond reasonable doubt? And it certainly might do.

For example (and it's a deliberately facile example to illustrate a point): suppose the prosecution only offered three pieces of evidence in a rape/murder case where the victim and the accused did not previously know each other: 1) The accused's semen DNA was found in and on the murder victim; 2) the victim's blood DNA was found all over a knife found in possession of the accused; 3) the accused was seen entering the victim's house around the time of the murder by an elderly lady eyewitness with cataracts.

In this facile example, it might be possible for a juror to reject the identification evidence - and therefore (in one definition) be "67% certain" of the guilt of the accused (i.e. 2 out of 3). But clearly, in this case, the two remaining accepted pieces of evidence would in themselves be enough to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

So I suppose, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, it all depends on what your definition of 75% is.........
 
quadraginta said:
Cop out. I don't believe you. Cites linked to primary sources in this discussion are pretty rare, and I haven't seen any from you. Are you claiming that you have read all the trial transcripts? Are you claiming that none of your opinions are based on media sources?





That's a joke. I have trouble taking anyone seriously who can make a statement like that. If you really believe that you must be remarkably naive, but I don't think that you do.

We have seminal Supreme Court decisions (see Sheppard v. Maxwell for one example) based almost wholly on the common recognition that your assertion is wrong.

What's funny about this is that one of the earliest and loudest arguments made by Knox apologists concerning the trial was that the jury was negatively influenced by all of the distorted and prejudicial media coverage.

It's tough to have it both ways.




I'll bet you were wizard at dodge-ball.

Judging from what I've read here it really doesn't matter what someone's opinion of the case is. If they have decided to choose a "side" then all of the press coverage was completely accurate ... except for whatever parts they disagree with. Those parts were utterly wrong. And malignant. :rolleyes:

I'm not talking about "ANALYSIS", I'm talking about coverage. You know ... reporting. You're insinuating now that your opinions are based on your own perusal of primary sources and not on the media reporting of those sources. I don't believe you.
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A short reply to another post riddled with straw man arguments:

I was explicitly referring to either direct trial transcripts, or to media reporting of direct events in court. If you can find me an instance where the media have misreported (willfully or otherwise) actual events in a criminal court on a day-by-day basis (e.g. the "today in court" reports or similar), then I'd be pleased to see them.

Also, I wasn't claiming that I personally have read all the trial transcripts. What I am saying is that they have been out there in the public domain for many months now - enabling those who so wish to get a fully-accurate report of what was actually said and done in court.

Lastly, what I believe you're saying the AK camp were upset about was adverse publicity that originated pre-trial, and which continued throughout the trial, BUT WHICH WAS TOTALLY DISTINCT AND SEPARATE FROM THE ACTUAL TRIAL REPORTING.

Is that all clear?
 
odeed said:
IIRC, I think the prosecution asserted that the lamp was probably used by Knox and Sollecito when they moved the Kercher's body, and cutting off the bra clasp, but I cannot remember if the evidence of the footprints was before moving the body or after.

In Rudy Guede as the lone murderer scenario, I have not seen an explanation of why or when Guede would of moved the lamp, and it does not fit with the evidence of his shoe prints leading straight out of the room and down the hall.
Click to expand...
Hi Odeed,
A question for you:
Since Amanda Knox had a new boyfriend, and was probably sleeping over at his apartment a lot more, do you think it is possible that maybe Miss Kercher just borrowed Amanda's lamp, without asking, because she needed to use it and Amanda wasn't home?
Seems to me like this could be just a pretty innocent explanation. But correct me if you feel I am wrong.

Interestingly, I feel that most folks seem to wish to find sinister, ulterior motives in most everything that is minutely dissected in this murder...
Hmmm...
RWVBWL
 
capealadin said:
I agree, Sherlock. And, I don,t believe the shower either. The police noted how badly Amanda smelled. And looking at the pictures outside the cottage, her hair didn't look blowdried either. It did in Court though. In the pics, Amanda is missing one of her earrings. The lamp was needed, imo, to look for evidence left behind. It was forgotten, the key had been discarded, no way to retireve it. Very difficult to pull of the perfect murder.
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This seems to me to be another example of the conspiracy theorist symptom of ascribing the villains total idiocy one second and then supernatural competence at covering up their tracks the next.

Amanda is a criminal genius who can talk strangers into joining her in rape plots, and a criminal genius who can (armed with a lamp) remove every single trace of her and Raffaele's presence from the murder room while leaving evidence of Rudy everywhere, but then immediately afterwards she's a total idiot who leaves a lamp lying there and then locks the room (which in the Amanda-is-guilty narrative is somehow proof she did it, as opposed to being consistent with Rudy trying to delay discovery of his crime).

It strikes me as considerably less plausible than the much simpler explanation that she left no evidence in the murder room because she wasn't there.
 
LondonJohn said:
So I suppose, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, it all depends on what your definition of 75% is.........
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If this were a reasonable doubt case I sure wouldn't be involved. Amanda and Raffaele are innocent. I've never been more sure of anything in my life.
 
LondonJohn, Even when there are cameras in the courtroom, and audiotape, events are misconstrued . Madison says the jurors were sleeping during the trial . Deanna (Amanda,s sister) says she was shocked Amanda was found quilty because some of the jurors smiled at her. It comes down to interpretation sometimes.
 
RoseMontague said:
I have several questions for those of you in the UK. Fulcanelli had mentioned how the papers had stopped calling RG such things as a small-time drug dealer after threat of a libel suit. Yet in one of the more recent articles that we were discussing in reference to Mark Waterbury's post about RG as a possible police informant, this paper listed him as a small-time drug dealer in this article of 19 April, 2010.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/170053/Killer-of-Meredith-Kercher-s-crimes-were-ignored

It also states that RG had six serious crimes in 33 days prior to Meredith's murder and doesn't even use the word alleged. I have several questions about this.

1. What is the reputation of Bob Graham as a journalist in the UK?
2. What is the reputation of the Express in the UK?
3. What 6 crimes are they referring to? I can only see a few possibles mentioned.
4. They say Mignini said Guede should have been in jail at the time of Meredith's murder. Is this a factual statement, and do we know where he is quoted as saying that?
5. Are any of these 6 "crimes" still being investigated and is Rudy considered a suspect?
6. Have they been asked to retract these allegations or face a lawsuit?
Click to expand...

A very quick (and incomplete) reply, since I have other things to do.....

1) The Express is a semi-respectable mid-market national daily newspaper. It has a slightly jingoistic agenda, a populist slant, and would count itself as right-of-centre.

2) The papers can print just about anything they want about Guede right now. He's currently a convicted rapist/murderer. This means that the media get a more-or-less free ride with any negative assertions - TRUE OR FALSE - since he has no reputation to protect. They could print that he organised dog fights and kicked homeless beggars if they wanted - he's in no position to sue for libel. If he ever got exonerated (unlikely, I think most would agree...), then he could probably take successful action against the "drug dealer" claims if he could prove they were false and injurious. But not until and unless he was cleared in the Kercher case.
 
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odeed said:
IIRC, I think the prosecution asserted that the lamp was probably used by Knox and Sollecito when they moved the Kercher's body, and cutting off the bra clasp, but I cannot remember if the evidence of the footprints was before moving the body or after.

In Rudy Guede as the lone murderer scenario, I have not seen an explanation of why or when Guede would of moved the lamp, and it does not fit with the evidence of his shoe prints leading straight out of the room and down the hall.
Click to expand...

I don't think the prosecution talked about the lamp much at all, except a few times during Knox's questioning, when the defence wouldn't be able to challenge it.

I'm a bit suspicious that the lamp wasn't in the room at all before the door was broken down, and inadvertently became part of the crime scene later on. In the pictures the lamp cable/plug are leading out into the corridor, yet I can't find any reference to the cable from anyone present at the time, and certainly Knox and Sollecito never mention it. I would think a guilty Knox and Sollecito would have had every reason to mention the missing lamp, and to draw attention to the cable, simply to cover themselves for when it was eventually discovered. But they don't.

And if it *was* in the corridor when the door was broken down, where was it plugged into? The only plug sockets I can see are the other side of Amanda's room, possibly the other side of the bathroom door (not sure about that one) and near the light switch in the bathroom (though that may be one of those power points just for shavers). There's no socket near enough to Meredith's door for it to have been plugged in there and still end up well inside the room. At most it would stretch to the doorway and perhaps a little inside.

I wonder whether the lamp was used by one of the first police officers there (Battistelli? He's certainly the least reliable...) to shine light on the crime scene. Who else would have had a motive not to use either of the lights (desk/ceiling) already in the room? None of the three suspects. And Amanda's room right next door would be the obvious place to go if someone needed additional light.

I think Battistelli also went back into the house on his own during the phone call to the Carabinieri (when they called for directions) to describe what he could see in the room. Yet Meredith's room was dark, according to witnesses. So what did he use as a light source?
 
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Kevin, The smartest people make mistakes, and stupid people can be geniuses at times.Imo. The best plans go awry. There is a show on A&E, I believe, called :I almost got away with it:. It can be the smallest little thing that can trip someone up. But it,s not one little thing here. For me, it's the sum of its parts. So many things to have to try and explain away. To make some kind of sense. Judge Judy, who I think is excellent, says: If it doesn't make sense, it's not true. Oversimplification,maybe.
 
Fulcanelli said:
Ahh, 'like' those found in buses to break glass. I don't see how we can conclude Rudy had it to break windows, you don't need a hammer for that...
you can use anything hard, even your fist wrapped in your coat. You don't need a specialist tool to break windows. They are only needed on buses because the windows are rather thicker then standard windows and of course, if the bus crashes and rolls over, you're not going to be able to lay your hands on a rock or something lying around inside a bus like you would uf you were outside.
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Well, my point in mentioning it originally wasn't so much the glass-breaking potential of the hammer, so much as the fact it was probably another thing Rudy stole. But since you mention it, I do find it a bit difficult to imagine other things one might take a glass-breaking hammer for, if not in order to, well, break glass...

Who knows, perhaps he had some really tiny chairs he needed to fix.
 
RWVBWL said:
Hi Odeed,
A question for you:
Since Amanda Knox had a new boyfriend, and was probably sleeping over at his apartment a lot more, do you think it is possible that maybe Miss Kercher just borrowed Amanda's lamp, without asking, because she needed to use it and Amanda wasn't home?
Seems to me like this could be just a pretty innocent explanation. But correct me if you feel I am wrong.

Interestingly, I feel that most folks seem to wish to find sinister, ulterior motives in most everything that is minutely dissected in this murder...
Hmmm...
RWVBWL
Click to expand...

Why would Meredith Kercher want to borrow a lamp unless her own light was not working, and why was it on the floor?

katy_did said:
I don't think the prosecution talked about the lamp much at all, except a few times during Knox's questioning, when the defence wouldn't be able to challenge it.

I'm a bit suspicious that the lamp wasn't in the room at all before the door was broken down, and inadvertently became part of the crime scene later on. In the pictures the lamp cable/plug are leading out into the corridor, yet I can't find any reference to the cable from anyone present at the time, and certainly Knox and Sollecito never mention it. I would think a guilty Knox and Sollecito would have had every reason to mention the missing lamp, and to draw attention to the cable, simply to cover themselves for when it was eventually discovered. But they don't.

And if it *was* in the corridor when the door was broken down, where was it plugged into? The only plug sockets I can see are the other side of Amanda's room, possibly the other side of the bathroom door (not sure about that one) and near the light switch in the bathroom (though that may be one of those power points just for shavers). There's no socket near enough to Meredith's door for it to have been plugged in there and still end up well inside the room. At most it would stretch to the doorway and perhaps a little inside.

I wonder whether the lamp was used by one of the first police officers there (Battistelli? He's certainly the least reliable...) to shine light on the crime scene. Who else would have had a motive not to use either of the lights (desk/ceiling) already in the room? None of the three suspects. And Amanda's room right next door would be the obvious place to go if someone needed additional light.

I think Battistelli also went back into the house on his own during the phone call to the Carabinieri (when they called for directions) to describe what he could see in the room. Yet Meredith's room was dark, according to witnesses. So what did he use as a light source?
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I think that the prosecution questioned her about why she did not notice that lamp was missing when she returned home in the morning, and nobody asked the postal police if they had moved the lamp, plus wasn't Knox in her bedroom when the body was discovered?
 
LondonJohn said:
I'm afraid the burden of proof and the requirement of guilt beyond reasonable doubt apply exactly equally to each and every criminal case - whether they are a cheque (check) fraud case that results in a year in prison or a capital murder case that results in a death penalty.

I think that some people here still don't understand what "reasonable" in "reasonable doubt" actually means in a jurisprudence context. Another way to re-write the phrase for the avoidance of ambiguity is this: "Beyond ALL doubt that a reasonable person could conceive of". This is what it means, and this (or very similar) is what judges are advised to instruct any lay jurors.

<snip>
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You sound very facile, very authoritative, very certain.

I wish it were as simple. It really isn't, though.

Starting here, in Wiki, we can find this paragraph.

In the United States, juries must be instructed to apply the reasonable doubt standard when determining the guilt or innocence of a criminal defendant, but there is much disagreement as to whether the jury should be given a definition of "reasonable doubt."[2] In Victor v. Nebraska, the U.S. Supreme Court expressed disapproval of the unclear reasonable doubt instructions at issue, but stopped short of setting forth an exemplary jury instruction.[3]
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Following through on the Victor v. Nebraska reference (the wiki link is a stub) leads to this brief, the opinion written by Justice O'Connor. I won't quote a bunch of it here. It's a long read, but an enlightening one and demonstrates that there is not exactly a consensus on the precise meaning of reasonable doubt, as you suggest. Quite the contrary, actually.

The wiki article did uncover this rather surprising statement.

However juries in criminal courts in England are no longer customarily directed to consider whether there is a "reasonable doubt" about a defendant's guilt. Indeed a recent conviction was appealed after the judge had said to the jury "You must be satisfied of guilt beyond all reasonable doubt." The conviction was upheld but the Appeal Court made clear their unhappiness with the judge's remark, indicating that the judge should instead have said to the jury simply that before they can return a verdict of guilty, they "must be sure that the defendant is guilty". R v Majid [2009] EWCA Crim 2563 (12 October 2009).
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I'm not clear whether this implies a more stringent standard has been adopted in the U.K., or a more relaxed one. Is "must be sure" tougher to achieve than "beyond a reasonable doubt"?
 
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RWVBWL said:
Hi Odeed,
A question for you:
Since Amanda Knox had a new boyfriend, and was probably sleeping over at his apartment a lot more, do you think it is possible that maybe Miss Kercher just borrowed Amanda's lamp, without asking, because she needed to use it and Amanda wasn't home?
Seems to me like this could be just a pretty innocent explanation. But correct me if you feel I am wrong.

Interestingly, I feel that most folks seem to wish to find sinister, ulterior motives in most everything that is minutely dissected in this murder...
Hmmm...
RWVBWL
Click to expand...

Another thing is that Meredith would probably have to be home when the window was broken.
 
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