Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[RWVBWL]

Then you don't know much about how the 'real' world works. It simply doesn't happen that way. Just because, for whatever reason, a witness has delayed coming forward, that doesn't discredit them.

The most common reason people don'y come forward is because the witness doesn't realise that they've witnessed anything important, or that what they have seen the police already know. In the case of the reporters, how it worked was the reporters were going around questioning people in the area. After what they heard the reporters realised what they'd heard was important and told the witnesses so and advised them to go to the police. I see little wrong with that.

You'll find Massei lays out in his report exactly why he believes Curatolo's testimony to be reliable.

Hi Fulcanelli,
How's it going?
Well, I am back from the beach and checkin' in, and you left me a message, which I beg to differ with.

I do indeed know how the real world works, and I have been an immediate witness in probably 1/2 a dozen car crashes over the last 30 some-odd years. With that in mind, I find it very important to write down what I witnessed myself afterwards or give my information to a police officer right away, since the details are fresh in mind.
Did Mr. Curatolo do that? I doubt it...

I wrote recently of hearing a car crash, and heading outside afterwards, I observed the scene before the cops showed up. When they did, I told a police officer I know that the driver appeared to be slightly staggering when he should not have been, my friend did a field sobriety test, and he went to jail, for his BAC was .317, almost 4 times over the .08 BAC limit here in California. Mike, my surfer cop bud, said later that the guy behaved very well for how drunk he was.
That is a good, "pure" witness, someone who has no stake in the matter coming forward immediately and giving their eye witness report.

And yes indeed, someone can come forward months late with good eyewitness testimony, but Mr. Curatolo's in-depth recollection?
Come on, the guy didn't even go try to tell the the cops what he witnessed when he saw them at the apartment during the investigtion that day! If he had said the world was flat, and the Massei report laid that out too, would you believe it also? Of course not.

So getting back to this particular case.
Someone without a normal residence who states in court that many, many months earlier that they were at some particular place at exactly 9:27 or 9:28pm on a Thursday night, reading a particular newspaper on a cold night while sitting on a bench, and who can positively ID 3 people that he saw from a distance that same night, which he did not pick out of a police line-up or by thumbing thru mug shots, is full of it, in my opinion.

Have you yourself ever had to go thru mug shots and ID someone 4 months later? I have, and failed.
Have you ever had to do it less than a month later? I have and failed, but I wasn't near the person, only watching them on hi-rez closed circuit TV monitors. In that incident, 2 other fellow employees did ID the person correctly out of some 10 different guys mug shots on single sheet of paper that we were shown.
IDing someone is incredibly hard to do that if the person is not close.

In my opinion, probably the best person to ID someone who was in the area that night was Allesandra Formica and her guy friend, for they had a close encounter with someone, who was not Rudy Guede, nor Raffaele Sollecito or Amanda Knox, and had no stake in the matter, quickly informing the police of what they had seen.

Anyways Fulcanelli, I know that you pretty much believe everything that the Court states, but you know, sometimes the Court is wrong, and thankfully that's what appeal trials are for...

Have a nice rest of your Friday on the other side of the "pond", as my Virgin Atlantic and British Airways flight crew friends always call it.
RWVBWL

PS-Hey Fulcaelli,
I enjoy chatting with you, but I betcha we come from completey different sides of the tracks.
My first girlfriend in high school was from V13, the Mexican gang. Me, a white surfer dude with long hair dating a 'chola" in the late 70's, haha.
Have you ever been with some friends out on the town, ran away from a group of police yelling at you to stop, and then the 1 that was chasing you pulled his pistol on you? I have, and when I did finally stop and put my hands up, the kick that the son-of-a not-kind-woman gave to me was not nice. Of course no one saw it, it woulda been his word against mine, more of the "us against them" mentality.
I can totally see how Amanda Knox was "helped to remember" when she was interrogated that night of the 5th, without it being recorded by video or audio...
Peace out,
RWVBWL

 

[katy_did]

What are you talking about...they cross examined her about it on the stand?

Well, exactly. The prosecution only discussed the lamp in a situation where the defence were unlikely to directly challenge it, i.e. during Amanda's cross-examination. If they'd introduced it as actual evidence, as with the knife, bra clasp, footprints for example, it would have been properly analyzed and discussed, as they were. I'd argue Mignini's tactic in asking Amanda about the lamp on the stand (asking her whether they tried to break down the door in order to get it back, yet oddly, never asking why she didn't notice the cable) was in order to sway the jury with the suggestion the lamp was significant while never being required to produce evidence to support those suspicions.

??????????????????????

If that was the case, what was wrong with Meredith's light switch?

Because using it might have contaminated possible evidence of the killer at the crime scene...?*

You are right, though, that that would be the obvious thing to do for anyone who didn't have that as a concern (i.e. any of the three accused), rather than going next door to get a lamp.

*Oh wait, we're talking about Battistelli, right? Well in that case, you're probably right, he would just have gone ahead and used Meredith's light switch. My mistake.

 

[stilicho]

The logistics would be a nightmare anyways. It would never happen. Not to mention I don't think Guede could really afford to pay a civil attorney in the U.S.

I doubt it would ever happen either. "Blowing smoke" is the term for it. We can certainly guess why people insist on calling Rudy a drug-dealer, though.

 

[LondonJohn]

I'm not so sure about that - take the Casey Anthony case for one, that trial hasn't even started and you wouldn't believe the publication on it. You would also be very hard to find a single person that thinks she is innocent as well, so Ohio must not be one of those states you mentioned. This is also a case where there is very little evidence as well.

Thanks - and yes, you're right that Ohio is not a state that places the right to a fair trial above the right to freedom of speech. As a general (but not strict) rule, many of the more "liberally-enlightened" states in the USA (that classification is bound to start WW3 in here!) DO impose sub-judice laws regarding evidence, opinions of guilt, character defamation etc. California is one such state. Here's the CA Attorney General's web page concerning sub-judice rules:

http://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/legis/subjudicerule.asp

As you can see, it's fairly self-explanatory. And it also supports my original argument (which itself was, in any case, prefaced by the word "moderately" as it applied to the USA). I took issue at a strongly-worded and somewhat condescending reply from another poster (i.e. not you!) who essentially said I was talking rubbish - either through ignorance or through a willful attempt to spread lies. And I didn't like being called either ignorant or a liar, when I would like to think that I am neither.

Just as a final point, here's the general wikipedia* page on sub judice and the rules surrounding it. It specifically names those countries where stringent rules are in place, and mentions the difficulty of classifying the USA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub_judice

I hope this clears up any confusion. And who knows, maybe the other poster in question will retract the earlier statements. Or maybe not.

*Yes, not the World's most unflinchingly reliable source, I know. But perfectly OK in this instance.

EDIT: The first link is not from California, but from Ontario! My massive error - sorry. I'll try and find a US state to illustrate my point.....

 

[stilicho]

I think this was in Frank's post on Knox's appeal. Curatolo mentioned buses ferrying people to and from town in his testimony, but apparently those buses weren't running on 1 November. So the defence have produced evidence of that for the appeal (a witness who works for the bus company, from memory). Originally Curatolo also said there were students in the square wearing Halloween masks, so sounds as if whatever he saw it may have happened on 31 October, rather than the night of the murder.

That could wind up casting doubts on his testimony. And that's the only thing that I can think of that might be accepted by the court. There are two reasons that Curatolo has been believed thus far:

1] Witnesses saw him in the piazza on the evening of 01-NOV-2007.
2] AK/RS don't have an alibi for that time period.

If they can discredit Curatolo then the alibi doesn't matter as much. But for those who claim that an alibi isn't important, they should look very carefully at why and how Curatolo will be challenged on appeal. They wouldn't need to try if they had strong alibis.

 

[katy_did]

Re: the two AK statements/confessions/accusations (call them what you will...) from 6th Nov which were ruled inadmissible.

I wonder whether AK's defence team actually debated whether THEY THEMSELVES should introduce these statements in trial. In my opinion, it's not as stupid an idea as it might first appear. I'd argue this with the following train of thought:

1) AK's lawyers knew two things up front: the statements were already in the public domain; and they were likely to be heard by the judicial panel in court anyway by virtue of the concurrent slander trial.

2) Therefore, trying to ignore them was futile and - more importantly - would probably indicate to the judicial panel that the statements were regarded by AK's defence as damaging to their client.

3) As a result of (1) and (2) above, AK's defence team might have seriously considered "coming out strong" about these statements.

4) While - on the face of it - the confessions/accusations are damaging (or even, arguably, damning) to AK, I think the defence could have argued that they were extremely odd statements, made under potential extreme duress.

5) This could then have opened the door for a stronger defence argument about coercion/suggestion/other police misconduct. They could also have argued to the court that AK's accusation against Lumumba had no compelling logical explanation (and could also, of course, have noted AK's subsequent retraction and apology, for what it was worth).

My personal belief is that - despite the obvious and inherent risks - AK's lawyers SHOULD have "gone on the offensive" over these statements. To try to minimise their existence and/or relevance, given that they were ALREADY out there, could (in my view) ONLY be seen by the judicial panel as attempted suppression of damaging anti-AK evidence. And from there, the judicial panel could reasonably conclude that these confessions/accusations WERE ONLY of a damaging nature to AK.

I agree 100% here. I think the confession being disallowed backfired on the defence to an extent, because, as you say, the damaging parts of the statement had already been leaked to the press anyway. If it had been discussed in court, perhaps more questions would have been asked about the interrogation itself. Even if no recording had been made (something which seems very unlikely) there would presumably still have been transcripts of the interrogation which would have put it into some sort of context (assuming they would have been admissible in court, anyway). Instead, the jury were left with sound bites which were probably more damaging than a proper discussion of the confession would have been.

 

[LondonJohn]

Hi Fulcanelli,
How's it going?
Well, I am back from the beach and checkin' in, and you left me a message, which I beg to differ with.

I do indeed know how the real world works, and I have been an immediate witness in probably 1/2 a dozen car crashes over the last 30 some-odd years. With that in mind, I find it very important to write down what I witnessed myself afterwards or give my information to a police officer right away, since the details are fresh in mind.
Did Mr. Curatolo do that? I doubt it...

I hope surf was up!

One thing I would point out is that of course there's a difference between witnessing something that you immediately determine to be a crime or significant event (e.g. a car crash), and witnessing something which was of no seeming significance at the time but which subsequently turned out to be of value (e.g. when you found out the following morning about a serious crime, but had no idea that a crime was happening at the time you witnessed certain people or activities).

Obviously, the homeless witness in the Kercher trial falls into the second bracket. But I (and you, I think) would still firmly argue that - although SOME delay in his coming forward was by definition inevitable - the SHEER LENGTH OF TIME involved here should serve to call his testimony into question. I'm not suggesting that it necessarily discredits him as a witness, but it had to be added into the overall analysis of his credibility and reliability (along with other factors, of course).

 

[katy_did]

That could wind up casting doubts on his testimony. And that's the only thing that I can think of that might be accepted by the court. There are two reasons that Curatolo has been believed thus far:

1] Witnesses saw him in the piazza on the evening of 01-NOV-2007.
2] AK/RS don't have an alibi for that time period.

If they can discredit Curatolo then the alibi doesn't matter as much. But for those who claim that an alibi isn't important, they should look very carefully at why and how Curatolo will be challenged on appeal. They wouldn't need to try if they had strong alibis.

Those are both pretty insubstantial reasons to believe him, though - if AK/RS don't have an alibi, then anyone could say they'd seen them anywhere and be believed in the same way. Neither reason shows his testimony to be accurate (especially as the only evidence we have that Knox and Sollecito were in the square at that time is...Curatolo's testimony). Reading back Frank's description of Curatolo on the stand, you have to admit that his performance was...interesting!

Curatolo was so worried about fixing the time that besides recalling that he goes to check it to the electronic board --on the other side of the square-- he added, today, that he also checks it on his own watch. But he had always stated not to have a watch. So Massei asked him to show his watch. And he didn't have it. Massei asked him if he could be more precise about his arrival time because 21:30-22:00 was a bit vague. And he did get more precise, much more precise: 21:27-21:28!

 

[LondonJohn]

I agree 100% here. I think the confession being disallowed backfired on the defence to an extent, because, as you say, the damaging parts of the statement had already been leaked to the press anyway. If it had been discussed in court, perhaps more questions would have been asked about the interrogation itself. Even if no recording had been made (something which seems very unlikely) there would presumably still have been transcripts of the interrogation which would have put it into some sort of context (assuming they would have been admissible in court, anyway). Instead, the jury were left with sound bites which were probably more damaging than a proper discussion of the confession would have been.

Ahh, I see you seem to use the term "disallowed" as a blanket ruling for both sides. I'm virtually certain that this was not the case. I haven't got the Italian Supreme Court (or equivalent) ruling in front of me, but I can say with very high levels of confidence that the inadmissibility ruling would only have applied to the prosecution. In any case, the inadmissibility only applied to those parts of the statements that could be regarded as self-incriminatory (which, arguably, was most of it to some degree!). Interestingly, HAD Lumumba actually been involved and had he been on trial at the same time as AK and RS, then those parts of the statements which accused Lumumba COULD have been used against him. It's only self-incrimination (under these circumstances of no rights, no lawyer etc) which is the issue.

So I am almost certain that AK's defence team COULD have introduced the statements for the defence if they had chosen to do so - that wouldn't have been going against the Supreme Court ruling.

In the UK, incidentally, this situation (the defence choosing the "lesser of two evils" by introducing such statements) could almost never apply. Had the murder happened in UK, and had AK made exactly these statements in a UK police station under the same circumstances, they would also have been ruled inadmissible in exactly the same way. But, in the UK, the statements could never have found their way into the public domain pre-trial (or indeed possibly ever, if they weren't raised in trial). And in addition, any jury hearing the murder trial would never have been exposed to the statements via a concurrent slander trial - which would have taken place entirely separately and under a separate jury. So it would have been an easy decision for AK's lawyers NOT to introduce the statements as defence evidence, had the case happened and been tried in the UK.

 

[stilicho]

Thanks - and yes, you're right that Ohio is not a state that places the right to a fair trial above the right to freedom of speech. As a general (but not strict) rule, many of the more "liberally-enlightened" states in the USA (that classification is bound to start WW3 in here!) DO impose sub-judice laws regarding evidence, opinions of guilt, character defamation etc. California is one such state. Here's the CA Attorney General's web page concerning sub-judice rules:

http://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/legis/subjudicerule.asp.

Ontario is in Canada although it's also a small city in California. Do you read the links you post?

 

[stilicho]

Those are both pretty insubstantial reasons to believe him, though - if AK/RS don't have an alibi, then anyone could say they'd seen them anywhere and be believed in the same way. Neither reason shows his testimony to be accurate (especially as the only evidence we have that Knox and Sollecito were in the square at that time is...Curatolo's testimony). Reading back Frank's description of Curatolo on the stand, you have to admit that his performance was...interesting!

Frank's opinion won't discredit him. They'll need more than that. Again, with strong alibis none of this would be necessary.

 

[LondonJohn]

Ontario is in Canada although it's also a small city in California. Do you read the links you post?

You're right. My mistake. I was in a rush cos the phone went mid-post (not that that's an excuse). Apologies.

 

[stilicho]

So it would have been an easy decision for AK's lawyers NOT to introduce the statements as defence evidence, had the case happened and been tried in the UK.

There's little doubt that Amanda should have murdered her roommate in the UK or in any Commonwealth country. She picked the wrong place although apparently the prison food is better in Italy than at the Kingston Prison For Women:

http://www.insideprison.com/Kingston-Penitentiary.asp

 

[LondonJohn]

Just to clear up things (I'm on my way out):

I realise that the US Supreme Court has essentially ruled that the 1st amendment to the constitution (the right to free speech) takes precedence over the 6th amendment (right to a fair trial). However, while this means that few courts in the US exercise PRIOR RESTRAINT, there are nonetheless a battery of legal remedies to address those instances where pre-trial publicity can be shown to have adversely affected the judicial process. So there is still a greater focus on sub-judice issues in the US than there is in Italy, to my mind.

I'd add that in any case, my original mention of the US was almost entirely parenthetical. It was just mentioned in further support of my argument that sub-judice rules exist in certain countries for a good reason. I am very happy to drop the US totally out of my list though - it doesn't weaken my core argument.

Ironically, I am about to contradict myself by saying that there might very well now be a case for sub-judice rules to be loosened (but not abolished) in countries like the UK. But not because of the intrinsic problems with sub-judice rules "per se". Rather, because the global, borderless nature of certain communications media - most notably, of course, the World Wide Web - have rendered it very difficult to enforce sub-judice rules in some countries but not in others. It's potentially a kind of "all or nothing" participation game, since media in those countries where there are no sub-judice rules can easily publish information that can immediately find its way to the desktops of people who live in countries with strict rules.

This can happen and has happened. Certain high-profile UK court cases were nearly derailed by case-sensitive information being published online which originated from a third-party country with no sub-judice rules.

Anyway, it's a complicated subject. I apologise again for my error in posting a bogus link. But I think my argument still stands.

 

[katy_did]

Ahh, I see you seem to use the term "disallowed" as a blanket ruling for both sides. I'm virtually certain that this was not the case. I haven't got the Italian Supreme Court (or equivalent) ruling in front of me, but I can say with very high levels of confidence that the inadmissibility ruling would only have applied to the prosecution. In any case, the inadmissibility only applied to those parts of the statements that could be regarded as self-incriminatory (which, arguably, was most of it to some degree!). Interestingly, HAD Lumumba actually been involved and had he been on trial at the same time as AK and RS, then those parts of the statements which accused Lumumba COULD have been used against him. It's only self-incrimination (under these circumstances of no rights, no lawyer etc) which is the issue.

So I am almost certain that AK's defence team COULD have introduced the statements for the defence if they had chosen to do so - that wouldn't have been going against the Supreme Court ruling.

In the UK, incidentally, this situation (the defence choosing the "lesser of two evils" by introducing such statements) could almost never apply. Had the murder happened in UK, and had AK made exactly these statements in a UK police station under the same circumstances, they would also have been ruled inadmissible in exactly the same way. But, in the UK, the statements could never have found their way into the public domain pre-trial (or indeed possibly ever, if they weren't raised in trial). And in addition, any jury hearing the murder trial would never have been exposed to the statements via a concurrent slander trial - which would have taken place entirely separately and under a separate jury. So it would have been an easy decision for AK's lawyers NOT to introduce the statements as defence evidence, had the case happened and been tried in the UK.

Ah, so it was more of a definite choice for the defence - that's interesting. How would they have introduced it? I mean, in the sense of how they would have raised the issue in court, on what grounds and so on. If the jury weren't supposed to be taking the 'confession' into account anyway (however unrealistic that was, under the circumstances) could the defence still have chosen to talk about it, given that that might imply they thought the jury was being influenced by it?

But yes, I still agree with the general point, obviously; given that it was being discussed in various ways anyway (through the media and the slander trial) the defence should probably have taken the gamble of addressing the confession head on, rather than allowing it to leak into the courtroom in a way over which they had no control.

 

[katy_did]

Frank's opinion won't discredit him. They'll need more than that. Again, with strong alibis none of this would be necessary.

Well, then we're just back to the problem of producing a strong alibi if you're spending a quiet night at home, as Knox and Sollecito claim they were doing. Patrick only had an alibi by luck rather than design, after all...

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

That sounds a lot like a bit of whackedness.

Yep. The MOF killings were carried out by a certain type of sexual deviant who likes to mutilate corpses and play with body parts. Jack the Ripper is probably the closest parallel, but Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer were similar.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

There's little doubt that Amanda should have murdered her roommate in the UK or in any Commonwealth country. She picked the wrong place although apparently the prison food is better in Italy than at the Kingston Prison For Women:

http://www.insideprison.com/Kingston-Penitentiary.asp

Unless she gets sent to 'Club Fed' where Karla spent time.

P.S. Its probally a good guess your from Canada, where abouts? I myself, am from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. I'm betting a lot of people here have never heard of Saskatchewan, I get that a lot when travelling outside the country...

 

[BenBurch]

Why does this matter? I can't see why anybody would waste time on this case now.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Why I am still spending time on this case

Why does this matter? I can't see why anybody would waste time on this case now.

BenBurch,

I am hoping that progressive Italians use this case as a motivation for reform. The lack of the release of the electronic data files that underlie the DNA result, is contrary to the principle that a defendant can examine and challenge the evidence against him or her. Other commenters here either disagree that the files have not been released, disagree that they should be released unless specifically called for under Italian law, or both.

halides1