Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[LondonJohn]

By the way, the facts on Quintavalle's reliability problems have already been well documented here (and elsewhere). I don't need to repeat them directly in order to state my belief that he is an unreliable witness.

 

[LondonJohn]

Oh and also by the way, when we're discussing the validity of prosecution evidence, it usually doesn't matter how trustworthy and reliable Amanda Knox or Raffaele Sollecito are. And for the record, I think that both of them have been less than 100% honest at times. But there is a burden of proof to be met by the prosecution - a burden which is set to be extremely large in any criminal trial, let alone a capital murder trial. It's the proof of the prosecution's evidence that is there to be tested, not the proof of the defence's rebuttals (only the plausibility of the defence's rebuttals really needs to be established). Luckily there's a civilised and balanced debate going on within this forum, which aims to look at this case from a legal/jurisprudence point of view rather than an emotional one.

 

[LondonJohn]

Reading through the early Italian news stories, it's just staggering how much information was obviously leaked to the press direct from the prosecution's office, and the timing of it. On the same day the papers reported that the police were searching for a fourth man, "an Ivorian", information was leaked about two bleach receipts found in Raffaele's apartment, complete with times indicating bleach was bought on two separate occasions on the morning of the murder - completely and utterly false, of course, but still picked up by international papers who reported it. Patrick was released on the same day Rudy was arrested, despite his alibi having been confirmed nearly two weeks earlier.

We hear a lot about the supposed PR effort, but I'm not sure anything could have undone the damage done to any chance of a fair trial caused by that early reporting.

Yes, I wonder why we don't hear much these days about the leaking of the famous "bleach receipts which didn't actually exist"? Such a strange thing for a professional, balanced and competent prosecutor's department to release so wantonly to the media, don't you think?

 

[RWVBWL]

Excellants posts Mary H and LondonJohn,
I can see how an Alpha Dog or a Top Gun has a lot of pride,
so to speak, since his is now charging Miss Knox with slander.

Originally Posted by Mary_H
I think there is also an assumed unspoken danger in defying the initial prosecution case too vigorously. Given the system of three trials per case, it may be more acceptable to challenge each prosection case the farther down the line one gets from the original prosecutor. This allows the original prosecutor to maintain his position as Alpha dog. Possibly it is accepted, again tacitly, that the final verdict has little to do with the original prosecution case.
_________________________________________________________________________________

Originally Posted by LondonJohn
Perhaps....but I still think that both AK and RS made very bad decisions in their choice of representation. Quite how a commercial lawyer with zero actual experience of criminal trials (Dalla Vedova) came to be AK's lead lawyer is well beyond my comprehension. And I believe that RS's father may well have insisted on hiring Bongiorno because he'd heard of her through her famous previous criminal defence work ("If she's good enough for the Prime Minister, she's good enough for my son"). He neglected to factor in that by this time Bongiorno already had a pretty-much full-time job as an Italian politician, and should not therefore have been capable of running a defence team in a high-profile murder trial. I further believe that she should have known this, and that therefore it's not to her credit that she chose to accept the case - I suspect she may have had something of a yearning for the limelight herself.......
_________________________________________________________________________________

And I too have also wondered if the families of Mr. Sollecito and Miss Knox couldn't have done a bit better in their choice for legal representation. Especially when I read on page 110 -112 of Barbie Nadeau's book "Angel Face" that Rudy Guede's lawyer, Mr. Biscotti threw himself a 50th birthday party at "The Red Zone" in Perugia and Judge Micheli, who had recently sent Mr. Guede to jail, was there tapping his foot as Biscotti played lead guitar on a cover of the song "Smoke on the Water". Heck, even Police Officer Napoleoni, head of the homicide squad was there, as was Officer Zugarani, and even Prosecutor Mignini's briefcase man, among others.

Someone from the local Perugia legal scene might have been a better choice for representation, in my simple opinion...
RWVBWL

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

With Meredith's UK phone (which was found switched on, unlike the Italian phone) Amanda's first call led to it being found by Lana's daughter. Presumably she then switched it off, which is why it was 'out of service' or went through to Voicemail for the second call.

It was the last call that returned the "out of service" message. Again, why an "out of service" message rather than a shift to voicemail if the phone had simply been turned off?

 

[stilicho]

That brings us back to Hume, and weighing up the relative improbability of competing narratives. The prosecution narrative is highly unlikely, it hangs on DNA evidence which is questionable even if it's provenance is completely above-board, and said evidence passed through the hands of police we know to have been bent on supporting the aforementioned highly-unlikely story. The alternative theory that Rudy murdered Meredith by himself and did a runner, possibly after making some effort to hide the body and make it look like a random break-in, is not a particularly unusual story as sex murders go. On balance, the reasonable person should go with the less unlikely theory.

The problem faced by the investigators in supporting a lone-wolf narrative has been amply discussed. One thing you fail to include in your dismissal of the evidence is that, to convict RG alone, the prosecution would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he acted alone. As we know, the evidence supplied by the forensics teams made this implausible or impossible:

1. Prove Rudy entered through the window.
2. Prove all the wounds on Meredith's body were due to a single attacker.
3. Prove all the DNA evidence indicating others was falsified/contaminated/transferred.
4. Prove the bathmat print was Rudy's.
5. Accept the missing alibis of the other suspects.
6. Disprove witness statements placing either Amanda or Raffaele elsewhere.

That's just six points but each of them require a burden of proof investigators were unable to supply for the prosecution. We haven't and shouldn't see the medical examiner's reports or photos but those who have are under no illusions that there were multiple attackers. It's only here on the interwebs that we're able to diminish the value of the forensics (DNA, autopsy, luminol) while those in the courtroom were deeply impressed.

Hume would have been impressed too. He was a sceptic but he didn't outlaw the value of overwhelming evidence altogether.

 

[stilicho]

Perhaps....but I still think that both AK and RS made very bad decisions in their choice of representation. Quite how a commercial lawyer with zero actual experience of criminal trials (Dalla Vedova) came to be AK's lead lawyer is well beyond my comprehension. And I believe that RS's father may well have insisted on hiring Bongiorno because he'd heard of her through her famous previous criminal defence work ("If she's good enough for the Prime Minister, she's good enough for my son"). He neglected to factor in that by this time Bongiorno already had a pretty-much full-time job as an Italian politician, and should not therefore have been capable of running a defence team in a high-profile murder trial. I further believe that she should have known this, and that therefore it's not to her credit that she chose to accept the case - I suspect she may have had something of a yearning for the limelight herself.......

Dalla Vedova speaks English.

The Knox/Mellas family chose that route instead of hiring an interpreter/translator for themselves. Bad move.

The lawyers were top-flight or at least upper echelon and so were their experts. I don't think anyone would dispute this. At issue is not the competence of the legal teams but the value of contradictory expert opinions. The result of the weight of evidence was a unanimous verdict.

 

[LondonJohn]

Dalla Vedova speaks English.

The Knox/Mellas family chose that route instead of hiring an interpreter/translator for themselves. Bad move.

The lawyers were top-flight or at least upper echelon and so were their experts. I don't think anyone would dispute this. At issue is not the competence of the legal teams but the value of contradictory expert opinions. The result of the weight of evidence was a unanimous verdict.

Dalla Vedova might be a top-flight lawyer, but he's a top-flight commercial lawyer, not a top-flight criminal defence lawyer. There is a huge difference. I think many many people would dispute Dalla Vedova's credentials as a lead criminal defence attorney. And I am among those people. To suggest otherwise is (in my opinion) either to be misinformed or intellectually dishonest.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

discovery? what's that?

Perhaps....but I still think that both AK and RS made very bad decisions in their choice of representation. .

LondonJohn,

Perhaps, but you make no mention of the withholding of the log files and electronic data files from the defense, as documented on Sollecito's appeal and elsewhere. The prosecution kneecapped the defense with respect to the weak DNA evidence.

 

[LondonJohn]

The problem faced by the investigators in supporting a lone-wolf narrative has been amply discussed. One thing you fail to include in your dismissal of the evidence is that, to convict RG alone, the prosecution would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he acted alone. As we know, the evidence supplied by the forensics teams made this implausible or impossible:

1. Prove Rudy entered through the window.
2. Prove all the wounds on Meredith's body were due to a single attacker.
3. Prove all the DNA evidence indicating others was falsified/contaminated/transferred.
4. Prove the bathmat print was Rudy's.
5. Accept the missing alibis of the other suspects.
6. Disprove witness statements placing either Amanda or Raffaele elsewhere.

That's just six points but each of them require a burden of proof investigators were unable to supply for the prosecution. We haven't and shouldn't see the medical examiner's reports or photos but those who have are under no illusions that there were multiple attackers. It's only here on the interwebs that we're able to diminish the value of the forensics (DNA, autopsy, luminol) while those in the courtroom were deeply impressed.

Hume would have been impressed too. He was a sceptic but he didn't outlaw the value of overwhelming evidence altogether.

The argument contained in this post is......unusual........

The prosecution may, for example, have felt that Guede was definitely involved, but that he may or may not have had accomplices as yet unidentified. Under these circumstances, he could certainly have been tried and convicted on the assault and murder charges without the prosecution ever having to prove that he acted alone. In addition to that overarching point, many of the other "necessary proofs" mentioned in this post are wrong too:

1) The prosecution would not "have" to "prove" that Guede entered through the window - they would only have to show that either he (or an accomplice) broke and entered or he (or an accomplice) staged a break-in after the murder.

2) Even if the prosecution presented a "lone attacker" scenario, they wouldn't have to "prove" that Meredith's wounds were caused by only one person. They would merely have to prove that her wounds were consistent with having been inflicted by only one person. The wounds might also be consistent with having been inflicted by two or more people, but that would be irrelevant if they were also consistent with a lone attacker. As an illustration, if a murder victim has two bullets inside him that were found to be fired from the same gun, this is consistent with a single gunman having fired both shots. But it's also consistent of Murderer A firing a shot at the victim, then passing the gun to Murderer B to administer a coup de grace.

3) The argument that the police would have to "accept the missing alibis" of AK and RS is pure nonsense. I don't believe that I have an alibi for my whereabouts between 2100 CET and 23.30 CET on 1 November 2007. But the Perugia police no more have to accept my "missing alibi" than they have to accept the "missing alibis" of AK, RS or anyone else if they exclude them as suspects.

4) What on earth does "Disprove witness statements placing either Amanda or Raffaele elsewhere" mean? I have no idea why the police would want or need to do this if they were seeking to charge Guede alone (i.e. not AK or RS) with the assault/murder. It's not even as if any witnesses placed AK or RS in the murder house at the time of the murder. That would be problematic if such witnesses existed, but they don't. And it's worth remembering that even if AK told the police she was at RS's apartment at the same time that some "witnesses" reported seeing AK/RS at the basketball court, that's not any kind of necessary proof that AK/RS committed the crime of murder.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

LondonJohn,

Perhaps, but you make no mention of the withholding of the log files and electronic data files from the defense, as documented on Sollecito's appeal and elsewhere. The prosecution kneecapped the defense with respect to the weak DNA evidence.

Again, where is your evidence that this happened?

 

[Matthew Best]

One thing you fail to include in your dismissal of the evidence is that, to convict RG alone, the prosecution would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he acted alone.

I don't think so, as the two trials were separate. One trial could convict Guede of being involved somehow, alone or with others, and thus guilty of murder, the other trial could find Sollecito and Knox not guilty as the evidence was not enough to convict them beyond a reasonable doubt.

With that in mind, your list is irrelevant.

 

[LondonJohn]

LondonJohn,

Perhaps, but you make no mention of the withholding of the log files and electronic data files from the defense, as documented on Sollecito's appeal and elsewhere. The prosecution kneecapped the defense with respect to the weak DNA evidence.

Oh I'm by no means saying that their poor choice of lawyers was the only factor, or even that it was one of the more major factors. I'm just raising a red flag against the mistaken idea that Knox and Sollecito had some sort of "dream team" legal representation, and against the consequent mistaken idea that they were convicted in spite of their "brilliant" attorneys (rather than the seemingly more correct view that they were perhaps at least partially convicted because of who they had chosen to represent them).

 

[Dan O.]

There are many reasons the investigators and the courts ruled out the lone wolf scenario. It's hard to summarise all of them here but you might want to read the previous thread and Dan O's "lone wolf" thread. In the latter, we were prohibited from including any of the evidence pointing to Amanda and Raffaele. We essentially had to pretend they didn't exist and that the plentiful evidence of their participation was intentionally or accidentally manipulated.

You speak nothing but lies. The OP of the lone wolf thread was:

Could Rudy Guede alone have killed Meredith Kercher?

I'm starting this thread to explore the possibility of Rudy Hermann Guede being the sole perpetrator in the murder of Meredith Kercher.


For this thread, any discussion of Amanda Knox or Raffaele Sollecito being at the scene when the murder occurred is strictly off topic.​

The only restriction was that Amanda and Raffaele could not be placed at the scene. There was no restriction on any of the evidence that could be discussed.

The lone wolf scenario is a discussion that the guilters absolutely refuse to address. ALL of the evidence except for two small traces that could be contamination or direct plants by over zealous cops fit the lone wolf scenario.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

A CDROM is not expensive

Again, where is your evidence that this happened?

BobTheDonkey,

Here is a paragraph from page 52 of Raffaele Sollecito’s appeal: “And there is no doubt that, in terms of 'prosecution, failure to discovery on one of the main aspects of the process has been a considerable advantage over the defense, since the case involved Raffaele Sollecito is building right on genetic testing. In fact, it is useful to make a historical reconstruction of the case at hand:”

 

[Mary_H]

It was the last call that returned the "out of service" message. Again, why an "out of service" message rather than a shift to voicemail if the phone had simply been turned off?

That might be a question for the police, who had the phones in their possession.

 

[Mary_H]

Excellants posts Mary H and LondonJohn,
I can see how an Alpha Dog or a Top Gun has a lot of pride,
so to speak, since his is now charging Miss Knox with slander.

_________________________________________________________________

Originally Posted by LondonJohn
Perhaps....but I still think that both AK and RS made very bad decisions in their choice of representation. Quite how a commercial lawyer with zero actual experience of criminal trials (Dalla Vedova) came to be AK's lead lawyer is well beyond my comprehension. And I believe that RS's father may well have insisted on hiring Bongiorno because he'd heard of her through her famous previous criminal defence work ("If she's good enough for the Prime Minister, she's good enough for my son"). He neglected to factor in that by this time Bongiorno already had a pretty-much full-time job as an Italian politician, and should not therefore have been capable of running a defence team in a high-profile murder trial. I further believe that she should have known this, and that therefore it's not to her credit that she chose to accept the case - I suspect she may have had something of a yearning for the limelight herself.......
_________________________________________________________________

And I too have also wondered if the families of Mr. Sollecito and Miss Knox couldn't have done a bit better in their choice for legal representation. Especially when I read on page 110 -112 of Barbie Nadeau's book "Angel Face" that Rudy Guede's lawyer, Mr. Biscotti threw himself a 50th birthday party at "The Red Zone" in Perugia and Judge Micheli, who had recently sent Mr. Guede to jail, was there tapping his foot as Biscotti played lead guitar on a cover of the song "Smoke on the Water". Heck, even Police Officer Napoleoni, head of the homicide squad was there, as was Officer Zugarani, and even Prosecutor Mignini's briefcase man, among others.

Someone from the local Perugia legal scene might have been a better choice for representation, in my simple opinion...
RWVBWL

I don't know how Amanda's family found their lawyers, but I think it is a safe bet that Raffaele's dad went for the famous name, as you suggest, John. I want to agree that Buongiorno should have turned down the job, but on the other hand, we don't know if any other lawyers would have fared any better, given what may be strong cultural resistance to allowing initial murder trials to end in not-guilty verdicts.

By the same token, RW, maybe local Perugians wouldn't have taken the job, fearing eventual repercussions or exclusion from the type of social scenes you describe above. (I was going to add that they also might realize it's a waste of time to fight a losing battle, but I get the feeling the concept of wasted time is foreign to the Perugian legal culture. Everybody gets paid as long as the case lasts.)

 

[brodski]

The only restriction was that Amanda and Raffaele could not be placed at the scene. There was no restriction on any of the evidence that could be discussed.

Unless, of course, it was evidence which pointed to Amanda and Raffaele being at the scene.

 

[stilicho]

The argument contained in this post is......unusual........

The prosecution may, for example, have felt that Guede was definitely involved, but that he may or may not have had accomplices as yet unidentified. Under these circumstances, he could certainly have been tried and convicted on the assault and murder charges without the prosecution ever having to prove that he acted alone. In addition to that overarching point, many of the other "necessary proofs" mentioned in this post are wrong too:

Burden of proof is essential regardless of the scenario you pick. If you want to prosecute only RG then you have to prove that he was the only one involved. This includes those six points but it not limited to them. It includes refuting the forensics teams providing you with the evidence, the Kercher family lawyer, and Patrick's lawyer too. Then there's the very strong possibility that the defence would use those forensics against you and you'd lose the case.

We haven't even explored the high probability that RG's spotty memory would return in force and place both suspects inside the cottage during Meredith's murder. At that point the entire prosecution Lone Wolf scenario collapses.

 

[LondonJohn]

I don't know how Amanda's family found their lawyers, but I think it is a safe bet that Raffaele's dad went for the famous name, as you suggest, John. I want to agree that Buongiorno should have turned down the job, but on the other hand, we don't know if any other lawyers would have fared any better, given what may be strong cultural resistance to allowing initial murder trials to end in not-guilty verdicts.

By the same token, RW, maybe local Perugians wouldn't have taken the job, fearing eventual repercussions or exclusion from the type of social scenes you describe above. (I was going to add that they also might realize it's a waste of time to fight a losing battle, but I get the feeling the concept of wasted time is foreign to the Perugian legal culture. Everybody gets paid as long as the case lasts.)

Hi Mary. I believe that Dalla Vedova was recommended to AK's mother by the US Embassy, and the Embassy should have known better than to recommend him for a criminal case. I believe that Edda Mellas might have circumvented the proper US Consulate route and gone instead to the Embassy - which is not the right place to seek legal advice in this sort of situation. It appears that the Embassy gave Edda Mellas a list of Rome-based lawyers who had worked with the Embassy and the US State Department in the past, and that it was from this list that Dalla Vedova's name emerged.

If that's correct, it was a bad mistake on behalf of the US Embassy authorities born out of a core ignorance of the difference between commercial and criminal law. Furthermore, why Dalla Vedova agreed to take the case - rather than turning it down and suggesting that AK retain an experienced criminal defence lawyer - also appears to be a dereliction of duty by Dalla Vedova. Whether he spoke good English or not is really neither here nor there.

As far as Ghirga is concerned, I believe that he was recommended via the Mayor of Perugia, in response to a request for help from the Seattle exchange group who had recently visited Perugia. However, it appears that the Mayor chiefly knew Ghirga from his (Ghirga's) position on the local council, rather than any prowess at criminal defence.....

Lastly, regarding the willingness (or otherwise) of lawyers to take the case, I believe it's regarded as strongly legally ethical NOT to refuse to represent a client - if asked - simply because you either dislike the client, or think that he/she is guilty, or think that the case is unwinnable. The only "acceptable" reasons to refuse would be if you didn't think you had the requisite expertise to best help the client (e.g. Dalla Vedova, in my view), or if you didn't have the time (e.g. Bongiorno, in my view), or if you had a conflict of interests.