Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Kevin_Lowe]

I have the complete diary (in orignal) and I do not think (even considering the situation in which this diary was written) Raffaele beeing so stupid to write obvious false and incriminating entries.

What I think, he meant is:
He was cooking together with Amanda in the cottage ('in the house') and Meredith happens to join in and then this 'pricking' happened.

This assumes, I take it, that Raffaele took his kitchen knife with him to Amanda's place to cook this hypothetical meal? That seems pretty odd. I think my interpretation is the only one that makes sense of Raffaele's statement, and this attempt to twist it into evidence of guilt is as strained as the earlier one.

I guess I wasn't entirely clear on that so I hereby acknowledge that explicitly here.

What I was questioning earlier was this statement:

That Knox was relatively young and criminally naive is pretty indisputable, but the specific cite you used was written specifically regarding juveniles, which Knox was not.

That is indeed a fair point, but people in their early twenties do display immaturity of judgment compared to older people, so I think mentioning AK's youth is not irrelevant. People's brains don't fully mature physically until around 23 or so from memory, and there is no hard physiological line at 16 or 18 when people start demonstrating adult judgment.

I tried to find more detailed information about risk factors for false statements but a brief literature search via my university's library site doesn't bring up any more detailed literature on known risk factors, beyond Kassin's work. So I'm increasingly curious as to what Fiona was referring to.

In any case, there are plenty of case studies of people who aren't juveniles, mentally ill and so on making false statements under interrogation.

As for the other things in your list, I am unaware of any claims that Knox was under the influence or "hungover" during the interview, and claiming her "almost certain[ly] innocence of the crime" is a rather circular argument isn't it?

It's not at all circular. If it can be demonstrated that innocent-Amanda fits the available evidence as well as guilty-Amanda does then the defence is already home and hosed on that point of evidence.

As for her chemical state, all I know is that she was an occasional drug user who was under a lot of stress at that time.

Note that I am drawing no distinction here. In this context, I am considering Knox's demonstratively false accusation of Lumumba to be a possible "false confession."

Noted and applauded.

 

[Supernaut]

Hi Supernaut,
In my own search for the truth regarding the brutal murder of Miss Kercher, I've been curious to try and find out more info on what Rudy Guede was doing that night, for we do know that he was in the apartment at some time. But was he the actual murderer?
Or possibly someone else like Luciano Aviello and Mario Alessi have mentioned?

Reading on another website I came across this tidbit that I had not known of:
From Rudy's German diary:

"Then I headed for Meredith's house. With all the running around I did, I think it would have been around 8:30 p.m. Because we were supposed to see each other at that time, even though I didn't have a watch I tried to arrive on time, because I usually arrive late. As I arrived in front of the house, I noticed a white car with headlights on, and a Drug-Dealer I often saw on Garibaldi Avenue, but I didn't make much of this and I went into the yard. I knocked on the door, but no one answered. I went downstairs to the guy's place but no one was there either. So then, I waited in the yard."

snip
It is not a stretch to believe that possibly Rudy saw a drug dealer making a connection with his supplier right there in front of the house. At that same time, Meredith was arriving at the house from having dinner with her friends. We also know that her cellphone shows that she tried to call home at that very time.

8:56pm (20:56) (Meredith’s house) Meredith’s cell phone calls her mother but call is cut off before it is finished.

If Meredith was making a call home outside with her cellphone at the same time that a drug dealer was picking up his supply in the area of her house, did this drug dealer believe that Meredith was a police informant? Witnessing drug deals have been the reason that others have been murdered by drug gangs.


Link here:
http://alternatetheories-perugiamur.../11/post-79-another-motive-possibly-drug.html

I was not aware that there was a car there when Rudy Guede says he showed up. It also mentions how he knew no one was home downstairs...

Wondering what might have happened when Miss Kercher was inside the apartment, I found more info on this same website that I wasn't aware of what Rudy Guede said he did:
RG interrogation of December 7 2007 with Judge Matteini when Rudy Guede

RG. ...I got to the door, there was this male silhouette, a male shape standing, he was inside the room that is, here is the bed, at the end, at the very bottom of the bed he was covering me like this, I said what happens...in fact I placed my hand, my left hand on his right shoulder and at the same time I saw Meredith's body on the floor...
Judge. Describe this person
RG. So, this person I first saw the shoulder and also the head in the sense of what he was wearing on his head, I can describe what he was wearing
Judge. ...How was he, first was he taller or shorter than you?
RG. No he got up to here, here, he wasn't taller. A bit shorter than me
Judge. How was his hair?
RG. He was wearing a white cap with a red stripe around here. I could see the hair because the abat jour was switched on, I saw against the light his hair was brown ...
Judge... Have you seen his face?
RG....No, because he tried to slash me with the knife and I covered my face with my hand...
J. What was he wearing?
RG. He had a black jacket, I could recognized the jacket because I saw the Napapijri logo
J. Was it a jacket with a zipper?
RG. Yes it was a close-fitting jacket
J. But then, you weren't able to see his face?
RG. There was a soft light on the night table...
J. Where was Meredith?
RG. She was laying on the floor next to the night table with the blood that meanwhile had started flowing ...
J. What have you done when you saw this?
RG. I tried to defend myself and while I was backing off I fell, I remember well, between the fridge and the table.
J. So you both exited Meredith 's room?
RG. I was backing off and also crawling
J. While you were backing off was this person always in front of you?
RG. Yes because it was a ferocious thing, he attacked me ferociously
J. Answer to this question: was this person looking straight up to your face?
RG. Yes I believe so, I really believe so.

Link here:
http://alternatetheories-perugiamur.../11/post-72-update-did-rudy-fall-in-both.html

I found it interesting that Rudy Guede says he actually touched this guy on the shoulder, said "what's happens" and then this person tried to slash him with a knife.
Curiously, he also mentions a soft light(Amnada Knox's borrowed lamp maybe?) on the night table.

I find this website interesting when looking at the big picture, for LMT seems to believe the murderer of Miss Kercher was left handed and possibly someone with military experience. But not Rudy Guede.
Hmmm...
RWVBWL

As always, your thoughts are interesting, thanks.

The "third person" or "other dude" (as in, what Doug Preston refers to as the "SODDI" defence - "some other dude did it") is always part of Guede's various stories. But that's the problem - he's come up with a least 3 different one's so far.

The local patrician who acted as his guardian during his school and late-teenage years cut him off because (amongst other reasons) he found Guede to be a "tremendous liar", so one has to take it that Guede has been accustomed to, well, making ◊◊◊◊ up for years, if not his entire life.

I gave one of these earlier "SODDI" stories, and that he fled Italy because was afraid that racism alone would convict him, some credence for a while.

He has, however, played the "racist card" in all the variations, now claiming that Sollicito said (to Amanda) something to the effect of "there's a negro here, let's split".

I just don't think there's a lot of point in trying to mine Guede's lies for nuggets of truth that might clear things up definitively.

Personally, Id like to see him dosed up with sodium pentathol to get the whole thing over with (just joshing). Or maybe scopolamine, the way Amanda was on Nov 5th-6th. (I told you, I'm joking!)

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Dr.Giobbi and the photograph of Amanda

We have previously discussed the photograph of Amanda in the offices of ILE in Rome. Darkness Descending, p. 218, describing events of mid November of 2007, “[senior detective Dr.] Edgardo Giobbi...was convinced Lumumba was the right man. He even put a picture of Amanda being arrested on his vaunted 'Hall of Fame’ outside of his office…alongside a snap of notorious mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano.” The photo in question showed Amanda talking to police, not being arrested. However the fact of its existence is confirmed by other sources, including a film documentary and an eyewitness. It is worth keeping in mind that this photo was put up long before Amanda Knox had been formally charged.

 

[LondonJohn]

We have previously discussed the photograph of Amanda in the offices of ILE in Rome. Darkness Descending, p. 218, describing events of mid November of 2007, “[senior detective Dr.] Edgardo Giobbi...was convinced Lumumba was the right man. He even put a picture of Amanda being arrested on his vaunted 'Hall of Fame’ outside of his office…alongside a snap of notorious mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano.” The photo in question showed Amanda talking to police, not being arrested. However the fact of its existence is confirmed by other sources, including a film documentary and an eyewitness. It is worth keeping in mind that this photo was put up long before Amanda Knox had been formally charged.

Dr Gobbi is clearly a fine, distinguished and utterly professional police officer. Of that I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

some links on false confessions

Some may find this link on false confessions helpful. Here is an example of a false confession that also involves an interesting use of cell phone records. “A seventeen year old was induced to confess that he accidently started a fire at a horse track in New Jersey. “Mr. Gravante said that once the phone records came back showing Mr. Esposito was not near the stable at the time of the fire, the head of the law firm, David Boies, did not hesitate. Mr. Gravante said that Mr. Boies’s instruction was: ‘I don’t care what kind of resources you put into the case. Win that case.’”

An acquaintance of mine commented: The taped confession shown in the video came at the end of a 18-hour interrogation where Mr. Esposito was told he had failed a polygraph test, said Nicholas A. Gravante Jr., a trial lawyer at Boies, Schiller & Flexner who represented Mr. Esposito. The police officers told him that the best way to help himself was to confess, say it was an accident and be very remorseful. “He believed that once he confessed to starting the fire accidentally, he would be released,” Mr. Gravante said. Instead, he was arrested and charged with arson. “No one gets charged with intentional arson for accidentally starting a fire.” His parents mortgaged their house to pay for this defense — about $150,000. In reality the defense cost the firm, with the experts and lawyers’ time, about $500,000.

 

[RoseMontague]

I found this from the selected DNA results pdf file that Charlie_Wilkes
recently provided:
Rep. 164 Blood from wall of bedroom Not tested because of negative
preliminary (quantification) result.

A negative preliminary quantification result could mean that the machine
used for PCR quantification of DNA read too low, and so they did not
continue. What is strange is that this would be the same situation as the
one they faced with the knife, which did not look like blood, nor did it
test positive for blood with the TMB test. Why did they discontinue testing
a blood sample from the bedroom wall but push forward with the kitchen
knife?

 

[LondonJohn]

I agree.




Very true about the ethics. If the prison has some procedure for obtaining that information and then contacting the sex partners, I'm pretty sure that procedure would not include personal diaries. No doubt it would be handled through the prison clinic, who first would offer support and counseling. If they were going to do another test, they would no doubt wait until after that one before asking for the names of sex partners.




I don't agree they were looking for links to Guede; that was Judy Bachrach's theory. I think they just wanted ways to make Amanda look like a "dirty girl."





Very possible.

I can pretty much guarantee two things:

1) No medical facility with any clinical standards whatsoever (let alone ethical standards) would inform someone of a positive HIV test until and unless confirmatory tests had virtually ruled out the possibility of false positives.

2) No medical facility with any clinical standards whatsoever (let alone ethical standards) would ask a person who had just been informed of HIV-positive status to provide a list of previous lovers (or needle-sharers in the case of intravenous drug users) other than in the course of proper counselling.

If the account of events that I know regarding Knox's HIV test results is accurate, then it's a shocking indictment of the relevant medical and prison authorities (and perhaps of other authorities too).

 

[Mr.D]

I don't agree they were looking for links to Guede; that was Judy Bachrach's theory. I think they just wanted ways to make Amanda look like a "dirty girl."

Certainly not impossible, but in the absence of more information, I think we've hit an impasse on the false-positive HIV test and what we can conclude from it.

You have your theory and I'm unconvinced.

(BUT! At least we've been civil in discussing it - so maybe there's hope for the thread after all)

 

[Mr.D]

I guess you also missed that Amanda wrote in her diary that she was told to think about who she had contact with.

Didn't miss it at all. That's pretty much what I would expect anyone would be told to do when informed of a positive HIV test. It's pretty much implied when I commented that it would be a rather circuitous way to get a list of her past sexual partners.

What have the Italian authorities done about this apparent ethics violation? Have they investigated to determine if there was a specific motivation or do we just have an incompetent prison doctor acting on her own and the confiscation of Amanda's writings and immediate publication of the juicy bits was an unrelated coincident?!

We don't know what relevant Italian Law is, what the Italian analogy to the AMA says about ethical behavior with regards to HIV test results, nor what the standard practices were in the Perugia system. So why should we expect any authority to investigate what a bunch of internet sleuths with incomplete information think might be an ethics violation?

What ought to be investigated is all the media leaks period, but given that leaks to the media seem to be almost de rigueur in high-profile cases in the Western world, I don't hold out much hope that they will be, nor do I find the absence of such to be all that notable - (a rather depressing notion by the by)

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

_______________________

When would the landlord find out? Umm, maybe when the police got a search warrant and asked the landlord about which items had been added or subtracted from the premises? The cleaning lady herself would have noticed the large kitchen knife missing, as she was able to identify the knife in court. Here is what Raffaele's cutlery drawer looked like, just after the cops had removed the large kitchen knife

[qimg]http://www.perugiamurderfile.org/gallery/image.php?album_id=21&image_id=669[/qimg]

Not exactly a large selection.

And there'd be nothing to prove when the knife had been replaced? Huh? Images of the lovebirds had flooded television sets since the day after the murder. An innocuous purchase of underpants didn't go unnoticed, so the lovebirds are supposed to purchase a large knife anonymously, before the cops got a search warrant for Raffaele's flat?

If the lovebirds had just cleaned the knife properly, there would have been no risk at all in retaining the knife. There was more risk---in my opinion--- in going out and buying a replacement.

Bear in mind, my original post on this subject was in response to LondonJohn's "why in the world" bewilderment at the lovebirds keeping the knife. There was some risk in keeping it, some risk in discarding it. Neither option was unreasonable. Maybe we can agree on that.

///

Let's suppose the knife tested by police was the only decent cutting knife in Raffaele's kitchen. That does not resolve the more important question: was this knife actually used in the murder, or was the match with the victim's DNA a laboratory error?

I would argue that it was the latter. Other samples with faint profiles were ignored, as was unidentified DNA from bloody tissues found outside the cottage. The authorities were only interested in evidence that would support what they had already told the public.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

To the best of my knowledge ILE did not collect reference samples from Laura or Filomena. let alone the men downstairs.

That is correct.

 

[LondonJohn]

Per Charlie, there were no unidentified profiles from the samples that were complete enough to produce a full profile.

We've been over there, Chris. Multiple times. (so, there's once that I've corrected you - or at least set the record straight).


TMB is less sensitive than Luminol. In fact, TMB needs a minimum of 5 cells to return a positive test. Regardless of which test was performed, there were, at most, 2 cells tested for blood. That you refuse to acknowledge that even if they were both red blood cells, Luminol and TMB would not necessarily have returned positive results because it would be at the range limit for either test. (so there's twice that I've corrected you on DNA matters)


Blood cells are not the only cells which contain DNA, therefore, the cells need not test positive for blood to retrieve accurate DNA results. Therefore, the argument that "if there are no blood cells due to bleaching, there can be no other cells" is not proven as we don't know if there were, in fact, blood cells. (that's 3 times, I believe)


You, yourself, have claimed that even in a lab environment where equipment is cleaned thoroughly, the strong bleach content doesn't necessarily remove all DNA containing cells from instruments such as pipettes. However, a more dilute bleach concentrate was able to remove all traces of DNA from a knife? These cells were not found on the surface, they were found in a crevice. Therefore, your argument in regards to the chances of them being found is contrary to your prior argument regarding the possibility of contamination in a laboratory. (so, does that make 4?)



Thanks for playing. Have a nice day.

Mr the Donkey, you seem to be under the misapprehension that there are such things as "blood cells". There are not. Blood is composed of many products. The two main ones are these: red blood cells, which contain haemoglobin but which have no nucleus (and therefore no DNA); and white blood cells, which do have nuclei (and therefore contain DNA) The ratio of red blood cells to white blood cells is usually around 800:1 in healthy human blood (although the ration can vary between around 700:1 and 1000:1).

Presumptive tests for blood (TMB, luminol, etc) work by detecting the iron present in the haemoglobin in red blood cells. They have nothing to do with white blood cells.

DNA tests on blood work by detecting the DNA in white blood cells. They have nothing to do with red blood cells.

So......if a blood stain has provided a positive DNA sample, then it means that there are a small number of white blood cells present. And if there are a small number of white blood cells present, there is a strong likelihood that there will be many, many more red blood cells present to provide a positive presumptive test result.

The corollary of this is that if blood is tested negative using a fairly sensitive presumptive test (eg TMB or luminol), then there's virtually no chance of obtaining a positive DNA identification. This is clearly because if there are not even 5-10 red blood cells present (which would provide sufficient iron for a positive presumptive test), then the 800:1 ratio makes it statistically hugely unlikely that any white blood cells will be present.

And that's once that I've corrected you on blood/DNA matters.

 

[LondonJohn]

That is correct.

And astonishing.

 

[Mr.D]

In any case, there are plenty of case studies of people who aren't juveniles, mentally ill and so on making false statements under interrogation.

Of course there are, unfortunately. But what I was addressing was the bolded part here: (but here I'll also address the "conditions" phrase. (I have not done any research on how false statements differ from true confessions)

it turns out that Amanda is the sort of person likely to give a false statement under pressure, that the conditions she was under were the kind likely to elicit a false statement, and that her statement is far more consistent with a false statement than with a true confession.

and most of the research I've turned up (and your cite) has to do specifically with juveniles and maturity. I freely admit that Knox is easily described as "young" and "immature," but I contest that a 20 year old college student living "by herself" in a country where she didn't speak the native language fluently fits the profile of an immature juvenile false confessor.

I do note that several of the elements commonly present in known false confession cases were present in Knox's case, specifically (but not limited to), confusion and ignorance of the law (exacerbated by the language barrier), violence (debated, but I'll list it as a given here), long interrogation without food/water/restroom breaks (but nowhere near as long as sometimes claimed), but this is insufficient to back the claim that Knox's accusation fits a "false confession" better than a lie.^*
Why? Simply put, many of those elements are also present during true confessions and false denials as well. Hard statistics seem to be difficult to come by, so I'll blatantly appeal to "common sense" and claim that if you took all cases which had the same elements at the same "strength" (IE, no waterboarding, no 36 hour interrogation etc) you'd find that "false confessions" were by far the minority of all "confessions" because if it weren't so, justice systems all over the western world would quickly fall apart.^**

It's not at all circular.

I must be missing something because it is relentlessly circular:

Defense Attorney (to jury) : "You must acquit my client because that confession was false, therefore he is innocent and you know that confession was false because innocence is a factor in false confessions."



^* As I write this, I notice that what you actually wrote was "her statement is far more consistent with a false statement than with a true confession." I am assuming that you didn't mean "true confession" there, since her accusation of Lumumba is known not to be a true statement at all.

^** If Knox's accusation was indeed a "false confession," I thoroughly concur with her supporters that a tremendous injustice has been done. I just am not convinced that the known details of the interrogation rise above the level at which a false confession is likely.

 

[odeed]

Odeed,

From the 2002 study by G. Rutty, “Of the test neck swabs, 19 yielded positive amplification results using SGMplus, 12 showed a victim-only profile and 7 a victim and offender profile with a full offender profile detectable up to 6 h after contact. When LCN was used (17 tests) all showed the offender to be present for all time periods i.e. up to 10 days. In the majority of cases it was a partial offender profile with the majority of the amplification result being a full victim profile.”

P. Wiegand and M. Kleiber, “DNA typing of epithelial cells after strangulation,” International Journal of Legal Medicine (1997) 110 :181–183. These authors describe an actual case of strangulation in which there was a two-day period between the murder and the collection of evidence. “In a stain case in which strangulation was the cause of death the victim was found and examined approximately 48 h after death. Strangulation marks were clearly visible on the neck of the victim. Epithelial cells could be removed from the neck of the victim using separate cotton swabs for the left and the right side of the neck. Only the swab from the right side could be typed and included the pattern of the suspect (Fig. 3), a result which corresponded to the autopsy findings (the right neck side showed a higher intensity of bleeding in the muscles than the left side indicating a more intensive pressure against the right side). Altogether clear results could be obtained using four STRs (TH01, VWA, FGA, CD4) demonstrating the high utility and sensitivity of the method described.”

Here is a reference to the abstract of the 1997 article. Hope this helps.

The Wiegand and Kleiber 1997 study, used similar methodology as the Rutty paper, both the victims neck and offenders fingers were cleaned beforehand.

The Wiegand study also amplified the DNA beyond the standard 28 cycles PCR to 30-31 to increase the sensitivity, something you and others have been critical of Stefanoni doing in regards to the DNA on the knife.

The probability of matching the four STRs (TH01, VWA, FGA, CD4), in the Italian population would be 1:60,000 (I think, based on the product of the frequencies of each STR in the population), while SGMplus use 10 (plus 1 sex marker) and CODIS uses 13 STR markers.

Just to address this point to BobTheDonkey from youself:

You are deliberately ignoring partial profiles. Why?

A quote from your own blog, in January, and also discussed recently, where you are critical of partial profiles:

1. A partial profile essentially proves that one is operating outside of well-characterized and recommended limits.
2. Contaminating DNA usually presents as a partial profile, although not always. For this reason, the risk that the result is a contaminant is greater than for samples that present as full profiles.
3. A partial profile is at risk of being incomplete and misleading. The partial nature of it proves that DNA molecules have been missed. There is no way of firmly determining what the complete profile would have been, except by seeking other samples that may present a full profile.

It seems to me, in citing papers using LCN, and the flipping in regards to partial profiles, that you are willing to accept a lower threshold in the scientific evidence that will exonerate Knox and Sollecito in your theories, than the actual evidence which convicted them.

 

[Mary_H]

I can pretty much guarantee two things:

1) No medical facility with any clinical standards whatsoever (let alone ethical standards) would inform someone of a positive HIV test until and unless confirmatory tests had virtually ruled out the possibility of false positives.

2) No medical facility with any clinical standards whatsoever (let alone ethical standards) would ask a person who had just been informed of HIV-positive status to provide a list of previous lovers (or needle-sharers in the case of intravenous drug users) other than in the course of proper counselling.

If the account of events that I know regarding Knox's HIV test results is accurate, then it's a shocking indictment of the relevant medical and prison authorities (and perhaps of other authorities too).

Excellent statements of the relevant points, John.

 

[RoseMontague]

More questions about the DNA test on the knife. I am sure you have heard the experiment with copies. You make a copy, take that copy and make a copy of it then make another copy of that copy. Eventually, depending on the quality of your copier, you have an unreadable blur.
Now try that with a blank paper. Make a copy of the blank piece of paper and then make a copy of the copy and so on as in the first test. Depending on the quality of your paper, eventually you will have an unreadable (but not blank) series of spots, steaks, and blurs.

My question revolves around this tiny sample of DNA that was tested. Then tested again and again, about 10 times if I remember correctly, going lower and more sensitive with each test on the same sample. Baked multiple times. I just wonder if there has been a study on this. What effect does doing the same test over and over again have on the sample? I suppose if you start with a good sample and go lower and lower and more sensitive then compare results of the last test with the very first test, I wonder if you would see a difference? Perhaps some of you science types can find an answer for me?

 

[Mary_H]

Didn't miss it at all. That's pretty much what I would expect anyone would be told to do when informed of a positive HIV test. It's pretty much implied when I commented that it would be a rather circuitous way to get a list of her past sexual partners.

See LJ's related comments above, particularly the point that it is unlikely a request for such a list would be made until after a follow-up test.

We don't know what relevant Italian Law is, what the Italian analogy to the AMA says about ethical behavior with regards to HIV test results, nor what the standard practices were in the Perugia system. So why should we expect any authority to investigate what a bunch of internet sleuths with incomplete information think might be an ethics violation?

Confidentiality of medical records is pretty much the rule in industrialized nations. By granting Amanda a victory in her anti-defamation suit against Fiorenza Sarzanini in March, the court essentially agreed with her attorney, Carlo Dalla Vedova:

"Amanda Knox's lawyer, Carlo Dalla Vedova, told ABC News that in the proceedings against Sarzanini and Rizzoli, he had argued a violation of Knox's privacy as far as her sexual activity and medical history were concerned, both of which are protected by privacy laws in Italy."

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/AmandaKnox/small-victory-amanda-knox/story?id=10169888

What ought to be investigated is all the media leaks period, but given that leaks to the media seem to be almost de rigueur in high-profile cases in the Western world, I don't hold out much hope that they will be, nor do I find the absence of such to be all that notable - (a rather depressing notion by the by)

Leaks appear to be the bread and butter of Italian media. It's quite a cozy system the journalists and police/prosecutors have developed, one that is mutually rewarding for both sides. Not much chance of that going away anytime soon.

 

[Mary_H]

I guess you also missed that Amanda wrote in her diary that she was told to think about who she had contact with.

What have the Italian authorities done about this apparent ethics violation? Have they investigated to determine if there was a specific motivation or do we just have an incompetent prison doctor acting on her own and the confiscation of Amanda's writings and immediate publication of the juicy bits was an unrelated coincident?!

As I mentioned in my previous post to Mr. D, the Italian court did find for Amanda in her case regarding violations of confidentiality and privacy. Unfortunately, they ruled against the journalist and the publisher, not against whomever supplied them with the diary.

Regarding the aspects of falsifying results, torture and alleged theft of the diary, though, if the police and/or the prosecution and/or confederates in the prison were the ones who orchestrated the scheme (if it was a scheme), then we probably won't have any of them investigated for it any time soon, since they are the ones who would be doing the investigating.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

partial profiles in DNA forensics

Are you seriously asking this question?

What causes a partial profile, Chris? That's right - an insufficient amount of DNA to distinguish/recreate the entire profile. Taking samples from the other roommates and boys downstairs would not have resulted in a single further match - so what, exactly, is the point of arguing incompetence from the investigators when there was no valid reason to need further control samples?

Are you saying that the partial profiles would have any effect on the results of the full profiles?

Or are you attempting to imply Stefanoni's team contaminated the scene? Because, either way, there simply wasn't enough DNA left behind to muddle anything up, now was there?

BobTheDonkey,

My friend, I wonder whether you understand what a partial profile is. In the United States, the reference sample will have thirteen loci (basically different positions on the chromosomes). Europe uses a slightly different system. However, a piece of evidence might have six or seven loci show up. This could happen because of degradation of the DNA or the presence of an inhibitor of the PCR reaction. However, partial profiles are often admissible, both in the United States and Great Britain. I do not know where Italian law stands on this. Here is something from the Richard Bates case.
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2006/1395.html
“We can see no reason why partial profile DNA evidence should not be admissible provided that the jury are made aware of its inherent limitations and are given a sufficient explanation to enable them to evaluate it.” Individuals are either excluded or not excluded in a DNA match. When a partial profile is obtained, the number of individuals not excluded is greater than when a full match is obtained.

In general as the number of loci falls, the chances of a coincidental match rise. However, Professor Thompson made an important point, “In general, as the number of alleles in a DNA profile decreases, the probability that a randomly chosen person will, by coincidence, happen to match that profile increases. Because the alleles vary greatly in their rarity, however, it is possible for a profile containing a few rare alleles to be rarer overall that a profile containing a larger number of more common alleles. Consequently, when discussing the likelihood of a coincidental match it is more helpful to focus on the estimated frequency of the profile than the number of loci or alleles encompassed in the profile.”
http://www.councilforresponsiblegenetics.org/

Now if you want to argue that using partial profiles in cold hit cases is problematic, I would agree. Some courts use random match probabilities rather than database match probabilities, but that is not an issue in the Knox/Sollecito case. The 2008 article by Professor Thompson cited above (H4T5EOYUZI.pdf), “The Potential for Error in Forensic DNA Testing (and How That Complicates the Use of DNA Databases for Criminal Identification),” gives some indication of this issue and many others.