Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[loverofzion]

Colonelhall,

For the purpose of this comment let us assume that Sollecito did not prick Meredith and that he was aware of that when he wrote his diary (in fact, I am agnostic on the latter question). Sollecito would thus lose some credibility in my eyes for lying. However, as Charlie Wilkes and Mary H recently addressed, ILE lied or misrepresented the facts many times during the investigation, so their credibility is diminished as much or more.

Consider the converse situation as a hypothetical. Suppose that Kercher’s DNA strong and unambiguous profile were found on the knife. Sollecito says that neither he nor the other defendants killed her, and she never cooked with him. We would certainly not say that his words exclude the knife as the murder weapon. Why would we say that his words identify the knife as the weapon in the actual situation? BobTheDonkey attempted to answer this question in the previous thread, but I found his argument unconvincing at the time and do not recall it well enough to reconstruct it here.

In the previous thread BobTheDonkey also responded to a question of mine about what he meant by Sollecito’s remarks putting the knife into play. He said, “As in, the knife is tied to Kercher. Which, really, is all the DNA evidence does. Since Sollecito's testimony does the same thing, there's no need for the DNA evidence.” The prosecution must not have agreed with Bob's argument, inasmuch as they entered the DNA profile into evidence.

The kitchen knife does not match all of the wounds, nor does it match the knife outline on the sheet, among many other problems. If ILE truly believed that this were the murder weapon, they would have disassembled it to look for blood inside. They did not, and that should tell us something. Sollecito’s words cannot turn a very dubious murder weapon into a good one.

The knife WAS found to be compatible with some of the wounds; there was in addition another smaller knife that inflicted the fatal wound.
Police did not need to disassemble it to look for blood; where on earth did you get that?
RS lied when he said he had pricked Meredith while cooking at his apt; she of course had never been there.

All in all your arguments are easily punctured; what exctly are you trying to prove?

 

[loverofzion]

It is true she made no confession, I would describe it as more of a coerced depiction of a fantasy story. I disagree that they are not comparable, however. The police in some cases are after self-confessions, in other cases as well as this one, they wanted her to confess that someone else murdered Meredith and confess that she was a witness and managed to get her to buckle under the pressure and provide them with what they asked for. I don't see a big difference here between the process involved with the police interrogation.

So every criminal confession as the result of police coercion becomes a "coerced fantasy"?

The policemen present as well as the translator testified that she was never maltreated; was offered food and drink, and offerred up rhe confession at 1:45, after about two hours of questioning, which began as she was a witness.

 

[loverofzion]

You're probably right - the forensics are unequivocal, so the only question is whether he sexually molested Meredith before or after he cut her throat (or both).

Nonetheless the scenario I suggested is feasible; the sudden horror of the arterial spray all over the room and Guede, precipitating a brief, futile urge to try and un-do what he had done.

However, he probably realised fairly quickly that he DEFINITELY didn't want her to live, for obvious reasons.

At that point he simply continued to yield to the basest of compulsions (masturbating as he groped an unconscious or semi-conscious Meredith?).

It needs to be kept in mind that Guede is obviously not a 'cerebral' being, but an 'instinctual' one - he is not someone who "thinks things through".

Instinctual isn't the same as 'instinctive'. For example, anyone might instinctively use a knife on someone were they in mortal danger - self-preservation is a prerequisite for all sentient beings. Guede instinctually, with NO threat to his life, felt he had nothing to lose in hacking a young woman's throat open.

It needs to be understood - Guede wasn't inured to this viciousness by his life and environment, he wasn't raised in a benighted African war-zone, Somalia or somesuch hell-hole, he grew up in Italy. Circumstance, unfortunately, finally provided him with the opportunity to reveal his fundamental nature (of which he had already provided plenty of warnings) . He did what came naturally to him.

BTW, I'm sometimes aware that someone who was close to Meredith, not least her family, might read commentary like this, and it gives me no pleasure, I can tell you.

Unfortunately it's a neccessity. They can thank the reprobates who have worked so hard to bury the truth of the circumstances of her death, people possessed of an unfathomable, gratuitousness vindictiveness toward two completely innocent people.

Or rather, vindictiveness toward a lovely young European-American woman, someone who manifestly couldn't be less deserving of such malice (expediency dictating that her unfortunate Italian boyfriend be consigned to join her on her hayride-to-hell).

Actually, it ceased to be unfathomable to me a while back - I know EXACTLY what motivates the most vocal and 'pro-active' guilters (who in turn "inspire" legions of nit-witted hangers-on), what it is Amanda (allegedly) said or did to earn their undying hatred, and it has NOTHING to do with the death of Meredith Kercher. Politcal Correctness (and as a corrollory forum rules) precludes expanding any further (as if I haven't already well-and-truly crossed the line, LO-fricking-L).

Or maybe this "unfathomable gratuitous vindictiveness" is simply accepting a court of law, 19 judges and a nearly year long trial.

Flowery words don't sway men of law.
You'd best come up with some hard evidence excuplating this convicted murderer.

 

[RoseMontague]

So every criminal confession as the result of police coercion becomes a "coerced fantasy"?

The policemen present as well as the translator testified that she was never maltreated; was offered food and drink, and offerred up rhe confession at 1:45, after about two hours of questioning, which began as she was a witness.

Many thanks for confirming that you also feel her statement was coerced. If they coerced her (one tactic of coercion I linked to is lying) then they are probably lying about her treatment, in my opinion.

 

[Dan O.]

If one goes free, I believe all will go free. However, in Rudy's case I think they will reprosecute him or give him time served. Though he will get a change of venue if they prosecute him again.

I totally cannot understand this conclusion. There was ample evidence to convict Guede. Even if the prosecution was forced to give up a bloody fingerprint, a footprint and his DNA in MK's Vagina, it's likely that they could still successfully prosecute him. Under fasttrack, he probably got the best result he could get.

Who would ask for a new trial? To seek a new trial against Guede as a lone attacker, the prosecutor would have to admit that they were wrong in the first trials. I've seen very few instances of prosecutors admitting they were wrong, even after convictions are overturned by higher courts.

Rudy cannot seriously hope to get a better deal in a new trial. Even if Rudy were in fact innocent, he would have already squandered his credibility by falsely accusing Amanda and Raffaele. Nobody is going to believe his "bushy haired stranger did it" story now.

Actually his fingering of AK and RS only LENT credibility to the guy.

Loverofzion, these comments are in threads and the context of the threads is important to interpreting the comments. This particular thread was considering what would happen to Rudy if Amanda and Raffaele are found not guilty. In that case, the attempt to finger innocent people for the crime, especially when there is strong evidence that they could not have been there, can only hurt.

Incidentally, in response to your comment, Rudy's stories about Amanda and Raffaele's presence at the scene were always after the prosecution had already decided they were there. Rudy provided no new information that he couldn't have simply read in the news. This gives Rudy no credibility.

 

[RoseMontague]

From that study on false confessions: (pg 49)

For example, in the Robert Miller case, the
detective described the interrogation as follows:
Q. You told him you had an eye witness that saw him leaving Mrs. Cutler’s house and had in fact shown pictures—a picture lineup, one of which a picture was Robert, to this witness, and this witness identified Robert’s picture; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. And that was in fact not true.
A. That’s correct.
Q. You were stretching the truth, shall we say, to try to once again elicit information from him; is that right? That was one of your techniques.
A. Well, I don’t know if I could say elicit information. All I could gather—was trying to gather the truth at that point.
. . .
Q. Once again, you were telling him information hoping that he would throw his hands up and say, okay, you’ve got me, I did it. That was pretty much your plan; is that right?
A. Yes.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1589123_code492985.pdf?abstractid=1280254&mirid=1

 

[LondonJohn]

The lab that did the testing had never had an instance of contamination.
They were found to have rigorously followed standards of procedure.

Hahaha are you sure about the veracity of those two sentences??

 

[Mary_H]

The knife and Raffaele's remark

There is something in Raffaele's diary that helps explain the comment he made about the knife on November 18th. Here is what he wrote two days earlier:

Nov 16 2007
Last night I saw on television that the knife that I had at home (the one from the kitchen) has traces of Meredith and Amanda (latent) ... my heart jumped in my throat and I was in total panic because I thought that Amanda had killed Meredith or had helped someone in the enterprise. But today I saw Tiziano who calmed me down: he told me that the knife could not have been the murder weapon, according to the legal doctor, and has nothing to do with anything as Amanda could take it and and carry it from my house to her house because the girls didn't have knife so, they are making a smokescreen for nothing ... I live in a reality show nightmare, the 'nightmare reality show'. Unbelievable!

This is without a doubt where Raffaele got the idea that he may have cooked with the knife in Meredith's presence -- Tiziano told him it was possible Amanda had borrowed the knife and taken it to her house. It's interesting to speculate on whether Raffaele would have come up with the cooking scenario had Tiziano not offered him the possibility.

Apparently, Tiziano also explained that, from a legal standpoint, Meridith's DNA doesn't prove she was murdered with the knife; it proves only that she had been around it. Tiziano, like some of us, seems to have been idealistic about the logic of the law being followed. Just as Amanda's DNA on the knife doesn't put her at the murder scene, Tiziano expected that Meredith's DNA on the knife wouldn't put the knife at the murder scene, either.

Especially when he considered that "...the knife could not have been the murder weapon, according to the legal doctor..."

 

[LondonJohn]

This is amusing loverofzion. Maybe you missed my post about the prosecution footprint expert working from photographs without even looking at the actual evidence.

I will submit this exchange to the OED to place as an example under the definition of "irony"...

 

[LondonJohn]

The knife WAS found to be compatible with some of the wounds; there was in addition another smaller knife that inflicted the fatal wound.
Police did not need to disassemble it to look for blood; where on earth did you get that?
RS lied when he said he had pricked Meredith while cooking at his apt; she of course had never been there.

All in all your arguments are easily punctured; what exctly are you trying to prove?

The kitchen knife was merely compatible with the slashing wound to the neck. However, every non-serrated knife in the entire world is compatible with that wound. Including the non-serrated knife which made the deep puncture wounds to Meredith's neck.

 

[LondonJohn]

So every criminal confession as the result of police coercion becomes a "coerced fantasy"?

The policemen present as well as the translator testified that she was never maltreated; was offered food and drink, and offerred up rhe confession at 1:45, after about two hours of questioning, which began as she was a witness.

Ah, so the police and the interrogator (who is employed by the police and presumably has a good professional relationship with the police) say Knox was never maltreated, so she was never maltreated?

Can you perhaps see why the police and the interpreter would have a strong vested interest in saying that Knox was not maltreated - even if she was maltreated?

By your logic, every defendant who pleads "not guilty" in a trial should be automatically set free: they said they didn't do it, so they didn't do it

 

[LondonJohn]

Or maybe this "unfathomable gratuitous vindictiveness" is simply accepting a court of law, 19 judges and a nearly year long trial.

Flowery words don't sway men of law.
You'd best come up with some hard evidence excuplating this convicted murderer.

Can you stop referring to this "19 judges" nonsense please? 19 judges didn't judge Knox and Sollecito to be guilty of the crimes of which they were accused. Only two judges (and four "lay judges") came to that decision. All the other judges made rulings solely related to the arraignment and remand of Knox and Sollecito, where they had only to decide whether there was a prima facie case against the defendants. In other words, most of these "19 judges" were only ruling in essence whether there was a case to answer, and not whether Knox and Sollecito were actually guilty or not guilty.

Hope that make things a bit clearer for you, and that you can stop erroneously using the "19 judges" phrase in the future.

 

[Chris C]

She was photographed in the Holocaust museum with her laughinglyl holding a machine gun (okay you can't convict anyone for their lack of sensitivity and compassion) with a very large bag easily able to contain a kitchen knife.so there really is nothing funny about your exaggeration; more fodder for the nonsense pile again.

So i guess what your saying is that everyone that has laughed at the museum or taken pictures there hates Jews?

 

[Chris C]

The lab that did the testing had never had an instance of contamination.
They were found to have rigorously followed standards of procedure.

Because you dont keep contamination logs, doesn't mean there is no contamination.

 

[LondonJohn]

Or maybe this "unfathomable gratuitous vindictiveness" is simply accepting a court of law, 19 judges and a nearly year long trial.

Flowery words don't sway men of law.
You'd best come up with some hard evidence excuplating this convicted murderer.

Oh, and by the way, the justice system doesn't require defendants to produce exculpatory evidence. In case you were unaware, the burden of proof lies solely with the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants committed the crime with which they are charged.

And, incidentally, neither Knox nor Sollecito are yet formally convicted of these crimes. I thought you might know that too.

 

[LondonJohn]

Because you dont keep contamination logs, doesn't mean there is no contamination.

D'oh keep up Chris! They didn't need to keep contamination logs of course! It's best to keep these sorts of things anecdotal: they say there had never been any contamination, and a quick poll of the lab staff revealed no recollection of previous contamination...so there must have been no contamination!!

 

[Dan O.]

There is something in Raffaele's diary that helps explain the comment he made about the knife on November 18th.

This is without a doubt where Raffaele got the idea that he may have cooked with the knife in Meredith's presence -- Tiziano told him it was possible Amanda had borrowed the knife and taken it to her house. It's interesting to speculate on whether Raffaele would have come up with the cooking scenario had Tiziano not offered him the possibility.

Nice spotting Mary. I had always wondered why Raffaele used the phrase "in the house" when writing about the incident. This interpretetation makes it fit.

 

[Chris C]

The knife WAS found to be compatible with some of the wounds; there was in addition another smaller knife that inflicted the fatal wound.
Police did not need to disassemble it to look for blood; where on earth did you get that?
RS lied when he said he had pricked Meredith while cooking at his apt; she of course had never been there.

All in all your arguments are easily punctured; what exctly are you trying to prove?

The knife which you refer is not compatible with any of the wounds. Its possible it could have made ONE of the wounds on Merediths neck. Of course an axe, scalpel, pocket knife, smaller knife, piece of glass, or even a samurai sword could have made the same wound that you are referring to. So considering how many items could have made that wound I wouldn't call it compatible. However, it has been proven that its not compatible with the other 2 stab wounds.

 

[Chris C]

I totally cannot understand this conclusion. There was ample evidence to convict Guede. Even if the prosecution was forced to give up a bloody fingerprint, a footprint and his DNA in MK's Vagina, it's likely that they could still successfully prosecute him. Under fasttrack, he probably got the best result he could get.

Yes there is ample evidence to convict him as a lone attacker. However, he is convicted as part of a group crime, in which he plays a minor part. Remember, the prosecution claim that Knox killed Meredith. So if Knox's conviction gets overturned, Rudy's will get overturned. They have the option to retry him, if they wish.
Rudy has always stuck to the story that he was on the toilet. The prosecution used all the evidence to explain 3 people killed Meredith theory. So if the prosecutions theory in the Knox/Sollecito trial gets overturned, then the evidence has to be reevaulated in Rudy's case. Which would most likely lead to an overturn of his conviction. Then the prosecution could retry him as a sole attacker. Unless the Courts declared him not guilty of the murder because of Mignini's screwed up theory.

 

[LondonJohn]

Here's an interesting thing about the broken window:

In Hendry's analysis of the way in which the window was broken, he makes the insightful observation that the condition in which the window was found is incompatible with a single impact from a blunt object. In windows of this sort, the pane is held in position round the edges with tack nails and putty. This essentially adheres the glass to the frame all around the edge.

Consequently, when such a window is hit with a blunt object (e.g. a rock), the glass will break around the point of impact, but will typically remain in place around the edges, owing to the adhesion between the glass and the frame. However, in the case of Filomena's broken window, there is very little glass in place around the frame in the entire lower half of the window.

This therefore strongly implies that glass was manually removed (either pulled out or snapped off) all around the frame, after the initial rock impact. This is itself entirely consistent with an actual entry through this window, since the intruder would need to put his arm through the broken window to reach the latch, and it would therefore be logical for him to remove any jagged pieces of glass around the edges to avoid cuts or catching his clothing.

However, the obvious question is whether two scared, stoned stagers (ooh, I've caught Stint's alliteration bug!) would be so aware as to think through the staging to the extent that they removed the glass round the edges of the window? To me, it would take a significant amount of thought on behalf of potential stagers to realise that an actual intruder would have likely needed to perform this step. Given that we can assume that neither Knox nor Sollecito had any real-word experience of breaking and entering, I find it hard to see how this level of detail would have come to mind to them if they had indeed staged the break-in...