Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Machiavelli]

I can see from this that you haven't read the appeals. You are not required to do so of course, but it would make it easier to understand where some of the arguments are coming from.

I've read the appeals - I don't paste the text of the chapter in Italian in this post but I can do it if anyone requests it - but what I read and understand is different from what you say.
I understand from the appeals (also confirmed from the direct analysis of Nara's verbatim answers) the same of what the judges understand: Nara is just making mistakes about the day. She is associating some things she on nov. 2 with things she saw and did later (on nov 3.). This check becomes evident when she is requested to describe the newspaper titles of the day when she was told of the murder. Nara overlaps memories in the time order, but doesn't invent anything nor fantasize at all. If you get the mechanism of date confusion everything makes sense and fits. The defence attorneys claim this demonstrates "the witness is not credible", but this is just their dismissive conclusion, they are paid for this.

About other data, there is no difference in the description made by Monacchia except the (anyway relevant) difference regarding the sound of steps on metal stairs quite close to Antonella's window.

The reasoning in Sollecito's appeal is based on the assumtpion that Nara's witness report is intrinsically not credible. Only starting from this view then other elements and further investigations are requeted to "confirm" their idea.

 

[Withnail1969]

I've read the appeals - I don't paste the text of the chapter in Italian in this post but I can do it if anyone requests it - but what I read and understand is different from what you say.
I understand from the appeals (also confirmed from the direct analysis of Nara's verbatim answers) the same of what the judges understand: Nara is just making mistakes about the day. She is associating some things she on nov. 2 with things she saw and did later (on nov 3.). This check becomes evident when she is requested to describe the newspaper titles of the day when she was told of the murder. Nara overlaps memories in the time order, but doesn't invent anything nor fantasize at all. If you get the mechanism of date confusion everything makes sense and fits. The defence attorneys claim this demonstrates "the witness is not credible", but this is just their dismissive conclusion, they are paid for this.

About other data, there is no difference in the description made by Monacchia except the (anyway relevant) difference regarding the sound of steps on metal stairs quite close to Antonella's window.

The reasoning in Sollecito's appeal is based on the assumtpion that Nara's witness report is intrinsically not credible. Only starting from this view then other elements and further investigations are requeted to "confirm" their idea.

None of the witnesses are credible. Whether or not Amanda and Raffaele did it, the witness testimonies are laughable junk.

 

[Mary_H]

Maybe she didnt know his name? Maybe she was embarrased to put "some strange guy on a train"? Also, how do you know one of the names wasn't his?

Argument-wise, Solange, you do a darn good job of holding your own against your challengers. I give you points for 1.) at least offering reasonable arguments, which a lot of guilters don't do, 2.) not getting discouraged, and 3.) having a sense of humor.

I also thought LondonJohn was making a personal remark about colonelhall, because even though I was alive in 1975, I never watched Fawlty Towers.

All that said, you wrote that Amanda, not the media, made her look like a "loose woman." The question is, why did the prosecution go to extraordinary lengths, e.g., the false HIV test, to get Amanda's sex life into the media?

 

[Machiavelli]

None of the witnesses are credible. Whether or not Amanda and Raffaele did it, the witness testimonies are laughable junk.

To be saying that, I assume you were present to hear the entire testimonies in the original language and the cross questioning by all parties and court judges. Did you listen to it all? For all witnesses?

 

[Machiavelli]

All that said, you wrote that Amanda, not the media, made her look like a "loose woman." The question is, why did the prosecution go to extraordinary lengths, e.g., the false HIV test, to get Amanda's sex life into the media?

That didn't happen at all.
It's one of your myths.

 

[tronic]

The scratch on Knox's neck.

How does this forum think the scratch on the neck of Amanda Knox shown in photographs, made firstly outside the house the morning after the crime and secondly by Perugia police when she was arrested 6 days later got there?

Laura Mezzetti stated to the court (excerpted from the Telegraph):

"Amanda had a wound to her neck and I noticed it because it was known that Meredith had been killed by a wound to her neck," Miss Mezzetti said. Miss Knox's lawyer suggested the mark may have been a love bite - or, as her father said "probably a hickey". But Miss Mezzetti disputed that, saying a love bite would have been "purple and more round".

She first noticed the mark at the police station in Perugia the morning after the murder when she and Miss Knox were waiting to be questioned. She said it had not been there the day before."

Forum says I am not allowed to post URLs or images until I have made 15 posts. If you go the "Perugia Murder File" discussion you will see the photos. I posted them at 8.35pm GMT. Clearly a scratch.

 

[RoseMontague]

Perhaps you could copy the entire story, or at least copy the ongoing explanatory information from Michael?

Anybody interested can comment here if they want and/or continue to follow the discussion elsewhere. I have a lot of respect for some of the posts and posters at this particular website and although I do think this particular post is a stretch, it is at least an attempt to answer the problem brought forward with the appeals in regard to Quintavalle's testimony and I believe it is worth taking a critical look at. The only responses other than this that I have seen is just a general denial that Quintavalle's testimony was contradicted or the standard "court considered his testimony reliable" response.

In essence, thoughtful has presented a new theory about this, if nothing else.

ETA,,,,
I will comment on the ongoing explanatory mentioned above. This theory is that Massei has information that we don't know and that is not included in the report to doubt the police inspector's testimony. This theory is beyond a mere stretch and has extended into the cart-wheel stage.

 

[quadraginta]

i don't need to. we're not discussing American law. i simply said that in some jurisdictions Nara's actions could be interpreted as criminal, which in the US they arguably were, given the federal law you quoted, regardless of whether it is currently enforced or not.

"In some jurisdictions" it is still illegal to wear heels which are too high or too narrow. "In some jurisdictions" it is still illegal for unmarried couples to co-habitate. "In some jurisdictions" it is still illegal to do quite a few things. I could go on for a long time.

The Fed law concerning misprision of felony first started getting it's teeth pulled by the SCOTUS back in 1822. State laws, where they might still be on the books, haven't fared very well since then, either.

You had a point to make when you posted the comment you did about the woman's exposure to liability in the U.S. for not promptly reporting the scream she heard, and I don't believe that the point was that there remain a handful of obscure statutes which have been ignored for a century or so that she might have been guilty of transgressing had she been in the U.S.

Or did I misunderstand your intent?

 

[LondonJohn]

How does this forum think the scratch on the neck of Amanda Knox shown in photographs, made firstly outside the house the morning after the crime and secondly by Perugia police when she was arrested 6 days later got there?

Laura Mezzetti stated to the court (excerpted from the Telegraph):

"Amanda had a wound to her neck and I noticed it because it was known that Meredith had been killed by a wound to her neck," Miss Mezzetti said. Miss Knox's lawyer suggested the mark may have been a love bite - or, as her father said "probably a hickey". But Miss Mezzetti disputed that, saying a love bite would have been "purple and more round".

She first noticed the mark at the police station in Perugia the morning after the murder when she and Miss Knox were waiting to be questioned. She said it had not been there the day before."

Forum says I am not allowed to post URLs or images until I have made 15 posts. If you go the "Perugia Murder File" discussion you will see the photos. I posted them at 8.35pm GMT. Clearly a scratch.

"Clearly a scratch"? If it is a scratch, the skin would have been broken, and there would be a visible scar some five days after the alleged scratch was made. Where is the scar in the police photograph of Knox's neck? I see only a red mark which doesn't follow a straight line. I would wager that nearly all scratches of this length and provenance are straight, since they are usually caused by a rapid straight-line movement of whatever causes the scratch (here, presumably, Meredith's fingernails).

And why didn't the police and prosecution - having seen and photographed the mark - add it to their case against Knox at trial?

 

[LondonJohn]

"In some jurisdictions" it is still illegal to wear heels which are too high or too narrow. "In some jurisdictions" it is still illegal for unmarried couples to co-habitate. "In some jurisdictions" it is still illegal to do quite a few things. I could go on for a long time.

The Fed law concerning misprision of felony first started getting it's teeth pulled by the SCOTUS back in 1822. State laws, where they might still be on the books, haven't fared very well since then, either.

You had a point to make when you posted the comment you did about the woman's exposure to liability in the U.S. for not promptly reporting the scream she heard, and I don't believe that the point was that there remain a handful of obscure statutes which have been ignored for a century or so that she might have been guilty of transgressing had she been in the U.S.

Or did I misunderstand your intent?

Either way, it's irrelevant to how Capezzali's testimony relates to this case. Why do you think she appeared on Italian television to tell her story, rather than go to the police?

 

[LondonJohn]

Anybody interested can comment here if they want and/or continue to follow the discussion elsewhere. I have a lot of respect for some of the posts and posters at this particular website and although I do think this particular post is a stretch, it is at least an attempt to answer the problem brought forward with the appeals in regard to Quintavalle's testimony and I believe it is worth taking a critical look at. The only responses other than this that I have seen is just a general denial that Quintavalle's testimony was contradicted or the standard "court considered his testimony reliable" response.

In essence, thoughtful has presented a new theory about this, if nothing else.

ETA,,,,
I will comment on the ongoing explanatory mentioned above. This theory is that Massei has information that we don't know and that is not included in the report to doubt the police inspector's testimony. This theory is beyond a mere stretch and has extended into the cart-wheel stage.

The reaction to this original post is certainly well worth reading......

 

[Solange305]

I happen to agree with you that it would be unlikely that anyone would be prosecuted for hearing a scream - even a "scream of death" - anywhere in the US or Europe. But since this is merely a discussion on a hypothetical point which actually has practically no relevance to the case, I'm surprised you've chosen this to focus in on.

The same reason you choose to choose to call Nara "fragrant" or point out where Michael gets his pictures from. In short, who knows?

Instead, why do you think that Nara Capezzali didn't report this "scream of death" to the police at ANY point, preferring instead to recount her story in an Italian TV interview?

I don't know the circumstances, did the police question her before the media, and she just didn't bring it up? I agree that it would have been better had she gone straight to the police, but I don't think it's proof that she is making it up or mistaken.

 

[tronic]

"Clearly a scratch"? If it is a scratch, the skin would have been broken, and there would be a visible scar some five days after the alleged scratch was made.

In the first photograph the skin was probably broken - the scratch you can only see from a distance. In the second photograph (6 days later) you can see that it is the scratch photographed in the first photograph. You can also see that it has healed. Would you say that it's a "hickey" a bruise or what? Would it still be as visible 6 days later? It is the wrong shape or location for a "hickey". It is not a hickey. It is a scratch which was inflicted when Meredith Kercher fought for her life. It is in exactly the place it would be if it was inflicted in warding of an attacker (Knox).

Where is the scar in the police photograph of Knox's neck? I see only a red mark which doesn't follow a straight line.

That photograph was made SIX DAYS LATER. It is linear - vertically on the left hand side of her adams apple. In the place where it was photographed (darker) 6 days before.

I would wager that nearly all scratches of this length and provenance are straight, since they are usually caused by a rapid straight-line movement of whatever causes the scratch (here, presumably, Meredith's fingernails).

Yes. That's what caused it.

And why didn't the police and prosecution - having seen and photographed the mark - add it to their case against Knox at trial?

Because there was so much more overwhelming evidence of greater use (the use of Occams razor).

 

[LondonJohn]

That didn't happen at all.
It's one of your myths.

Did the defence leak the bogus HIV-positive result and the list of previous lovers then?

Or, if that's not what you meant, what are you suggesting didn't happen? That Knox didn't get tested for HIV? That she didn't get told (incorrectly and without basic medical/ethical guidelines) that she was HIV-positive? That she didn't get told (apparently without any counselling) to write down the names of all her previous sexual partners, together with whether condoms were used? That she didn't write such a list? That the list didn't include seven partners in total, of whom three were from her time in Italy? That the list found its way into the Italian media?

 

[RoseMontague]

I've read the appeals - I don't paste the text of the chapter in Italian in this post but I can do it if anyone requests it - but what I read and understand is different from what you say.
I understand from the appeals (also confirmed from the direct analysis of Nara's verbatim answers) the same of what the judges understand: Nara is just making mistakes about the day. She is associating some things she on nov. 2 with things she saw and did later (on nov 3.). This check becomes evident when she is requested to describe the newspaper titles of the day when she was told of the murder. Nara overlaps memories in the time order, but doesn't invent anything nor fantasize at all. If you get the mechanism of date confusion everything makes sense and fits. The defence attorneys claim this demonstrates "the witness is not credible", but this is just their dismissive conclusion, they are paid for this.

About other data, there is no difference in the description made by Monacchia except the (anyway relevant) difference regarding the sound of steps on metal stairs quite close to Antonella's window.

The reasoning in Sollecito's appeal is based on the assumtpion that Nara's witness report is intrinsically not credible. Only starting from this view then other elements and further investigations are requeted to "confirm" their idea.

Yes, I agree she is confused on the date and times or maybe has the right time for a different day. Yet both date and time are crucial to her testimony. If she has confused this in her memory, I would at the very least, view her testimony with doubt.

 

[quadraginta]

Either way, it's irrelevant to how Capezzali's testimony relates to this case. Why do you think she appeared on Italian television to tell her story, rather than go to the police?

Beats the heck out of me. How is that relevant to her alleged culpability under rare, unenforced, and unenforceable U.S. laws?

Withnail1969 apparently had some purpose in offering that comment on the subject. Are you going to help explain what that purpose was?

 

[Solange305]

Argument-wise, Solange, you do a darn good job of holding your own against your challengers. I give you points for 1.) at least offering reasonable arguments, which a lot of guilters don't do, 2.) not getting discouraged, and 3.) having a sense of humor.

I also thought LondonJohn was making a personal remark about colonelhall, because even though I was alive in 1975, I never watched Fawlty Towers.

All that said, you wrote that Amanda, not the media, made her look like a "loose woman." The question is, why did the prosecution go to extraordinary lengths, e.g., the false HIV test, to get Amanda's sex life into the media?

Thank you Mary, that means a lot to me, I do appreciate it. I am the last person you will find defending the media, especially with the quality of media over here in the U.S., and I'm not going to necessarily defend the Italian media as a whole in regards to this case. As usual with high profile cases, things get sensationalized and the focus is more on what sells than getting the truth across.

However, I was under the impression that the H.I.V test was a mistake, not something done purposely. I can sympathize on how hard that must be to think for a week or longer that you are H.I.V. positive, only to later find out it was incorrect, and how embarrassing it must have been to have that leaked to the public. But again, I am not convinced that it was done purposely by the prosecution or the police.

 

[Danceme]

Did someone do that?

There was once much discussion concerning Sophie not walking Meredith all the way home, thereby attributing some blame to her for what happened to Meredith. I'm sure it all stemmed from a single poster or two and a lot of it happened on Perugia Shock, but it was just as inane.

 

[LondonJohn]

In the first photograph the skin was probably broken - the scratch you can only see from a distance. In the second photograph (6 days later) you can see that it is the scratch photographed in the first photograph. You can also see that it has healed. Would you say that it's a "hickey" a bruise or what? Would it still be as visible 6 days later? It is the wrong shape or location for a "hickey". It is not a hickey. It is a scratch which was inflicted when Meredith Kercher fought for her life. It is in exactly the place it would be if it was inflicted in warding of an attacker (Knox).

Was Knox not photographed on the 6th November, less than five full days after the evening of the 1st November? And surely you've bruised yourself before - blood contusions can easily remain for well over a week before the dead blood cells get reabsorbed from beneath the skin.

That photograph was made SIX DAYS LATER. It is linear - vertically on the left hand side of her adams apple. In the place where it was photographed (darker) 6 days before.

You think that's a straight line?? And where is the scar from the broken skin?

Yes. That's what caused it.

That's an impressive level of certainty....

Because there was so much more overwhelming evidence of greater use (the use of Occams razor).

Maybe it was Occam's Razor that cut Knox's neck.......

 

[LondonJohn]

Thank you Mary, that means a lot to me, I do appreciate it. I am the last person you will find defending the media, especially with the quality of media over here in the U.S., and I'm not going to necessarily defend the Italian media as a whole in regards to this case. As usual with high profile cases, things get sensationalized and the focus is more on what sells than getting the truth across.

However, I was under the impression that the H.I.V test was a mistake, not something done purposely. I can sympathize on how hard that must be to think for a week or longer that you are H.I.V. positive, only to later find out it was incorrect, and how embarrassing it must have been to have that leaked to the public. But again, I am not convinced that it was done purposely by the prosecution or the police.

But someone leaked it though. Who, how, and why?

By the way, I appreciated your last post regarding the whole "personal attacks" thing. Thanks. I still think that you unfairly homed in on me for some reason, and I don't like being portrayed as someone who likes to launch gratuitous personal attacks on other people. I will, however, continue to vehemently attack all arguments with which I disagree, in the spirit of good debate.