• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

Status
Not open for further replies.
How did Fiorenza Sarzanini access the investigation file? Was it left laying around for anybody to look at it? Who gave her access?
 
Machiavelli said:
Who is the person who "allows"? There is only one person who wrote of this story, Amanda on her diary.
Then, Fiorenza Sarzanini accessed the investigation file and published her diary.
Click to expand...


You seem to have left out the bit about the diary getting into the investigation file.
 
Machiavelli said:
This is precisely what was done, as Amanda herself says. Nobody told her she was "HIV-positive" as far as what she reports. She was told that she had to do a second kind of test because the first was positive.




It is not possible to keep a test result undiclosed to the patient by the Italian law, whatever the test is.
I don't know if you are clinging entirely on "consuelling". You must understand that a public health counsel session may last six minutes.
If you want to assert that something was done wrongly, its you who have to bring documentation. As far as things are known there is no reason to assume nothing less then regular took place.



Who is the person who "allows"? There is only one person who wrote of this story, Amanda on her diary.
Then, Fiorenza Sarzanini accessed the investigation file and published her diary.



Oh well if John, Martin and Barbie say that ("an investigator" - anonymous), you can take it as a proof, can't you? Aren't you a scientist?

One person published Amanda's text, this person is Fiorenza Sarzanini. She - with shared responsabilito of her newspaper - is the only person who made the diary page public, the only who may have committed a kind of violation.
Click to expand...

Here's the piece from John Hooper in The Guardian newspaper (a national UK newspaper regarded to be at the high-value end of the UK newspaper market):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/04/two-faces-of-amanda-knox

Here's what Hooper says in the article about Knox's HIV test, the communication of the result, and the list of previous partners:

"Knox was told in prison she was HIV-positive and asked to write a list of her lovers. Before she was told that a mistake had been made, the list was passed to investigators, one of whom passed it to a journalist."

Your contention, presumably, is that Hooper either made this part up wholesale, or - at best - incorrectly embellished the facts. If so, you should contact the medical authorities at the prison, and the investigation team, since both groups of people appear to have been quite seriously libelled in this newspaper article. The Guardian isn't in rude financial health, but I'm sure that a substantial financial settlement would be on the cards. Good luck with that.
 
Last edited:
Paglieri's interview with Mignini

Machiavelli said:
This is precisely what was done, as Amanda herself says. Nobody told her she was "HIV-positive" as far as what she reports. She was told that she had to do a second kind of test because the first was positive.




It is not possible to keep a test result undiclosed to the patient by the Italian law, whatever the test is.
I don't know if you are clinging entirely on "consuelling". You must understand that a public health counsel session may last six minutes.
If you want to assert that something was done wrongly, its you who have to bring documentation. As far as things are known there is no reason to assume nothing less then regular took place.



Who is the person who "allows"? There is only one person who wrote of this story, Amanda on her diary.
Then, Fiorenza Sarzanini accessed the investigation file and published her diary.



Oh well if John, Martin and Barbie say that ("an investigator" - anonymous), you can take it as a proof, can't you? Aren't you a scientist?

One person published Amanda's text, this person is Fiorenza Sarzanini. She - with shared responsabilito of her newspaper - is the only person who made the diary page public, the only who may have committed a kind of violation.
Click to expand...

Machiavelli,

To counsel means to explain to a patient certain facts. These include but are not limited to the need for a second test and the difference between being HIV positive and having the disease AIDS.

You scoff at three reporters without offering any citations to the contrary. You assert without proof that Amanda was counseled. You say that no one told her that she was HIV-positive. Your view is in conflict with that of Claudio Paglieri. Note that he says that Amanda was told that she was HIV-positive, and PM Mignini does not contradict this. This inteview is reported at both Sciencespheres and True Justice for Meredith.

Paglieri: “And let us speak of the ‘HIV.’ Amanda, while in prison was told that she was HIV positive and she was asked to make a list of her former lovers to warn them of the danger. Then she discovered that it was a "false positive" and became suspect that it was a trick.”

PM Mignini: "I did not ask anything of the kind of Amanda. We always have the utmost respect for suspects. Why should I?"

Paglieri: “Why then, was the list all over the press which helped to create a negative image of the girl as an "easy" woman?”

PM Mignini: "Nobody has created an image of Amanda as an "easy" girl. Why would I need to?"

PM Mignini denies himself asking for the list, but he does address whether or not someone else did. You have yet to explain how the list came to be all over the press unless someone leaked it. You remind me of PM Mignini.
 
Last edited:
halides1 said:
Machiavelli,

To counsel means to explain to a patient certain facts. These include but are not limited to the need for a second test and the difference between being HIV positive and having the disease AIDS.

You scoff at three reporters without offering any citations to the contrary. You assert without proof that Amanda was counseled. You say that no one told her that she was HIV-positive. Your view is in conflict with that of Claudio Paglieri. Note that he says that Amanda was told that she was HIV-positive, and PM Mignini does not contradict this. This inteview is reported at both Sciencesphere and True Justice for Meredith.
http://www.sciencespheres.com/2010/03/amanda-knox-winner-of-media-lottery_24.html
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php...oug_preston_looking_increasingly_incompetent/

Paglieri: “And let us speak of the ‘HIV.’ Amanda, while in prison was told that she was HIV positive and she was asked to make a list of her former lovers to warn them of the danger. Then she discovered that it was a "false positive" and became suspect that it was a trick.”

PM Mignini: "I did not ask anything of the kind of Amanda. We always have the utmost respect for suspects. Why should I?"

Paglieri: “Why then, was the list all over the press which helped to create a negative image of the girl as an "easy" woman?”

PM Mignini: "Nobody has created an image of Amanda as an "easy" girl. Why would I need to?"

PM Mignini denies himself asking for the list, but he does address whether or not someone else did. You have yet to explain how the list came to be all over the press unless someone leaked it. You remind me of PM Mignini.
Click to expand...

Machiavelli does seem to express astounding - and impressive - levels of certainty over many of the issues around this HIV test, its communication to Knox, and what she may or may not have been asked to do. Here's an example of Machiavelli's cast-iron certainty regarding the list of previous partners, from a little further up the thread:

"Certainly Knox was not asked to write down and give them names and information about those people, because it makes no sense in the medical practice."

"Certainly" eh? Machiavelli is clearly either incredibly close to the case, to the extent of knowing an inside story on what went on in the prison over this period, or......well, the other option is best left unmentioned. I prefer to believe that Machiavelli has privileged information. If so, I hope that he/she will enlighten us further with first-hand knowledge about the case.
 
You assert without proof that Amanda was counseled.
Click to expand...

No I assert something precise: there is nothing irregular.
No proof of antyhing irregular, of any violation of the rules. No clue of anything irregular, no claim.
Nothing.
Only FOA's assertions, which change and contradict at every post.
 
Machiavelli said:
No I assert something precise: there is nothing irregular.
No proof of antyhing irregular, of any violation of the rules. No clue of anything irregular, no claim.
Nothing.
Only FOA's assertions, which change and contradict at every post.
Click to expand...

Nice rebuttal!

PS I'm not "FOA". I'm "FOJ".
 
PM Mignini denies himself asking for the list, but he does address whether or not someone else did. You have yet to explain how the list came to be all over the press unless someone leaked it. You remind me of PM Mignini.
Click to expand...

But I am glad to remind you Mignini. Nobody is going to explain how Amanda's diary came to the press, because nobody is supposed to know nor to explain this, moreover this is not your buisness nor mine nor nobody's buisness, and I have no interst in it. I have made quite clear that in the Italian system the sized diary is an unprotected piece of evidence. Nobody will make it safe just to make a favour to Amanda. There is no protection. The diary is not secret. Delivering the trial file to somebody is no violation per se. An investigation file may be secret only for a limited period of time. Even the clerk at a judge's office could have leaked it: clerks always leak documents to journalists from trial files.
 
I don't know why everybody forgets that the diary with the investigation file was delivered in seven copies to seven different parties. Each of them is free to make other copies and deliver it to single individuals. Why Lumumba shouldn't have given it to Fiorenza Sarzanini? Or even Sollecito's defence? Or Maresca. Or the pre-trial office. Anybody could have granted access to the file to third paties.
 
Among detectives and lawyers and clerks, Mignini is simply the less likely "suspect" for "leaking" the file - albeit "leaking" the file wouldn't be a crime - at least for a reason: he has the lesser interest in doing so. Simply because if he wanted to make it public and use it in the investigation or in the pre-trial, he could have done it, because he has the legal power to do it, with no need to "leak" it. He could have then also used it in the courtroom, when it was the moment to do so to influence the judges as you like to think, and he didn't. If he doesn't use it right when its supposed to have effect, this is also quite a clue that this diary has no effect in convincing people of anything and is not working as evidence.
All that you say on this point is simply not logical. There is nothing consistent in this whole idea.
 
"Certainly" eh? Machiavelli is clearly either incredibly close to the case, to the extent of knowing an inside story on what went on in the prison over this period, or......well, the other option is best left unmentioned.
Click to expand...

Yes, certainly because there is no reason to think otherwise.
You have a burden of proof or at least of some evidence or some clue if you assert otherwise.
This would be in fact a deontology related issue. Doctors in the public health care do not ask contact information of third people, they do not contact people who are not their patients on agreement, and even less they tell somebody over a medical issue regarding another person.
And there is no clue anything this kind ever happened.
Moreover, there is not even a claim by Amanda that anything of this ever happened.
There is only a castle on dreamy clouds built by Amanda's support bloggers.
 
Didn't Amanda herself suspect that the police were lying to her about the HIV test, or that it was a trick? I seem to remember reading that in her prison diary, but on TJMK I was only able to find one page of it. If she did, it would be interesting to know what led her to think that.

Either way, it's pretty clear firstly that the whole thing was pretty ineptly handled, even if genuine, and that it wasn't explained properly that there was a strong chance the result was a mistake and that a second test would be negative. It doesn't sound as if she was counselled, nor that the implications of the test were explained to her in any depth.

But the leaking of her list of sexual partners and methods of contraception to the press makes it seem as if there was more to it than just incompetence. That's a pretty shocking breach of privacy, and I highly doubt Amanda's lawyers, relatives or friends were responsible for it. At best, it looks as if the police and prosecution took advantage of a false positive HIV test to scare Amanda into providing a list of sexual partners, hoping perhaps that Rudy Guede would be amongst them; when that turned out not to be the case, they leaked the list to the press anyway because it helped feed the image of Amanda as sexually promiscuous (especially given the false information she had slept with seven men in two months, not seven men total). And as everyone knows, sexually promiscuous women are much more likely to be immoral generally, and at worst homicidal maniacs (unlike promiscuous men, in whom it's just a sign of virility and manliness).

The prosecution narrative depended on Amanda's image as this sexually voracious woman, entangling the two men in her 'erotic coils', to quote someone or other in one of the TV docos on the case. Mignini certainly played that aspect up during his closing, describing the conversation he imagines Amanda having with Meredith in which she calls her "prissy" and says "now we will make you have sex". I think he was able to do that at least partly based on the image of Amanda which had been created in the press even before the trial started, based on just such details as this, and of course playing into the classic Madonna/whore stereotypes.

So yes, it's possible it's simply a case of incompetence or ineptness in the way Amanda was told she might have HIV, and the fact that details of her sexual partners and contraception were later leaked to the press - contributing to the sexually promiscuous/immoral image the prosecution relied upon in the trial - was just an unfortunate coincidence. But I think people might be forgiven for thinking otherwise.
 
Last edited:
Machiavelli said:
Among detectives and lawyers and clerks, Mignini is simply the less likely "suspect" for "leaking" the file - albeit "leaking" the file wouldn't be a crime - at least for a reason: he has the lesser interest in doing so. Simply because if he wanted to make it public and use it in the investigation or in the pre-trial, he could have done it, because he has the legal power to do it, with no need to "leak" it. He could have then also used it in the courtroom, when it was the moment to do so to influence the judges as you like to think, and he didn't. If he doesn't use it right when its supposed to have effect, this is also quite a clue that this diary has no effect in convincing people of anything and is not working as evidence.
All that you say on this point is simply not logical. There is nothing consistent in this whole idea.
Click to expand...

Well, no, because the idea that sexually active women are more likely to be homicidal maniacs isn't strictly speaking a logical one. It's not a fact that could be produced as evidence, it's a popular prejudice. So it could be far more effectively used to sway a press and public before the trial started (especially since, for the press, it served the dual purpose of titillation, sex plus murder selling papers) than it could have been had it been introduced as a serious piece of evidence.

I think you misunderestimate Mignini if you think he doesn't understand the importance of pre-trial publicity.
 
Last edited:
So yes, it's possible it's simply a case of incompetence or ineptness in the way Amanda was told she might have HIV, and the fact that details of her sexual partners and contraception were later leaked to the press - contributing to the sexually promiscuous/immoral image the prosecution relied upon in the trial - was just an unfortunate coincidence. But I think people might be forgiven for thinking otherwise.
Click to expand...

Yes but there is something to which people who think otherwise apparently don't give weight at all, it is about a step that you seem you forget when you make your description.
What was leaked and what the press published isn't exactly "medical info" about Amanda. It is a diary. It is what she tells about it, it is a story she tells. We don't even know if her list is true. Her diary is also something that, by definition, the Italian public would perceive as her personal self-description targeted to the media, her PR operation, not something really truthful and personal. The Italian judicial system would consider her diary as statements and declarations, not as something personal and sincere. And there is probably nothing that can be seen as specifically "immoral" in her description of herself in her diary, except the fact she never expresses pain for Meredith's death.
But the fact is that the "leaked" and published material is her diary about the case, not her medical information. It is a story she tells, her own description. It is not that somebody published her medical documents, nor spoke about her sexual life. Somebody published her writings. You don't give weight to this step in the middle. Something produced by her under her own control, while she even had the status of a public person, a writing just expressing image of her including details of her choice.
 
Well, no, because the idea that sexually active women are more likely to be homicidal maniacs isn't strictly speaking a logical one. It's not a fact that could be produced as evidence, it's a popular prejudice. So it could be far more effectively used to sway a press and public before the trial started
Click to expand...

But you don't seem to consider there is no utility, for a prosecutor, in swaying the public before a trial starts. The prosecutor doesn't need to convince anybody before the trial starts. The press has to make buisness with the public, not the prosecution.
Moreover, what woman is not sexually active?
Within a negative public image of Amanda, while it is a fact that Mignini never mentioned her her sexual life under a moral profile, you seem to underestimate completely the reason for her negative public image: her lies. And her false accusations.
Italians voted porno-actresses and prostitutes in their parliment and in general they can't care less of Amanda's sex life. But they could hang sombody for writing a note to the police with written on "I remember I saw some blood on Raffaele's hands, but maybe it was fish blood".
 
Machiavelli said:
But you don't seem to consider there is no utility, for a prosecutor, in swaying the public before a trial starts. The prosecutor doesn't need to convince anybody before the trial starts. The press has to make buisness with the public, not the prosecution.
Moreover, what woman is not sexually active?
Within a negative public image of Amanda, while it is a fact that Mignini never mentioned her her sexual life under a moral profile, you seem to underestimate completely the reason for her negative public image: her lies. And her false accusations.
Italians voted porno-actresses and prostitutes in their parliment and in general they can't care less of Amanda's sex life. But they could hang sombody for writing a note to the police with written on "I remember I saw some blood on Raffaele's hands, but maybe it was fish blood".
Click to expand...

This isn't very interesting. Are you going to talk about the actual evidence for Amanda and Raffaele's guilt at some point?
 
That's not what "certainly" means.
Click to expand...

Certainity can have different meanings, some subjective and some objective.
I am not objectively certain that extra-terrstrial units didn't land in the Area 51 perimeter, but I have no valid reason to think they did.
With respect to this context, the degree of "certainity" (the word cerainly was chosen by LondonJohn and not by me) is sufficient to make an argument.
 
It's not a fact that could be produced as evidence, it's a popular prejudice.
Click to expand...

Any charachterial information can be used in court as evidence. If something is not used, it's only because it doesn't work.
 
Machiavelli, thank you for the interesting discourse ;) I, for one, really enjoy your pragmatic approach.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom