Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Machiavelli]

No one has indicated a sound medical reason for saying anything at all to Amanda before the follow-up test was done.

So your argument is that the doctor should have kept her unaware of the result of a blood test.
Please. Chris get over it and get on something else.

 

[Tricky]

A few posts that wouldn't have made it through moderation have been sent to AAH. We still are keeping a tight rein on civility in this thread, even though it is not set to "moderated" status.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Tricky

 

[Machiavelli]

Nobody who believes Knox to be non-culpable in the murder has to prove where she was at 21.00. In contrast, it's up to the prosecution to prove that she was participating in a pre-amble to murder at that time.

Anyone who believes something can be requested to prove it. If you say you doubt Amanda took part in a preamble of sort at 21:00, you don't have to prove facts to support your doubt. But if you say you believe something for certain, and use it as a logical assumption to make an argument, obviously you need a proof.

 

[Malkmus]

It obviously was a scare tactic, as they thought she was involved in some sort of threesome that night and wanted her to name the third aggressor as someone she could have gotten AIDS from.

Otherwise why was the following any concern of theirs, or relevant to the case?

they advised me to think about where I might have caught it, so they wanted me to really think about it. So I was writing in my diary about how astonished I was, and then I wrote down every partner that I had ever had in my life.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

specifics please

"When you make future responses, would you please include either facts or an argument of some sort? Merely stating that something "doesn't wash" or someone is beginning to look foolish does not advance the discussion."

Your arguments don't wash with me, because they have already been fully discredit by the likes of fulcanelli, Quadraginta, Fiona and the rest. All you lot are left doing is running around with your mole-whackers until you exhaust yourselves. Is there no health and safety officer on this site?

Colonelhall,

I had to correct Fulcanelli multiple times on the meaning of the word noise with respect to spectroscopic experiments. Fulcanelli and BobTheDonkey repeatedly tried to argue that it was possible to deduce whether DNA was deposited by primary or secondary transfer solely by how much DNA was found. I found literature that indicated some of the problems with this argument that went unchallenged by literature suggesting otherwise. Fiona claimed misleadingly that Jason Gilder was a computer scientist, even after I quoted portions of the third chapter of his Ph.D. thesis, which demonstrated his expertise in the area of forensic DNA degradation and his coauthorship of papers in the area of DNA profiling. She also implied that Dr. Stefanoni had an international reputation in DNA forensics on the basis of identifying bodies in a foreign country. She seemed too be unaware that a reputation is earned by engaging in original research. Fiona also dismissed a textbook discussion on the necessity of setting peak threshold values before starting a DNA profiling experiment, on the dubious basis that the quote came from an introductory textbook.

Only one of the three commenters above would even cite the primary literature. Show me some of my arguments that they discredited successfully (at least in your mind), and I will respond to them as I have on many previous occasions, with citations from textbooks and primary literature or with quotes from experts whom I have repeatedly contacted. Based on my comments above however, I would say that it was their arguments that were actually discredited, unless you would like to reopen these issues.

 

[quadraginta]

LJ says ...

In relation to this whole HIV issue, I'd argue that the best possible interpretation of the situation - as far as the medical professionals are concerned - is as follows:

1) They properly obtained Knox's permission to perform an HIV test;
2) They conducted ELISA and Western Blot tests;
3) The ELISA test somehow came back with a false positive;
4) They informed Knox expeditiously of her positive ELISA result, but counselled her that if the ELISA test comes back positive for someone in a low-risk group, it's very often a false positive, and that therefore she should wait for the result of the Western Blot test before becoming concerned that she was in fact HIV positive;
5) Knox misinterpreted what she had been told, and erroneously believed that she'd been told that she was HIV positive;
6) The Western Blot test came back negative, and Knox was informed expeditiously of the false positive nature of the ELISA test and that she was not HIV positive.

<snip>

Mary_H says ...

What makes you think that the passage you quoted was written before the passage I quoted?

This is the actual passage from Amanda's testimony:

AK: "So, the first thing that happened when I got to prison was that they made a [blood] analysis. After the analysis, they called me downstairs and told me that they had to make further tests because I might have AIDS. I was really shocked because I didn't understand how it could have happened that I could have gotten AIDS. But they advised to to think about where I might have caught it, so they wanted me to really think about it. So I was writing in my diary about how astonished I was, and then I wrote down every partner that I had ever had in my life..."

The Daily Mail misquoted her slightly and their version was picked up by several other news outlets.

LJ says ...

<snip>

From Knox's writings and testimony, it doesn't seem that this is what actually happened (although of course "she's a liar" - so we can't believe anything she says......).

<snip>

What part of the diary excerpt quoted by Mary_H disputes the scenario you have described above?

Are you honest enough to acknowledge the answer is, "Nothing."?

... and then you go on to say ...

But even if this is exactly what happened, there is still the issue of how incredibly unlikely it would have been for Knox's ELISA test to come back as a false positive, given her lack of risk factors. Given that she had less than a 1 in 200 chance of getting a false positive result, it makes the whole thing look extremely strange and hard to explain......

Could this be a dishonest, back-door method of insinuating that you believe the police and medical professionals were in collusion to commit crimes against Knox without ... you know ... actually saying that?

Why? Why would they? What benefit is there for someone to endanger their professional career for such a minute and arguably even non-existent benefit?

Where are the Knox defenders' choruses of "Evidence?" when you make such ill-disguised accusations?

Where are your own, for that matter?

 

[LondonJohn]

So your argument is that the doctor should have kept her unaware of the result of a blood test.
Please. Chris get over it and get on something else.

You might not know it, but it's certainly standard practice in the US and the UK to not inform someone about a positive ELISA test until and unless the Western Blot test also shows positive. This is because a positive ELISA result for someone in a low-risk group is more likely than not to be a false positive.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

I did not say that the final test result should be withheld

So your argument is that the doctor should have kept her unaware of the result of a blood test.
Please. Chris get over it and get on something else.

Machiavelli,

No, you misunderstood what I said. The physician should provide the final result, not the preliminary result. Please reread my comment.

When I spoke with several physicians about this, the only reason to tell someone about a preliminary result that emerged would be in the unusual instance of trying to prevent them from engaging in harmful behavior during the interim between the initial and confirmatory test. It is difficult to see how this rationale could apply to someone in custody.

 

[Machiavelli]

Narcissistic personality disorder is diagnosed, by qualified psychiatrists and clinical psychologists. Obviously, it is a subjective diagnosis, but at least an agreed-upon checklist of symptoms is used; the diagnosticians don't get to just "have a feeling" about it, based on what they've read in the news.

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder. Narcissism or narcissist personality style is a trait of personality, not necesarily a disorder, and is not "diagnosed".

" Quote:
The narcissism in Amanda's personality style is simply overt and obvious, not to me but to thousands of observers including specialists, but this is an obvious quality in her relational performance and doesn't correspond to a precise clinical diagnosis. However the clinical diagnosis of narcissistic disorder is defined based on the perception of others regading the empathic capabilities of the individual, to his/her capability to adjust and mitigate the perception of his self importance to what perceived by others and to his/her ability to satisfy others needs. I never met somebody ho felt Amanda's writings as humanly satisfactory, so probably she would have a negative relational score among the average population. "

Are you saying that since clinical diagnosis is based on the perceptions of others, Amanda might as well have been diagnosed because a lot of people have been thinking about her?

If a lot of people whom she related with perceived her trait as negative or disfunctional.

 

[Rhea]

And I've been thinking about what someone said in regards to the defense experts, and how their opinions matter as well. This frustrates me, because it seems to happen in a lot of cases; experts for the prosecution say one thing, defense experts say the opposite. How are the judges or juries supposed to know which is correct? They obviously have no scientific training, so what is the point?

Experts can always have totally differing opinions. In this case the defense had the very well respected forensic expert Carlo Torre on their side, he was absolutely convinced that Rudy acted alone, he said the knife definitely wasn't the murder weapon, that it was a lone attacker and the forensic results against Amanda and Raffaele don't mean anything and were totally cherry picked. It's something that probably always happens, in literally every case.

The defense in this case asked for an independent review of the forensic results to reconcile the diametrically opposed opinions of the different experts, but Massai thought it wasn't necessary, that he had everything he needed. He had this possibility and rejected it, I don't think he was even open to consider the defense point of view, he only looked at it to then dismiss it, that's how it comes across to me and I fear the new judge in the appeal trial will do the same. Start with the idea that their guilty and then make everything fit into that scenario.

The important thing for me is, that people don't use it as an argument; "well the experts said it's their DNA and it proves their involvement, do you think you know better then them", because like you said, there are experts on both sides, and they will say contradictory things. So the argument just doesn't work on either side.

The only thing we can do is fight over which experts are more reliable or use more common sense for example … which are convincing and which aren't …

But the fact that somebody is an expert definitely doesn't mean he's automatically right or can't make huge errors …

 

[Mary_H]

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder. Narcissism or narcissist personality style is a trait of personality, not necesarily a disorder, and is not "diagnosed".

" Quote:
The narcissism in Amanda's personality style is simply overt and obvious, not to me but to thousands of observers including specialists, but this is an obvious quality in her relational performance and doesn't correspond to a precise clinical diagnosis. However the clinical diagnosis of narcissistic disorder is defined based on the perception of others regading the empathic capabilities of the individual, to his/her capability to adjust and mitigate the perception of his self importance to what perceived by others and to his/her ability to satisfy others needs. I never met somebody ho felt Amanda's writings as humanly satisfactory, so probably she would have a negative relational score among the average population. "

If a lot of people whom she related with perceived her trait as negative or disfunctional.

My problem with your posts was that you seemed to want to have it both ways. There is the everyday concept of "narcissism," which we might throw around as casually as we say someone is "selfish" or someone is "generous." Then there is the concept of personality disorders, which require much higher standards of diagnosis, by qualified professionals.

Your first post stated: "The concept of narcissism is a bit complex, it is in fact one of the most complex arguments in psychology. I am the main author of the Italian Wikipedia pages on the topic."

That suggested you were talking about narcissistic personality disorder. The following post, though, (which you quoted above) made it hard to discern whether you were talking about psychology or simply about everyday life. You seem to want to clarify with the current post that you were talking about personality styles in everyday life.

It's okay to say that you believe that thousands of people think Amanda is narcissistic, but it's not okay to say, "However the clinical diagnosis of narcissistic disorder is defined based on the perception of others...," in order to imply that Amanda is certifiably narcissistic because you believe large numbers of people think she is.

 

[LondonJohn]

What part of the diary excerpt quoted by Mary_H disputes the scenario you have described above?

Are you honest enough to acknowledge the answer is, "Nothing."?

Nothing. But this quote from Mary is not a diary excerpt. It's from the testimony given by Knox in the trial. As I recall, though, Knox's original diary entries (which are no longer easy to find on account of them having been unlawfully published...) say that she was told that the test had come back showing HIV-postive and that she might get AIDS. And nowhere in either the trial testimony or Knox's diaries is there any mention of her informed consent being given for the test, nor of sufficient counselling being given to reassure her that there was still a less than 50% chance of her actually being HIV-positive. And, as I've said before, it's standard practice in the US and UK not to inform people of a positive ELISA test until and unless the Western Blot test also comes back positive. Obviously this practice wasn't followed here.

Could this be a dishonest, back-door method of insinuating that you believe the police and medical professionals were in collusion to commit crimes against Knox without ... you know ... actually saying that?

Why? Why would they? What benefit is there for someone to endanger their professional career for such a minute and arguably even non-existent benefit?

Where are the Knox defenders' choruses of "Evidence?" when you make such ill-disguised accusations?

Where are your own, for that matter?

Wow, this is angry and somewhat personal in nature. I'm not all that keen on being accused of dishonesty. What I was saying was that if indeed Knox's ELISA test came back with a false positive result, then she was either extraordinarily unlucky (given that since she wasn't in fact HIV-positive, the known chance of a false positive ELISA result is around 4 in 1,000), or something else happened.

 

[Malkmus]

Why? Why would they? What benefit is there for someone to endanger their professional career for such a minute and arguably even non-existent benefit?

Where are the Knox defenders' choruses of "Evidence?" when you make such ill-disguised accusations?

Where are your own, for that matter?

I feel like a previous post of mine already answers the question of motive for telling Amanda she had HIV, but I'll spell it out here as I think it's quite simple. When Amanda was brought to prison they had only her vague "confession" of being present during the murder, but they believed more had happened, specifically an orgy of sorts that had gone wrong. There was no double DNA knife or bra clasp at this point. So they take a blood test and tell her she has HIV and they ask her to think of who she might have gotten it from. Hmm, I wonder what they were getting at with that question since they believed she was just involved in a game of sex involving her boss. It seems apparent to me that they wanted her to name Patrick as someone she possibly could have gotten the HIV from, and case closed more or less as her entire "vague confession" would have crumbled at that point if she admitted to having sex with Patrick that night.
Now this is a secondary point, and not one I wholeheartedly believe in... but Patrick is African, and as is well known Africa has a huge HIV problem as 88% of HIV victims live there. I don't think Amanda was necessarily aware of this, but I'm sure the police were, so I don't think it's that much of a stretch to conclude that they were trying to tell her she got HIV from an African man they think she just hooked up with a few nights before.

 

[Machiavelli]

Halides,

I perfectly understood. You claim the phisician should withheld one result, the ELISA.
This information protocol would be illegal in Italy.

The reason why you address all these (changing) arguments is beyond my understanding. I can't see what you want to claim or what you complain about.

 

[Justinian2]

LJ says ...

Could this be a dishonest, back-door method of insinuating that you believe the police and medical professionals were in collusion to commit crimes against Knox without ... you know ... actually saying that?

Why? Why would they? What benefit is there for someone to endanger their professional career for such a minute and arguably even non-existent benefit?

Where are the Knox defenders' choruses of "Evidence?" when you make such ill-disguised accusations?

Where are your own, for that matter?

A woman nicknamed Black Magic caused 1700 cases to be re-investigated because her "expert" testimony was frequently flawed.

A policeman in LA shot a man in the head and then dropped a gun at the scene to make it appear that the man had a gun and that the shooting was justified. When the cop was found stealing cocaine from the evidence room, another cop testifed against the other cop and the man who had served years in jail and was also crippled from the cop's bullet to his head was released. {the writing is lousy, but you get the idea}

And on and on. Why should Italy be the only place without flawed police? There are books written on the subject. There are millions of police and hundreds/thousands of crimes by police. At least it isn't millions of crimes by police, but who knows; one crime per cop isn't an unreasonable guess.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Wow, this is angry and somewhat personal in nature. I'm not all that keen on being accused of dishonesty. What I was saying was that if indeed Knox's ELISA test came back with a false positive result, then she was either extraordinarily unlucky (given that since she wasn't in fact HIV-positive, the known chance of a false positive ELISA result is around 4 in 1,000), or something else happened.

This kind of psy-op is pretty common in the US, when the cops want to rattle some information out of a suspect who has lawyered up.

 

[Mary_H]

So your argument is that the doctor should have kept her unaware of the result of a blood test.
Please. Chris get over it and get on something else.

Machiavelli, am I to take it from this response to Chris that you have decided to stop talking about the issue of the HIV test and the diary? That's a shame, because I was really hoping you would at least take a stab at my question about assigning responsibility. I see it as an important question, because it is one of the defining characteristics of the giant chasm that separates the colpevoliisti from the innocentisiti.

I want make an additional point about the diary. I asked you whether Amanda was aware of the regulations about her writings being subject to confiscation. I see that Amanda answered the question herself in her testimony:

CDV: And this diary which is in the dossier, from the period of Oct 8 to Dec 29, 2007, when you were in prison, do you remember what happened?

AK: Yes. They called me downstairs and told me that they had to confiscate some things in my room. They told me I could either go up with them and do what I wanted and they would come later with a warrant, or I could let them take whatever they wanted spontaneously. I said they could, so they came up with me and they came into my room and looked in all my things, and they took everything on which I had written anything.

If the police were entitled to search and seize Amanda's belongings without her permission, they wouldn't have needed a warrant.

 

[quadraginta]

Nothing. But this quote from Mary is not a diary excerpt. It's from the testimony given by Knox in the trial. As I recall, though, Knox's original diary entries (which are no longer easy to find on account of them having been unlawfully published...) say that she was told that the test had come back showing HIV-postive and that she might get AIDS.

So you're suggesting she lied in her diary? Okay.

And nowhere in either the trial testimony or Knox's diaries is there any mention of her informed consent being given for the test, nor of sufficient counselling being given to reassure her that there was still a less than 50% chance of her actually being HIV-positive.

Absence of evidence equals ... evidence. Got it.

And, as I've said before, it's standard practice in the US and UK not to inform people of a positive ELISA test until and unless the Western Blot test also comes back positive. Obviously this practice wasn't followed here.

Tell me more about what is "standard practice" in these circumstances. These are "standard" circumstances. Right?

Maybe she asked about the results of her test. There's no evidence of that in her diary or her testimony, so it must be true. Right?

Wow, this is angry and somewhat personal in nature. I'm not all that keen on being accused of dishonesty.

Sorry, DJ oops, I mean LJ. I just call 'em like I see 'em. There are ways for you to avoid the appearance of ... how about "disingenuousness", does that make you feel better? Not doing it is a remarkably effective method.

If you think that the doctors involved behaved illegally or even unethically at the behest of the prosecution in an effort to poison the well in Knox's case, then just say so. Don't pussyfoot around so you can weasel out with some plausible deniability up the road. ("Well, I never said that.")

What I was saying was that if indeed Knox's ELISA test came back with a false positive result, then she was either extraordinarily unlucky (given that since she wasn't in fact HIV-positive, the known chance of a false positive ELISA result is around 4 in 1,000), or something else happened.

Yes. You've mentioned that. Several times, in fact. That's sort of the point.

So. Do you believe that as a direct result of collusion with the prosecution in an effort to paint Knox in a bad light in the public eye that doctors in the prison behaved either criminally or unethically?

That's a 'yes or no' question.

If your answer is "no", then just exactly what are you trying to infer by the statements you've made on this topic?

 

[lane99]

Ah no, Colonel Hall was a different character from Major Gowen...

I've just learned something. I never knew "the Major" had a surname. But Gowen, it is. I just saw it in the credits at the end of the program.

But was as the name "Gowan" ever spoken during any of the episodes? I've seen them all. And I don't think I ever once heard it.

 

[Withnail1969]

This kind of psy-op is pretty common in the US, when the cops want to rattle some information out of a suspect who has lawyered up.

Pretty much classic police techniques:

"your friend in the other room doesn't back up your story any more - in fact he says you did it"

"We know you have AIDS, tell us who you've been with"

"Your kitchen surfaces tested positive for cocaine. We know you've been rollin' with the Avon Barksdale crew. Tell us when the package gets delivered, or we'll tell them you ratted them out."

These suspects don't watch The Wire enough.