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Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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"I believe they could have been better, yes."

So are they putting together a new team for the appeal? I would expect that there are a coupe of experts on this site, who would do a better job!
 
colonelhall said:
"I believe they could have been better, yes."

So are they putting together a new team for the appeal? I would expect that there are a coupe of experts on this site, who would do a better job!
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The experts they are asking for are independent ones to be appointed by the court. If I recall some of the things they asked for are an independent review of Stefanoni's LCN procedure, the stain on the pillow case, a review of the DNA results on the knife blade, a retest and review of the DNA on the bra clasp, and an audiometric test on the Nara and the Deathly Scream story.
 
Withnail1969 said:
it's obvious that Amanda at this point had not been demoted. Not only this, but the whole idea of her planned replacement by Meredith seems highly implausible.

From what we know about Meredith she was very committed to her coursework, and it's unlikely she would want to occupy her evenings with a low-paid job unless she was completely broke.
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Patrick testified at the trial and he never said anything about firing Amanda and replacing her with Meredith. Beyond that, Meredith had too much common sense to create that kind of rift between herself and another resident of the household. This fable makes Meredith sound like a sneaky, adversarial person with poor judgment. I don't think she was.
 
RoseMontague said:
Basically yes. The previous judges used the meal time as around 9pm (because Meredith was on her way home and the meal was over by then). They seemed to skip over the testimony of Amy Frost and Sophie Purton that both had the meal at 6pm or possibly earlier or were going by the time the meal was over as the start of the 3 hour window with an hour in either direction. Matteini even said an earlier meal time would lead to an earlier TOD, I believe Katy_did had an expanded translation of this portion posted a few weeks ago.

Guede's lawyers didn't seem to care if it was 9 or 11pm, Guede had already said he was there around 9pm and did not have an alibi, Amanda and Raffaele argued for earlier simply because it would discredit two witnesses and would also put them in alibi range. Massei covers the discussions in detail, but basically goes with the later time implying that the two witnesses deserve more weight than stomach contents determining the time of death and also implying that the stomach contents must not have been tied off properly which is an argument the appeals also argue against.
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I'm not sure that Massei threw out Lalli's TOD. I think it was Professor Introna's TOD estimate which the court did not believe to be sustainable. The various expert opinions and analysis (prosecution, defense and independent as appointed by GIP) show how difficult narrowing down TOD is due to many factors.

I have also read somewhere that Meredith had not much of an appetite the beginning of the evening (maybe testimony from Micheli Motivations?). It is possible that she may not have eaten at exactly the same time as the other girls. My personal experience at a gathering of friends is that everyone eats whenever throughout the event unless the gathering is a formal one. At informal gatherings of more than two people I doubt I could be specific as to what time anyone ate or how much (I will try to locate where I read the information about Meredith's appetite - it may also have been Murder In Italy which I finished a few weeks ago?).
 
christianahannah said:
I'm not sure that Massei threw out Lalli's TOD. I think it was Professor Introna's TOD estimate which the court did not believe to be sustainable. The various expert opinions and analysis (prosecution, defense and independent as appointed by GIP) show how difficult narrowing down TOD is due to many factors.

I have also read somewhere that Meredith had not much of an appetite the beginning of the evening (maybe testimony from Micheli Motivations?). It is possible that she may not have eaten at exactly the same time as the other girls. My personal experience at a gathering of friends is that everyone eats whenever throughout the event unless the gathering is a formal one. At informal gatherings of more than two people I doubt I could be specific as to what time anyone ate or how much (I will try to locate where I read the information about Meredith's appetite - it may also have been Murder In Italy which I finished a few weeks ago?).
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Although this may be possible I would think the testimony of Sophie and Amy would have included this when asked what time they ate. We ate at 6pm or maybe earlier except Meredith, she ate about 7, or something along those lines.
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
Patrick testified at the trial and he never said anything about firing Amanda and replacing her with Meredith. Beyond that, Meredith had too much common sense to create that kind of rift between herself and another resident of the household. This fable makes Meredith sound like a sneaky, adversarial person with poor judgment. I don't think she was.
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An excellent point. It's inconceivable that Meredith would take Amanda's 5 euro an hour job away and then continue to live in the room next door to her.

It just doesn't compute.
 
proprietary format

christianahannah said:
Chris do you know what the Italian equivalent of fsa files is? Would the terminology be the same (fsa files)? Is this one specific reference data or all compiled data?
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Christianahannah,

The fsa files are a proprietary format, and so they should be the same in all countries, as long as the lab uses the instruments from that particular company. The company is ABI, if I recall correctly.
 
Chris C said:
Its smoke and mirrors. The fact that she wasn't at Raff's place means nothing. Because Meredith was still alive when Amanda answered the door at Raff's place later that night.
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another prosecution diversion to ignore.

Which if I recall during the trial, when Amanda was on the stand, Mignini made an issue of asking her this specific question and her lawyers objected because she'd answered it already, stating she was at Raffaeles. But in truth it doesn't matter.

Truth is Meredith was alive, as you said, and Popovic confirmed Amanda was at Raffaeles.

..good point Chris, refreshing perspective. a spoilt game of Gotcha! for the prosecution.
 
"Mignini made an issue of asking her this specific question and her lawyers objected because she'd answered it already,"

Sustained or overruled?
 
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halides1 said:
Christianahannah,

The fsa files are a proprietary format, and so they should be the same in all countries, as long as the lab uses the instruments from that particular company. The company is ABI, if I recall correctly.
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ABI=Applied Biosystems?
 
JREF2010 said:
another prosecution diversion to ignore.

Which if I recall during the trial, when Amanda was on the stand, Mignini made an issue of asking her this specific question and her lawyers objected because she'd answered it already, stating she was at Raffaeles. But in truth it doesn't matter.

Truth is Meredith was alive, as you said, and Popovic confirmed Amanda was at Raffaeles.

..good point Chris, refreshing perspective. a spoilt game of Gotcha! for the prosecution.
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Do you know if it was disputed whether Amanda was away from Raffaele's flat during the receiving of Patrick's message? And was it disputed that this cell tower ping could not reach Raffaele's flat?

And, of course, her being away from his flat during that time does not make her a murderer, however, if her testimony is inconsistent with technical data, this could be a reason why suspicion was drawn to her (though I doubt the technical data would have been available before her questioning on November 5, but I am not sure). I don't even know if Amanda declared that she was or was not away from Raffaele's flat during that time (the receiving of Patrick's message).
 
RoseMontague said:
Although this may be possible I would think the testimony of Sophie and Amy would have included this when asked what time they ate. We ate at 6pm or maybe earlier except Meredith, she ate about 7, or something along those lines.
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It would be nice to have their exact words, would it not? What time dinner was ready and what time someone ate could be two different things.

I did find where I had read about Meredith's appetite. It was from Murder In Italy by Candace Dempsey.

Page 48

When they got hungry around 6 p.m., they stopped the movie to eat a pizza they'd baked, followed by coffee-flavored gelato and an apple crumble. Nobody drank anything alcoholic. Meredith wasn't very hungry, Sophie remembered, and ate only part of her pizza.
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I know Dempsey has said the information contained in her book came from documents, trial transcripts, ect. but it is not footnoted so I do not know the reference for the above.
 
Withnail1969 said:
christianahannah said:
ABI=Applied Biosystems?[/QUOTE

Applied Biosystems seem to be the major company in this area having checked the web. It has to be them.

I wonder what they would say about the 'TOO LOW' knife DNA test which was unreproducible.
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Thank you. Applied Biosystems is mentioned in the motivations with respect to the bra clasp/hooks (there may be other references). I am not sure if this was used for all samples tested or only some. The "she" in the excerpt is Stefanoni.

Page 199

With specific reference to the trace found on the bra hooks, she stated that the procedures indicated by protocols had been followed. The Applied Biosystem’s Quantifiler Kit was used for a quantity of DNA [207] suitable for it to be amplified. The trace amount was quantified with the software designed for quantification, which is included with the instrument, the [ABI Prism] 7700 that was used. She confirmed that the DNA which belonged to Raffaele Sollecito, had been found only on the hooks and that the obtained amplification result was an "absolutely good quality result" (page 109).
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Jungle Jim said:
I find it at least curious that Amanda maintains that she spent the entire night at Raffaele's, yet she apparently did not.
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It depends how you define "apparently".

If you believe Curatolo, Curatolo saw her out of the house that night. If you believe the claim that the crime scene was cleaned up or staged, then maybe you believe the claim that Amanda helped clean it up or stage it. If you believe her internalised false statement then you believe she somehow magically got to her house, heard Meredith screaming and then woke up back at Raffaele's. If you don't buy any of those, then I'm aware of no reason at all to think that Amanda' didn't spend the night at Raffaele's.
 
christianahannah said:
It would be nice to have their exact words, would it not? What time dinner was ready and what time someone ate could be two different things.

I did find where I had read about Meredith's appetite. It was from Murder In Italy by Candace Dempsey.



I know Dempsey has said the information contained in her book came from documents, trial transcripts, ect. but it is not footnoted so I do not know the reference for the above.
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Micheli has Sophie at 6PM or earlier, Massei has Amy saying 5:30-6PM, and now you have Dempsey reporting about the same time. It seems to be a consensus.
 
RoseMontague said:
Science Spheres has a new post up that contains excerpts from his book and first in a three-parter on the motivation report. He tackles the question of the staged break in as well. There are some really good arguments here and some I have not seen presented before. Just an excellent piece and well worth the read.

http://www.sciencespheres.com/2010/10/through-motivation-report.html
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Ah, but is he a pathologist logician? Or a rock-throwing expert?

I don't think we should think for ourselves and take his arguments based on their own merits. That would be arrogance, thinking that we could figure something out for ourselves that contradicts the conclusions of a court.

(Well, it's arrogance if we contradict a court on the one conclusion that matters, that Knox is guilty and evil to boot. As SherlockHolmes, Machiavelli, Trigood and others have shown it's perfectly modest to contradict the court completely on minor issues like the time of death, who killed Meredith, or the reasoning that leads to the conclusion that Knox did it. As long as you agree with the verdict, it's not arrogance to disagree with everything else they said. Apparently).
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
Ah, but is he a pathologist logician? Or a rock-throwing expert?

I don't think we should think for ourselves and take his arguments based on their own merits. That would be arrogance, thinking that we could figure something out for ourselves that contradicts the conclusions of a court.

(Well, it's arrogance if we contradict a court on the one conclusion that matters, that Knox is guilty and evil to boot. As SherlockHolmes, Machiavelli, Trigood and others have shown it's perfectly modest to contradict the court completely on minor issues like the time of death, who killed Meredith, or the reasoning that leads to the conclusion that Knox did it. As long as you agree with the verdict, it's not arrogance to disagree with everything else they said. Apparently).
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I haven't quite figured this one out yet, Kevin. I thought the argument that Massei had super secret information that nobody else had including the defense was much better. And the one that said they were talking about the Americans, that was pretty good as well.
 
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