Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[loverofzion]

One of the primary focuses of our debate has been that the police created evidence by interrogating the defendants without lawyers present, and led them to say things they would not otherwise have said. The arrests of Amanda and Raffaele would be much less suspicious if the police had had any evidence against them before the interrogations.

The pair were called in for questioning as witnesses first; only later in the night did they turn into suspects.
One doesn't need evidence before interrogations.
Wrheever did you get that idea?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

The chance of finding a jury in the USA where all eleven people voted for her guilt is zero. It's easy to hang the jury if even one person has doubt.

In Massachusetts, both AK and RS would have had lawyers appointed to them before they ever talked to the police - the murder hotline assures that.

Furthermore, in Massachusetts they would not have had their calls bugged, their diaries confiscated, the Knox family wouldn't have been sued for slander etc.

Many people like myself would have fought the whole jury to the death rather than have voted guilty. The probably of Amanda being found guilty of 1st degree murder in Massachusetts is 0.0000000. First degree murder here carries a sentence of life without parole.

Massachusetts is cute with the manslaughter charges, though. The prosecutor here would have tried to have her cop a plea for 2-5 years. She would be out on parole now if she elected the certain approach rather than risk a trial.

People get railroaded in jury trials in the US. Read about Kelly Michaels. The Italian system is not in any way inferior to the US system, and it may be better. But all systems have in common a tendency to cover over their own mistakes, and that is what is happening in this case.

 

[loverofzion]

One of the primary focuses of our debate has been that the police created evidence by interrogating the defendants without lawyers present, and led them to say things they would not otherwise have said. The arrests of Amanda and Raffaele would be much less suspicious if the police had had any evidence against them before the interrogations.

That way there could be no possibility of the police leading them into making false statements?

 

[moodstream]

Barbie Nadeau did a good deal of chatting with other reporters at the trial. Dempsey used the trial transcripts. Did Ms. Nadeau? It does not look as if she did, based on her book.

According to the preface, she reviewed over 10,000 pages of court records to produce that book. However, she says that when Raffaele's father called at 8:42pm no one answered the phone. So, there was at least one document she overlooked.

 

[loverofzion]

This logic seems to escape a lot of people when they talk about Amanda accusing Patrick. If everyone who "participated" knew what was left at the crime scene for the police to find, they would not have bothered "lying" about it.

How does this relate to amanda accusing Patrick of the murder?

 

[loverofzion]

Perhaps you could name one or two pieces of evidence Amanda "added herself" from the incidents you listed above, as I don't really know what you could be referring to here.

The incidents listed above; which part don't you understand.

 

[loverofzion]

Fulcanelli,

With respect to contamination, there are several factors to consider. First, I have long pointed out that contamination can be sporadic, which (among other things) makes negative controls less useful than they would be otherwise. Second, I have not seen the electropherograms with Rudy’s profile. If they contain the same problems as are in Meredith’s profile on the knife and Raffaele’s presumed profile on the bra clasp, then the caveats I have raised about these two items carry over to the other samples. Third, the evidence against Guede is fundamentally between Guede and his lawyers versus ILE. If they did not dispute the data, I cannot offer a different opinion without more data. Fourth, contamination is not the same thing as secondary transfer, as I made clear to Stilicho many months ago on the previous thread. I am not sure that the bra clasp, for example, was contaminated; both secondary transfer and evidence tampering exist as possibilities.

With respect to showing investigator bias, please see my previous comments on evidence item 164. Dr. Stefanoni stopped testing on this sample, yet she continued with the knife. Do you have a better explanation than investigator bias?

Investigator bias can come into plays in many areas of forensics, as the citations I have previously given (Koppl's "CSI for Real," for example) demonstrate. One is in the use or misuse of a suspect’s reference profile to interpret an evidentiary sample, as Dan Krane and colleagues discussed (Journal of Forensic Sciences. 2008;53(4):1006-7). The interpretation of mixed DNA samples is also not completely objective. I have given citations on this subject within the last couple of months, and the disagreement between Dr. Stefanoni and the more conservative Dr. Tagliabracci as discussed in the Massei report illustrates this problem nicely. One way in which bias can come in is to diminish the importance of real peaks because they do not fit Raffaele’s profile, as Dr. Tagliabracci implied that Dr. Stefanoni did (see my comment last week or so).

The DNA testing started as early as November 9, 2007. Although it may have been completed after other forensic testing was, that does not alter the fundamental principle that forensics of various hues showed that Guede was in Meredith’s room and elsewhere when he had no business being there. By the time of the initial DNA testing, the police had declared the case to be closed and paraded the suspects through the old town of Perugia. The police, PM Mignini, and Dr. Giobbi had all put down their markers with respect to Amanda and Raffaele. In addition, it is incorrect to say that Dr. Stefanoni’s sole job was to analyze the data. She also took part in collecting the data. She asked for and received special permission to do so, a departure from normal policy (IIRC, Darkness Descending mentions this).

When the investigators fail to collect footprint references from Laura and Filomena and then want me to believe that Amanda made them, I call bias. The lack of obtaining reference DNA from them is almost equally mystifying.

Bias also comes into play in other ways, such as how one interprets the data, as much as anything. It may have led Stefanoni and others to impart a significance to the mixed DNA samples that simply is nonexistant. It has to be among the most unsurprising results of all time that Amanda’s DNA was found in her sink. I would have been a little surprised it if had not. If someone still wishes to claim that the mixed DNA samples mean anything, I would ask them to interpret the significance of samples 93 and 95, which are mixed samples of Raffaele and Amanda, from Raffaele’s flat.

Unfortunately for your theory the mixed DNA samples of amanda and Meredith have a lot of significance.

 

[quadraginta]

Gotta love your implicit inference that that somehow vindicates the police for not testing it. Or do you want to argue that the maybe semen stain should have been tested, but it's fishy that the defense asked for it so late? That I could understand I suppose. The alternative argument (if defense asked late, police are blameless for incompetence line of logic) makes no sense.

I intended no implicit inference at all. It is good of you to bring the point up, but it hadn't really occurred to me, not least because I think that the spot certainly should have tested. The court ought to have insisted on it, even if the defense found it less interesting. There does appear to have been a unanimity of disinterest.

I don't know that it is "fishy" that the defense appears to have totally disregarded this "semen stain" until the very last moments of the trial. I have to think that their perspective was more informed than ours, and they had perfectly logical reasons for doing so. But it is certainly curious.

You seem very defensive on the subject, and quick to attribute motives to me which are not borne out by the context of my post. Why is that? I don't believe there was anything particularly ambiguous about my comment. Certainly no subtly "implicit" inferences. I believe your clairvoyance has led you astray this once.

 

[moodstream]

A couple of things should be added: Amanda and Raffaele created evidence before the interrogation when they gave their accounts of facts, ..

I think the general gist of the original post is that more typically the police gather evidence and then arrest suspects. I know you are going to plead a technicality here by dividing the interrogation into two parts, so that you can say in the first part they are evidence gathering. But I think that, short of a more direct confession than the police received from Amanda, usually what would be considered 'hard evidence', like fingerprints or dna, are gathered first, and then the suspects are brought in for questioning.

 

[loverofzion]

I think the general gist of the original post is that more typically the police gather evidence and then arrest suspects. I know you are going to plead a technicality here by dividing the interrogation into two parts, so that you can say in the first part they are evidence gathering. But I think that, short of a more direct confession than the police received from Amanda, usually what would be considered 'hard evidence', like fingerprints or dna, are gathered first, and then the suspects are brought in for questioning.

I believe amanda's confession was direct and left little room for ambiguity.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

The claim that all the knives from the cottage's kitchen were tested requires documentation.

To the best of my knowledge none were subjected to DNA testing.

 

[moodstream]

I believe amanda's confession was direct and left little room for ambiguity.

So Patrick did it after all, eh? Interesting.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Let's say it like this: one of the main thesis of some people has been that the police created evidence on Amanda.
A couple of things should be added: Amanda and Raffaele created evidence before the interrogation when they gave their accounts of facts, riddled with inconsistencies, lacking logic and credibility.
Then, if we could imagine the police created evidence against them during the interrogation, after they identified them as suspects by their suspicious and not credible recollection of facts, we could as well imagine the police created evidence on Rudy after having detected his presence through a fingerprint. They could have "fabricated" the the Y-type DNA "found" in Meredith's vagina for example.
One thing the police didn't create is the amount of evidence that Amanda added herself with her declarations after the interrogation: the hand written paper, the interrogation of Dec 18., pre-trial statement, the court testimony.

By comparing Amanda's statements to Rudy's fingerprint, you suggest that statements are as conclusive as physical evidence. There are a couple of problems with this:

1. Amanda didn't confess, and her statement does not comport with the known facts.
2. No record exists to prove (or disprove) what Amanda really said. We have her hand-written note, in which she says she is unsure of her memory, and we have two statements typed up by someone else for her signature.

That's not the probative equal of a bloody fingerprint in the room where Meredith was killed.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I noticed that the subject of Giobbi's statements came up earlier... here's a clip from Sex, Lies and the Murder of Meredith Kercher:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/giobbi.mp4

 

[loverofzion]

So Patrick did it after all, eh? Interesting.

Obiously not.
That she herself was present at the cottage during the murder.
Had you forgotten that's what she said and wrote.

 

[loverofzion]

By comparing Amanda's statements to Rudy's fingerprint, you suggest that statements are as conclusive as physical evidence. There are a couple of problems with this:

1. Amanda didn't confess, and her statement does not comport with the known facts.
2. No record exists to prove (or disprove) what Amanda really said. We have her hand-written note, in which she says she is unsure of her memory, and we have two statements typed up by someone else for her signature.

That's not the probative equal of a bloody fingerprint in the room where Meredith was killed.

Whether or not she was "unsure of her memory" (did she suffer from dementia perhaps?)
her signed statement, regardless of who typed it, is a statement of culpability.
Why doesn't her staement concur with reported facts?
Or don't you give her enough credit for that?

 

[Malkmus]

Obiously not.
That she herself was present at the cottage during the murder.
Had you forgotten that's what she said and wrote.

Then, knowing that Patrick was not at all involved, and that she claimed to have not seen a murder take place, one would believe amanda's confession was indirect and quite ambiguous.

As an aside, I find it very curious that the police were able to get a story out of Amanda that carries such little resolution. One would think that they would have questioned her a bit more about that night, rather than just establish that she was there with Patrick while Meredith was being murdered. Why no mention in her statement of the staged break-in, or what happened to Meredith's money and phones, or about a clean-up job. Nope, apparaently after getting Amanda to state she was there that night they didn't bother with any follow-up questions, for which they had all the time in the world to do. It's almost as if... they were only interested in one thing.

 

[quadraginta]

I think the general gist of the original post is that more typically the police gather evidence and then arrest suspects. I know you are going to plead a technicality here by dividing the interrogation into two parts, so that you can say in the first part they are evidence gathering. But I think that, short of a more direct confession than the police received from Amanda, usually what would be considered 'hard evidence', like fingerprints or dna, are gathered first, and then the suspects are brought in for questioning.

Let's look at the last part of this comment first. 'Hard evidence', is exactly the testimony of someone with direct knowledge of a crime. A witness, in other words. This is known as "direct evidence". There is nothing which precludes a witness from also being a participant. Very little other than witness testimony of the crime itself (such as Knox's statements and writing) is legally regarded as direct evidence, and not all of that.

Indirect or "circumstantial evidence" would be pretty much everything else, including things like fingerprints or DNA, or any expert testimony relating to them. Many people are confused about this, and suffer from the misapprehension that it is difficult to convict on circumstantial evidence. It isn't. Most evidence is circumstantial, and many cases are proven as a result.

In the process of investigating a crime standard procedure is to interview as many people as necessary. This process normally begins with those people closest the the victim or the scene until further evidence leads elsewhere.

There is absolutely nothing the least bit unusual about some of those interviews leading to an increased interest in the people being interviewed, nor to some of those people making the transition from a source of information to a person of interest, and then to a suspect.

In fact it is far more the rule than the exception in cases where guilt is not obvious at the scene. I don't understand why you feel that this case should be different than normal. I certainly don't understand how you can characterize the practice as some sort of technicality.

 

[Mary_H]

That way there could be no possibility of the police leading them into making false statements?

Good point, l-o-z. Even if the police had had evidence against them before the interrogations, there is, indeed, every possibility they still would have led them into making false statements.

 

[Mary_H]

How does this relate to amanda accusing Patrick of the murder?

If Amanda knew that Patrick had left no evidence at the murder scene, it would have been pointless for her to purposely accuse him, because she would know her lie would eventually be found out in the police investigation.