Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Withnail1969]

A witness does not have the right to remain silent.

What happens if they do?

 

[Fulcanelli]

I am going to correct what I wrote here. According to the testimony, Amanda did not offer her memorandum in the evening from her prison cell. She wrote it in the morning in the Questura. However, it is still not the same document as the one she signed at 5:45 a.m.

Well...we all knew that Mary.

The 5:45 statement is the voluntary statement. The memorial is the memorial and was written after she made her voluntary statement. They are two separate things.

 

[Mary_H]

1) Your words below express my exact feelings toward Mr Fisher and his feeble, copycat, Johnny come lately website,,, "injustice,,,"

Please substitute 'injustice' accordingly below, and permit me to use all of your outstanding characterization just as you presented it:
^^^^^^^^
Forgive me, pilot, but when I have been able to stomach short visits to that sick, sick website, almost all of what I have read there is untrue. Peter Quennell is not in a position to question someone else's integrity.

I have a lot of experience with posters who come to other blogs armed with information they have picked up on TJMK, only to leave quickly, with their tails between their legs, when they find out they were misled by the words of that sick, sick Peter Quennell. Ergo, I give TJMK's opinion of Candace Dempsey no weight.
^^^^^^^^^^

If I had time or interest I could prove to you that TJMK contains at least a hundred times as many inaccuracies as IIP, but I don't. So we will agree to have different opinions.

2) Dempsey's obvious "rush" was to be first out with book before Nadeau.
I submit just that this 'rush' deteriorated the quality of the finished product

But Barbie's book was released first.

3) Since the Amazon reviews are extensively both pro and con, I fail to be able to concur with your concluding statement about them being "stacked and part of a campaign".

In fact the only "campaign" of which I am aware that would reach so far as an Amazon review page is that of the Marriott PR firm.
Which I might now publicly thank you very much as now being able to add your cherished agreement to my earlier thoughts on just how pervasive and vast that ill conceived Marriott PR push really is.

It is rather well known that readers from both sides of the argument were putting as many reviews of the books as they could on Amazon.

 

[loverofzion]

Was she informed that she was allowed to refuse the interrogation questions and get up and leave at any time?

While I am not in law enforcement, I doubt any police questioning a witness to a murder would first offer them to "get up and leave any time they want."

 

[Mary_H]

Well...we all knew that Mary.

The 5:45 statement is the voluntary statement. The memorial is the memorial and was written after she made her voluntary statement. They are two separate things.

And where is it written that she voluntarily offered to make a statement at 5:45? If you are so sure of it, it must be somewhere in the documentation. Throw me a bone.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

This is all very fascinating, but hardly relevant. If Knox's statements are in actuality nothing but self-serving but poorly thought out lies then none of your careful analysis is germane. The inconsistencies would fit right in with dishonesty, evasion, and incompetence. It is neither a false confession nor a real one, but only frantic and opportunistic dissembling. How do you suppose Mr. McCrary would score that?

It was hardly self-serving for her to admit being at the crime scene. I think the question that would interest McCrary is whether her statements reflected an actual knowledge of or involvement in the crime, or were fabrications extracted under duress.

Many people in these threads who quite vigorously defend Knox's innocence have taken serious objection in the past to characterizing Knox's statements as a "confession". I suppose that when it is more convenient that description seems more acceptable.

It was a self-incriminating statement that fell short of a confession.

 

[Fulcanelli]

I am getting explanations but no citations. WHY do the lawyers at the trial refer to the 5:45 statement as an interrogation?

As a GENERIC term as opposed to legalese, as one that Amanda could understand. Amanda clearly didn't understand the legal differences. In fact, she often seemed to not understand they were different statements. If you read her testimony, you'll see she she often gets her 1:45 statement and her 5:45 statement mixed up, to the point they had to correct her once or twice.

 

[Fulcanelli]

What happens if they do?

They are made formal suspects and arrested.

 

[Mary_H]

This is complete nonsense. The interrogation was halted at 5:45 at which time she signed the statements and then was made a formal suspect, in line with Italian legal codes.

I thought your position was that there was no interrogation at 5:45?

If she chose to write something in her cell, sign it all without a lawyer present and then hand it over to the police the police are entitled to accept and use it. This is all fully in line with Italian law and has been ruled as such by numerous courts including but not limited to, the Italian High Court.

I thought the High Court did not allow it to be used in the trial.

Further, the presence of a lawyer is only a requirement for interrogations, not for the signing of forms.

You keep making pronouncements and assertions about what breaks Italian law when clearly you have zero knowledge of it.

I am only going by what these guys said in their interview with Andrea Vogt, which I cited a few minutes ago:

"In response to numerous reader questions as the trial has progressed, seattlepi.com has asked [Giancarlo] Costa, a criminal defense lawyer in Rome, and [Stefano] Maffei, who also has a doctorate in law from the University of Oxford and has been a guest lecturer at The University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, to answer some basic legal questions about the case."

 

[Fulcanelli]

If I had time or interest I could prove to you that TJMK contains at least a hundred times as many inaccuracies as IIP, but I don't. So we will agree to have different opinions.

I see, so we'll just keep it as a groundless assertion then

 

[Mary_H]

A witness does not have the right to remain silent.

loverofzion and I are still discussing free will, Fulc.

 

[Fulcanelli]

And where is it written that she voluntarily offered to make a statement at 5:45? If you are so sure of it, it must be somewhere in the documentation. Throw me a bone.

The "bone" is it's very definition of "Voluntary Statement". That's what voluntary statement means, it's only voluntary if you "volunteer" without solicitation to give it and I say again, the fact of this has never been challenged by Amanda's legal team or by Amanda herself.

However, feel free to prove me wrong any time you like.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

No, you are still not considering the actual balance of probative value of physical presence and statements. It is not true that physical presence itself is more incriminating than statements. Guilt does not equate to physical presence on a murder scene. A person can be present on the crime scene and be innocent, or can be absent and be guilty. Guilt is defined as a position of responsability towards the crime, not as presence.
You are wrong about the probative value of Rudy's fingerprint: that fingerprint is an evidence of his presence, but the evidence of Rudy Guede's guilt does not derive from that fingerprint. It derives from his lack of credibility, from his being incapable to give innocent or credible explanations for physical findings. After all it is Rudy's statements that define his guilt, not a fingerprint or footprints alone. Those who believe he must be guilty because he fled the scene are also wrong: innocent people can run away and Rudy, some time after running away, also contacted people saying he wanted to come back and cooperate with authorities, then took a train to Italy. It would be a wrong and biased method to assume that one defendant can't have reasons different from guilt just because he is Rudy.

Right. Context matters. I grant you this. If Rudy was a paramedic called to the scene, his bloody fingerprint wouldn't mean much.

You haven't answered my question regarding the footprints in the hallway: what evidence shows that they were made with blood?

 

[loverofzion]

I am going to correct what I wrote here. According to the testimony, Amanda did not offer her memorandum in the evening from her prison cell. She wrote it in the morning in the Questura. However, it is still not the same document as the one she signed at 5:45 a.m.

I am struck by her need to write down on paper in order to clear her mind of confusion.
There is a real split at work here; she is psychologically decompensating and asks for a paper and pen with which to create a new, controllable reality.
I find this last attempt of a drowning woman desperate to grasp the life raft a remarkable example of our instinct for self preservation in the face of all odds.

 

[Withnail1969]

They are made formal suspects and arrested.

Like Quintavalle?

 

[Fulcanelli]

It was hardly self-serving for her to admit being at the crime scene. I think the question that would interest McCrary is whether her statements reflected an actual knowledge of or involvement in the crime, or were fabrications extracted under duress.



It was a self-incriminating statement that fell short of a confession.

Since her statement had her admitting to committing a crime (her facilitation the presence of Patrick to attack Meredith and being present during said attack without doing anything to prevent it or informing the authorities before or after the event...actually makes her guilty of murder under Italian law, even if she herself did not perform the act), that counts as a confession. If you admit to doing something illegal...that's a confession.

 

[Mary_H]

The "bone" is it's very definition of "Voluntary Statement". That's what voluntary statement means, it's only voluntary if you "volunteer" without solicitation to give it and I say again, the fact of this has never been challenged by Amanda's legal team or by Amanda herself.

However, feel free to prove me wrong any time you like.

Maybe Amanda's lawyers never knew there was anybody out here in blogland who was making such a claim.

Okay, so from here on out, we all agree that the only evidence for the claim that Amanda demanded to make a voluntary statement following her 1:45 a.m. interrogation, which required the presence of Giuliano Mignini and which ended at 5:45 a.m., is the word of two biased guilters, Fulcanelli and Machiavelli, neither of whom can provide any documentation for the claim.

In other words, there is no evidence that Amanda asked to make an additional voluntary statement following her 1:45 a.m. interrogation.

I will let you know if I find any evidence to the contrary.

 

[Withnail1969]

Since her statement had her admitting to committing a crime (her facilitation the presence of Patrick to attack Meredith and being present during said attack without doing anything to prevent it or informing the authorities before or after the event...actually makes her guilty of murder under Italian law, even if she herself did not perform the act), that counts as a confession. If you admit to doing something illegal...that's a confession.

So not reporting witnessing a crime after the event is illegal in Italian law?

 

[Fulcanelli]

I thought your position was that there was no interrogation at 5:45?

Sorry, that should have read 1:45 not 5:45, but I think you know that

I thought the High Court did not allow it to be used in the trial.

No, the High Court ruled the Memorial could be used against her and others. It was the 1:45 and 5:45 voluntary statement that couldn't be used.

 

[loverofzion]

loverofzion and I are still discussing free will, Fulc.

Legal rights and free will are not the same thing Mary.