Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Kestrel]

SomeAlibi: "This case is about drugs and the kids being completely out of their heads."

Yes, I agree. It does appear so.

Charlie Wilkes: "What kinds of drugs were they taking, in your opinion?'

I would have thought that they were the kind of drugs that, by their own admission, caused memory loss.

The police claimed to have clear video evidence from a car park camera proving Amanda went to the cottage on the night of the murder. Neither Amanda nor Raff remembered this happening. This could indicate they both had a memory loss. But the real explanation is that the police were lying.

 

[Alt+F4]

I believe the calls made at 12:11 were probably to phones that had been turned off. You know how when you call an "off" cellphone it goes straight to voicemail? I believe the reason these 2 calls were so short is because they most likely went straight to v.m. It was around this time the postal police were looking at the SIM card of the English phone in an attempt to identify the owner so it was surely turned off.

If the phone rang at the 12:07 call but was shut off by the 12:11 call why didn't Amanda just assume that Meredith had simply shut off her phone? After all, Amanda herself said she had turned off her own phone the night before in order to not be disturbed. Yet instead, upon returning to her apartment she:

then i knocked on merediths room.
at first i thought she was alseep so i knocked gently, but when she
didnt respond i knocked louder and louder until i was really banging
on her door and shouting her name. no response. panicing, i ran out
onto our terrace to see if maybe i could see over the ledge into her
room from the window, but i couldnt see in. bad angle.

Why so much worry when there was no reason to believe there was any harm to Meredith at all?

 

[SomeAlibi]

What kinds of drugs were they taking, in your opinion?

It's a really good question which I don't think we will ever know. I am convinced that Guede was facilitating or dealing directly for them that night and that Amanda and Rudy came across each other opportunistically and that she decided to try and get a treat for Raffaele since she was no longer working that night.

The cellphone data places Amanda right by where Rudy was by his own diary at about 8.30pm - between "Kebap" and the basketball court. We also know that Raffaele said in his earliest statement that he and Amanda went out between about 6pm and 8pm but he can't remember why. I believe they were looking for more supplies. Amanda said that Raffaele had used coke and acid previously. When Amanda met Rudy, she arranged to meet him once he had scored for them. Her written statements say that she met "Patrick" at the basketball court around 9pm. Most alibis contain as much truth as is possible because remembering made up stuff is extremely hard. I think she merely relayed what had happened in meeting Rudy. Amanda and Raffaele didn't know Rudy terribly well, but I'm pretty sure he managed to get himself invited back for the sort of smoke / toke that you get where a dealer himself participates. It took place at the cottage because it was 100m from the court.

They both talk of their profound memory loss on that night. In the pictures the next day, they both look bombed out and pasty faced in a way that you can't see in other pictures of them. It could have been alcohol and dope (see Amanda's story of Marie Pace although that also refers to harder drugs) or it may be that they also took some coke which would explain the sheer level of out of control behaviour when in *conjunction* with the other stimulants. That memory loss is by their own admission and both of them independently make hugely regretful statements about how they will never touch drugs again in their diaries. Both of them - independently. I don't think there's any doubt that they were completely out of their heads and that those are genuine expressions of a feeling of total regret that they were. To which you juxtapose Amanda's "one joint". Completely untrue.

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

Hello LashL

When I came to the case, I had a lot of questions about the conviction which saw me get a rough ride at the beginning of posting on PMF. I came to a very firm conclusion on the case after a fairly long time. It is, without doubt a tragic set of circumstances for four young people whose lives have been wrecked.

The parts I find most compelling are the "issues" I raised in this post:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6446896&postcount=10933

to which I will also add what does look to me fairly clearly like a staged break-in and the absolute tangle and mass of contradictions that come across in the diaries of Amanda and Raffaele and the multiple contradictory alibis which were serially changed in very short order.

There are also a number of "tells" in the case which work very badly against defendants when they are caught out on them. Amanda said under oath that she had *one* joint that night. It is plainly untrue given that they both speak in their diaries and witness statements of their utter confusion and inability to remember details of the night of the 1st. When you have a defendant on the stand perjure themselves that way - and it is absolutely a slam dunk - then juries start wondering why they are doing it. The diaries are a toe-curling set of evidence which I've found many proponents of Raffaele and Amanda's innocence have not read. But they are evidence in the case and they are awful from an evidential perspective. We have the "pricking" with the knife story from Raffaele which sounds frankly just like rubbish. We have the extremely weird scenario by which he relates his father is delighted that they have caught the "real" perpetrator of the crime in Rudy Guede but instead of giving thanks to God (since Raffaele is religious) and celebrating wildly in terms "thank God my nightmare is over, I'm going home, I'm so happy", instead Raffaele's immediate response is that he is worried about that "strange stories" this guy, he says he doesn't know, may "make up".

Innocent people don't do that. They really don't. Is it remotely credible? I really think it isn't. It's another big "tell" which are very important when juries are deciding on the credibility of the accused.

Other bits like the "bathmat shuffle" also ring extremely hollow to a jury in a real-life scenario imho. Mignini's astonishment when Amanda raises it with him on the 12th of December would be comic if it wasn't such a tragic case.

Other matters: Raffaele said on four different occasions that Amanda left the flat on the night of the 1st. The cellphone data places her near Via Aquila when she receives Patrick's call. She repeatedly stresses she didn't leave her flat in her testimony you can watch on youtube. Repeatedly. Yet neither her co-accused nor the cellphone data, nor her written admissions of the 6th agree with that. Again, there's a reason for it.

Another area is Amanda's extraordinary email home written at about 3 o'clock in the morning when she writes down the events of the 1st according to her in micro-detail saying she is going to recall it "slowly". To me, it looks a pretty crystal clear attempt to set down a highly detailed alibi because she knew she was under pressure already on her version of the story. She writes 1,900 words on the events of her going to the flat on the 2nd and absolutely no words whatsoever about the emotional trauma of having her next-door room-mate murdered in terms of feelings of bewilderment or grief. This is not a question of being "close" to someone: in normal circumstances, a person who has had that happen in their flat will talk at length about how they themselves feel upset, bewildered or threatened. Instead she is dealing with tiny minutiae, all written in the early hours. It really doesn't add up.

Most of these areas have an answer in the case for the defence of course. The most promising avenue for the defence will be the DNA arguments by which I don't raise a personal issue with the evidence, simply that it is relatively low count and therefore it must be challenged. However the bathmat is a case-closer and I have yet to see anyone deal with that on the basis of measurement and proportion which, unless it can be done, clearly show it is Raffaele's footprint to a millimetre in several parts and also that the proportion of the length to width cannot make this Rudy's footprint however you scale up or down the measurements. That's terribly damning.

The other very damning area is the story of the 2nd. I have been asked this question directly so I am going to answer it in my next post. The sheer number of events in computer and cellphone records mean that it is simply impossible Raffaele simply picked up a phone and went back to sleep - there are many many more interactions which require him being out of bed and for some time. Again, in real jury environments, if you have an area of the case which has a manifest untruth being told by a defendant, the jury will start looking at that person very dimly.

Lastly, and this you may consider a little fluffy, I thought her testimony - the parts of it we can see on youtube etc was weak. We have to watch out for confirmation bias of course here but I showed the video to a number of colleagues and said "how do you think she comes across?" with no preamble. It's a valid exercise because we are perpetually trying to get clients arranged so they will give themselves their best shot in the box if they have to go in. From junior to senior solicitors, the answers ranged from "not terribly well - looks like she's hamming it up" to "car-wreck, bloody awful". This stuff really matters with juries. She simply doesn't look or sound credible and she gets snarky with the prosecutor which is astonishingly foolish. I've also tried it with lay people, also with no preamble and the reaction is universally the same. The smiling, singing, laughing and 'dancing' she did at times in the courtroom is also extremely foolish and makes you wonder where on earth her head was at.

I firmly believe the only reason there is so much doubt about this case in the english speaking world is simply because the case was conducted in Italian and therefore the primary facts have been obscured to most of us. The PR campaign is a very interesting lesson. We discuss it a lot. I think it's been extremely badly handled *at points* and I don't think it's in any doubt that it's hurt Amanda's chances in the only place it matters - in Italy - but we can learn from it.

Wow. You've mesmerized me....

Also, I am truly sorry I misrepresented your DNA statements as a weakness in the DNA evidence. I did not in any way want to put words into your mouth. I assumed since you stated those would be the areas with which you, as a defense attorney, would take issue, that they were probably the weakest areas of the case. So sorry.

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

It's a really good question which I don't think we will ever know. I am convinced that Guede was facilitating or dealing directly for them that night and that Amanda and Rudy came across each other opportunistically and that she decided to try and get a treat for Raffaele since she was no longer working that night.

The cellphone data places Amanda right by where Rudy was by his own diary at about 8.30pm - between "Kebap" and the basketball court. We also know that Raffaele said in his earliest statement that he and Amanda went out between about 6pm and 8pm but he can't remember why. I believe they were looking for more supplies. Amanda said that Raffaele had used coke and acid previously. When Amanda met Rudy, she arranged to meet him once he had scored for them. Her written statements say that she met "Patrick" at the basketball court around 9pm. Most alibis contain as much truth as is possible because remembering made up stuff is extremely hard. I think she merely relayed what had happened in meeting Rudy. Amanda and Raffaele didn't know Rudy terribly well, but I'm pretty sure he managed to get himself invited back for the sort of smoke / toke that you get where a dealer himself participates. It took place at the cottage because it was 100m from the court.

They both talk of their profound memory loss on that night. In the pictures the next day, they both look bombed out and pasty faced in a way that you can't see in other pictures of them. It could have been alcohol and dope (see Amanda's story of Marie Pace although that also refers to harder drugs) or it may be that they also took some coke which would explain the sheer level of out of control behaviour when in *conjunction* with the other stimulants. That memory loss is by their own admission and both of them independently make hugely regretful statements about how they will never touch drugs again in their diaries. Both of them - independently. I don't think there's any doubt that they were completely out of their heads and that those are genuine expressions of a feeling of total regret that they were. To which you juxtapose Amanda's "one joint". Completely untrue.

Have you ever 'taken' coke?

 

[SomeAlibi]

Concerning the morning of the second. Here's the problem. Raffaele and Amanda say there were asleep until 10-10.30am. Yet, by the evidence from the computer and cellphone records:

Someone "wakes up" sometime before 5.30 and lies awake long enough to realise they are not going back to sleep
Someone gets out of bed <5.30am (if they were asleep) and goes to the laptop which is on the desk (see video).
Someone swipes the trackpad on the laptop to knock off a screen-saver
Someone starts the media-player app VLC and it crashes
Someone starts VLC again and it crashes once more
Someone switches to iTunes and starts it (comprehensively disproving with the above that this is some sort of automated playing of a track - definitively someone was kicking off and switching those apps)
Someone hits play on a specific track in iTunes
Someone plays music between 5.32 and approximately 6am - nearly half an hour of played music
Someone also creates a playlist between that time.
Someone switches on Raffaele's mobile phone on shortly after 6am
Somoene receives an SMS on that phone from the night before (Raffaele's father's good-night SMS).
Raffaele's phone receives a phonecall after 9am where Raffaele's father talks to his son for over four minutes straight - 262 seconds. Try starting a stop-watch and then start reading something for over four minutes. It's an extremely long time not to recall.
The phone call finishes and Raffaele hits the finish call button or the call is interrupted
Less than a minutes later the phone rings again and there is another call for 38 seconds.
The phone call finishes and Raffaele hits the finish call button or the call is interrupted
Within seconds the phone rings again and it is Raffaele's father yet again.

But Raffaele and Amanda tell you they were asleep til 10.30? It's pretty hard to believe, isn't it?

What the computer and cellphone records tell you is that they were up and concerned, wondering what on earth to do; that music playing for over half an hour is something to try and calm down and distract themselves. That's a plethora of evidence they weren't asleep and collapsing alibis are usually treated by juries as signs of something very wrong with defendant testimony for very good reasons.

 

[SomeAlibi]

Have you ever 'taken' coke?

No. I've done enough cases where it's involved and seen enough cardiac arrests in people who do to find it not a terribly good idea.

 

[SomeAlibi]

Evasion noted.

I'm not evading anything as is patently obvious in all the answers I'm giving here. Ask a straight question and I'll give you a straight answer. Lets be adults about this huh?

 

[SomeAlibi]

What are the reasons for him being credible? Massei lists one and that one is in error. Form katy_did appeal translation:




I could be forgetting the many other reasons the court finds him credible, maybe you can help me with this one.

I can't really take you any further on this Rose. The court says it found him credible for the reasons it explained (it dinged two witnesses by way of compare whom it didn't find credible). As I said in my original post you can argue the point but the point as to why is clear in Massei, even if you disagree with it.

 

[SomeAlibi]

Herein lies the problem with this drug-caused memory loss. There is no way someone cannot remember what s/he did last night insofar as whether s/he was at place A or s/he left place A at some point, no matter what drugs you were on. The only possible exception is falling-down drunk. Then you caould possibly have such memory problems. Even bong hits on top of valium aren't going to make you forget going somewhere.

Amanda is a fan of "Hard-A" a brew of mixed booze. Memory loss can be exacerbated by combinations of stimulants and there's really no "possibly" about memory loss - blackouts are a universally recognised phenomena. Both the defendant's diaries make clear their profound regret for their drug use. Why, since they only have "one joint"?

 

[SomeAlibi]

Welcome to the thread, SomeAlibi. Good to see you here, and in an environment somewhat more hospitable to discussion than was the case during our last encounter. Very much looking forward to your discussion with LashL.

I do have a question for you, regarding Comodi's use of the phone call. Now, it seems clear that Comodi's tactic was to give the jury a bad impression of Amanda based on the false idea this phone call took place "before anything had happened", and taking advantage of the fact Amanda didn't remember it. To do this she lied and said the phone call took place "at midday". As a lawyer, what's your view of this sort of tactic? Is it something that surprises you, or that just seems normal in context? Would you do it yourself?

As a non-lawyer, I guess I'm just curious as to whether this kind of thing is the norm and only to be expected, or whether even within the profession itself it would be seen as unethical.

Well your question presumes it's a tactic. I would only say that that's pretty loaded since we have to "understand" that Amanda and Raffaele's mixed recollections are all bona fide. To me, a problematic witness statement is one which is an assertion of "fact" which cannot be tested against verifiable evidence. Since the phonecall timings exist as an objective fact, whatever interpretation you want to take of Comodi isn't really terribly relevant. The fact that those records exist and are known to exist, tends to suggest to me that Comodi is recalling as Comodi recalls it rather than trying some dastardly exploit.

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

No. I've done enough cases where it's involved and seen enough cardiac arrests in people who do to find it not a terribly good idea.

It is exactly those cardiac arrests, or rather the threat of them, that forced me to come to my senses and stop all recreational use.

It is, without a doubt, my favorite drug. That said, I am a parent and a business owner with dozens of employees and even more physicians who depend upon me so I no longer have the luxury of putting my life at risk.

Coccaine does not 1) make you forget or 2) make you violent.

Now crack, I hear, is a whole other story. But there is no evidence or even mention of crack problems in Perugia.

 

[Alt+F4]

Coccaine does not 1) make you forget or 2) make you violent.

Alcohol does.

 

[Kaosium]

Concerning the morning of the second. Here's the problem. Raffaele and Amanda say there were asleep until 10-10.30am. Yet, by the evidence from the computer and cellphone records:

Someone "wakes up" sometime before 5.30 and lies awake long enough to realise they are not going back to sleep
Someone gets out of bed <5.30am (if they were asleep) and goes to the laptop which is on the desk (see video).
Someone swipes the trackpad on the laptop to knock off a screen-saver
Someone starts the media-player app VLC and it crashes
Someone starts VLC again and it crashes once more
Someone switches to iTunes and starts it (comprehensively disproving with the above that this is some sort of automated playing of a track - definitively someone was kicking off and switching those apps)
Someone hits play on a specific track in iTunes
Someone plays music between 5.32 and approximately 6am - nearly half an hour of played music
Someone also creates a playlist between that time.
Someone switches on Raffaele's mobile phone on shortly after 6am
Somoene receives an SMS on that phone from the night before (Raffaele's father's good-night SMS).
Raffaele's phone receives a phonecall after 9am where Raffaele's father talks to his son for over four minutes straight - 262 seconds. Try starting a stop-watch and then start reading something for over four minutes. It's an extremely long time not to recall.
The phone call finishes and Raffaele hits the finish call button or the call is interrupted
Less than a minutes later the phone rings again and there is another call for 38 seconds.
The phone call finishes and Raffaele hits the finish call button or the call is interrupted
Within seconds the phone rings again and it is Raffaele's father yet again.

But Raffaele and Amanda tell you they were asleep til 10.30? It's pretty hard to believe, isn't it?

What the computer and cellphone records tell you is that they were up and concerned, wondering what on earth to do; that music playing for over half an hour is something to try and calm down and distract themselves. That's a plethora of evidence they weren't asleep and collapsing alibis are usually treated by juries as signs of something very wrong with defendant testimony for very good reasons.

I don't understand, of what possible consequence is what they were doing the next day after the murder? So one of them got up and putzed around on the computer awhile and went back to sleep. Hours later Raffaele talked to his dad, perhaps in bed, so what? Who needs an alibi for the next day of a murder anyway?

Is it really a 'lie' for them to say they slept in until 10 or so if all they did beside that is answer a phone call and play a track on the computer in the middle of the night? What happens if all this amounts to is them forgetting about this or not thinking it relevant the first time they were asked and then not wanting to look like 'liars' when the 'a-ha!' moment comes?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Amanda's going out; their regret about the joint

SomeAlibi wrote, “The cellphone data places Amanda right by where Rudy was by his own diary at about 8.30pm - between "Kebap" and the basketball court.”

Amanda was at Raffaele’s flat near 8:45 and spoke with Ms. Popovic, who did not notice anything out of the ordinary in her behavior. Taking your comments about the cell phone as a given, SA, my interpretation of the two events is that she went out briefly and came back.

SomeAlibi wrote, “Both the defendant's diaries make clear their profound regret for their drug use. Why, since they only have ‘one joint’?”

My explanation for their words is that they were writing these works while in custody and consider that their smoking a joint is one of the reasons why they are there (meaning that smoking it was one reason why they have imperfect memories of the evening). I would feel the same way in their position.

 

[Alt+F4]

Is it really a 'lie' for them to say they slept in until 10 or so if all they did beside that is answer a phone call and play a track on the computer in the middle of the night? What happens if all this amounts to is them forgetting about this or not thinking it relevant the first time they were asked and then not wanting to look like 'liars' when the 'a-ha!' moment comes?

Yes, it's a lie to say that you were sleeping until 10:00 - 10:30 when you weren't. Either a person is asleep or not, it's that easy. What was the point of them telling that lie if all they were doing was just innocently hanging around the apartment that morning?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Was Ms. Knox awake?

Yes, it's a lie to say that you were sleeping until 10:00 - 10:30 when you weren't. Either a person is asleep or not, it's that easy. What was the point of them telling that lie if all they were doing was just innocently hanging around the apartment that morning?

Alt+F4,

I see nothing in SomeAlibi's list that indicates that Ms. Knox was necessarily awake. I am not sure who was on the computer, but I would assume it was Mr. Sollecito.

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

Amanda is a fan of "Hard-A" a brew of mixed booze. Memory loss can be exacerbated by combinations of stimulants and there's really no "possibly" about memory loss - blackouts are a universally recognised phenomena. Both the defendant's diaries make clear their profound regret for their drug use. Why, since they only have "one joint"?

Because they are blaming their memory loss on drug use when I think they are just plain lying. I do not believe MK was murdered in a drug-frenzied rage of some sort. And I do not believe AK and RS cannot remember what the hell they did the night before. They never state they had a big drink-up so really, where does the booze come in?

 

[Kaosium]

Yes, it's a lie to say that you were sleeping until 10:00 - 10:30 when you weren't. Either a person is asleep or not, it's that easy. What was the point of them telling that lie if all they were doing was just innocently hanging around the apartment that morning?

What happens if all this amounts to is them not thinking it relevant or simply forgetting the first time? Then they would be accused of 'changing their story,' wouldn't they?

It has little to do with the murder, Meredith was long dead at this point.

 

[piktor]

Yet you keep presenting your own opinions on matters pertaining to the case... why? If you genuinely believe that there is nothing to be said by those who were not present, because only first-hand experience of the courtroom events gives you any ability to make informed judgments, why do you comment on the case at all?

Courts do unjustly convict people sometimes. We have proven that several times over. So perhaps they are innocent despite their conviction, and you (not having been there) certainly have no more basis to proclaim certainty about their conviction than anyone else has a basis to proclaim that their conviction was unsafe, if people who were not there don't get to have an opinion.

Yet you keep sharing your opinion on the case. I find that inconsistent.

I maintain my previous statement that guilters only try out the "no one who wasn't there gets an opinion!" line selectively, when they run into evidence they cannot otherwise explain away. It's a replacement for the "Massei had access to secret evidence!" chestnut, which was the last line of defence before the Massei report was optimistically translated and turned out to be indefensible. Now the line is "Massei might have had access to super-secret evidence which he left out of the report for some reason, you can't prove he didn't!".

My opinions are from an outsider looking in. Third-rate information and all.

I am not a lawyer, I do not speak Italian, I understand very little of the scientific evidence concerning DNA, I have no real-world experience how a luminol reaction to blood looks different to other substances that make luminol glow.

We use our own personal experience to find logic or truth in statements and evidence presented on the computer screen. Same as the lay jurors in the Perugia courtroom and same as members of the public hearing a case out of curiosity. We are all here an international jury trying to make sense on this case.

No one following this was there but three people are in jail. It is confirmation, at least for some, that justice was made. Some call this unjust.

To pretend this forum is a scientific forum or a legal forum or a judicial forum, or that there are hierarchies to be acknowledged is just that, a pretense.

What we bring to this discussion is our unique minds and a sense of what is truthful. Some were certain the accused would be found guilty because the information acquired on this case pointed to that certainty. Some are certain the appeal will fail for the defense. Whatever certainty is presented, it is no more than a sincere personal opinion.

Unless the defense pulls out an exonerating rabbit out of their hat, the appeals court will confirm the guilty verdict. We have yet to hear the knockout argument to unravel the verdict's conclusions.

Calling authors that agree with the Meredith Kercher verdict "guilters" is juvenile, self-derogatory and agenda-driven.

Imagine a scientist giving a lecture to a gathering of physicists and calling the sun "sparky".