Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Chris_Halkides]

Raffaele's appeal on the bath mat prit

You offer a theory as to why there may have been some sort of size creep due to wetness. The court gives another suggesting it is in fact highly reliable. My views it that the bathmat is not blotting paper - when you press down on it, the mark that is left is the mark that is left. There are individual fibres on that matt and thick rope-like aggregations of fibres. Moisture does not jump from one of those rope-like clumps or spread like ink on blotting paper. Believe what you will, but this is a very difficult piece of evidence for the defence and you get little credit for trying to poo-poo it wtih calling it risible, especially when you have not dealt with the *proportion* of width and length on the footprint which means it absolutely can't be Guede's. If one accepts the creep, it *still* cannot be his. So whose is it? The fact it does match Raffaele's smaller foot so precisely is rather telling. For you to make that Guede's it has to actually physically shrink not grow.

Impossible, see? So whose print is it?

It is not Raffaele's, according to Dr. Vinci. Raffaele's appeal document (machine translation) has several pages on the print on the bath mat. From about page 181, "The Court finally has enhanced the image of the pad made by Prof. Overcome by the use of "Crimescope": "the same (...) increase the detection of dell.alluce compact size (and the metatarsal) and
increase the perception of unity to all of the particle that would
wanted to post "(p. 380 above). The images indicated by the Court (table referred to page 51 of report prof. Vinci) actually provide the feedback of the exact opposite of what you would support.

From about page 182, "From all the above, then it may be concluded that the obvious differences morphological and size, should have led the Court with scientific and objective certainty, to exclude the footprint of blood found smeared on mat might have been affixed by Raffaele Sollecito."

 

[SomeAlibi]

You'd think that an experienced criminal defence attorney would not be engaging in this sort of uncorroborated conjecture. Same goes for all this stuff about how Knox might have "come across" on the stand. Aren't people supposed to be convicted on actual evidence, especially when there are two professional judges on the judicial panel?

And that leads to another point. Why on earth should any coverage of this case - whether or not it is critical of the Italian justice system, or even blatantly xenophobic towards Italy - make one single iota of difference as to how Knox and Sollecito are judged in a court of law? Are some people suggesting that the Italian courts are likely to be adversely swayed against Knox (or Sollecito) by anything said or written by others? If so, such people must have an extremely low view of the integrity of Italian justice. Personally, I trust and believe that both defendants will be judged in the appeal by the evidence laid before the court. Nothing more or less than that.

Well, when one works on a criminal case, an enormous amount of time is spent on trying to create a plausible and coherent narrative for what actually happened. Your "uncorroborated conjecture" is in fact linked to the timings of cellphone data and a need to understand what really happened that night.

As to whether matters hurt Amanda or Raffaele's case, you have Raffaele Sollecito's family statement recently and the comments from Ghirgha saying that they definitely don't help and they wish they would stop (see Moore etc). Raffaele's family said it extremely specifically, Ghirgha said it very clearly but in a lawyerly calm way. We can then debate whether that ought to be the case, and I would agree with the idea it shouldn't but the Knox team are extremely naive about how to manage the human angle of this.

 

[LondonJohn]

It speaks to their credibility ( practically nonexistent), state of mind on the morning after the murder and relates to other evidence -cleanup etc etc.

[Also - There are very grave suspicions about why AK had to 'forget' the 12.47 call]

Taking each point in isolation wont do,
Thats. not. how. it. works. in. court.

In this layman's opinion - If only we had a lawyer to explain it to us.

This is nonsense.

I'd agree on the "credibility" and "state of mind" points, if Knox and Sollecito actually had anything to gain by deliberately lying about one or both of them being awake in Sollecito's apartment at 5.30am. But they didn't have anything to gain by doing so.

And so far as the clean-up theory goes, how on earth would Knox and Sollecito's presence in Sollecito's apartment at 5.30am on the 2nd make a jot of difference to the clean-up story? After all, if true, it confirms that at least one of them was not conducting a clean-up at that time.

Why, for example, would Sollecito (for example) not say something like: "Oh yes, I remember now that I woke up, checked my voicemail, then messed around on my laptop for half an hour or so, then went back to sleep until my father called me at around 9am"? This would not only be entirely compatible with the evidence that the police think they have, but it would actually be exculpatory towards Sollecito in that it places him in his own apartment at 5.30-6.00am and again at 9.00-9.30am.

Instead, I believe that either a) Sollecito genuinely doesn't remember at least the 5.30-6.00am computer interaction and is mistaken as to when his father first called, or b) he now accepts that he was mistaken, but we are unaware of this since he has chosen his right to silence, or c) the Postal Police's "experts" are wrong.

 

[SomeAlibi]

It is not Raffaele's, according to Dr. Vinci. Raffaele's appeal document (machine translation) has several pages on the print on the bath mat. From about page 181, "The Court finally has enhanced the image of the pad made by Prof. Overcome by the use of "Crimescope": "the same (...) increase the detection of dell.alluce compact size (and the metatarsal) and
increase the perception of unity to all of the particle that would
wanted to post "(p. 380 above). The images indicated by the Court (table referred to page 51 of report prof. Vinci) actually provide the feedback of the exact opposite of what you would support.

From about page 182, "From all the above, then it may be concluded that the obvious differences morphological and size, should have led the Court with scientific and objective certainty, to exclude the footprint of blood found smeared on mat might have been affixed by Raffaele Sollecito."

That's pretty hard to understand as much as, of course, there must be a defence argument for everything.

How do you deal with the fact the print would have to shrink? It clearly can't be Guede's because of this. Therefore, whose is it?

 

[SomeAlibi]

If it was incriminating evidence that helped to convince the court of Knox and Sollecito's guilt, then wouldn't it be extremely remiss of Massei not to mention it in the sentencing report?

Massei states the precise timing of the calls. The judge's report doesn't cite every basis for the facts stated in it because it's uncontested. What's your point?

 

[LondonJohn]

Well, when one works on a criminal case, an enormous amount of time is spent on trying to create a plausible and coherent narrative for what actually happened. Your "uncorroborated conjecture" is in fact linked to the timings of cellphone data and a need to understand what really happened that night.

As to whether matters hurt Amanda or Raffaele's case, you have Raffaele Sollecito's family statement recently and the comments from Ghirgha saying that they definitely don't help and they wish they would stop (see Moore etc). Raffaele's family said it extremely specifically, Ghirgha said it very clearly but in a lawyerly calm way. We can then debate whether that ought to be the case, and I would agree with the idea it shouldn't but the Knox team are extremely naive about how to manage the human angle of this.

Where the heck has this idea about some centralised "management of the message" come from? As far as I know, Moore started his campaign entirely off his own bat, and to the best of my knowledge, none of the scientists or journalists who have come out publicly have received any direction from the Knox or Sollecito families. That's the beauty of a free speech society.

It's the same with the ludicrous hysteria about pro-Knox/Sollecito "paid blogging": there's no evidence whatsoever that it's taking place, except in some people's feverish minds, and also probably because the PR firm that's helped the Knox/Mellas family with media management uses paid blogging as a tool for some clients. But paid blogging only makes commercial sense if the client has a mass-market customer base, and therefore will benefit commercially if it can manipulate public opinion. That's very clearly not the case here. It goes without saying that I'm not getting paid - I post because I have an interest in this case, which I enjoy debating with other interested people.

 

[LondonJohn]

That's pretty hard to understand as much as, of course, there must be a defence argument for everything.

How do you deal with the fact the print would have to shrink? It clearly can't be Guede's because of this. Therefore, whose is it?

By how much would it have to shrink for it possibly to be Sollecito's?

 

[LondonJohn]

Well, when one works on a criminal case, an enormous amount of time is spent on trying to create a plausible and coherent narrative for what actually happened. Your "uncorroborated conjecture" is in fact linked to the timings of cellphone data and a need to understand what really happened that night.

As to whether matters hurt Amanda or Raffaele's case, you have Raffaele Sollecito's family statement recently and the comments from Ghirgha saying that they definitely don't help and they wish they would stop (see Moore etc). Raffaele's family said it extremely specifically, Ghirgha said it very clearly but in a lawyerly calm way. We can then debate whether that ought to be the case, and I would agree with the idea it shouldn't but the Knox team are extremely naive about how to manage the human angle of this.

There's no need whatsoever for a court of law to "really understand what happened that night", just as there is no need for the court to recognise a specific motive. All a court needs to decide is whether there is sufficient evidence placed before it to prove the guilt of the defendants beyond a reasonable doubt of the charges brought. A narrative can help a jury understand the context of the crime more fully, but a narrative doesn't convict. Factual evidence convicts.

 

[christianahannah]

So you believe that jurors were aware that "12:00" really meant 12:47 and "nothing happened yet" really meant everything happened except from the body discovery. I think such a belief is very optimistic
Comodi asked for the reason of the call. It is a very dumb question when you know that a call was made after discovering a break-in, blood, feces, and that a friend is missing. But it is a clever dirty trick when you imply that none of it yet had happened.


They should have objected immediately. It's very obvious from the transcript. Instead they let Comodi play her lie for question after question:

MC: But from the records, we see that you called your mother -- not only from the records but also the pings [?] that you first called your mother at 12. At midday. lie

MC: What time is it at midday? What time is it in Seattle, if in Perugia it is midday?

MC: Three o'clock at night? lie

MC: But at 12:00 nothing had happened yet. That's what your mother also said-- lie

MC: -- during the conversation you had with her in prison. Even your mother was amazed that you called her at midday, which was three or four o'clock at night, to tell her that nothing had happened. another lie​

finally as you call it, a clarification:

MC: But at midday nothing had happened yet in the sense that the door had not been broken down yet.​

and again

MC: But if you called her before, why did you do it? Comodi playing dumb​

MC: At three o'clock at night. lie repeated again​

sorry, christianahannah but it's obvious that Comodi didn't simply forget or made a simplification. The initial lie of 12:00 allowed her to derive the impressive 3:00 am in Seattle (which btw is also strangely inaccurate), and she repeats many times the lie that "nothing happened yet" without any clarification. To believe that jury wouldn't fall for it is naive.

That the defense didn't react is another story and a big failure.

Katody Matrass there is an answer from Amanda between Comodi's questions:

MC: What time is it at midday? What time is it in Seattle, if in Perugia it is midday?

AK: In Seattle it's morning. It's a nine hour difference, so three in the
morning.

MC: Three o'clock at night?

 

[Katody Matrass]

Katody Matrass there is an answer from Amanda between Comodi's questions:

MC: What time is it at midday? What time is it in Seattle, if in Perugia it is midday?

AK: In Seattle it's morning. It's a nine hour difference, so three in the
morning.

MC: Three o'clock at night?

Interesting that Amanda didn't understood that 12:00 as 12:47 and no one corrected her. The call was made at 4:47 Seattle time, not 3:00.
What about the rest of the lies?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

whose footprint is it

That's pretty hard to understand as much as, of course, there must be a defence argument for everything.

How do you deal with the fact the print would have to shrink? It clearly can't be Guede's because of this. Therefore, whose is it?

SomeAlibi,

My point in bringing it up is that the discussion of the print takes up about seven pages in the appeal. It hardly looks like a casual mention. I don't think that the defense has the burden of identifying the person who made it, and I am not an expert.

 

[LondonJohn]

It doesn't make you forget but I have done a number of assault cases where hyperactive and aggressive behaviour was attributed to cocaine use. As I said above, I believe they were on a mix of stimulants but I don't know what they were.

Neither alcohol nor THC (the active ingredient in cannabis) is a stimulant.

 

[LondonJohn]

I didn't use the phrase "extraneous" so not sure what you're getting at if you could clarify, about the make of mop.

On your second point, it's not a well thought out alibi at all - that's rather the point. Mistakes in alibis are incredibly human and innumerable cases have been settled on them. They went for a blanket coverage of "didn't do anything at all" on the morning of the 2nd and the evidence shows that to be untrue. Mainly they were trying to cover for Amanda not having been at the corner-shop or going to the flat earlier but it's ill thought through. You have to remember that they were already under enormous pressure about alibis and the idea that they could just cater for the entire first part of the morning of the 2nd with "we were asleep" was very attractive. Get rid of 5 hours worth of conduct and capacity for contradiction with one blanket statement. They had no appreciation of the eventuality of computer of cell-phone records: in this respect they were just young kids with really no clue.

I am interested to hear your idea about how such an abundance of water, such that it couldn't be cleared up with cloths, sponges, rags and towels and required the fetching of a mop managed to evaporate in the space of about half a day?

Yeah, Computer Science postgraduate student Sollecito had no clue about computer logs or phone network records. Riiiiiiiiight..........

I have no idea about the mop situation. Perhaps they didn't want to be on their hands and knees using hand-held rags or towels? I don't know. What I do know is that it is not good evidence that they participated in the sexual assault and murder of Meredith Kercher. Maybe if blood had been found on a mop head, that might be different. But it wasn't.

 

[piktor]

Yeah, it's a bit like referring to Knox, Sollecito and Guede as Anita, Biff and Rodney respectively.............

A quick search has provided irrefutable evidence that those deleterious derogations cited, have been posted, indeed, on JREF forums:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/search.php?searchid=809556

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/search.php?searchid=809569

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

Some Alibi,

If they are guilty, do you think their lawyers know what really happened? Or, as a defense attorney, is it more likely they don't want to know the truth.

 

[katy_did]

They should have objected immediately. It's very obvious from the transcript. Instead they let Comodi play her lie for question after question:

MC: But from the records, we see that you called your mother -- not only from the records but also the pings [?] that you first called your mother at 12. At midday. lie

MC: What time is it at midday? What time is it in Seattle, if in Perugia it is midday?

MC: Three o'clock at night? lie

MC: But at 12:00 nothing had happened yet. That's what your mother also said-- lie

MC: -- during the conversation you had with her in prison. Even your mother was amazed that you called her at midday, which was three or four o'clock at night, to tell her that nothing had happened. another lie​

finally as you call it, a clarification:

MC: But at midday nothing had happened yet in the sense that the door had not been broken down yet.​

and again

MC: But if you called her before, why did you do it? Comodi playing dumb​

MC: At three o'clock at night. lie repeated again​

sorry, christianahannah but it's obvious that Comodi didn't simply forget or made a simplification. The initial lie of 12:00 allowed her to derive the impressive 3:00 am in Seattle (which btw is also strangely inaccurate), and she repeats many times the lie that "nothing happened yet" without any clarification. To believe that jury wouldn't fall for it is naive.

That the defense didn't react is another story and a big failure.

Thanks Katody, this is a very strong argument. I can't see how anyone can possibly read the above and conclude that Comodi was merely making a point about Amanda's "confusion and forgetfulness". It's very obvious she was intending to imply that Amanda had called her mother before there was any reason to do so, and emphasizing that it was "three or four o'clock at night" to suggest the inappropriateness of Amanda calling her at that time to "tell her nothing had happened". That she then 'clarifies' with "in the sense that the door had not been broken down yet" only shows she knew precisely what she was doing - she knew that a lot had happened by that stage, just not the breaking down of the door.

The 112 call happened almost immediately after Amanda's call to her mother, yet strangely Comodi never asks Amanda why she called the police despite the fact that "nothing had happened".

 

[platonov]

This is nonsense.

I'd agree on the "credibility" and "state of mind" points, if Knox and Sollecito actually had anything to gain by deliberately lying about one or both of them being awake in Sollecito's apartment at 5.30am. But they didn't have anything to gain by doing so.

And so far as the clean-up theory goes, how on earth would Knox and Sollecito's presence in Sollecito's apartment at 5.30am on the 2nd make a jot of difference to the clean-up story? After all, if true, it confirms that at least one of them was not conducting a clean-up at that time.

Why, for example, would Sollecito (for example) not say something like: "Oh yes, I remember now that I woke up, checked my voicemail, then messed around on my laptop for half an hour or so, then went back to sleep until my father called me at around 9am"? This would not only be entirely compatible with the evidence that the police think they have, but it would actually be exculpatory towards Sollecito in that it places him in his own apartment at 5.30-6.00am and again at 9.00-9.30am.

Instead, I believe that either a) Sollecito genuinely doesn't remember at least the 5.30-6.00am computer interaction and is mistaken as to when his father first called, or b) he now accepts that he was mistaken, but we are unaware of this since he has chosen his right to silence, or c) the Postal Police's "experts" are wrong.

The 'credibility' and 'state of mind' issues are self evident.

As to the 3rd part "and relates to other evidence -cleanup etc etc." - so much for brevity.
Obviously the claim to have been asleep till 10-10.30 if shown to be false impacts on the evidence of the shopkeeper and allows for a presence at the flat in the early morning.

Whether you agree or not [the court obviously did] the logic stands.
This is what's meant by not taking things in isolation.

As to why the alibi is badly thought thru SomeAlibi has spoken to that - perhaps AK & RS with the benefit of hindsight would go with your suggestion but they didn't at the time.

 

[christianahannah]

I believe it's probably Guede's.

Their feet were only 3mm different in size, and the mark next to the big toe impression is compatible with Guede's foot, not Sollecito's. I believe that the prosecution's "expert" (the same one who couldn't count or measure concentric circles in a shoe print) made mistakes in his analysis of the footprint. I actually believe that it's impossible to say with any certainty whatsoever whose print it was. Foot print testimony has been widely discredited over the past decade - it's bogus science, outside of an analysis of the actual creases and characteristics of an extremely detailed footprint.

Wasn't it Ippolito-Mainieri and not Rinaldi who concluded that the shoeprint was compatible with Raffaele's shoe?

Rinaldi-Boemia was in charge of analyzing of the footprints/shoeprints (January 2008) and it was determined during legal debate and in the April 2008 report that the shoeprint was not compatible with Raffaele's (pages 332-335 Massei Motivations).

 

[colonelhall]

LondonJohn: "Neither alcohol nor THC (the active ingredient in cannabis) is a stimulant."

Does it matter? They were either out of their minds, judging by their own accounts, or lying.

I think that it has been agreed that we don't know what they were on.

 

[christianahannah]

Interesting that Amanda didn't understood that 12:00 as 12:47 and no one corrected her. The call was made at 4:47 Seattle time, not 3:00.
What about the rest of the lies?

Perhaps it is because Amanda didn't remember the phone call. Also, she didn't remember, as LondonJohn has stated, there was only an eight hour difference between Perugia and Seattle. Comodi uses midday, not 12 in the question Amanda answered.

I am not sure whose lies you are referring to.