Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[RoseMontague]

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.

I don't exactly think the fact that Massei found someone else not credible to give me a reason to think Quintavalle is credible. But I will rephrase the question to you. Why do you find Quintavalle credible?

 

[SomeAlibi]

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.

I was referring to the Marriott led PR campaign.

 

[SomeAlibi]

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

By zero. It's matched to his footprint measurements to millimetre or near millimetre measurements in several parts and across both width and length. That's rather the point?

 

[Alt+F4]

So, when the postal police arrive at 12:35, they see everything that Amanda saw, they hear of the missing roommate, the locked door, and they even have Meredith's phones which were found abandoned in a garden up the road. Do they call the police? No! Do they treat the cottage as a crime scene? No! They do nothing for half an hour. They even allow the other roommate to wander in and out of her room where there is visible evidence of a break-in.

So, why again is it that Amanda should have called the police earlier when the postal police themselves with the same information didn't see a pressing need to do anything?

Again Dan, you are wrong. The Postal Police didn't arrive until about 12:55- 1:00. BTW, any further information on the bra sharing?

 

[katy_did]

My guess is she couldn't reach Amanda back and she was worried as you suggested so she called Raffaele's dad to get his cell phone number, figuring he and Amanda were together.

I am still trying to see what evidence other than Amanda and Raffaele can't remember phone calls or when they actually woke up or got up or can't get the times exactly right that Some Alibi is using as his beyond a reasonable doubt evidence of murder. There is no evidence that they did anything other than smoked some pot so I don't understand hints that they were into something heavier. Is this case about going to jail for 30 years for either lying or not remembering correctly or is it about going to jail for 30 years for murdering your flat-mate?

How would she have Raffaele's dad's number in order to get Raffaele's number, though? I'm just thoroughly confused now. I did wonder if the reference to Filomena might be to the phone Meredith borrowed from her, rather than to Filomena's own phone. Oh well, going to try and scour the report to figure it out...

Agreed that the forgotten phone calls, waking up in the middle of the night and the like are hardly evidence beyond a reasonable doubt (barely evidence at all, really).

 

[SomeAlibi]

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.

That's sophistry and you're mixing issues. Items such as the location of Knox and Guede within a hundred metres of each other at the same time are called "corroboration". Corroborated evidence has a particularly significant weight. If you think that juries convict without trying to understand what may have happened in the evening, you are very much mistaken and haven't heard many or any prosecution summing up speeches which raise plausible scenarios while caveating there can be no certainty. Human beings need it.

Legal questions of motive are something completely different.

However, you are correct that factual evidence convicts. As it did here.

 

[SomeAlibi]

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.

Well if the court makes an argument it is Sollecito's on the measurement basis and the defence cannot raise a valid defence, Raffaele is staying where he is. It absolutely *must* be defended in my opinion.

 

[SomeAlibi]

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

You're correct by the medical definition: they depress inhibitions and reduce self-control. Common experience before you even look at statistics on violence and alcohol will know that it stimulates acts of aggression.

 

[piktor]

So, when the postal police arrive at 12:35, they see everything that Amanda saw, they hear of the missing roommate, the locked door, and they even have Meredith's phones which were found abandoned in a garden up the road. Do they call the police? No! Do they treat the cottage as a crime scene? No! They do nothing for half an hour. They even allow the other roommate to wander in and out of her room where there is visible evidence of a break-in.

So, why again is it that Amanda should have called the police earlier when the postal police themselves with the same information didn't see a pressing need to do anything?

Knox and Sollecito are supposed to be "frantic" at this point. Massei describes:

"Yet when the Postal Police arrived, the panic caused by that locked door was not expressed in any way and Amanda did not speak of that locked door in the phone conversation she had with Romanelli; it was instead Romanelli who asked Amanda about Meredith, as mentioned above.

... Neither of them asked him to break down the door of Meredith’s room (page 114). Battistelli has also stated in the same hearing that it was Romanelli who noticed that Meredith’s door was locked (page 118)." Massei p 92

" ...The same Zaroli has stated that it was Luca Altieri who asked about the door and the response about the normality of it being locked he got it from Amanda and we were reassured (p.181).

Luca Altieri also stated that when they arrived they saw the room of Romanelli in a mess and then Meredith's room locked with a key. They asked if this was normal and Raffaele, "translating Amanda’s answer told me that she usually locks the door even when she goes into the bathroom to take a shower ... so there was no concern arising about the fact that the door was locked‛" Massei p 93 etc.

Are the defendants playing games and contradicting themselves or what.

 

[RoseMontague]

How would she have Raffaele's dad's number in order to get Raffaele's number, though? I'm just thoroughly confused now. I did wonder if the reference to Filomena might be to the phone Meredith borrowed from her, rather than to Filomena's own phone. Oh well, going to try and scour the report to figure it out...

Agreed that the forgotten phone calls, waking up in the middle of the night and the like are hardly evidence beyond a reasonable doubt (barely evidence at all, really).

Dad's phone number was in the book and cell phone numbers are not, I wonder if she called directory assistance?

 

[colonelhall]

London John "Then we can agree, for the purposes of assessing their guilt, that they were using nothing more than cannabis and alcohol (to which they readily admitted), since exactly zero evidence was ever uncovered of their use of other narcotic, psychotropic or stimulant substances on or around the night of the murder. Enough said?"

In which case they were lying about the memory loss. Either way, they are guilty!

 

[SomeAlibi]

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.

It may sound odd, but as a criminal lawyer, you very rarely take a position on the guilt or innocence of a client. I think it's a self-defence mechanism. Only rarely do you really get the feeling of fighting manifest injustice. Now, barristers on the other hand will very frequently give the impression they are doing the latter. But they very rarely are feeling that.

In this case, I think this will be uncomfortable for the lawyers in the areas, like the 2nd and the alibis which don't stand up to questioning. In the practice cross-examinations, it can be common to have awkward silences. Sollecito has lost one lawyer along the way I believe and Ted Simon originally said he thought the case was plain, before he started getting paid for it. We once saw Sollecito's lawyer express frustration with Raffaele which I think may be a bit of a nervous tick. When asked why his client smoked so much dope by a journalist he responded "because he's an a*rsehole"!

 

[Dan O.]

Again Dan, you are wrong. The Postal Police didn't arrive until about 12:55- 1:00. BTW, any further information on the bra sharing?

What do you mean "again"! I am never wrong. I used the time that the postal police themselves said they arrived. Are you accepting that the postal police lied in court?

 

[SomeAlibi]

Then we can agree, for the purposes of assessing their guilt, that they were using nothing more than cannabis and alcohol (to which they readily admitted), since exactly zero evidence was ever uncovered of their use of other narcotic, psychotropic or stimulant substances on or around the night of the murder. Enough said?

We can agree there's no evidence of it.

 

[Katody Matrass]

I have a general problem with guilters' theories. It is quite well exemplified by that Alt+F4's explanation of the phone calls, and by various conjectures recently brought here by SomeAlibi.

The problem I have is that they are are in fact bona fide conspiracy theories. They get a set of elements that have a perfectly good yet mundane and common sense based explanations, bunch them together and stamp them with some theory, which usually on its own raises eyebrows, a theory that also usually is incomplete, needs various implausible assumptions and spawns countless unanswered questions.

A theory is nice when it explains something, fits the evidence, and provides some "added value" where before there was something unexplained. But it is not so in case of a conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory must coexist and compete with usual, ordinary explanations that encompass random coincidences, fallibility of perception and memory, conventional physics, cognitive errors and biases etc.
I understand that such exotic speculations are attractive to some but in my eyes they have hard time competing with the already existing common sense explanations. e.g. I cannot see how Alt+F4's theory of the phone calls being purposefully made to create some kind of inexplicably advantageous situation could prevail over LondonJohn's and Kestrel's simple explanation. That's one example but countless others riddle the Massei report and are promoted by the colpevolisti. They culminate in the bizarre and incomplete theory of the crime which in my eyes loses to the ordinary yet comprehensive scenario of a burglary gone bad.

To be short, inclination towards skepticism prevents me from taking guilters' theories seriously and accepting the verdict as it is right now.

howgh

 

[SomeAlibi]

I think you misunderstand that lies should only be relevant where they are of direct probative relevance to the case.

A classic case in point is from the OJ Simpson case, where Detective Mark Fuhrman was asked on the stand if he'd ever used the "n" word in the previous ten years. He replied that he had not, but Simpson's defence lawyers introduced evidence that he in fact had conclusively used that word a few years previously. Thereafter, his important testimony about the discovery of the glove and the entry to Simpson's property were entirely discredited in the eyes of the predominantly-black jury, aided and abetted by not only the defence, but also - astonishingly - the prosecution.

Most legal commentators subsequently agreed that this line of questioning should never have been allowed by Judge Ito, since it was of minimal probative value (and, at the same time, far more inflammatory value). Clearly, the defence was trying to plant the seed that Fuhrman was an avowed racist, who therefore deliberately planted evidence to frame Simpson. But not only is it an incredibly long shot to jump from using the "n" word to wanting to frame black people for murder, there was also evidence that Fuhrman had been unnecessarily lenient with Simpson when called to previous domestic disputes between Simpson and his white wife.

So, as applied here, I'd argue that it's of relatively little probative value if Knox/Sollecito's version of events between 05.30 and 09.30 on the 2nd November 2007 doesn't tally with the computer logs and phone records, since the contested areas don't even place them at the murder scene.

The story gives them an alibi for the corner-shop and the morning clean up. The computer and cellphone records show that Raffaele at a minimum was clearly not asleep. You don't have to agree it but it's nonsense to suggest this isn't important to the case. It's hugely germane.

 

[SomeAlibi]

Minutiae of forensics is a nice turn of phrase, but in an interview, Mignini said that the three strongest pieces of biological evidence were all DNA-related:

"Male interviewer: In the biological evidence, is there any one item which is the one which you consider, especially in terms of the trial, to have had the most value?

Giuliano Mignini: I think that, in terms of the trial, the most important were the knife, the bra hook and also the biological traces in the bathroom. From the point of view of the trial, the knife certainly links the two defendants and the victim. Therefore it was (interrupted).

That is why I have pointed out that Dr. Stefanoni's "theories" of how DNA contamination work are inconsistent with the facts of, for example, the Gregory Turner case.

They are certainly the most crucial. If they can't be overturned, we all know the two convicted stay where they are.

 

[SomeAlibi]

Sorry, slip of the keyboard. I meant undergraduate.

So....by way of correction:

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

You appear to forget that Raffaele himself frets about the lack of activity via his ISP in his diary. He knows he can't prove he was on the computer. If he knew about event logs, he knew he had a problem but there was simply nothing he could do about it: attempting to delete it or destroy the laptop would obviously have pointed the finger at himself much more comprehensively. If he didn't know about them, then they are still there as uncontested evidence. There isn't a point to be made here either way.

 

[Katody Matrass]

By zero. It's matched to his footprint measurements to millimetre or near millimetre measurements in several parts and across both width and length. That's rather the point?

As I have seen that millimeter precision "measurements" recently, I can't do anything but laugh heartily

 

[katy_did]

Dad's phone number was in the book and cell phone numbers are not, I wonder if she called directory assistance?

Would she have even known Raffaele's last name, or whereabouts his dad lived? LOL, I'm just puzzled now. Massei lists the calls received by Meredith's Italian phone on 2 November, and none are from Filomena. So, I don't know...