Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[RoseMontague]

Yes Rose. The answer (in case you missed it the first time) is: Well, Quintavalle is one of those witnesses who's either credible or not. You have to be in court to decide whether he was credible or not. And the court thought he was credible. So he was credible.

Yeah,
that is what I thought he said as well.

 

[Katody Matrass]

I refer you to my earlier answer you quoted - this is just circular.

Commence evasive maneuvers

 

[Alt+F4]

So Knox didn't leave Sollecito's apartment on the night of the 1st November? So she slept in at Sollecito's apartment until around 10am? So she wasn't at Quintavalle's store "waiting for it to open" at 7.45am?

Glad we got some of that sorted out..........

I said SHE wasn't lying, I didn't say HE was not lying. But again, Amanda supporters of her innocent stupidly consider the two of them to be the same person, doing the exact same thing at the exact same time. I still can't get why anyone who believes in Amanda would throw her fate in with someone she knew for six days.

 

[LondonJohn]

I said the fact of the alibi for the morning of the 2nd is hugely germane not Quintavalle. I don't mind debating with you but I can't do this thing where you keep on misquoting or misinterpreting me. To be fair you haven't done that much but LJ keeps on doing it.

I don't want to reopen the enormously lengthy debate about Quintavalle. I see no particular reason to disbelieve him the reasoning for which was quoted at length here previously in one time I did read your board by Fulcanelli and others. We, of course, disagree about it.

Hmmm I don't remember "keeping on" misquoting or misrepresenting SA. Maybe someone could point me towards those instances where I've misrepresented him or misquoted him?

 

[SomeAlibi]

I don't think she was charged with any weapons possession.

She was: It's charge B of the indictment for which she received 3 months imprisonment:

(Massei)

(B) with the criminal offence to which articles 110 of the Criminal Code and 4 Statutes number 110 of 1975 apply, for having, in complicity amongst themselves, carried out of the residence of SOLLECITO, without justified reason, a large knife of point and blade comprising in total a length of 31 cm (seized at SOLLECITO’s on November 6, 2007, Exhibit 36)

(sentencing)

"In relation to the fact that in addition to the said crimes Amanda Knox is also answerable for the crime of calunnia, she must be condemned to a total punishment of 26 years of imprisonment (base penalty 24 years; increased to 24 years and 6 months for the simulation [staging]; to 24 years and 9 months for carrying the knife; to 25 years for theft and increased, finally, by a further year for calunnia).

 

[Alt+F4]

She was: It's charge B of the indictment for which she received 3 months imprisonment.

Ah, ok, thanks for the correction.

 

[SomeAlibi]

Unfortunately the corner shop witness has been completely discredited. I am glad that you see it as important however. Finding Quintavalle credible because Massei does not find two other witnesses credible hardly seems to be giving this one the importance you seem to put on it.

Quintavalle is disputed. You can't assert that someone is "completely discredited" simply because you believe it to be the case. Lets stick to delineating opinion from objective "fact".

 

[katy_did]

I clearly stated that I don't think Comodi was deliberately lying and in fact such a "tactic" would have been dumb. Am I worrying you too such that you are getting so snipey and silly in your responses?

Best to address the points I make, rather than accusing me of getting "snipey and silly".

Perhaps I misunderstood your argument. Are you saying that Comodi didn't know the time at which the call was made when she said Amanda called her mother "at 12. At midday"? And that even though she based her entire argument around the timing of the call, she hadn't bothered to check it?

 

[SomeAlibi]

The need for an explanation is the origin of a number of factoids in this case, which are treated as fact even in the Massei report, and have been adopted as articles of faith by the guilter faction.

The alleged clean-up and the supposed staging of the break-in are the obvious ones, but I think I also read that Amanda was charged with "unlawfully carrying a weapon" solely on the basis that for Raffaele's kitchen knife to have been the murder weapon, she must have been carrying it to and from the cottage on the night of the murder. Is this true?

If you are passionate about this case, how can you not have read Massei such that you know this is charge B on the sheet against them and they received 3 months for it consecutive?

 

[RoseMontague]

I said the fact of the alibi for the morning of the 2nd is hugely germane not Quintavalle. I don't mind debating with you but I can't do this thing where you keep on misquoting or misinterpreting me. To be fair you haven't done that much but LJ keeps on doing it.

I don't want to reopen the enormously lengthy debate about Quintavalle. I see no particular reason to disbelieve him the reasoning for which was quoted at length here previously in one time I did read your board by Fulcanelli and others. We, of course, disagree about it.

I wouldn't want to reopen the debate about Quintavalle if I was on your side either. There really is no debate and the arguments put forward by Fulcanelli were shown to be not credible. "I see no particular reason not to believe him" sounds like courts reasoning on Nara. The problem exists that there are plenty of reasons not to believe him.

 

[LondonJohn]

If you are passionate about this case, how can you not have read Massei such that you know this is charge B on the sheet against them and they received 3 months for it consecutive?

Errr....he did know it? The clue's in the "I think I also read" bit.

 

[LondonJohn]

I wouldn't want to reopen the debate about Quintavalle if I was on your side either. There really is no debate and the arguments put forward by Fulcanelli were shown to be not credible. "I see no particular reason not to believe him" sounds like courts reasoning on Nara. The problem exists that there are plenty of reasons not to believe him.

Ooh yes, we haven't even started on Mrs Capezzali, and Massei's utterly priceless reasoning on why he believed her testimony wholesale:

"If there had not been such a scream, and if Mrs. Capezzali had not actually heard it, then the Court can see no reason why she would have spoken about it." (Massei Report, p96, English version)

 

[act1roson]

Lawyering Up and other Nov. 2 details

Do you have a reference for Laura and Filomena lawyering up on the day Meredith's body was discovered?

The source for the following is Candace Dempsey's "Italian Woman at the Table", comment #367170, in the article called "Amanda Knox Murder Trial: Taking Aim at Rudy Guede"

"Sorry, but Filomena did act dazed on Nov. 1. Go back and read her court testimony if you have it. This is what I got from it (below). If I've gotten any details wrong, somebody can tell me.

On Nov. 2, Filomena's 20-year-old foreign roommate, Amanda Knox, calls her and alerts her to a possible break-in. Filomena tells the young foreigner, who barely speaks Italian, to call the police. She does not call police herself. It takes her nearly an hour to get from her shopping excursion to the crime scene. She alerts her boyfriend instead. He has to borrow a friend's car since she has his. Now we've got 2 guys sans gloves or booties who arrive at the crime scene. None of this is anybody's fault, except the killer.

Filomena finally gets there. She goes into her room and rummages all around, because she's supposed to be finding out if any valuables are missing. She jokes around with her boyfriend about what a stupid burglar entered her house. If Amanda had made a similar joke, it would have been a sure sign of guilt.

Filomena then tells the postal police that Meredith never locked her door when in fact she did lock it whenever she was in London. Amanda contradicts her and catches all sort of grief for this, even though their inane, traumatized conversation is in Italian, which Amanda barely spoke. (And Filomena worked in a lawyer's office during the day and spent her off-hours with her boyfriend. She stayed with him every weekend. So how would she know if Meredith's door was ALWAYS locked?)

Filomena then does a smart thing and insists that the door be knocked down. Luca kicks it in. The young people get one look into the room, see the duvet with a foot sticking out. The police push them all outside. The first thing Filomena does is call a lawyer and ask him to come over. The next thing is she calls Laura in Rome. (Laura hangs up and calls a lawyer, her father and various other relatives who accompany her back to Perugia. She also goes to a court hearing the next day.) Then Filomena calls Giacomo but she doesn't even know Meredith well enough to have her boyfriend's phone number and has to ask Amanda for it.

Finally, right before she leaves for the police station, Filomena rushes back into the house and gets her computer. She is not accompanied by an inspector. This computer was later taken away from her at the Questura since you are not supposed to remove objects from a crime scene. Filomena, a legal trainee, must have known this.

So, yes, I would say she acted dazed, except when she called the lawyer. That was extremely prudent. I would have done the same. I do not fault her for any of this because I have never had a roommate murdered in my own house and I don't know anybody else who's ever been in that situation either. But when she is used as an expert on the broken glass, I am just amazed. The crime scene photos do not support her confused account."
​

 

[SomeAlibi]

I should have said that he claimed to have entered it when he did not. BTW, it was probably no longer fire in a room but a room on fire. There is no specific connection other than to make the point that the simple fact of a defendant's lying is not proof of guilt. I would add that lying is a really bad idea, as Kestrel has richly documented. Even when the police lie (as in an interrogation), even an innocent person cannot lie in his or her answer.

As far as Amanda, one or more commenters here asked for specific examples of lying by Amanda some time ago, and no examples emerged.

As you know, the entire prosecution case, which you don't agree with, has multiple points where the alibis are shown to be untrue. Each one of those is a point where she's shown to be lying. Since you don't believe that case, you say that's not proof of lying. But again, that's an expression of personal belief not some sort of objective point scored.

 

[platonov]

The defence's ONLY job is to convince the court that the prosecution's expert is incorrect in positively identifying the partial blood/water print on the ridged towelling bathmat as Sollecito's. They don't have to prove it's someone else's. If I were them, I would merely seek to discredit the whole pseudo-science employed in making this alleged identification, and perhaps point out in passing that the print matches Guede as much (or even more) than it matches Sollecito.

I think the defence dropped the ball majorly in this area in the first trial. After all, if the print was accepted as definitely Sollecito's, that's him pretty much convicted right there. The thing is, I don't think it IS Sollecito's, and I think that Rinaldi's "science" in this respect is bunk.

But again, it bears repeating that this appeal is a de novo trial. The defence therefore doesn't have to seek to "overturn" the first court's reasoning regarding the bath mat partial print. It merely has to convince a new jury of its invalidity as solid evidence against Sollecito.

I never said they did. What I said was they have to show it isn't Raffaele's - exactly the same point you write in saying "It merely has to convince a new jury of its invalidity as solid evidence against Sollecito". You appear to be arguing other people's points in relation to topics we are discussing rather than what I'm actually saying. This is the second time in a few posts you are repeating the same point I've already made.

I don't believe its even that simple - by your logic at best they can muddy the waters on the footprint, as in it may or may not belong to RS , which may be a reasonable approach.

But can they do any better than that ?

Unless some of the other evidence is overturned it wont be enough.

Necessary but not sufficient I suppose.

If I may make a (non-rancorous) remark they will have to do better than the 1 dimensional foot approach.

 

[Kestrel]

So Knox and Sollecito were not taking stimulants, or "hard" drugs of any kind. Their drug of choice in Perugia seems certain to have been cannabis and its variants. And not many violent sexual murders are committed by stoners. Just sayin'......

The claims that AK and RS were using hard drugs was invented out of thin air. It's needed because the official motivation in the Massei Report (Reefer Madness, vampire comics and porn) is clearly nonsense.

Those that believe that Satan walks the Earth don't care about the lack of motive. Demonic possession is all the explanation they need. But the rest of us need a rational motive, or clear evidence of severe mental illness to explain why two young college students who recently fell in love would suddenly decide to murder a flatmate.

 

[piktor]

The shape of the big toe is wrong, as indicated in my recent comment.

Forget the big toe. The bathmat does not offer a credible delineated shape. The general shape of the bathmat print is related to the general shape of Sollecito's foot.

You can make an approximation of the large masses and sweep that fit Sollecito only.

The proportions of the whole footprint match Sollecito's. They do not fit Guede's proportions.

Sollecito's footprint general shape is compact and wide. Guede's is narrow and elongated.

You cannot make exact measurements out of a smudge, but you can make out a compatible shape for two distinct footprint shapes such as Sollecito's and Guede's.

 

[SomeAlibi]

Wouldn't you now? Sure about that?

(Maybe not here, I suppose...)

Oh I'm plenty rude about you, as you are about me so in that respect we're quits, but not in debate here which is against the rules.

 

[SomeAlibi]

Hmmm I don't remember "keeping on" misquoting or misrepresenting SA. Maybe someone could point me towards those instances where I've misrepresented him or misquoted him?

I pointed out two earlier in this thread.

 

[SomeAlibi]

Best to address the points I make, rather than accusing me of getting "snipey and silly".

Perhaps I misunderstood your argument. Are you saying that Comodi didn't know the time at which the call was made when she said Amanda called her mother "at 12. At midday"? And that even though she based her entire argument around the timing of the call, she hadn't bothered to check it?

You didn't make a point, what you said was (quote) "So lying in Court is indeed an acceptable tactic to use as a lawyer". Which is self-evidently rather snipey and silly. I've closed Quintavalle above as a topic which is that I support the views expressed here by Fulcanelli and others. You may disagree with it, as you disagree with everything else I believe, but that's my position.