Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[LondonJohn]

Thanks Dan O.
To me it looks more like Rudy's. I would tend to exclude Raffaele's because I just don't see it as possible that the big toe/second toe area in the bathmath print could be his. On what basis did the prosecution expert decide that Rudy's print could be excluded as a possibility?

From a position of pseudoscientific confirmation bias

And, incidentally, it's perfectly proper to apply the term "pseudoscience" to this sort of footprint analysis. It's been widely discredited for use in trial evidence, in the same way as graphology and offender profiling are no longer deemed credible for use in trial (although I fully agree that they can be of use in directing investigations).

To further add to the sheer ridiculousness of trying to make a positive identification of this particular footprint, it was made on a high-tuft towelling bathmat of varying texture and height. One can, for example, clearly see that the arch area of the print has been distorted by the texture of the mat. I would suggest with some confidence that it's impossible to match this print to anybody other than a generic adult male with reasonably large feet. In my opinion, any analysis which attempts to show anything different is incorrect.

 

[LondonJohn]

I understand what you mean; however I think, like I believe you suggested in another post today, that there's at least two levels to this case. One, whether they did it, and two whether or not sufficient evidence was presented to prove beyond a reasonable doubt they did it, the standard under Italian law.

I think both are worth exploring and this case garners more attention than most because there is plenty of indications, starting with no evidence of them at the scene outside the contrived, that they didn't do it. I'm afraid I wouldn't have as much interest if it appeared they might just get off on a technicality. I think there's probably many that feel that way.

I agree with you, but there's more at issue than a mere "technicality". It's actually a bedrock of modern justice - someone MUST be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt before they are convicted. My heightened interest in this case started when I began to believe that they were wrongly convicted - not when I began to believe that they might actually be non-culpable. And I'd still have been interested in commenting on my belief in a wrongful conviction, even if I was still unsure as to whether Knox and/or Sollecito were actually involved in the crime.

 

[LondonJohn]

while arguments build by by supporters groupies are not....

Using pejorative terms such as "groupies" is not likely to endear you to many people.

I posted pictures for everybody to see. I made a comment on the line you mention, and I wish people to consider many aspects of the print altogether, as visual information and the right side of the brain allow us to do.
I could have commented, for example, that Sollecito almost doesn't put weight on his small toes, while Guede puts considerable body weight on them, and the bathmat print has no (or almost no) small toe marks. This is an analogy. I wonder why Guede's big toe has got so completely soaked and the fore part of the feet got evenly bloodied, while the small toes diden't.
I want people to consider the overall parts of the picture, like where Guede's second toe falls and where the bloody mark falls.

You could indeed have commented on these things. They would all be interesting, but they fall a very long way short of proving that the print was made by Sollecito, and to the exclusion of being made by Guede.

perhaps... or perhaps not.

Hmm. You talk about impartiality and voicing of opinion, not fact. But where was your equivocation when you made the following declarative statement:

"It must be understood that the mat had been rinsed by the murderer(s), and the stains are residual."

That doesn't sound like anything other than an attempted statement of fact to me....

But I'd like you to correct your statement on alleged pseudoscience, because this is offensive since not true. It is legitimate and intellectually correct to state that you thnk the research doesn't lead to a conclusion, but it is not fair and quite offensive to say it is pseudoscience. The term "pseudoscience" may only refer to something that declares to be science or pretends to be science. This is not my case, I'm not selling you science (and - while I take in account of any scientific argument available - I have never thought judicial cases must or can be solved by science). The purpose for which you use the term "pseudoscience" is derogatory, you use it as an argument to attack the very fact that the topic is raised and evalued, before chacking how inconclusive could be and independently from its conclusions.
This is a bit beyond in being dismissive, quite "too certain" as well from my point of view.
Anyone can make his own idea by looking at the pictures. New ways can be searched to fit the bathamt in Guede's print. Arguments can be listed. Everybody can make up their logical interpretations or search for more literature or research on experimental grounds, or decide what they think is more likely.

I won't be "correcting" my opinion that this whole area is pseudoscience, because it is. I applaud your efforts to analyse the print (even though I believe you've approached the analysis with the intention of finding a particular conclusion - which, if I'm correct, in itself is an unscientific approach). In the same way, people can try to analyse Knox's handwriting or elements of her life history to find evidence of a personality disorder. It might be interesting, but that doesn't make it valuable.

 

[Mary_H]

Beloved Leader ordered a full scale retreat, I mean a tactical regroup
And I get a honorable mention, I'm flattered. Does it mean I'm declared a "suppressive person" now? Should I expect an investigation of my identity and subsequent stalking ?

Katody, I just looked up the term "suppressive person," and, naturally, this was my reaction:

At first I thought you had meant "subversive person," as in "defending Amanda Knox is a subversive activity." I guess you're a little bit of both, though, huh? Lord help you if you have an unsecured Facebook page.

 

[s_pepys]

Beloved Leader ordered a full scale retreat, I mean a tactical regroup
And I get a honorable mention, I'm flattered. Does it mean I'm declared a "suppressive person" now? Should I expect an investigation of my identity and subsequent stalking ?

oh come on now! blimey

 

[katy_did]

Katody, I just looked up the term "suppressive person," and, naturally, this was my reaction:

At first I thought you had meant "subversive person," as in "defending Amanda Knox is a subversive activity." I guess you're a little bit of both, though, huh? Lord help you if you have an unsecured Facebook page.

LOL. I didn't know what one was either. From Wiki:

Suppressive Person, often abbreviated SP, is a term used in Scientology to describe the "antisocial personalities" who, according to Scientology's founder L. Ron Hubbard, make up about 2.5% of the population. A statement on a Church of Scientology website describes this group as including notorious historic figures such as Adolf Hitler.

The term is often applied to those whom the Church of Scientology perceives as its enemies, i.e. those whose "disastrous" and "suppressive" acts are said to impede the progress of individual Scientologists or the Scientology movement. [...]

As with most Scientology terminology, "suppressive person" was coined by L. Ron Hubbard. Ruth A. Tucker, in her book Another Gospel: Cults, Alternative Religions, and the New Age Movement, wrote that the concept appeared to have first been introduced into Scientology in the 1960s "as membership grew and as authoritarian control [by Hubbard] increased." Tucker notes that many of those who joined Scientology during this period were "well-educated people who prided themselves in independent thinking [who] struggled with the idea of allowing any other individual to completely dominate their opinions."

I have a feeling Katody said exactly what he meant to say.

 

[Machiavelli]

Using pejorative terms such as "groupies" is not likely to endear you to many people.

Ok, you can replace it with a non pejorative term. On this point the fact is I'm not completely acknowledged about all the semantic shades of English vocabulary.
But I'm not looking for sympathy from them. My attitute towards several of those people is negative. While the label of "case study of ex post rationalization" is probably not meant to be a compliment.

You could indeed have commented on these things. They would all be interesting, but they fall a very long way short of proving that the print was made by Sollecito, and to the exclusion of being made by Guede.

My task is not to "prove" the print belongs to Sollecito. It is just about presenting my findings, and show there are reasons to support a thinking. Besides, one can think that an alternative theory, about that the print may belong to Guede, might as well need to supported by some kind of demonstration.

 

[Machiavelli]

From a position of pseudoscientific confirmation bias

And, incidentally, it's perfectly proper to apply the term "pseudoscience" to this sort of footprint analysis. It's been widely discredited for use in trial evidence, in the same way as graphology and offender profiling are no longer deemed credible for use in trial (although I fully agree that they can be of use in directing investigations).
(...)

I define what you say like this: to make this argument you are not able to stop before the threshold of rational analysis of the topic, you feel the need to launch an attack on somebody's activity of assessing the topic itself, you need to stigmatize an activity, to use condemnatory lable on some rational activity of others, as a tool to keep the opposite argument far away.
You argument is very much in limie litis and judgemental.
I challenge your idea and I affirmin scientific certainity is not the basis for human justice nor for human rational thought.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Katody, I just looked up the term "suppressive person," and, naturally, this was my reaction:

I adore your inquisitiveness Thanks!

 

[Justinian2]

Though if the prosecution believes this footprint is Sollecito then then how can they believe Guede told the truth about seeing Sollecito and Knox there. Afterall Guede's testimony is in direct contradiction with the Footprint. Since Sollecito would have had to stab him with the knife first. Then Guede go check on Meredith. Then Guede go to bathroom where the footprint is found and grab towels. Then bring towels back to Meredith while she slowly dies and speaks two letters with her last breath.
Where was Sollecito standing during all this time after fighting with Guede? From what I gathered from Guede testimony, Sollecito fled the scene with knox before Rudy fled the scene. So he would have had to run out of the apartment with bloody barefeet while Knox was standing outside yelling between 10 and 10:30 pm. Yet no one on the street notices Knox yelling or sees Sollecito or Knox. Plus if you convict Rudy of the Murder then allowing his testimony in court saying he had nothing to do with Murder contradicts his conviction. So basicly the Prosecution has presented lies to the court.

Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17.
Scottish author & novelist (1771 - 1832)

The prosecution has woven a tangled web, for sure.

 

[Chris C]

Yummi over at PMF decided to play with the contrast and actually made the picture look more like Guede's foot.

So then I took that same picture and inverted it so you get a clear outline. How they figure that looks like Sollecito's foot I dont understand.

 

[Katody Matrass]

My task is not to "prove" the print belongs to Sollecito. It is just about presenting my findings, and show there are reasons to support a thinking. Besides, one can think that an alternative theory, about that the print may belong to Guede, might as well need to supported by some kind of demonstration.

I think your effort is commendable despite the deficiency of the hand drawing methodology. You put much work into it and it gave us food for thought, new content to talk about and pushed the discussion on.
And as everybody's posting footprint pictures, I think I could share also my experiments. I tried to enhance the bathmat mark a bit and fit the prints. I also based the measurement scale on the Rinaldi pdf, so it won't be hard to compare our results. I'll paste pics later this evening

 

[LondonJohn]

I define what you say like this: to make this argument you are not able to stop before the threshold of rational analysis of the topic, you feel the need to launch an attack on somebody's activity of assessing the topic itself, you need to stigmatize an activity, to use condemnatory lable on some rational activity of others, as a tool to keep the opposite argument far away.
You argument is very much in limie litis and judgemental.
I challenge your idea and I affirmin scientific certainity is not the basis for human justice nor for human rational thought.

No, I said I admire your effort in doing your analysis. I think your methods and your conclusions are wrong, though.

And I would totally agree with you that scientific certainty is not the basis for human justice. The problem is, this evidence was presented to the court with a ludicrous degree of "scientific" certainty, when the reality is quite different. And there's no such thing as scientific certainty anyhow - and all true scientists understand this. Science always seeks to challenge itself, in order to move closer to the truth. Only the fundamental axioms are ever accepted as any kind of "certainty" - everything else is just theory, which becomes ever more verified as more evidence is found for its existence, and/or as more and more challenges fail to disprove it.

Fortunately, we know enough about forensic podiatry these days to know that it's highly unreliable as evidence. It has its uses in including or excluding broad groups of suspects, but rarely (if ever) can it be used to make a positive identification. One can add as many "millimetre precision" measurements as one wishes, it doesn't make the underlying methodology any more valid, unfortunately...

 

[LondonJohn]

Ok, you can replace it with a non pejorative term. On this point the fact is I'm not completely acknowledged about all the semantic shades of English vocabulary.
But I'm not looking for sympathy from them. My attitute towards several of those people is negative. While the label of "case study of ex post rationalization" is probably not meant to be a compliment.



My task is not to "prove" the print belongs to Sollecito. It is just about presenting my findings, and show there are reasons to support a thinking. Besides, one can think that an alternative theory, about that the print may belong to Guede, might as well need to supported by some kind of demonstration.

The prosecution and the court clearly believed that the print was "proven" as being that of Sollecito (and certainly to the exclusion of Guede). That's what we're debating really - not the work that you did.

And I think you're being slightly misleading if you want us to believe that you went into that analysis with an open mind. I think you went into that analysis with the aim of demonstrating that the bath mat print matched Sollecito's reference print, and that it didn't match Guede's reference print. This shows in the way you chose to draw your outline - particularly in the area of the big toe - which is totally at odds with the high-contrast photos of the mat. And it shows in the way you announced a close "match" with Sollecito's print, when there were many significant points of mismatch, and conversely when you announced that Guede's reference was "no match", when there were probably the same number of matching and mis-matching areas as with Sollecito's print.

Lastly, I don't seek to match the bath mat print to Guede's foot print, and nor do I think I need to in order to make my point. I don't that a match to Guede can be done with any degree of certainty whatsoever. That's the whole point.

 

[LondonJohn]

I see that some people elsewhere seem to think that it's acceptable to lock someone up for committing a crime, even if it was not conclusively proven in a court that the person committed the crime: these people seem to think that the court should be allowed to say "oh, well, we have a gut feeling that this person did it, so even though the prosecution hasn't met its burden of proof, we're justified in finding the person guilty regardless."

I suggest that these sorts of people never EVER try to become involved in the criminal justice system.......

 

[Katody Matrass]

For starters, here's my enhancement of the photo from Rnaldi pdf.

original


After selectively enhancing a color range of the stain, contrast upped for clarity:


(click for larger view)

 

[LondonJohn]

For starters, here's my enhancement of the photo from Rnaldi pdf.

original
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_427054cc4431cbaa86.jpg[/qimg]

After selectively enhancing a color range of the stain, contrast upped for clarity:
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_427054cc44286c00fb.jpg[/qimg]

(click for larger view)

And now, all we need to do is draw an outline for the big toe which extends about 5mm left and right from the actual blood/water stain on the mat, and: VOILA! Sollecito's big toe!

 

[LondonJohn]

Ah, I love it when people write things such as:

"The verdicts will not be overturned. The evidence is overwhelming."

This tells us an awful lot about the author's critical reasoning skills; the total lack of equivocation, and/or lack of identification as an opinion rather than raw fact, is very illuminating.

 

[christianahannah]

Thanks Dan O.
To me it looks more like Rudy's. I would tend to exclude Raffaele's because I just don't see it as possible that the big toe/second toe area in the bathmath print could be his. On what basis did the prosecution expert decide that Rudy's print could be excluded as a possibility?

Pages 341-342:

With regard to the point of departure of the investigation, the fundamental parameter which, according to technicians Rinaldi and Boemia, distinguishes Sollecito’s right foot from Guede’s, is determined by the width of the big toe and the shape of the metatarsus, to which are added further differences found in the plantar arch, in the f the heel, in the left-side outline of the foot (in table 29, for example, it is shown that, once the left-hand outline of the print on the mat has been traced, when this outline is overlaid on those of the sole-prints of Guede and of Sollecito respectively, an outcome is obtained in which, for Guede’s foot, the left-hand outline drawn overlaps one part of the phalanges of the big toe; in the case of Raffaele Sollecito, on the contrary, this does not occur, and in fact the outlines of the two prints match perfectly) and finally, with regard to the measurement of the bumps (12mm Guede; 8mm Sollecito), as demonstrated by tables 27 and 28 of the report.

I find it interesting that the prosecution consultant takes the outline of the bathmat print and overlays it on the sole-prints of Guede and Sollecito. I have not read Vinci extensively to know if he also has done the same. Is Vinci's report available?

Massei concludes the opinons of consultants for the prosecution outlining why they give weight to one over the other.

Page 354:

However, the Court cannot agree with one point of departure, which is the operation that consists of detaching the small mark from the big toe print, since this results in a clearly visible resizing of the big toe. This operation rests on the assumption that there is an interruption of continuity in the print (tables on pp. 45-46 of the report), but this starting point is not at all convincing, given that the photograph provided as documentary evidence of this appears to show exactly the contrary. The base of the material in the disputed point (in this portion of the mat, the terrycloth [also] has a decorative protuberance) shows that the trace of blood is a single unit on all of the curl (flourish), and is uniformly linked, forming a single unit with all the other parts of the material on which the big toe was placed. For these reasons, the proof that this mark is actually the mark of the second toe (missing in the morphology of Sollecito's foot) appears totally weak and unsatisfactory.

Page 355:

Finally, there is a piece of data which the Court has uncontrovertibly adopted: the same images of the bathmat, shown in deepened colours by the lighting equipment of the Crimescope, do actually increase the impression of solidity of the size of the big toe (and also of the metatarsus), and augment the perception of the unity with the rest of the small mark whose detachment was suggested.

The consequence is that the Court does not hold as practicable the alternative version aimed at confuting or undermining the judgement of probable identity formulated by the Scientific Police, which instead finds itself strengthened.

There is more to this conclusion by Massei on page 354. Summary of Vinci's presentation starts on page 349.

 

[Danceme]

The problem with saying nothing has happened yet is what do you consider nothing. The prosecution claims that when Knox called her mother nothing had happened yet. Then they say her mother confirms this.

What the prosecution says is that her mother said that nothing had happened yet. Then they proceed to try and find out what is meant by that but Amanda will have no part of it, she insists she doesn't remember the call at all, so the prosecution gets nowhere.

Its obvious at this point that Sollecito was taking care of the situation and was in charge.

No, it isn't obvious. Knox made the first call, to her mother. Sollecito made the second call, to his sister who was a police officer but in another jurisdiction entirely, it was onuy to get advice (or as some believe to create an alibi as well). Only then did Sollecito call the police.

Why would knox need to call the police, when her boyfriend speaks ITALIAN and can do it for her. If knox calls the police they are going to need an interpreter. I'm a Man and from past experience I can tell you one thing. Woman will make you call the police or confront the problem, while they are talking to their mother on the phone.

I think you misunderstood me here, I never suggested Knox should call the police herself, rather that Sollecito, as the Italian speaker, should have, before Knox called her mother or he called his sister.