Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[moodstream]

Raffaele's family figured it out before Rinaldi or Vinci entered the picture, but you are right, the news came out in January rather than December. On January 10, Raffaele's father appeared on an Italian TV show and explained what the family had discovered:

http://www.video.mediaset.it/video/matrix/servizio/41595/sollecito-innocente.html

And the next day, the world learned of the DNA trace on the bra fastener:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1575287/DNA-link-in-Meredith-Kercher-case.html

It does seem remarkably coincident that news reflecting badly for the prosecution is so quickly followed by bad news for the defendants.
As this Perugia shock entry (with comment) shows, on 2/16/2008 Sollecito “received his university degree in computer sciences after defending his dissertation before a panel of professors who came to the prison”, which seems to show him in a positive light.
On 2/17, the very next day, Sollecito was transferred to a high security prison.

http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2008/02/when-you-are-star.html

On Nov 13, the Times of London reports “Police are also looking for a fourth person, believed to be a North African man…”, proving the interrogation was botched and launching the investigation into a new direction, followed by ….
On Nov 16, the Times of London reports “Traces of DNA belonging to Amanda Knox and Meredith Kercher were found on a knife at the flat of Raffaele Sollecito.” … bringing it all back home.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2855320.ece

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2878243.ece

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

It does seem remarkably coincident that news reflecting badly for the prosecution is so quickly followed by bad news for the defendants.
As this Perugia shock entry (with comment) shows, on 2/16/2008 Sollecito “received his university degree in computer sciences after defending his dissertation before a panel of professors who came to the prison”, which seems to show him in a positive light.
On 2/17, the very next day, Sollecito was transferred to a high security prison.

http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2008/02/when-you-are-star.html

On Nov 13, the Times of London reports “Police are also looking for a fourth person, believed to be a North African man…”, proving the interrogation was botched and launching the investigation into a new direction, followed by ….
On Nov 16, the Times of London reports “Traces of DNA belonging to Amanda Knox and Meredith Kercher were found on a knife at the flat of Raffaele Sollecito.” … bringing it all back home.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2855320.ece

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2878243.ece

I've seen the same pattern in US cases. Right after the New Yorker came out with the story about how Cameron Todd Willingham (who was executed by the state of Texas) might have been innocent, new "evidence" surfaced in the form of affidavits by people who supposedly had heard Willingham confess. But the same people had earlier testified that he never wavered from his claim of innocence.

Basically it comes down to who these people are. They are government officials. They don't work their way up through the system because of talent or initiative. They do it by playing a game in which appearance is far more important than substance. This case won't end until Mignini and his colleagues are thoroughly discredited on a global basis. They've seen to that with their own tactics. And it will happen. It may take another five years, but it will happen.

 

[treehorn]

There was no hearing or finding of fact by a court. The cops handed her a ticket, and she mailed it in with a check - for which she was reimbursed by her friends, because although she was the tenant of record at that address, she played no part in the disturbance.

The Seattle Court record is unequivocal. I looked it up. I've seen it.

The court found Knox (and Knox alone) to have committed the offense ("Residential Disturbance").

As a penalty, a fine was then imposed.

And what proof do you have that "friends" reimbursed her?

Were these friends the "real rock throwers"?

Were these friends also lessees?

On what grounds are you able to claim that, despite the public record of Knox's conviction, she "played no part in the disturbance"?!

Are you saying the Seattle Municipal Court got it wrong, too?!

"Wrongfully convicted" in BOTH Seattle and Perugia?!

Imagine the odds.

 

[LondonJohn]

I'm definitely embarrassed to have to point out that he clearly says the print was positively not Sollecito's, as opposed to your suggestion that he is saying it is not positively Sollecito's.

Since Alt-F4's point was that such an assertion of positive exclusion has been made, and she provided this citation demonstrating exactly that, your rebuttal bears no relationship at all to her point.

I know the old G. B. Shaw quip about being separated by a common language, but I think you might be overworking it.

And you'd have a point, if Alt+F4's original argument had anything to do with people saying the print wasn't Sollecito's. But it wasn't. Her argument - which was the genesis of this to-and-fro, was:

"why do many of those who think AK and RS are innocent insist that the print is RG's?"

(RG = Rudy Guede; note the use of the word "insist").

 

[LondonJohn]

The Seattle Court record is unequivocal. I looked it up. I've seen it.

The court found Knox (and Knox alone) to have committed the offense ("Residential Disturbance").

As a penalty, a fine was then imposed.

And what proof do you have that "friends" reimbursed her?

Were these friends the "real rock throwers"?

Were these friends also lessees?

On what grounds are you able to claim that, despite the public record of Knox's conviction, she "played no part in the disturbance"?!

Are you saying the Seattle Municipal Court got it wrong, too?!

"Wrongfully convicted" in BOTH Seattle and Perugia?!

Imagine the odds.

My horse has just unfortunately died. Would you be interested in flogging it?

 

[treehorn]

Basically it comes down to who these people are. They are government officials. They don't work their way up through the system because of talent or initiative. They do it by playing a game in which appearance is far more important than substance. This case won't end until Mignini and his colleagues are thoroughly discredited on a global basis. They've seen to that with their own tactics. And it will happen. It may take another five years, but it will happen.

Let me get this straight:

Mignini has no "talent or initiative" but managed to garner a unanimous guilty verdict in the trial of Raffaele Sollectio (son of a wealthy doctor with political connections and the last Prime Minister's star lawyer)?!

(I'm inclined to think that at least SOME modicum of talent and initiative are required to defeat million dollar defense teams led by star lawyers.)

A lack of prosecutorial talent and initiative...

Who knew?!

 

[LondonJohn]

Raffaele's family figured it out before Rinaldi or Vinci entered the picture, but you are right, the news came out in January rather than December. On January 10, Raffaele's father appeared on an Italian TV show and explained what the family had discovered:

http://www.video.mediaset.it/video/matrix/servizio/41595/sollecito-innocente.html

And the next day, the world learned of the DNA trace on the bra fastener:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1575287/DNA-link-in-Meredith-Kercher-case.html

It's very interesting that the Sollecito family very publicly figured out the shoe print match to Guede (and the attendant mismatch to Sollecito) by January 2008. Rinaldi's report then came out in April 2008 - in which he was conveniently able to claim that he had always disagreed with the prosecution's previous "expert", Ippolito, about the shoe print being that of Sollecito.

 

[Withnail1969]

The Seattle Court record is unequivocal. I looked it up. I've seen it.

The court found Knox (and Knox alone) to have committed the offense ("Residential Disturbance").

As a penalty, a fine was then imposed.

And what proof do you have that "friends" reimbursed her?

Were these friends the "real rock throwers"?

Were these friends also lessees?

On what grounds are you able to claim that, despite the public record of Knox's conviction, she "played no part in the disturbance"?!

Are you saying the Seattle Municipal Court got it wrong, too?!

"Wrongfully convicted" in BOTH Seattle and Perugia?!

Imagine the odds.

As I understand it Amanada was issued a standard strict liability noise ticket. She wasn't 'convicted'. She took the rap for the ticket because it was specifically her party - her leaving party, in fact.

The police officer's report states that Amanda was inside the party when he arrived, not outside throwing rocks. Nobody has reported that Amanda did anything wrong at the party, so i don't see how speculation about what she may or may not have done helps.

Seattle Municipal Code 25.08.225:
“Residential disturbance” means a gathering of more than one (1) person at a residential property located in a single family or multifamily zone, as defined SMC Section 23.84.048 between the hours of 10:00 P.M., (11:00 P.M. on Friday and Saturday nights) and 7:00 A.M., at which noise associated with the gathering is frequent, repetitive or continuous and is audible to a person of normal hearing at a distance of seventy-five (75) feet or more from the property.

Penalties: Officers may issue a civil infraction (citation) on the spot. The fine for the infraction is $250. A person who continues to be in violation of this ordinance after receiving an infraction or who again violates this ordinance within 24 hours of receiving an infraction, can be charged with a crime. If found guilty, a judge may impose a maximum sentence of up to 180 days incarceration in jail, and/or a fine up to $500.

 

[treehorn]

My horse has just unfortunately died. Would you be interested in flogging it?

I know that YOU know that's not going to help you to legitimately/ persuasively counter my assertion.

The Seattle Municipal Court's record of the conviction is there for anyone who cares to have a look:

The Court found that the offense had been committed by Knox and penalized her with a fine.

So there it is:

Pre-homicide antisocial conduct recognized, and penalized, by an AMERICAN Court of Law.

(Why not just admit that Knox's behavior is 'consistent with' the notion that she was beginning to show the signs and symptoms of a personality disorder? The Seattle conviction, sex with (at least) 3 strangers in 6 weeks and the abuse of street drugs to the point of memory loss, certainly don't militate in favor of ruling it out.)

 

[LondonJohn]

Let me get this straight:

Mignini has no "talent or initiative" but managed to garner a unanimous guilty verdict in the trial of Raffaele Sollectio (son of a wealthy doctor with political connections and the last Prime Minister's star lawyer)?!

(I'm inclined to think that at least SOME modicum of talent and initiative are required to defeat million dollar defense teams led by star lawyers.)

A lack of prosecutorial talent and initiative...

Who knew?!

Giulia Bongiorno had never, to my knowledge, defended in a murder trial before representing Sollecito. She defended former Prime Minister Andreotti against charges of Mafia association, and also defended various other public figures against charges such as illegal betting and corruption.

It's highly likely that Sollecito's father chose her on the basis of her fame - in addition to her legal profile, she was (and is) an active member of parliament in Berlusconi's party.

It's my view that Bongiorno should never have agreed to represent Sollecito. The trial was being held over 80 miles away from where Bongiorno worked full-time, and she could never have been able to devote the necessary time and attention to the case. As it was, the court agreed to only sit on Fridays and Saturdays to try to accommodate her. Additionally, I don't think she had sufficient expertise in defending murder suspects, and she most likely did not have sufficient knowledge of (and prior relationships with) the best expert witnesses in the fields of forensic science or medicine.

In my opinion, she should have declined the case, and instead she should have recommended a criminal defence attorney with wide experience of handling murder cases.

And it goes without saying that this opinion also applies, with bells on, to the hiring of Dalla Vedova as Knox's lead attorney.

 

[LondonJohn]

As I understand it Amanada was issued a standard strict liability noise ticket. She wasn't 'convicted'. She took the rap for the ticket because it was specifically her party - her leaving party, in fact.

The police officer's report states that Amanda was inside the party when he arrived, not outside throwing rocks. Nobody has reported that Amanda did anything wrong at the party, so i don't see how speculation about what she may or may not have done helps.

Seattle Municipal Code 25.08.225:
“Residential disturbance” means a gathering of more than one (1) person at a residential property located in a single family or multifamily zone, as defined SMC Section 23.84.048 between the hours of 10:00 P.M., (11:00 P.M. on Friday and Saturday nights) and 7:00 A.M., at which noise associated with the gathering is frequent, repetitive or continuous and is audible to a person of normal hearing at a distance of seventy-five (75) feet or more from the property.

Penalties: Officers may issue a civil infraction (citation) on the spot. The fine for the infraction is $250. A person who continues to be in violation of this ordinance after receiving an infraction or who again violates this ordinance within 24 hours of receiving an infraction, can be charged with a crime. If found guilty, a judge may impose a maximum sentence of up to 180 days incarceration in jail, and/or a fine up to $500.

Exactly. It was a civil penalty (a fine). Only if it had escalated would there even have been the possibility of it becoming a criminal matter. But then this is obvious to everyone - except, it seems, a small number of people who appear hellbent on making it into something it quite patently is not.

 

[Withnail1969]

I know that YOU know that's not going to help you to legitimately/ persuasively counter my assertion.

The Seattle Municipal Court's record of the conviction is there for anyone who cares to have a look:

The Court found that the offense had been committed by Knox and penalized her with a fine.

So there it is:

Pre-homicide antisocial conduct recognized, and penalized, by an AMERICAN Court of Law.

(Why not just admit that Knox's behavior is 'consistent with' the notion that she was beginning to show the signs and symptoms of a personality disorder? The Seattle conviction, sex with (at least) 3 strangers in 6 weeks and the abuse of street drugs to the point of memory loss, certainly don't militate in favor of ruling it out.)

It's a civil infraction, not a conviction. Arguably you're libelling Amanada with your insistence that she was convicted.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

(Why not just admit that Knox's behavior is 'consistent with' the notion that she was beginning to show the signs and symptoms of a personality disorder? The Seattle conviction, sex with (at least) 3 strangers in 6 weeks and the abuse of street drugs to the point of memory loss, certainly don't militate in favor of ruling it out.)

How exactly does this argument work?

1. I can cherry-pick and creatively interpret various incidents, while selectively ignoring others, so they are consistent with Knox being mentally ill.
2. Therefore Knox is mentally ill.

I don't quite see how (2) follows from (1). I think you could do (1) with almost any human being alive, if you were motivated to do so for some reason.

 

[Mary_H]

The Seattle Court record is unequivocal. I looked it up. I've seen it.

The court found Knox (and Knox alone) to have committed the offense ("Residential Disturbance").

As a penalty, a fine was then imposed.

And what proof do you have that "friends" reimbursed her?

Were these friends the "real rock throwers"?

Were these friends also lessees?

On what grounds are you able to claim that, despite the public record of Knox's conviction, she "played no part in the disturbance"?!

Are you saying the Seattle Municipal Court got it wrong, too?!

"Wrongfully convicted" in BOTH Seattle and Perugia?!

Imagine the odds.

OMG, treehorn, are you KIDDING?! We have ALL seen the report. Dan O. posted it here just a couple of days ago -- have you forgotten already?

Here it is again (and NOT from the Seattle Municipal Court website, where it has not been available for months, contrary to your insistence that it is):

In the city of Seattle

I was on uniformed patrol in the marked unit as 3U5. At approximately 0028 hours, I responded to the report of a loud party in the listed location. The complainant relayed to dispatch that participants from the party were throwing rocks at his house and at passing cars. The complainant requested officer not contact him. Upon arrival, I noted loud amplified music coming from the listed address. The music could be heard from a distance greater than 75 ft from the source. I also noted several rocks in the street. I did not locate any damage at that time. I contacted a party participant and had them retrieve a resident.

S1/Knox contacted me (in front of the house). She stated that she was one of the current residents. She stated that she was the one who was hosting the party (as she was moving out). She stated that she was not aware of any rock throwers at the gathering.

I issued S1/Knox this infraction for the noise violation and a warning for the rock throwing. I explained how dangerous and juvenile that action was.

See Cad event 264012 for further.

No further action taken at this time.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattle911/archives/171292.asp

No court, just a cop.

No conviction, just a ticket.

No evidence Amanda was involved to any extent other than that she lived in the house.

Pre-homicide antisocial conduct recognized, and penalized, by an AMERICAN Court of Law.

Does anyone know whether incessant false claims in the face of evidence to the contrary is a symptom of pre-homicide antisocial conduct? If so, I just might click that "report" button.

 

[treehorn]

Time after time, Massei says, in effect, that "the prosecution said one thing and the defence said another thing, and we believed the prosecution". There's scant explanation of WHY the judicial panel chose to take the prosecution's version..

I take it you haven't spent much (if ANY) time in a trial court.

 

[Withnail1969]

I take it you haven't spent much (if ANY) time in a trial court.

It seems obvious you haven't either since you seem to be confused about the difference between civil and criminal law.

 

[treehorn]

OMG, treehorn, are you KIDDING?! We have ALL seen the report. Dan O. posted it here just a couple of days ago -- have you forgotten already?

Here it is again (and NOT from the Seattle Municipal Court website, where it has not been available for months, contrary to your insistence that it is):

...
No court, just a cop.

No conviction, just a ticket.

No evidence Amanda was involved to any extent other than that she lived in the house.

Does anyone know whether incessant false claims in the face of evidence to the contrary is a symptom of pre-homicide antisocial conduct? If so, I just might click that "report" button.

No court?!

No conviction?!

That demonstrably FALSE.

The Seattle Municipal COURT'S record is clear - you have not posted the Court's finding.

Would you like a link to the Court's website?

You can view the record, online, for free during business hours (Seattle time).

Knox was CONVICTED by the COURT and PENALIZED.

 

[LondonJohn]

I take it you haven't spent much (if ANY) time in a trial court.

What?

In Italian justice, the sentencing report ("motivazione") is explicitly meant to set out the reasoning whereby the judicial panel came to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt (or non-guilt, as the case may be). Therefore, the report is meant to show why the judicial panel either agreed with the prosecution's version, or the defence's version, or came up with its own version.

The whole point of the report, in other words, is to get inside the collective minds of the judicial panel. To articulate their reasoning process. To try to help ensure, in fact, that a proper, balanced reasoning not only took place, but was seen to take place. And to just say things tantamount to "we believed the prosecution" (or, indeed "we believed the defence") is to completely negate the whole point of the sentencing report. Everybody knows that a finding of guilty (or not guilty) has been reached. The report is designed to show WHY that finding was reached.

 

[treehorn]

It seems obvious you haven't either since you seem to be confused about the difference between civil and criminal law.

Oh, how so?

 

[Withnail1969]

Oh, how so?

You seem to believe a civil infraction is a conviction when it has been clearly pointed out to you that it is not. Your continued insistence that Amanda received a criminal conviction from the Seattle court is skating very close to libelling Amanda.