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Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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katy_did said:
I'm not sure I agree here. On the one hand you acknowledge that, even amongst native speakers, there's still plenty of scope for misunderstanding, especially via a phone call where the words may not be that clear anyway. On the other, you seem to say that it's only at an extremely basic level that someone's grasp of another language has any impact on their ability to understand and be understood by another person. I don't see any logical reason to accept that: it seems almost self-evident that if someone is talking in a language they're not fluent in, there's a much greater likelihood that they'll misunderstand or be misunderstood when speaking in that language. Obviously, that handicap would decrease in proportion to their fluency in that language, but it would always be an additional element in possible misunderstanding which wouldn't apply to the native speaker.

(..)
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Because the command of a language can be seen as a set of competences, in different dimensions: a competence in communication functions, a lexical competence, a grammar competence, a situational and theme competence. And skills are about different actions and means in these: comprehension, speaking, etc. The same person can perform very diferently in situations requiring different competences. To make a (very rough) comparison: a person not able to run the 2000m steep chase in a decent time, may be perfectly able to walk home on foot, unless he's very unable like on a wheelchair. Very basic actions can be performed equally by people with very different abilities. The misunderstanding are possible always, but success in communication depends on how important is, for a person, to deliver that information. If performing the communication of a meaning is important, the person will deliver it unambiguously, unless his/her abilities are severly below the task. So I would have problems in writing this kind of text directly in German, rather than English, since my knowledge of German is basic in comparison. In a conversation on a topic I would be in doubt on verbs and genders and asking for words all the time. But if somebody steal my car in Berlin and I had to call the police, I would be able to explain them exactly where I am and what happened, and I would do that with no ambiguity, with the same efficiency as if I were professor of German literature.
 
questions answered

treehorn said:
What law student?

What law school?

What does s/he have to say about the fact that Casey Anthony has been incarcerated since her arrest in 2008, and won't stand trial until mid 2011, notwithstanding the fact the Florida SAO doesn't have half the evidence on Anthony that Mignini & Comodi had on Knox?

And, for the record, I NEVER said the citation for residential disturbance was "more important" that the DNA testing.

I also don't care for some of the personal remarks you've been making lately (suggesting that I am a "mole" - for whom I have NO idea - or intimating that MY psychological state is revealed simply because I dared to ponder the psychological state of the accused/ convicted).

I was under the impression that you, like some of the other more gifted posters (London John, for example) were above that sort of thing.

I'd like to discuss the evidence, not take shots at JREF members.

As for your claims about the "electronic data files", I have no way of know whether that is, in fact the case, so what can I say?

If such a thing: a) has occurred; and b) is found to have run afoul of disclosure rules in the Italian system, I have no doubt I'll be hearing more about this (alleged) aspect of the case, in the legitimate press, during the appellate process.
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Treehorn,

The lack of release of the electronic data files has been discussed many times here and elsewhere. A partial summary was done about three months ago. You could start with answering the question of whether or not it is reasonable for the defense to be able to request these files as a matter of principle.

You are ignoring the fact that Knox and Sollecito were incarcerated in November of 2007 and not formally charged until October of 2008, IIRC. The question of incarceration between being formally charged the beginning of the trial is a separate one. The article I mentioned was written by Benjamin M. Sayagh, who graduated from George Washington University Law School with honors in 2010.

It is one thing to ponder the psychological state of someone else. We all do this many times over the course of the day. It is quite another to offer a diagnosis that someone is a sociopath or has antisocial personality disorder (you are trying to move the goalposts). I see no reason to trust that even an expert can make a diagnosis without having met the subject, and you have not given any reason for me to believe you have qualifications in this area.

That fact that you and LiamG choose to talk about issues of personal character in preference to taking on the issues surrounding the evidence tells me your relative levels of interest. Moreover, plenty of evidence of Ms. Knox’s good character has emerged, and I have never seen you acknowledge it. Here is one from an article by Richard Stagliano:

“If she’ll be freed earlier, one who is ready to hire her right away is Rick Kirsten. She worked for this art gallery owner for two months. but he’s betting on her qualities, as if he has known her forever. ‘I put an ad, I had 31 applications and I chose her. She used to finish her work in half the time and she would ask for more. And she knew how to deal with people.’ His favorite episode-that Amanda’s parents recommended he tell me is about a 8-10 years old girl that seemed to be lost in the crowd at the gallery.

‘I was getting ready to go to take care of her, but a client stopped me, and Amanda was there already and the child was happily laughing.’ Not to speak of Amanda’s kindness to his father, a 90 years old painter and zen meditative that was often at the gallery.”

BTW, “whacking a mole” means to debunk an argument. It has nothing to do with the person making the argument. If you don’t like the phrase applied to you, then I suggest you take the advice of another commenter here and cross check something you think is true against a second source. A number of errors in Ms. Nadeau’s book have been discussed in this thread.
 
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Chris C said:
Treehorn doyou live in the US? Its a noise polution violation. Its like a traffic ticket. You get the same ticket if you are driving through a residental area and your radio is playing to loud in your car.
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Actually the fine for the same offense in a car is twice as bad.

VEHICLE NOISE

Seattle Municipal Code 25.08.515:
Sound from motor vehicle sound system clearly heard at a distance of 75 feet from where it is originating. 75 feet is comparable to the length of a standard swimming pool.

Penalty: A violation of this ordinance is a civil infraction, punishable by a maximum fine of $500.
 
For those of you that enjoy alternate theories, LMT is back for the first time in awhile with some new posts. He is heavy on the forensics parts as well as also advancing the possibility of Rudy as a police informant (well before Graham and Waterbury), and some other interesting theories. Not much traffic on his blog but worth a visit, in my opinion.

http://alternatetheories-perugiamurder.blogspot.com/
 
Chris C said:
Promiscuity
So now I'm antisocial because i have had sex. That sucks. Guess I should go kill a few people and blame it on the black guy because I"m racist, even though I like raping people with black men.
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I was wondering about that today when the sex stuff started up again. As I recall the motive changed numerous times, and I'm guessing by Treehorn's posts today the one settled on was a rape-prank gone wrong.

How did they square that with the lack of Amanda and Raffaele's DNA anywhere at the murder site?
 
It is not easy to prove a negative

Alt+F4 said:
Maybe you can explain to me why you have been asked over and over again to provide evidence that this information was not released to the defense and you still can't.

SNIP

The bottom line here is that there is no evidence whatsoever that the files were not released.
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Alt+F4,

I have discussed the utility of the files and the prosecution’s failure to release them extensively on my blog, as well as in comments here, there, and everywhere. I will try to summarize briefly. I have emailed a number of people: the two coauthors (Johnson and Hampikian) and most of the seven cosigners of the open letter, and each person who answered, indicated that the files had not been released, despite multiple requests. I think that the best description of some of these nine individuals is that they are consultants for the defense. I have repeatedly quoted from one of two articles that appeared this spring, in which Dr. Hampikian refers to Ms. Knox as a client. The question of who will be called at the appeals is an interesting one, but that information is not public yet.

It is unclear to me whether you would accept news articles or articles from Perugia-Shock as evidence or not, but you will find some links in the four links within this message, which are all to blog entries of mine. You will find information about the summertime request in them. I have given citations of news articles from the summer and fall of 2009, including one with a quote from Sarah Gino. I have also quoted from passages in Sollecito’s appeal, which indicate that Dr. Pascali was also refused access to these files. I even asked Chris Mellas directly, and for you to say that there is no evidence that the files have been release yet to acknowledge the existence of this conversation is difficult for me to grasp. Finally, I think that any person who asserts that the files have been released is obliged to show that they have been; I have looked extensively and found no evidence whatsoever. Please let me know if I can clarify anything for you.
 
LiamG. said:
This episode, though indicative, is quite harmless, if you comapre that to her behaviour after MK`s murder. Regardless of what you think of her innocence or guilt, making fun of the victim ("she f****** bled to death", "sh** happens) and laughing besides MK`s mourning friends, turning cartwheels in the police station and thinking about writing a song about the murder leads you inevitably to the conclusion, that this person either:

-hated the victim to her bones
or
-showed ample evidence of a sociopathic behaviour
or
-was about to lose it, because she committed a non-premeditated murder
or
-any combination of these three things

As committing such a brutal crime, be it premeditated or not, is obviously sufficient ("thank you" Kevin Lowe for your "lesson" on necessity and sufficiency) for being a sociopath, it comes down to, she

-hated the victim to her bones
and/or
-she she showed ample evidence of being a sociopath

Personally I tend to rule out possibility 1 as everything I`ver read so far gave me the impression, that their relationship was in fact not that good but definetly not driven by hatred, too.

But, why the hell am I exerting myself to write this, I`m sure, there wil be a superficial four liner response post:
"AK didn`t hate MK, there were photos from both of them on AK`s laptop. Moreover AK ended an sms to MK with an "X", which means giving someone a kiss. So, in fact they were good friends.
And AK is a totally normal college girl. Everyone reacts different to traumatic events; her behaviour was nothing out of the normal."
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Amanda's behavior in the police station became an issue after the fact, because Amanda was made a suspect for the crime, and the other students, friends and housemates were subsequently questioned about her. If one of those individuals had been made a suspect, we might now be focusing on his or her allegedly aberrant behavior in the police station.

Amanda might have been questioned and responded, "Oh yeah, I remember now -- she picked her nose and I thought that was weird at the time." It would have ended up in the tabloids and, as in the case of Amanda's alleged behavior, would have been no basis upon which to evaluate the suspect's participation in the crime, and even less basis for labeling the suspect a sociopath.

I doubt Amanda's behavior in the police station raised the suspicions of the police, because the police probably didn't witness it, with the exception of the alleged cartwheel. If that took place the night of the interrogations, however, Amanda was already being eyed as a suspect for other reasons.
 
LondonJohn said:
Er no, I'm implying that Rinaldi might very well have concurred originally with Ippolita's findings, but that the embarrassing revelation by Sollecito's family might have allowed Mignini and Rinaldi to claim that Rinaldi "knew all along" that Ippolita had made a stupid mistake over his interpretation of the shoe prints. That's nowhere near a conspiracy, but I understand how eager you are to introduce that word into the discussion as much as possible.
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LJ, that's pure speculation from you once again and no, I am not eager to introduce the word "conspiracy", it just leaps to mind when I read some of your posts.


Scorpion NITE said:
That certainly goes some way to explaining the first part, but I am more than a tad suspicious about the second part (the miraculous finding :rolleyes:).
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The bra clasp was found in the first CSI but yes, mistakenly was not tagged so was not collected. One of the main reasons for returning on December 18th was to collect it. The lawyers were in a van outside watching the CSI team go back into the house through a video feed. The drawn out emphasis on its collection was to video tape it for the lawyers.

LondonJohn said:
And the Perugia police's enforced closure of Lumumba's bar was outrageous - and, I suspect, unlawful.
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Can you point me to where it says the police forced the prolonged closure of his bar. I haven't come across this before, thanks.
 
treehorn said:
That's why I find Knox's Seattle court record curious.

Applying the rules of my (common law) jurisdiction to this scenario, there'd be no record of the Court's "finding" if Knox admitted to having violated the Seattle Municipal Code simply by electing to pay the fine for the unlawful conduct in question.

In my jurisdiction, a court record, available for public inspection, results only where an accused: 1) elects to challenge a citation in a hearing with a magistrate; 2) elects to offer evidence of mitigating factors in such a hearing or 3) fails to respond to a citation.
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I have no idea where you're from, but things differ all over the United States on issues like these. In my area I'm pretty sure it's up there online forever these days, although I think the minor ones like traffic tickets and stuff like this are supposed to come off after five years.

However I don't see your point, it's still a noise violation and not a scene from the 'Streets of Bagdad.' Isn't that where we started?

treehorn said:
In any event, the record is clear: the Municipal Court of Seattle "found" Knox "committed the offense" of "Residential Disturbance" under the Seattle Municipal Code: An unlawful act.

In the result, we now have an official record that proves Knox violated the civil and property rights of others, in a manner that resulted in police action, some 4 months before the murder.

At the very least, this fact does nothing - NOTHING - to counter the argument that Knox may well have been exhibiting the signs and symptoms of sociopathy in the months leading up to the murder, particularly when the unlawful conduct is considered in light of her contemporaneous abuse of alcohol and street drugs (to the point of memory loss) and promiscuity (3 to 6 strangers in 6 weeks).
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Actually it does do a whole hell of a lot to counter the argument of her being a sociopath. Because that's all there is, being able to say the worst you've ever been busted for is throwing a loud party basically means you're pretty much clean. As for the other, I don't know and I frankly don't care, though it does seem like just about half the people I knew when I was young would qualify as budding sociopaths by your definition.
 
treehorn said:
the time frame is 6 weeks (I may have laundry to do that's older) - she barely knew any of these men (she slept with RS the day she met him, for example)

you forgot the middle aged stranger on the train - that makes at least 3

you are also giving Knox a charitable interpretation of her ex post facto editing of the list of 7 names from "in Italy" to "in General"

you are also eliding the fact that (per Nadeau's book) even Knox's 6 days with RS were not monogamous - she had a little fun with Danny boy in the middle of those 6 days

at best, it looks like you have a girl that increased the number of sex partners dramatically in the weeks leading up to the murder

some of the sex was unprotected

why the reckless behavior?

mental illness/ sociopathy coming to the fore? (it's onset tends to be in late teens to early 20's, I believe)

was weed all there was to it?

was RS (and/or others) introducing her to coke for the first time? (RS had a problem with coke and a record for possession

when was the last time someone abusing alcohol or drugs admitted to ALL of it - if they tell you a "little weed", it's either a LOT of weed, or just the tip of the proverbial iceberg

admit it, there's SMOKE here

lots of it

definitive?

NO

but more than enough to do away with all of this happy horse**** about an All-American angel who just NEVER in a million years could get involved in a drug-fueled rape prank gone wrong
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You need to cite all these accusations if you want them to be taken seriously. You're trying to raise questions and cast aspersions in order to build an image of Amanda that may have no basis in reality. Why sneak in a mention of "someone abusing alcohol or drugs," when there is no evidence that Amanda or Raffaele were anything but casual users?

Why do you assume Amanda's sexual behavior was reckless? To make that argument, you would have to show that anyone who has had sexual relations with more than one person in one week is reckless. Good luck with that.
 
halides1 said:
Alt+F4,

I have discussed the utility of the files and the prosecution’s failure to release them extensively on my blog, as well as in comments here, there, and everywhere. I will try to summarize briefly. I have emailed a number of people: the two coauthors (Johnson and Hampikian) and most of the seven cosigners of the open letter, and each person who answered, indicated that the files had not been released, despite multiple requests. I think that the best description of some of these nine individuals is that they are consultants for the defense. I have repeatedly quoted from one of two articles that appeared this spring, in which Dr. Hampikian refers to Ms. Knox as a client. The question of who will be called at the appeals is an interesting one, but that information is not public yet.

It is unclear to me whether you would accept news articles or articles from Perugia-Shock as evidence or not, but you will find some links in the four links within this message, which are all to blog entries of mine. You will find information about the summertime request in them. I have given citations of news articles from the summer and fall of 2009, including one with a quote from Sarah Gino. I have also quoted from passages in Sollecito’s appeal, which indicate that Dr. Pascali was also refused access to these files. I even asked Chris Mellas directly, and for you to say that there is no evidence that the files have been release yet to acknowledge the existence of this conversation is difficult for me to grasp. Finally, I think that any person who asserts that the files have been released is obliged to show that they have been; I have looked extensively and found no evidence whatsoever. Please let me know if I can clarify anything for you.
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Please present EVIDENCE that the files were denied to the defense. Here are some examples of evidence:

1. Swore statement from those who signed the open letter that they were personally refused access to these files. If they were not personally refused by the prosecution or the court then it is nothing but heresay.

2. Motions presented to the court by the defense asking for the files and motions from the prosecution denying the request.

Just prove that the defense ASKED and that the prosecution said NO.
 
RoseMontague said:
The article by Benjamin M. Sayagh goes into a lot of detail (47 pages) and a lot of legal references. Perhaps somebody with more of a legal background can give me some feedback on this one. Full article 47 pages.
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I'd like to know what this guy's background is regarding the Italian legal system, where this paper was published (and no, it wasn't in the George Washington International Law Review) and if it was ever peer reviewed.
 
Machiavelli said:
I don't want you to take it the wrong way, but I think there are people, you among them, who haven't seen enough.
Obviously, as long as somebody doesn't want to take a decision, anything will always be "not enough". But a good point is to express thoroghly what one thinks and why has come to that opinion. If the existence of a variety of conflicting results were a good reason to deduce that evidence is non conclusive, it won't be possible to convict anybody, never after listening to the defence arguments.
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This potential slippery slope is the reason the courts turn to forensics, as opposed to deciding the case based on the oratorical skills or political power of the attorneys.
 
Alt+F4 said:
I'd like to know what this guy's background is regarding the Italian legal system, where this paper was published (and no, it wasn't in the George Washington International Law Review) and if it was ever peer reviewed.
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He is listed on the staff of the Guide for that Law review both 2008-2009 and 2009-2010, what makes you say it was not there?

http://www.gwilr.org/?page_id=14
 
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Machiavelli said:
I don't want you to take it the wrong way, but I think there are people, you among them, who haven't seen enough.
Obviously, as long as somebody doesn't want to take a decision, anything will always be "not enough". But a good point is to express thoroghly what one thinks and why has come to that opinion. If the existence of a variety of conflicting results were a good reason to deduce that evidence is non conclusive, it won't be possible to convict anybody, never after listening to the defence arguments.
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The flaw in your reasoning lies in the fact that not all evidence has equal value. Blurred footprints cannot reliably be attributed to a specific individual. DNA tests are so sensitive that the value of DNA evidence depends on how competently it is handled and processed, as any number of cases have made clear. A suspect's DNA found in a bathroom he or she is known to have used on a daily basis means nothing at all. Incriminating statements made by a frightened suspect often have no factual basis.

Some evidence, however, is quite reliable. A fingerprint in blood, in the room where the murder took place, is conclusive evidence in and of itself. When one couples the bloody fingerprint with multiple DNA traces - inside the victim's body, on two items of the victim's clothing, and on the victim's purse - the result is a case as strong as circumstantial evidence can ever allow.

The crux of the problem here is that those of us who are well-informed about criminal investigations can differentiate between reliable evidence, unreliable evidence, and worthless evidence. We can see that the evidence against Rudy is reliable. We can also see that the evidence against Amanda and Raffaele is entirely unreliable, and most of it is worthless. This is clear to me, and it is clear to many experts who have looked at the case. Those who lack the knowledge to see what we can see are wasting time by promoting an opinion based on ignorance. This time could be better spent on a course of remedial reading, to actually learn something about the subject before expounding on it.
 
RoseMontague said:
He is listed on the staff of the Guide for that Law review both 2008-2009 and 2009-2010, what makes you say it was not there?

http://www.gwilr.org/?page_id=14
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He may have been on the staff but his article was not published by that review. There is no reference to that article from the review's search engine and the article itself is not linked to the George Washington International Law Review, it's posted on something called the Berkeley Electronic Press.
 
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