Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Danceme]

Greetings Draca,
I am curious if anyone can shed any light on where Miss Kercher usually put her house keys.
Reading in Barbie Nadeau's book "Angel Face" on page 13 it says:
"The house was L-shaped, with a covered portico at the front that opened into a tiny foyer where the girls hung keys, parked umbrellas, and kept a bulletin board with messages to each other." Etc...

If so, did Meredith also hang her keys there too?

If the girls routinely hung their keys there, then Rudy likely grabbed them on his way out and opened the door.

 

[Mary_H]

I've noted that you make a habit of requesting "citations" for sources and information that you've already consulted, assimilated and evaluated. Why?

To be honest, I make a habit of requesting citations for sources and information that I know don't exist. I would think you and your colleagues would have caught on to that by now. It's basically my way of saying that what you have written is false.

I am NOT "trying to cast aspersions" and I am NOT tying "to build an image of Amanda." I'm only interested in sorting through all of the information in an effort to decipher the truth. If you want to discuss the case, I'm interested, but if you just want to put words in my mouth and/or mischaracterize my assertions, I'm going to ignore you: What you've been doing is not only counter to the aims of the JREF forum, it's boring and, worse still, it leads no one anywhere nearer the truth.

Yes, it can be boring to do research and obtain support for your arguments, but it is the only way to establish their validity. That is why prosecutors and plaintiffs are required to have proof of their claims against defendants, or they lose their cases.

If you are genuinely "interested in sorting through all the information in an effort to decipher the truth," then where is the rest of the information? Why are all your claims invested only in finding fault with Amanda and Raffaele, instead of looking at the big picture?

As for the use of illicit narcotics in combination with alcohol, one goes from "using" to "abusing" when these substances are consumed in quantities sufficient to induce profound memory loss.

Amanda and Raffaele displayed no profound memory loss; they displayed confusion, as a result of being lied to by the police.

Unprotected sex with someone you've just met is, by any reasonable measure, "reckless." To repeat this behavior with at least 2 (if not 6) other such people in the span of 6 weeks is indicative of a serious problem (such as drug abuse and/or mental illness).

You don't have the whole stories of the relationships between these people, so it's best not to speculate. You and Giuliano Mignini wrongly presume that sexual behavior that raises your eyebrows indicates some deeper meaning, but you have no evidence to support that presumption.

Do you take issue with Nadeau's assertion that Knox managed to have sex with Daniel in the midst of her 6 day "love affair" with Raffaele?

I haven't read Barbie's "book." I know from reading her articles that she does not, as a rule, cite her sources. This information strikes me as something she would not have access to, but it could be true. However, other people's sex lives are none of my business, and I don't judge them based on any information I may have inadvertently acquired in that regard.

 

[Danceme]

Were the files released, yes or no?

Halides1, on your blog you say the following,

"Raffaele Sollecito’s appeal documents indicate that his defense expert Dr. Pascali requested the raw data in 2008 (presumably the electronic data files)."

In using the word "presumably" are you saying you are not entirely sure this is what they asked for, the electronic log files?
In another post you write,

"The requests were made via the defense lawyers, but the prosecution steadfastly refused the requests."

Is this the way it's done, the defense asks this of the prosecution and doesn't apply to the courts to request the release?
You also say,

"The judge granted the defense teams the right to forensic information in the summer of 2009 that they had been denied until that time. However, the prosecutions did not fully comply with this order, according to a source close to the defense..."

If the prosecution didn't comply with a court order then has the defense gone back to the court to request enforcement of the order?
You also say,

"Join me in calling for the release of all of the forensic information that the defense has been denied until now."

I agree with this. If these files are able to prove something one way or the other they should be given to the defense.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

electronic data files

Halides1, on your blog you say the following,

"Raffaele Sollecito’s appeal documents indicate that his defense expert Dr. Pascali requested the raw data in 2008 (presumably the electronic data files)."

In using the word "presumably" are you saying you are not entirely sure this is what they asked for, the electronic log files?
In another post you write,

"The requests were made via the defense lawyers, but the prosecution steadfastly refused the requests."

Is this the way it's done, the defense asks this of the prosecution and doesn't apply to the courts to request the release?
You also say,

"The judge granted the defense teams the right to forensic information in the summer of 2009 that they had been denied until that time. However, the prosecutions did not fully comply with this order, according to a source close to the defense..."

If the prosecution didn't comply with a court order then has the defense gone back to the court to request enforcement of the order?
You also say,

"Join me in calling for the release of all of the forensic information that the defense has been denied until now."

I agree with this. If these files are able to prove something one way or the other they should be given to the defense.

Danceme,

The electronic data files allow a user to recreate and to analyze the electropherograms. They are not the same thing as log files. My use of the word "presumably" was just my way of being cautious. Electronic data files are reasonably construed to mean raw data. There were a couple of defense motions in the fall. The defense moved for what was in essence a mistrial, partly based on the handling of the forensic evidence, from what I was told. They also asked for an independent review of the forensics.

 

[Danceme]

If you are genuinely "interested in sorting through all the information in an effort to decipher the truth," then where is the rest of the information? Why are all your claims invested only in finding fault with Amanda and Raffaele, instead of looking at the big picture?

I haven't read Barbie's "book."

The first sentence above really doesn't equate with the last. The assessment you are making of another poster could equally be applied to someone only interested in reading views supporting innocence. If you are truly interested in finding the truth, why would you not read a book by an Italian speaking journalist who sat in the courtroom during the actual trial and could understand everything that was said? Have you read Candace's book?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

common knowledge

I had written about the lack of discovery, "I seem to recall that the defense made a formal request in the summer. "

Cite? Link?

Alt+F4,

“While Mrs Comodi was busy with her, by now, usual escape for smoking, the defenses, with the power that little number gave them, explained the judge that the wonderlab didn't provide all information about the tests, and this affects the rights of the defendant. A principle that a man of law can't ignore.
The time for the rebellion was mature. Bongiorno, immediately followed by Dalla Vedova, filed to Massei the request of immediate suspension of the trial until all missing data --quantities, registries, rough copies-- were produced, with the understanding that they will probably request that this evidence be declared invalid. The judge accepted the request. It's really true that smoking is dangerous.”

I think it about time you started gathering your own citations for common knowledge about the case.

 

[Mary_H]

The first sentence above really doesn't equate with the last. The assessment you are making of another poster could equally be applied to someone only interested in reading views supporting innocence. If you are truly interested in finding the truth, why would you not read a book by an Italian speaking journalist who sat in the courtroom during the actual trial and could understand everything that was said? Have you read Candace's book?

I responded to treehorn's claim that he is "interested in sorting through all the information in an effort to decipher the truth" by pointing out to him that his previous posts belie him.

ETA: No, I haven't read Candace's book. I haven't read any book-length publications about this case. I am not much of a reader, to be perfectly honest.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I may add, my opinions probably are not based on ignorance (contrarily from people like Steve Moore).

Are you saying you know more about criminal investigations than Steve Moore?

 

[moodstream]

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).

I don't want to frame your argument, but this seems to be your larger point: Knox is a sociopath. Your argument adds that her condition went unnoticed up until just before leaving for Italy, therefore, evidence to the contrary prior to this noise incident is irrelevant. Is that a correct assessment? If it can be disproved that Knox is a sociopath, how would that effect your belief in Knox's guilt? What are your qualifications for making this diagnosis? If you cannot prove your assertion, are you willing to abandon it?

 

[moodstream]

But a good point is to express thoroughly 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.

At the present moment, what is your opinion of the footprints. Do you believe you have positively identified Raffaele from your analysis? You have said that it is compatible, but you also believe that Guede was in the cottage at the time. Do you also feel it is compatible with Guede? If you believe it is more compatible with Sollecito, are you still saying it nevertheless could still be Guede's, or does your analysis eliminate him?

 

[LondonJohn]

Yes, thanks. We know he is smart, the question is if he is right. I know this issue is one that Frank has been adamant on from the beginning that Raffaele and Amanda have gotten the shaft as far as confined to prison during all these trials and appeals. This guy seems to be arguing that they are using a law intended to fight the Mafia for people it was not intended for and this is an abuse of the intention of that law and violates some international guidelines as well.

Unfortunately, this phenomenon is far from confined to Italy. After 9/11, many countries introduced relatively draconian legislation aimed at making it easier to capture terrorists (or would-be terrorists). Much of this legislation was waved through by parliaments/congresses as a "necessary" part of the war on terror. But in the years since, not only has this legislation been used very zealously against "terrorist" suspects (many of whom have been practically victims of witch hunts), but it's also been mis-used against people who have no connection whatsoever with terrorism. The problem seems to be that it's very hard to stipulate which particular pieces of legislation should only lawfully apply to particular groups of people (especially when such groups of people are hard to define and draw boundaries around).

 

[LondonJohn]

FWIW, I think you'd have made an interesting (if somewhat exasperating) contribution to PMF.

Alas, your characterization of PMF as "stunningly inaccurate" is a curious thing.

I can plainly see that you've spent a great deal of time and energy assimilating the fact pattern over a fairly long period of time - enough time to fairly evaluate the relative 'accuracy' of the various sources of case information.

If you've honestly been "stunned" by the "inaccuracy" of PMF, I can't begin to imagine your take on the likes of Edda, Curt, Ciolino, Bremner, Dempsey and Moore.

How would you describe your reaction to their inaccuracies?

Where did I specifically categorise PMF as "stunningly inaccurate"....?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Daniel

How on earth do you know the name of the 'stranger on the train'?

(A prerequisite to knowing whether he is on 'the list')

PS Are you saying Nadeau is wrong about Daniel paying Knox a visit in the middle of her 6 days with Sollecito?

If so, on what basis?

treehorn,

Daniel was not in Perugia after his one night stand with Amanda. What Ms. Nadeau wrote is in conflict with his witness statement. Has your evaluation of Amanda's character now changed because of new information you have received about her intimate partners?

 

[Machiavelli]

At the present moment, what is your opinion of the footprints. Do you believe you have positively identified Raffaele from your analysis? You have said that it is compatible, but you also believe that Guede was in the cottage at the time. Do you also feel it is compatible with Guede? If you believe it is more compatible with Sollecito, are you still saying it nevertheless could still be Guede's, or does your analysis eliminate him?

I would attribute a probability score. If I had to express compatibility with a number, I would judge the print is of the kind of more than 90% compatible with Sollecito, and less than 10% compatible with Guede.

I am not looking for 100% certainity from single pieces of evidence. Some areas of the evidence implicate (to me) a greater certainity - about 100% - stronger than the bathmat footprint. But the footprint is a further evidence in accord to other parts of evidence.

 

[Machiavelli]

Are you saying you know more about criminal investigations than Steve Moore?

I know certainly more about this criminal investigation.
I also know more about Italian law, courts, and reality.

 

[Onofarar]

While GW Law is not H-Y-P or Stanford it is #20 in the most widely used ranking of law schools and in specialties it is ranked 6th in International Law. National Law Journal in 2007 ranked GW Law in its Top 20 schools for placement of grads with top American law firms. In 2008 Vault ranked GW Law 20th of its top 25 law schools.

There are 190+ accredited law schools in USA. My son applied to many of them last spring and was accepted at several - generally the schools are divided into 4 tiers - using that method GW is easily in the first tier. If you want to limit it further they are in the Top 25. Top 10% they are on the cusp.

Oh BTW they ranked 12th in Supreme Court clerkship placements 2000-2008.

Hardly second tier - which I interpreted to imply second rate.

 

[moodstream]

I would attribute a probability score. If I had to express compatibility with a number, I would judge the print is of the kind of more than 90% compatible with Sollecito, and less than 10% compatible with Guede.

I am not looking for 100% certainity from single pieces of evidence. Some areas of the evidence implicate (to me) a greater certainity - about 100% - stronger than the bathmat footprint. But the footprint is a further evidence in accord to other parts of evidence.

Thanks. How would you rate your objectivity in creating this scale? How do you know you are not just reading into these images the results you want from the outset? What makes it 90% 10% as opposed to 70/30?

On this point you are willing to consider probability. It seems to me that you cannot limit it to just this one point. For example, although you discredit the source, Steve Moore has pointed out how very unlikely it is that a woman would use a knife to commit a murder. Will you allow yourself to consider this in evaluating guilt?

Although I can’t define it with a numerical score, statistically, the likelihood that Knox/Sollecito could commit the murder without leaving a trace in the victim’s room, beyond the much disputed bra clasp, is extraordinarily low. Are you saying otherwise, or are you saying that when you consider the bathmat, probability is the key determinate, but when you consider the murder room, the probability is not a factor in your reasoning. If so, why?

 

[Kestrel]

While GW Law is not H-Y-P or Stanford it is #20 in the most widely used ranking of law schools and in specialties it is ranked 6th in International Law. National Law Journal in 2007 ranked GW Law in its Top 20 schools for placement of grads with top American law firms. In 2008 Vault ranked GW Law 20th of its top 25 law schools.

There are 190+ accredited law schools in USA. My son applied to many of them last spring and was accepted at several - generally the schools are divided into 4 tiers - using that method GW is easily in the first tier. If you want to limit it further they are in the Top 25. Top 10% they are on the cusp.

Oh BTW they ranked 12th in Supreme Court clerkship placements 2000-2008.

Hardly second tier - which I interpreted to imply second rate.

Thanks for the update.

The claim that GWL was a second rate institution was rather clearly an attempt at an ad-hominum attack. Disparaging the man instead of discussing the content of the article he wrote. It's also rather elitist. Basically implying that no good ideas can come from someone who didn't attend whatever the writer thought were the top law schools.

And welcome to JREF.

 

[Alt+F4]

I spoke to a lawyer whom I know about this paper. His specialty is not International law, but FWIW he felt that the reasoning in this paper was sound.

That paper is a piece of garbage. Even a casual reading of it shows numerous errors about issues that are not even in dispute. The author can’t even spell Lumumba’s name correctly!

Here a few examples of things the author got wrong that make this paper a total failure.

…both [Amanda and Meredith] being enrolled at the same Universitá per Stranieri (“University for Foreigners”)

Wrong.

Amanda first stated to police that she had come home that morning, having spent the night at Sollecito’s house, to find her front door open and an alarming amount of blood in the bathroom she shared with Meredith. The door to Meredith’s bedroom was locked and there was a broken window in another room.

Wrong.

Guede’s fingerprints and DNA were found all over Meredith’s body.

Wrong.

At first the author get the date their arrest as being on November 6th then switches it to November 7th, then later switches it back to November 6th.

I thought law was supposed to be about the details. If this guy can’t even get the most basic facts of the case correct why should anyone believe his legal analysis of Amanda’s imprisonment?

In the section entitled “Legally Relevant Facts” the author refers to Meredith as “attractive”, Raffaele as “handsome” and a quote from Amanda’s teacher that she was “not a dazzler” as a teenager. This guy has a weird idea as to what is legally relevant.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

central versus peripheral questions

That paper is a piece of garbage. Even a casual reading of it shows numerous errors about issues that are not even in dispute. The author can’t even spell Lumumba’s name correctly!

Here a few examples of things the author got wrong that make this paper a total failure.


Wrong.


Wrong.


Wrong.

At first the author get the date their arrest as being on November 6th then switches it to November 7th, then later switches it back to November 6th.

I thought law was supposed to be about the details. If this guy can’t even get the most basic facts of the case correct why should anyone believe his legal analysis of Amanda’s imprisonment?

In the section entitled “Legally Relevant Facts” the author refers to Meredith as “attractive”, Raffaele as “handsome” and a quote from Amanda’s teacher that she was “not a dazzler” as a teenager. This guy has a weird idea as to what is legally relevant.

Alt+F4,

Most of your objections are trivial and not germane to central question of the manuscript. It is worth noting that some of the mistakes in the introduction paint a picture of Ms. Knox as more sexually active than she actually was: It is not as if the author is showing an obvious bias for or against Ms. Knox. If anything, he seems to have been uncritical in his acceptance of tabloid truthiness. Yet, errors in the spellings and dates (while regrettable) do not affect the basic legal questions being considered. I offer one sample from this manuscript:

“Ironically, Italy has been warned of this problem on two separate occasions by United Nations human rights groups following investigations of the Italian criminal justice system. In 2009 the United Nations’ Working Group (the “Working Group”) noted with concern complaints about precautionary detention from the Italian criminal bar association. Despite language embodied in the law to prevent liberal use of precautionary detention, the Working Group noted that it was being sought and applied reflexively by prosecutors and G.I.P.s. ”

One court put Amanda’s behavior as a central reason for her pretrial detention. Mr. Sayagh wrote, “The intermediate court’s opinion appears heavily-influenced by Amanda’s behavior after Meredith’s death, public opinion of Amanda’s lifestyle and the judge’s own moral approbation. It calls Amanda ‘histrionic’, states that she had never displayed grief at the murder of her roommate, and is a ‘restless person who does not disdain multiple frequentations’ – i.e. she sleeps around. ”

He continued, “The Court also found Amanda to be a danger to the public, finding that Amanda was ‘completely without inhibition’ and ‘disposed to follow any impulse, even when those lead to violent and uncontrollable conduct.’ ” Therefore, Mr. Sayagh’s considering Ms. Knox real or imagined behavior is appropriate. Although I tend to agree with you that Mr. Sollecito’s or Ms. Kercher’s appearance is tangential, overall your analysis is superficial.