Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[platonov]

If it was a lie, it must have been a conspiracy because her editor is the one that owns the blog.

On another level, we've already had the discussion of the definition of "lie". Barbie may not even have known the true content of her photo and only used it in the set to show the concept of the scene of the crime.

I tend to just ignore such people because they rarely provide anything that leads to a better understanding.

Now that's unfair

Didn't I help out on the matter of AK's forgetfulness on Nov 10 2007 & again in 2009.
(which had being causing such perplexity)

 

[Dan O.]

Do you know if the blog owner has been contacted regarding the date of the photo/s?

I know that attempts were made but know of no response.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

the necessity of the appeal

The defence isn't allowed to hire their own experts. ??

Nor by this logic is there an appeal system.

You haven't thought this through , is the analysis of the actual DNA evidence to the same standard.

.

I am not sure I am following you. However, my position is that if evidence collection were done in ways that clearly violate established guideiines, for example without disposable tools (where practical) and without frequent changes of gloves, the evidence should not be considered. That goes for any defendant, including the three of this case. Adherence to such a standard would not obviate the necessity for the defense to have its own experts. BTW, in the case of indigent defendants, I support calls for the court appointment of a forensic counsel, as discussed upthread.

In this case Dr. Tagilabracci and many others have noted that the interpretation of DNA evidence in mixed samples has an element of subjectivity. There is also disagreement over the meaning of some pieces of evidence, such as the mixed DNA samples and the luminol footprints. For the same kinds of reasons, the appeals process is still needed.

In this case Massei has shown a preference for suspect-centered DNA profile analysis and has given reasons that conflict with the fundamental principles of forensics genetics, according to Sollecito's appeal. The need for an appeal in this case is manifest. The lack of release of the electronic data files also necessitates an appeal, IMO.

 

[Dan O.]

I agree - the publication of the blog post is November 16 and it is known that at least one of the photos was taken on November 14 but were all taken on that date? The photos are telling a story of the crime, not necessarily of November 14. Is Nadeau writing the text for the blog or Dickey (the photos appear to be attributed to Nadeau by the initials BN)?

Barbie's first article about Perugia was published On the 15th. There is no mention in her report of any active investigation at the cottage. On the 10th she published an article on Maserati's and on the 11th publishes a short article about the highlight of her life when she got to test drive one. The turnaround on her publications is quite short, less than a day for that last article. She appears to be on a tour of Italy and writing articles so she can write off the expense on her taxes. Nov. 3rd was spent sampling Pínot Noir.

Barbie probably arrived in Perugia late on the 13th or early on the morning of the 14th. There is no indication that she was there earlier.

 

[platonov]

I am not sure I am following you. However, my position is that if evidence collection were done in ways that clearly violate established guideiines, for example without disposable tools (where practical) and without frequent changes of gloves, the evidence should not be considered. That goes for any defendant, including the three of this case. Adherence to such a standard would not obviate the necessity for the defense to have its own experts. BTW, in the case of indigent defendants, I support calls for the court appointment of a forensic counsel, as discussed upthread.
................
........................

Perhaps not, but I was clearly following you hence my response above and my reference to the standards of your analysis.

Without going thru your post in detail, this stuff has already been argued to death here, I can see obvious errors of logic and fact [as it relates to this case] in your first paragraph (first 3 lines) alone which bear out my prediction/reference.

.

 

[Mary_H]

Perhaps not, but I was clearly following you hence my response above and my reference to the standards of your analysis.

Without going thru your post in detail, this stuff has already been argued to death here, I can see obvious errors of logic and fact [as it relates to this case] in your first paragraph (first 3 lines) alone which bear out my prediction/reference.

.

Is being able to see them all it takes? Wish I had known!

 

[platonov]

Is being able to see them all it takes? Wish I had known!

It certainly helps - I would say 'necessary but not sufficient' ; however the suffiency on this issue has been provided several times already on this thread by other posters.

Whether its been forgotten, ignored or wasn't understood I see no value in repetition - unlike the 'innocentsi' who seem to place great value on it.

Its not as easy as watching videos I'll admit - and even that can be tricky.

.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

at least no trees were cut

Perhaps not, but I was clearly following you hence my response above and my reference to the standards of your analysis.

Without going thru your post in detail, this stuff has already been argued to death here, I can see obvious errors of logic and fact [as it relates to this case] in your first paragraph (first 3 lines) alone which bear out my prediction/reference.

.

Platonov,

Your message above is without content, inasmuch as it fails to identify any errors. Moreoever, I do not believe you were following me. I wrote about the need to collect evidence properly and you followed with a non sequitur involving defense experts and appeals. Your message is a good object lesson in how not to write a comment. If you wish to discuss something, please state what it is.

 

[platonov]

Platonov,

Your message above is without content, inasmuch as it fails to identify any errors. Moreoever, I do not believe you were following me. I wrote about the need to collect evidence properly and you followed with a non sequitur involving defense experts and appeals. Your message is a good object lesson in how not to write a comment. If you wish to discuss something, please state what it is.

See my above reply to Mary H.

No you wrote............

If evidence is allowed into court despite the improper procedures of handling or interpretation, then there is absolutely no incentive to perform the work correctly.

and I responded.

ETA Furthermore (leaving aside appeals and defence experts ) the condition is merely asserted as regards the specific (this case) and the consequence doesn't necessarily follow as regards the general.

.

 

[Dan O.]

Is being able to see them all it takes? Wish I had known!

If that's all it takes, the MDC would have fallen long ago.

There seems to be a pattern here of making vague claims without support. It's best to simply ignore such antics rather than follow them into off-topic land requiring more moderator cleanup.

The old USENET saying regarding the culinary care of mythical creatures that live under bridges comes to mind. I just can't find the smiley for it at this time.

 

[treehorn]

Have I missed Kevin_Lowe's response to a request to back up his unsupported claims about the 'elasticity' of the human intestine/ displacement of alimentary matter within?

Who, other than a medical doctor could have such knowledge?!

In light of Lowe's insistence on "evidence-based" argument (replete with references to "peer-reviewed" scientific journals), I'm baffled.

Maybe he's too busy 'saving lives' to follow-up...but I'm more inclined to think he's in the middle of Psych Midterms.

 

[LondonJohn]

Have I missed Kevin_Lowe's response to a request to back up his unsupported claims about the 'elasticity' of the human intestine/ displacement of alimentary matter within?

Who, other than a medical doctor could have such knowledge?!

In light of Lowe's insistence on "evidence-based" argument (replete with references to "peer-reviewed" scientific journals), I'm baffled.

Maybe he's too busy 'saving lives' to follow-up...but I'm more inclined to think he's in the middle of Psych Midterms.

"Who other than a medical doctor could have such knowledge?"??

Are you seriously suggesting that any knowledge of human anatomy and physiology is solely confined to medical professionals? Are you suggesting that this information is unavailable in the public domain?

May I suggest that you do a little reading of your own. The first link is incredibly simple, the others are a bit more complicated....

http://www.gesa.org.au/digestive-system/small_intestine.cfm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10400882

http://news.softpedia.com/news/5-Facts-About-the-Small-Intestine-76301.shtml

http://medlibrary.org/medwiki/Intestine

These links contain explicit references to the elasticity of the small intestine, and the way in which chyme matter is propelled along them using peristalsis and other muscular contractions.

In addition to any of us being able to gain detailed knowledge of the human intestines by reading respected medical literature, a medical doctor has already written on here to endorse the opinion that it would be practically impossible to manipulate chyme matter along well over 4.5 metres of small intestine by accident. It would be pretty analogous to squeezing a ball of sausage meat along over 4.5m of sausage casing (which, after all, is usually made from the pig's small intestine).

 

[platonov]

"Who other than a medical doctor could have such knowledge?"??

........................
.......................................

In addition to any of us being able to gain detailed knowledge of the human intestines by reading respected medical literature, a medical doctor has already written on here to endorse the opinion that it would be practically impossible to manipulate chyme matter along well over 4.5 metres of small intestine by accident. It would be pretty analogous to squeezing a ball of sausage meat along over 4.5m of sausage casing (which, after all, is usually made from the pig's small intestine).

Given the repeated perplexity on this thread over much simpler* issues this is a bold statement.

a medical doctor online , Well that settles it. Will one be enough though - how well did this work for pilots (& scholars etc ) for truth, and they had the numbers.

* 'the broken window' for example
.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

in your absence the discussion moved forward

treehorn,

A number of posts were addressed to you in your absence, and they rebutted some of your claims. Perhaps you would like to respond to those.

 

[LondonJohn]

Given the repeated perplexity on this thread over much simpler* issues this is a bold statement.

a medical doctor online , Well that settles it. Will one be enough though - how well did this work for pilots (& scholars etc ) for truth, and they had the numbers.

* 'the broken window' for example
.

Your argument is facile and stupid. There's a difference between gaining factual knowledge and applying that knowledge in a professional environment (gaining additional nuances and experience all the while). I would never be able to dissect an intestine, but I know how they work.

Incidentally, it's quite well-established that the 9/11 terrorist "pilots" learned the flight controls, navigation aids and instrument panel layouts of the 757 and 767 aircraft from Microsoft Fight Simulator, which is very accurate in its depictions of all these areas. That, coupled with some real flying lessons (on small propellor aircraft) was sufficient for them to be able to control large civil passenger aircraft and direct them into target buildings.

 

[Chris C]

Given the repeated perplexity on this thread over much simpler* issues this is a bold statement.

a medical doctor online , Well that settles it. Will one be enough though - how well did this work for pilots (& scholars etc ) for truth, and they had the numbers.

* 'the broken window' for example
.

So what your saying unless the person can prove they are a Doctor you won't believe them?

 

[Antony]

Does your experience extend to removing the underwear of a female victim during the course of a sexual assault / murder.

If not its hardly relevant to this aspect of the case.

Ad hominem, and nonsense to boot. Are you suggesting that you, or someone else in this discussion is better qualified to judge on this point? In any case, you don't need to have undone the bra of an unwilling victim to know that touching the hooks doesn't happen.

Perhaps he was inexperienced, panicked or trying to impress his girlfriend with his knifework.

"Perhaps" is not a word the prosecution is entitled to use. If the "guilty" verdict was based on "perhaps", then the whole thing is a mistrial.

Oh - just remembered. That's exactly what the verdict was based on - it's all in the Massei report.

 

[Justinian2]

I was already familiar with the story of Fred Zain.

It is not clear what your point is. Perhaps you yourself would benefit from rereading the post of mine you cited. You don't seem to have grasped the fundamentals of it yet.

It doesn't matter how many examples of malfeasance or misadventure from elsewhere you can cite. No one is challenging the fact that such things can happen, or that they do happen. The problem is that these examples have absolutely no merit as evidence, much less proof, that it happened this time.

Endless litanies of instances of deplorable acts or regrettable errors serve only as an appeal to emotion. That is a rhetorical device, not any sort of deductive, inferential, or logical progression towards proof. No matter how many more of them you cite, or how often you repeat them the basic truth of this does not change. If you really want to try and pursue such a form of persuasion then the very least you need to do is establish some sort of demonstration of how often this happens out of all criminal cases. Is it 1% of the time? 10%? 0.000001%? This might begin to make such citations germane, but even that would only be a beginning. Otherwise all you are doing is a sort of spotlighting, singling out examples you find convenient for your position, and asserting a commonality to this instance without any support for the assertion, while ignoring a preponderance of other examples which are less useful to your argument. If I were to present an interminable procession of cases where the accused were actually guilty and the prosecutors were innocent of any misdeeds even though the defense claimed otherwise you would disregard that as being irrelevant to this discussion, and rightfully so. The tactic is no more legitimate when it is used by the side of the discussion you have aligned yourself with.

From http://www.truthinjustice.org/expertslie.htm

Fred Zain is the victim of his own success. Over the years, Zain rose to the position of Chief of Serology at the West Virginia Department of Public Safety (crime laboratory). What he couldn't establish in the laboratory was arrived at through a unique form of logic called "backwards reasoning." If the defendant is guilty, it is likely that ... is the predicate for such reasoning. It presumes the defendant's guilt, and bases its findings on that presumption. But when you add to that presumptive base inadequate facilities, conflicting duties, an overwhelming caseload, and put them in the hands of an unqualified "expert," you have the prescription for disaster.

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it IS a duck.

Duck or plural duck a : any of various swimming birds (family Anatidae, the duck family) in which the neck and legs are short, the feet typically webbed, the bill often broad and flat, and the sexes usually different from each other in plumage

When an animal fits the definition of a duck, it probably is a duck.

When someone fits the description of a quack forensic 'expert' it probably is a quack forensic expert.

Endless litanies of instances of deplorable acts or regrettable errors serve only as an appeal to emotion. That is a rhetorical device, not any sort of deductive, inferential, or logical progression towards proof. No matter how many more of them you cite, or how often you repeat them the basic truth of this does not change.

The first idea is to show that there have been quack forensic experts and therefore it is wrong to assume that every forensic expert should be considered trustworthy.

The second idea is to define a quack forensic expert with previous examples. Once defined we look at the White Queen of DNA and ask ourselves if her work fits the definition for quack forensics that we have established.

Quack quack goes the white queen.

What is your definition of a quack forensic specialist, or what example best defines a quack?

 

[RoseMontague]

Frank has picked up on the similarities in the police handling of cousin Sabrina in the Sarah Scazzi murder, with a fantastic post here:

http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2010/10/avetrana-like-perugia.html

What is going on in this country falling to a state of decadence, this country that has become a Stalin-like police state? Inmates commit suicide in prison. People die in the hands of the police. Evidence appears from nothing. Evidence disappears mysteriously...
Police seem to have become dangerous for the citizens. And, naive judges believe them all the time, while the press is not much better

This quote is telling:

The far-fetched theory and the impossibility to give it up. The culprit nailed but the need to accuse a girl, too. The false information, the incarceration, the triumphing press conference...
They just need to celebrate by honking their cars horns, as the Perugia heroes had done, and everything will be the same.

 

[Malkmus]

No you miss the point.

It runs right thru this thread:

B Nadeau BAD
C Dempsey GOOD

Can't start using her now as an unimpeachable source on this 'issue' - the details of which are sketchy. Presumably they imply a conspiracy, to do with crime scene tampering or some such.

Now this is ironic. It's only the guilters on this thread who have tried to block anyone from citing particular journalists because they don't agree with their position on the case. I haven't seen anyone on the innocent side say we can or can't use this or that journalist as a source, only that whatever they are claiming must be weighed in context. For the record, Dempsey and Nadeau have both made factual errors about the case. But only Nadeau's mistakes turned out to be ones that could unfairly cause someone to think that there was more evidence against Amanda than there actually was (i.e. the blonde hairs). Dempsey as far as I can see has only made geographical errors that would in no way influence someone's opinion on guilt or innocence.