Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Justinian2]

Calunnia here is not an Italian word, it is a legal term of the Italian Penal Code, and your translation is wrong.
The meaning has been explained, even if you deny it.

Besides, you should not misquote changing others' words, whether you agree or not. I didn't use the term slander, this is a fact, you should start your argument from this fact.

I just did a simple translation with the on-line translator. If there is a specialized legal translation, I'd like to hear it. I know in English, 'Blacks Law Dictionary' gives specialized meanings for some of the words. Give a link to the post that contains more information on the word.

 

[Justinian2]

Amanda and her defense already expressed a position on the police interrogation. Their defensive line is not addressing torture nor brainwashing techniques.

There is nothing to debate, since you maintain Amanda's situation is worse than death because Meredith's family at least can go on with their lives, and this position is devoid of consistency and honesty.

Amanda and her defense already expressed a position on the police interrogation. Their defensive line is not addressing torture nor brainwashing techniques.

The difference is that the courtroom arguments have to relate to law. For this argument, we can talk about brainwashing and torturous interrogation techniques. Usually if a lawyer thinks something is wrong, he can look up a law or a precedent that puts his argument into legal format.

The courts require arguments of law and rules. However, the idea is the egg (brainwashing and torturous interrogation techniques) from which the chicken is born (legal arguments)

There is nothing to debate, since you maintain Amanda's situation is worse than death because Meredith's family at least can go on with their lives, and this position is devoid of consistency and honesty

If Amanda was serving a life sentence, then suicide would be a better option for her. If she was totally guilty, suicide would have saved her family millions and man-years of grief. The Craig's List killer spared his family grief and legal expense by committing suicide. It was a heroic last act.

I've also been on a radio talk show (via telephone) while other callers were calling in from their place of incarceration to say that suicide was preferable to life imprisonment.

You think it is fun to be Amanda or her family? Being in prison or court is not life as we know it or want it. All life is not worth living.

 

[Justinian2]

This is a depiction of circumstances which seems to be popular among some Knox advocates. It is not one which meets with universal concurrence beyond that group. Sometimes not even within it.


Are you suggesting that all U.S. jurisdictions ensure the presence of a lawyer when interviewing potential witnesses?


Why do you keep making claims like this when it has been demonstrated repeatedly in this very thread that they are patently false.

In most jurisdictions police reports are a matter of public record, and special procedures are required to prevent access by any party. In news broadcasts one of the very first things we see other than press statements are those very police reports. Many news organizations have people who do nothing but review police reports just on the chance that they may stumble across something newsworthy.

In some jurisdictions (as I have explained before) there is virtually nothing about a criminal case which is not accessible to anyone with the time and inclination to ask for it.

The material released by the state of Florida in the Anthony case, which includes but is not limited to everything which they have turned over to the defense as part of discovery, as well as everything the defense has turned over to them in reciprocal discovery, is floating around 20,000 pages so far, with more than half a year to go before she gets her actual trial (maybe). The state released another 1,000 pages yesterday, including letters she got from her mother a few months ago.

There are state to state differences in the USA. In Massachusetts, I couldn't get even get the police report for close relatives. The lawyers can, but not relatives.

 

[quadraginta]

I just did a simple translation with the on-line translator. If there is a specialized legal translation, I'd like to hear it. I know in English, 'Blacks Law Dictionary' gives specialized meanings for some of the words. Give a link to the post that contains more information on the word.

Why are you ignoring the clear and careful explanation of this that Machiavelli just posted here, and here, and here? Not to mention the clarifications supplied in response to questions surrounding those posts, or for that matter the many other times the same topic has been brought up in these threads, with the same answers from Machiavelli, as well as other posters with knowledge of the Italian laws regarding this.

There ought to have been enough discussion of this topic for you to be able to pursue any further investigation you may be inclined to, all on your own. It is not secret data that is restricted to a limited few, or more obscure than any other technicality of legalese across national borders. Why do you expect Machiavelli to act as your own personal research assistant? Hasn't enough been offered gratis for you to make your own effort?

 

[treehorn]

The Massei case, for all its faults, was at least forced to lay its cards on the table and try to make a coherent story.

The guilters who go for the "they may not have stabbed her, but they were involved" line don't have to try. As far as I can tell they just point to the collection of usual whack-a-moles that supposedly point to Knox and Sollecito's guilt and say "I am incredulous of the idea that they could have (said X)(done Y) yet not be guilty, therefore they are guilty, even if I have no idea why they did it, or when, or how they could possibly have actually done so".

To be fair, that doesn't sound a whole lot different than your suppositions about the autopsy, its video, the testimony/ inner thoughts/ intentions/ motivations of the medical experts in respect of it.

When are you going to tell us how you've come to know the elasticity of the human intestine and the effort required to displace matter therein?

Have you been saving lives or cramming for your psych midterms?

 

[treehorn]

Yep. This is what the forensic expert says in his reconstruction. I have trouble noticing all these details, but once someone points them out, they are obvious, and they lead to specific conclusions.

When are you going to back up your claim about having met amanda knox personally AFTER the murder?

Although, I'm not sure how that will strengthen your assertion that she's nothing but 'sweetness and light'...

How can you reasonably claim to know what someone you barely know is capable of doing when high on a combination of alcohol and street drugs of unknown composition and potency?

You are aware that, as a rule, sociopaths are superficially charming, correct?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

fair play

To be fair,

Treehorn,

When are you going to answer all of the comments that have been made in response to the misinformation you have provided? Let's tend to this first, then worry about the intestine. That would be fair.

 

[quadraginta]

There are state to state differences in the USA. In Massachusetts, I couldn't get even get the police report for close relatives. The lawyers can, but not relatives.

Perhaps you overlooked where I said,

"In most jurisdictions ..."
​

in response to your claim,

"In the USA, the information wouldn't have been leaked because disinterested parties cannot get the police reports."


​

Your claim about Massachusetts as a specific exception piqued my curiosity, so I did a bit of research. What I have been able to uncover does not substantiate your assertions.

This document (.pdf), from the state guide to public records, has this to say,

For example: I want a copy of an arrest report. May this report be withheld
by the records custodian pursuant to Exemption (a) as Criminal Offender
Record Information (C.O.R.I.)? It depends. A record that is recorded as a
result of the initiation of criminal proceedings or other consequent proceeding
may be withheld under the C.O.R.I. statute. For more information on C.O.R.I.
and the Public Records Law, please see SPR Bulletin NO. 3-03 November 21,
2003.34

Then I referenced the cited CORI bulletin by the state, here, which had this to say,

Part I. Rules of Public Records

1. Anyone can get any police record at anytime upon request. The record may be redacted to remove bits of information such as witness and victim's names and addresses. After a redaction takes place, you must explain in writing to the requester what information was redacted and the specific reasons why the record was sanitized. The remaining portions of the record must then be released.

I'll leave you to peruse the documents in greater depth, but on the surface it would seem that in Massachusetts police reports are a matter of public record which, subject to a certain limited subset of restrictions, are available to anyone who asks for them and pays the fee for reproduction.

It appears you may have been misled or misinformed.

 

[Justinian2]

Why are you ignoring the clear and careful explanation of this that Machiavelli just posted here, and here, and here? <snip>

<snip>

Why do you expect Machiavelli to act as your own personal research assistant? Hasn't enough been offered gratis for you to make your own effort?

Geez, usually I have to be the research assistant. Golly gee whiz, you provided me with information! Shame on you!

The crime of calunnia is a multi-offensive crime, in which the prevalent victim is the "administration of justice", which means the people's right to fair justice. It can be defined as a specific kind of obstruction to justice consisting in giving false evidence or false incriminating information against someone. This crime is committed by communicating this info in some way to an authority. The false information not necessarily must be against someone else, by art. 369 the crime is committed even if a person falsely accuses himself.

The legal term must not be confused with the common Italian term calunnia, which also exsist and can be used exstensively, or metaphorically, outside from criminal contexts just to indicate any "false accusation" or "false report" in general.

Thank you. That's what I asked for. Seems like the police and the prosecutor are the main ones guilty of calunnia. However, it is typical of the police to believe that "The best defense is a good offense." I've seen that tactic used in the USA too. It's more than typical, it's the world modus operandi.

 

[Justinian2]

Perhaps you overlooked where I said,

"In most jurisdictions ..."
​

in response to your claim,

"In the USA, the information wouldn't have been leaked because disinterested parties cannot get the police reports."


​

Your claim about Massachusetts as a specific exception piqued my curiosity, so I did a bit of research. What I have been able to uncover does not substantiate your assertions.

<snip>
.

I searched the document you provided for the term 'police report'. No instance of that term was found.
a.) My wife has a password to access criminal records. Those records seem to get purged in a finding other than guilty because I've looked and they haven't been found.

b.) I've asked the police of three juristictions for information and have been refused.

c.) I couldn't even get anyone in the state to release a police policy and training manual.

It's possible that in certain condidions they are made public, but it is not my experience.

 

[Machiavelli]

The difference is that the courtroom arguments have to relate to law. For this argument, we can talk about brainwashing and torturous interrogation techniques. Usually if a lawyer thinks something is wrong, he can look up a law or a precedent that puts his argument into legal format.

The courts require arguments of law and rules. However, the idea is the egg (brainwashing and torturous interrogation techniques) from which the chicken is born (legal arguments)

Any argument by anybody related to a trial is related to law.
Things like torture or sleep deprivation are facts, to be adressed or not addressed.
The defence is not addressing any fact that even you would define torture or brainwashing, no sleep deprivation no other deprivations.
The defence and Amanda do instead claim other diffeent facts, not consistent with torture, intimidation, sleepe deprivation.
The defensive claim is not a legal format to claim torture and intimidation: it is simply the claim of a different event. The reason why false memory is claimed instead of intimidation is not the "legal format", it is because of Amanda's hand written note.

If Amanda was serving a life sentence, then suicide would be a better option for her. If she was totally guilty, suicide would have saved her family millions and man-years of grief. The Craig's List killer spared his family grief and legal expense by committing suicide. It was a heroic last act.
(..)

So if the convict is innocent should be even more heroic, and still effective in saving millions and years of grief. Amanda is serving a 26 years sentence. Now if the verdict is confirmed what should be the best thing to do?
I remind you that any choice that was available or is still available for Amanda, including suicide, was not available for Meredith. There is no choice left for her.

 

[Justinian2]

Perhaps you overlooked where I said,
<snip>

Right below the part you quoted is this:

If, however, the requester is familiar with the individuals who were involved in the incident(s) noted in the report, then the department may withhold the entire record because it would not be possible for the records custodian to redact the report in a manner as to avoid indirect identification of the voluntary witness and complainant.

The police department can refuse to publish police reports.

The police log is a matter of public record. The newspapers use the police log.

 

[Alt+F4]

If Amanda was serving a life sentence, then suicide would be a better option for her. If she was totally guilty, suicide would have saved her family millions and man-years of grief. The Craig's List killer spared his family grief and legal expense by committing suicide. It was a heroic last act.

I can GUARANTEE you that Amanda's family would rather see her do a life sentence than see her dead. It's beyond bizarre to suggest that those accused or convicted of crimes should kill themselves because their situations are difficult for their families.

And as for the Craig's List Killer, what exactly was he convicted of?

I've also been on a radio talk show (via telephone) while other callers were calling in from their place of incarceration to say that suicide was preferable to life imprisonment.

Hey, prison can't be all that bad if you're allowed to spend your time calling into radio talk shows.

 

[quadraginta]

I searched the document you provided for the term 'police report'. No instance of that term was found.
a.) My wife has a password to access criminal records. Those records seem to get purged in a finding other than guilty because I've looked and they haven't been found.

b.) I've asked the police of three juristictions for information and have been refused.

c.) I couldn't even get anyone in the state to release a police policy and training manual.

It's possible that in certain condidions they are made public, but it is not my experience.

Sometimes specific search term criteria can lead you astray. This is not the fault of the term or the search tools. I found "police report" to be unsatisfactory as well, so I used less explicit terms. It seems that "police report" is not part of the jargon used in those documents. "Police" was enough to find the relevant passages.

The first quote I offered you expressly mentioned "arrest report", and then directed you to the second, which referenced "police record", under the heading of, "Rules of Public Records".

An "arrest report" is unquestionably a police record, and I expect is synonymous with the "police report" you are referring to. All, of course, would be public records.

 

[quadraginta]

Perhaps you overlooked where I said,
<snip>

Right below the part you quoted is this:

If, however, the requester is familiar with the individuals who were involved in the incident(s) noted in the report, then the department may withhold the entire record because it would not be possible for the records custodian to redact the report in a manner as to avoid indirect identification of the voluntary witness and complainant.

The police department can refuse to publish police reports.

The police log is a matter of public record. The newspapers use the police log.

Note the relevant phrase, which I highlighted for you, including the operative words, "may withhold". This is not the same as "will withhold". Further perusal of the documents I cited will provide more detail about the rather stringent conditions where this refusal might apply and the requirements for written explanation of compliance to those conditions.

You have not yet supported your claim that police arrest reports are generally unavailable in Massachusetts. I cannot account for the instances you claim to have experienced, but you might well have uncovered the explanation yourself. Perhaps you should have been more persistent in your efforts, since you do not seem to have gotten the written justification for refusal which the statutes apparently require.

 

[Justinian2]

I can GUARANTEE you that Amanda's family would rather see her do a life sentence than see her dead. It's beyond bizarre to suggest that those accused or convicted of crimes should kill themselves because their situations are difficult for their families.

If Amanda gets out, life will be worth living. There's hope...

And as for the Craig's List Killer, what exactly was he convicted of?

He was accused of killing a masseuse that advertised on Craig's List. They had lots of evidence. They had email between him and the masseuse plus video of him going into the room with her. I think they also had fingerprints and DNA. In Mass you get life without parole. He would have been a medical doctor by now had he restrained himself.

Hey, prison can't be all that bad if you're allowed to spend your time calling into radio talk shows.

He was NGI (Not Guilty by reason of Insanity). He was pretty articulate and logical for an insane person. He was serving his life sentence in a mental institution.

 

[Justinian2]

Note the relevant phrase, which I highlighted for you, including the operative words, "may withhold". This is not the same as "will withhold". Further perusal of the documents I cited will provide more detail about the rather stringent conditions where this refusal might apply and the requirements for written explanation of compliance to those conditions.

You have not yet supported your claim that police arrest reports are generally unavailable in Massachusetts. I cannot account for the instances you claim to have experienced, but you might well have uncovered the explanation yourself. Perhaps you should have been more persistent in your efforts, since you do not seem to have gotten the written justification for refusal which the statutes apparently require.

True.

However, I think 'may withhold' usually gets translated to 'will withhold'. If the police don't want a relative to have the report, then they also don't want it published where the relative can get the report.

Furthermore, the records seem to disappear as soon as the case has cleared.

 

[Dan O.]

Particularly responsible or accommodating landlords will simply switch or re-key a lockset between tenants, although I don't know how universal this practice may be. It isn't expensive, especially compared to the headaches of tracking, replacing or issuing new keys. A cheap entry lockset costs about $30. A decent handyman can swap one out in less than fifteen minutes. With cigarette breaks. Many of the better ones are designed specifically so that the lock cylinder barrel can be removed and replaced with nothing more than a special change key designed for that purpose. It takes about a minute to do. When I was turning over finished buildings to an owner I would often have a handful of them in a drawer in my desk in the office trailer. Often times even if the landlord doesn't choose to change the lock the tenant may do so all on their own, and simply give a copy of the new key to the landlord. This is not the least bit uncommon, either.

Most landlords or their service people have a larger stock of old replacement door hardware than they really want, much less need. It's the kind of thing which tends to accumulate when you manage properties.

The lock on the cottage front door uses the europian standard replaceable cylinder. It's a major headache saver for landlords, tenants and simple homeowners. All locks made to this standard use the same interchangeable cylinder. This cylinder can be changed in a couple of minutes by the homeowner with a simple screwdriver. I would expect to find in any europian town with many landlords an exchange where cylinder and key sets can be swapped for a modest fee. If I were a landlord or locksmith in the US I would try to create such an exchange.

Rather than keeping a spare key by the door, the double cylinder could be swapped out for a single cylinder with a thumb turn on the inside. I agree with you that it seems incredibly dangerous to require a key to get out of a building. Perhaps a previous tenant was paranoid and the girls didn't know any better.

I'm going to come to your defense in the "probability" aspect of this, though. Although in the U.S. it is quite common, probably even normal for double deadbolts to accept keys in both sides of the lock at once, my reading into European lock hardware during the last time the subject came around led to the discovery that a common "Euro" style of lock cylinder does not. I am not going to go through all of that reading again, but there is every likelihood that the lock assembly on that apartment door was using one such.

Note that it did not have to be, and we still have no way of knowing whether it did or not, but I would be unsurprised if it did. Not that it is at all germane to any other part of this question.

Given that we have already identified the make and model of this lockset, it's safe to state that it does use a standard eurolock cylinder.

 

[Alt+F4]

He was accused of killing a masseuse that advertised on Craig's List. They had lots of evidence. They had email between him and the masseuse plus video of him going into the room with her. I think they also had fingerprints and DNA. In Mass you get life without parole. He would have been a medical doctor by now had he restrained himself.

Exactly, he was accused, he was not convicted of anything. Ask his parents if they think his suicide was "heroic". It was nothing other than cowardly and selfish. A parent NEVER gets over the death of their child no matter what the curcumstances. Meredith's parents will grieve everyday for the rest of their lives and Amanda's parents, I'm sure, are glad they are not Mr. and Mrs. Kercher.

 

[Justinian2]

Exactly, he was accused, he was not convicted of anything. Ask his parents if they think his suicide was "heroic". It was nothing other than cowardly and selfish. A parent NEVER gets over the death of their child no matter what the curcumstances. Meredith's parents will grieve everyday for the rest of their lives and Amanda's parents, I'm sure, are glad they are not Mr. and Mrs. Kercher.

Hope is good.
Life is good.

Each day dead is better than a day in court or prison.
I would have opted for a coma until this thing was over, were I a member of the Knox family. I salute their courage!

I want life for the Knox family. My thumb is up!