Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Dan O.]

Thanks for the link and review. It looks like a reluctant Buffy in training, Japan style. Is this really what all the fuss is about?

Well, there was all that blood and legs and arms being cut off with a sword. It's like anyone watching this movie with such scenes depicting violence and the rejection of authority (not to mention the near mass rape) will become a homicidal sex maniac.

 

[Machiavelli]

(..)


Logically unless all three did it together and simultaneously, they are not all three guilty of murder. That is logically necessary. The court's verdict was that all three were guilty of murder.

This is absolutely false.

If, for example, Amanda's coerced false statement was actually true and she was on the couch covering her ears when Meredith was murdered, she would not be guilty of murder, correct?

NOT correct! She would be fully guilty by the Italian law, unless she claimed the difference of her role in the crime and he testified about it. In this jurisprudence - rather complex - you are guilty when you cover a fact with you actions, or you are a cause in the chain of events necessary or unnecessary, or you contributed with moral support to the criminal action, or subscribed to a criminal action that caused an event or failed to prevent it from taking place. Guilt is determined by a process of assessment of responsability.

 

[RoseMontague]

Excellent choice of video. Still laughing.

 

[LondonJohn]

I hope you can appreciate the difference between proving innocence, and assessing that a consistent theory of innocence is possible.


I didn't read your quote of gen. Garofano yet. My opinion however doesn't change on single quotes: I've listened to Garofano at lenght and have an articulate picture of his opinions.
"the forensics are sound" is yet a too general statement. To me this formulation already a shift. The process is no to establish whether the forensics of the case, in absolute terms, are sound or not.

I have a problem with your arguments. You suggest often that you're closely acquainted with the concepts of justice, and of Italian justice in particular. Yet you often refer to "proving innocence" or "assessing that a consistent theory of innocence is possible" - as if this concept has any relevance whatsoever in a criminal trial. Could I remind you that the defence has absolutely zero obligation to prove innocence or even propose a theory of innocence. Indeed, in some trials the defence side does not put up a defence in trial at all.

Instead, the burden of proof is ENTIRELY placed upon the prosecution, who must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And while I agree that it might (in certain circumstances) be acceptable for the prosecution to say something like "well the crime might have happened in two or three different ways, but we can prove that the defendant(s) definitely committed the crime anyhow", it's unusual. And the prosecution would still have to prove that in each of the two or three different scenarios, the defendant(s) were proven to be involved beyond a reasonable doubt. If the defence could show that in even one of the scenarios there was reasonable doubt as to the defendants' participation, then acquittal should follow.

 

[LondonJohn]

Excellent choice of video. Still laughing.

"We are now NO LONGER the knights who say "Ni!""

 

[katy_did]

Well, there was all that blood and legs and arms being cut off with a sword. It's like anyone watching this movie with such scenes depicting violence and the rejection of authority (not to mention the near mass rape) will become a homicidal sex maniac.

I know I'm fighting my sadistic homicidal urges even as we speak.

 

[Justinian2]

Let's make clear a couple points.
To me, there is no reasonable doubt Amanda is guilty. She is guilty, not "maybe guilty". I think there is sufficient information to determine Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are guilty. I think guilt can be argumented and maintained rationally, but I would argue of it only with neutral interlocutiors.

Second, i will never agree on an argument baset on letting go one person. If one person walks free on arguments based on concepts of absolute demonstration, then all people convicted on circumstantial evidence and testimonies have to go free. The basic requirement of justice is equality: what society can afford, the public sense of justice and security, must be assessed considering that all defendants who have the same kind of evidence against them have to walk free.
Third: justice is not between one individual and society, surely not only that. It is so in the common law US system. In Italy, justice is something partly private: it is between two families. The Kerchers must have justice, not the rest of society. The culprits have to owe them their belongings and must comply to their terms.

Wow! No wonder everybody has picked up on your replies! I would argue with everything you've said. However, others have started those discussions while I slept. So I will just question you about your second point - especially the highlighted statement

must be assessed considering that all defendants who have the same kind of evidence against them have to walk free.

I cannot quite understand why you think Guede must walk because the information against him is of the "same kind". How is the evidence and case against Guede in anyway similar?

The only similarities between Guede and the other two are that:

1) Guede broke into the house in which AK lived.
2) Guede said he liked Amanda.
3) They were accused of conspiring together.
4) They both have, in the past, used knives.
5) They're both spending time in jail for the same murder.
6) They were both part of Massei's ficticious conspiracy theory.
7) They both have frequented the same pub.
8) They've both walked the same streets.
9) For a week, they've both lived in Perugia.

How do you 'conclude' that "all defendants who have the same kind of evidence against them have to walk free?" The implication you make is that because Guede has the same evidence against him as there is against AK and RS that Guede has to go free.

Are you related to Guede? Are you his lawyer?

What evidence is the same kind?

How does the 'same kind' of evidence get perverted into being the same evidence? Most evidence is of the same type. Finger prints & DNA are two types of evidence. That doesn't imply that the evidence is the 'same'. It's not even close.

 

[Kaosium]

I cannot quite understand why you think Guede must walk because the information against him is of the "same kind". How is the evidence and case against Guede in anyway similar?

I think he meant that to let Amanda and Raffaele free would mean that all others convicted with similar evidence must be freed too. In other words no exceptions for those two just because they're young and pretty.

I would argue if there's people in Italian jails convicted with such a paucity of evidence they should be freed. However, how many people could there be convicted with no evidence, no motive and theory of the crime as ludicrous as this?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

As this DNA sample is the only evidence that ties Amanda to the murder, I would characterize this as a major departure from the prosecution's stance.

In Darkness Descending, Garofano claims he can tell, just by looking at the e-grams, that the mixed DNA contained the blood of both Amanda and Meredith, and it was deposited at the same time. The guy is a complete fraud. He takes issue with certain elements of the prosecution's case to make it seem as though he is independent, but he's a Mignini lapdog, barking for a biscuit and a pat on the head.

 

[Dan O.]

I think he's going further than saying if Amanda and Raffaele are set free then Rudy must be set free. I think he is trying to say that because Amanda and Raffaele were convicted using DNA evidence then if they are set free, every convict in italy that was convicted using DNA evidence must also be set free.

It's just the kind of nonsensical exaggeration that we've come to expect from him.

In the US, there have been cases where a cop has been found to have committed perjury on the stand or a DNA lab had been fudging the results. These don't result in swinging the prison gates open and letting everyone out. But they do result in a review of the cases involved.

If there are other cases in Italy where DNA evidence was mishandled in the same fashion, they should be reviewed. There may be other innocent people in the Italian prisons.


ETA:

However, how many people could there be convicted with no evidence, no motive and theory of the crime as ludicrous as this?

2 out of 2 cases that we've looked at where Mignini was prosecuting is a start.

 

[Kaosium]

I think he's going further than saying if Amanda and Raffaele are set free then Rudy must be set free. I think he is trying to say that because Amanda and Raffaele were convicted using DNA evidence then if they are set free, every convict in italy that was convicted using DNA evidence must also be set free.

I don't think that's what he meant, and unless I missed a post he wasn't talking about Rudy, but people convicted through 'circumstantial evidence and testimonies.'

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

This is absolutely false.

NOT correct! She would be fully guilty by the Italian law, unless she claimed the difference of her role in the crime and he testified about it. In this jurisprudence - rather complex - you are guilty when you cover a fact with you actions, or you are a cause in the chain of events necessary or unnecessary, or you contributed with moral support to the criminal action, or subscribed to a criminal action that caused an event or failed to prevent it from taking place. Guilt is determined by a process of assessment of responsability.

If this is correct (and I can find no source that confirms or denies this claim) then I find it very strange indeed.

If this is true then Amanda and Raffaele were not convicted of murder as we understand it in the rest of the world, but rather convicted of a specifically Italian crime: "Maybe murder or maybe covering up a murder or maybe giving moral support to a murder, hell, we don't know and we don't even have to specify!".

However this claim of yours is so odd (as well as conflicting on the face of it with Italy's treaty obligations under the UDHR) that I am skeptical of it, and I don't plan to take your word for it that this is really how the court system works without some relevant citation or a second opinion from someone who isn't a guilter.

In any case since it has not been proven beyond reasonable doubt that Amanda or Raffaele did any of the things you listed, their conviction is still a miscarriage of justice.

 

[Kaosium]

If there are other cases in Italy where DNA evidence was mishandled in the same fashion, they should be reviewed. There may be other innocent people in the Italian prisons.

This is just something that occurred to me and isn't addressed to you as much as it just came out when I was noticing the rest of your post. I've a suspicion this isn't new to you.

I think there's a gross misunderstanding of DNA evidence in this case, and in all of Italy for that matter, especially amongst the courts. I can't say I was any different before reading about this, being as I pay so little attention to this sort of news all the time, but the DNA 'evidence' presented here is nothing but an indictment of the prosecution. Not just the way it was gathered, but the fact it was presented at all. With no corroborating physical evidence at the scene outside those two microscopic bits, there's no chance either whatever was found or not found on the 'murder weapon' or the speck on the bra clasp was involved in the murder. They could be the result of contamination, imagination, or transfer, but the one thing that they cannot be is evidence of murder, and if the prosecution is trying to pretend so then they are grossly misleading the court.

ETA:

2 out of 2 cases that we've looked at where Mignini was prosecuting is a start.

I can't help but wonder if what happened in the Monster of Florence case affected him somehow and he's never recovered from it.

 

[Jungle Jim]

I just looked up "Blood: The Last Vampire" which you can view online at:

http://manga.animea.net/blood-the-last-vampire-chapter-1-page-1.html

I skimmed through it and it wasn't as macabre as advertised, and I never did find the scene of legs being chopped off the main character, though a handful of pages didn't load and I just skipped on to the next. You'd think that would be a major plot point--the main character being disabled--and would last more than a page, but perhaps not. She was the last 'purebred' vampire or somesuch, so I guess she could have recuperated within a page.

I had trouble following it as it didn't hold my interest, but there was a fair amount of bare female bodies. The only instances of attempted forced sex that I could see were quickly interrupted by the main character administering a butt-kicking. At the end of Chapter 2 there's a scene with the villain in his/her lair with dead girls who look like they've been slashed, and at the end of the third chapter/beginning of the fourth there's a lesbian scene by someone who doesn't know how to draw a tongue: looks like an unpeeled banana.

Going by the movie at least, "Sin City" was worse in my opinion.

The protagonist gets her arm cut off in the last chapter.

I found the book to be rather depressing and quite misogynistic in its outlook. I suppose the dismembering of body parts can be seen as cartoon violence, but the sexual violence, of which there is plenty, is disturbing. If you care to make up your own mind, the whole book can be read online at the link provided above.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

peak heights in electropherograms

In Darkness Descending, Garofano claims he can tell, just by looking at the e-grams, that the mixed DNA contained the blood of both Amanda and Meredith, and it was deposited at the same time. The guy is a complete fraud. He takes issue with certain elements of the prosecution's case to make it seem as though he is independent, but he's a Mignini lapdog, barking for a biscuit and a pat on the head.

I agree that trying to discern the identity of the tissue from the mere presence of DNA or the peak height of the signals in the electropherogram is nonsense. If one wants to look for blood, one tests for blood. Period. It is almost impossible to say anything about when DNA was deposited, other than that a given sample does or does not look degraded. I am ever the optimist, however, and I wonder whether Colonel Garofano has changed his mind about this point or something else.

 

[Alt+F4]

I hope Amanda doesn't become a nun when she gets out. I hope she hasn't made a lot of promises to 'God'.

Your posts regarding Amanda get more bizarre and disturbing everyday.

 

[Mary_H]

Your posts regarding Amanda get more bizarre and disturbing everyday.

I thought that post was odd at first, too, but then I discovered that the idea of Amanda becoming a nun has been in the news lately, so I assume Justinian was responding to that.

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/posts/view/160606

 

[Mary_H]

The protagonist gets her arm cut off in the last chapter.

I found the book to be rather depressing and quite misogynistic in its outlook. I suppose the dismembering of body parts can be seen as cartoon violence, but the sexual violence, of which there is plenty, is disturbing. If you care to make up your own mind, the whole book can be read online at the link provided above.

Depressing and misogynistic are words I would apply to that form of entertainment, too, Jungle Jim, as well as repellent. However, millions of people worldwide are consumers, suffering from no (or few) ill effects, so it is normal in that sense.

 

[Justinian2]

I think he meant that to let Amanda and Raffaele free would mean that all others convicted with similar evidence must be freed too. In other words no exceptions for those two just because they're young and pretty.

I would argue if there's people in Italian jails convicted with such a paucity of evidence they should be freed. However, how many people could there be convicted with no evidence, no motive and theory of the crime as ludicrous as this?

I understand and agree with your reply. I don't understand Machiavelli's reply.

Too often the politically correct logic is that you must give the black person a break. That is racism too.

The false implications are:
1.) The evidence is the same.
2.) The young and pretty get off.
3.) This cannot be a lone wolf killing.

Sure Amanda left fingerprints in the house. Two differences are that Amanda lived there and Amanda left NO fingerprints in the murder room or on the victim.

Sure Amanda left DNA in the house. Two differences are that Amanda lived there and Amanda left NO DNA in the murder room or on the victim. A third difference is that Amanda had an alibi for the most plausible time of the murder. A fourth difference is that this was Guede's modus operendi. A fifth difference is that Amanda would not be likely to commit the murder in her own home or leave the body there.

Guede wasn't supposed to be there!

Why not the other tenants? Throw them in jail too. Their DNA and fingerprints were also in the house.

I understand your reply. I don't understand Machiavelli's reply.

Originally Posted by Machiavelli
Let's make clear a couple points.
To me, there is no reasonable doubt Amanda is guilty. She is guilty, not "maybe guilty". I think there is sufficient information to determine Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are guilty.

[...]

considering that all defendants who have the same kind of evidence against them have to walk free.
[...]

This 'logic' - that everything is equal if there is any point of similarity - is the way that cats think. Dogs are actually smarter and will figure out differences. Massei is no dog.

Sorry cat lovers, but this is true...

 

[Kaosium]

Sure Amanda left DNA in the house. Two differences are that Amanda lived there and Amanda left NO DNA in the murder room or on the victim. A third difference is that Amanda had an alibi for the most plausible time of the murder. A fourth difference is that this was Guede's modus operendi. A fifth difference is that Amanda would not be likely to commit the murder in her own home or leave the body there.

Guede wasn't supposed to be there!

Why not the other tenants? Throw them in jail too. Their DNA and fingerprints were also in the house.

I understand your reply. I don't understand Machiavelli's reply.



This 'logic' that everything is equal if there is any point of similarity is the way that cats think. Dogs are actually smarter and will figure out differences. Massei is no dog.

I interpreted his post differently. While he was speaking of all three defendants in the opening paragraph, I think in the second he was speaking of all defendants convicted in Italy with circumstantial and testimonial evidence. Thus he wouldn't let Amanda and Raffaele off because there was no DNA evidence because it would imply all the other people convicted in Italy on such circumstantial and testimonial evidence should be free as well.

What I want to know is just how many people could there be in Italy convicted with such a scarcity of any evidence as Raffaele and Amanda. What is there left now, anyway? There's no confession, no eyewitnesses to the murder, no physical evidence, no motive and not a single person can put together a believable timeline incorporating all the solid information available.