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Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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Quadraginta, you are floundering. This is nonsense. People in Knox's situation, whether guilty or innocent, do not make statements like this voluntarily. Honest police do not conduct interrogations like this until 5.30 in the morning, nor without recording the sessions, nor without legal advice for their victim.



All of us can understand the inconvenience of the well-established phenomenon of an internalised false statement if the premise is that Amanda is guilty, and the goal is to defend that premise. I'm sure I won't be the only one to point out that presumption of innocence is fundamental to justice. The fact that you seem to want to argue in the absence of such a presumption tells us a lot.

You blather about "floundering" and then spew something like this? That's cute.

"Presumption of innocence" has a particular meaning when used in the context of a courtroom. It is largely concerned with the burden of proof, which rightly belongs to the accuser.

When discussing concepts such as confirmation bias the meaning of the phrase takes on an entirely different context, and a different set of implications. When contemplating the question of actual guilt or innocence it has no ritual meaning at all.

If you understand the difference then you can only have made the statement you did as an exercise in schoolyard level word play, and as an effort to insult me and impugn my integrity.

If you do not understand the difference then perhaps you should go back to school and spend less time in the schoolyard.
 
I think your "hallmarks" bear many signs of reaching for justifications. I think your "reasons to suspect" show more than a few signs of confirmation bias. I think your "hard evidence", as I have pointed out, is only tangentially related to this specific case.

I think that protestations of "internalised false statement" are equally well accounted for if Knox was simply lying desperately and somewhat artlessly in an attempt to save herself from prosecution.

You can think as you please, however if the best argument you can muster is a string of assertions about what you think I find it highly unlikely that your thinking is based on rigorous logic and evidence.

What you think is neither here nor there as far as the scientific facts are concerned.

I can understand the attraction of "internalised false statement" if the premise is that Knox is innocent, and the goal is to defend that premise, but in the absence of any presumption of guilt or innocence it becomes much less alluring.

In sections of the internet where grammatical sentences aren't the norm, it's sometimes done to respond to a criticism by posting "NO U", short for "no I'm not, you are!".

It's a convenient response in a way because it can be applied to absolutely any criticism, and it requires no thought or argument.

However for exactly the same reasons it's not persuasive. When shown evidence that Knox's statement matches the characteristics of an internalised false statement in important ways and was produced under conditions consistent with what we know of how these statements are produced, and that hence it's irrational to believe with certainty that her statement was reflective of guilt, it cuts no ice to say "No, you're irrational!".

Similarly "No, you're the victim of confirmation bias!", absent some specific evidence, is also not persuasive.

In both cases you need evidence, which currently seems to be lacking.
 
I still have my doubts about this, they may have submitted additional documents but the points about Curatolo have already been made in the appeal and I just don't see how they could have new information on the computers without getting them tested (something they are asking in the appeal). Perhaps they filed a listing of expert witnesses or something along those lines but this just does not sound right to me.

They already have the disk image of Raf's Mac. It's THE computer when it comes to alibis. ILE's forensic work on it was not stellar, no wonder the defense managed to get more info from the drive, but i wouldn't bet they have something more then a definitive proof for the Naruto episode playback.
 
Wikipedia says this about that:

Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true.[Note 1][1] As a result, people gather evidence and recall information from memory selectively, and interpret it in a biased way. The biases appear in particular for emotionally significant issues and for established beliefs. For example, in reading about gun control, people usually prefer sources that affirm their existing attitudes. They also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and/or recall have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a stronger weighting for data encountered early in an arbitrary series) and illusory correlation (in which people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations).

A series of experiments in the 1960s suggested that people are biased towards confirming their existing beliefs. Later work explained these results in terms of a tendency to test ideas in a one-sided way, focusing on one possibility and ignoring alternatives. In combination with other effects, this strategy can bias the conclusions that are reached. Explanations for the observed biases include wishful thinking and the limited human capacity to process information. Another proposal is that people show confirmation bias because they are pragmatically assessing the costs of being wrong, rather than investigating in a neutral, scientific way.

Confirmation biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. Hence they can lead to disastrous decisions, especially in organizational, military, political and social contexts.​

Yes, I can see that. I even considered the possibility that I also am guilty. To some extent, I probably am. However, I don't ignore any actual guilter fact or reasonable theory.

I think probably that if a guilter calls you a name rather than answering a fact or plausible theory, then it is plausible that he has the dreaded 'Confirmation bias'.

I dislike labels of any kind probably as much as quad dislikes anecdotes. I think people that believe in guilt have many different reasons for having that opinion and many are convinced that the facts are obvious in favor of guilt. There are probably just a few, in my opinion, that are being dishonest in their opinion due to a dislike of Amanda and Raffaele and/or the posters defending them. I think you need to apply common sense to the case and I don't really care if you label the opinion that leads you to as CB or CT.
 
They already have the disk image of Raf's Mac. It's THE computer when it comes to alibis. ILE's forensic work on it was not stellar, no wonder the defense managed to get more info from the drive, but i wouldn't bet they have something more then a definitive proof for the Naruto episode playback.

Yes there is a file missed listed in the appeal already. I just have a gut feeling this press release that everybody is saying is new information, isn't.

ETA: I think it is just a press release prepared at the time the appeals were prepared and delayed for release until just before the appeal itself. It would be nice if someone were to prove me wrong on this, I would be happy if the spin on this is true.
 
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Rose, have you read this person's blog entries? I'm not surprised this information was posted by Justinian2. He and the author of the blog both live on the fringes of reality.

Glad to know that I'm on the fringe of your reality. I didn't think I was that close...:p
 
I thought the whole purpose of this rule was to allow those arrested the same opportunity to speak to a lawyer before they showed up in court as those that are not detained. If this is normal, despite having such a rule, then there is something sadly wrong with the system. The appeal is also making other arguments about documents that were not filed that would have been helpful to the defense strategy and of course we also know about the problems with getting the discovery from the prosecution.

It is all rather confusing but I think that of all law.

This link from the U.S. Embassy/Italy gives some information which may be somewhat helpful.

http://italy.usembassy.gov/acs/emergency/emergency-arrest.html

I admit I have had a hard time understanding the language of the Massei Motivations in regard to this subject. The legalese is way above my head.
 
I thought the whole purpose of this rule was to allow those arrested the same opportunity to speak to a lawyer before they showed up in court as those that are not detained. If this is normal, despite having such a rule, then there is something sadly wrong with the system. The appeal is also making other arguments about documents that were not filed that would have been helpful to the defense strategy and of course we also know about the problems with getting the discovery from the prosecution.
This was on Frank's today:
"New Arguments from Sollecito's Team
RAFFAELE WAS AT HOME
They are Certain Now

Meanwhile Raffaele’s defense filed new defensive documents.
One is about Raffaele’s computer: they are certain to have proven computer activity for the whole evening of the crime.
Another one is about Curatolo: they explained better why his testimony isn’t true. There weren’t discoteque buses that night, the discoteques were closed. And the problem of Curatolo’s testimony is very simple: he remembers the wrong day."
 
I dislike labels of any kind probably as much as quad dislikes anecdotes. I think people that believe in guilt have many different reasons for having that opinion and many are convinced that the facts are obvious in favor of guilt. There are probably just a few, in my opinion, that are being dishonest in their opinion due to a dislike of Amanda and Raffaele and/or the posters defending them. I think you need to apply common sense to the case and I don't really care if you label the opinion that leads you to as CB or CT.

I don't like labels either. I don't like cop labels such as perp or felon. I don't like the zillions of psychiatric terms. I don't like the political labels such as conservative and liberal. Having said that, I think organizing our ideas by differences and similarities is good. I think it is the first step to organized thought.

The good thing about labels is that it gives us a talking point. Why does a person belong in group A or group B is a meaningful discussion. What I don't like is labeling a person a felon because he had some hash - or other victimless crime - and then denying him a job as a result. It isn't so much the labels I object to as what people do with them.
 
This was on Frank's today:
"New Arguments from Sollecito's Team
RAFFAELE WAS AT HOME
They are Certain Now

Meanwhile Raffaele’s defense filed new defensive documents.
One is about Raffaele’s computer: they are certain to have proven computer activity for the whole evening of the crime.
Another one is about Curatolo: they explained better why his testimony isn’t true. There weren’t discoteque buses that night, the discoteques were closed. And the problem of Curatolo’s testimony is very simple: he remembers the wrong day."

Same press release being quoted now at seven different places. Perhaps Charlie or Bruce can clear this up, David K seems to think it is new information as well.
 
You can catch a rather long discussion I had with this man of action on a VewFromWilmington post in the comments section. People being different helps keep our world from being boring. I have admitted to being a bit strange myself.

When I was googling through everything I could find on Amanda Knox I ran across him a few times and thought he was just a Harry Rag ghost openly spoofing Charlie Wilkes, who apparently went to Italy. At least that's how it looked like it started, mind you I was seeing a lot out of chronological order.

Maybe I'm wrong, it's just what naturally occurred to me from the content and tenor of his posts. Sometimes their themes seemed to correlate, as in 'old' men lusting after Amanda as their interest in the case, 'worries' (elation at PMF) about Amanda becoming institutionalized, 'concerns' about the Catholic church's 'hold' over her etc.
 
It is all rather confusing but I think that of all law.

This link from the U.S. Embassy/Italy gives some information which may be somewhat helpful.

http://italy.usembassy.gov/acs/emergency/emergency-arrest.html

I admit I have had a hard time understanding the language of the Massei Motivations in regard to this subject. The legalese is way above my head.

Thank you Christiana for this as well as not belonging to group A or group B, maybe you represent the best of both.
 
Same press release being quoted now at seven different places. Perhaps Charlie or Bruce can clear this up, David K seems to think it is new information as well.

This is one of the earliest press releases (November 4, 2010) for the additional filing of documents by Sollecito. It also has a current article about today's hearing for Amanda.

Raffaele Appeal Documents:

http://www.umbrialeft.it/node/46834

November 8 Hearing - Amanda:

http://www.umbrialeft.it/node/47117
 
When I was googling through everything I could find on Amanda Knox I ran across him a few times and thought he was just a Harry Rag ghost openly spoofing Charlie Wilkes, who apparently went to Italy. At least that's how it looked like it started, mind you I was seeing a lot out of chronological order.

Maybe I'm wrong, it's just what naturally occurred to me from the content and tenor of his posts. Sometimes their themes seemed to correlate, as in 'old' men lusting after Amanda as their interest in the case, 'worries' (elation at PMF) about Amanda becoming institutionalized, 'concerns' about the Catholic church's 'hold' over her etc.

He believes that all three (Including Rudy) are innocent and have been railroaded. He also believes the only way out for them now is through political pressure. Someone in charge has to decide it is in Italy's best interest to let them go.
 
There was a quote circulating here recently:

I said that Amanda persuaded me to talk crap [dire cazzate] in the second version, and that she [quella] had gone out to go to the bar where she
worked, Le Chic.

First, I looked at the Italian version and have some doubts if the word persuaded is the best translation. Could someone fluent in Italian state an opinion :)?

I have some questions to the people believing that Amanda indeed persuaded Raf to talk crap. I presume you believe Raffaele told lies that Amanda asked him to tell. What exactly were those lies and when did Amanda persuade him to tell them? Are there some sources to this apart from the quoted (or mis-quoted) above sentence?
I think it's quite revolutionary to finally have a proof they conspired to cover a crime and I'd love to know the details.
 
Pahahahaha now our "professional defence attorney" seems to believe that his observation of the disco buses on Sat 30th Oct 2010 was relevant, because.......... the murder night was also a Saturday!

Breaking news: November 1st 2007 was a Thursday. Not a Saturday. Or even a Friday.

And while the clubs in town were indisputably open, it's the big out-of-town discos that were the issue here - since these were the ones to which the buses ran. And they were all closed on Thursday 1st November 2007, since it was All Saints' Day - a religious holiday in Italy, and the day after the big Halloween celebrations. And the buses therefore didn't run on that night. End of story.

Another triumph of accuracy for our legal expert :D
 
"Gradisca" is one of the big discos that uses the buses from Piazza Grimalda. Its events page is here:

http://www.gradisca.tv/#/eventi/eventi

Bangin' choons, innit?

But you'll notice that they are open on Saturday nights only, plus Halloween night (which this year fell on a Sunday, but which in 2007 fell on a Wednesday).

It's therefore obvious that the disco buses were running on the night of Wednesday 31st October (Halloween party night, when Gradisca would have held a special event, as per this year), but that they were not running on the night of Thursday 1st November 2007 (the murder night) - due to it not only being a religious holiday, but due to the simple fact that the big discos such as Gradisca never open on Thursdays.

So by definition, if Curatolo was correlating the presence of the disco buses with his observation on Knox and Sollecito, he must (at best) have been referring to October 31st, and not November 1st.
 
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When I was googling through everything I could find on Amanda Knox I ran across him a few times and thought he was just a Harry Rag ghost openly spoofing Charlie Wilkes, who apparently went to Italy. At least that's how it looked like it started, mind you I was seeing a lot out of chronological order.

Maybe I'm wrong, it's just what naturally occurred to me from the content and tenor of his posts. Sometimes their themes seemed to correlate, as in 'old' men lusting after Amanda as their interest in the case, 'worries' (elation at PMF) about Amanda becoming institutionalized, 'concerns' about the Catholic church's 'hold' over her etc.

Oh, we're talking about Harry Wilkens? That makes more sense. I was confused by Jungle Jim's post because the blog entry quoted was from Perugia Shock, so I thought everyone was saying Frank was a whacko, and was feeling very indignant on his behalf.

About Harry Wilkens, I also think he's a spoof of Charlie Wilkes, or that's the impression I've gotten from reading his posts, anyway...
 
Suffering is subjective. The question is why you feel you have more knowledge of whether Raffaele was tortured than he has.


Feelings are not a claim of facts and no criterion to establish facts. Raffaele reports no facts to call with the name torture, to which relate the feeling of being tortured: the only fact is that at a certain point in the night, after the interrogation, he was left barefoot. There is no information about something we may define coercive or torture, there is no claim about this. He doesn’t claim any fact. Period.
Moreover, h does not claim any fact of the interrogation, related to police behaviour, that he connects with his lie, by which he explains his lie.
His explanation for his lying is Amanda induced him to tell a load of crap to the police. This is what he claims, and it looks really desperate to claim this is not an “established fact”. This is an established fact as long as this is his position, never retracted, and the fact that Amanda asked him to lie is reported by the judge himself.
Raffaele DOES NOT explain/motivate/justify his lie alleging police behaviour, he explains his lying by mentioning the demands of Amanda.

Raffaele does affirm he lied due to pressures when, in his diary, he retracts the statements he gave to the police on November 5th.

Where? Where does he write a sentence like “I lied because the police did this”.
In his writings, I don’t see a mention of what the police did to him, of anything wrong the police did to him. (no abuse)
I don’t see a “because” that links, as an explanation, something the police did or say with what he said.
I don’t see a claim of being mentally or emotionally distressed at the point to unable to bear pressure and lie in the interrogation, and I don’t see a “because” explaining that he lied in relation to this mental collapse, or rationally expressing that he lied in relation to a specific fear or for a reason different from Amanda's inducing him.
In his writing I see denial and deceit “I don’t see a difference between this and this” and shallowness like “who cares” (my paraphrase/summary).

The lies he refers to are not the lies Amanda made him say (it is not a reported fact that Raffaele said "I lied because Amanda asked me to say so"), they are the false statements he gave police on the 5th. We can conclude from what he writes (most of which was documented here in the last several hours) that he regrets the statements he gave to police. We can infer that he gave them under extraordinary circumstances.

Well, instead we conclude that he tries to minimize the difference in his statements in his diary, and when he says “Amanda mi ha indotto a dire un mucchio di cazzate” he means he lied in an interrogation prior to the 5th.
 
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There was a quote circulating here recently:



First, I looked at the Italian version and have some doubts if the word persuaded is the best translation. Could someone fluent in Italian state an opinion :)?

I have some questions to the people believing that Amanda indeed persuaded Raf to talk crap. I presume you believe Raffaele told lies that Amanda asked him to tell. What exactly were those lies and when did Amanda persuade him to tell them? Are there some sources to this apart from the quoted (or mis-quoted) above sentence?
I think it's quite revolutionary to finally have a proof they conspired to cover a crime and I'd love to know the details.


p. 210, Darkness Descending
“Judge Matteini said, ‘There are several points, Mr. Sollecito, that differ between your version of today and your version of events as related on the evening of 5 November just three days ago. Can you explain whether you were with Amanda Knox that evening or not?’
Now it was make-or-break time. Matteini had posed the million-dollar question. The one Mignini had been waiting for.
His pay-off was unexpected, effectively an explosive retraction of his initial confession.
Raffaele said, ‘I’m sorry I told you that crap about not being with Amanda. We were together that evening.’
…But now on the key point of the night in question, he was sticking to her like glue again. Backing her up… ‘I can confirm that I spent the night with Amanda Knox.’”
 
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