Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[platonov]

Wow Mary H, just WOW.

I asked 5/6 straightforward questions ( 1 with 3 parts) based directly on a half of a short post of yours & in response you post ~ 500 words with only 2 not so straightforward answers as far as I can tell.
It appears that you hold to the position that there is NO Evidence against AK which is an answer, but a strange one & you do a U-turn on your own 'people are unpredictable' thereby giving AK a pass ?

<snip>

Tell me this -- on the off chance, in your eyes, that Amanda turned out to be innocent, and a bunch of people recognized that and worked for her acquittal and release, what do you think that movement would look like?

I'm not sure what this Q means but as it relates to JREF I will try to answer.........
Honestly, nothing like this thread or your post.

This thread looks like what it is - you 'know' or 'recognize' she is innocent for reasons that appear to me to have nothing to do with the actual evidence* as your earlier post clearly shows.

* which apparently doesn't exist.

If there is a case for an unsafe conviction it hasn't been made here.

As to the wider campaign in the English speaking world, from what I can see :a mendacious PR snow job with overtones of racism & xenophobia.

.

 

[RoseMontague]

Wow Mary H, just WOW.

I asked 5/6 straightforward questions ( 1 with 3 parts) based directly on a half of a short post of yours & in response you post ~ 500 words with only 2 not so straightforward answers as far as I can tell.
It appears that you hold to the position that there is NO Evidence against AK which is an answer, but a strange one & you do a U-turn on your own 'people are unpredictable' thereby giving AK a pass ?




I'm not sure what this Q means but as it relates to JREF I will try to answer.........
Honestly, nothing like this thread or your post.

This thread looks like what it is - you 'know' or 'recognize' she is innocent for reasons that appear to me to have nothing to do with the actual evidence* as your earlier post clearly shows.

* which apparently doesn't exist.

If there is a case for an unsafe conviction it hasn't been made here.

As to the wider campaign in the English speaking world, from what I can see :a mendacious PR snow job with overtones of racism & xenophobia.

.

Not you too? These accusations of racism on the part of Amanda supporters seem to be popping up everywhere lately, even here.

 

[Justinian2]

A lot of internet searches turn up warnings NOT to use luminol as a test for blood. So why was the admission of luminol 'evidence' allowed in Italy? Secondly, when it was, why was the foot outline assumed to be RS's rather than the more likely Guede footprint?

With PD analyses and luminol tests for blood what's next? LCN DNA testing done by a contaminated lab perhaps?

http://www.securityandsafetysupply.com/news/lp-32.htm

Lt. Robin Bratton
Michigan State Police
from a speech given at the IAI Conference, Danvers, Massachusetts (1997)

Hemaglow™ is a commercially available luminol preparation which is reported to produce luminescence with blood, produce fewer false positives, and remain effective for at least two months if stored properly. The manufacturers sent a sample to our department for testing for validation. The scope of this lecture will be to detail the comparisons made between conventionally prepared luminol in an aqueous solution and Hemaglow™.

According to the Merck Index, Luminol is a compound that reacts with the copper, iron peroxides and cyanide. Blood contains both iron and peroxides, which when combined with luminol, react to produce luminescence that is visible in low light. As luminol reacts with substances not specific to blood, luminol solutions should not be used as a "presumptive test" for blood. All luminol solutions can and do produce numerous false positive reactions. Opinions stating that a stain was blood because when he was sprayed with a luminol solution produced luminescence should be avoided!

 

[Machiavelli]

If an Italian judge says it's so, then it's so... unless the Italian judge is saying that Mignini was in a delirium and making crazy accusations about Satanic conspiracies he couldn't back up. Then you can just ignore them completely.

If an Italian court says you are guilty you are guilty... unless the Italian court is convicting Mignini for blatantly illegal abuse of his prosecutorial powers to harass his critics. Then you can just ignore them completely.

When it's Mignini, you can just say "Oh that's disputed, that's hearsay, it's all really complicated, let's not talk about it, let's move on as fast as we possibly can and get back to trying to psychoanalyse Amanda Knox. Now there's someone who is clearly a narcissistic and conscienceless person wildly out of touch with reality! Ha ha!".

It does look very much as if you have no real faith in Italian judges or legal processes at all, unless at that very moment they are saying something that makes Knox sound guilty.

Oh no. You are jusy forgetting the part of decision where the judiciary decided Mignini was fit to work in his role, that he deserved no professional sanction, and he was even granted an advance in career.
This "half" of the facts gets lost from you view in some way.

When you speak about psychoanalysing Amanda Knox you are telling the false if referred to me. I base myself on facts.

 

[Machiavelli]

These are all reasonable objections. I use the same logic when people doubt Amanda's story of being cuffed twice on the head. Why not three times, or six times? Why not smacks or hair-pulling instead of cuffs? And so on.

(...)

Tha'ts a good example. I make clear that I do not doubt Amanda's story of being "cuffed" twice on the head. I don't know if it's really true, but I consider it true in my assessmnt.

 

[Alt+F4]

It does look very much as if you have no real faith in Italian judges or legal processes at all, unless at that very moment they are saying something that makes Knox sound guilty.

Well that runs two ways doesn't it? The same Italian judicial system that convicted Rudy Guede also convicted Amanda and Raffaele yet you think they did a great job in his case and a lousy one with theirs. Why are you so certain that Rudy's DNA was found in the apartment? Oh that's right because the Italian forensic investigators said it was.

 

[Mary_H]

Wow Mary H, just WOW.

I asked 5/6 straightforward questions ( 1 with 3 parts) based directly on a half of a short post of yours & in response you post ~ 500 words with only 2 not so straightforward answers as far as I can tell.
It appears that you hold to the position that there is NO Evidence against AK which is an answer, but a strange one & you do a U-turn on your own 'people are unpredictable' thereby giving AK a pass ?

No, I still hold that people are unpredictable. That was offered as an explanation for why I did not immediately believe Amanda was innocent of the crime. It is also true it is statistically improbable that Amanda committed the murder.

I'm not sure what this Q means but as it relates to JREF I will try to answer.........
Honestly, nothing like this thread or your post.

This thread looks like what it is - you 'know' or 'recognize' she is innocent for reasons that appear to me to have nothing to do with the actual evidence* as your earlier post clearly shows.

* which apparently doesn't exist.

You didn't answer the question.

If there is a case for an unsafe conviction it hasn't been made here.

From your point of view.

As to the wider campaign in the English speaking world, from what I can see :a mendacious PR snow job with overtones of racism & xenophobia.

.

Why don't you explain to us why you see it that way? Base your evaluation on some documented evidence.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

the timing of when the evidence was collected was different

Well that runs two ways doesn't it? The same Italian judicial system that convicted Rudy Guede also convicted Amanda and Raffaele yet you think they did a great job in his case and a lousy one with theirs. Why are you so certain that Rudy's DNA was found in the apartment? Oh that's right because the Italian forensic investigators said it was.

Alt+F4,

The forensic evidence made Guede a suspect. Much of the evidence against Knox and Sollecito was analyzed (knife) or even collected (bra clasp) after Knox and Sollecito were in custody. For this reason there is a greater chance of investigator bias in the latter situation. Moreover, one can toss 100% of the DNA evidence if one likes and one still has Guede in Meredith's bedroom. His fingerprint and his shoeprints put him there, and his words and actions (fleeing the country) reinforce this.

I have never seen the electropherograms of Rudy's DNA, but presumably his lawyers have. What do they say about it?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Well that runs two ways doesn't it? The same Italian judicial system that convicted Rudy Guede also convicted Amanda and Raffaele yet you think they did a great job in his case and a lousy one with theirs. Why are you so certain that Rudy's DNA was found in the apartment? Oh that's right because the Italian forensic investigators said it was.

Skeptics proportion their beliefs to the evidence.

I think they convicted the right person with regard to Rudy because there is very strong evidence Guede is guilty.

I think they convicted the wrong people with regard to Amanda and Raffaele, again based on the evidence.

What the courts decide about the matter is irrelevant to my judgments about whether the people involved did it. I'm interested in the evidence the court unearths. I'll make my own judgments based on that evidence though. Letting someone like Massei make your judgments for you is like leaving a monkey in charge of a car - the man's a fool.

 

[Alt+F4]

Alt+F4,

The forensic evidence made Guede a suspect. Much of the evidence against Knox and Sollecito was analyzed (knife) or even collected (bra clasp) after Knox and Sollecito were in custody. For this reason there is a greater chance of investigator bias in the latter situation. Moreover, one can toss 100% of the DNA evidence if one likes and one still has Guede in Meredith's bedroom. His fingerprint and his shoeprints put him there, and his words and actions (fleeing the country) reinforce this.

I have never seen the electropherograms of Rudy's DNA, but presumably his lawyers have. What do they say about it?

Investigator bias? How so? One day we are hearing (not from you specifically) that it was lousy lab work, then maybe planted evidence, then maybe institutional corruption, then maybe post-fascist brainwashing.

As for Rudy's fingerprints how did the police obtain them? Oh yes, they took his fingerprints after the nursery school break in. But wait, I thought Rudy was a super-duper top secret informant for the Perugia PD, so why would they take his fingerprints? Why is it that many of the people who think Amanda and Raffaele are innocent don't use that same scrutiny with the evidence when it comes to Rudy's supposed unchecked crime spree?

Rudy's DNA and fingerprints were found in the apartment. He doesn't deny being there, but denies committing the murder. He doesn't have an alibi but he's a black man facing a possible life sentence so he flees. Result - absolutely no doubt of his guilt!

Perugia law enforcement calls Rudy a liar and they are 100% correct, when they call Amanda and Raffaele liars it's the worst set up the Dreyfus affair. It's a double standard I can't understand.

 

[RoseMontague]

Rudy's DNA and fingerprints were found in the apartment. He doesn't deny being there, but denies committing the murder. He doesn't have an alibi but he's a black man facing a possible life sentence so he flees. Result - absolutely no doubt of his guilt!

Are you saying that those that believe in the innocence of Amanda and Raffaele believe Rudy is guilty because he is black?

 

[Mary_H]

Investigator bias? How so? One day we are hearing (not from you specifically) that it was lousy lab work, then maybe planted evidence, then maybe institutional corruption, then maybe post-fascist brainwashing.

As for Rudy's fingerprints how did the police obtain them? Oh yes, they took his fingerprints after the nursery school break in. But wait, I thought Rudy was a super-duper top secret informant for the Perugia PD, so why would they take his fingerprints? Why is it that many of the people who think Amanda and Raffaele are innocent don't use that same scrutiny with the evidence when it comes to Rudy's supposed unchecked crime spree?

I don't think they did take Rudy's fingerprints after the break-in. They had them on file only because he was an immigrant.

Rudy's DNA and fingerprints were found in the apartment. He doesn't deny being there, but denies committing the murder. He doesn't have an alibi but he's a black man facing a possible life sentence so he flees. Result - absolutely no doubt of his guilt!

It was the court, not the innocentisti, who found Rudy guilty of the crime. If he fled because he was black, it suggests racism is just as tangible in Perugia as anywhere.

Perugia law enforcement calls Rudy a liar and they are 100% correct, when they call Amanda and Raffaele liars it's the worst set up the Dreyfus affair. It's a double standard I can't understand.

The evidence in this case remains the same regardless of the ethnicities of the players.

 

[RoseMontague]

Tha'ts a good example. I make clear that I do not doubt Amanda's story of being "cuffed" twice on the head. I don't know if it's really true, but I consider it true in my assessmnt.

I had seen a post somewhere saying this cuffing was like a cultural thing in Italy. Is there any truth to this?

 

[Kaosium]

Wow Mary H, just WOW.

I asked 5/6 straightforward questions ( 1 with 3 parts) based directly on a half of a short post of yours & in response you post ~ 500 words with only 2 not so straightforward answers as far as I can tell.
It appears that you hold to the position that there is NO Evidence against AK which is an answer, but a strange one & you do a U-turn on your own 'people are unpredictable' thereby giving AK a pass ?




I'm not sure what this Q means but as it relates to JREF I will try to answer.........
Honestly, nothing like this thread or your post.

This thread looks like what it is - you 'know' or 'recognize' she is innocent for reasons that appear to me to have nothing to do with the actual evidence* as your earlier post clearly shows.

* which apparently doesn't exist.

.

Very well, tell us what you think is 'evidence' against Raffaele and Amanda. No circles, no games, just post it.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Investigator bias? How so? One day we are hearing (not from you specifically) that it was lousy lab work, then maybe planted evidence, then maybe institutional corruption, then maybe post-fascist brainwashing.

As for Rudy's fingerprints how did the police obtain them? Oh yes, they took his fingerprints after the nursery school break in. But wait, I thought Rudy was a super-duper top secret informant for the Perugia PD, so why would they take his fingerprints?

I really do not follow this line of reasoning. Apart from the fact that the hypothesis that Rudy was a police informer, while it would explain a great deal, is still only a hypothesis with no direct evidence to support it, is it really absolutely inconceivable to you that someone could be a police informer yet still have their fingerprints taken when they are arrested? Is that really something that you cannot believe could possibly happen?

If so, I'd really like to see you explain the basis for that belief.

If not, you aren't making anything resembling an intelligent argument.

Why is it that many of the people who think Amanda and Raffaele are innocent don't use that same scrutiny with the evidence when it comes to Rudy's supposed unchecked crime spree?

Maybe they did?

I don't think any of the intelligent innocenters here take the word of newspapers as Gospel, but at the same time newspaper stories that are consistent with the other facts available to us deserve more weight than stories inconsistent with the other facts available to us.

Granted some of the accusations aimed at Guede have exactly the same problems as some of the evidence against Amanda and Rudy - they came out after the events were publicised not before, and hence could have been influenced by them.

However at the same time it's simply a fact that Guede was caught red-handed with stolen goods, taken from a building burglarised in exactly the same fashion as Meredith and Amanda's house was burgled. That alone outweighs in my mind the entire ridiculous and often revolting collection of armchair-psychological "gotchas" the guilters have cooked up against Knox and Sollecito.

Rudy's DNA and fingerprints were found in the apartment. He doesn't deny being there, but denies committing the murder. He doesn't have an alibi but he's a black man facing a possible life sentence so he flees. Result - absolutely no doubt of his guilt!

You left out the break-in fitting his M.O., his history of being armed while robbing houses, the fact that his DNA was found in Meredith's vagina where it had no business being, and the fact that there is absolutely no evidence of the mystery man he claimed murdered Meredith while he was all unaware in the bog listening to his iPod.

Those all seem to me to be highly relevant considerations.

Also, are you accusing us of racism, or the Perugia police? It's not quite clear from the way you've phrased it.

Perugia law enforcement calls Rudy a liar and they are 100% correct, when they call Amanda and Raffaele liars it's the worst set up the Dreyfus affair. It's a double standard I can't understand.

You make it sound as if we arrived at those positions out of the blue without looking at any evidence at all. It's very bizarre indeed - like saying "You say that 2+2=4 but then you go and say that 5+5=10! It's a double standard I can't understand! Surely they must both equal 4 or both equal 10!".

 

[Katody Matrass]

Investigator bias? How so?

Interesting, are you claiming there was absolutely no bias in the conduct of the investigation?
Maybe you can see some potential for confirmation bias in the assessment of the evidence? Or not at all? Absolutely zero?

 

[Machiavelli]

I had seen a post somewhere saying this cuffing was like a cultural thing in Italy. Is there any truth to this?

No, not quite "cultural", but there might be something. The word used in translations of her handwritten note for the hitting, was scappellotto. This is a children word, comes from cappello (hat, cap), and the word means approximately "take away yout hat!". This word traditionally means a cuffing given from the back to a noisy or lazy school child, to express disapproval and get back attention on the teacher.

 

[Withnail1969]

No, not quite "cultural", but there might be something. The word used in translations of her handwritten note for the hitting, was scappellotto. This is a children word, comes from cappello (hat, cap), and the word means approximately "take away yout hat!". This word traditionally means a cuffing given from the back to a noisy or lazy school child, to express disapproval and get back attention on the teacher.

In the UK that would constitute an assault and the teacher would be arrested and disbarred from teaching. I would assume Amanda entered a state of shock once she realised the police were actually prepared to hit her.

'Paul from Italy' on this thread http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=454050 asking for the definition of the word, defines it as:

'...a strong slap on the back of your head.'

 

[RoseMontague]

No, not quite "cultural", but there might be something. The word used in translations of her handwritten note for the hitting, was scappellotto. This is a children word, comes from cappello (hat, cap), and the word means approximately "take away yout hat!". This word traditionally means a cuffing given from the back to a noisy or lazy school child, to express disapproval and get back attention on the teacher.

Interesting. I doubt Amanda was aware of this cultural practice.

Different cultures see things differently. This is an article by a New Zealander observing a parent and child in Italy:

http://donovansworld.blog.co.nz/2007/03/21/the-hitman/

A small boy, whom I take to be her son, leaves the stone step where he has been waiting patiently under a women’s underwear display, walks over to her, tugs at her skirt and whines pleadingly. She mostly ignores him, but every now and then she gives him a smack on the head – not viciously, more like swatting a fly. I watch fascinated. Each time she swats him he glares at her with distaste. Finally, she having cuffed him for the umpteenth time, he raises the pink plastic space gun which has been hanging loosely from his right hand by its trigger guard, points it at the small of her back, squeezes the trigger and makes a plosive pout with his lips. Then he looks at me in passing, his big brown eyes amoral and impassive.

I realize that I have just seen a mafia hit man in the making and that he has wasted his mother.

 

[platonov]

Not you too? These accusations of racism on the part of Amanda supporters seem to be popping up everywhere lately, even here.

So apart from the racism you agree, fine.

The nature of elements of this campaign has been obvious from the moment one looks into it.Mine is hardly a new observation.

.