Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Chris C]

If Quintavalle testimony was supposed to be used to discredit Amanda's alibi then why was Raffaele's cleaning lady allowed to testify that there was already bleach in his apartment?

Yet, they still allowed him to testify, even knowing that 3 people would give testimony that stood in opposition of his testimony. Not only that, but after hearing 3 people discredit him, Quintavalle's testimony was still allowed to stand. What kinda impression do you think that left on the jury, knowing that the judge allowed someones testimony to stand that had been discredited?

 

[RoseMontague]

Well, I can understand that since you do not speak Italian, you did not read the story I linked to, so I will translate for you the important parts:

http://www.corriere.it/cronache/10_...lo_86053f00-f7bb-11df-9137-00144f02aabc.shtml

"La Bongiorno è incinta, Rinviato il processo di Perugia"

(Title) Bongiorno is pregnant, the process of Perugia is postponed

"Uno dei legali ha infatti prodotto un certificato medico relativo alla gravidanza dell'avvocato Giulia Bongiorno, che documenta un suo «temporaneo impedimento»"

One of the lawyers presented a doctor's certificate concerning Bongiorno's pregnancy, documenting her "temporary impairment".

"«Invito comunque l'avvocato Bongiorno a essere presente - ha aggiunto - perché proseguiremo anche se lei sarà impedita»"

Hellmann further said (concerning the 11 December date): "I nonetheless invite avv. Bongiorno to attend (he added) because things will proceed even if she is unable to attend"

It may be a matter that both her political job as well as her pregnancy are reasons, not just one or the other:

Presiding judge Claudio Pratillo Hellman (with assistant judge Massimo Zanetti) swore in the jury of five women and one man, then promptly made his first decision: hearings just once a week--on Saturdays--to accommodate Sollecito's high profile attorney Giulia Bongiorno (a key Italian parliamentarian and head of the justice commission who recently revealed she is several months pregnant).

Lead Prosecutor Giancarlo Costagliola noted it was out of the ordinary to build a trial around one lawyer's personal and political engagements, adding that while everyone wants Bongiorno's pregnancy to go forward regularly, "we must also ensure the trial goes forward regularly."

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/430685_knox24.html

 

[Chris C]

Though I said this earlier, I think this appeals is heading towards an overturn with a possible retrial or is retrials part of a supreme court ruling. (if thats allowed)
Not exactly sure how that works in Italy.
The prosecution can blame technicalities and the defense can claim justice was served. What do yall think will happen during the appeal.

 

[Justinian2]

It may be a matter that both her political job as well as her pregnancy are reasons, not just one or the other:



http://www.seattlepi.com/local/430685_knox24.html

Presiding judge Claudio Pratillo Hellman (with assistant judge Massimo Zanetti) swore in the jury of five women and one man, then promptly made his first decision: hearings just once a week--on Saturdays--to accommodate Sollecito's high profile attorney Giulia Bongiorno (a key Italian parliamentarian and head of the justice commission who recently revealed she is several months pregnant).

Lead Prosecutor Giancarlo Costagliola noted it was out of the ordinary to build a trial around one lawyer's personal and political engagements, adding that while everyone wants Bongiorno's pregnancy to go forward regularly, "we must also ensure the trial goes forward regularly."

Wow! That's quite a qualified attorney!

It's a shame that such powerhouses are necessary for justice. Does the little guy even get a chance for justice?

Answering my own question, Guede is doing better than AK and RS.

 

[Onofarar]

"Innocente!"

http://daylife.sky.com/imageserve/0fBz62u2jX08J/610x.jpg

http://daylife.sky.com/imageserve/0gLu21Y30p0Y8/610x.jpg

http://daylife.sky.com/imageserve/07ASeSkc5L2Fc/610x.jpg

Katody, thanks very much for posting these pics. Maybe I read too much into it but the third pic may be a subtle indication of the shift in media opinion. Notice that the third pic shows the ILE laughing and joking as they lead Raffeale in/out of the court. First time I have seen a pic that doesn't have the ILE looking all solemn and serious.

Just an aside, is it just me or do others think it is weird to have SIX police escorts per prisoner or do these guys have a "Media face time" clause in their union contract.

 

[samba]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepag...f-Meredith-Kercher.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=Features

This article does not cast expert opinion in a favourable light.

EDIT: Even Nick Pisa has now changed his mind.

In this article Garofano says ""This shows that Meredith's killers were in front of her when they made the stab, as the artery would have spurted outwards - the blood spurt went on the attackers."

Yet there has been no evidence of clothing from either AK or RS that contained blood. But wait...I forgot...they were naked during the attack. So it wasn't a sex crime...it was a fight. What a strange way to fight...naked. Right!

 

[Alt+F4]

Just an aside, is it just me or do others think it is weird to have SIX police escorts per prisoner or do these guys have a "Media face time" clause in their union contract.

I think it might be like the "perp walks" in the U.S.

My own aside, is it just me or do Amanda and Raffaelle now have the exact same hair-doo?

 

[LondonJohn]

He doesn't--in Florence.
Also keep in mind this is probably more along the lines of 'keeping out of his way' rather than cowering in fear. It's his job to run the investigation and prosecution, the debacle in Florence happened because he went after the ones who thought his theories were nutty. Even if exonerated it wasn't pleasant for the ones who got in his way last time. Who'd want to chance it again? He's still at it too, look at what happened to those who did this time.




He's in charge of the investigation and gets wide powers, and I'd imagine it would be risking your job to cross him.

Don't paint this too darkly though. He came up with a theory and tried to prove it, the others are supposed to work with him in order to do that--that's his job and theirs. The amazing thing here is that he got people to believe it despite offering no real evidence and ludicrous reasoning. If it had failed as utterly as it should have, no one would care.

This brings to mind a number of well-known aircraft crashes (including Flash Air in Sharm, the KLM/PanAm Tenerife disaster, the Air France Airbus crash in Habsheim, Korean Air 747 crash in Guam) where flight crew have been intimidated into not overruling the captain. In nearly all of these cases, the captain was a powerful and highly-respected figure within the airline (in addition to being the captain of the flight, of course), and the more junior flight crew in the cockpit were demonstrably powerless to intervene when the captain started making mistakes. In most cases there's evidence that the junior flight crew had noticed the captain's errors - on many of the cockpit voice recorders, the first officer or flight engineer can be heard politely questioning the captain's mistakes in deferential and almost apologetic tones, when in reality they should have either been loudly warning the captain or taking the controls themselves.

The airline industry has fortunately come to understand the destructive role that can be played by a deference to authority and/or a fear of questioning or contradicting an authority figure. All airline flight crews now undergo extensive and ongoing training in teamwork, with particular emphasis placed on empowering junior flight crew to question the captain - and overrule him if they deem it necessary - with no risk of negative repercussions.

I wonder if the Perugia law enforcement community would benefit from going on a similar type of course....?

 

[LondonJohn]

I agree with you on this one. These two jail-house witnesses are a ridiculous distraction and in my opinion add nothing to the defense. Not a good strategy.

I agree too - unless the defence have something more than just the uncorroborated statements of the two men.

 

[RoseMontague]

In this article Garofano says ""This shows that Meredith's killers were in front of her when they made the stab, as the artery would have spurted outwards - the blood spurt went on the attackers."
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepag...f-Meredith-Kercher.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=Features
Yet there has been no evidence of clothing from either AK or RS that contained blood. But wait...I forgot...they were naked during the attack. So it wasn't a sex crime...it was a fight. What a strange way to fight...naked. Right!

He says: "The rock 'thrown' through the window is too big to have fitted through the gap.

Seriously, is this guy for real? Don't you love the fact they include a super blown up picture of this bolder, making it look like the size of a small mountain? LOL.

 

[katy_did]

I'm pretty sure the dingo didn't do it in this case.

You think Lindy Chamberlain was guilty...?

ETA: Oh, you mean in this case, not that one? Alrighty then, I guess I would have to agree with you there.

 

[katy_did]

Just an aside, is it just me or do others think it is weird to have SIX police escorts per prisoner or do these guys have a "Media face time" clause in their union contract.

Based on the number of police pictured in that press conference that was mentioned a while back, my money's on the 'Media face time' clause!

 

[HumanityBlues]

Seriously, is this guy for real? Don't you love the fact they include a super blown up picture of this bolder, making it look like the size of a small mountain? LOL.

He spent 3 years studying the case and thinks Meredith and Rudy Guede might have been in a relationship. Interesting.....

 

[moodstream]

Chris, I really don't know what to make of the car. At the end of the day, what does that have to do with the evidencence?

What bothers me, is the LACK of evidence. None in Meredith's room.

AND, NONE IN AMANDA'S ROOM.!!!!!!!

What does that MEAN????????

This is a horrible argument, isn't it? If evidence is found, she's guilty. If evidence is not found, she's guilty?

Wherever it is that capealadin is from, I getting through law school there must be a cinch

 

[RoseMontague]

He spent 3 years studying the case and thinks Meredith and Rudy Guede might have been in a relationship. Interesting.....

And one of the co-authors of Darkness Descending.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

DNA deposition cannot be dated

It's interesting that you raise this point, given the current article about the conclusions reached by Luciano Garofano, who apparently is Italy's top forensic expert. He thinks Amanda and Raffaele killed Meredith and Guede's role was to help them make it look like a rape.

With regard to the mixed blood, Garofano expressed an opinion in Darkness Descending, as follows:

P. 371 "However, here is the electropherogram and you can see that the RFU value is very high, so the sample is undoubtedly blood, which is the body fluid that provides the greatest amount of DNA. In some cases you see higher peaks of Amanda's DNA than Meredith's. Amanda has been bleeding. Nor is it old blood, as the defence might say, because blood decays fast."

I asked Greg Hampikian if this is a scientifically valid conclusion, and Hampikian told me it is not. I noticed, in looking through egrams from this particular case, that a number of them place Garofano's claim in doubt. One example is the cigarette butt with Amanda and Raffaele's DNA, which I assume did not come from blood but left peaks as high as the mixed DNA sample on the box of cotton:

Charlie,

Dr. Hampikian is clearly correct and, Colonel Garofano is not. I would also like to draw attention to what Colonel Garofano said about its not being old blood. Dr. Gilder and I have conversed on the issue of dating DNA on several occasions, and he is very clear that it is almost axiomatic that DNA samples cannot be dated.

 

[RoseMontague]

This is a horrible argument, isn't it? If evidence is found, she's guilty. If evidence is not found, she's guilty?

Wherever it is that capealadin is from, I getting through law school there must be a cinch

I think capealadin's primary goal was a little light sarcasm and heavy humor. I thought they were pretty funny.

 

[katy_did]

I agree too - unless the defence have something more than just the uncorroborated statements of the two men.

Yeah, it's a tricky one. Bringing Aviello as a witness is particularly hard to understand, since he's obviously just made a bunch of stuff up. I've heard the suggestion that the idea behind it is to point out that the police didn't follow up all the leads they could have early on, and then there's the possibility they're trying to strengthen the requests for extra testing by arguing someone else might have been involved. Based on the judge's ruling in Guede's appeal about further testing on the towels (the judge said that the Court never denied that Rudy may have fetched the towels, and that finding his DNA on them wouldn't change anything anyway) I think there's a good chance the request for the pillow stain to be tested could have been denied on the same sort of grounds, if the only argument was that it might be Rudy's. Arguing that it could be someone else's DNA makes the request a lot stronger, IMO.

On the other hand, Aviello's story is so obviously rubbish that it could backfire.

I think Alessi as a witness is more credible, not because the story Rudy told him might be true, but because I think it's quite possible Rudy did actually tell him that. If it's true Rudy told his father a similar story in an intercepted prison conversation, Alessi's account sounds quite likely. IMO, the importance of his testimony would be that Rudy was still saying Amanda and Raffaele weren't present even after he was convicted, rather than because there's any chance what Rudy is supposed to have told him could be true.

It's a risky strategy, though - neither Alessi or Aviello would make very sympathetic witnesses!

 

[katy_did]

I think it might be like the "perp walks" in the U.S.

My own aside, is it just me or do Amanda and Raffaelle now have the exact same hair-doo?

LOL, yeah, a couple of the articles I've read make the same point.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Why are Curt and Edda the issue?

Edda and Curt should be heartbroken, IF, nay, even if it was their child. Guilty or innocent, a parent would be grieving.

To be honest, Mary...I will never understand the excuse of not offering condolences. Even if i belived my child innocent.

It is the COMPLETE denial that my child is nothing LESS than perfect, that strains credibility.

SNIP

of course, I would fight tooth and nail for them. But, I would also recognize their shortcomings. It is, perhaps, the absolute DENIAL of anthing less than perfection, that strains credibilty.

A woman, smoking dope, sleeping with a guy on a first date, first of all, is not a great introduction. Right? Or, am I old fashioned>

capealadin,

The Knox or the Mellas family made it clear that until Amanda’s legal situation is resolved, it would be inappropriate for them to offer their condolences. Reasonable minds may not agree with them that this is the best course of action, but I see the sense of it.

Amanda simply needed underwear, because she had no access to her own clothes. If she wanted sexy underwear, she was in the wrong shop and should have gone to the shop next door. As for the bleeding comment, it was insensitive to Meredith’s friends, yet it was also empathetic to Meredith herself. Her friends were perhaps trying to talk themselves into believing that Meredith might not have suffered in the end, but pointing that fact out to them was thoughtless.

Neither her parents nor her supporters ever claimed that Amanda was perfect; as far as I am concerned, you are putting words into their mouths. That goes double for Sollecito, who almost deserves to be cuffed on the ears (by his dad, not anyone else). I have no reason to believe that their parents are perfect, either. However, I am greatly troubled by your continuing to make issues out of their actions, and even more so when you do so on the basis of half-truths.