Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Chris_Halkides]

DNA degradation

You are straying from the [somewhat irrelevant and under-documented] topic you yourself introduced but this deserves a short response.

So the victim was stabbed. Agreed.

Now you/they claim the kitchen knife wasn't used in any case but because the other [or in this scenario only] knife wasn't recovered/identified therefore something something...........

By this logic a suspect in a knife murder could never be convicted if the weapon wasn't recovered.

If the defence are using this in the appeal things must be desperate.

PS A goose feather presumably - If Garofano is the gander then Moore is the goose, yea


.

platonov,

I am not sure what you are looking for in the way of documentation. If you would like to know more about DNA degradation, I suggest Chapter 3 in Jason Gilder's thesis. I quoted some material from this chapter before you joined the discussion.

IIRC, the appeal argues that Massei puts forth the notion that a knife belonging to Raffaele was the second knife in a way that is unsupported by evidence. It is not the same issue as whether or not the knife were recovered. You put words into my mouth; I am happy to take them right back out.

 

[Katody Matrass]

You seem to be forgetting that in the appeal the defense is going to introduce testimony that someone could have murdered Meredith and leave as little physical evidence as Raffaele and Amanda did.

Hi, Alt+F4

You think the court will reject or accept such idea?

BTW You missed my reply to you again.

 

[lane99]

...The defence seem to be saying that an error log (or something similar, I don't think any of us are 100% clear on all the technical details), properly analysed, shows that the screensaver on Raffaele's computer kicked in a few times between 9pm and 1am but never for longer than six minutes, indicating that the computer was in more or less constant use for one purpose or another throughout that time.

...Since lawyers very rarely if ever lie about easily verifiable matters of fact, I think it's overwhelmingly likely that the expert opinion will back up what we have already heard.

Leaving aside the question of how often lawyers lie, I'm wondering how "easily verifiable" this result actually is. Unless it's data that they didn't have access to during the initial trial, if it was so easily verifiable this should have been a centerpiece of both Knox's and the boyfriend's defense.

...they tried ridiculing the idea that anyone's computer would be in constant use all evening...

Ridiculing the idea that two people might use a computer pretty continuously for a 4 hour stretch? Ha, ok.

I didn't see those comments. But hopefully the "they" in this case are at least not the same people who have been glued to their computers- let alone for one evening- seemingly day and night for months, if not years by now, bellowing about the demon from America.


P.S. Anyone else subscribed to get weekly updates on this thread, but sometimes not receiving them?

 

[platonov]

platonov,

I answered your (rhetorical?) question when I compared the role that Garofano has played in this case to the role played by Steve Moore.

The juror did not go for the stronger case; he or she went for the weaker one. There is simply no reason to believe that Amanda's DNA came from her blood, nor is there any reason to believe it was even in the same spot as Meredith's. Perhaps you could take us through your reasoning to the effect that Amanda bled during/after the murder.

Rhetorical - Its wasn't rhetorical, more of a leading question. A simple no would have sufficed.
Now we are getting further OT here - I don't know much [anything really] about Garofano but I will eat a non chocolate hat if if the comparison with Moore as regards knowledge of the case or forensics generally isn't as absurd as the comparison of Mandela to AK. This fixation with media coverage by the Innocentsi surprises me - the case will be won or lost in the courtroom.

On weaker/stronger you are contradicting yourself from earlier.

On the bleeding in bathroom - the reasoning is simple.
It involves blood being found [see recent posts if Massei is too much], AK's own testimony and the assumption that times arrow moves in one direction only - why does that have to be explained repeatedly in this thread


Another Snip - Do you dislike both cats and Jewish authors

.

 

[platonov]

platonov,

I am not sure what you are looking for in the way of documentation. If you would like to know more about DNA degradation, I suggest Chapter 3 in Jason Gilder's thesis. I quoted some material from this chapter before you joined the discussion.

IIRC, the appeal argues that Massei puts forth the notion that a knife belonging to Raffaele was the second knife in a way that is unsupported by evidence. It is not the same issue as whether or not the knife were recovered. You put words into my mouth; I am happy to take them right back out.

I'm not looking for anything further - my point is clear as regards Garofano.

As for the knife - what ?
What is the defence claim - that it wasn't RS's knife ... well duh.
Is that all they claim .... you brought it up.

.

 

[LondonJohn]

Isn't it incredibly telling that Knox has no long-term friends willing to show themselves or speak for her character? This must of course indicate that anyone who's known Knox for more than a couple of years has either grown to dislike her, or would at least be unwilling to say anything positive about her. Oh, and all these people have been "threatened" not to talk about Knox. Pfft what a psychopath she is

Oh....wait....what's that? A girl named Brett Lither has flown out to Perugia to support Amanda and speak up on her behalf. And what's that you also say? Miss Lither has been a friend of Knox's since they were both about 9 or 10 years old?

So, errrr, what was I saying? Oh well, let's talk about how much we now hate Barbie Latza Nadeau instead. Or how we can pseudo-psychoanalyse the clothing worn by Knox in the first appeal hearing, and Knox's/Sollecito's facial expressions. Or we could just make nastily suggestive (and probably defamatory) remarks about Girlanda and Knox, or go to work on Madison Paxton's character instead. That would be fun.....

 

[billyryan]

With the first three appeal hearings set for the 11 and 18 of december and the next one on the 15 of janurary
If the judge allows the full independant review of the dna evidence,I think Frank Sfarzo said the judge will give that ruling on the 18 of December
If the judge does allow.Does anybody here have any idea of how long that would take.Like can it be done between 18 of December and the 15 of janurary or could there be a long delay if the defence request is allowed on December18
At the two December hearings,especially if the appeal is going to be long and drawn out,surely the defence teams will ask the courts for the two defendants to be released pending the results of the appeals.
At this stage I doubt if the court in perugia is not well aware of the growing condemnation of this case.And I would say they are not too anxious to have a bright light continue to shine on their administration of justice

 

[Chris C]

With the first three appeal hearings set for the 11 and 18 of december and the next one on the 15 of janurary
If the judge allows the full independant review of the dna evidence,I think Frank Sfarzo said the judge will give that ruling on the 18 of December
If the judge does allow.Does anybody here have any idea of how long that would take.Like can it be done between 18 of December and the 15 of janurary or could there be a long delay if the defence request is allowed on December18
At the two December hearings,especially if the appeal is going to be long and drawn out,surely the defence teams will ask the courts for the two defendants to be released pending the results of the appeals.
At this stage I doubt if the court in perugia is not well aware of the growing condemnation of this case.And I would say they are not too anxious to have a bright light continue to shine on their administration of justice

I dunno, he could ask for a full review of the dna testing or ask for a few things to be tested first and wait for the results to see whether to make them retest or do a full review.(such as the pillowcase and the knife)

Though If i read correctly he is gonna rule on the constitutional issues first.

 

[billyryan]

I thought the last little clip of Maddison was wonderful LondonJohn, Barbie is now starting to give serious thought of how best to jump ship
I dont think talking about how serious a crime it is for a pretty girl to smile at a camera,is the best way to go though
She might be better off to try and figure out why so many liars came to give evidence for the prosecution

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Leaving aside the question of how often lawyers lie, I'm wondering how "easily verifiable" this result actually is. Unless it's data that they didn't have access to during the initial trial, if it was so easily verifiable this should have been a centerpiece of both Knox's and the boyfriend's defense.

The existence of these log files was news to everyone here, some of whom are reasonably computer literate and interested in computer security and forensics, and you may call me a cynic but I suspect the only reason those files weren't "accidentally" overwritten was that the Postal Police didn't know they existed either.

So the existence and use of those log files wasn't exactly common knowledge - absolutely nobody that I am aware of had ever asked before the appeals team announced their discovery "So where are the error logs, and what do they say?".

That said once they are found, since both the defence and the prosecution have access to them I don't imagine there will be any huge difficulties in reconstructing their meaning.

Ridiculing the idea that two people might use a computer pretty continuously for a 4 hour stretch? Ha, ok.

I didn't see those comments. But hopefully the "they" in this case are at least not the same people who have been glued to their computers- let alone for one evening- seemingly day and night for months, if not years by now, bellowing about the demon from America.

When ridicule is the only tool you have, you have to find a lot of things ridiculous.

 

[Machiavelli]

Hi, Machiavelli!

If you include the ridiculously elongated toe of the larger print ( on the left) I can imagine you measured it to be 25 cm.
But I can't see how Rinaldi managed to measure the smaller print on the right (attributed to Raffaele) as 24,5 cm, even if he started with his subjective measure of the tile width (17 cm) instead of Vinci's correct one (16 cm).
Your measurement of 23 cm is already very generous.

Vinci’s measurement has one first macroscopic problem: it doesn’t tackle Rinaldi’s measurement.
Vinci chose a different picture, daylight, so with no print visible on it, then (maybe?) he used “points of reference” in order to deduce the measurements of print.
Unfortunately none of us has seen the picture, and none of us can do a check on those points of reference.
But Vinci didn’t follow the accusation path to show where the reasoning was wrong, didn’t say “Rinaldi is wrong making this inference because...”. Peripheral topics were addressed like inaccuracies were sought in Rinaldi process, but not the argument: goes around it, so the measurement by the prosecution expert is in fact unchallenged.
Same goes wit the bathmat print.

Then the perspective correction. I considered the tiles short side as 16,3 cm, and I measured with photoshop ruler. Accuracy is not the real point, since cannot be wrong for a centimetre. The point is, as you can see measurement of the tiles are variable.
This implies all sizes obviously require corrections.

The foto below has enhanced contrast to show the tile borders.
My 227 mm figure is obtained by taking the 54 mm (screen) figure, the midway tile, as measurement unit, and making the hypothetical (but incorrect) correspondence with this unit on the visible prints. The assumption that this 54 mm figure can be used as a linear unit is obviously incorrect because the floor surface is not in linear scale with the picture screen.

The print closer to the observer – more close to the 60mm wide tiles – is longer (253mm), while the one more far from the observer is shorter (227mm). But they could be the same. Shapes closer to the 60mm tiles are on a growing scale compared to objects closer to the 50 mm tiles.

Both measurements of 227 and 254 mm taken without correction are forcibly wrong, they are false results. The actual length must be somewhere in the middle: the 54mm = 16,3 cm scale of equivalence is too small for the closer print, and it is too big for the farer one.

In fact once the floor angle is calculated, the correction becomes simple and points of reference on a grid can be shifted accurately to obtain the actual size. I don’t know what the actual size is, but the operation is not complex when you have a software, it is simply the deformation of a grid.

[/

 

[Machiavelli]

I dunno, he could ask for a full review of the dna testing or ask for a few things to be tested first and wait for the results to see whether to make them retest or do a full review.(such as the pillowcase and the knife)

Though If i read correctly he is gonna rule on the constitutional issues first.

There will be no request of release to this court during the appeal trial. Such a request would be inadmissible if put after the beginning of the trial, this court would be incompatible with it.

The requests DNA test on clasp and knife will be likely all rejected, because there is no reason for the court to have tests done again.
A test on the pillowcase and on computers could be accepted, since those are non tested items. But their relevance is low, therfore I think the count's interest in having results from those tests could be also low.
On the other hand, new different tests could be ordered. For example DNA tests on the towels.

 

[Chris C]

Hi, Alt+F4

You think the court will reject or accept such idea?

BTW You missed my reply to you again.

Thats another good point Katody. If the defense is doing like Alt+F4 is suggesting and rejects the defenses arguement. Then where does that leave the state of the conviction. If Only Knox or Sollecito could have done it without leaving evidence then it would be a bias ruling. Of course there is evidence that other people where in the room, afterall if Sollecito left his dna evidence on the bra clasp and there is no chance its contamination. Then there where atleast 6 people murdering meredith that night.

 

[platonov]

Spoiled for choice.

.......................

Originally Posted by lane99

Ridiculing the idea that two people might use a computer pretty continuously for a 4 hour stretch? Ha, ok.
................

When ridicule is the only tool you have, you have to find a lot of things ridiculous.

When ones tools also include [but are not limited to] the ability to read both text and a watch, the repeated confusion between a [claimed / potential] continuous 4 hr as opposed to 12 hr computer session is somewhat ridiculous.
I'm still waiting for the 'rationalists' thank you for setting you straight on this by the way.

PS My tools also include [according to Kaosium] a hammer apparently

.

 

[Chris C]

[qimg]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5204/5207314691_45f21fd296_z.jpg[/qimg][/

Whats this picture of?

 

[Chris C]

There will be no request of release to this court during the appeal trial. Such a request would be inadmissible if put after the beginning of the trial, this court would be incompatible with it.

The requests DNA test on clasp and knife will be likely all rejected, because there is no reason for the court to have tests done again.
A test on the pillowcase and on computers could be accepted, since those are non tested items. But their relevance is low, therfore I think the count's interest in having results from those tests could be also low.
On the other hand, new different tests could be ordered. For example DNA tests on the towels.

Right so doing LCN tests on the dna collected on the clasp doesn't prove anything?
Taking the knife apart and checking for dna in the cracks doesn't prove anything?
Better yet how about getting dna samples from the other roommates, boyfriend, plus anyone else that had been present in the past and match it with the bra clasp to check against the DNA markers.

You most have a strong conviction in their guilt if you think these things would prove nothing.

Or maybe the guilters are scared they might actually find something that would force Knox/Sollecito's acquittal.

To bad we dont have an Italian Lawyer that posts here. He could probably explain this better.

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

Whats this picture of?

Two luminol-ed footprints found at the scene.


ETA: with Machiavelli's measurements added.

 

[Chris C]

Two luminol-ed footprints found at the scene.


ETA: with Machiavelli's measurements added.

No seriously, I dont see a footprint. So what is it.

 

[Machiavelli]

Right so doing LCN tests on the dna collected on the clasp doesn't prove anything?
Taking the knife apart and checking for dna in the cracks doesn't prove anything?
Better yet how about getting dna samples from the other roommates, boyfriend, plus anyone else that had been present in the past and match it with the bra clasp to check against the DNA markers.

You most have a strong conviction in their guilt if you think these things would prove nothing.

Or maybe the guilters are scared they might actually find something that would force Knox/Sollecito's acquittal.

To bad we dont have an Italian Lawyer that posts here. He could probably explain this better.

But you already had some Italian judges who answered your question. A request to re-test he clasp DNA was rejected, with good reasons.
Why should another court accept the request, on the same conditions?
Yes there are good chance the knife doesn't bring any further evidence. I don't know what they want to do exactly, but if they break it and don't find any useful DNA, nothing gets added to the evidence. A plan aimed to find nothing is not going to bring a valuable contribute.
The bra clasp shows a DNA profile coincident with Sollecito's. The two terms of confrontation, Sollecito's profile and the clasp DNA chart, are already available to the court. There is no request by the defence to "try a match with Merediths' boyfriend DNA" or with her roomates', and such request would be too desperate: what if they don't match? And they obviously won't match.

 

[Chris C]

But you already had some Italian judges who answered your question. A request to re-test he clasp DNA was rejected, with good reasons.
Why should another court accept the request, on the same conditions?
Yes there are good chance the knife doesn't bring any further evidence. I don't know what they want to do exactly, but if they break it and don't find any useful DNA, nothing gets added to the evidence. A plan aimed to find nothing is not going to bring a valuable contribute.
The bra clasp shows a DNA profile coincident with Sollecito's. The two terms of confrontation, Sollecito's profile and the clasp DNA chart, are already available to the court. There is no request by the defence to "try a match with Merediths' boyfriend DNA" or with her roomates', and such request would be too desperate: what if they don't match? And they obviously won't match.

What if they dont match? If its not matched to someone meredith knows, then you have 3 more suspects. There are 3 unidentified profiles on that bra clasp. Where did the DNA come from? Did it just magicly appear after Sollecito's dna was deposited on there. Maybe its been there sense Meredith purchased the bra. Maybe Meredith has never washed that bra and it accumulated there over time. Heck the defense is even disputing thats its actually Sollecito's dna because they didn't use the actual results when claiming it was his partial profile. From my understanding Massei agreed with the defense that some of the markers the prosecution claimed where Sollecito's, where actually not his. Yet according to Massei that didn't mean the profile still wasn't Sollecito's. Maybe someone can refer you to the section of the Massei report where he butchered DNA forensics.

As for the knife. You call it a plan to find nothing. Why did they not take the knife apart. They performed a supposed test, that they still haven't proven by giving the data files to the defense, that used up all the dna of meredith so another test can't be performed. Yet they dont know you can find blood dna in the handle cracks? However, why not just get it out of the way and check the handle. You, me, the whole world knows that if knox is found innocent, Mignini will have the knife cracks tested in hopes of filing murder charges again.
Then again maybe the motion to have the knife retested is a ploy to block the prosecution from having the knife tested at a later date.

However, could you please explain to us how the 3 unidentified persons dna on the bra clasp means nothing?
Also how does having the unidentified person dna on the clasp disprove that the clasp is contaminated?
Also, surely they found the 3 unidentifed peoples dna on her skin where the clasp was touching her back or on the part the clasp hooked to. Because that dna would have had to been there before Sollecito touched it. If it wasn't there before he touched the clasp, then it was deposited there by contamination that or they where part of the murder also. Of course it would sure be nice to rule contamination out. All you would have to do is get dna from everyone that was ever invited in that apartment.