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Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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I've never seen proof of the 12 cops. I think Bruce indicated that there were 12 names on the document she signed at 1:45am, but he wouldn't even show me a redacted copy of it. Are we sure there were 12 police in the interrogation, that always seemed a little difficult for me to visualize. As to the lack of recording, that does seem to be one of the facts of the case. As I've said umpteen times, it's only significant if interrogations that the police....



IIRC the 12 signed the arrest order not the statement (cropped image showing sigs above). I don't have a copy of that one.

They taped everything including the interviews with Filomena and Laura. The excuse that this time they forgot is ridiculous.
 
From InjusticeInPerugia:

The confession was not written by Amanda Knox. It was reported that over 30 members of the police force signed the confession. Why was it necessary for 30 people to interrogate a 20 year old female college student?

I'm looking for the quote where he says he has a copy.
 
http://injusticeinperugia.blogspot.com/p/illegal-interrogation-of-amanda-knox.html

I have all of the available information regarding the interrogation. ... I have copies of both signed statements that were typed out by the police. I also have the hand written statement from Amanda.

I will not post the signed statements because they will be taken out of context and the words will be twisted and used by guilters.

I just noticed. After all that Bruce has added a note at the bottom of another page (http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/TheInterrogation.html):

* It has been reported that up to 30 members of the Italian police force signed off on Amanda's signed statements. We have confirmation that at least 12 officers were active in the interrogation.

This no longer makes sense. We had a whole long discussion where I doubted that there were 30+ officers there and he claimed to have a copy of the signed statement which he wouldn't show me. All along this wasn't true? I kind of feel like I've been lied to.
 
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bruises

Your post reminded me. The Massei report says that there is clear bruising on MK's neck where she was strangled. Which I would think would have to mean bruises where the fingers and thumb grabbed the throat.

My question is, did anyone measure the distance between the bruises from the thumb to the finger to determine whose hand it was?

Assuming the answer is Guede's, most of the experts seem to believe that the victim was strangled first, because of the bleeding. If Guede is accepted as strangling MK, why would Amanda need to stab her? What would be the point? If Guede is already killing her, why not let him finish the job. It seems superfluous.

Moodstream,

The prosecution's cartoon (the one played at the trial), showed Amanda's hand grabbing Meredith's neck. Although cases of strangulation can occasionally be studied via DNA forensics, there is no indication that the bruises were checked for DNA. The amount of blood may have made it impossible to do so. I have not heard of anyone's measuring Meredith's bruises themselves in the manner you suggest.
 
Now, if Amanda and Rafaele are 'innocent' until the final appeal fails, the some is true of Rudy, no?

In fact, while there is evidence of his presence AFTER the murder, is there any evidence to show he actually did it?

None that I see.

So I guess he, too, is innocent!


Professor Francesco Bruno, a leading Italian criminologist and forensic pathologist, also considers all 3 are innocent.

http://www.ilpuntoamezzogiorno.it/2...-bruno-amanda-raffaele-e-rudy-sono-innocenti/
 
<snip>
I probably meant claiming that she was "illegally" denied a lawyer. Bruce took inadmissible to be equivalent to "illegal" and again, we argued this at length. Also, the "declaration" at 5:45 was supposedly requested by her, so at this point no lawyer was denied, or at least it can't be said to be an agreed fact.


How do you figure, shuttlt? The liberal view is that she should have had a lawyer when she went into the interrogation (or before that). The moderate view is that she should have had one once she signed the 1:45 statement, because that should have been when she "officially" become a suspect. The conservative view is that she wasn't a suspect until........when? She actually didn't get a lawyer until the 9th -- she had been in prison for three days. Still not a suspect?

The spirit of the Italian law requiring legal counsel is to protect suspects -- possibly even witnesses. Obviously, protecting Amanda was not foremost in the minds of the police and prosecution that night. All of the withholding of a lawyer was illegal. Even the most ardent naysayer cannot validly argue that any of the statements Amanda signed should have been accepted by the police or the prosecutor, and that's why they were disallowed.

Again, is it normal practice to tape these things?


According to Italian lawyers Giancarlo Costa and Stefano Maffei:

The law is very clear: A suspect must not be interrogated without a lawyer.

Once a suspect, an interrogation must be interrupted, the suspect read his or her rights to remain silent and be provided a lawyer. Italian law does not allow waiver of one's right to counsel. Even if a suspect doesn't want a lawyer, the authorities are required to appoint one.

If a suspect's freedom of movement is hindered, the interrogation must be videotaped.

In Knox's case, a video or audio recording of the entire police interrogation -- authorities have denied that any such recordings exist -- could identify when police began treating Knox as a suspect and what procedures were followed.

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/412696_knox30.html
 
I don't think it was implied that they were portrayed as three little pigs in the video, if they were - :eek:. "Cartoon" covers a lot of ground. Are there any pictures?

My bad, you're correct. Murder in Italy states:

using cartoon characters as stand-ins for the three suspects (the three pigs, prosecutor Comodi called them) with the suspects’ real faces stuck on the bodies.​

They are described only as cartoon characters with the suspects' real faces stuck on the bodies. I suppose by using cartoon characters that the jury didn't think this was a video of the real event.

Shall we dispense with rule of law altogether? Return to a state of nature? "...[D]o you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?"

No. Correct. I could discuss part of the history of Roman Law here, but that would probably stretch the subject too far...
 
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My bad, you're correct. Murder in Italy states:

using cartoon characters as stand-ins for the three suspects (the three pigs, prosecutor Comodi called them) with the suspects’ real faces stuck on the bodies.​

They are described only as cartoon characters with the suspects' real faces stuck on the bodies. I suppose by using cartoon characters that the jury didn't think this was a video of the real event.


LOL, you would think not, but apparently they did, even though the characters were computer-generated Terminator-like avatars, completely out of scale with the room.
 
You can take the term as you will. I think it points to a group of people, and we both agree on the membership of that set of people, so the strict reference of the term is uncontested and thus the term is useful.
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In what way? The only rule here is that you have to be civil. Are you really asserting that this rule handicaps your ability to present a rational case for Amanda and Raffaele's guilt?

I don't see anything wrong with guilter, although I prefer using "those that believe in guilt" or something along those lines. The FOAKer term however does not seem entirely accurate to me, although I don't feel it is derogatory just because it sounds like a different word. Many of those that believe in innocence are not part of the Friends of Amanda group.

As far as presenting a rational case for guilt, many of those on the side of guilt seem to prefer attacking posts from the innocent viewpoint rather than presenting posts from the guilty one although this does happen on both sides from what I have seen. Massei does a poor job of presenting a case for guilt and I have seen better theories and arguments from a few on the guilty side on some of the issues. Much of the case is still a mystery and most of the evidence is contested. That is what makes this case so interesting and the discussion does get lively at times.

We all make mistakes, some have a better understanding of the evidence, and it is difficult to remember all the information. It is the case that both sides sometimes overstate their position and make general statements that are not completely accurate. I still learn things that I was not aware of about this case sometimes from the innocent side, sometimes from the guilty side. It is nice to also hear the facts regardless of which side gives them to you.

One of the problems with our discussion is sourcing. There are some posters that will not accept any information from a source that does not share their viewpoint of guilt or innocence. My opinion on this is that you have to judge each piece of information individually keeping in mind the source and if there are doubts, seek confirmation from another source.

The other problems associated with this case are the lack of documents and/or the translation of documents. I like having the documents (obviously) and I get frustrated when much of this is not available or I don't have a good translation of them. I am still trying to find a copy of the complete additional appeal filing by Raffaele's lawyers on the computer information, for example.
 
Thank you!



I guess we arrived at the point of this topic, where it boils down to personal experiences. I understand your concerns, however I don't share them. I too have a garden and walking on the grass on a dry day doesn't result in tracking any dirt or grass on my shoes. Look at the photo:
http://injusticeinperugia.org/hendry19.jpg
there is no bare soil or dirt under the window. The ground is covered with rich vegetation and yellow leaves. On a dry day - and Nov 1 was dry - you'll not get your shoes dirty from it.
Also, if you look at the hi-res photo of the climbing lawyer, you'll notice that his shoes are not stained in any way, nor does he leave any soil on the grating bars.

Your argument hangs also on another assumption, namely that ILE would notice and record the traces if there were any. I don't think it is certain. We saw examples of traces that were left untested - the piece of glass from Meredith's room, the powdery tracks next to Filomena's window. There are no records, photos or documentation of any search of the ground under the window or the wall itself. We have only some testimony.
I personally prefer the solid records of any investigative activity.

I would sum up four or five objections.

1. The first: my statement this is possible, was made without taking in account the distance between the grid and the window. In fact looking back at the wall I see them as too distant. A person 1,80 high cannot stand on the grid and reach the window latch.

2. You cannot talk about a dry day. You are talking about November in Perugia. And night time. You would find nothing dry on soil. Humidity was 70% in average during Nov 1. and 90% during Nov 2. Even less dry in that pit.

3. Police witnesses testified not only about the lack of prints and soil inside, but also about the grass and soil being completely moist.

4. The locution "only some testimonies" is a kind of self deceit. A trial would rest, legally, ultimetely on testimonies. Documents different from testimonies afe hold in hight esteem by internet bloggers, but in reality they don't exist without testimonies. A "visible" document - like a photo or video - can be fabricated, can be a fake. Any document would require the confirmation of a testimony. You cn't bring a video in the trial, for example, without a witness testifying at what time and date the video was recorded, who was there, and so on. Everything rests on testimonies. Experts reports and documents do not exist by themselves without a witness questioned about them. You simply cannot have "solid records" independent from testimony, you can never have this material as a topic of discussion alone in an Italian trial.
The police docmented there were no shoeprints. Whatever you "prefer" to see, you cannot just decide to dismiss witness reports and investigators reports as if they didn't exist.

5. Photo documentation showing no trace of soil inside the house is available. Youd detect crmbles that I easily identify with white paint (not with whitewash), then you identify rock powder (which could be from the stone, but doesn't change anything logically). But there is no soil. There is no trace of grass. Photo documentation also shows the soil was not covered with rich vegetation: there was a surface of black, soft earth (this can been assessed in a picture taken that day from beneath) together with a kind vegetation (stellaria, amaranthus, etc.) that would show the marks of steps. There is no trace of removal of broken glass from the window sill, and this is an issue, you think of a person who has crawl or pull himself across the window sill.
 
LCN DNA profiling

Your sources are:

1. Chris Mellas (the biased/ 'hot-headed' step-father of the accused);

2. A self-employed (possibly under-employed) 'materials scientist' with no formal schooling in genetics trying to hustle a book;

3. An unnamed forensic geneticist; &

4. Yourself (biochemistry/ peptide research).

Which of the above (if any) took the stand and gave evidence during the trial?

(I might also ask: Which of the above, if any, have ANY expertise in the analysis of crime scene evidence?)

PS I am not particularly interested in discussing hearsay (especially hearsay from the accused's relatives/ amateurs/ lay people/ hustlers and PR minions). I am interested first and foremost in the evidence adduced at trial.

PPS LCN DNA evidence is also admissible in the USA. If the defense can raise legitimate issues in respect of its reliability, the manner in which testing was conducted or the legal rights of the accused vis-à-vis that testing, I'm certain we will all hear more about it as the appellate process unfolds.

That said, the convictions of Knox, Sollecito and Guede do not turn solely upon exhibit #36/ LCN DNA evidence. Far from it.

I've noted that many of the innocentisti appear to struggle mightily with the notion of CORROBORATION. Are you one of them?

Treehorn,

Even regular low copy number (LCN) profiling has scientific questions that are unresolved, and it remains a controversial technique. Dr. Stefanoni’s pseudo-LCN was inferior to regular LCN in a number of ways. The most obvious of these is the fact that the test cannot be repeated, unlike regular LCN profiling which should be done at least twice. I would suggest you make a greater effort than you have shown so far to understand these issues before posting on LCN again; these questions have all been asked and answered before.
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100317/full/464347a.html
http://www.journalonline.co.uk/Magazine/52-2/1003857.aspx
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10408000
http://www.sciencespheres.com/2009/10/lcn-dna-profiling-part-ii-watch-where.html

Calling Chris Mellas names is one piece of evidence that demonstrates how weak your position is. I note that you have not attempted to refute anything that Dr. Waterbury said, just make another personal attack. My qualifications include the fact that I have used the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction endonucleases in my own work, and these are two of the key components of DNA profiling. The bottom line is that you don’t know what you are talking about when it comes to LCN DNA profiling.
 
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one and only

No:

1) "From THAT day..."?! From WHAT day? (It could be the day she left her '6 days of sex' with Raffaele to sneak in some sex with Daniel, per Nadeau's version); &

2) What is your source here? In what context is this alleged to have been said?

treehorn,

From that day refers to the day of their one and only intimate encounter. Perhaps you would like to post some more of his witness statement if you would like to discuss it further.
 
How do you figure, shuttlt? The liberal view is that she should have had a lawyer when she went into the interrogation (or before that). The moderate view is that she should have had one once she signed the 1:45 statement, because that should have been when she "officially" become a suspect. The conservative view is that she wasn't a suspect until........when? She actually didn't get a lawyer until the 9th -- she had been in prison for three days. Still not a suspect?
What does being a liberal have to do with it? Is this a legal argument, or a moral argument?

If she requested to make an additional statement, then I think saying she was denied a lawyer is misleading. That's all I mean.

The spirit of the Italian law requiring legal counsel is to protect suspects -- possibly even witnesses. Obviously, protecting Amanda was not foremost in the minds of the police and prosecution that night. All of the withholding of a lawyer was illegal.
Has this been proven? There's been time enough that perhaps it has been clarified. When I last discussed it, what people meant by "illegal" was "inadmissable". Did the police break the law in not having a lawyer present, or is it simply the case that under certain circumstances evidence gathered is inadmissable?

Even the most ardent naysayer cannot validly argue that any of the statements Amanda signed should have been accepted by the police or the prosecutor, and that's why they were disallowed.
That isn't the same as saying it was "illegal", or that she was "denied" access to a lawyer. I'm perfectly happy for it to be inadmissable. Could you clarify the sense in which you mean illegal? Is all inadmissable evidence illegally obtained?
 
Now, if Amanda and Rafaele are 'innocent' until the final appeal fails, the some is true of Rudy, no?

In fact, while there is evidence of his presence AFTER the murder, is there any evidence to show he actually did it?

None that I see.

So I guess he, too, is innocent!

Didn't Guede leave bloody shoeprints in the murder room?
Didn't Guede leave DNA on/in the body?
Didn't Guede leave DNA in the toilet?
Didn't Guede legally confess to being there at the time of the murder?


A lot of people have been convicted of a murder just by being being proved present at the scene of the murder.

These are questions, not statements. I am trying to authenticate them in Massei's report but having difficulty searching for the term fingerprints. I had thought that Guede left a bloody fingerprint in the murder room. I can't find the mention of it in the Massei translation.
 
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an error of consequence

What "judge's report"?

This is from 2007.

Do you have a translation of that particular "judge's report"?

Perhaps the original error was in the judge's report and Nadeau was merely relaying the information. It may have been an error by the judge's clerk(s). It may even have been an error by Nadeau's assistant or editor. Who knows?!

Irrespective of its source, was this error in Nadeau's report of any real consequence?

After all, it was Knox herself who confessed that Lumumba was her accomplice in a conspiracy to 'have a bit of fun with Meredith', correct?

treehorn,

Those are good questions--to ask of Ms. Nadeau. Yes, that is definitely an error of great consequence, because it suggests that Ms. Knox was telling Mr. Lumumba to meet Ms. Kercher. I see that you are still failing to address a number of Ms. Nadeau's other errors.

I have no idea what you are talking about with your 'have a bit of fun with Meredith' phrase, and I suspect you don't, either.
 
four in one

Use metric, use Imperial, use big units, use small units, it's inescapable:

Knox's footprints were facing a corpse a very short distance away.

In that circumstance, your career as a CSI would be short lived if your first inclination was to turn to your fellow CSI's and say, "turnip juice."

Almost as short lived as your credibility in front of a jury with a 'room temperature IQ'.

The inference that the print fluoresced due to the presence of the victim's blood on Knox's feet becomes well nigh inescapable when each of the OTHER pieces of CORROBORATING evidence are considered.

Like many of the innocentisti, you appear to prefer to consider each piece of evidence in isolation from the context in which it occurs, as if all of the other inculpatory evidence no longer existed. As a juror, you're a lazy defense lawyer's dream.

Treehorn,

Your thinking on this issue is very confused. First, you were the one who use inches. Second, the print is facing direction of Meredith’s room, not facing the corpse. How does it relate to the crime? Third, I have never claimed that the luminol-positive substance was turnip juice or anything else. It is up to the prosecution to follow a presumptive test with a confirmatory test for blood, which they did not do. Instead they did two other tests (TMB and DNA profiling), the results of both of which suggest that the substance was not blood. Fourth, there is no justification for assigning the luminol-positive prints to Amanda. The luminol was overapplied leading to dilation of the image, and no reference prints from Laura or Filomena were taking. Wow, you managed to pack at least four errors into one short comment.
 
discovering the data

Halides,

From WHAT day, exactly?

This is a repeat of the question I addressed above (previous page).

Treehorn,

The date Daniel referred to is the day of his one and only intimate encounter with Amanda. You dodged the question about Ms. Nadeau’s error with respect to the diary and her other errors as shown in comment #14742. You have also overlooked comment #14722, where I demonstrated that prosecution’s failure to release the electronic data files is very damaging to the defense’s ability to see and to challenge the DNA evidence. As Professor Dan Krane said, “Having the electronic data for review is enormously important. Having the opportunity to witness the testing of samples is of marginal utility at best. Reviews of the underlying data for DNA tests often reveals alternative interpretations of the evidence samples, especially in circumstances were small amounts of DNA are involved and it is difficult to distinguish between signal, noise, and technical artifacts.”

Your references to making partner suggest you are a lawyer. Do you support full discovery in this case? If so, do you think that the prosecution should fully release the forensic data files?
 
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