Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Justinian2]

You nailed it Justinian2,
What should he do, hang around outside, as Antonio Curatolo says he did, or stay inside, with Foxy Knoxy on a cold night!
Geeky, computer-nerd + Harry Potter look-alike Raffaele Sollecito must've been in his own paradise!
[...]
Think about it for a moment.
If Amanda Knox did not have anything to do with the death of Meredith Kercher,
how could she have guessed that her housemate and friend was brutally stabbed to her death and was laying in a pool of her own blood in her bedroomas Amanda took a shower that cold morning after spending a cold November night with her new boyfriend?
Hmmm...
RWVBWL

Please clarify.

 

[Machiavelli]

Hi, Machiavelli. The distance from the topmost bar to the sill is around 150 cm. It can be assessed quite precisely e.g. from this photo knowing the height of the window (Which is at most 140 cm), d, place your left foot on the sill (no glass there), hop in, done. (.. )

But do you think that lawyer would reach the window latch?
The latch is at least 65 cm above the level of the sill, 140+65 = 205cm. This is yet the maximum that I can reach and hold standing on my toes stretching my arms. But the latch is on the inside of the window, behind the frame and positioned at an overall depth of further 30-40 cm in respect to the burglar's body. And there is a guillotine-like broken glass in between: it's not that you just stretch and reach it.

 

[shuttlt]

The statements were "voluntary", but I don't think that's the same thing as saying she "requested to make an additional statement" (or "demanded" to make one, thus causing poor Mignini to be dragged from his warm bed, a version I've heard on occasion). I believe the statements being "voluntary" is a legal issue: the police and the prosecutor knew they weren't allowed to question Amanda further without her obtaining a lawyer, which would have been inconvenient from their perspective; so they tried to get around it by asking her to make further declarations but informing her that, legally, these would be "voluntary" statements.

Apologies, I realize I have conflated the letter she wrote the following morning with the declaration to Mignini. She does indeed claim that the discussion with Mignini was not requested by her. I can only blame this on a a momentary attack of stupidity.

I now need to remind myself why the discussion with Mignini is called spontaneous.

 

[Machiavelli]

(...)
70% Humidity outdoors is nothing special, after all the temperature was above 0. And what was the precipitation during the preceding days or weeks? Not much, isn't it? Again we don't know if there was any exposed soil. The slope looks rather overgrown and covered with fallen leaves. I think it was more rocky then soil, too. After all it was a man-made slope supporting the driveway. Anyway we're talking unknowns here, as no good close-up photos are available.
(...)

But why do you say we don't know? The slope was not rocky, it was covered with soil! And was quite exposed. I saw pictures so I think there are some available at least. And I can tell you there could be really nothing dry. There have been some precipitation the previous weeks but the ravine north of via S. Antonio is always wet. This is in fact one of the reasons why the ancient city kept that limit. But this is not really even important because that soil is soft and hygroscopic gets stuck to shoes even when "dry".

 

[treehorn]

Ms. Nadeau wrote, “Just days after Kercher's body was found last November in the villa Knox shared with the victim, security camera footage showed the couple buying lingerie in a local store, with Knox giggling and telling Sollecito, ‘Afterwards I'm going to take you home so we can have wild sex together.’” This passage might mislead the unwary; the security camera did not have sound, and the shop is loud. Moreover, Ms. Nadeau leaves out the critical information that Ms. Knox had no clothes except what she was wearing or could borrow at that time.

However, Ms. Nadeau also wrote, “And by her own account in a prison diary leaked to the media, she details her sexual escapades with at least seven men she'd been with in her three months in Italy before her arrest.” This is false. Amanda’s statement refers to her whole life. But Ms. Nadeau’s choice of the word escapade is indefensible. It might apply to Karen Owen’s extremely ill-judged powerpoint, but not to Ms. Knox’s statement. Ms. Knox was in fear of a possibly life-threatening disease, thanks to ILE’s mishandling of this incident.

For these reasons and others I have previously outlined, I do not think that Ms. Nadeau is an infallible source. Your attempt to use her credentials with Newsweek is an argument from intimidation, and it is nonsensical.

1) The video recording is not the only piece of evidence adduced in respect of Knox's g-string purchase. The lingerie shop keeper testified in open court, no? Were you, like Nadeau, in the courtroom to hear him testify? Even if you were able to do so, would you have understood a word of his Italian? On what grounds are you going to impeach his testimony, Halides?

2) If Knox had gone to the Italian equivalent of a Target for some no-name cotton undies, your argument (the PR spin) would be a little less laughable. However, she took her sex partner (of 6 days duration) with her to buy a single G-string (and, no, the "G" does not denote "Grandma Undies") in a fashion that raised the eyebrows of a man accustomed to watching couples purchase 'sexy underwear' on a regular basis. Does THAT accord with your idea of 'grief stricken' or 'in fear for her life'?! Does it accord with your notion of an 'emergency underwear re-supply trip'? Get real: ONE G-string instead of a 6 pack of cotton 'Fruit of the Loom' to get her through the week?!

3) Knox entered an ex post facto revision of the title for her list of sex partners, thereby raising confusion as to the time frame. On what grounds are you asserting that Nadeau's interpretation is incorrect? What number would you prefer? 3 in 6 weeks? (By any reasonable interpretation, Knox was busier between classes in Perugia than she was in Seattle.)

4) The "prison diaries" of the 3 accused/ convicted are one of the most astounding aspects of this case. There is, in ANY jurisdiction you can name, NO REASONABLE EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY IN PRISION. NONE.

Every detainee is advised of this fact. By the police. By the warden. By their own counsel. Repeatedly.

There isn't a self-respecting lawyer on the planet, in either the civil or common law systems, that would advise a client to keep a "prison diary"! It utterly vitiates an accused's greatest asset: The Right to Remain Silent.

Anything an accused says in prison, to anyone other than their lawyer, can, and often will, be recorded and used in evidence. Similarly, anything written can be confiscated and used in evidence.

That these 3 accused/ convicted chose to IGNORE the advice of their expensive counsel in order to engage in these transparent, self-serving attempts to manipulate the proceedings is FASCINATING to me!!!

Strange, then, that you, Halides, would now intimate that the POLICE were somehow 'corrupt' for "leaking" the diaries!

The only reason you or I have even heard of these diaries is the direct result of one thing, and one thing only: The will of the 3 accused to manipulate (their families, their friends, their own lawyers, the police, the judges, the prosecutors, the jury pool, the media, the general public and, best of all, ONE ANOTHER.)

I, for one, am glad that the accused have chosen (presumably out of a deadly combination of hubris and ignorance) to largely ignore their right to remain silent because these "diaries" have helped to bring us all a lot closer to the truth.

 

[Machiavelli]

(..)
Yes, but 1. it was the day after. 2. Can we treat them as 100% impartial witnesses? I have my concerns, especially that no photos were made of that part of the crime scene.
(..)

The question is rather if a court could make them those witnesses disappear. Do you think a testimony disappears on the ground that you (Katody) consider the witness "not 100% impartial?".
I understand that you are personally concerned, but the question is how do you think that your concern about "100% impartiality" could reduce a witness to zero?
A witness normally doesn't have to be "impartial", there is no requirement to be 100% impartial in order to testify and contribute to the truth. There isn't such a treshold made of "concern about 100% impartiality" or "100%reliability" below which evidence and witnesses disappear.

 

[Malkmus]

Was it difficult for jurors on the fence?

Last night I listened to a segment of the radio show "This American Life" which was about a juror in the Rod Blagojevich trial (an American politician who got into hot water over allegations of corruption). What was interesting about this segment was that it was from the perspective of the one juror responsible for the jury being hung on 23 of the 24 charges. It was a mistrial. And this juror, a woman in her late sixties, describes the pressure she felt from the other jurors who were convinced of guilt, and how they negatively influenced the other jurors who were on the fence. It made me think of this trial and specifically how some jurors appeared sympathetic towards AK and RS, and how one of them was quoted as saying that they weren't sure to what degree they were involved in the murder. The question of reasonable doubt came up several times, and it's an interesting look into what happens when normal people are involved in deciding the outcome of a high profile case where there are certain expectations.

Link: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/421/last-man-standing

Some quotes from this juror describing what the process of deliberating was like:

The people who felt that he was guilty did not look at anything to the contrary. I got a sense that there was no sense that there might be reasonable doubt, or there could be reasonable doubt. So whenever anybody in the room raised an issue that might have questioned the guilty verdict those that felt that he was guilty were very antagonistic. Very hostile. Very critical. Very demeaning.

Some of us felt that some of the material was open to interpretation as to what the governor meant when he said certain things.

It was so difficult in the room sometimes that one juror cried several times because she felt that her point of view was not being listened to. We were made to feel that we were not smart enough, we weren't looking at the evidence correctly, we were misinterpreting the facts.

It was a dismissive attitude. "Oh you're not looking at the facts. We have to convict him because the prosecution will have to retry the case if we don't." Or "We'll be embarrassed if we don't find him guilty".

One gentleman on TV, who was a reporter, said he had listened to the evidence and he definitely thought Blagojevich was guilty, and the only way that he could explain that I voted "not guilty" was because I was crazy. So it was absolutely overwhelming.

You're vilified if you do not give the verdict that people want and expect. If a person who serves on a jury knows that they are going to be vilified, harassed, after the fact, maybe that'll have an effect on how they act in the jury room. And that's kind of chilling to me.

I'm not saying that I think this is what happened in Perugia, but it does make me wonder if there were any parallels what with both being high profile cases where the community it seems expected the couple to be convicted and knowing that some of the jurors seemed torn on the degree of culpability, some crying after the verdict was read.

 

[Machiavelli]

(...)

Yes I agree, but what is sorely missing here is the documentation. Not supported testimony alone is prone to various pressures, mistakes, misremembering etc. When the witnesses have vested interest they can withhold some info and present only partial truth etc. Lack of shoeprints gain different meaning when we know e.g. that the area was generally not susceptible to them, or that the search was not very thorough.

(..)

Yes but in this case, for example, you don't know that the area was generally not susceptible to shoeprints or that the search was not very thorough. You may just assume this as a person making his opinion as an internet lurker, but in practice any defensive argument should start by knowing this and bring a proof of this. We can't say neither that thse witnesses had a vested interest, this speculation is unelaborated and unsubstantiated.

 

[treehorn]

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.

Oh? You're not familiar with the content of Knox's confession to police?

The one where she intentionally named an innocent man as her accomplice?

 

[treehorn]

Ms. Nadeau asserted that Sollecito's stepmother yelled, "F*** you." Others heard the words "forte." Do you still find Ms. Nadeau's account credible?

That depends.

WHO are the "OTHERS"?

 

[platonov]

Apologies, I realize I have conflated the letter she wrote the following morning with the declaration to Mignini. She does indeed claim that the discussion with Mignini was not requested by her. I can only blame this on a a momentary attack of stupidity.

I now need to remind myself why the discussion with Mignini is called spontaneous.

Really ?? Where ?

Leaving aside the fact that it would only be a claim - I'd like to see where in court her defence raised this issue OR AK made a clear-cut accusation on this basis.

The above garbled quote counts for very litle/nothing ; Her lawyer doesn't even develop the haphazardly introduced and confused* claim of something or other - they [the defence] seem to be happy to cover the fact that a lawyer wasn't present.
Which is the reason the 'spontaneous declarations' was deemed inadmissible on the main charge in the first place.

I'm going to follow your example and be a stickler on this kind of thing

* this confusion is a common AK theme when facing difficult questions, even in open court.
.

 

[Katody Matrass]

But do you think that lawyer would reach the window latch?
The latch is at least 65 cm above the level of the sill, 140+65 = 205cm. This is yet the maximum that I can reach and hold standing on my toes stretching my arms. But the latch is on the inside of the window, behind the frame and positioned at an overall depth of further 30-40 cm in respect to the burglar's body.

150 + 65 would be 215 cm. I guess you're not tall if you cannot reach above 205 cm. I'm a bit shorter then Rudy, yet I can reach 230 cm at an oblique angle( simulating the reaching into the window Rudy had to do). And it is without holding on to anything with my other hand. My arm is around 75 cm from the center of armpit with outstretched fingers. Supporting myself on an elbow I can reach 80 cm above the surface easily, and I really don't think I have unnaturally long arms.
Making a few simple exercises like this actually convinced me how easy it is.

And there is a guillotine-like broken glass in between: it's not that you just stretch and reach it.

Looking at the picture
http://injusticeinperugia.org/104.JPG

it's easier to visualize it. Rudy's arm went in at an angle, but fully outstretched, not bent in the elbow. He had to reach and push up the catch a bit to release it. There's not much manipulation with such a mechanism. The palm of his hand was facing to the left, his fingers slightly bent. His arm went through the window surface below the latch, where the opening was large enough. Also broken glass is not that scary when you're fully clothed and wearing gloves.

 

[Fine]

Hi, Machiavelli. The distance from the topmost bar to the sill is around 150 cm. It can be assessed quite precisely e.g. from this photo knowing the height of the window (Which is at most 140 cm), counting the brick layers further confirms that assesment. The climbing lawyer photos further confirm it.
So we have 150 cm, that allows Rudy to support comfortably on left elbow while raising his right arm. But let's play it safe and make it e.g. 160 cm. He still can raise on his toes a bit and rest his elbow on the sill. Human body is flexible, he can raise one leg, resting on the elbow and the other leg, gaining another few centimeters. So there is a lot of margin here, even if we are extremely pessimistic in our estimates. But just look at the lawyer photo. He is already at sill level despite having another step up to go.
I thing your statement that it is possible holds, and your concerns are unnecessary.

.

Katody,

"The topmost bar" should be ignored. As seen in the photographs it is flush with the wall and could not serve as a foothold. Only the bar one rung lower would be a suitable foothold for Rudy. Look at this photograph to see my point...

///

 

[Machiavelli]

(..)


I think the proper technique is to raise yourself on your hands and place one foot on the ledge, then step in, not crawl. There is plenty of clear space on the sill to do it, and after Rudy opened the window, he had the wooden frame as a perfect handhold. Grab it, jump up from your firm foothold, place your left foot on the sill (no glass there), hop in, done.

What I wonder is why you decide to believe to this whole series of scenarios.
This very last point, for example, is something I would need to see done. Why a right handed man should step on the left side of the window, why use the left foot to climb aftr he used the right hand to open the window, and why would he chose not to remove glass shards just swiping them down just to have a safer space to put the elbow, the knee or the other foot. This simple indication is something not consistent.

 

[Katody Matrass]

But why do you say we don't know? The slope was not rocky, it was covered with soil! And was quite exposed. I saw pictures so I think there are some available at least.

Again, could you post or link them or are they again confidential?

And I can tell you there could be really nothing dry. There have been some precipitation the previous weeks but the ravine north of via S. Antonio is always wet.

Then why are the climbing lawyer's shoes clean?

 

[shuttlt]

Shuttlt,

The prosecution could have appealed Rudy's reduction but did not. They are appealing Amanda's and Raffaele's reductions. I have a problem with this.

This may well be, but this claim predates the appeal. Perhaps a weakened version is salvageable along the lines you claim. There are still articles out there that specifically attribute to the Judge at Rudy's trial the statement that he gave Rudy a reduced sentence because he expressed sympathy for the victim. This was never anything other than made up.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Katody,

"The topmost bar" should be ignored. As seen in the photographs it is flush with the wall and could not serve as a foothold.

///

Sorry if my English is not clear, but by "topmost bar" I meant the topmost metal bar of the window grating. It's accessible, the suicidal guy at this photo has his left foot on it:
http://injusticeinperugia.org/window_access.jpg

 

[treehorn]

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.

You're the one that's confused, I'm afraid.

My point was rather simple to understand (or so I thought): The distance between young Meredith's body and Amanda's LUMINOL footprints is SMALL.

So small as to make it absurd to hypothesize "turnip juice" (or equivalent) as the reason for phosphorescence (particularly in the mind of a juror with a fully functional brain capable of remembering ALL of the remaining inculpatory evidence pointing at Knox while contemplating her LUMINOL footprints).

Remind me again how many days went by before Amanda came up with the 'bathmat shuffle' excuse?

 

[shuttlt]

platonov,

AK: The declarations were taken against my will. And so, everything that
I said, was said in confusion and under pressure, and, because they were
suggested by the public minister.

CP: Excuse me, but at 1:45, the pubblico ministero was not there, there
was only the judicial police.

AK: Ha. They also were pressuring me

.
http://perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=165

 

[Katody Matrass]

The question is rather if a court could make them those witnesses disappear. Do you think a testimony disappears on the ground that you (Katody) consider the witness "not 100% impartial?".
I understand that you are personally concerned, but the question is how do you think that your concern about "100% impartiality" could reduce a witness to zero?
A witness normally doesn't have to be "impartial", there is no requirement to be 100% impartial in order to testify and contribute to the truth. There isn't such a treshold made of "concern about 100% impartiality" or "100%reliability" below which evidence and witnesses disappear.

I perfectly understand that the court could see the facts other way than I do. After all that's the case with the first verdict. I just have concerns about police witnesses because there were some unclear situations, like withholding information about the TOO LOW results, or luminol prints testing. I think I don't make a big mistake by assuming that police witnesses are interested in not undermining the prosecution's theory. That's why I value their testimony more if it is supported with e.g. photos.