Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[shuttlt]

platonov,

All I intended to say in the sentence you highlighted, was that it feels to me like the pro-innocence people jump through hoops to avoid saying things like "Amanda said Patrick didn't do it" for fear that some fool is going to jump in and use it against them to imply Amanda is admitting to knowledge she couldn't have without being involved in the crime. That interpretation of "Amanda said Patrick didn't do it" is such nonsense as not to be worth considering.

 

[Kaosium]

Incidentally, Dan O. A corrected version of the post would be:


That is the version, as best as I can make out that is supported by evidence. THERE IS NO "STORY OF THE MURDER" THAT IS WELL SUPPORTED BY EVIDENCE. It can't be done. There is not enough evidence. We will never know what happened until the guilty confess.

What you did was to cross out everything involving Amanda and Raffaele being involved in the murder, not everything that is unsupported by facts.

Shouldn't the fact that neither has confessed have some weight then? Especially in the case of Raffaele who might not have had to go through this at all had he stuck to that other story?

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

My reply:
The Guede evidence has chains and weak links too. It’s just that there is redundant solid evidence to establish the case against Guede.

What aspects of the evidence against Guede cannot be discounted using allegations of some combination of corruption, malfeasance, incompetence, and conspiracy?

Once these sorts of claims are made part of the acceptable dialogue, darkly alluded to or outright but without any substantiation, it is quite impossible to establish the quality of any court case in a venue such as this one.

We could choose nearly any trial, and assign partisan roles to the participants in this thread at random, and develop an equally vigorous debate about guilt or innocence. It would be an interesting exercise in dialogue and rhetoric, but little more than that.

How about the Casey Anthony case? Want to argue that she's being railroaded by an overzealous prosecutor? It would be a fairly easy position to adopt, if we use the same standards applied by Knox advocates. Her parents certainly have, with media teams and everything, and that in spite of the fact that it was her own mother who called 911 and reported that the trunk of Anthony's car smelled like a dead body. There's a wealth of publicly available information, tens of thousands of pages so far and still growing. And it's even in English.

You'd have a tough time convincing me she is innocent, though.

 

[platonov]

platonov,

All I intended to say in the sentence you highlighted, was that it feels to me like the pro-innocence people jump through hoops to avoid saying things like "Amanda said Patrick didn't do it" for fear that some fool is going to jump in and use it against them to imply Amanda is admitting to knowledge she couldn't have without being involved in the crime. That interpretation of "Amanda said Patrick didn't do it" is such nonsense as not to be worth considering.

No shuttlt

While I partly* accept your take on the aversion of 'the pro-innocence people' on this issue, this statement is nonsense an unsupported assertion, as I tried to explain above.
The court didn't necessarily see it that way - its an open question.
Read the testimony [or dont ?]

I don't like being called a fool, either

* they dont even accept (or try to avoid) her own words on other issues either defaulting to Frank S or C Dempsey when direct questions are asked.

 

[Justinian2]

This was discussed ad nausium months ago. For ages people made the argument you are making. I would reply, yes, but perhaps there were reasons why that knife was chosen. Why assume that the police acted inexplicably? Perhaps, I joked, all the other knives were butter knives. Eventually Charlie Wilkes emailed me a photo of the draw. It contained the kitchen knife we are discussing and a bunch of ordinary table knives.

It doesn't have to be connected by all three. In any case, why does there have to be only one knife? That's why I capitalized "THE".

As for the list of required evidence.. how about:

1. There is physical evidence on the knife linking it to the crime
2. That the handling of the knife isn't such that any physical evidence found on the knife is too unreliable to be considered.

I don't understand why we are arguing about Guede. The evidence against him is fine and I'm not seeking to diminish it. That there may be less evidence against the other two, or that it may be more complicated and interconnected evidence is neither here nor there.

It's true that RS's drawer had only one sharp knife, but the kitchen drawer at the murder flat had many. Doesn't that make you think that the police needed evidence from RS's apartment so that they could link him to the crime?

Why does there only have to be one knife? To believe that multiple knives are required to commit a murder is implausible. I mean a 120 pound woman was killed, not a Rhino or a Grisly bear.
The list is a list of possible evidences that could make the knife equal to ONE valid piece of evidence.
1) The knife was at the scene of the crime when the murder took place. (In LCN DNA cases, this should be required)
2) The knife inflicted the wounds.
3) The suspect used the knife to inflict the wounds. (DNA on the knife isn't really 99% proof)
4) The knife had the victim's DNA on it (Both good DNA and blood should be required for 99% proof)
5) The knife had the victim's blood on it.
6) The forensics lab was very, very clean and very very good (Necessary for LCN DNA)
7) None of the police were motivated to please someone that could effect their raises or promotions (Necessary all the time)

One of the first three on this list should be required. Perhaps not all three if one is super solid – but none are. One of either number four or five on that list must also be required. The validity of the evidence requires that one or both of #4 or #5 be really solid. If #4 and #5 are super solid, then #6 isn’t required. #7 is an absolute must. #7 must be established.

 

[shuttlt]

This sounds plausible, I'm just curious where it comes from. Was this information released at some point by the Perugian police? I've had zero luck finding out what the official account was. There are indications however that they were both being interrogated at the same time, or that at least Raffele thought so.

Some of it is from the court testimony. There are also loads of interviews with her family and supporters talking about the cartwheel and why she did it. Some of it contradicts other versions. It all agrees though that she did some homework, did some kind of exercise and talked to the police in an informal kind of a way in the waiting room.

Actually the bathroom was the only real deprivation that concerned me. Denying her food and coffee for a few hours, as you note, is hardly going to cause much physical strain. What it does do however is create menace and produce agitation in the subject. What happens in a real interrogation is not physical in nature, but mental.

Sure, but this is to be expected in any interrogation, no?

Unless of course you're Jack Bauer, but that doesn't actually work all that well in practice.

Didn't they just get done eating? I can't recall for sure, but I believe it's the custom in Italy to eat late.

Yes, again this is deeply confused, but I'm not aware of anybody arguing they hadn't eaten within the hour before turning up at the police station, and there are quite a few newspapaer stories and so on to make one think they did.

This is an interesting one. There's contradictory information available as far as I've seen. I did indeed hear that Amanda just tagged along, but also that Giobbi testified to 'mathematical' certainty or somesuch that he said they both were to come. Some have speculated that Raffaele didn't tell her because he knew she was coming anyway, or that the cops knew it.

There was a lot of excitement with people feeling it was proof that the police were duplicitous liars when the "mathematical certainty" thing came out, but really I can't see that it's important.

At any rate, one definite fact is the twelve police officers, being as that is going through the courts right now, though it's down to eight now. I think that must square with what they had in mind that night. That comes off as part of a plan, unless they really keep an extra twelve interrogators on overnight all the time in Perugia Italy.

Twelve "interrogators", what did these people do? Also, I have no idea what staffing levels are like in the police station in Perugia during a high profile murder enquiry.

Also the fact she was told by the judge no allowance would be made for her staying as they intentionally went after he before her mother could get there should be taken into account.

Sorry, I don't understand.

I read some of his posts on this thread, though I guess he stopped posting here before I started. I don't know what he might have meant outside something about thirty signatures on something else. That could be everyone at the station, but is that something that would happen in Italy? Different practices and all, but I can't see the reason for it.

It was supposed to be proof of the hordes of people pressed into her interrogation room.

I suspect the idea was to break her and then use the tape of the confession to back up the written statement, but this is where it gets interesting. If you look at their behavior going after Patrick (note: source is the Daily Mail) and then transferring them to the other station for which there is multiple sources including video evidence, they were acting very exuberant. That suggests to me they believed they had the right people. However, perhaps it was eventually realized that the tape didn't match what was on the paper she signed, making it worthless.

This is kind of predicated on the assumption that Amanda is innocent and the police are incompetent/corrupt, isn't it?

Rose posted recently that just about everything was taped outside a couple interviews, including Filomena's. Frankly this seems to me like common sense practice for a police department. You'd think they'd want to study the tapes of those they suspected, especially if much emphasis is placed on body language to determine probity which is not an uncommon practice many places, and may be even more so in Italy going by Giobbi's curious statement to CBS.

Perhaps, I don't know.

Because the moment the lawyer gets there he's gonna wanna do his best to contest any confession he finds his client signed! That would be a little tougher with video evidence.

OK.

Was it actually an interpreter or was it just one of the cops spoke English? I saw a number of posts on this but never did see anything definitive for the actual status of the woman who was there during questioning and is now part of the Calunnia suit.

It was an interpreter. The family claimed it wasn't for a long time, but it turned out it was. If you really dout it, I'll dig out a name. A seach on PMF for "interpreter" should do it.

Pardon? You think she signed the statement at 1:45? I thought that didn't happen until morning? I got the impression at 1:45 they stopped and 'upgraded' her status or something, then the statement was signed.

I've never heard this claim before.

I've see it claimed that Mignini admitted that the others were taped and that the official story is that with the important one they 'forgot.' I also read elsewhere that it was 'erased' but that might have been speculation.

I've never seen anything more solid than speculation.

However can you imagine fifteen hours of something like that on TV? That's what I thought pretty odd.

I doubt it, but in any case, this wouldn't be perculiar to Italy.

You'd have to strap me down!

Italian TV, in my experience, is terrible. There's only so many hours of smiling showgirls I can take.

 

[shuttlt]

Shouldn't the fact that neither has confessed have some weight then? Especially in the case of Raffaele who might not have had to go through this at all had he stuck to that other story?

I guess it counts for something. But, really, if courts relied very heavily on whether or not people confessed the world would be a very different place.

 

[Kaosium]

As you say, " from your totally UNINFORMED * Uninformed is right on, Kevin. Their guilt was explained...400 pages, I believe. Verdict? Guilty. And, they were INFORMED. Like me, they were REDUCED to asking questions. They were answered by the evidence...and, the unanimous verdict was......GUILTY.

Do you think they will stick to the Massei report theory of the murder and stay with no motive?

 

[Kaosium]

I guess it counts for something. But, really, if courts relied very heavily on whether or not people confessed the world would be a very different place.

What happens when you get to the point where you can just about convict anyone the police are suspicious of?

Note, I don't think there was any attempt to frame, though I think they did go beyond the bounds of propriety trying to build a case against them when they found no real evidence. I kept thinking as I was reading through the story of the murder knife and the bra clasp 'why on earth didn't they just frame them. That's why I suspect a lot of it was a tragedy of errors combined with bad judgment, starting with the interrogation.

 

[shuttlt]

It's true that RS's drawer had only one sharp knife, but the kitchen drawer at the murder flat had many. Doesn't that make you think that the police needed evidence from RS's apartment so that they could link him to the crime?

Presumably the went to his apartment hoping to find evidence linking him to the crime. Should they not have searched the apartment? I don't see how this is contentious.

Why does there only have to be one knife? To believe that multiple knives are required to commit a murder is implausible. I mean a 120 pound woman was killed, not a Rhino or a Grisly bear.

Multiple knives are not required to commit murder. Murders can be committed that involve multiple knives.

The list is a list of possible evidences that could make the knife equal to ONE valid piece of evidence.
1) The knife was at the scene of the crime when the murder took place. (In LCN DNA cases, this should be required)

That's just a sub point of my point 1.

2) The knife inflicted the wounds.

It doesn't have to be proved which, if any of the wounds were caused by the knife. SO long as it links them to the murder. Of course, realistically we need to be able to plausibly believe in this case that at least one of the wounds was caused by the knife, but no more than that.

3) The suspect used the knife to inflict the wounds. (DNA on the knife isn't really 99% proof)

It doesn't have to be 99% proof to be evidence. Also, being in a drawer in the suspects flat is kind of a link to the suspect.

4) The knife had the victim's DNA on it (Both good DNA and blood should be required for 99% proof)

It doesn't have to be 99% proof to be decent evidence. There also doesn't have to be blood necessarily.

5) The knife had the victim's blood on it.

This is additive with the DNA evidence.

6) The forensics lab was very, very clean and very very good (Necessary for LCN DNA)

Unfortunately evidence to make an assessment of this one way or the other isn't in the public domain. It's certainly a line that the defense may take up in the appeal.

7) None of the police were motivated to please someone that could effect their raises or promotions (Necessary all the time)

Yes, and necessary for Guede too. It is really for the defense to come up with evidence that people were up to no good though.

One of the first three on this list should be required. Perhaps not all three if one is super solid – but none are. One of either number four or five on that list must also be required. The validity of the evidence requires that one or both of #4 or #5 be really solid. If #4 and #5 are super solid, then #6 isn’t required. #7 is an absolute must.

Things are getting complicated now and I don't quite know what we are haggling over.

#7 must be established.

By who? How was it established for Guede, or any other case?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

This is a completely specious assertion, given that there is no way for anyone other than AK & RS to know if any items of their clothing are missing.

Nonsense. There are all sorts of ways that it could be established that one or more items from Amanda and/or Raffaele's wardrobe had gone missing. All it would take would be one photograph of them, or security camera image, or witness who remembered a particular article of clothing, that they could not then produce. Yet no evidence has ever emerged that any of Amanda or Raffaele's shirts, pants, dresses, shoes or any other articles of clothing that they owned vanished around the time of the murder.

Indeed I recall that the police tried out the line that an article of Amanda's clothing was missing and that this was evidence of her guilt, until it turned up exactly where it was supposed to be and without a trace of blood on it.

The fact that no such evidence has emerged is not definitive proof of anything, but you can add it to the pile of evidence that isn't there along with the traces in the murder room that should be there and are not.

And yet, I note how it is curious that you have no problem hypothesizing the existence of gloves for RG*, for which there is absolutely no evidence.

For you, there exists a dual standard whereby you assert (NOT demonstrate) that one set of defendants' wardrobes is knowable in its entirety while asserting the opposite for the third defendant. This is a textbook example of special pleading.

It's cute that you are trying to use proper terms now, but this simply isn't a case of special pleading.

Rudy had a fortnight to dispose of his bloody clothes and the murder weapon, Raffaele and Amanda did not. Rudy's guilt was so clear-cut I would be surprised if anyone even bothered to inventory his wardrobe, but we know for a fact that police were investigating this angle with respect to Amanda and Raffaele because of the business with Amanda's clothing "going missing" and then being found.

*LondonJohn goes even further, theorizing that RG also wore a heavy overcoat of some sort, as well as gloves.

He had to be wearing something. The idea that a burglar with a history of getting in through windows might wear clothes suited to the task might seem like a fun target for some good old pro-guilt incredulity, but it doesn't seem like a strange idea to me. Your mileage obviously varies.

 

[shuttlt]

However is it really the practice in Italy that someone convicted with so much evidence at a sexual assault/murder scene, including on the victim's body, can be out of jail in about ten years with reductions?

Prison overcrowding, I guess. Anyway, when you take into account parole I'm not sure that this would be so atypical in the UK either.

 

[shuttlt]

What happens when you get to the point where you can just about convict anyone the police are suspicious of?

Sure, but that's quite different from relying on the defendants word for it that they didn't do it (which I know is an overstatement of what we were discussing).

Note, I don't think there was any attempt to frame, though I think they did go beyond the bounds of propriety trying to build a case against them when they found no real evidence. I kept thinking as I was reading through the story of the murder knife and the bra clasp 'why on earth didn't they just frame them. That's why I suspect a lot of it was a tragedy of errors combined with bad judgment, starting with the interrogation.

I certainly agree with the underlined quote.

 

[shuttlt]

Rudy had a fortnight to dispose of his bloody clothes and the murder weapon, Raffaele and Amanda did not. Rudy's guilt was so clear-cut I would be surprised if anyone even bothered to inventory his wardrobe, but we know for a fact that police were investigating this angle with respect to Amanda and Raffaele because of the business with Amanda's clothing "going missing" and then being found.

How much blood did they get on their clothes? It could be little, or none.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Kevin, you have cited cases where police are corrupt. The problem is you haven't cited a case where the prosecutor, police, DNA analyst, AND judges are corrupt . Many of you allege Massei ignored evidence purposely. You allege Mignini is nuts . So you expect me to believe that all these people involved in this case are that misled that they would do this? It has gone much farther than just corrupt police. If you think that your position on that is entirely reasonable and something is wrong with ME for being skeptical, I can't imagine what you are thinking.

Halides1 already responded to this, but the Kisko conviction is another good example where the police suppressed relevant forensic evidence, the judge ignored irregularities in Kiszko's interrogation, thousands of pages of evidence of his guilt were submitted all of which was utter garbage, and the entire house of cards could have been demolished by a bright primary school child armed only with the fact that sperm was found on the victim's body and that Kiszko could not produce sperm.

It would be nice to think that police, prosecutors and courts were always ethical, honest and logical but we have cited multiple case studies that prove that it just isn't always so.

As far as believing you are lying, I don't know what is going on, but I do know that I would rather believe the experts testifying rather than an anonymous person on the Internet. When the appeals begin, if the experts back up your claims, maybe I will change my mind. But right now I reserve the right to put my faith in the courts and see the outcome.

If I may correct you on that point, you would rather believe a cherry-picked and distorted version of what experts have testified to than peer-reviewed scientific papers that are directly relevant. That is not reason or skepticism - it is either blind submission to authority or it is believing what you want to believe and rationalising it later.

The persistent pretence amongst guilters that the source for the claims about the time of death is "Google" or "an anonymous person on the internet" is mendacious and tiresome. The source for the TOD claim is the peer-reviewed scientific literature. It is the gold standard for factual claims. You can find it via Google or your local university library or the shelves of a learned professor's office and it's exactly the same in every case and which of the three you got it from makes no damned difference whatsoever.

Ronchi testified that Meredith could not have died at 23:30 unless Dr Lalli failed to tie off Meredith's bowels properly during the autopsy - do you think he was wrong? Dr Lalli's estimate of the time of death also excludes the Massei time of death - do you think he was wrong? For that matter has it occurred to you that multiple "experts" gave multiple differing estimates of the possible range of times of death any they cannot possibly all be right?

What we do when the experts can't seem to agree is - drum roll please - go to the literature. When we do that we find the truth, that Meredith could not possibly have died at 23:30 and it is almost certain she died very shortly after 21:00.

 

[Justinian2]

Yes, and necessary for Guede too. It is really for the defense to come up with evidence that people were up to no good though.

Just because I only rebut this one point doesn't mean that I believe in your rebuttals to the other points. It's just that in a formal debate you have a limited number of rebuttals.

People don't have to be 'no good' or up to 'no good' to be encouraged to do something they don't want to do. Experiments have shown this. I know from recent experience that the group or leader can make you do something you don't want to do (like walk along the side of a cliff with a 3000 foot drop with no railings or walls).

Just because the police fabricate evidence doesn't make them 'no good' or up to 'no good'.

 

[shuttlt]

Just because I only rebut this one point doesn't mean that I believe in your rebuttals to the other points. It's just that in a formal debate you have a limited number of rebuttals.

People don't have to be 'no good' or up to 'no good' to be encouraged to do something they don't want to do. Experiments have shown this. I know from recent experience that the group or leader can make you do something you don't want to do (like walk along the side of a cliff with a 3000 foot drop with no railings or walls).

Just because the police fabricate evidence doesn't make them 'no good' or up to 'no good'.

Quite. But how is this an argument specific to any one bit of evidence, or any one suspect?

 

[Dan O.]

I kept thinking as I was reading through the story of the murder knife and the bra clasp 'why on earth didn't they just frame them. That's why I suspect a lot of it was a tragedy of errors combined with bad judgment, starting with the interrogation.

If a dirty cop had any intelligence they would know better than to manufacture iron-clad evidence. Since the bra clasp and knife evidence are so weak, the prosecution can simply claim the result was an error when the computer records that provide an alibi are found to be unimpeachable.

 

[moodstream]

What aspects of the evidence against Guede cannot be discounted using allegations of some combination of corruption, malfeasance, incompetence, and conspiracy?

There is the behavior of Guede in the days preceding the trial - his burglary, via breaking a second story window, within a few weeks of the murder -being walked in on while he was wrongfully occupying the office of the headmistress of a school while the school was closed - the fact that he was carrying a large knife.

Given the fact that he did break into dwellings to steal, there is the fact that he had no source of funds and needed to pay his rent. Nov1 was the day rent was due. Guede was well aware of the cottage because he played basketball with the boys who lived downstairs. He knew the upper cottage had two foreign students living there, that they likely would have cash in their dwelling to pay their rent, that the boys downstairs and the Italian flatmates would be away for a holiday.

Then there is the hard evidence. Fingerprints and shoeprints, facts which Guede accepts as correct. Unlike DNA, which has a magic bullet quality, especially when the prosecution refuses to release the raw data their conclusions are drawn upon, fingerprints and shoe prints are easier for a jury to see the validity of with their own eyes.

*Now that you are enlightened, surely you will abandon your position.

 

[Dan O.]

Incidentally, Dan O. A corrected version of the post would be:

the whole thing ends with Rudy and a knife in Merediths room. After that, Rudy leaves​

That is the version, as best as I can make out that is supported by evidence. THERE IS NO "STORY OF THE MURDER" THAT IS WELL SUPPORTED BY EVIDENCE. It can't be done. There is not enough evidence. We will never know what happened until the guilty confess.

What you did was to cross out everything involving Amanda and Raffaele being involved in the murder, not everything that is unsupported by facts.

Working up from the facts works for me. One more fact we can include is that Rudy left a dump in the other bathroom. I think this is undisputed (even if no one wants to give it the sniff test).