Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[shuttlt]

Massei Report p 107

He said that upon returning to the police station, inspector Finzi handed him the material seized in the home of Sollecito Raffaele. The first thing he handed over was the knife which was inside a new bag that was well wrapped and submitted closed, and thus had no contact with the exterior (pages 201 and 223). He specified that when handing over such knife he had new gloves on, which he had not used on other occasions and which he took from the office.
Therefore, with those gloves, he removed the knife from the bag and put it inside a box that he sealed with scotch-tape. He specified that such box previously contained a desk diary and no other items apart from "the new desk diary offered" by a bank (page 202). This box was then sent, along with other findings, to the Scientific Police in Rome (page 203).

Thankyou. I'm working my way through it, but hadn't reached that far.

 

[Kaosium]

Given the attention given to the g-string trip, can you imagine if they had gone knife shopping too?

I imagine at that point they would have let it go, but they could hardly know that at the time.

 

[Kestrel]

Given the attention given to the g-string trip, can you imagine if they had gone knife shopping too?

Or do you feel obligated to use whatever terms work best to portray Amanda as a sex crazed slut?

Amanda didn't buy a g-string. Claiming that she did is simply a lie.

 

[RWVBWL]

She had incriminated herself. She was no longer a witness, but a suspect and therefore the prosecutor had to be called.

It doesn't matter what Amanda did or did not ask for. The police and the prosecutor were bound by law to provide Amanda with a lawyer once she became a suspect, and to videotape any interrogations thereafter. It was illegal and unethical for them to accept anything from her when she did not have a lawyer. They can't claim a lawyer had been summoned and was on the way, unless he lived so far away that it took him three or four days to get to the questura.

On the other hand, it is fortunate Amanda did offer her statement, because it is the only forensic evidence we have that she was confused, ambivalent and had been yelled at and hit.

Hi Shuttlt,
When I read what you had written earlier today,
I recalled what I had read that Mary H wrote a couple of days ago, which I have highlighted and underlined above.

If Amanda Knox was no longer a witness, but a suspect, a prosecutor had to be called, as you write.
And then the police and the prosecutor were bound by law to provide Amanda with a lawyer once she became a suspect,
and to videotape any interrogations thereafter,
as Mary H kindly pointed out.

I would assume that the police force in Perugia, Italy has arrested many a suspect and therefore knows the proper interrogation and booking procedures,
wouldn't you agree?

I would also assume that the Questura has at least 1 room always set up with audio and video recording/surveillance sysytems, don'tcha think?
Heck, my old retail store, a surfshop, even had a video surveillance system running ALL the time with publicly viewable CCTV monitors inside.

The fact that the police did not use them reeks of either professional incompetance or intentional police misconduct, in my humble opinion.

Which do you think that is Shuttlt,
Incompetence or intentional police misconduct?
Hmmm...
RWVBWL

PS-Interestingly, it appears that there is NO penalty given to police officers in Perugia, Italy for such mistakes, intentional or not.
I do find that very odd...

ADD-IN:
I forgot something.
Maybe there is also a simple explanation for this error.
Being a camera operator myself, I tried to figure what that might be.
There is the slight possibility that the audio specialist and/or camera operator was simply asleep,
and the other cops did not want to wake him or her up on a cold night,
as they had to do by dragging Mignini out of bed at such a late hour so that he could do the work he was paid to do in a sensational, brutal murder
that had scared at least a few English foreign college students to leave town in apparent fright...
I wonder...

 

[Chris_Halkides]

bleach and PCR, a technique in DNA profiling

The DNA molecules begin degrading as soon as the bleach hits them and the process is complete within a few minutes.

Withnail1969 and Quadraginta,

A. M. Prince, L. Andrus PCR: How to kill unwanted DNA Biotechniques
Vol. 12, No. 3 pp 358-360

Avoidance of contamination in the PCR laboratory requires the use of strict precautions. Among these, chemical decontamination of surfaces and equipment is desirable to prevent inadvertent contamination of samples by the gloved hand and by pipettors. We have investigated the use of sodium hypochloride (Clorox), in comparison to concentrated HCl, for PCR sterilization. Ten percent Clorox was found to eliminate all ethidium bromide-stainable DNA and to prevent PCR amplification of a 600-bp DNA segment within one minute of template treatment. RNA was similarly destroyed. By contrast, even 2.0 N HCl did not destroy DNA detectable by PCR within five minutes. Because of its high efficacy, low cost and relatively low corrosiveness, we recommend the use of ten percent Clorox as a decontaminant for elimination of DNA templates in the PCR laboratory.

highlighting added

The bleach above is a 10-fold dilution of commercial strength bleach solution. Full strength bleach might well be tenfold faster, but we would have to do the kinetics to be certain. I will have to get back to your other questions later.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

interpretor?

RoseMontague, IIRC, noted that the interpretor was also a participant in the interrogation, not a neutral figure. Worth a search here.

 

[Justinian2]

[...]
Heck, my old retail store, a surfshop, even had a video surveillance system running ALL the time with publicly viewable CCTV monitors inside.

The fact that the police did not use them reeks of either professional incompetance or intentional police misconduct, in my humble opinion.​

A doughnut and a cup of coffee will probably motivate many cops to break the rules. Not a lot of disrespect here since I believe that many people, not just cops, are motivated as much by situations as $$$$.

We're talking about some weird motivations for AK and RS to murder a friend, so why not talk about the equally weird motivation for the police and prosecution to help a friend or boss by being sloppy with some evidence?

 

[treehorn]

...
And then the police and the prosecutor were bound by law to provide Amanda with a lawyer once she became a suspect,
and to videotape any interrogations thereafter,...

Are you interested in the FACTUAL guilt of the accused/ convicted, or their LEGAL guilt?

Alleged violations of the right to counsel/ the right to remain silent/ the right against self-incrimination have nothing to do with the veracity of an accused's statements against interest.

 

[treehorn]

A doughnut and a cup of coffee will probably motivate many cops to break the rules. Not a lot of disrespect here since I believe that many people, not just cops, are motivated as much by situations as $$$$.

We're talking about some weird motivations for AK and RS to murder a friend, so why not talk about the equally weird motivation for the police and prosecution to help a friend by being sloppy with some evidence?

Did any of the police officers have a history that included the use of street drugs?

A record for Residential Disturbance?

Throwing rocks at cars?

A record for Possession?

Posting rape/ stalking stories online?

Idolizing serial killers?

Claiming to have an "inner Nazi"?

Were any of them the subject of rumors about pulling "rape pranks"?

Did any of them use vacation time to tour 'Death Camps'?

Publish portraits of themselves in macabre costumes replete with a surgical mask, latex gloves, a bottle of bleach in one hand, and a meat cleaver in the other?

Collect knives?

Did any of them publish "creative stories" about framing ordinary college kids for crimes they did not commit?

Were any of them rumored to have pulled "wrongful arrest" pranks on unsuspecting foreign students?

Were any of them ever caught bearing false witness against innocent citizens?

Look, I'm not claiming to know whether the cops were all 'angels' - far from it - but unless and until the defense team can dig SOMETHING up on at least ONE of these officers, the accused are much, much better targets for the label "weirdly motivated."

 

[Matthew Best]

I hope you're not asking questions you don't know the answers to.

I believe that's against the rules.

 

[Kaosium]

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.

However with Raffaele and Amanda facing some thirty years, even with possible reductions it doesn't look good.

I can't help but think blaming all the people he already slapped suits on for the curious discrepancy between sentences of the two, especially with the rather strange reasons for appealing one and not the other, is going to come back to haunt the prosecution.

 

[Kaosium]

Are you interested in the FACTUAL guilt of the accused/ convicted, or their LEGAL guilt?

Alleged violations of the right to counsel/ the right to remain silent/ the right against self-incrimination have nothing to do with the veracity of an accused's statements against interest.

Will they have that in the upcoming trial? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that note part of Patrick's slander suit?

BTW was anything about the actual 'confession' ever revealed? I can't seem to find anything about it.

 

[quadraginta]

Withnail1969 and Quadraginta,

A. M. Prince, L. Andrus PCR: How to kill unwanted DNA Biotechniques
Vol. 12, No. 3 pp 358-360

Avoidance of contamination in the PCR laboratory requires the use of strict precautions. Among these, chemical decontamination of surfaces and equipment is desirable to prevent inadvertent contamination of samples by the gloved hand and by pipettors. We have investigated the use of sodium hypochloride (Clorox), in comparison to concentrated HCl, for PCR sterilization. Ten percent Clorox was found to eliminate all ethidium bromide-stainable DNA and to prevent PCR amplification of a 600-bp DNA segment within one minute of template treatment. RNA was similarly destroyed. By contrast, even 2.0 N HCl did not destroy DNA detectable by PCR within five minutes. Because of its high efficacy, low cost and relatively low corrosiveness, we recommend the use of ten percent Clorox as a decontaminant for elimination of DNA templates in the PCR laboratory.

highlighting added

The bleach above is a 10-fold dilution of commercial strength bleach solution. Full strength bleach might well be tenfold faster, but we would have to do the kinetics to be certain. I will have to get back to your other questions later.

Just to be clear.

Are you saying, in your professional opinion as a scientist, that you concur with Withnail's use of "instantly" and "within minutes" as synonyms?

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

Perhaps to a pedant, my statement "there is no way for anyone other than AK & RS to know if any items of their clothing are missing" could be construed as "nonsense". However, within the context of the ongoing discussion, it should be rather apparent that I was referring to clothing whose existence was not already established through photographic or testimonial means as to have been in the possession of AK or RS at a time shortly before Meredith's murder. These items of clothing existed, and neither you nor anyone else besides AK & RS can have anything substantive to say about their quantity or quality. As such, my original assertion remains logically irrefutable....

Here's the thing about the whole clothing issue: what are the odds AK and RS murdered MK but beforehand stopped and said "Hey, you'd better change clothes first because I think your friend's girlfriend has a picture of you wearing that shirt."

 

[treehorn]

I hope you're not asking questions you don't know the answers to.

I believe that's against the rules.

But I thought you were telling me not to treat this like a cross-examination!

 

[Chris_Halkides]

forensic bias

So?

You appear to be asserting that evidence collected against known suspects is of inherently lower probative value than that collected against suspects unknown. Other than it being convenient for you in confidently proclaiming Knox's & Sollecito's innocence, for what possible reason would you do so?*

*I do not accept either the relevance or the verity of your assertion "the police had staked their reputation on their guilt".

Fuji,

The police had already said words to the effect of, case closed, and Amanda Knox's picture was in the hall by Dr. Giobbi's office long before the bra clasp was even collected, for instance. The problem is that if the forensic scientists collect and analyze the evidence after someone is in custody, they run the risk of unconscious investigator bias. There are lengthy posts and citations here and in the previous thread on this subject.

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

Did any of the police officers have a history that included the use of street drugs?

A record for Residential Disturbance?

Throwing rocks at cars?

A record for Possession?

Posting rape/ stalking stories online?

Idolizing serial killers?

Claiming to have an "inner Nazi"?

Were any of them the subject of rumors about pulling "rape pranks"?

Did any of them use vacation time to tour 'Death Camps'?

Publish portraits of themselves in macabre costumes replete with a surgical mask, latex gloves, a bottle of bleach in one hand, and a meat cleaver in the other?

Collect knives?

Did any of them publish "creative stories" about framing ordinary college kids for crimes they did not commit?

Were any of them rumored to have pulled "wrongful arrest" pranks on unsuspecting foreign students?

Were any of them ever caught bearing false witness against innocent citizens?

Look, I'm not claiming to know whether the cops were all 'angels' - far from it - but unless and until the defense team can dig SOMETHING up on at least ONE of these officers, the accused are much, much better targets for the label "weirdly motivated."

Possibly but in order to accurately determine the existence of such, one risks the wrath of ILE and possibly being charged with slander.

ETA: Not to mention THEIR lives have not been subjected to such public scrutiny. I imagine we'd find some interesting tidbits if we could delve into their lives like the life of AK has been delved into.

 

[Withnail1969]

Just to be clear.

Are you saying, in your professional opinion as a scientist, that you concur with Withnail's use of "instantly" and "within minutes" as synonyms?

You're making a point of mere pedantry. Of course 'instantly' and 'within minutes' are not synonyms. As has now been clarified, the effects of the bleach on DNA begin straight away and the process takes, according to Halides' citation, about a minute. I should have perhaps been more clear.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

rate of DNA destruction

Just to be clear.

Are you saying, in your professional opinion as a scientist, that you concur with Withnail's use of "instantly" and "within minutes" as synonyms?

Quadraginta,

I am not saying that the two words are synonyms. I am saying that the time period quoted in that paper (within a minute) is may be an upper bound, even for 10% bleach. It depends on whether they investigated shorter times. I am also saying that if the rate of destruction is first order in bleach (a very reasonable assumption but one that could be falsified by an appropriate experiment), then the rate would be 10-fold faster in full-strength bleach. I know that the paper in question also examined 2.5% bleach, but I do not have a copy of it just now. It is worth pointing out that each DNA strand would only need to be nicked once to make it unsuitable for PCR.

I am also saying (based on a prior cite) that if a knife were cleaned with bleach and then not thoroughly rinsed, the residual bleach would continue to destroy DNA. The notion that DNA could survive such a treatment is just not credible.

 

[treehorn]

Possibly but in order to accurately determine the existence of such, one risks the wrath of ILE and possibly being charged with slander.

Truth is a "complete defense" to a defamation action in common law jurisdictions.

I'd be stunned to the point of having to lie down if it were any different in the civil law system.