Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[RWVBWL]

I hope you're not asking questions you don't know the answers to.
I believe that's against the rules.

Thanks for the laugh today,
Matthew Best!

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,
I am interested in BOTH!

Now, I enjoy knowing something about the folks that I discuss this brutal murder case with, for it gives me insight on how and why that person thinks what they do.

From what I have read, going to the right school is very important to you!
And correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that you are goin' to a prestigious law school.
Great! I hope that you become a successful prosecutor, wherever you may live.
This also means you're probably still in your 20's, studying A LOT+ still learning.
I hope that your participation here on JREF allows to learn something. Heck my own participation has taught me much!

With no disrespect given, Treehorn,
please allow let me point out something that you might not learn in law school. But in the real world.

There are cops in the world, such as former LAPD Officer Rafael Perez,
who can and do apparently lie to prosecutors, juries and judges for their own reasons, thereby convicting innocent people.
It does not take a whole lot of corrupt police officers, prosecutors, jury members or judges to convict an innocent and/or wrongly accused person(s).
JUST ONE!

Since you take the time to post here too, Treehorn
will you please take a moment to read what I share with you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Pérez_(police_officer)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/lapd/scandal/eyeofstorm.html
***

Now Treehorn,
just because I am bringing into discussion with you a story about disgraced LAPD officer Perez to further your education,
please note that I am not stating that the cops in Perugia, Italy did the same things
in their criminal investigation and pursuit of a guilty verdict against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito when in trial.

However, with that said, I do find it very strange that if Amanda Knox was no longer a witness,
but a suspect, and a prosecutor had to be called at a late hour from bed, that certain individual rights were then not respected!

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.
But they DID NOT!

As I wrote a short while ago,
I would assume that the police force in Perugia, Italy have 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?

The fact that the police did not use them reeks of either professional incompetance or intentional police misconduct, in my humble opinion.
Do you agree? I wonder?

And I also wonder Treehorn,what do you think:
Does the end justify the means?
Hmmm...
RWVBWL

***
Treehorn,
re-reading this:
"Arrested and facing the prospect of a lengthy prison sentence, Perez cut a deal with prosecutors and, in the course of 35 interviews, began to unspool a story of widespread police misconduct ("believe me when I tell you, if there was 15 officers in CRASH, 13 of them were putting cases on people")"
made me wonder why Raffaele Sollecito did not turn against Amanda knox, his luver of only a few days?
Supposedly, the evidence against Mr. Sollecito is the weakest, so why not turn cut a deal with prosecutors and turn state's witness against some chick he was bangin' for only a few days instead of taking the chance of conviction and a much longer prison sentence?
Isn't that how the real world works?

Raffaele Sollecito DID NOT do this because Raffaele Sollecito, as is Amanda Knox,
is NOT GUILTY of any involvement in this bloody, brutal murder we discuss that took the life of Meredith Kercher...
Peace,
RW

 

[Kaosium]

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

Is that uncommon in Italy? Is it impossible to get a job as a police officer in Perugia having ever smoked the wacky weed? How would anyone know if they did? If not, odds are at least one of them did...

A record for Residential Disturbance?

I'd say that was a pretty good description of the trip to the Central jail...

Throwing rocks at cars?

Who threw any rocks at cars?

A record for Possession?

Do we know that they didn't? Is that a disqualifier in Italy?

Posting rape/ stalking stories online?

Where did you see any rape stories associated with this case? I read a story where characters talked about one, but that can't be what you mean, is it?

Idolizing serial killers?

Sometimes people are fascinated by the macabre, for instance I find Mignini to be a unique and interesting person....could you tell me more of him?

Claiming to have an "inner Nazi"?

How about a fetish for the footwear?

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

I just 'heard' a rumor one of them got caught juicing a piglet, in the literal rather perverse sense.

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

I wonder how many of them have their grandfather's souvenirs who fought in southern Russia and sent people back to them?

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?

Their uniforms are even more garish.

Collect knives?

Use guns?

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

They prefer performance art to literary endeavors.

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

I heard a rumor with two of them involving a gerbil, a cattle prod and some Vaseline but I'm not sure I can tell it here.

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

When does that Calunnia trial resume?

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."

I think the paparazzi should spend as much time on digging into their college-age days as they did Raffaele and Amanda and then we could compare stories.

I love the avatar, it suggests Kevin, like Voltaire, had only one prayer, 'to make his enemies ridiculous.'

 

[odeed]

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.

The only mention of "case close" I saw, was from an article that a policeman at the gate of the station said it, as for the picture in the hall this was from a documentary from April 2008, some months after the evidence was collected.

 

[Justinian2]

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."

I've grown up with a person that later became chief of police and there is nothing in the list you gave that he wasn't guilty of before graduating from high school including A&B on me and a teacher and singing "You belong in a zoo" at my birthday party. Outstanding character, this future chief of police.

The thing I heard most frequently in, the days when my police brutality site was popular, is that there is a 'code of silence' among the 'fraternal order of police'. Ya, it's like a big fraternity. The police are also difficult to trouble legally. It has been my experience running a police brutality site that It's typical of the police to file pre-emptive charges against you in order to insure your cooperation and silence. DOJ reports say much the same.

 

[quadraginta]

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.

No. It is not mere pedantry. Your statement, with its use of the phrase "instantly decompose", was meant clearly and specifically to suggest that if bleach was used at all on the knife then it must a priori have been cleaned of any usable DNA.

In fact, though, the knife could easily have been inexpertly cleaned with an ineffective use of bleach, and some usable DNA might quite likely have survived. Hence the need for the detailed, careful, and rigorous procedures outlined in the sources halides1 has so generously cited in these threads.

This is in direct contradiction to the point you were disingenuously attempting, and thus not pedantry.

It seems that you and Mary_H both suffer from a misapprehension of the meaning of that term. It does have a meaning, you know. It is not merely a schoolyard taunt.

Of course, as you yourself have also pointed out, the entire issue of cleaning with bleach seems to be of questionable provenance, so it is unclear exactly why you chose to raise the subject in the first place, except to create even further obfuscation.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

De Felice caso chiuso

The only mention of "case close" I saw, was from an article that a policeman at the gate of the station said it, as for the picture in the hall this was from a documentary from April 2008, some months after the evidence was collected.

Odeed,

Here is one mention of it on 7 November 2007:
http://seattlest.com/2007/11/07/from_the_papers.php

I think it was Arturo de Felice who said it.

 

[Katody Matrass]

It should be pointed out that the knife that was picked by "intuition" was the only one in the draw that could have been involved in the murder, unless one supposes ordinary table knives might have been used. There may have been other knives in the kitchen, but if there are nobody has a photo.

Hi, shuttlt! I think a better qualifier would be "the last one". Amanda's kitchen was full of large, pointy knives. Were any of those tested repeatedly by overriding and cranking up the machine? Raffaele had a "collection" of knives much more suitable for that crime. Those tested all negative, and were tested in a standard way. His kitchen knife was the last one and not exactly fit for the murder. After all it didn't match the wounds or the imprint. The fact that it was the last interestingly coincidences with the unusual testing methods. Of course they could simply "retest" one of his "collectibles", but I think it would be even more suspicious.

As for contamination, is it very likely? That depends a lot I would have thought about what you believe the odds are of the knife being involved in the crime. Ones expectation about the outcome of what Steffanoni did would not be to find DNA connected with the crime on an innocent knife. Perhaps contamination unconnected with the crime wouldn't be a huge surprise, but contamination connected with the crime doesn't seem to be high on the list of expected outcomes.

1. Stafanoni didn't release her logs and data. We don't know what really were the other results and how many there were before she came up with something satisfactory.
2. The odds of the contamination coming from Meredith's DNA are still quite good. The cops that handled the knife were investigating the crime scene. Stefanoni's lab tested lots of her items. Amanda, who lived with her, frequented Raffaele's kitchen. Even after the crime she was at the crime scene many times, and spent a few days at Raffaele's before their arrest (That would be intermediary transfer, but still possible). I think it is important there were no blood on that knife.

No. It is not inactivity, the phones were uncontactable by the network. They were either switched off at more or less the same time, or were placed together in an as yet undetected black spot in Raffaele's apartment.

Do you know what time they contacted the network again?

 

[Withnail1969]

Of course, as you yourself have also pointed out, the entire issue of cleaning with bleach seems to be of questionable provenance, so it is unclear exactly why you chose to raise the subject in the first place, except to create even further obfuscation.

The issue is of very definite provenance. The police made the claim. I guess somebody forgot to tell them that thorough scrubbing + bleach = no DNA.

 

[Solange305]

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."

Huh? I dont get what you are saying, it could be by chance that they aren't wearing anything seen in a picture. Do you have every item of clothing pictured in a photograph somewhere? I dont, not even close.

 

[Katody Matrass]

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

I guess they had a month or two to buy it. Somehow I can't imagine Raffaele's landlord coming every few days to count the knives.

 

[Withnail1969]

Huh? I dont get what you are saying, it could be by chance that they aren't wearing anything seen in a picture. Do you have every item of clothing pictured in a photograph somewhere? I dont, not even close.

But Amanda was wearing a specific set of clothing when Popovic came round to Rafaelle's apartment just before 9 pm. Those clothes were later found in her room at the cottage with no bloodstains, i.e. she left them there after her shower.

So did she get changed after this visit into some separate murder outfit, or did Amanda and Raffaele enter the cottage at 11:30 pm, immediately remove all their clothing, high five Rudy, kill Meredith, quickly get dressed again, and then run away from the cottage?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Promega Corporation Technical Bulletin on DNA Contamination

Identifying and Preventing DNA Contamination in a DNA-Typing Laboratory
By Terri Sundquist and Joseph Bessetti
Promega Corporation

“Wash all surfaces and rinse pipette barrels with a dilute bleach solution (2% to 3%). Be sure to rinse any equipment that comes into contact with reagents well, since residual bleach can cause allele or locus dropout. For equipment that cannot be treated with bleach, exposure to ultraviolet light can eliminate DNA contaminants (2–4).”

In other words, a dilution of dilute bleach can still damage DNA.

 

[Katody Matrass]

This is a frame from a video:

[qimg]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5129/5247979636_f79bf1c681_z.jpg[/qimg]

Thanks Machiavelli!

This still is somewhat blurry and falsifies the colors. But I can imagine why you chose it instead of many other much better images. I guess you think that because the vegetation look brown in that still it can be interpreted as bare mud and soil. Unfortunately it's still the same vegetation and dry leaves:
(click to enlarge)

 

[Withnail1969]

Thanks Machiavelli!

This still is somewhat blurry and falsifies the colors. But I can imagine why you chose it instead of many other much better images. I guess you think that because the vegetation look brown in that still it can be interpreted as bare mud and soil. Unfortunately it's still the same vegetation and dry leaves:
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_427054d02ab2655efb.jpg[/qimg](click to enlarge)

Katody, in your picture, is Filomena's window the one furthest from the camera under the overhanging roof?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Forensic Misadventures

shuttlt,

Here is a site that list a number of errors made by forensics personel:
http://www.corpus-delicti.com/forensic_mis.html

There is a companion site on fraud. I don't know exactly how common DNA contamination is, but it absolutely not a one-in-a-million kind of deal.

 

[Solange305]

But Amanda was wearing a specific set of clothing when Popovic came round to Rafaelle's apartment just before 9 pm. Those clothes were later found in her room at the cottage with no bloodstains, i.e. she left them there after her shower.

So did she get changed after this visit into some separate murder outfit, or did Amanda and Raffaele enter the cottage at 11:30 pm, immediately remove all their clothing, high five Rudy, kill Meredith, quickly get dressed again, and then run away from the cottage?

When Popovic came by, did Amanda still think she had to work? I would think she would change into different clothes to go to work. That is just an assumption on my part, admittedly

 

[Solange305]

Katody, in your picture, is Filomena's window the one furthest from the camera under the overhanging roof?

Its the closest one to the camera

 

[RoseMontague]

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

I thought the way she defined her role was unusual if not unprofessional.

The police interpreter, Anna Donnino, had earlier denied the police used violence. Under cross-examination she described her role as that of a "mediator" rather than a mere translator of words.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/13/kercher-knox-trial

 

[Withnail1969]

When Popovic came by, did Amanda still think she had to work? I would think she would change into different clothes to go to work. That is just an assumption on my part, admittedly

She didn't have a work uniform or anything like that. A bar like Patrick's would be very much a 'come as you are' sort of enterprise for the staff and clientele.

 

[Solange305]

She didn't have a work uniform or anything like that. A bar like Patrick's would be very much a 'come as you are' sort of enterprise for the staff and clientele.

I know she didnt have a uniform, but I would still think it's possible she would change before work into clean clothes. But, again, Im admitting it's speculation, I really can't say either way.