Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Chris_Halkides]

It would be equally reasonable to conclude that the fact the cops hadn't dragged them in in spite of all protestations suggests they didn't have any particular expectations of a change in status. What we actually know (as opposed to surmise, assume, insinuate, and guess) about the circumstances of that status change fits much more closely with the idea that it was as much of a surprise to the police as it was to anyone else.

Quadraginta,

I posted this earlier today. It is a quote from a summary of Italian news coverage of the case in 2007. The link that goes with this quote is, unfortunately, no longer active. I think it raises concerns but falls short of proof.

Monday, 5 November 2007 -- Ominous words:"It is not excluded that in the next few hours one of the many persons interviewed in recent days might be converted into a suspect."

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

To me, this seems like the interpreter was overstepping the boundary by quite a massive margin. Her job was no more and no less than to translate what Knox said into Italian, and what the police officers said into English. It would be interesting to look into the legality of an interpreter injecting her own views and suggestions into a police interview......

I wonder if this sort of conjecture might be inspired by the same sort of unfounded specificity which informed the recent debate about "mediator".

Do we really know the exact formal title and job description of the individual being described as "interpreter", or are assumptions being made on the basis of convenient (if you'll excuse the expression) interpretations of the term? Can you direct us to a reference supporting your assumptions in this instance?

An interpreter at the U.N. might have quite different duties, responsibilities and obligations ... both legal and ethical ... than someone at a police station who is brought in for an interview because they are both bilingual and involved with law enforcement. In fact this person might easily have been an LE professional who specialized in interviews and was also bilingual, and was chosen for that very reason.

Unless you have some specific reason aside from your preferred (and convenient) choice of the meaning of "interpreter" you have no particular cause to assume than there was a boundary overstepped at all, much less by "a massive margin".

By way of example, it is quite routine for police departments in the U.S. to seek out employees with Hispanic backgrounds specifically for their practical and colloquial knowledge of Spanish. These employees are sought out so that they can deal with situations where their abilities as an "interpreter" can be put to use. Often they will be referred to in a news report that way, but they are under no strictures or obligations that any other police officer is not constrained by because they are, quite simply, police officers themselves.

 

[quadraginta]

Quadraginta,

I posted this earlier today. It is a quote from a summary of Italian news coverage of the case in 2007. The link that goes with this quote is, unfortunately, no longer active. I think it raises concerns but falls short of proof.

Monday, 5 November 2007 -- Ominous words:"It is not excluded that in the next few hours one of the many persons interviewed in recent days might be converted into a suspect."

So what?

Sounds like a stock "We've got everything under control." press statement line to me. Except maybe a bit more wishy-washy and circumscribed. If they were really hot to trot why on earth would they wait? If it had been in the U.S. they would have had the press alerted and waiting at the door when they broke it down to haul 'em in.

You can attach all the ominous meaning you want to to a press statement. That's largely because it is what you want to do. The cops' actions speak for themselves. They let the two stroll around for the afternoon and then take a pizza break, and come wandering into the station when they felt like it. This isn't exactly the behavior one would expect from an organization certain it was on the cusp of clinching a brutal murder case.

 

[Machiavelli]

Exactly: calling for her to apologize presumes that she's guilty. On the other hand, if she's innocent, then it's the police who should apologize. If her guilt/innocence is still being determined, as it is, then there's a possibility someone who was coerced into a confession is being held accountable for that. As I said, that's something I think should be questioned.

(..)

I don't think somebody else could be acountable for her hand written memorial. Nor for her e-mail and accounts released prior to Nov 6. Nor for having maintained, in court, that she was suffering from false memory as the day after she was still remembering of having been on the murder scene covering her ears, and of Patrick having sex with Meredith.
I don't think somebody will be held responsible of the fact she changed her description and explanation about her false confession several times.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Some interesting courtroom details in this article (Andrea Vogt)

Defense attorneys also requested a review of the couple's computer activity, a second opinion on the coroner's estimated time of death, and a complete forensic review (namely the kitchen knife with Knox's DNA on the handle and Kercher's on the blade that prosecutors say is the murder weapon and Kercher's bra clasp, where Sollecito's DNA was found). Dalla Vedova read a small portion of a letter from noted U.S. DNA expert Bruce Budowle about trace DNA and the sensitivity test for blood, then requested that the document be entered into evidence.

"The doubts about the genetic profile on the knife throw into question the procedures used for the other traces," Dalla Vedova said. "We need to ask an expert what it means when a trace is "too low" and what is the correct procedure for when that happens."

I think Bruce Budowle's name did appear a few times in the context of the case, but his opinion is officially entered for the first time.

Well, well, well. It turns out that the defence didn't need to fly LondonJohn, Halides1 and myself out to Italy in order to raise these points. What a relief!

Maybe now the PMF community will accept the idea that you really don't need to be a one-in-a-billion super-genius to read and understand the scientific literature, you just need a baseline level of scientific literacy.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

new post at Perugia-Shock

Frank Sfarzo reported on Amanda's statement. But will it play in Perugia?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Ok, I am totally out of my realm here, so I may be wrong, but why does there need to blood for that to be Meredith's dna on the blade"? I thought dna gets on the knife handle (like from Amanda) by holding it really hard. Could Meredith;s dna have gotten on the blade from them holding it against her neck or other part of her body hard enough, but not necessarily hard enough to bleed? Just like Amanda's dna was on the handle, but she didn't bleed.

If the knife had been used to murder Meredith it would have been covered in her blood, and would obviously have been cleaned afterwards since it was not found in Raffaele's drawer covered in Meredith's blood.

The sample which Stefanoni tested was allegedly found in a tiny nick in the side of the blade. I could see how one might think that blood, or some kind of mix of blood and flesh, had flowed into such a nick. I don't see an obvious mechanism for skin cells packing themselves into suck a nick from being pressed against someone's flesh, in such a way that they could survive a brisk scrubbing, let alone immersion in bleach as some have suggested, nor do I see any reason why blood cells would not get into such a nick if skin cells could do so.

Overall I think Halides1 is right that magic cleaning fluid is required to make the prosecution interpretation of this evidence work.

 

[Malkmus]

Fresh Start for Amanda?

Sounds like this new judge wasn't too impressed with the Massei report:

Mellas explained, "The judge finished up his summary of the Massei Report, his synopsis of the judgement which is the ruling against Amanda and Raffaele, and he told the court, 'The only thing we know for certain in this complex case is that Meredith was murdered.' An attorney with an American TV network leaned over to me and said, 'Oh my God, he just established reasonable doubt.' This is a big deal."

http://www.westseattleherald.com/2010/12/12/news/amanda-knox-appeals-court-new-jury-members-cry

 

[Malkmus]

So what?

Sounds like a stock "We've got everything under control." press statement line to me. Except maybe a bit more wishy-washy and circumscribed. If they were really hot to trot why on earth would they wait? If it had been in the U.S. they would have had the press alerted and waiting at the door when they broke it down to haul 'em in.

You can attach all the ominous meaning you want to to a press statement. That's largely because it is what you want to do. The cops' actions speak for themselves. They let the two stroll around for the afternoon and then take a pizza break, and come wandering into the station when they felt like it. This isn't exactly the behavior one would expect from an organization certain it was on the cusp of clinching a brutal murder case.

Wishy-washy? "We've got everything under control"?
Quandraginta, you can't get anymore specific than saying "Don't be surprised if in the next hours someone we've already been talking to is turned into a suspect", and then that's exactly what happens. It negates the notion that the police were surprised by Amanda and Raf's statements, and it falls completely in line with everything else we've heard the police say, namely the quote about Amanda confessing to a set of facts that they already were aware of.

And the ominous label wasn't added by Halides, FYI.

The police had summoned Rafaelle... he may not have come in exactly at the moment they wanted, but that's irrelevant. I can see why you'd want to spin this as a coincidence, but it's simply too exact to be a "Don't worry, we'll get the bad guys soon" sort of statement. Why do you think they said "next few hours" instead of "next few days? And why do you think it specifically refers to someone they had "already interviewed"?

 

[platonov]

Sounds like this new judge wasn't too impressed with the Massei report:


http://www.westseattleherald.com/2010/12/12/news/amanda-knox-appeals-court-new-jury-members-cry

So your argument is - on the basis of another home town [Seattle] hack quoting a member of the convicts family as saying an unnamed US analyst said something - that the judge just badmouthed Massei .

We shall see - I shall stick my neck out here and say that didn't actually happen.

Any update on where on this thread the Nov 5th statements were posted ?

 

[platonov]

I consider Dempsey to be a fairly reliable source. However, you are welcome to post a cite from anyone else you can find that says differently or even the same if you want to be helpful.

I don't - she's partisan, mendacious and not even a hack (not that that is a guarantee of veracity in any case, far from it)

I'll use myself as a source on this ; I report [in this very post] that Donnino is an interpreter - not a cop.

Lets do some further research and see who is right on this one.
If its me, can we drop the 'blogger' as a source - nobody bar the Foakers takes her 'reportage' at face value anyway.
Especially as its sometimes used to try to contradict direct testimony from Knox herself.

 

[Malkmus]

So your argument is - on the basis of another home town [Seattle] hack quoting a member of the convicts family as saying an unnamed US analyst said something - that the judge just badmouthed Massei .

No, I said it sounds like he wasn't impressed, not that he badmouthed Massei. And it's from the quote from the new judge saying 'The only thing we know for certain in this complex case is that Meredith was murdered.' This to me is important because as i understand it the appeals would not really be a fresh start, but rather a trial that starts with the presumption of guilt. The quote above, while certainly open to interpretation, does not seem to favor that notion.

Any update on where on this thread the Nov 5th statements were posted ?

Nope. I guess you'll have to suffer as the only person on this entire thread who can't figure out how to access it. As I said, your loss.

 

[Dan O.]

Just curious about the quote I just posted, 2 of them are listed as being in the control room. Were they watching the video of the interrogations, perhaps? LOL.

I must have had a premonition of this revelation back in November when I wrote about how the interrogation rooms would be wired back to a recording booth in post 17652. If one of the officers that dropped out of the suit was a technician that worked in the control room I'd have to consider submitting my application for the MDC.

 

[Malkmus]

It appears that it was Ms Donnino who suggested to Knox that she had become so traumatised by the murder that she'd repressed her memories of it. She apparently used an example of when she (Donnino) broke her leg to illustrate the concept of repressed memory:

Amanda knowing personal information about the translator like this is, IMO, hard evidence that she did not fabricate the Patrick story on her own. It proves that she told them she didn't remember going to the cottage that night and that the translator/police told her that she was and must have forgotten. Otherwise, how the heck would she know about the translator breaking her leg?!

 

[platonov]

No, I said it sounds like he wasn't impressed, not that he badmouthed Massei. And it's from the quote from the new judge saying 'The only thing we know for certain in this complex case is that Meredith was murdered.' This to me is important because as i understand it the appeals would not really be a fresh start, but rather a trial that starts with the presumption of guilt. The quote above, while certainly open to interpretation, does not seem to favor that notion.

I italicized both your wasn't too impressed & my just badmouthed Massei. On either wording - My prediction stands.

Nope. I guess you'll have to suffer as the only person on this entire thread who can't figure out how to access it. As I said, your loss.

OK, in that case my post here stands - I cant withdraw it now and you cant refute it.
The next time CW posts I shall ask him to put the matter to rest as you seemingly cant.

 

[Malkmus]

I italicized both your wasn't too impressed & my just badmouthed Massei. On either wording - My prediction stands.




OK, in that case my post here stands - I cant withdraw it now and you cant refute it.
The next time CW posts I shall ask him to put the matter to rest as you seemingly cant.

Sounds good. Don't choke on that humble pie now.

 

[Fine]

I consider Dempsey to be a fairly reliable source. However, you are welcome to post a cite from anyone else you can find that says differently or even the same if you want to be helpful.

_______________________

This from Candace

3. Monica Napoleoni, homicide chief, Flying Squad (went back and forth between Amanda and Raffaele Sollecito's interrogation rooms and Questura control room)

is contradicted by Barbie, who said that Raffaele had been interrogated and placed under arrest before Amanda was questioned. Angel Face, page 68.

///

 

[Dan O.]

Barbie only arrived in Perugia on the 13th or 14th so she couldn't have been a first hand witness to these interrogations on the 5th/6th. What does Barbie list as a source for this event?

 

[Chris C]

But not until over 40 minutes after Filomena had told them to call the police.

Whats the rush? Its a break in to Filomena's room. Why couldn't Filomena call?

 

[Fine]

Barbie only arrived in Perugia on the 13th or 14th so she couldn't have been a first hand witness to these interrogations on the 5th/6th. What does Barbie list as a source for this event?

Dan,

The source is Monica Napoleoni. Apparently, that's what Napoleoni said in her testimony in court, where she also referred to her "police log" to confirm the chronology for events the night of November 5/6.

Barbie presents a detailed account........

____________________________________________
"As her officers were booking Raffaele, Napoleoni went out to the vending machine in the hallway, worried that Amanda might hear Raffaele protesting his arrest and decide to leave.

"Who on earth could have killed her?" Napoleoni asked Amanda, her arms crossed as she leaned against the vending machine.

Amanda said she didn't know---that she had wracked her brain and come up with nothing. The two went back to an interrogation room,...." (Angel Face, page 68)
_____________________________________________


Why do you question the truth of this account by Barbie?

///