Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Supernaut]

I wonder what one of those spots on the glove weighs. A million picograms, perhaps? One DNA molecule weighs in at 6 picograms, for comparison.

Quite - ONE LOOK at that still (or the actual video) should be enough to tell anyone that this so-called evidence is hopelessly compromised.

That the techs actually handling the thing (one of whom could well be the great Stefanoni herself) were were so utterly oblivious that they actually flimed it is almost comical.

 

[christianahannah]

Apologies. I am aware that you don't want to discount the possibility. You just don't think it's the most likely explanation.


This was one of the things to come out of my original attempt to calculate this 6+ months ago. Yes, the test used is very sensitive to red blood cells. In my recent post I was restricting myself to the statements made by LondonJohn (it was him, no?) in support of the claim that Stefanoni couldn't have seen any material in the scratch, mainly because I didn't want to go introducing any facts of my own to muddle things. I agree with you that his blood test sensitivity figure looks low to me. None the less, if the post I was responding to it representative of the current argument, I don't see that it has been shown that Stefanoni can't have seen the material in the scratch.

I don't believe Stefanoni claimed to have seen material in the scratches. Her statement from the motivations, page 221:

The knife, Exhibit 36, appeared very clean, with nothing visible to the naked eye. She had decided to collect material from within the striations, because they were the only data for orienting a sampling of a blade that, to the eye, showed no biological trace which, however, where it was present, "would have been inside these scratches" (page 81). The other samples taken from the blade of the knife were collected in a random manner, so to speak, since there was nothing to assist in deciding to take a sample from one spot rather than from another.

I believe she is saying the reason to swab that particular area on the knife was because if any material had been left after cleaning it probably would have been lodged in the scratches.

 

[RoseMontague]

Do you have any actual evidence that it happened in this case.

We have already had numerous iterations of various other cases of MoJ [evidence by anecdote]. Another spin of the Cartwheel of Analogy wont achieve what the first 37* failed to do.

On the general issue both convicts have lied, changed their stories, remained silent, been 'confused' when the situation demanded etc etc.

We have AK's own testimony as her last words on this alibi - do we have anything from RS since his lawyers went to court [pretrial] to 'move' that the 'evidence' against AK shouldn't also be held against him.
Doesn't sound like a strong alibi claim - and no, the fatuous arguments that this meant he couldn't know where she was when he was asleep don't carry any weight.

Did he for example ever make a spontaneous statement in court that AK was with him all night - or from 9.10 till 1.00 (bedtime) if you prefer.

I don't think so.

He obviously never took the stand or AFAIK answered Q's after Nov 8 on this (or any) issue.

PS Now that's a LCN - it could actually be much higher, I was being very conservative

Yes,
The 8 November statement in court regarding his alibi was his final court statement regarding this and really his only one made in court, trial or pretrial regarding the alibi. He made a spontaneous statement in court at the end of the trail that he was innocent but did not address this particular issue.

The technical argument made to the supreme court is a legal argument made on strictly legal grounds and does not constitute a denial of his statement to Matteini, in my opinion. I believe several posters have commented on this before.

 

[shuttlt]

But the expert added that it would not be allowable unless the result could be reproduced, something police biologist Stefanoni said under cross-examination could not be done.

This is not what the UK forensic science people say. For some reason they are never quoted by seattlepi.com

 

[bucketoftea]

bucketoftea,

That glove should embarrass ILE. However, there is also a photographic still from a video of a dirty glove picking up the clasp, and that is even more decisive.

The quote below is taken from Mark Waterbury's second article on LCN. It originates from here.

“The FSS LCN test requires an ultra-clean laboratory and so is more expensive and less widely offered than the standard test.... The site of this bespoke laboratory is remote from other DNA Units, operates stringent entry requirements, is fitted with positive air pressure and specialist lighting and chemical treatments to minimize DNA contamination.”

The specialist lighting is probably UV light, which destroys DNA by forming what are called thymidine (or thymine) dimers, and the chemical treatment may be bleach.

I'm not getting your connection between the apparently soiled, discarded gloves, and the precautions taken in LCN labs. Are those gloves on a bench in an LCN lab?

 

[christianahannah]

Maybe god gives Italy a special exemption to be contamination free so they can be pure. In Stefanoni's lab for instance, they didn't take any of the precautions that every other lab in the world takes to mitigate the contamination when processing LCN DNA. Yet unlike every one of those other labs, Stefanoni's lab has never had a case of contamination (according to Stefanoni's own words).

Do you have a list of the precautions that the Rome lab did not take? It appears the lab was applying for certification to do LCN DNA testing during the case. A list of what procedures a lab should do during LCN DNA testing and what Stefanoni did not do would be helpful. I have tried to search for ISO 9001 and 17025 but they are publications which need to be purchased (from what I have searched so far).

 

[Chris_Halkides]

halides 1: "Some commenters falsely talk about Raffaele or Amanda saying that they smoked so much that they had amnesia."

Isn't this encouraged by their own words? I fail to see how you can accuse commentators of "falsely" talking, when both suspects interweave their statements with talk about smoking too much and not being entirely sure if what they are saying is the truth.

"I agree that Raffaele has damaged his credibility as a witness, though I do not go as far as you do."

How far do you go. Perhaps you feel that he is only stating the truth, when it backs up Knox's alibi.

Throughout this case, Solecito remains a shadowy figure. For me, he poses a great problem for Knox's defence.

colonelhall,

Neither Amanda nor Raffaele have ever used the word amnesia, nor do they claim to have used cannabis heavily (to the best of my understanding). Many of Amanda's comments about not being sure of the truth were made on or around 6 November when she was trying to get back to equilibrium. With reference to whether Amanda went out on 1 November, I think it is important to specify how long one is talking about. She may well have left for a few minutes to go her flat and/or to work, and received the message from Patrick at this time (RoseMontague thinks that she received the message while still at Raffaele's, I believe). I interpret Raffaele's statements in front of Judge Matteini as referring to a possible short departure, not a four hour departure. As several of us have previously discussed, his lawyers' argument in front of the Supreme Court does not mean that his defense team is saying that they were apart. It is an argument that evidence placing Amanda at the flat does not automatically place Raffaele there.

My understanding is that attorneys generally do not like to put their clients on the stand. Raffaele would have to account for whatever he said on the night of the 5th-6th, whatever that was, as well as the story about the knife in his diary. I would like to know exactly how the interrogation proceeded before making a final comment on his credibility, but my previous comment was more about his suitability as a witness than it was about his actual veracity, so let me expand on the former question. Perhaps this is a case where the lawyers' playbook needs to get tossed out the window, however. It is conceivable that he could explain the discrepancies in a way that a jury would find plausible, but that depends on body language and other factors that are hard to assess from afar.

 

[RoseMontague]

Do you have a list of the precautions that the Rome lab did not take? It appears the lab was applying for certification to do LCN DNA testing during the case. A list of what procedures a lab should do during LCN DNA testing and what Stefanoni did not do would be helpful. I have tried to search for ISO 9001 and 17025 but they are publications which need to be purchased (from what I have searched so far).

Mark Waterbury has a long list of these and the appeals detail them as well. The FBI.gov site had a list of DNA testing standards up at one time.

 

[Supernaut]

I think the stain does overlap one of the shoe prints, but the pillowcase has been extensively photographed and studied, and they don't have to destroy it to extract a small sample.

To balk at DNA testing of a substance that could be semen, in the context of a sex crime, is ludicrous and wholly irresponsible. It shows that the trial court had no interest in the truth and was in fact afraid of the truth. Hellman doesn't seem to want to test it either, and that makes me deeply suspicious of his intentions.

Charlie, I heard that the stain didn't arouse much curiosity until a crimescope image became available which revealed its extent in much more detail than before, and it was also noticed by someone that the stain's luminescence is typical of semen - or vaseline - but not many other substances. Is this true?

Do you have a copy of the crimescope image hosted anywhere?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

my two comments were not directly related

I'm not getting your connection between the apparently soiled, discarded gloves, and the precautions taken in LCN labs. Are those gloves on a bench in an LCN lab?

bucketoftea,

I was dealing with two unrelated issues in my comment (sorry for the confusion). I think that even regular DNA profiling should use gloves that are less soiled than what we saw in the photo. One set of guidelines I read suggested changing them between every evidence sample, which Dr. Stefanoni did not do, as I commented in a message yesterday. Another set of guidelines said change gloves frequently, which does not seem to have been done in the case of the wearer of the gloves in that photo.

Every precaution that I can think of with respect to low template DNA work indicates that the chances of contamination are greater than they are with standard profiling.

 

[christianahannah]

Mark Waterbury has a long list of these and the appeals detail them as well. The FBI.gov site had a list of DNA testing standards up at one time.

Do they have the actual publications?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Do you have any actual evidence that it happened in this case.

I don't see what evidence is needed. Nobody claims that Amanda made a truthful statement that night.

 

[shuttlt]

It's a good point. The problem comes with lying to police. You get caught in a lie and then you have to justify the lie with another and so on. Raffaele did the correct thing to admit his was a load of rubbish and also to remain silent after that, in my opinion. It was already "proven" that either his 5 November statement was wrong or the statements before and the one after are wrong.
I believe Amanda tried to explain her false accusation overly much. Again, same issues once the statement contradicting her earlier statements were made. Neither could change the fact that they were now shown to have given false information. Those judging the veracity of their statements now have a choice of believing either or, the cat is already out of the bag and the moving finger has already writ. The hard part now becomes of why they made false statements and which ones are the false ones.

For once I absolutely agree with you.

 

[Kestrel]

Do you have a list of the precautions that the Rome lab did not take? It appears the lab was applying for certification to do LCN DNA testing during the case. A list of what procedures a lab should do during LCN DNA testing and what Stefanoni did not do would be helpful. I have tried to search for ISO 9001 and 17025 but they are publications which need to be purchased (from what I have searched so far).

ISO 9001^WP is a very general quality management standard. ISO/IEC 17025^WP is a more specific standard for testing and calibration labs. Both are a step in the right direction, but far from proof that the lab is accredited to do forensic DNA testing, much less LCN DNA testing.

 

[Dan O.]

This was one of the things to come out of my original attempt to calculate this 6+ months ago. Yes, the test used is very sensitive to red blood cells. In my recent post I was restricting myself to the statements made by LondonJohn (it was him, no?) in support of the claim that Stefanoni couldn't have seen any material in the scratch, mainly because I didn't want to go introducing any facts of my own to muddle things. I agree with you that his blood test sensitivity figure looks low to me. None the less, if the post I was responding to it representative of the current argument, I don't see that it has been shown that Stefanoni can't have seen the material in the scratch.

Stefanoni says herself that the scratch could only be seen under strong light at the proper angle. In this condition, she is not seeing the scratch in terms of resolving details but catching a glint of light reflecting off the wall of the scratch in contrast to the darker reflection off the mirrored surface of the blade. This is much like being able to see the reflecting sunlight off a spider web in the distance when the sun is at the right angle. What material do you propose could be in that scratch that would reflect enough light to be visible on it's own against the background?

 

[Jungle Jim]

Of course this is really not important in the bigger picture, but this video might show what happened:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/8211531/Amanda-Knox-back-in-court.html

It looks like Knox was paused momentarily by the guard - and it's inconclusive to me whether this was in order to make the right turn, or to provide the photographers with a picture. Certainly a rash of flash bulbs goes off the moment Knox comes to a halt, which kind of suggests the latter. But anyhow.......

Actually, the guard holding Amanda pauses to let another policeman pass them. She then immediately directs Amanda towards the defense table.

 

[christianahannah]

ISO 9001^WP is a very general quality management standard. ISO/IEC 17025^WP is a more specific standard for testing and calibration labs. Both are a step in the right direction, but far from proof that the lab is accredited to do forensic DNA testing, much less LCN DNA testing.

What proof/certification is needed for a lab to be accredited to do forensic LCN DNA testing?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

you are forgetting about drop-in and drop-out

This is not what the UK forensic science people say. For some reason they are never quoted by seattlepi.com

shuttlt,

As I understand it, you are disputing the necessity of carrying out the test at least twice. From the Crown Prosecution Service site that I previously mentioned:

"The standard test produces reproducible and repeatable results when the quantity of DNA is not a limiting factor. This is like casting a net into a well-stocked lake with a variety of fish; the catch will represent the different types of fish.

The LCN test is more like casting a net into a lake with few fish; the catch may not represent all the types of fish and a second attempt may contain different types. The individual catches may not fully represent all the types but repeat analysis may assist.

In LCN testing, each sample is divided into three parts or aliquots, and two of these are tested. The third is retained for further testing in the event of a failure or to confirm the presence of a mixture.

Only those DNA components that are seen twice are included in any calculation, to show that the result is reproducible.

If the result is not reproducible or is a complex mixture then it is disclosed but no calculation is carried out."

A 2010 article in Nature that has been cited here many times also discusses this issue.

 

[platonov]

Cartwheels in Wonderland

Yes,
The 8 November statement in court regarding his alibi was his final court statement regarding this and really his only one made in court, trial or pretrial regarding the alibi. He made a spontaneous statement in court at the end of the trail that he was innocent but did not address this particular issue.

The technical argument made to the supreme court is a legal argument made on strictly legal grounds and does not constitute a denial of his statement to Matteini, in my opinion. I believe several posters have commented on this before.

Does Yes now mean No

The 8 November statement wasn't made in court - it was an appearance before Matteini.
By court I meant his/their Murder Trial - you remember the one, they were found guilty and its now at the appeal stage.
Did my mention of the Cheshire Cat bring the methods of Humpty Dumpty to mind ?

Indeed hence my reference to fatuous arguments.

 

[shuttlt]

Our cells have about 6 picograms of DNA/cell. A picogram is one trillionth (10 to the -12) of a gram. Conceivably, that is all it takes to amplify, grow, copy and reproduce in order to get some type of DNA result.

Like all amplified signals, the problem eventually becomes one of noise (contaminants introduced in several ways).

True, but we aren't claiming that the DNA on the knife, or the bra clasp are the results of amplifying noise, are we?