Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[bobc]

I'm not talking about any "court videos", but about the still picture shown in the Telegraph report in which Amanda is clearly seen being held in a position to allow a photograph to be taken.

Watch the videos.. she is obviously not being held for the photographers.

Is she supposed to be blind or something? Why does she need to be "gently guided" to her seat? She can walk into court unaided, and all that anyone needs to do is say "sit here, please" - without the visible manhandling that is shown on the photograph we're discussing.

I guess in Italy they just don't let convicted murderers wander around.

I didn't say it was "police assault". I said "in other circumstances, this would be considered physical assault". Are you arguing this is not the case?

Hair splitting. "physical assault (by a policewoman)". It is obvious what I am arguing, I am not going to repeat it.

Actually, I would rather censure the Italian police for not restraining convicted murderers more securely.

It is these sort of lame objections that really make it hard for me to take the innocent side seriously.

 

[Kestrel]

Right... so anyone accused of any crime by the authorities is probably innocent... because authorities is BAD. That isn't skepticism, that is the peculiar brand of anti-authoritarian paranoia typical of the US.

Actually, it's when the authorities give us reason to be skeptical. Proposing a wild conspiracy theory for a crime, claiming the ability to detect guilt using methods that science has proven invalid, extracting incriminating statements using techniques known to cause false confessions are a few examples that apply to this case.

To be honest, I had hoped for a decent level of skeptical inquiry on this topic at JREF, but have been disappointed. Basically it's just the players from the pro and anti groups in a continual game of naysaying, held apart by some frazzled moderators.

You must have missed all the detailed discussions of evidence and science in this thread.

 

[Kestrel]

IRaf and Amanda were cozened into perjuring themselves by "police lies"? Please.

Welcome to JREF.

Since you are new here, you probably missed the extended discussion on the science of false confessions.
This short lecture by Dr. Saul Kassin is a good introduction to the subject.




For a detailed look at a case where false confessions led to false convictions, I suggest watching the Frontline documentary The Confessions.

 

[katy_did]

From an emotional standpoint, this one speaks volumes (at least to me.)

Yes, I agree with you.

 

[Fine]

Originally Posted by bucketoftea View Post
I don't think it looks that bad. You really think the cops were holding her for a photo against her will? Is that what you're saying? Pulease.

Perhaps an informal poll? I could be completely mistaken.

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_383964d1146d9a1657.jpg[/qimg]

___________________________

Well, she ain't wearing handcuffs. I've seen photographs of Rudy being escorted into his APPEAL trial wearing handcuffs. Are the lovebirds being accorded preferential treatment???

///

 

[katy_did]

The tide is turning in the media and among the public, but it is going to take a hell of a lot of pressure to get these innocent people out of prison. Hellman is not interested in getting at the truth. He is interested in protecting the reputation of the Italian judiciary. But his calculation of how best to do that may depend on the volume and tone of the message he gets from the media.

I think this is a bit cynical. I'm sure there are members of the Italian judiciary who are interested in looking objectively at whether the evidence in this case (and in any other case) proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and I see no reason at this point not to think that Hellmann may be among them. Perhaps he isn't, but I don't see how it's possible to say that at this stage.

 

[LondonJohn]

I think this is a bit cynical. I'm sure there are members of the Italian judiciary who are interested in looking objectively at whether the evidence in this case (and in any other case) proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and I see no reason at this point not to think that Hellmann may be among them. Perhaps he isn't, but I don't see how it's possible to say that at this stage.

I'd agree totally with you. I think we have to consider Hellmann (two "n"s as you write, but it's amazing how often people have been spelling his name incorrectly) and his judicial panel as a fair and disinterested group of judges - until and unless they demonstrate behavour to the contrary.

I can't help thinking that Hellmann's rulings so far have been fair, proportionate, and entirely reasonable. He's apparently reserved judgement on a whole host of other defence requests, so even in this area he appears to be prepared to offer great latitude to the defence.

Now, how about an extended discussion on parenting techniques? Anyone?

 

[RoseMontague]

Originally Posted by bucketoftea View Post
I don't think it looks that bad. You really think the cops were holding her for a photo against her will? Is that what you're saying? Pulease.



[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_383964d1146d9a1657.jpg[/qimg]
___________________________

Well, she ain't wearing handcuffs. I've seen photographs of Rudy being escorted into his APPEAL trial wearing handcuffs. Are the lovebirds being accorded preferential treatment???

///

Perhaps we can lend them the Hannibal chair for taking Amanda to court. I believe that LJ's video shows she may have been briefly posed but not like a perp walk that has been suggested. I agree with another poster that said the picture was upsetting. My point on the choice of this picture as an editorial decision was a valid one and Frank uses a similar picture to make a quite different statement, imo.

Still, I agree that I was mistaken and I appreciate the participation in the informal poll.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I'm still waiting for the "killer defense" that the FOA were promising ever since the prosecution stood up. It's like the global warming skeptics, they keep rehashing the same points, but fail to find any real holes in the science.

How can that be the case when neither you nor anyone else has anything remotely resembling a coherent theory of the crime that fits with the facts as we now know them?

At this stage there is no coherent entity you can point to as the prosecution case. There are just a handful of individual findings or statements that can be made to look bad for Amanda or Raffaele if you squint, but which form no coherent whole.

Those individual fragments are themselves the tiny rump of a supposed "mass of evidence" against them which we have by now systematically hosed away until almost nothing is left. The claimed evidence for a clean-up has been totally discredited, the claimed evidence for a staged break-in has been totally discredited, the claimed motive (a drug party gone wrong) has been totally discredited, the prosecution witnesses supposedly placing Amanda and Raffaele outside the house and the murder at 23:30 have been totally discredited, so what's left?

There's a joke about a boy given a roomful of horse manure for Christmas who joyously exclaims "With all this manure there's got to be a horse in here somewhere!". The pro-guilt faction at this stage looks to me like the same boy after his room has been almost completely cleaned, pointing to the last few clumps of manure left in the corners and saying "Maybe we haven't found the horse yet, but as long as there's any manure left at all I'm not giving up my belief that there's a horse in my room!".

We're down to a couple of confused statements made under duress, and DNA results from an uncertified lab that claims to have never once had a contamination incident despite not having anything like proper controls in place, and which refuses to show its work to the defence. That's not a case that should secure a conviction in any decent court.

 

[LondonJohn]

Funny, isn't it, how the truth seems now to have dawned on some people that the knife is very likely to be thrown out. And in response, the new mantra (that word seems to be gaining traction....) is that the knife is of low importance to the case against Knox. I don't recall this being the position amongst the "pro-guilt" group some months ago, but hey - what does that matter anyway?!

 

[LondonJohn]

How can that be the case when neither you nor anyone else has anything remotely resembling a coherent theory of the crime that fits with the facts as we now know them?

At this stage there is no coherent entity you can point to as the prosecution case. There are just a handful of individual findings or statements that can be made to look bad for Amanda or Raffaele if you squint, but which form no coherent whole.

Those individual fragments are themselves the tiny rump of a supposed "mass of evidence" against them which we have by now systematically hosed away until almost nothing is left. The claimed evidence for a clean-up has been totally discredited, the claimed evidence for a staged break-in has been totally discredited, the claimed motive (a drug party gone wrong) has been totally discredited, the prosecution witnesses supposedly placing Amanda and Raffaele outside the house and the murder at 23:30 have been totally discredited, so what's left?

There's a joke about a boy given a roomful of horse manure for Christmas who joyously exclaims "With all this manure there's got to be a horse in here somewhere!". The pro-guilt faction at this stage looks to me like the same boy after his room has been almost completely cleaned, pointing to the last few clumps of manure left in the corners and saying "Maybe we haven't found the horse yet, but as long as there's any manure left at all I'm not giving up my belief that there's a horse in my room!".

We're down to a couple of confused statements made under duress, and DNA results from an uncertified lab that claims to have never once had a contamination incident despite not having anything like proper controls in place, and which refuses to show its work to the defence. That's not a case that should secure a conviction in any decent court.

Yeah: bobc seems not to understand that the main job of the defence in a criminal trial is not to actively provide a "killer defence" - the main job is to convince the jury that the prosecution has failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Sometimes this will manifest itself through producing an alternative, provable scenario which proves the non-guilt of the defendants. But most often, the defence in a criminal trial will concern itself almost exclusively by demonstrating doubt in the prosecution's case. After all, if the defendants had a provable case for non-guilt, then it's extremely unlikely that the case would have reached a courtroom in the first place.

The only job of the defence teams of Knox and Sollecito is to get them acquitted of the crimes with which they are charged. It's absolutely not the job of the defence to prove their innocence. That might be a "nice-to-have" by-product of an acquittal, and of course Knox/Sollecito and their families might want to show innocence for the purposes of rehabilitation into society. But it's not a precursor for their freedom.

Lastly, here's a little analogy. If I were to share a house with three acquaintances, suppose that I found £100 missing from my wallet that had been left in a communal kitchen. I might suspect that one of the housemates with whom I didn't get on had taken it. I might accuse him directly of taking it. He might deny doing so. The burden of proof would then be entirely placed upon me to prove that it was he who had taken the money - he should not be required to prove to me that he didn't take it.

And that's how a developed system of justice works too. It's a shame that more people don't understand this.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

The tide is turning in the media and among the public, but it is going to take a hell of a lot of pressure to get these innocent people out of prison. Hellman is not interested in getting at the truth. He is interested in protecting the reputation of the Italian judiciary. But his calculation of how best to do that may depend on the volume and tone of the message he gets from the media.

What specific decisions or statements from Hellmann do you take issue with?

So far nothing he has said or done has been other than proper as far as I am aware of. I do not claim to be an expert but so far as I do know I have no complaints about his conduct.

We aren't a football crowd or revivalist congregation that needs to be pumped up with emotional appeals or baseless claims of persecution. Leave that sort of irrational behaviour to the hard-core guilters.

 

[platonov]

I think this is a bit cynical. <snip>

I'd agree totally with you.
<snip>

What specific decisions or statements from Hellmann do you take issue with?

So far nothing he has said or done has been other than proper as far as I am aware of. I do not claim to be an expert but so far as I do know I have no complaints about his conduct.

We aren't a football crowd or revivalist congregation that needs to be pumped up with emotional appeals or baseless claims of persecution. Leave that sort of irrational behaviour to the hard-core guilters.

Aren't you are all being a bit hard on CW ?
He may* have worked out how the appeal is likely to go and is getting his retaliation in early.
*Or he is sticking to his earlier 'its all a hoax' position ?

Really ? So what all the earlier outrage** over how a convicted murderer was led into court all about.
Your surely not suggesting that another posters 'aide de frottage' description was on the money

** All the more surprising that a poster (halides1) who described 'waterboarding' as 'touchless coercion' was outraged by this treatment.

 

[Onofarar]

What did you have in mind?

filomena was honest about her whereabouts, visibly distraught about her flatmate's murder and trying to be her most helpful and cooperative with the police.

On the other hand, amanda turned cartwheels and bought a pair thong panties (telling her paramour "we're going to have wild sex later" in the store), before the "kids" opted to have a pizza dinner instead of going to Meredith's memorial.

No, I don't think Filomena would have come near amanda's level of insensitive, boorish actions then.

I see you have read Barbie Nadeau screed (or are an avid Brit Tabloid reader). You might want to check her alleged facts with the many citations here that show her (and the tabs) to be wrong (maybe she should fire her fact checker).

To save you the trouble of finding those cites a short list follows:
1. Cartwheels - actually she was doing yoga which she often did to relieve stress
2. Thong underwear - she could not get into the cottage what was she supposed to do wash out the same pair day after day? BTW - thong underwear are the preferred choice for day-to-day undies for most women her age in the USA. In my day it was bikina panties.
3. The store person who allegedly overheard this "wild sex" quote spoke no English - AK & RS spoke in English because of AK's limited Italian.
4. The "pizza party" was on the 3rd the memorial was on the Monday the Fifth.
5. The evening of the 5th they were at the Questura for their all night interrogation.
6. In my opinion AK was just as cooperative as Filomena.

This is just some of what another guilter referred to as the "mound of evidence" that LJ correctly notes has a particular odor wafting from it.

 

[babycondor]

Well, she ain't wearing handcuffs. I've seen photographs of Rudy being escorted into his APPEAL trial wearing handcuffs. Are the lovebirds being accorded preferential treatment???

Interesting speculation. Why might the police accord them preferential treatment, do you think?

 

[Justinian2]

What would the guilters say?
If Amanda and Raffaele were found innocent?
If the DNA evidence was declared unsound?

I was just wondering.
Would the guilters say they were wrong or would they still say Amanda and Raffaele were guilty?

 

[Justinian2]

How can that be the case when neither you nor anyone else has anything remotely resembling a coherent theory of the crime that fits with the facts as we now know them?

At this stage there is no coherent entity you can point to as the prosecution case. There are just a handful of individual findings or statements that can be made to look bad for Amanda or Raffaele if you squint, but which form no coherent whole.

Those individual fragments are themselves the tiny rump of a supposed "mass of evidence" against them which we have by now systematically hosed away until almost nothing is left. The claimed evidence for a clean-up has been totally discredited, the claimed evidence for a staged break-in has been totally discredited, the claimed motive (a drug party gone wrong) has been totally discredited, the prosecution witnesses supposedly placing Amanda and Raffaele outside the house and the murder at 23:30 have been totally discredited, so what's left?

There's a joke about a boy given a roomful of horse manure for Christmas who joyously exclaims "With all this manure there's got to be a horse in here somewhere!". The pro-guilt faction at this stage looks to me like the same boy after his room has been almost completely cleaned, pointing to the last few clumps of manure left in the corners and saying "Maybe we haven't found the horse yet, but as long as there's any manure left at all I'm not giving up my belief that there's a horse in my room!".

We're down to a couple of confused statements made under duress, and DNA results from an uncertified lab that claims to have never once had a contamination incident despite not having anything like proper controls in place, and which refuses to show its work to the defence. That's not a case that should secure a conviction in any decent court.

This is a rhetorical question - at least for those of us in the choir.
Otherwise, it's time for another example of chaos theory.

 

[RWVBWL]

Hi Onafarar,
I believe #5 on your list is only partially correct.
From what I recall, on the night of the 5th, Raffaele and Amanda, trying to have a normal evening, had dinner at a friend of Raffaele's. They smoked out and then the police called Raffaele to let him know that he needed to come in for further questioning. He asked for time to finish dinner, which I gather did not sit well with the cops.
From what it appears like, Amanda was not specifically called in for further questioning, although Giobbi(?) says he was mathmatically sure he gave that order.

If you were Amanda, and your housemate was stabbed to her death by persons unknown, would you have stayed with the newly met friend(s) of your new boyfriend, or would you too have gone to the police station, even if were not specifically asked to?

I believe that Amanda Knox went to the safest place she knew of, in the company of the 1 person she trusted the most while in Italy.

And that person, Raffaele Sollecito,
stoned and interrogated by cops bent on getting a confession before Amanda's Mom arrived the next day,
seemingly agreed with these cops that he could not be sure if Amanda had spent the whole night with him when he was asleep...

That is an interesting way to trip up a person being questioned, especially one stoned.
What would your response be? What if you are alone?
Tonight I will sleep alone, no witness, nothing.
How can I have an ironclad alibi that I was asleep when I said that I was?
How can you or anyone ever really prove that they were asleep too? Or that their spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend was with them, all night?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

the principle of discovery was abandoned

That is tautology, by definition reasonable doubt relies on reasonable interpretation of the evidence. But you haven't actually set a standard for what is reasonable. The question is what is reasonable? This is a subjective question, which is why the legal process tries to present the evidence to a sample of the population who are believed to represent "the reasonable man or woman".

You imply that if anyone can raise an objection, then there must be doubt. I have seen a lot of objections raised, but I haven't seen many that are what I consider reasonable. Of those, none really cast doubt on the correctness of the verdict IMO.

Picking over details that were never admissible evidence is entertaining but never likely to lead anywhere. The best that can be second-hand is to review the due process of the legal system, and under the Italian system Knox and Sollecito get considerably more favorable treatment than they would in the US.

I'm still waiting for the "killer defense" that the FOA were promising ever since the prosecution stood up. It's like the global warming skeptics, they keep rehashing the same points, but fail to find any real holes in the science.

You can ask the same question for most of the threads at JREF! Evolution is proved beyond reasonable doubt, yet there are interminable posts on that subject.

bobc,

Do you believe that the electronic data files are essential for a vigorous and thorough contesting of the DNA evidence? Do you believe that the prosecution has withheld these from the defense? I believe both, and I have given evidence throughout these two threads to support these two. They lead to an inescapable conclusion that the trial was not fair. What do you think?

added upon editing
According to Andrea Vogt, Comodi asked for common sense from the jury, which to her meant taking the luminol-positive footprints as being made in blood. "and Knox and Sollecito’s footprints made in blood on the floor,” Comodi said. There were no reference footprints from the other two flatmates, and some have criticized the way luminol was allegedly overapplied. There was none of Meredith's DNA present in the footprints, nor were they TMB-positive. It is difficult to see how these isolated footprints were even made, let alone the question of whether or not blood was present. If you want to defend the pseudoscience that went into claiming that these were Raffaele's and Amanda's and that they were made in blood, please do so.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

things said and not said

Aren't you are all being a bit hard on CW ?
He may* have worked out how the appeal is likely to go and is getting his retaliation in early.
*Or he is sticking to his earlier 'its all a hoax' position ?

Really ? So what all the earlier outrage** over how a convicted murderer was led into court all about.
Your surely not suggesting that another posters 'aide de frottage' description was on the money

** All the more surprising that a poster (halides1) who described 'waterboarding' as 'touchless coercion' was outraged by this treatment.

platonov,

I did not say that waterboarding was touchless coercion, and in fact I would use different terminology to discuss it.

I did say that if the two independent experts ask for the electronic data files, I will only then believe that they are serious, but I should have inserted the words "probably." I do not know that they are serious yet.