Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[babycondor]

The glova don't fitta.

Nominated.

 

[nopoirot]

I'm going to have to throw the yellow flag for apples and oranges violations. The fact that one is unpersuaded that Amanda engaged in the sadistic orgy dreamed up by the prosecution does not equate to a belief that she is "innocent." Innocent of what? There is more than enough here to support a reasonable belief that she has given, and continues to give, false testimony. What is she hiding? I don't pretend to know. I do know, however, that my sleep will remain untroubled as long as she persists in this self-destructive path. It's her shot to call.

 

[LondonJohn]

Here's a piece written today by that fantastically well-balanced and neutral commentator on the case, Peter Quennell. I wonder if anyone can spot the errors, unsubstantiated assertions or totally irrelevant comparators in his piece? Just to help, I've highlighted each of them:

1) On the money:

Amanda’s account certainly had some money in it, but she would have felt herself in an incredible fix without a legal Italian work permit if Patrick had indeed implied he was about to lay her off.

After payments for rent, drugs and food she could have been flat broke by the end of 2007 and no easy way to explain to her father why she would be needing a lot more. (“You would not believe the price of drugs here daddy”).

Sollecito was already broke in the short term - his account which he accessed by ATMs was periodically topped up by his father but it was then low on cash or out of cash. If his spending suddenly began to spike his father would have been in Perugia in a flash.

2) On which drugs

We have heard that they were both referred to as cokeheads in the bars and cocaine is what Mignini thought it was in the summations.

Both cocaine and skunk cannabis (most cannabis in Europe is now skunk - chemically engineered in illegal labs for which there is not yet a common European standard that Italy adheres to)(joke) can have psychotic effects.

Both drugs have led to psychotic incidents and murders.

It is amazing that the conspiracy theorists simply shrug off the possible psychotic effects of drugs - think rampant paranoia, visceral rage, and suddenly a death.

BOTH MURDERS by American students in the recent period just a few miles away in Florence happened when they were on drugs - and neither murderer even knew their victim.
Counsellors in Italy of American students apparently have to wrestle to get those on prescription drugs like Ritalin to keep taking them. If they come off those drugs suddenly they too can be really bad news.
There has been some conjecture based on the oddities of her behavior that Amanda might have a condition like ADS and have periodically come off a drug like Ritalin but there seems no hard proof.
Quite contrary to all the wild claims that all the Italian authorities leaked all the time, in fact a lot about the two (including the psychological tests done on the two in Capanne) and their drug dealing and taking has never come out.

I think my highlighter pen has run out of ink......

 

[shuttlt]

shuttlt,

If you mean an unimpeachable alibi, then what you are asking for is proof of innocence. I find it odd under these circumstances that you seemed so unconcerned about the Stardust file yesterday.

I think that a more interesting question is what would move you and others from beyond a reasonable doubt to reasonable doubt or more than reasonable doubt.

I'm not retrying the case in my head. Right now I think it's perfectly possible that, had I been on the jury I would have convicted them too. I don't really know though and don't make any claims about what the jury should or should not have decided.

The original OPs claim was, too put it weakly, that there was enough evidence in the public domain to demonstrate reasonable doubt. This is the claim I'm interested in. I've never felt that one should expect guilt beyond reasonable doubt to be necessarily demonstrable on the internet and I'm not terribly interested in trying.

As for the Stardust file, what should I think about it? It doesn't seem to me that the current state of the file is able to demonstrate anything and what happened to it doesn't seem to me to demonstrate very much that isn't equally well demonstrated by other events in the case. What does it show, that evidence handling wasn't of the best?

 

[shuttlt]

Jury selection is a very important part of the politics of justice. I have wondered how it came to be that a randomly selected jury ended up with 5 middle aged women and one man. Do I not understand the concept of random?

I don't think you can look at the make up of one jury and say whether they are random or not. In any case, if jury selection does skew things, the pool the jury is drawn from is more random than the members of this thread. One of the main skewing factors will presumably be that members of the jury must presumably have agreed that they didn't have anything better to do for the rest of the year. I'd put more faith in the jury being representative of the population as a whole than posters on this thread, PMF, or PerugiaShock.

 

[shuttlt]

The superficial argument is that there is no difference.

However, they are in jail. The only possible motivation for the guilters to argue that the decision is correct is to protect their fragile egos.

The same way people on the Bigfoot threads are motivated by the desire to protect their egos? Perhaps many of us like a good, futile, endless debate? There's also this:
http://xkcd.com/386/
Personally I think that accounts for a good percentage of the posts on the JREF.

Conversely, the supporters of the Knoxes and Raffaele are trying to help with the argument for their release.

You believe arguments you make here may be picked up and used by the defence in the trial?

Furthermore, the supporters of the Knoxes and Raffaele are tired of innocent people being incarcerated and are trying to help improve the quality of the judicial systems worldwide.

By posting on the JREF? Are you doing anything else to improve justice worldwide?

One side is trying to conserve the present systems. The other side is trying to improve them.

Neither side of this discussion on this forum is making the slightest bit of difference to The System. It is possible that Charlie, or you are doing things outwith the thread, but seriously... nobody in the real world cares what you or I say here any more than the CIA or the FBI are concerned about what is said about the World Trade Centre on the conspiracy forum.

 

[Antony]

I believe it would serve Amanda's interests if someone representing her in Seattle forced Mudede to either provide details of his "sources" and the context in which Amanda allegedly said what he claims, or make a complete public retraction. By that, I mean legal action, straight up - he certainly isn't going to publically admit to lying otherwise. To be honest, I'm surprised this hasn't already been done.

Isn't there a great deal of falsehood put about against Amanda? I imagined that when the truth is finally made official, one of the priorities of her legal team (and Raffaele's) will be to challenge it in all its aspects.

 

[shuttlt]

Halides,

here is my original post suggesting a narrative:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6643002#post6643002

Again, I came up with it at a moments notice and I make no particular claims for it as the one true narrative. It's certainly non-unique. I'm stunned though that people claim to be utterly unable to think of a story in which they're guilty.

 

[Onofarar]

Then you have Filomena's mysteriously closing door. Amanda avers that it was closed when she returned to the cottage Friday morning. In his diary, Raffaele says that, when he and Amanda returned, he saw immediately the door was wide open and the window shattered. He seems to be very aware of the significance of what he is here saying. I see no reason to doubt that he is here repeating what he told the police. If Amanda had seen the broken window, one is at a loss to explain why she did not immediately try to rouse Meredith, discover her door was locked, and sound the alarm, if only by telephoning Raffaele, running into the street, whatever. Any cop worth his pay would have smelled blood at this point.

It has here been proposed that someone entered the locked cottage after Amanda left and closed the door. I don't know that the police would have found that theory persuasive.

Do we know if Amanda wore glasses or contact lenses? Most Americans are myopic - nearsighted and most young people here wear soft lenses. Some can be worn 7 x 24 others are supposed to be removed daily for cleaning and sometimes a soak to remove proteins built up on the lens.
So here is a theory if she needs corrective lenses - Given the activities AK and RS said occurred on Nov 1st evening and night AK left her lenses in and did not remove and clean them before going to bed. She cleaned them the next morning and walked to the cottage while her lenses soaked in a cleaning solution (and gave her eyes a rest - lenghty lens wear tires the eyes (at least it did mine -) thus she did not notice some things as well as she might due to blurry vision. After she returns to the apt she puts her lenses back in before returning to the cottage with RS.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Neither side of this discussion on this forum is making the slightest bit of difference to The System. It is possible that Charlie, or you are doing things outwith the thread, but seriously... nobody in the real world cares what you or I say here any more than the CIA or the FBI are concerned about what is said about the World Trade Centre on the conspiracy forum.

We are The System, my friend. We the people. Us.

Have you ever read "Horton Hears a Who" by Dr. Seuss? It's the best manual for direct action against wrongful conviction that has ever been written.

 

[Onofarar]

I'm fairly sure that for most non-folding handsets the on-off button is located on top of the unit and has been for some years now, I've just done a quick google on the top three Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola and all the keypad models that I checked have the button on the top. If I'm not mistaken I think even the modern screen phones do including the I-phone. Do they have different manufacturers and different phone designs in Italy? (that's a genuine question I'm not trying to be sarcastic)

As for the killer being in an agitated state of panic, fear etc., I agree entirely,
but in this state wouldn't the most urgent motivation be to get away from the crime scene as quickly as possible? Whether the mobile phones are switched on or off, I would argue, would be the last thing he would be thinking about.

Let's start with the premise that the phones were taken to be sold as part of the proceeds from the burglary. Any competent (may be a stretch to call Rudy such) burglar should know that cell phones are like homing devices and if on can pinpoint his movements from the crime scene. Thus turning them off would be a high priority. And since one roommate had returned unexpectedly, who know when another would return and raise the alarm. Therefore, when the phones could not be turned off quickly they became worthless or worse a real danger to Rudy's freedom and were tossed. He already had 300 - 350 Euros and credit cards anyway - the phones were just a bonus.

 

[Onofarar]

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.

Yup. And I agree with Rose. But you see what you want to see that is your perogative. WE just agree to disagree.

 

[Justinian2]

The same way people on the Bigfoot threads are motivated by the desire to protect their egos? Perhaps many of us like a good, futile, endless debate? There's also this:
http://xkcd.com/386/
Personally I think that accounts for a good percentage of the posts on the JREF.


You believe arguments you make here may be picked up and used by the defence in the trial?
By posting on the JREF? Are you doing anything else to improve justice worldwide?
Neither side of this discussion on this forum is making the slightest bit of difference to The System. It is possible that Charlie, or you are doing things outwith the thread, but seriously... nobody in the real world cares what you or I say here any more than the CIA or the FBI are concerned about what is said about the World Trade Centre on the conspiracy forum.

Perhaps many of us like a good, futile, endless debate?
Your reason for your reply is discussed in the The Hidden Brain.

You believe arguments you make here may be picked up and used by the defence in the trial.

This is the butterfly effect.

By posting on the JREF? Are you doing anything else to improve justice worldwide?
This is the butterfly effect.

Neither side of this discussion on this forum is making the slightest bit of difference to The System.

This is the subject of chaos theory.

From Wikipedia:

The butterfly effect is a metaphor that encapsulates the concept of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory; namely a small change at one place in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere. Although this may appear to be an esoteric and unusual behavior, it is exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position.

 

[LondonJohn]

I don't think we need to be wasting much time listening to "ace reporter" Charles Mudede (that's right, his surname name is spelled M-U-D-E-D-E). Here he is reporting accurately and with some "interesting" assertions (after a week in Perugia, he knew everyone living within 150m of Sollecito's apartment - that's one popular, gregarious guy!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6McNeAjsLo

And here, for posterity's sake, is one of his straight-up, factual pieces about the case:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/if-she-did-it/Content?oid=2929733

And there, in a stroke, is his credibility as a journalistic reporter on this case completely sunk without trace. Goodbye, Charles Mudede.

PS I wonder if "The Bard" managed to spell Mudede's name correctly when she contacted him........?

 

[Onofarar]

They use disposable gloves, too, you know.

Too bad they didn't change them very often!

 

[LondonJohn]

Too bad they didn't change them very often!

But Mignini said in a televised interview that these were the "gold standard" of forensics investigators - the very best that Italy had to offer, and by extension among the best in the world. So I can only assume that all the published guidelines for cleanliness in forensic evidence gathering and analysis are wrong: it turns out that the very best people in the field allow their gloves to become filthy, collect blood evidence in long continuous smearing motions, and jam dead girls' belongings unceremoniously into suitcases. Who knew?!

 

[Onofarar]

Halides1 - do you happen to know the make and model dna testing equipment HFCG was using in her contamination proof lab in Rome.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Onofarar]

It wasn't adequately equipped in 2007, as far as I know. And I believe that the procedures that should be adhered to for LCN-range analysis include additional sterilisation precautions for equipment and clothing, clean air handling (including positive-pressure ventilation in the testing area), and at least two (and preferably three) separate amplification/test/interpret runs (in order to properly corroborate the result). I don't believe that Stefanoni followed any of these additional procedures.

As a caveat, though, I'm not a DNA lab scientist - so someone like Chris would definitely be able to put more flesh on the bones of this answer.

IIRC the recommended number of replications is 34 to get an adequate amount of material to test not the standard 28 for regular DNA.

 

[lane99]

The arguments I've seen presented towards establishing the crime scene was somehow staged can, at best, be described as "flimsy".

Leaving that aside- and imagining for the moment that there was solid evidence suggesting the scene was staged, by someone- what evidence has been put forth that it was actually Knox and her boyfriend (as opposed to anyone else in the world) who did it?

Up to now I don't recall seeing anything other than one or two arbitrary contentions primarily based on circular logic and/or naked speculation.

But if anyone can aquaint me with something compelling, I'd be interested.

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

Here's a piece written today by that fantastically well-balanced and neutral commentator on the case, Peter Quennell. I wonder if anyone can spot the errors, unsubstantiated assertions or totally irrelevant comparators in his piece? Just to help, I've highlighted each of them:


I think my highlighter pen has run out of ink......

I think the drug-blaming is cowardly. There are many people out there who have not participated in any kind of drug taking. So for many, it connotes this mysterious, shady lifestyle and wild-eyed people committing crimes. Because many people have very little first-hand knowledge of drugs and their effects, it is easier to persuade them that this crime was committed by otherwise seemingly non-criminal people. "It was the drugs that turned them into psychopathic killers" is the theory. And who out there can counter that? Even stating that they 'did' drugs makes them somewhat evil, right?

There are very few drugs that would cause someone not otherwise capable to commit a crime, much less such a heinous crime as this. It is simply a non-issue whether they smoked 5 joints or snorted an 8-ball. The drugs did not play any factor in this murder. To suggest otherwise is to try to invoke an element of the seedy unknown for many readers who are unfamiliar with drugs. I guess the real evidence isn't enough for some so they add (oh my God!) drug use.