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Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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nopoirot said:
Perhaps the Black Hand Division of the PPD got to her lawyers.
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This is from her testimony:

[Ghirga, after his long discussion about interruptions above, actually takes advantage of a tiny pause here to slip in: "Excuse me, excuse me, the pubblico ministero wants to hear precise details about the suggestions about what to say and the cuffs, who gave them to you."]
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All right. What it was was a continuous crescendo of these discussions and arguments, because while I was discussing with them, in the end they started to little by little and then more and more these remarks about "We're not convinced by you, because you seem to be able to remember one thing but not remember another thing. We don't understand how you could take a shower without seeing..." And then, they kept on asking me "Are you sure of what you're saying? Are you sure? Are you sure? If you're not sure, we'll take you in front of a judge, and you'll go to prison, if you're not telling the truth." Then they told me this thing about how Raffaele was saying that I had gone out of the house. I said look, it's impossible. I don't know if he's really saying that or not, but look, I didn't go out of the house.
And they said "No, you're telling a lie. You'd better remember what you did for real, because otherwise you're going to prison for 30 years because you're a liar." I said no, I'm not a liar. And they said "Are you sure you're not protecting someone?" I said no, I'm not protecting anyone. And they said "We're sure you're protecting someone." Who, who, who, who did you meet when you went out of Raffaele's house?" I didn't go out. "Yes, you did go out.
Who were you with?" I don't know. I didn't do anything. "Why didn't you go to work?" Because my boss told me I didn't have to go to work. "Let's see your telephone to see if you have that message." Sure, take it. "All right, So one policeman took it, and started looking in it, while the others kept on yelling "We know you met someone, somehow, but why did you meet someone?"
But I kept saying no, no, I didn't go out, I'm not pro-pro-pro---
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http://boards.insessiontrials.com/showthread.php?356199-Amanda-Knox-Testimony
 
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Kestrel said:
When a family member's advice is needed about a serious situation there is no inappropriate hour.
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I agree. It is to be expected that twenty-year-olds would call their parents around the clock, especially if they are a long distance from home.
 
nopoirot said:
Odd, is it not, that Amanda, during her interminable examination at trial relative to her series of compromising declarations, nowhere claims the police falsely represented to her that they had a witness, photographic evidence, a bloody footprint or any other such evidence placing her at the scene. And Raf, in his plaints of "psychological torture" (stripping and cuffing), mentions nothing along these lines, not even that they told him they had enough to "nail" Amanda. "But what if they ..." just doesn't find support in the record.
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Darn that Amanda and her interminable examination at trial relative to her series of compromising declarations! Maybe Massei, Mignini, Comodi, Pacelli, Maresca, Bongiorno, Ghirga or Dalla Vedova should have objected to that.

It reminds me of when Amanda ran the interrogation and made the police go arrest Patrick.
 
nopoirot said:
Perhaps the Black Hand Division of the PPD got to her lawyers.
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As I am prejudiced against the police anyway, I'll not say that the Italian police will sue anything that remotely threatens their brotherhood.

I forgive the super police - the FBI - even though they had a hand in the Waco thing and an FBI agent - that was a parent on a hockey team I was familiar with - is now serving twenty years for Being a Mafia informant.

But I do not forgive the Perugian police. I am deeply prejudiced against all low level police and I always will be. Because I hate and distrust all low-level police, I always give them a covertly hostile smile and a friendly greeting.

However, for today, I will wish all the Scrooges a Merry Christmas.
 
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Justinian2 said:
As I am prejudiced against the police anyway, I'll not say that the Italian police will sue anything that remotely threatens their brotherhood.

I forgive the super police - the FBI - even though they had a hand in the Waco thing and an FBI agent - that was a parent on a hockey team I was familiar with - is now serving twenty years for Being a Mafia informant.

But I do not forgive the Perugian police. I am deeply prejudiced against all low level police and I always will be. Because I hate and distrust all low-level police, I always give them a covertly hostile smile and a friendly greeting.

However, for today, I will wish all the Scrooges a Merry Christmas.
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Do only evil people become police or do they become evil after they become police?
 
tsig said:
Do only evil people become police or do they become evil after they become police?
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When people of confused morality become police, the power the position gives them can turn a dust devil into a tornado.

Is a mildly evil person evil if he doesn't have the power or the will to harm greatly? I think not.

Put a mildly evil person into a position of great power and I think he can and will cause considerable harm.

Anyway, I called the police people of confused morality, not even 'mildly evil' - although many of them probably are.

It isn't just confusion about morality that makes the police dangerous.
 
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nopoirot said:
Odd, is it not, that Amanda, during her interminable examination at trial relative to her series of compromising declarations, nowhere claims the police falsely represented to her that they had a witness, photographic evidence, a bloody footprint or any other such evidence placing her at the scene. And Raf, in his plaints of "psychological torture" (stripping and cuffing), mentions nothing along these lines, not even that they told him they had enough to "nail" Amanda. "But what if they ..." just doesn't find support in the record.
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Don't forget the "calumnia" charges. Apparently if you complain about police procedures in Italy you risk being slapped with a lawsuit. Raffaele may have understood this better than Amanda did.
 
Seriously, we can't fault the defense team for failure to get into the record any other low stratagems the police may have employed. Amanda was asked every way the question can be asked what possessed her to make these declarations, and persist in them even after she was transfered to the prison. The lawyers were on her like pit bulls on a rag doll.

The theory of coerced confession would have more legs if Amanda had promptly repudiated it without cavil or qualification. It is most perplexing that she expressed herself in such a way as to avoid committing herself as to whether she could or could not state whether she saw Lumumba at the cottage that night. This does make a certain amount of sense, however, if she was reasonably sure, but not quite certain, that Lumumba was the man. Just thinking out loud here, I can think of several ways this might have come about, a couple of them not terribly unflattering to Amanda or Lumumba.
 
nopoirot said:
The theory of coerced confession would have more legs if Amanda had promptly repudiated it without cavil or qualification. It is most perplexing that she expressed herself in such a way as to avoid committing herself as to whether she could or could not state whether she saw Lumumba at the cottage that night. This does make a certain amount of sense, however, if she was reasonably sure, but not quite certain, that Lumumba was the man. Just thinking out loud here, I can think of several ways this might have come about, a couple of them not terribly unflattering to Amanda or Lumumba.
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A little more on false memories, or rather planted memories, and why Amanda may have found it difficult to immediately reconcile her vague memory of that night.

Scientists have planted false memories into people's minds in a study that demonstrates just how easy it is to for police to convince people they have witnessed something that did not actually happen.
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Everything you remember from last week may not be real, a panel of scientific experts cautioned yesterday.
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Loftus and other experts on false memories, who spoke at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, cited several concerns. Police interrogation practices, for instance, may intentionally or unwittingly plant false memories in suspects or witnesses, they said, and embellish the memories with life-like detail.
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Loftus described planting false memories in more than 20,000 research volunteers. They included recollections of accidents, leisure time activities, childhood trauma and other events that never occurred.
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Totally false memories of events that never occurred can be planted intentionally or unintentionally. The process involves, in part, making a person believe that an event could have happened, and suggesting that it could have happened to them even if they don't remember it.
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Loftus proposed establishing a National Memory Safety Board. A counterpart to the National Transportation Safety Board, it would investigate memory problems that led to injustices in the legal system.
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http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20030217woods0217p5.asp
 
nopoirot said:
Seriously, we can't fault the defense team for failure to get into the record any other low stratagems the police may have employed. Amanda was asked every way the question can be asked what possessed her to make these declarations, and persist in them even after she was transfered to the prison. The lawyers were on her like pit bulls on a rag doll.

The theory of coerced confession would have more legs if Amanda had promptly repudiated it without cavil or qualification. It is most perplexing that she expressed herself in such a way as to avoid committing herself as to whether she could or could not state whether she saw Lumumba at the cottage that night. This does make a certain amount of sense, however, if she was reasonably sure, but not quite certain, that Lumumba was the man. Just thinking out loud here, I can think of several ways this might have come about, a couple of them not terribly unflattering to Amanda or Lumumba.
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Amanda did not have a strong sense of the police as adversaries. She assumed they knew what they were talking about, and she believed that she really might have forgotten what had happened. What Amanda was "reasonably sure, but not quite certain" about was her own memory. That will happen when you are isolated with a group of authority figures who repeatedly insist you are wrong.

That Amanda did not promptly repudiate her confession/accusation without cavil or qualification is not evidence coercion did not take place, it is evidence it did. She actually tried repudiating all through the interrogation, but her protests led only to more interrogation. In other words, the interrogation had a coercive effect: agree with us and we stop, disagree with us and we continue.

"It is most perplexing that she expressed herself in such a way as to avoid committing herself as to whether she could or could not state whether she saw Lumumba at the cottage that night."

It is even more perplexing that the police acted so aggressively based on such noncommittal expression.
 
That the police managed to implant "false memories" in a healthy, outgoing, well-educated, independent young woman within a couple of hours or so is conjecture. That said young woman stated, during her trial, that she was "astonished" when she was told that her lover had "placed evidence" against her is fact. When invited to explain why she had been "astonished," she replied that she couldn't understand why he would say something "other than what really happened." (I imagine she was glaring at Raf as she spat this out.) I am unable to find, in the transcript, any intimation on her part that the police falsely represented to her what Raf was in fact, at the time, telling them, still less any suggestion that Raf had been tricked or coerced into saying something other than "what really happened." I have no difficulty in imagining that this situation would drive many "over the edge." And not to drive it right into the ground, but Raf seems to have cratered, albeit temporarily, very quickly indeed.
 
nopoirot said:
That the police managed to implant "false memories" in a healthy, outgoing, well-educated, independent young woman within a couple of hours or so is conjecture. That said young woman stated, during her trial, that she was "astonished" when she was told that her lover had "placed evidence" against her is fact. When invited to explain why she had been "astonished," she replied that she couldn't understand why he would say something "other than what really happened." (I imagine she was glaring at Raf as she spat this out.) I am unable to find, in the transcript, any intimation on her part that the police falsely represented to her what Raf was in fact, at the time, telling them, still less any suggestion that Raf had been tricked or coerced into saying something other than "what really happened." I have no difficulty in imagining that this situation would drive many "over the edge." And not to drive it right into the ground, but Raf seems to have cratered, albeit temporarily, very quickly indeed.
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Yes, he did. It also took him a lot longer to retract his statements than it took Amanda to retract hers. This would be in keeping with the fact that he grew up in a more authoritarian cultural than Amanda, as well as with his quieter, more passive personality.

There does not seem to have ever been any animosity between Amanda and Raffaele. Amanda's statement that she couldn't believe that Raffaele had placed evidence against her reflects that something extraordinary - something unbelievable - had happened. Either the police lied or Raffaele lied, and in her memoriale she does indeed ask why Raffaele lied. I am sure it all came to her later on, that he had been in the same type of situation with the police that she had been in.
 
Mary_H said:
Yes, he did. It also took him a lot longer to retract his statements than it took Amanda to retract hers. This would be in keeping with the fact that he grew up in a more authoritarian cultural than Amanda, as well as with his quieter, more passive personality.

There does not seem to have ever been any animosity between Amanda and Raffaele. Amanda's statement that she couldn't believe that Raffaele had placed evidence against her reflects that something extraordinary - something unbelievable - had happened. Either the police lied or Raffaele lied, and in her memoriale she does indeed ask why Raffaele lied. I am sure it all came to her later on, that he had been in the same type of situation with the police that she had been in.
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You really paint a very unflattering picture of Amanda as an empty headed college girl who cartwheeled into a police station and then had her head filled with what ever the police wanted to put in there.
 
Perhaps it bears mentioning that the trial did not begin until, what? summer of 09, at a time when Amanda's lawyers had had ample time to compare notes with Raf's lawyers.
 
tsig said:
You really paint a very unflattering picture of Amanda as an empty headed college girl who cartwheeled into a police station and then had her head filled with what ever the police wanted to put in there.
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Yep, that's me all over, tsig. :D
 
nopoirot said:
Perhaps it bears mentioning that the trial did not begin until, what? summer of 09, at a time when Amanda's lawyers had had ample time to compare notes with Raf's lawyers.
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I'm sorry, I am unclear on what your point is. Could you explain it to me again? Thank you.
 
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