Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[shuttlt]

That's a supposition; a theory. Guilters have done pretty well at digging up garbage and rumor, so I have to assume that absense of evidence is evidence!

Most of this thread, as far as I recall is made up of arguing over and over the actual evidence of the case rather than rumours like her high school prank, or Mignini's obsession with Satanism.

You've continued the trend of requiring us to provide evidence of innocence. Just because this case, and perhaps the entirety of the Italian justice system, requires absolute evidence of innocence, doesn't mean that concept is the gold standard for the world.

Nonsense. On this forum people make claims and then have to back them up. It doesn't matter if you are on the side of the prosecution, or the defence. If you claim that Amanda and Raffaele are innocent, you must offer proof. if you claim that Mignini is in the thrall of Satanic visions, prove it. For myself I claim that this case is open to many interpretations.

The guilters get a well done on the MASSEI translation. Why don't you quote from it? I've seen the Amanda & Raffaele supporters make more quotes from MASSEI than do the guilters.

What would you like me to quote from it? I am far more interested in the claims of people here on the thread and how they support them.

Would you like to talk about statistics on murderers childhoods?

 

[Justinian2]

deleted

 

[shuttlt]

Whatever dude. Then again, the past speaks for itself and Mignini has used the word rite as part of a different case to describe human sacrifice and its connection to satanic rituals.

Yes, because that case was supposedly about ACTUAL Satanists and he wasn't the one who introduced the idea into that case.

 

[Justinian2]

Police personality characteristics similar to those of criminals

Does this "conventional wisdom" you're whipping out include anything resembling evidence? Cites? Studies?

You know ... facts?

Or are you just digging this out of a 'fundamental' cool supply?

http://www.scribd.com/doc/14202082/...e-Personalities-of-Armed-Police-and-Criminals

The personality traits and work attitudes of 108 criminals convicted of assault (GBH or ABH) and 96 police officers authorised to carry weapons were compared using a range of personality measures including the Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire (ZKPQ), a 30 item Work Values Inventory, and a multiple-choice sentence completion task.

Personality traits On the ZKPQ, both groups scored significantly higher than the general population and various occupational groups on the following scales: Impulsive Sensation Seeking, Aggression-Hostility Work Activity

They scored significantly lower on: Neuroticism-Anxiety Sociability. No significant differences were observed on the Infrequency (or Lie) scale.

These findings closely match USA studies involving the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
(MMPI).

The results have implications in a practical and theoretical sense. The former, as the personality profiles found in this study could be used as a criteria in the selection process of future applicants; the latter, as it gives empirical evidence supporting Zuckerman!s alternative five factor model of personality​

There you go. It took me 20 minutes to find. You owe me one, or are guilters such as yourself merely capable of supposition and theory?

 

[shuttlt]

Justinian,

Who are the people who did your survey? I Googled "crime research & advisory centre" and only got your link to scribd.

 

[shuttlt]

Justinian,

From what little I've been able to gather, your survey is of firearms officers in the England. Google indicates about 5% of officers in the UK are authorised to carry firearms. Once again, I don't think your sample is representative of the whole population.

In any case, it isn't a published study, doesn't contain enough detail to say much about, involves personality tests which are kind of dubious in themselves, and looks kind of amateurishly put together (at least from a desktop publishing perspective).

Are you just randomly trawling for anything you think supports your position? That this is the best you could find after 20 minutes searching suggests your thesis is not well supported.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Amanda returning to the cottage.

Sollecito, 23, another suspect in the case, has also reportedly told police two different stories.

He initially told police that Knox had been with him. However, he recanted, and now allegedly says he was not with her between 9pm and 1am on the night of the murder.

Wouldn't it be nice if Sollecito would make a statement and explain this once and for all? This is something that really hurts both him and Amanda and it has not been addressed. In my oppinion, they both need to take the stand.

 

[Justinian2]

Justinian,

Who are the people who did your survey? I Googled "crime research & advisory centre" and only got your link to scribd.

Separated at Birth: The Personalities of Armed Police and Criminals
Interim findings from a research study
Richard Wisenheimer
Crime Research & Advisory Centre (CRAC)

The study suggested that criminals could be hired as police officers...

 

[shuttlt]

Separated at Birth: The Personalities of Armed Police and Criminals
Interim findings from a research study
Richard Wisenheimer
Crime Research & Advisory Centre (CRAC)

Thanks. I followed the link and asked my question after reading the document. Unfortunately this organization is unfamiliar to me, which makes finding further information difficult.

The study suggested that criminals could be hired as police officers...

No it doesn't. At best it suggests that firearms officers could, and that depends very much on what you think about personality tests...

 

[Justinian2]

Justinian,

From what little I've been able to gather, your survey is of firearms officers in the England. Google indicates about 5% of officers in the UK are authorised to carry firearms. Once again, I don't think your sample is representative of the whole population.

In any case, it isn't a published study, doesn't contain enough detail to say much about, involves personality tests which are kind of dubious in themselves, and looks kind of amateurishly put together (at least from a desktop publishing perspective).

Are you just randomly trawling for anything you think supports your position? That this is the best you could find after 20 minutes searching suggests your thesis is not well supported.

This was a 2009 study. However, the first time I heard that criminal and police personalities were similar was in the sixties. This isn't the only study. However the topic has been spammed out of the limelight by police propaganda.

The test has sufficient sample to be valid until a larger study comes along. Can you find one using the same or similar tests? Spam is out there, I'm sure a glib search will find something. The thing is, how many people are paying for this research? Not government. Not the police.

Why would anyone want to do this test? What are we going to do with the results? It just shows that we shouldn't adore the police, but who in their right mind thinks that the non-FBI police officer type is an authority on things intelligent anyway?

 

[nopoirot]

So do we now have an admission (if only by silence) that there is not a shred of admissible evidence in the record to support the notion that Raf's confession was coerced, or improperly procured? Going forward, just how do you propose to get it before the court? The defense can argue that his recanting of the confession is more persuasive than the confession, but how will they introduce the thought that the confession was coerced? Note they didn't even try to get Amanda to claim, during her cross, that the sudden change in Raf's testimony which "astonished" her was improperly procured. So how does it come in? "Ladies and gentlemen, we could say much here if it weren't for the laws relating to calumnia, or if we weren't scared to put our client on the stand"?

 

[moodstream]

The word rite is often associated with religion, but not always. It really means that some kind of ritual is involved. Rites of passage would be one, though perhaps not the best example. In any case again, Mignini has explicitly said that he has never said that it was a "sacrificial rite".


Now you go implying that the people involved in the act are Satanists, people who would describe themselves as worshipping the Christian Devil. That seems to be a very specific claim.


Sure, but presumably he wouldn't describe the Aztecs as Satanists without considerable qualification unless he is a very great fool. I presume you wouldn't either.


First it is far from clear that he has referred to "sacrificial rites" at all. Secondly, even a Christian must be aware that there is a difference between somebody doing something that they themselves believe is inspired by Satan, and that person being a Satanist.

Just out of quick curiosity, to which 'non sacrificial' rites involving 3 people stabbing a young woman to death do you refer? I'm not all the up on anthropology it seems.

 

[shuttlt]

This was a 2009 study. However, the first time I heard that criminal and police personalities were similar was in the sixties. This isn't the only study. However the topic has been spammed out of the limelight by police propaganda.

OK, but it still looks like a duff study. I can show you provisional studies that show homeopathy works.

 

[Justinian2]

OK, but it still looks like a duff study. I can show you provisional studies that show homeopathy works.

My point is that there is sufficient reason to be skeptics of police information.

By the way, homeopathy works. Or at least vastly reduced dose sizes produce many of the results of much larger doses. Non-alcohalic beer is very soothing, for example.

 

[moodstream]

Yes, because that case was supposedly about ACTUAL Satanists and he wasn't the one who introduced the idea into that case.

I read that book - The Monster of Florence. That case wasn't about Satanists either! This was just another example of the Italian police, and prosecution, run amok.

Maybe Magnini did not come up with idea, but he actively participated in prosecuting it, kept an enemies list , wire tapped journalists (and police officers) brave enough to call his theory nuts, and put Mario Spezi in jail, seemingly out of pure spite.

 

[Chris C]

Yes, because that case was supposedly about ACTUAL Satanists and he wasn't the one who introduced the idea into that case.

what actual Satanists?

 

[shuttlt]

Just out of quick curiosity, to which 'non sacrificial' rites involving 3 people stabbing a young woman to death do you refer? I'm not all the up on anthropology it seems.

This is like a reversal of the discussions about Knox's "confession" where we haggle over every possible meaning.

I had thought Mignini had publicly said that he had used the word 'rite'. I can't find any record of this, and so I wonder if my memory wasn't faulty. He does say that he never said it was a 'sacrificial rite'. I think perhaps there is a quote of him saying that there were ritualistic elements or something. I look forward to being corrected on this. My confusion may account for some of the muddle that has gotten into the conversation.

Having said that, one might find a body arranged in a way to suggest some kind of ritualistic element. This does not mean that the victim was ritually sacrificed. Surely? If we're going anthropological, I might get naked, smear myself in blue dye, wear magical charms etc.. to make myself invincible and then go on a murderous rampage. Ritualistic element, but no ritual sacrifice. Or I might scalp my enemy, ritualistic element, but no ritual sacrifice.

Rearrangement of the body after death, in and of itself, could imply some ritualistic element in the absence of any practical necessity.

 

[shuttlt]

what actual Satanists?

The supposed ACTUAL Satanists who were supposedly behind the Monster Of Florence killings. Or were they supposed to be Wiccans?

 

[shuttlt]

My point is that there is sufficient reason to be skeptics of police information.

Not from this survey.

By the way, homeopathy works. Or at least vastly reduced dose sizes produce many of the results of much larger doses. Non-alcohalic beer is very soothing, for example.

At least we have some common point of ridicule. I take it you've seen the Mitchell and Webb clip:

 

[shuttlt]

I read that book - The Monster of Florence. That case wasn't about Satanists either! This was just another example of the Italian police, and prosecution, run amok.

Really. I confess I haven't read the book. What were the cultists [or whatever] supposed to be. Wiccans? Catholics? Illuminati?

Maybe Magnini did not come up with idea, but he actively participated in prosecuting it, kept an enemies list , wire tapped journalists (and police officers) brave enough to call his theory nuts, and put Mario Spezi in jail, seemingly out of pure spite.

Which book? Preston's book? Are you sure that Preston is reliable?

It is one of the weird coincidences of the case that a man who normally writes horror novels about Satan inspired murders ends up writing a book partly dedicated to criticising someone for supposedly thinking that a series of murders was Satanically inspired.

Do you really want to argue about the Monster Of Bloody Florence?