Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[quadraginta]

Quadraginta,

I agree that Fiona's research tenacity is admirable, but I disagree with a number of points in her summary. Her language suggests the the Sardinian theory and the cult-coverup theory of the Monster of Florence case are equally absurd, but I cannot agree. Perhaps most importantly, she gives short shrift to the mistreatment meted out to Mr. Spezi. The Committee to Protect Journalists protested his treatment and noted:

“Mignini filed a request with the preliminary investigation judge of Perugia, Marina De Robertis, to invoke a rarely used law under Italy's criminal code to deny Spezi access to a lawyer for five days, Spezi's lawyer Alessandro Traversi told CPJ. The law is typically applied to the most dangerous criminals, yet Judge De Robertis authorized the measure, and for five days Spezi was denied legal counsel and held incommunicado.”

It isn't very clear exactly what you are demonstrating here. You seem to be saying that Mignini must be a Satanic rite conspiracy whacko because the Committee to Protect Journalists (obviously a completely unbiased organization ) was upset with Judge Marina De Robertis for having Spezi held incommunicado.

 

[Mary_H]

Next we will have homeopathic justice.

Just a little, teeny, tiny bit of justice at a time.

 

[billyryan]

I think this is a far-fetched suggestion. I also think that there's a far more logical reason for Curatolo to have "misremembered" in favour of the prosecution: police and city authorities are, as a rule, not terrifically well-disposed towards homeless people. Their inclination is often to get them of the street and out of the way - after all, they are (to many people) a very visible illustration of poverty and a malfunctioning society.

I imagine therefore that Sr Curatolo was very familiar with the Perugia police. I imagine that he was very well aware, after having lived on the streets for some ten years, of the importance of keeping on the right side of the police. He might well have had some previous direct experience of how much the police and other authorities could make his life very difficult if they so chose.

So his decision to assist the police and prosecutors by acting as one of their witnesses might easily be construed as a case of "I scratch your back, you scratch mine". In other words, Curatolo might well reason that helping the police and authorities in the Kercher prosecutions might well result in him being treated benevolently by the police and authorities in his day-to-day life on the street. I believe that this is what most likely prompted his appearance as a witness in this case - whether via an explicit or implicit agreement with the Perugia police.

Now, if only we can wrap up these final Australian wickets and retain the Ashes, I can actually get to bed at something approaching a normal time!

I have seen Mr Curatola referred to as a professional witness by people reporting neutrally on the case

Usually in my experience LJ if you want the help of a professional in any matter you have to pay them for their assistance

 

[Moss]

I wonder how much influence the suspicion had that Spezi and Preston might plant evidence for the piste sarda to influence the already convoluted and horribly bungled Mostro di Firenze case? I'm not sure if I remember Preston correctly, wasn't Spezi himself a suspect for the Monster killings at that time?
As for the convoluted Monster as occult ritual killer theory: I'd like to point out that that theory is not necessarily one by Mignini himself. It rather seems that Michele Giuttari has been the one main proponent. He still peddles it during his interviews for his thrillers.

 

[Dan O.]

Just a little, teeny, tiny bit of justice at a time.

More along the lines of: "sorry kid, there isn't even circumstantial evidence evidence against you. Your only option is to pled guilty."

 

[LondonJohn]

Surely it's perfectly possible and by no means necessarily improper for somebody to be convicted of murder without physical evidence of them at the crime scene? You are presumably discounting the physical evidence. OK. But what about circumstantial evidence, is circumstantial evidence necessarily "useless gibberish"?

On an admittedly slightly pedantic point: all physical evidence is circumstantial evidence. There are two broad categories of evidence: direct and circumstantial. Direct evidence is that evidence which, if proven to be accurate and reliable, is in and of itself proof that the defendant committed the crime. Direct evidence is pretty much limited to the testimony of anyone who was a direct eyewitness to the crime, the confession of the person accused of the crime, or photographic/video (and sometimes audio) evidence of the crime being committed, which itself shows that the defendant committed the crime. Everything else is termed circumstantial evidence. Even if the defendant's blood, fingerprints and DNA are found all over the murder scene, or even if the defendant's bite imprints are found on the victim's torso, it's still all classified as circumstantial evidence.

There's an interesting case in the UK at the moment, where it's entirely possible that the prosecuting authorities might be able to bring charges without a scrap of physical evidence. A young (25) woman was murdered in Bristol, and her body was found on Christmas Day. Her body was found about 3 miles from where she lived - but crucially it was found on the other side of a deep river valley called the Avon Gorge. To get from her house to where the body was found, there are really only two ways to drive. There's a very long-winded way around the lower docks area and across a swingbridge (I used to live in Bristol so I know the topography well), or by far the most logical and direct route is across the Clifton Suspension Bridge (a Brunel masterpiece built in the mid-19th century, by the way). The suspension bridge is absolutely covered with CCTV cameras, since in addition to being a strategic crossing point and a potential traffic bottleneck, it's unfortunately also a suicide hotspot.

Now, I don't want to make baseless accusations towards anyone, but here's an interesting thing: the dead woman's partner says that he went to Sheffield (in mid-north UK) on the last day the woman was seen alive, and that he discovered she was missing upon his return to Bristol. The police will have asked him what route he took, and there's no reason whatsoever why anyone would need to cross the Avon Gorge if travelling between Clifton (the Bristol district where they lived) to Sheffield. The police will probably have asked him to confirm his route out of Bristol a fair few times.

So if his car (and maybe even also him as the driver) is discovered on the CCTV footage crossing the bridge, he will have an awful lot of explaining to do. Of course, it may very well be that he has nothing whatsoever to do with the murder of his partner, but to my mind if he were to be caught in a lie about where he travelled on that evening, that might be enough to convict him all by itself.

I tell this story to illustrate how people can get caught in serious lies, and use it to contrast with the Knox/Sollecito situation. In the Bristol case, not only should the partner have remembered crossing the bridge that night, but also - crucially - there's no conceivable reason why he would have needed or wanted to cross the bridge if he'd simply been travelling directly to Sheffield. Therefore, if the police find footage of him crossing the bridge, he's in serious trouble. This contrasts with Knox's and Sollecito's nebulous memories of what they were doing on the night of November 1st. I think the situation would only be in any way analogous if the police could prove that that they had left Sollecito's apartment that night, having stated that they didn't do so. And that's where Sr Curatolo comes in.............

 

[LondonJohn]

You must be fresh to this case. Welcome to the debate.

Curatolo's testimony is not undergoing review. The court ruled that some bus company employees may be interviewed and their testimony assessed. This helps the court understand how important a precise memory is. In the courtroom, Curatolo pointed to the two people he saw the evening of 01 NOV 2007 in Piazza Grimana and verified the times and date he saw them by referencing costumes, a bright nearby clock, some buses, and the appearance of investigators near the cottage the next day, on 02 NOV 2007.

At stake in the new evidence is whether the buses were the disco buses or some other type of vehicle. The presence of Knox and Sollecito, at the time and date he saw them, and the appearance of the investigators in the area the next day are not being re-examined. Nor is Curatolo required to appear to repeat his testimony.

This is what's known as grasping at a final straw. The defence can only hope that the court cannot read because Knox displayed remarkable memory deficiencies:

(The last one is pretty funny. Ghirga isn't the PM; he's her own lawyer. And he's asking Knox if she recognises two police officers who introduced themselves in court and testified against her.)

This is what bringing the bus company employees in will focus the court's attention upon. The University of Washington must be proud of an alumnus whose memory is actually worse than that of a homeless man who might have been mistaken about the make and purpose of a vehicle near his park bench. By contrast, and as evidenced by this very brief anthology of Amanda Knox's public statements, the honours student can't even remember if her own lamp belongs to her. She can't remember the names of the two Postal Police officers who embarrassed Sollecito and her outside the cottage. Yet she was careful to tell them, around noon of 02 NOV 2007, that she remembered clearly that Meredith always locked the door to her room.

Oh, sorry, that wasn't Knox remembering. That was her caught lying to get them out of the cottage so she could continue to manipulate the investigation into the death of the woman she helped kill.

You must be new to this case as well.

Isn't it entirely possible that both Curatolo and Knox have bad memories? That's fine. That's human. So perhaps we can disregard much of what they both claim to remember? OK then. What are we left with? Knox is confused about various elements related to the crime. OK, let's park that. But Curatolo is confused about when he might have seen Knox and Sollecito loitering in the square? Now, this is much more important. If he's confused about it, then his testimony can't be used as firm evidence against Knox and Sollecito, can it? So can we agree to throw out Curatolo's testimony against defendants in an important murder trial? We can? OK, good.

You seem to be forgetting that Knox and Sollecito are the ones on trial here. It's up to the prosecution to prove that they committed the crimes with which they are charged. Knox's faulty memory is only a problem to her if it incriminates her and/or Sollecito. If Curatolo has a faulty memory (which is the most generous interpretation one can place on it, by the way), then he shouldn't be testifying as a witness in a criminal trial. Simples.

 

[LondonJohn]

It is certainly possible, and not even particularly uncommon. People can even get convicted when there is no direct evidence that a murder occurred at all, like having a victim's body.

That circumstance p) is definitely unusual, which I believe is a good thing, but it isn't at all unheard of. Here's one article on the topic.

I thought these two paragraphs were particularly interesting, especially the second one, which can address the constraints (and possible strengths) of circumstantial evidence in general.

To quote another poster:

Sigh. Would you please stop referring to the US legal system.

 

[shuttlt]

A bloody palmprint and multiple DNA traces on and within her person are very strong evidence of his presence and involvement.

We were talking about how much evidence, not what the impact of that evidence might be on the case. A single hair belonging to a known serial killer would be strong evidence. The question being addressed was how much evidence (as in the quantity) one would have to leave at the scene.

It's possible for three people to engage in a struggle to the death in a confined space with a fourth without two of them leaving any traces. It's possible for three people to hold down a fourth so she can be raped and murdered (as portrayed in the prosecution's CGI cartoon) without two of them leaving any traces. It's possible that the three wounds on Meredith's neck were inflicted by three different people with three different knives.

However it's unlikely, to say the least, and chaining together a series of wildly unlikely claims and then proclaiming the chain to be proof beyond reasonable doubt is intellectually unsustainable.

I'm not quite sure that is what anybody is doing. Again you seem to be taking a small, or at least relatively small, part of the case and demanding that it contain, in isolation, proof beyond reasonable doubt. For the hundredth time... why?

This gets us back to the elephant in the room, the total lack of anything resembling a coherent narrative of guilt from you or anybody else that conforms with the facts as we now know them. Your first attempt was justifiably dismissed as ridiculous, and I find your recent attempts to reintroduce it without addressing the criticisms originally made of it rather curious.

I'm glad you brought this up as, had things not gotten sidetracked into the Monster of Florence I had intended to being it up. My recollection though is different to yours. How was my original attempt "justifiably dismissed". I do not recall very much in the way of decisive or constructive criticism. There was one post that suggested I had not taken into account the homeless guy's testimony. I pointed out that I didn't need to. Dan O I think then posted a version of my narrative with everything about Amanda or Raffaele being involved crossed out. Could you explain what criticisms of the original narrative I failed to address.

The second time I mentioned the narrative Dan O again made fun without actually engaging with it. There was one poster who seemed to feel I was saying that Amanda and Raffaele thought Meredith was overreacting to being stabbed. I explained that this wasn't the case, and really, if we are trying to imagine scenarios where they are involved rather than trying to deny that such can exist I don't see why it was necessary for me to explain this as all of you have imaginations perfectly well up to the task. Halides I think complained that Amanda and Raffaele would have called the police. I made an attempt to address this at the time, but got no response. For myself, I think that if we insist that Amanda and Raffaele are the sorts of people who would definately immediately call the police and accept whatever heat went with that, I think we are essentially insisting that they are innocent and then demanding a guilty scenario be constructed that symultaneously contains the assumption that they are innocent.

As I think I have said before, the "Satanic rite" fairy story and the "drug sex party gone wrong" theory, while both very silly, at least tried to come up with some plausible reason why two previously harmless university students would participate in the savage rape and murder of a friend by a stranger.

Were they previously harmless? You surely mean something along the lines of "never convicted of anything", no? Hadn't both their parents expressed some kind of generalized concern for their behaviour? And by saying "stranger" you are exagerating the remoteness of their association with Guede.

The central absurdity of the pro-guilt claim at the moment is that such a crime is incredibly unlikely, literally unprecedented,

It probably isn't very likely a priori, but unprecedented? Have University students never failed to phone the police when they should have? Not one has ever been involved in, say, a hit and run? What aspect of the case are you saying is unique. as I've said umpteen times, if you insist on every aspect of the case having been done all together somewhere else before you are clearly asking the impossible and falling victim to the sharpshooter fallacy. Please find me an example of a burglar who breaks in through a first floor window, is surprised, sexually assaults and then murders the occupant leaving a **** in the toilet and bloody fingerprints on the walls, flees, only to hang around town for a couple of days, the leaves the country only to contact friends immediately revealing his location.

and yet the evidence in favour of it is incredibly flimsy. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not a fragile chain of unsupported supposition and blatant absurdity that at best aspires to establishing the mere physical possibility that Knox and Sollecito had something to do with the murder.

It isn't a chain. The knife, the bra clasp, the interrogation, etc. etc. don't all have to be true, nor do any of them individually have to prove anything beyond reasonable doubt.

 

[RoseMontague]

You must be new to this case as well.

Isn't it entirely possible that both Curatolo and Knox have bad memories? That's fine. That's human. So perhaps we can disregard much of what they both claim to remember? OK then. What are we left with? Knox is confused about various elements related to the crime. OK, let's park that. But Curatolo is confused about when he might have seen Knox and Sollecito loitering in the square? Now, this is much more important. If he's confused about it, then his testimony can't be used as firm evidence against Knox and Sollecito, can it? So can we agree to throw out Curatolo's testimony against defendants in an important murder trial? We can? OK, good.

You seem to be forgetting that Knox and Sollecito are the ones on trial here. It's up to the prosecution to prove that they committed the crimes with which they are charged. Knox's faulty memory is only a problem to her if it incriminates her and/or Sollecito. If Curatolo has a faulty memory (which is the most generous interpretation one can place on it, by the way), then he shouldn't be testifying as a witness in a criminal trial. Simples.

Curatolo gets a lot more wrong than just the disco buses as pointed out in the RS appeal. He also gets the times wrong 9 times out of the 10 he states it (the prosecution uses the 1 time he gets the time consistent with their theory and completely ignores the other 9), he gets the next morning wrong (as to the time he was up and left his bench) as confirmed by another witness. He also (just as Nara does) gets the time wrong in his testimony about seeing the people dressed in white claiming to have seen them well before they had even arrived.

Then there are just common sense considerations that Curatolo's testimony is in error. Of all the thousands of people he sees in that park, how could he remember 2 people that were doing nothing but hanging around almost a year later (and also remember the exact times they were there)? And if he recognized them as the ones whose pictures he has seen in the papers as he reads on his bench, why does he wait until being led to the police by a journalist many months later (after an exclusive interview of course)? What possible reason would AK and RS have for standing there staring at the flat for almost 2 hours? If they were waiting for Rudy so they could let him in, why couldn't they have waited in the flat and let him in when he arrived? And did not Rudy say that he actually was in the flat about the time that Curatolo stated that AK and RS had just started their two hour wait? And then they leave and go to Meredith's flat at a time Rudy states he has already left and that is confirmed by the cell phone records of the phones found in the garden away from her flat.

I have seen on another board that the only thing needed from Curatolo's testimony is that he saw AK and RS that night at a time that busts their story about being home at Raffaele's place, and the many errors in Curatolo's testimony can just be ignored. This is an example of both cherry picking and the real example of grasping at straws. It is Curatolo's story that is busted, in my opinion. The court, in ruling Curatolo's testimony as reliable ignores all the evidence of his unreliability. The court shows an obvious bias in this regard.

 

[quadraginta]

It is certainly possible, and not even particularly uncommon. People can even get convicted when there is no direct evidence that a murder occurred at all, like having a victim's body.

That circumstance xtongue) is definitely unusual, which I believe is a good thing, but it isn't at all unheard of. Here's one article on the topic.

I thought these two paragraphs were particularly interesting, especially the second one, which can address the constraints (and possible strengths) of circumstantial evidence in general.

To quote another poster:

Sigh. Would you please stop referring to the US legal system.

Are you suggesting that I was mentioning this as a strictly American phenomenon? Or are you under some impression that it is?

It isn't, you know.

England - Murder of Danielle Jones^WP

Australia - Murder of Keith William Allan^WP

Etc., etc., etc. You can find more examples as quickly as I can.

If anything it could be argued that it was the Brits who led the modern world in formally abandoning the centuries old English common law concept of "no body, no murder".

 

[shuttlt]

I must concede, I have not been able to find a link from before 2008. As I mentioned before, it would be helpful to know whether the reference came from the actual charges filed by the prosecutor or were just hearsay. I had thought the ritualistic aspect was talked about in the press immediately, but I must have been mistaken.

My one recollection from the time is the report on Radio 4 news on the 6th or 7th. My impression was a confusing story of Amanda huddled in her room listening to her housemate being murdered. It wasn't clear (at least in my recollection) if her boyfriend was there at this point, or arrived later... somebody else who she knew was the killer. I think I thought at the time it was the boyfriend of somebody else in the house, or possibly somebody Meredith had brought home. I'm not sure if there was talk of a sex game gone wrong, but I am positive that there was no talk of Satanism.

Too late.

Well, from many religious perspectives she is, and I doubt any of us are looking very good either.

Chris and I were trying to see it from Mignini's traditional perspective. We weren't trying to say that because one is Catholic, one essentially adheres to all the tenets of the religion. One can only adhere to what one knows about the religion, or how own uses the religion in one's own life. Given what seems to have been Mignini's interest in Satan in the past, it seemed applicable.

I'm not sure that I have seen any evidence that Mignini actually believes that Satan is abroard. Buying into a theory, assuming he did, that a cult is behing a bunch of murders isn't the same as believing that that cult is working for Satan and the whole thing is part of the grand battle between Good and Evil.

Add to that the evidence that he actually may have written the words, at least according to Luca Maori.

That seems somewhat seperate to the discussion we were having which seemed to me to deny that there was any possibility of confusion between the different nuances of the word satanic - that is to say something done by Satanists as part of their explicit practice of Satanism (or for the purpose of avoiding confusion, any cultists) and what may be his own personal view that Satan is behind all wickedness. I wish the Maori quote had been dug up earlier on so this whole damn argument hadn't started.

On the other hand, for someone to call Amanda a whore, whether or not based on Biblical perspectives or any other set of mores, is completely irrelevant to the case. It says nothing about Amanda, it reflects only on the speaker.

Perhaps it is irrelevant to the case, but I'm not sure how that matters. The issue I was trying to address, the refusal to accept any kind of acceptance of different nuances in the meaning of the words being attributes to Mignini, allowed one to say things and attribute ideas to people that were less than helpful to good understanding.

If your mother were an Italian magistrate, she might have a different interpretation of Catholicism.

All Italian magistrates see the world as a Dan Brown novel?

 

[LondonJohn]

Are you suggesting that I was mentioning this as a strictly American phenomenon? Or are you under some impression that it is?

It isn't, you know.

England - Murder of Danielle Jones^WP

Australia - Murder of Keith William Allan^WP

Etc., etc., etc. You can find more examples as quickly as I can.

If anything it could be argued that it was the Brits who led the modern world in formally abandoning the centuries old English common law concept of "no body, no murder".

Sigh. I was referring to the quote you provided (your highlighting):

Circumstantial Strength Though they lack more direct physical evidence, missing-body cases, some lawyers say, ultimately can be stronger than standard murder cases with bodies and are more likely to withstand appeals. Because the body is missing, prosecutors must worry more about their case being thrown out before or during trial because of a lack of sufficient evidence. These obstacles, along with the fact that they have to prove there was a death by murder make prosecutors present a more efficient case.


“Circumstantial cases can often be stronger than direct evidence cases whereas the evidence you present is less susceptible to tampering,” says Joshua Marquis, who successfully prosecuted a missing-body case in Oregon in 1993. “You don’t have all the baggage that may come if police are not as careful as they should be at the scene of a crime. And I don’t worry about these cases being overturned on an appeal. Most judges won’t let you get past [the defense’s request for] a directed verdict of acquittal at trial if you don’t present a strong case. You combine that along with the fact that you convinced a jury to convict, it’s unlikely an appeals court will overturn the verdict.”

That's very specifically related to the US system of appeals, and not the Italian "trial de novo" system. And I'm not even getting the relevance of discussing murder convictions in the absence of a body anyhow.

Regardless, murder convictions without a body are far from uncommon. So long as the prosecution can provide sufficient proof either that the victim could not have survived (e.g. a large enough quantity of the victim's blood so as to be incompatible with surviving), or that the victim would not simply have disappeared of their own volition (e.g. a devoted mother of young children), a murder conviction's entirely possible. But what's the relevance here?

PS: small note to others who seem to have appropriated the phrase with some gusto: it's spelled "de rigueur"........

 

[shuttlt]

shuttlt wants to know if you are arguing that you can prove that.

You are quite right of course to point out that the overwhelming majority of my posts are attempting to poke holes in pro-innocence arguments. That probably reveals something, I certainly feel more at home on PMF the IIP for example. I used to post more comments critical of the pro-guilt position. For one thing I feel I have less to add. Fewer of the types of arguments I enjoy, or am at all good at seem to me to be applicable, so I enjoy myself less. Also, I suspect Stilchio would not actually seek to defend his statement as anything more than personal opinion. You have already criticised him for it, so what's the point? I'd rather be critical of things other people aren't being critical of at the moment.

 

[shuttlt]

It's plausible that people think Amanda is a killer, yet can't prove it.

OK. Quick poll for the improvement of both our understandings. Does anybody think that it is a demonstrable fact, based solely on the evidence available on the Internet that Amanda and Raffaele are guilty beyond reasonable doubt?

What I don't understand is why people think that Guede had to work with anyone to kill MK.

I'm not quite sure of your meaning. In an abstract sense, clearly he would be physically capable of killing her alone. There are claims I think that she must have had both her hands restrained while she was stabbed, which makes the whole thing a little harder to visualize, but still it may well not be impossible for him to have killed her, in the manner in which she was killed, without assistance.

Since the Satanic ritual theory has evaporated, what other theory holds the three together for cooperation in any type of activity?

Again, I struggle to understand you. You think the starting point is a theory about Satanism, from which people conclude that multiple people were involved. Surely, if there is/was a theory about Satanism, it is brought in to explain the involvement of the participants? You lose the Satanism, you still have the multiple participants that you were using the Satanism to account for.

Has anyone suggested that Guede was such a great guy and they just wanted to be with him for friendship or sex?

Is it quite impossible? He doesn't seem to have been obviously repulsive, or clearly a violent sex-killer prior to the murder. I don't feel I know him, Amanda or Raffaele now, or as the were in late 2007 well enough to say.

 

[shuttlt]

I think juries in the USA would frequently contain people that would hang the jury. When it comes to majority rule in a jury that has deliberated for months and is motivated to go home, who knows? That is the problem.

You know perfectly well that Amanda and Raffaele were convicted unanimously. Are you saying that Italians just aren't the kind of people that would hang a jury?

 

[quadraginta]

Sigh. I was referring to the quote you provided (your highlighting):


That's very specifically related to the US system of appeals, and not the Italian "trial de novo" system. And I'm not even getting the relevance of discussing murder convictions in the absence of a body anyhow.

Regardless, murder convictions without a body are far from uncommon. So long as the prosecution can provide sufficient proof either that the victim could not have survived (e.g. a large enough quantity of the victim's blood so as to be incompatible with surviving), or that the victim would not simply have disappeared of their own volition (e.g. a devoted mother of young children), a murder conviction's entirely possible. But what's the relevance here?

The relevance, in regard to a comment made by shuttlt about the validity of circumstantial evidence ( a sentiment which you seem to agree with) is that the requirements of demonstrating a case using only circumstantial evidence can in some ways demand a more rigorous and carefully constructed argument. The fact that the Italian and U.S. (or British) appeals systems are not perfectly coordinate does not diminish this in any fashion. I made my comment about convictions without bodies simply as a further example of the significance which circumstantial evidence can have in court. I would have thought that to be obvious to you. My bad.

PS: small note to others who seem to have appropriated the phrase with some gusto: it's spelled "de rigueur"........

Eh?



Good post script for a comment whining about relevance. Classy, too. Jumping on spelling and typo errors always clinches the high ground. Show us the way, LJ.

 

[RoseMontague]

It isn't a chain. The knife, the bra clasp, the interrogation, etc. etc. don't all have to be true, nor do any of them individually have to prove anything beyond reasonable doubt.

Machiavelli has argued this as well, stating it (the Italian system of determining guilt) is similar to a point system and the whole should be judged rather than each individual part. The primary reasoning goes that the likelihood of all of this evidence being wrong is extremely low. Odds are that most of them are true just by the preponderance of the total. My opinion is that a mountain of unproven evidence proves that you have a mountain of unproven evidence.

Using a point system, the only real points scored by the prosecution are the fact that Amanda and Raffaele have not been completely truthful (as I previously stated as the only "solid" evidence) coupled with the fact that they have both been in error or mistaken about some of the times and sequences of events.

The evidence on the knife blade simply proves Sefanoni's desperation to find something tying Amanda to the murder.

The evidence of the bra clasp simply proves Stefanoni's desperation to find something tying Raffaele to the murder.

The evidence of the Luminol prints (with a negative TMB test for blood and the lack of Meredith's DNA in the vast majority of prints) simply proves that it is not known what made those prints, who made them, or when they were made.

The mixed DNA/blood trace in the bathroom simply proves that Amanda lived there and used that bathroom.

The evidence of a staged break-in simply proves the desperation to confirm the initial theory of the police. In my opinion there is as much evidence it was not staged as there is for a staging.

The evidence of Meredith's cell phone activity is stronger evidence of an earlier TOD than later, in my opinion.

The stomach contents argument is also evidence of an earlier TOD.

The computer evidence is a big question mark and may show stronger evidence of an alibi if the court allows retesting. At this point it only shows the lack of confirmation of an alibi in the 9:30-midnight range, not proof that their alibi is false.

Curatolo's testimony is false (see above).

Quintavalles's testimony is false (I have posted on this one numerous times).

Nara testimony proves that she is confused on dates and times and proves nothing, in my opinion.

The knife as a murder weapon defies logic and common sense as well as the forensic evidence that another knife is needed to account for all of the wounds.

The lack of motive, the prosecution's fantasies, and lack of a cohesive theory prove the overall desperation to confirm the early hunch by the authorities.

Manga and pot prove they have much in common with others of their generation.

 

[nopoirot]

My Ahab-like obsession with the Great Striped Bass pulls me away from this board. Too, I've pretty much lost interest in the subject.

I began this inquiry very much predisposed in Amanda's favor, and came here in search of information. As I continued searching through the part of the record available to me, it became increasingly clear that a heavy coat of whitewash has been applied to create the appearance that Amanda is but the hapless victim of a legal system controlled by the spawn of Satan. Any reasonable person, without an axe to grind, will eventually come to the realization that Amanda helped spin the web in which she is entangled. He / she will be disinclined to follow you in your attempt to wish out of existence the impact of Raffaele's admission that Amanda parted from him on the evening of 11-1.

In the role of "representative of the insurer," I have been involved in hundreds of civil rights cases alleging "police misconduct." I know that juries, by and large, cannot be spoon-fed the mix of speculation and improbability that has here been concocted, and I also know that, when they learn you have been "holding back" on them, they will go over to the opposition, every time.

Now the question becomes just where was Amanda of the evening of 11-1, and what is she trying to conceal? With that you lose the high moral ground and the sympathy factor. You lose the expectation that every doubt will be resolved in her favor. You are driven to the legalistic argument that, be all this as it may, the law requires satisfactory proof of the specific charges brought. True enough, but hardly an adequate peg on which to hang the hat of moral outrage.

What possible good can come of an endless repetition of "talking points" and making getting at the relevant facts like extracting teeth? Successful crusades do not come of such tactics.

 

[Mary_H]

Well, from many religious perspectives she is, and I doubt any of us are looking very good either.

Mary Magdalene was both a prostitute and a beloved disciple of Jesus Christ.

I'm not sure that I have seen any evidence that Mignini actually believes that Satan is abroard. Buying into a theory, assuming he did, that a cult is behing a bunch of murders isn't the same as believing that that cult is working for Satan and the whole thing is part of the grand battle between Good and Evil.

That seems somewhat seperate to the discussion we were having which seemed to me to deny that there was any possibility of confusion between the different nuances of the word satanic - that is to say something done by Satanists as part of their explicit practice of Satanism (or for the purpose of avoiding confusion, any cultists) and what may be his own personal view that Satan is behind all wickedness. I wish the Maori quote had been dug up earlier on so this whole damn argument hadn't started.

It's okay, that particular argument has been going on for over a year.

I don't know that Mignini ever asserted there was a cultish aspect to the murder. I always got the impression he just wanted to convey a vague image of Halloween, candles and sacrifice, and imply (or state) that it was related to worshipping Satan.

I don't think the questions should be about whether Mignini meant a specific kind of Satanism or a specific kind of Satanic cult or a specific garden variety of devil worship or whatever. The controversy is really about why it occurred to him to mention "rites" at all. It made the Perugian legal system look anachronistic and exposed them to ridicule.

All Italian magistrates see the world as a Dan Brown novel?

I doubt they all do, but Mignini seems to.