Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[shuttlt]

Didn't Raffaele tell the police that he couldn't be 100% certain that Amanda didn't leave during the night because he was asleep there therefore wouldn't know that she left and then later returned?

Maybe he was talking about the following day, or another day, or someone else?

 

[Mary_H]

Didn't Raffaele tell the police that he couldn't be 100% certain that Amanda didn't leave during the night because he was asleep there therefore wouldn't know that she left and then later returned?

I don't think the night in question would be that easy to recall. We already know Amanda mixed it up with another night when she talked about taking a shower with Raffaele and him cleaning her ears.

There's no reason Amanda and Raffaele would have gone into detail about that night until their interrogations, and by then it was three days later. A couple reports of "we stayed home and watched a movie" would have sufficed. It was only when they became suspects that they were expected to account for every minute and the duration of all activities.

They smoked pot, they ate, they made love, they watched part of a movie on the laptop in bed... and then probably did all those things again at least one or two more times. Lather, rinse, repeat. Get up and go to the bathroom. Doze, wake up, doze. Bump or kick the laptop every time you move in bed... The three nights following the murder were probably more of the same.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Didn't Raffaele tell the police that he couldn't be 100% certain that Amanda didn't leave during the night because he was asleep there therefore wouldn't know that she left and then later returned?

Up pops the mole... one of the silliest ones, in fact.

Do you customarily chain your partner to the bed at night? Do you have a time lock installed on the only means of exiting your bedroom? If you do then perhaps I can understand your confusion since you are unused to what I believe to be far more common situations in which people sleep in the same bed without these precautions, and hence it's possible for one or the other person to get up without the other noticing.

A moment's thought would show that this "devastating admission" the guilters on other forums lovingly drool over is just common sense.

It's also irrelevant since Raffaele never claimed to be asleep at the actual time of death, which is almost certainly 21:00-21:30.

This is a poor talking point.

It's a hard fact that the defense made this claim. It's not a hard fact that the computer was used by a human being sporadically throughout the night. That is yet to be proved.

Wasn't I just mocking this exact manoeuvre, the temporary and convenient adoption of the irrationalist position that nothing is true unless and until a Perugia court makes it true?

Wasn't I just pointing out that the people who employ this manoeuvre will also gladly drag in all sorts of claims which have not been validated by a court in Perugia when it suits them, indicating that this insistence on the official stamp of the Perugia court system is nothing but an argument of convenience used to dismiss inconvenient facts?

Even if the defense's claim is proven correct it only hurts, not helps them. Human interaction does nothing to back up Amanda's alibi and just makes them both look like liars. How come neither of them brought this up to the police, or their lawyers during questioning or at the trial? Seems like a pretty important fact to leave out. Amanda is a chatty woman, yet nothing about an all night computer session or Japanese animation in her alibi e-mail or trial testimony.

So they either lied about being asleep during the night, or (he at least) is lying about being on the computer. Which is it?

I do wonder where you get your "facts".

They have claimed from the start that they were at home watching videos and listening to music all night, and the details of the error logs match the details of what Raffaele claimed he was doing and when he was doing it.

Even if they had not - I'll pretend for a moment that the guilter echo-chamber got something factual right for once - they still can't have murdered Meredith Kercher if they weren't there. It doesn't matter if they told the police that on the night of the murder they were in Tibet having a three-way with Santa Claus if they couldn't possibly have been there when Meredith died.

EDIT: Also, why would Raffaele want to stay up all night on the computer when they had plans to go on a day trip the next morning? And they were planning to leave in the morning, Amanda mentioned it (the word morning) twice in her trial testimony.

This is not a sensible argument. Which is more unlikely, that a twenty-three year old nerd would stay up too late mucking about on his computer, or that two university students with absolutely no history of violent, antisocial behaviour would team up with a local crook they don't know to brutally sexually assault and murder a friend for no reason, in such a fashion as to leave almost no evidence at all at the scene?

Expressing overblown incredulity about acts which are mundane to mildly unusual does not justify leaping to a conclusion which is wildly unlikely to impossible.

 

[shuttlt]

They smoked pot, they ate, they made love, they watched part of a movie on the laptop in bed... and then probably did all those things again at least one or two more times. Lather, rinse, repeat. Get up and go to the bathroom. Doze, wake up, doze. Bump or kick the laptop every time you move in bed... The three nights following the murder were probably more of the same.

I thought Amanda was supposed to be too traumatized to sleep, hence her susceptability to police interrogation techniques?

 

[Alt+F4]

Do you customarily chain your partner to the bed at night?

Only if she asks me to.

They have claimed from the start that they were at home watching videos and listening to music all night,...

No they didn't.

 

[Alt+F4]

Well the new year is almost here and after about 50,000 posts on the three (or four?) Amanda Knox threads I think it's time for us all to post the top three most ridiculous and/or stupid theories posted here (on JREF only) about this case in 2010.

As I have over 600 posts in these threads myself I'm sure I'm not immune. Ok, here's my top three....

3. Kevin....believing that human interaction on a computer gives an alibi to two people.

2. Dan....believing that the DNA on the bra clasp came from Amanda and Meredith sharing bras.

...and Number 1 most ridiculous AND stupid Amanda Knox theory goes to.....

1. Justianian...believing that he knows for certain that Amanda is innocent because he's white too! (I think this one ended up in AAH)

 

[shuttlt]

Up pops the mole... one of the silliest ones, in fact.

I hope I have this right, but I think you have totally missed the context in which this mole has appeared.

Wasn't I just mocking this exact manoeuvre, the temporary and convenient adoption of the irrationalist position that nothing is true unless and until a Perugia court makes it true?

All we have at the moment is an assertion that the computer evidence will show this. None of us have seen this computer evidence. No computer evidence that is going to be presented can definitively show that there was human interaction in such black and white terms that no interpretation is required. The log may say that the screensaver activated, or did not activate at certain times, that certain files last access times fall during the crucial period. All of this requires interpretation, just like the knife, the bra clasp and everything else before any kind of agreement (if such things are possible) can be reached on what it means.

They have claimed from the start that they were at home watching videos and listening to music all night, and the details of the error logs match the details of what Raffaele claimed he was doing and when he was doing it.

But didn't Raffaele say that he could be sure that Amanda went out because he was asleep. The point that I think your mole was trying to make before you waked it was that you seem to be claiming that Raffaele could be sure if Amanda went out the following morning, around 7am say, as he was asleep. Is this what you think he means?

Even if they had not - I'll pretend for a moment that the guilter echo-chamber got something factual right for once - they still can't have murdered Meredith Kercher if they weren't there. It doesn't matter if they told the police that on the night of the murder they were in Tibet having a three-way with Santa Claus if they couldn't possibly have been there when Meredith died.

That would have been a pretty stupid thing to have claimed in a police interrogation and probably would have ended up with them in the cells anyway.

This is not a sensible argument. Which is more unlikely, that a twenty-three year old nerd would stay up too late mucking about on his computer, or that two university students with absolutely no history of violent, antisocial behaviour would team up with a local crook they don't know to brutally sexually assault and murder a friend for no reason, in such a fashion as to leave almost no evidence at all at the scene?

Is it agreed by the guilters that there was a conspiracy beforehand to commit murder, or are you being a bit silly?

 

[shuttlt]

1. Justianian...believing that he knows for certain that Amanda is innocent because he's white too! (I think this one ended up in AAH)

Link?

 

[Alt+F4]

Link?

I'll look for it but I doubt he'll deny it.

 

[shuttlt]

I'll look for it but I doubt he'll deny it.

Found it.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Raffaele

You're lying to yourself Dan if you believe there has ever been any testimony or statements made by either of them regarding Naruto or him being up all night on his computer. Also no mention of them pushing their day trip back to the afternoon because of late sleeping. Why didn't they tell their lawyers, family and/or friends about this all night Naruto/computer thing? Ok, it's because it never happened...

....On the other hand, if it's true, and Raffaele was on the computer all night it does explain why this freak, at age 23, never had a girlfriend before. Still doesn't give Amanda an alibi.

Alt+F4,

In the first place, I have heard that he did have one previous girlfriend (I believe that this information comes from his friends, but I do not have a citation). In the second, I think that the word "freak" is not a respectful way to refer to Mr. Sollecito, regardless. In the third place, Raffaele gave Amanda an alibi in front of Judge Matteini according to Murder in Italy, Darkness, Descending, and the Daily Telegraph. If you mean that the computer activity does not give Amanda an alibi, well, maybe, but it holes the prosecution's theory below the waterline. If Amanda remembered watching Stardust, then she might have had an alibi had not ILE erased the data concerning the time of access of this file.

 

[LondonJohn]

I'm reminded of another myth that often gets wheeled out by those-who-believe-Knox-and-Sollecito-were-correctly-and-safely-convicted. And it's that Knox and Sollecito had "the best defence lawyers money could buy" in their first trial.

As I've pointed out several times previously, this is simply not the case. Knox's lead lawyer, Dalla Vedova, was hired from a list of lawyers supplied by the US Embassy in Rome. But whoever within the embassy supplied the list was incompetent, since it was a list of Italian lawyers with whom the embassy had had prior contacts, and virtually all the lawyers on the list were commercial or political lawyers. Including Dalla Vedova, who was purely a commercial layer and who had never before in his career been involved in a criminal trial of any sort - let alone a murder trial. By all accounts, he was hired merely on the strength of his ability to speak English.....

Sollecito's lead attorney, Bongiorno, also doesn't come to the role particularly well-qualified for the job in hand. She might have been famous (which is probably why Sollecito's father chose her), but she was famous for her work in corruption and fraud cases. Not murder cases. And she had essentially two full-time jobs in Rome - as a prominent serving MP and as a member of parliamentary committees. There's no way she would have been able to devote the time and energy to Sollecito's defence that was required.

The two secondary lawyers (Maori for Sollecito and Ghirga for Knox) were clubbable local lawyers who would undoubtedly have spent most of their criminal law careers handling theft, GBH/ABH (or equivalent), fraud and affray cases, with the odd case of spousal abuse and the very occasional sex crime thrown in. There's no way that they'd ever have previously been exposed to a high-profile complicated murder trial.

To my mind, both Dalla Vedova and Bongiorno should have recused themselves from representing Knox and Sollecito respectively - they had neither the requisite experience nor (in Bongiorno's case) the requisite time to do justice to their positions. They should have done a quick search of the Rome legal community, and recommended two lawyers who had good reputations in defending murder cases. But I suspect that hubris and pride might have got in the way of that happening.

Anyhow, it seems that Knox's legal team, at least, has been bolstered before the appeal by the addition of some US legal advisers, who've evidently been advising on strategy, as well as analysing (and attempting to correct) what went wrong in the first trial. For my money, the defence seems to be doing a good job so far in the appeal. But I strongly believe that neither Knox nor Sollecito received good enough defence representation in the first trial.

And to represent the defence teams as "the best that money can buy" is ridiculous and incorrect.

 

[LondonJohn]

Alt+F4,

In the first place, I have heard that he did have one previous girlfriend (I believe that this information comes from his friends, but I do not have a citation). In the second, I think that the word "freak" is not a respectful way to refer to Mr. Sollecito, regardless. In the third place, Raffaele gave Amanda an alibi in front of Judge Matteini according to Murder in Italy, Darkness, Descending, and the Daily Telegraph. If you mean that the computer activity does not give Amanda an alibi, well, maybe, but it holes the prosecution's theory below the waterline. If Amanda remembered watching Stardust, then she might have had an alibi had not ILE erased the data concerning the time of access of this file.

Yes - the use of the word "freak" as a descriptor for Sollecito is both interesting and revealing.

And if we were to pick the top three most stupid posts of the past year (which we won't, because it's inappropriate and OT, and anyhow we are all humourless reptilian drones who wouldn't be capable of doing anything as light-hearted as this), I have a fair idea whose user name I'd be putting into the search box first.........

 

[RWVBWL]

But you take them in isolation. You have to include in that that for Amanda and Raffaele to be innocent the knife and the bra clasp have to be due to contamination. Certainly for you this is a given, but it is not so for everybody.

<snip>
Contamination or falsification, certainly. You are acting like this is a problem for my analysis, but you have not explained why you think so.

You seem to be arguing that it's more implausible that a lab with no certification, inadequate precautions against contamination and demonstrably poor methodology came up with a false result than that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito committed an incredibly unusual murder for no reason. This is a very strange view to hold seeing as you have yourself admitted that you have no theory of the crime which is not absurdly unlikely.

If we count up the number of times DNA labs have made a mistake on one hand, and the number of times two university students with absolutely no history of violence or antisocial behaviour team up with a local crook they do not know to brutally sexually assault and murder a friend of theirs for no reason, which count do you think will be higher? Which option should a rational person believe to be more probable?
<snip>

Hi Shuttlt and Keven Lowe,
The problem I have regarding Dr. Patrizia Stefinoni and the lab's work is that she collected some of that evidence herself.
And did not seem to change her gloves as she worked hard collecting evidence.
And then, in what I would think is a conflict of interest, she tested, I believe, some of the same evidence she collected(???)
She was not forthcoming with any negative results and apparently lied about certain testing in her court testimony.

If a person of authority lied in court and was caught in that lie,
1, such as I, might wonder of this:
What else might that person have lied about or done to further their case in this particular instance?
It also begs the question:
Has this person done this before in other criminal trials?
Hmmm...
RWVBWL

PS-Something I find interesting is watching very intelligent pro-guilt supporters apparently have the wool pulled over the their eyes as they seem to overlook this fact I noted above when they discuss any chance of contamination or falsification possibilities.

 

[Alt+F4]

In the first place, I have heard that he did have one previous girlfriend (I believe that this information comes from his friends, but I do not have a citation).

So it's hearsay then.

In the second, I think that the word "freak" is not a respectful way to refer to Mr. Sollecito, regardless.

Why does he deserve any respect from me? He's a convicted murderer.

In the third place, Raffaele gave Amanda an alibi in front of Judge Matteini according to Murder in Italy, Darkness, Descending, and the Daily Telegraph. If you mean that the computer activity does not give Amanda an alibi, well, maybe, but it holes the prosecution's theory below the waterline. If Amanda remembered watching Stardust, then she might have had an alibi had not ILE erased the data concerning the time of access of this file.

Well I have no faith in anything in the Telegraph. It's like The New York Post. As for Darkness, Descending where did the author get that information from. As for Stardust, yes that was mentioned from the begining, why nothing about Naruto?

 

[shuttlt]

She was not forthcoming with any negative results and apparently lied about certain testing in her court testimony.

I think the standard answer to the negative results part, would be to say that the court seemed happy with the information she provided. In any case, it's the second part I want to get stuck into. I'm aware of many things she's said being claimed to be a lie. Which bit do you mean and do we have transcripts of what she said?

 

[Alt+F4]

Knox's lead lawyer, Dalla Vedova, was hired from a list of lawyers supplied by the US Embassy in Rome. But whoever within the embassy supplied the list was incompetent, since it was a list of Italian lawyers with whom the embassy had had prior contacts, and virtually all the lawyers on the list were commercial or political lawyers. Including Dalla Vedova, who was purely a commercial layer and who had never before in his career been involved in a criminal trial of any sort - let alone a murder trial. By all accounts, he was hired merely on the strength of his ability to speak English.....

Then why did Knox's family pick this lawyer?

 

[LondonJohn]

So it's hearsay then.



Why does he deserve any respect from me? He's a convicted murderer.



Well I have no faith in anything in the Telegraph. It's like The New York Post. As for Darkness, Descending where did the author get that information from. As for Stardust, yes that was mentioned from the begining, why nothing about Naruto?

No, the Telegraph is more akin to the New York Times or the LA Times, in terms of its journalistic integrity and type of content. The NY Post would be more analogous to something between The Sun (both the NY Post and The Sun are owned by Murdoch's NewsCorp) and the Mail/Express.

The Telegraph still has a heavy focus on serious economic and political stories (it broke the UK parliamentary expenses scandal story last year, for example), but as with all print media it has expanded its features/lifestyle sections over the past decade in response to shifting consumer demands and the rising influence of online and 24-hour broadcast media. But the NY Post it most certainly ain't.

 

[LondonJohn]

Then why did Knox's family pick this lawyer?

Apparently simply because he spoke English. And possibly also because Knox's mother assumed that any list provided by the US Embassy would only contain suitable lawyers.

As I said, I think Dalla Vedova was unprofessional (and probably also unethical) in agreeing to represent Knox - he was in a position to know that he was totally unqualified for the role, whereas Knox and her mother were in a foreign country with little or no knowledge of either the Italian justice system or about criminal law in general. In addition, of course, Knox's mother would most likely have been in a position of some distress and confusion while all this was going on. Dalla Vedova should never have been Knox's lead attorney - simple as that.

PS You might like to ask Mr Alibi (if he re-appears here) whether he feels that a commercial lawyer (who happened to speak good English) was a good choice to serve as Knox's lead defence lawyer in a murder trial. He's been curiously silent on this matter up to now.....

 

[christianahannah]

So it's hearsay then.

Concerning a prior girlfriend: I believe it was Raffaele's father who testified to Raffaele having a girlfriend before Amanda. From the motivations, pages 61-62:

He had a brief affair with a girl from Brindisi and this was a few months before October 2007. This relationship had a very short duration, for few days and had no involvement any more (see also the statements of the father at p.18, hearing on 19.6.2009).