Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[LondonJohn]

Happy Birthday Malkmus! Have a good one.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

A man named Titsworth played the role of Patrick Lumumba in the Haraway case. The cops thought Titsworth was involved, and they got Fontenot to name him as an accomplice, although Fontenot repeatedly got his name wrong, referring to him as "Titsdale." Titsworth would have gone down with Ward and Fontenot for sure, except he had a perfect alibi: two days before the murder, he had been incapacitated in a drunken scuffle with police, which left him with a spiral fracture to his arm.

Edited to add: Actually it may have been Tommy Ward, rather than Fontenot, who rolled over on Titsworth. Both Ward and Fontenot confessed. Neither of them told a story that was even remotely consistent with what the evidence showed when Haraway's remains were eventually located. Ward and Fontenot said they stabbed her, left her body in an abandoned house, and torched the place. But it turned out that the owner of the abandoned house had torched it himself before the murder, and Haraway's remains were found miles away in a different location, with a bullet wound in her skull.

Oh well. Ward and Fontenot confessed, they were convicted, and there they sit in prison.

 

[RoseMontague]

Bias, exaggeration and a false claim of criminal conduct would be massive to going to prove a wider defence contentions about the prosecution. So no, you'd absolutely go for it if you could.

Absence of appeal is absence of appealability in this regard, logically.

I think it should be left there with his other wild claims. There is a good quote on this at Ray's place.

Co-prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini attempted to prove that he can read minds and has psychic abilities to see the past in way previously unknown to man. I have to say that out of all the cases I've followed, I've never seen a prosecutor who make so many unsubstantiated assumptions based on no evidence. However, the fact the Mignini is forced make such assumptions highlights just how weak his case truly must be.

Here is his Mignini's theory of the motive:

"Amanda has the occasion to get back at that overly serious and moralizing English girl who she felt was too tied to the closed group of her English friends, and who accused her not too subtly of not being orderly or clean, and who criticized her for being too easy with boys," Mignini said.

"Amanda nurtured her hate for Meredith, but that night that hate could explode. For Amanda the moment had come to take revenge on that prissy girl. That is what she must have thought. And in a crescendo of threats and increasing violence, Meredith's ordeal begins."

http://knoxarchives.blogspot.com/2009/11/closing-arguments-day-1-odd-summation.html

 

[SomeAlibi]

Sorry. My bad.

You see, when you began a post by prefacing it with the address,

"SA,"
​

followed by the statement,

"You made a personal attack on LondonJohn."
​

and shortly after that,

"You attempted to bring a typical PMF tactic over here,"
​

and concluded with,

"I will await your response to my bolded question."
​

I was misled into thinking that you were making the assertion that SA had brought over claims from PMF and you were demanding an explanation from SA.

You can understand my confusion, I hope.

Except I didn't make a huge thing out of it. Your original post was correct, I think other people were more exercised about it. I just made a suggestion which was followed.

On the mops - I posted a pic which was from the broom closet in the cottage not Raffaele's flat. That's the broom cupboard you can see in the video where the forensic team are wrapping it up to protect the surface from contamination - not sure where all the "OMG" stuff comes from - that's them videoing them taking the evidence away.

It's the broom closet he is so insistent in mentioning in his dairy entry where he says he was "shocked" on entering the flat but in the very next sentence managed to mention this minute detail of Amanda replacing the mop. He "seemed to the remember it" in his words. My point was the mop was overmentioned and they knew that they knew perfectly well they hadn't used it. It was an attempt at alibi creation which has some tells on it in the diary and testimony through their repeated pointing at it. I called it a double bluff and so it is. Whether it was just a visual bluff or whether there was some replacement with mops heads (and this is the old one now we can see the crusty nature of it), is all conjecture.


Moderator - I hope you will please allow the following as I am ceasing to post here and this serves as the explanation why:

As for the mileage that keeps on attempting to be made against me personally, I've had enough. I can't focus on the proper debate here without people constantly sniping in so many posts against me. There's some good stuff and points well made by a few posters but it's outweighed repeatedly by all the personal digs. The last few days as my third attempt at this have really been enough.

I try to debate the computer use and the poster won't even debate but uses ridiculous obfuscating tactics. We've seen Fiona resign from the board which I think is a very bad bellwether for the temperature here. Capealadin has pulled out too for a point that you're all missing which is not about causality of animal "porn" to murder (no one has ever argued that) but about it being an indication of very poor character and lack of judgement which can be a criminal offence in many countries. There is no defence of someone having animal porn on their computer or mobile phone "because they're pretty" or "because they have lots of real estate". What you're supposed to say is "and that's pretty sick so I decided I didn't want to have anything more to do with that person" or "I really tried to talk them out of why it wasn't funny or amusing". But instead, there's this swaggering I'm rock-and-roll mentality that seeks to ignore the offences and disgusting conduct in the first instance.

In other words, if she looks ok, the disgusting act doesn't matter. If the argument helps (it doesn't - there's no causality), then ignore the primary issue. I cannot understand that argument nor anyone who seeks to support it. If you lose sight of the primary offence just because it "supports your side", you've lost track of your rational debate and moral compass.

So, I'm out too. I can count a few people here I'd debate with. The degree of unpleasantness outside of that, really isn't worth it, to me, I'm afraid.

 

[LondonJohn]

It's getting like Dragon's Den in here.

"I'm out"

Each to his/her own. Matey. (remember when that word was last used, and in what context....?)

 

[komponisto]

I've been away for a bit, and I now see that there have been some complaints about unpleasantness and a number of pro-guilt posters appear to be leaving.

Without taking a position on the nature of the most recent conversations (which appear to me to be mostly tangential, having to do with whether some individual approves of animal pornography or some such) I would just like to note that there was legitimate case-related debate in progress when I last posted, and would be willing to resume that with anyone interested, whatever their position.

There aren't many places where pro-guilt and pro-innocence sides have been able to engage with each other civilly, constructively, and even perhaps intelligently. This seemed to be a rare exception. Is there anywhere else one can go for this?

 

[Malkmus]

Happy Birthday Malkmus! Have a good one.

Thanks so much, LJ!

 

[Malkmus]

Is there anywhere else one can go for this?

Yes, actually. I converse somewhat frequently on the Insession boards with a few other PMF members.

http://boards.insessiontrials.com/showthread.php?375490-Judge-Approves-Another-Look-See-at-DNA

The threads get split up more frequently than here, so don't be confused by the length of the latest one.

 

[Malkmus]

You are correct, I knew I had read that in a diary but I was thinking Raffaele.

As far as the appeal, what would they appeal? It is not mentioned in the Massei report as part of the judges Motivation. All the comments I have seen seem to indicate Mignini was engaged in quite a bit of fanciful speculation during his closing and most people understand that to be the case.

Perhaps then, the least SA could do, is change the author of the LSD allegation from Amanda and Raf to Mignini in his video as they can't actually be cited.

On a side note, I too find that some on here debate with me out of bad faith, sometimes dishonestly, but I can choose to put them on ignore if I wish (haven't yet). Funny that some choose to leave completely (and go back to that other site where their views go uncontested) rather than put those they have problems with on ignore.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I think you've misread the quote from Massei. The person visiting the house isn't Marco Marzan (obviously, since he lived there) but one of Rudy's friends from basketball, Giorgio Cocciaretto.

Also, I think there may be a translation error in the sentence you quoted:

So Giorgio only saw Amanda, Meredith and Rudy at the boys' house once, during the party. This matches both what Amanda said in her testimony, and the testimonies from the boys downstairs.

Aha! That resolves my confusion. I was pretty sure we'd been over this point thoroughly in the past and that as far as the evidence went Amanda had met Rudy at a party once at most, so when Treehorn found a valid source saying otherwise in black and white I was very surprised and of course admitted I was wrong.

However it looks like my memory was correct and Treehorn's facts were wrong, although on this one issue he cannot really be blamed since the translation he was working from contained an error.

Thank you for clearing that up.

I think this does put Treehorn back on square one though. He doesn't have any coherent theory of the crime, and now he doesn't even have the consolation prize of being right about one minor factual issue that I was wrong about.

 

[RoseMontague]

Perhaps then, the least SA could do, is change the author of the LSD allegation from Amanda and Raf to Mignini in his video as they can't actually be cited.

Good point. He did admit the claim was in need of a better cite. Maybe he will still read here and make the changes immediately.

 

[LondonJohn]

Perhaps then, the least SA could do, is change the author of the LSD allegation from Amanda and Raf to Mignini in his video as they can't actually be cited.

Ahh, but remember, if these allegations haven't been specifically addressed in Sollecito's written appeal submission, it must necessarily mean that they can be corroborated and - by extension - they must be true....

 

[RoseMontague]

Ahh, but remember, if these allegations haven't been specifically addressed in Sollecito's written appeal submission, it must necessarily mean that they can be corroborated and - by extension - they must be true....

Part of the hidden evidence file that proves all these things and more, no doubt.

 

[Malkmus]

Ahh, but remember, if these allegations haven't been specifically addressed in Sollecito's written appeal submission, it must necessarily mean that they can be corroborated and - by extension - they must be true....

Reminds me a bit (in a strange opposite way) of how often some of the weakest circumstantial evidence is raised despite it never being used against them in the motivations (the lamp, Raf's explanation of the knife DNA).

 

[Katody Matrass]

On the mops - I posted a pic which was from the broom closet in the cottage not Raffaele's flat. That's the broom cupboard you can see in the video where the forensic team are wrapping it up to protect the surface from contamination - not sure where all the "OMG" stuff comes from - that's them videoing them taking the evidence away.

That's incorrect, SomeAlibi. They're not taking it away, but to the murder room. If they wanted to prevent contamination they would wrap the mop head, too. They would take it outside, not into the murder room. And they would pack it properly, not wrap in something found at the crime scene.

 

[samba]

"Behavior issues"...

What is he (allegedly) getting at there...

Sporting flick knives, animal porn, street drugs, and throwing rocks at cars...not "behavioral issues"?!

And your source for this would be???

(I promise to read it, consider it and remember it. Unlike some, I will not 'pretend' to have forgotten your citation in the event you decide to refer to it again somewhere down the road.)

From the English translation of the Mignini appeal:

"The prosecution is appealing against this reasoning by saying: a clean record carries weight when an offender is of advanced age; with the offenders here being barely out of the age of minority, a clean record has little or no significance in terms of mitigation"

So...the lead prosecutor believes that they have a clean record.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

You keep trying to play the man ("leading me to suspect your may be making things up as you go") and you have failed to address the issue. For the second and last time, will you please stop the former and deal with the latter.

You have been unwilling to offer any evidence the computer was in use throughout the entire time. You simply assert that it is. That is a complete fail on this board, as you know.

1.The defence say they have evidence the computer was in use between 9pm and 6am.

2. You say this is supported by "ones and zeros"

3. I ask you what those ones and zeros (i.e. computer activity which must be recorded on hard disk since they are examining hard disks) actually are and what applications caused their creation. Because otherwise this is a meaningless assertion. How do I know it's caused by human interaction and isn't just Operating System event logs caused by a power-on but unused laptop?

If you didn't know anything at all about this sub-topic, why did you pretend otherwise and adopt this combative pose? All of this was hashed out earlier in this thread.

I'll give you the short version. Macs have an obscure error log file, windowserver.log, which records errors in the operating system. It's not commonly known about which is why neither pro-innocence nor pro-guilt amateurs like ourselves ever asked "what about Raffaele's windowserver.log file, huh?" until computer experts hired by the appeal team got on the job and published the contents of the files along with their interpretation of them. For the same reason it's a very sound bet that Raffaele didn't know such a file existed either.

For whatever reason the screensaver Raffaele was using generated an error whenever it activated. This was recorded in ones and zeroes in the windowserver.log along with a time stamp, along with various other errors generated by the computer's processes.

The screensaver activated several times during the 9pm-6am period but was never active for more than six minutes during that time. Since there is some evidence that Raffaele had his screen saver set to activate in twenty minutes (he received a text from his father at 6:02am from memory, he testified that he went to sleep after receiving the text, and the last screensaver activation was at 6:22) a reasonable conclusion is that his laptop was not untouched at any time that evening and morning for more than 26 minutes.

Your demand for specific applications I interpreted as a deliberate attempt to confuse the thread by demanding irrelevant data, since I assumed you were at least passingly familiar with what the issue was about. Since I now know this was incorrect and was the result of honest ignorance about what we were talking about I forgive you.

As you probably know, screensavers by design only activate when there is no human interaction and no other process like a "hot corner", a movie player application, a music player application or whatever is preventing them from activating. As far as I am aware in the normal course of events they only deactivate when there is human interaction.

4. I underline we are examining a defence line of questioning which you must substantiate before you get to turn it back and say "prove what I say is not correct". The point is you have offered no evidence at all to support YOUR claims.

Everyone else here was up to speed on what we were talking about or willing to ask if they didn't know. The problem was not that the evidence wasn't there, it's that you were ignorant of it and didn't ask.

Since this is a defence argument which you can't substantiate, you should simply say "I don't know".

I contend that if the defence actually had something material then the appeals would say "showing consistent computer activity between 9pm and 6am" caused by the XYZ application(s)". I think that omission is likely highly telling and this line of argument is going to undermine their credibility.

Yes, well, you can convince yourself of anything with enough ignorance of the facts and enough creativity in "contending" arbitrary things you have no evidence of.

As I said earlier, it's "This is bad for Obama!" all over again. Even when the appeals team publishes hard evidence, recorded objectively by a hard drive at the time, showing that there is no possible way that the prosecution theory could be correct, we still see the pro-guilt posters trying to find ways to spin it as evidence the appeal is doomed.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Me, skate away?

No.

You're the one that's trying to skate away from that massive blunder.

As I'm sure you're aware by now, this "massive blunder" turns out to be due to a mistranslation in the version of the Massei report you were working from. My recollection of the facts was correct, but your error was eminently forgivable seeing as your translation was in error.

Now we can all agree that Amanda met Rudy at a party once at most, and that the only evidence we have of this comes from a statement made by a friend of Rudy's who was (as I stated) not one of the residents in the share-house below that shared by Meredith and Amanda.

Now let's get back to the question of whether or not "Rudy and Amanda smoked dope together on several occasions" as you have claimed, and as you have attempted to support by posting a variety of quotations that in fact showed nothing of the sort. What is your evidence for this claim? Do you acknowledge that the matter you previously presented as evidence for this claim in fact did not establish it to be true at all?

What "factually false claims" are you referring to? Are you trying to divert attention away from that fact that you just fell apart.

You're the only one caught (red-handed, no less) in a "factually false claim", Kevin.

It seems you couldn't be bothered to understand the report before you disparaged it, how is that 'rational'?

(I actually feel embarrassed for you. After all of your claims about "trained thinking" and your powers of rational analysis...)

I'm sorry for you on one level. This "gotcha" was all you had, and now it's gone.

However surely you must realise that it wasn't much of a gotcha anyway. From a guilt-or-innocence perspective, the fact that the crime as imagined by the prosecution has a staggeringly low prior probability would have been almost totally unchanged even if you were right, and you weren't. Yes, it would be very slightly less absurd to postulate that Amanda, Raffaele and Rudy teamed up to murder Meredith if Amanda had smoked marijuana with Rudy two or three times, as opposed to if they had maybe met at one party once, but only very slightly.

From a "Kevin's credibility" perspective, the only people who have ever tried to put me up on a pedestal as someone with any authority in my own right are the guilters, whose penchant for pathologically personalising this debate you are intimately and personally well aware of (we can cite Forum Management if necessary). As I have said from the start my arguments stand or fall on their own merits - that is the whole point of rationality. You could find out tomorrow that I had smoked marijuana with Amanda Knox on several occasions, that I watched animal porn every morning with my breakfast cereal and that I believed the Jews staged 9/11 and it wouldn't make a whit of difference to whether the arguments I have posted are sound or unsound.

Only the facts and the arguments matter to a rationalist. So let's talk about facts - is it true that "Rudy and Amanda smoked dope together on several occasions"?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Better primary source needed it appears, yes. I think it's in one of the books as well but I'd need to check.

I have to say, you certainly have the appeal point incorrect in terms of seriousness and why the defence would challenge it. You can't have a prosecutor impinge the reputation of a defendant baselessly by alleging the taking of two class A drugs (in UK parlance), the act of which is criminal and rightly thought to be more serious than smoking dope. That reduces the reputation and standing of the defendant in the eyes of the jury and would be an absolute home run if you could land it against the prosecutor at the time or in appeal that they made a claim about prior criminal conduct without evidence or testimony.

Bias, exaggeration and a false claim of criminal conduct would be massive to going to prove a wider defence contentions about the prosecution. So no, you'd absolutely go for it if you could.

Absence of appeal is absence of appealability in this regard, logically.

Maybe that would be true in politics.

In a rational examination of the facts, if you want to prove that the conviction was unjustified there are far better ways to spend your time in this particular case than arguing that Mignini got them convicted by making up one thing about their history of drug use in his closing remarks. One lie by Mignini should not be enough to convict anyone, and I'm sure that if the appeal team bothered with the issue the pro-guilt community would be glad to argue that they were wasting their time on trivia.

The appeal team are doing the right thing from a rationalist perspective in attacking issues that should matter to a rational person - Curatolo's testimony, the DNA evidence, the time of death, the computer records and so on. If revising those issues demolishes the prosecution case it doesn't matter what Mignini made up in his closing remarks, at least as far as getting Amanda and Raffaele out of the pokey is concerned.

So I disagree with your conclusion. The fact that this trivial claim has not been brought up yet by the appeal team is not proof that secret evidence exists to make Mignini right, secret evidence that Massei and every journalist in the room failed to mention despite it's obvious salacious interest to the newspaper-reading public and obvious applicability to the prosecution campaign of character assassination against Knox and Sollecito.

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

Your demand for specific applications I interpreted as a deliberate attempt to confuse the thread by demanding irrelevant data, since I assumed you were at least passingly familiar with what the issue was about. Since I now know this was incorrect and was the result of honest ignorance about what we were talking about I forgive you.

<snip>

There is a delicious irony here. You concede that your error results from your jumping to conclusions, and magnanimously "forgive" him for your own mistaken assumptions.

Your generosity knows no bounds.