Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Mary_H]

Of course it is.

How could I have possibly overlooked that?

I notice you snipped out my main point, which was that "Your premise seems to be that effective arguments for a case can consist primarily of form without content." Do you agree with it?

If you believe that innocentisti arguments are not based on what is plausible, factual and likely, then why not provide an example or two to support your position?

 

[Mary_H]

I don't claim to be a woman so I really have no basis to judge if a woman would be willing to wear a bra that another woman had previously worn. But I do know one non-subjective way to find out. I will stop at a second hand store and see if they sell used bras.

Secondhand stores do sell used bras, by the dozen, at about 1/10th the price of new. They also sell used underpants.

 

[komponisto]

Kudos. Very impressive. Which language is your 'native tongue'?

My native language is English. Non-native languages include -- besides Italian -- French, Spanish, and Esperanto (the language from which my pseudonym comes). I also have more limited proficiency in a number of others, such as German, Portuguese, and Latin. </biography>

 

[Mary_H]

So now you want the prosecutions theory to be proven to a scientific standard of proof? My, my.... Why not demand a logical proof, that way there is no way for error.

I should hope the prosecution's theory would be proven to a scientific standard of proof, where applicable, which includes the DNA testing. What is the alternative?

 

[Mary_H]

Actually according to Rudy someone was in the downstairs apartment when he left.

I believe he said he heard a noise in the apartment below. That was his excuse for why he ran out abruptly instead of sticking around.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I wasn't originaly arguing with Kevin and it seems to me that Kevin doesn't actually want to defend the point that I originally commented on, that one cannot remove our personal and individual beliefs, experiences, preconceptions (and so on) about the world from our arguments. I don't think this necessarily undermines anybodies argument to any great extent since as far as I'm concerned it's inevitable. Somehow, despite me having said otherwise my statements are getting interpreted as an attack. It seemed to me like I was stating a rather obvious and rather dull truth. I have no idea how this turned into so many posts.

Let's just say that I've had discussions before where people tried to strategically equivocate between "all judgements have an error bar" and "all knowledge is relative and subjective so all views are equally good".

I've been attempting to keep you pinned down to the first claim, and you keep trying to re-introduce claims compatible with the second claim, which makes me suspect that you had this kind of strategic equivocation in mind.

OK. Please argue without reference to any preconceived notion that you may have about what is and isn't likely that the DNA on the bra-clasp got their due to contamination unconnected with the crime. Not that it could, not that it is theoretically possible, but with a level of confidence that makes it a useful part of your argument.

Similarly you keep trying to spin "prior data" as "preconceived notions", a pejorative term with connotations of irrationality and bias.

All of our probabilistic judgments have error bars and are based on prior data.

This does not mean that all of our probabilistic judgments have huge error bars because we cannot eliminate our own unconscious biases, and it does not mean that all of our probabilistic judgments are dictated by irrational "preconceived notions". If they are, you are doing it wrong.

I'll gladly assign probabilities if you allow me error bars that are wide enough to make the exercise pointless.

If your error bars are so wide that it would be a pointless exercise to try to quantify them, then you can't have a rational belief in the guilt of Knox and Sollecito, surely?

At best you can have a fuzzy, pre-reflective conviction that they are guilty based on irrational processes.

 

[Mary_H]

.....Alas, it's true that a cross amounts to little more than a series of point-blank accusations notwithstanding the fact that the 'shots' are phrased in the form of a question, there IS an element of actual inquiry at play because the witness may give you something you were not expecting.

I cannot begin to imagine why his cross was so limited.

Maybe because he knew a guilty verdict was already in the bag.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

what the court does and does not decide

You still haven't answered my question. Komponisto said that courts don't settle issues of fact (obviously in the context of a criminal trial). Who or what does?

Lionking,

You wrote, “So if courts don't decide guilt or innocence, who or what does?” I cannot compel the state of Michigan to adopt my views on the murder of Jane Mixer, and so Mr. Leiterman remains in prison. All I can do is to point out the problematic nature of the evidence in the hopes that someone will take notice. In the legal sense, the courts obviously decide who is guilty and who is not. In the factual sense of the words guilty and innocent, each person can make up his or her own mind, and I will never substitute the state of Michigan’s view of the case for my own: The state never got anywhere near the threshold for convicting him, and the balance of probability is that he did not commit the murder.

 

[tsig]

It's true, I do.

On the other hand, I also do try to keep the hope alive that one or more of the pro-guilt posters here will exceed my expectations.

So no one who thinks Amanda is guilty got there by a rational process?

 

[Katody Matrass]

Translation of the Court's judgment, page 375:

"The owner [of Sollecito's apartment]...would have been able to remember [the knife's]...presence and note the absence of this utensil, and this circumstance would have been able to constitute a trace, an invertigative hypothesis upon which...Sollecito may have been called in to supply an explanation for...opportune to carry the knife back ...its cleaning would have [in theory] ensured...non-traceability..."



First Kevin, then John, now you...

Have any of the pro-Knox set bothered to read the Court's judgment?!

LOL I forgot about that particular Massei's lunacy. You're right, the comical parts are worthy of revisiting from time to time, too. The other ones are e.g. Amanda persuaded by Raffaele to carry that same kitchen knife "for protection", Meredith relaxing by dialing her UK bank phone, and so on.


Ummm. OK. So you were asked to defend or support your extremely bizarre conjecture. Instead you just pointed away: "but it was not my idea it was that guy's". That's neither supporting nor defending.

I guess it's there among that super secret and "never translated" evidence, where we could find that creepy landlord's testimony about weekly cutlery counting. Maybe his detailed cutlery list is there, too
good night

 

[lionking]

So no one who thinks Amanda is guilty got there by a rational process?

Not according to Kevin.

 

[treehorn]

All of our probabilistic judgments have error bars and are based on prior data.

Some 'judgments' have bigger 'error bars' than others.

 

[Mary_H]

......This has a certain relevance to the Knox case. Unlike the perceptions of the general public, when LE is confronted with a home attack their first instincts are not to suspect a stranger, because the culprit is most often ... by a huge margin ... someone who is close to the victim. Apparent evidence of a break-in does not override this instinct. Attempts to shift suspicion are also far from uncommon. If those attempts are not persuasive then they properly return to the procedures that experience has shown to be most successful.

We frequently read in these threads about Knox advocates' puzzlement that Knox would be in the sights of the ILE at all, much less at the onset. We need look no further than this for an explanation. Any competent investigator would first be looking carefully at her, the other roommates, and Meredith's close friends.

I actually agree with this. I now believe that the police were investigating all the witnesses from the beginning. Filomena and Laura's employers probably understood this and advised them to hire counsel immediately.

Of course, this raises the issue again of the police investigating Patrick much earlier than the 5th.

 

[Justinian2]

Apart from your first sentence, I'd tend to agree with you here.

I think that trying to pursue a theory based upon bra-sharing or friendly back-rubbing is of little worth. I can't think of a reasonable way in which either of these activities could have ended up with Sollecito's DNA being on the hook of the bra clasp. Personally, if the DNA can be correctly shown to be Sollecito's, then I think the bra clasp was contaminated either at the scene or in the lab. I certainly don't think there's any way in which his DNA could have found its way onto the small metal hook of the bra clasp during the removal of the bra from Meredith's torso - otherwise his DNA would almost certainly also be present on the material surrounding the clasp.

If the DNA is only on the Bra Clasp as you have indicated, then I believe it probable that some underling put it there.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I cannot begin to imagine why his cross was so limited.

I'm hoping to run across an Italian lawyer that can explain - looks like PMF is my best bet.

You can't imagine? Well I think I can help you out.

You see most people learn about courtroom procedures from the telly or the movies, where witnesses are always making surprising statements that turn the plot on its ear.

The reality is that in the normal course of things nothing the witness says is new to the cross-examiner. The real interview has already happened with the police, and the witness has already put on the written record everything they know.

The charade of cross-examination is there to satisfy the archaic and somewhat quaint "orality" principle, based on the unscientific and now-falsified idea that testimony that comes out of someone's mouth a year after the event is more reliable than a written statement made promptly after the event in question. There's a popular fantasy that jurors can discern the truth of a case in a witness's demeanour or tone of voice, but it's not an evidence-based belief, and in any case in the era of cheap video recording the juror could see the witness give their evidence regardless.

Anyway, so the real interview where all the facts come out has already happened. In all likelihood Amanda and the other witnesses were asked in the real interviews whether Amanda smoked marijuana at that party, or smoked marijuana with Rudy ever, and they answered in the negative.

In the subsequent mock interview in court, the lawyer asks only and exactly the questions that will get the specific facts they want on the record. No more and no less. There are no surprises. The surprises happened long ago in police interview rooms if they happened at all.

If you are thinking "Aw, Perry Mason would have totally held her feet to the fire! Tom Cruise would have demanded the truth and she'd have snapped and confessed!" well, the police do all that sort of thing long before it gets to court. The fishing for incriminating evidence against Amanda was all done already. The cross-examination is just a way of reading the cherry-picked results of that fishing into the court record.

PS I wanted to study law and science, but my GPA was too low, Kevin - the best I could do was teachers college and part-time sociology classes at a 4th rate dump in the Outback.

That's a real shame. Maybe you should take up fishing? Or perhaps become a private detective - I hear that you can get by on Google and guesswork very well these days. I'd suggest professional poker but you can lose a lot of money and credibility in that game if you believe what you want to believe, instead of what the facts and the odds try to tell you.

 

[treehorn]

The reality is that in the normal course of things nothing the witness says is new to the cross-examiner. The real interview has already happened with the police, and the witness has already put on the written record everything they know.

You've never cross-examined a witness, obviously.

They do say things you are not expecting.

It's a lot harder than you might think.

 

[Mary_H]

You've never cross-examined a witness, obviously.

They do say things you are not expecting.

It's a lot harder than you might think.

Have you ever cross-examined a witness in court, treehorn?

 

[treehorn]

Have you ever cross-examined a witness in court, treehorn?

Yes.

Many times.

 

[treehorn]

FWIW I decided to join this discussion in an effort to better understand the pro-Knox point of view and challenge my own beliefs about the case.

Although, I am of the opinion that the evidence supports the conviction of Guede, Knox and Sollectio, I am open to any reasonable, evidence-based arguments to the contrary. I always have been.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

So no one who thinks Amanda is guilty got there by a rational process?

Not according to Kevin.

I wouldn't go that far. For example a rational person might happen by chance on a single pro-guilt article, read it, be convinced by it at the time, and think no more about the matter.

I would go so far as to say that I don't think anyone who is fully informed about the details of the case and thinks Amanda is guilty got there by a rational process, any more than any fully-informed and rational person believes that a Jewish conspiracy was behind 9/11, or that homeopathy works, or that the moon landings were faked.

Some ideas are sufficiently silly that you can't believe in them while still being rational and informed, if rationality and information have any meaning at all.

Now perhaps I'm wrong, and if so I want to know about it. To show that I'm wrong you could start by presenting a coherent theory of the crime that fits with the facts as we now know them. Or you could answer Komponisto's question and list for us what you think the most important pieces of evidence for Knox and Sollecito's guilt are, what weight you put on them, and what a minimum set of evidence to get you to >50% belief in her guilt might be.

If you are convinced of her guilt but cannot articulate a single remotely sensible theory of the crime, or even articulate the reasons why you believe her to be guilty, then I am very happy to say with great certainty that your belief is not rational.