Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[komponisto]

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

Not that I've seen. If you think you have, feel free to elaborate on your reasoning -- say, by answering my question that Kevin repeated for you earlier.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Juve, by Jove

loverofzion,

False. Meredith thought one man that Amanda invited over was strange, but both Amanda and the man (his nickname was shaky, IIRC) are clear that he was a friend, not a boyfriend. I hope your batting average improves.

Note: It was Juve, not Shaky, that Meredith thought was strange. My apologies for any confusion.

 

[treehorn]

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.

The "facts as we now know them"?

Just yesterday you were claiming that 'Amanda did not know Rudy'.

You then went on to advance the demonstrably false proposition that Amanda had socialized with Rudy "once at most."

Objectively, the evidence does not support your so-called 'knowledge' of the facts.

Worse still, you will not acknowledge your errors.

There can be no 'rational' theory of the case based on errors of this magnitude.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Yes.

Many times.

Oh, really? Wow, it's so nice to have an expert amongst us.

How would you have conducted that cross-examination? What questions would you have asked, and why would you have asked them?

 

[komponisto]

The "facts as we now know them"?

Just yesterday you were claiming that 'Amanda did not know Rudy'.

You then went on to advance the demonstrably false proposition that Amanda had socialized with Rudy "once at most."

Objectively, the evidence does not support your so-called 'knowledge' of the facts.

Worse still, you will not acknowledge your errors.

There can be no 'rational' theory of the case based on errors of this magnitude.

Seriously? Errors on the order of thinking Amanda met Rudy once when she actually may have met him twice?

How many times does it have to be pointed out to you that Kevin's "errors" are minor, and that the pro-innocence case doesn't depend on them?

Why do you think Knox and Sollecito are guilty? Give me your number one reason.

 

[RWVBWL]

Rudy knew Amanda, did Patrick know Meredith?

Hi all,
In light of the recent debate about whether Rudy Guede really knew Amanda Knox,
I thought that some of you might find this interesting:

Patrick had learned of Meredith's death on Nov. 2, the day her murder was discovered. Around 6:00pm, several customers came into Le Chic, where he was bartending. They said a foreign student had died, "a girl of Indian origin."

Right away Patrick thought of Meredith, whom Amanda had brought into the bar a few times. He remembered the British girl as vivacious. They'd had only 1 conversation, about Polish vodka. Meredith said she knew how to make a Mojito with it. Patrick offered to let her "guest host" at Le Chic 1 night with her friends.

On Nov. 5, Patrick handed out flyers on the Corso,
helping to get word out about a candlelight vigil that evening for Meredith, organized by Perugia's bartenders.
"Meredith? No, Meredith, I did not know her," he told Il Messaggero that same day.

I find it odd that Patrick Lumumba,
who was going to have this young woman work for him, says that he "did not know her",
but Rudy Guede, who might, or might not have smoked out with Amanda Knox 1 time, now know each other...
RWVBWL

Ref: 'Murder in Italy', Author: C. Dempsey, pages 134+135

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Meredith's response

Well by Merdith's reply and the fact that she did not invite amanda nor respond in the affirmative to her invitation, it would appear Merdith preferred spending her time with her other friends.
Who all agreed with this assessment of the relations between the two girls.

loverofzion,

Meredith signed her response with an "x." It is difficult to reconcile this with hostility.

 

[Mary_H]

The "facts as we now know them"?

Just yesterday you were claiming that 'Amanda did not know Rudy'.

You then went on to advance the demonstrably false proposition that Amanda had socialized with Rudy "once at most."

Objectively, the evidence does not support your so-called 'knowledge' of the facts.

Worse still, you will not acknowledge your errors.

There can be no 'rational' theory of the case based on errors of this magnitude.

Get over it, treehorn. KevinLowe casually asked how likely it was that the defendants would participate in a murder with someone they didn't know. He obviously intended his meaning to be someone they didn't know well. That's why he didn't say "with someone they'd never met."

"Errors of this magnitude?" Kevin was not even making a claim about the relationships between the subjects; that was incidental. He was asking how likely it was that they committed murder together. That question went by the wayside as you focused pedantically on a picayune aspect of his vocabulary, and it got blown out of proportion all over the whole thread. Was that your intention -- to sidestep his question and sidetrack the discussion? It sure worked.

To counter Kevin's offhand, incidental comment, you argued that Rudy and Amanda had smoked marijuana together on a number of occasions. You were not able to support that claim, nor most of the other claims you made in the same post. You made mistakes. Have you acknowledged them?

You have now made several posts about what a big mistake Kevin made, and how embarrassed, ashamed and "smarting" he must be. Do you think this tactic minimizes your own limitations? Maybe it would in kindergarten, but it doesn't in this venue. It magnifies them.

It's very odd, treehorn.

 

[RWVBWL]

Hi Treehorn,
I remember you stating something to the effect that in your world, Kevin Lowe wouldn't have a job.

With that in mind, which of these folks, if any, do you believe should still have a job?:
1) During the mind numbing cell phone network details, the prosecutor falls asleep.*
2) One eldery juror becomes well known for napping after his lunch.*
3) Judge Massei, while on the podium, answers his cell phone while the trial is underway.*
4) Prosecutor Manuela Comodi plays solitaire on her computer when she wasn't on the podium.*
Thanks for your reply!
RWVBWL

Reference:
1) Page 122/123 Angel Face, Author: Barbie Nadeau
2) Page 123 Angel Face, Author: Barbie Nadeau
3) Page 319, Murder in Italy, Author: Candace Dempsey
4) Page 310, Murder in Italy, Author: Candace Dempsey

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

On Nov. 5, Patrick handed out flyers on the Corso, helping to get word out about a candlelight vigil that evening for Meredith, organized by Perugia's bartenders.
"Meredith? No, Meredith, I did not know her," he told Il Messaggero that same day.

I find it odd that Patrick Lumumba,
who was going to have this young woman work for him, says that he "did not know her",
but Rudy Guede, who might, or might not have smoked out with Amanda Knox 1 time, now know each other...

As I said earlier, "know" is a very fuzzy word that can be used to mean a very slight degree of acquaintance without being technically wrong, but which clearly implies a significant degree of acquaintance.

Pro-guilt posters who are more interested in sexing up the prosecution case then they are in accurately representing the facts as best we know them want to pull off a semantic conjuring trick by establishing it as a fact in people's minds that Amanda "knew" Rudy, in much the same way that they want to establish in people's minds that Amanda "used illicit narcotics" (smoked marijuana).

They could just say "Amanda met Rudy once at a party, and saw him once at her place of work, and she used marijuana sometimes" but that, while factually accurate, doesn't sound very incriminating.

Saying "Amanda knew Rudy, and was a known user of illegal narcotics" sounds much more incriminating and it isn't technically lying.

 

[treehorn]

Seriously? Errors on the order of thinking Amanda met Rudy once when she actually may have met him twice?

Correction: "2 or 3 times" at the cottage plus at least 1 time at the pub.

That's 3 or 4 occasions dating from mid October. (To say nothing of the fact that, as noted by the Court, Rudy was a fixture at the basketball court "just steps" from the girls' cottage.)

She knew Rudy. Rudy was infatuated with her.

Indeed, she knew Rudy longer than she knew Raffaele (6 days or so).

She is the nexus that connects erstwhile strangers Rudy and Raffaele to the crime.

 

[Matthew Best]

Saying "Amanda knew Rudy, and was a known user of illegal narcotics" sounds much more incriminating and it isn't technically lying.

It sounds even better if you use the term "street drugs" instead.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Correction: "2 or 3 times" at the cottage plus at least 1 time at the pub.

That's 3 or 4 occasions dating from mid October.

She knew him.

Indeed, she knew him longer than she knew Raffaele (6 days or so).

She is the nexus that connects erstwhile strangers Rudy and Raffaele to the crime.

You might want to read this. It seems that you missed it the first two times.

Rudy visited the downstairs boys two or three times, according to one of his friends.

Amanda (and Meredith) were present on one of those two or three occasions, again according to that one of Rudy's friends.

The translation you were using was erroneous, which is not your fault. You keep repeating the incorrect text as if it were true even after being corrected twice, which I have to say is your fault.

The talking point about knowing Rudy longer than Raffaele seems very strange, over-specific and irrelevant. I think I knew my girlfriend(s) better after six days with them than I have ever known someone after meeting them once at a party and then seeing them once at my place of work. What relevance do you see the time since they first met each other as having, in this context?

 

[treehorn]

Hi Treehorn,
I remember you stating something to the effect that in your world, Kevin Lowe wouldn't have a job.

With that in mind, which of these folks, if any, do you believe should still have a job?:
1) During the mind numbing cell phone network details, the prosecutor falls asleep.*
2) One eldery juror becomes well known for napping after his lunch.*
3) Judge Massei, while on the podium, answers his cell phone while the trial is underway.*
4) Prosecutor Manuela Comodi plays solitaire on her computer when she wasn't on the podium.*
Thanks for your reply!
RWVBWL

Reference:
1) Page 122/123 Angel Face, Author: Barbie Nadeau
2) Page 123 Angel Face, Author: Barbie Nadeau
3) Page 319, Murder in Italy, Author: Candace Dempsey
4) Page 310, Murder in Italy, Author: Candace Dempsey

I suppose you could say that trials unfold like plays, books or movies: Some parts are more interesting and/or relevant than others.

On many occasions I've seen judges, jurors and counsel nod off (however briefly) during testimony from a witness that is, well, less-than-exciting (picture a technical expert covering ground that's already been covered, for example).

Nevertheless, I have little doubt that the ears of the Italian triers pricked up when key testimony was delivered.

As for counsel playing solitaire on a laptop (presumably during portions of the trial that did not directly involve their input), it's no surprise, really. In the old days I suppose counsel would have been 'doodling' on a legal pad with a pen. Solitaire in court is not something I've seen personally, but I surely did see a lot of my classmates playing it on their laptops during lectures, so...

(I admired their courage - I was terrified of being caught off-guard by a prof struck with a sudden urge to get Socratic and wouldn't have dared to play Solitaire during a lecture.)

I suppose lay people are under the impression that every second of a trial requires the wrapt attention of every lawyer at the table, but it's not like that, RWVBWL.


PS It just struck me that Comodi might even be a genius: a brilliant classmate of mine (he got a perfect score on his LSAT - who does that, BTW, honestly?!) used to be able to move, effortlessly, from Solitaire on his laptop to the middle of an intense/ complex classroom discussion, and back, without missing a beat. It was an amazing thing to behold.

 

[treehorn]

It sounds even better if you use the term "street drugs" instead.

Did she have a prescription for the drug?

Did she buy it legally at a pharmacy?




PS Did she know its purity and composition?

 

[TomM43]

Firstly, Apologies for the 'prosecution' / 'defence' slip up. I did indeed mean defence.
So, you state that the point of your original post was to say that it's easy to come up with a story that accounts for the DNA being there. I would argue that if the only stories that can be given as an alternative to RS participating in the crime / covering up the crime are 'unlikely'- a statistically rare way for people to behave- then the onus would be on the defence to corroborate. So, if RS said 'yeah I borrowed the bra because I'm a cross dresser' then his defense would have to show that he had previous experience or interest in cross dressing.
However, if the stories that can be given as an alternative are 'likely' - statistically common way for people to behave, mundane if you will - then the onus would be on the prosecution to prove that these stories could not be true.
I do not claim to be an expert in DNA forensics. Did the Scientific Police provide an account of how it would be impossible (or at least beyond a reasonable doubt) for RS's DNA to be on the clasp through this type of contact (rather then through cutting it from MK's body)? Or, for that matter, did they explain why it would've been impossible for the DNA to have come to be on the clasp through contamination during the forensics investigation or in the following 40+ days after? If so, please point me in the right direction in regards to sources...
Thanks

Reasonable doubt is not applied at this level. Jurors in common law countries are not told that each item of evidence must be believed to be true beyond a reasonable doubt. They are told to consider all of the evidence, and after that, whether they have a reasonable doubt of guilt.

 

[Matthew Best]

Did she have a prescription for the drug?

Did she buy it legally at a pharmacy?




PS Did she know its purity and composition?

She's lucky she didn't OD!!!

 

[treehorn]

She's lucky she didn't OD!!!

On what, the drug she thought she'd bought, or the drugs she actually wound up with?

 

[treehorn]

Reasonable doubt is not applied at this level. Jurors in common law countries are not told that each item of evidence must be believed to be true beyond a reasonable doubt. They are told to consider all of the evidence, and after that, whether they have a reasonable doubt of guilt.

Good luck explaining that to this group.

It's like hitting your head against a brick wall - but it has helped me to pass the time while I fight off a bad case of the flu.

Gotta give credit where it's due.

 

[Dan O.]

You could be right. The part removed is called the trap, a U shaped device for creating an water barrier against the backflow of gases. This is the place if you dropped your ring down the sink, you might hope to find it and an obvious piece to remove for testing. IIRC, this is a video still contained in the evidence collection at Raffaele's place on the date shown in the frame. I thought Charlie had posted this video before. Does anyone recall if this part was already missing when they opened the cabinets under the sink?

The trap had already been removed by the time the cupboard is opened in that video. If it's true that both the landlord and plumber testified about the leak, it could be assumed that the pipe had been repaired before the 6th. The missing piece was therefore removed by the police and taken as evidence on an earlier visit such as on the 6th, 14th or earlier on the 16th.

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

I saw about 2 dozen at the second hand store. Thus the conclusion of this scientific excursion to uncover the truth reveals that wearing a bra that had previously been warn by somebody else is not totally abhorrent to a large enough segment of the population that there is a viable market.

They also sell used underpants.

Ewww.