Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[treehorn]

Do you have any information to support your claim that John Douglas has been engaged as a consultant or that he has taken any money in connection with this case?

I have information on this subject that I believe is reliable. My understanding is that Douglas has not been hired nor has he taken money. As far as I'm aware, the only thing he has gotten is the evidence, which he studied carefully before publicly expressing his opinion.

Perhaps you know something I don't. I have forwarded your comments to seek clarification on this point.

Obviously I'm not privy to the business affairs (or lack thereof) of a man I've never met or had any dealings with.

As a matter of common sense, however, it's clear that, in the event that Douglas is acting as a 'consultant' to Knox (and, FYI, I have yet to see any evidence of this), he is either:

1) paid for his services in cash or kind;

2) providing his services free of charge in exchange for the chance to represent Knox in the media and, thereby, promote his name and services;

or

3) providing his services free of charge out of the goodness of his heart.

Which do you think it is?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I am more qualified to speak on the legal aspects of the case than any non-lawyer you can name.

However, I am no more 'qualified' than anyone else when it comes to matters entailing speculation about a trial that I did not attend daily, and that was not conducted in my native language (what the autopsy video may have shown; what, exactly, various witnesses testified to; who is lying; who is credible; etc.).

Don't forget the vast import of [403], which despite some people's attempts to dismiss it still looms like a terrible mountain, casting its baleful shadow over all who would dare to question any aspect of the Massei narrative.

Other than rape prank theories of course - evidently [403], whatever it is, has no bearing on whether the murder was a "rape prank" gone wrong or a drug-fuelled sex romp gone wrong. How did you figure that out by the way? Have you unearthed in some lost and forgotten tomb a fragment of an ancient manuscript that hints at the true secrets of [403]?

Alas, the point I am trying to make in respect of the amateur bloggers you've listed is that, as a matter of common sense, you cannot take their word at face value when they are known to be associates of the family of one of the accused.

How exactly does this work? Join the dots for us if you will.

If you cannot see that, then you are not really JREF material.

First you were a lawyer, then an expert on what rational people would do, and now you're an expert on who is and is not JREF material.

 

[treehorn]

Treehorn, please give me your expert opinion on why AK's Picture was hung next to mob leaders before she even went to trial? Also, why weren't RS and PL or RS photos hung there? Just curious.

Citation please.

 

[nopoirot]

It doesn't matter how many times you post variations on the same idea.

However often you post it, "I refuse to acknowledge the scientific literature regarding internalised false statements exists, and therefore I think Amanda Knox lied in her internalised false statement" will not become a rational, skeptical or scientifically informed position.

Oh, dear. Do you always go at things like a Goliath holding weighty tomes under each arm?

 

[Poppy1016]

Citation please.

Do you REALLY need a citation for this very public information?

 

[Poppy1016]

Treehorn, I am sorry that you don't consider me JREF material. I can always leave. I am only asking questions. I will at the very least, cease asking you questions. You seem to think you are better then others. My personal opinion is you are just an argumentative person. I think you are too intelligent to really believe all of the nonsense you spout here.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Treehorn, please give me your expert opinion on why AK's Picture was hung next to mob leaders before she even went to trial? Also, why weren't RS and PL or RS photos hung there? Just curious.

My recollection was that RS did indeed get a photo, although PL did not, but I could be wrong.

Nonetheless it's still important evidence that the Perugia legal system had jumped to the conclusion that Knox was guilty very early, and still has a huge stake in trying to defend their actions.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

coerced statements

Perhaps we've been talking past each other. I'm simply trying to hone in on how Sollecito's changes in his version of the facts is likely to influence perceptions of his credibility. Your quotes from Judge Matteini's order seem to me to confirm that those changes were material.

I now see that Judge Massei, on 1-16-09, ruled that Sollecito's "declaration" of 11-5 is admissible.

nopoirot,

That is interesting. I would say that one's own opinions about coerced statements comes into play in evaluating Sollecito's (and Knox's) statements. Is it your opinion that coerced statements rarely if ever happen, or is it that you don't think that they happened here?

What would be enormously helpful is to be able to see or hear a recording of the interview itself. The fact that ILE has not yet produced such a recording is a mark against its credibility.

 

[RWVBWL]

Mary, do you think a lone wolf scenario is correct? I don't as I believe there would have been far more defensive bruises and wounds if Meredith fought back against Rudy, who is hardly He-Man.

Hi LionKing,
I too have sometimes wondered about this.
Recently, I have been watching the original Godfather series DVD movie collection.
I know, it's only fake Hollywood bull, but I noticed in Godfather 3, Chapter 5, Sonny's son Vincent has a redish-blonde woman in his bed, post-coital. She hears noises and when she gets up outta bed, a guy, with a nylon stocking mask covering his head, suddenly attacks her, cupping his hand over her mouth and then placing a knife against her throat.

Exactly how I picture what Meredith Kercher had went thru. The guy even slices her throat at 1 point, gnarly...

If the brutal, bloody murder we discuss was in fact committed by a single assailant, Rudy Guede,
I bet that Meredith Kercher fought for her life at some point.
But she lost that fight and paid the ultimate price in a most horrible way...
Peace, RWVBWL

PS-In this same Godfather clip, there is another guy also in the room, but he does not even touch this woman.
Sometimes I wonder if Rudy Guede was there with someone else, and maybe, just maybe that person did stab Meredith to her death and then split fast, leaving Rudy to try and save Meredith. Rudy has said that he got to the apartment around 8:30pm or so and left around 10:30 or so, IIRC. So if someone else had stabbed Meredith and ran out fast, Rudy had plenty of time to try and save Meredith Kercher. But in the process of saving Meredith, how did Rudy then leave his DNA in her vagina? And while Rudy was on the run, didn't he say that he had oral sex too with Meredith? When, at knifepoint?

PSS-In Godfather 2, Chapter 11 of disk 1, I watched a scene where Sen. Pat Geary of Nevada was found in a bedroom with a dead woman tied up to the bed. A sheet covers some of her body and blood is everywhere.

Though this is still a Hollywood production, this clip just reinforces my opinion that there is NO WAY that Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox could have been in Meredith Kercher's bedroom that night she was stabbed to her death and not have left any of their fingerprints, palmprints, handprints, footprints, shoeprints or any of their DNA, -(excluding that possibly contaminated bra clasp) in that room...

 

[RWVBWL]

RW, this post raises an important question that weakens any argument for premeditation. Amanda and Raffaele had no reason to believe Meredith would be home. From their contact with her earlier that day, they knew Meredith had gone out, but they didn't know where she was going. It was a long holiday weekend with no school the next day. Everybody had partied the night before and no doubt many of them were partying this night, too.

There was no cell phone contact between Meredith and Amanda that evening, so no reason Amanda would be aware that Meredith had been tired and decided to call it an early night and go home from her friends' place before 9:00. There is no evidence of Amanda becoming aware at any time of where Meredith was or whether Meredith was home; for all she knew, Meredith would be spending the night elsewhere, as Amanda was.

Hi Mary H,
That is an excellant overlooked point that you bring up!
I'll have to get caught up on my reading to see if anyone responded to this theory, which seems very likely to have been true...
Bye for now,
RWVBWL

 

[komponisto]

Originally Posted by Poppy1016

Treehorn, please give me your expert opinion on why AK's Picture was hung next to mob leaders before she even went to trial? Also, why weren't RS and PL or RS photos hung there? Just curious.

Citation please.

Video here.

 

[Poppy1016]

Video here.

Thanks Komponisto. I was having trouble relocating that video.

 

[moodstream]

I do not understand your preoccupation with getting me to agree with your specific characterization. I agreed in general with Treehorn's original post…

There is a reason you agreed with Treehorn’s post. You believe that in the example given by Treehorn, Knox was trying to deceive the court by evading the meaning of the questions put to her. You are accusing Knox of equivocation, of speaking with intent to mislead or withhold information.

Yet this is not true. It is unreasonable to hold that position, and to do is itself an act of equivocation.

Komponisto, abler by far to clarify the matter, did so at post 609. I will quote it here in case you missed it:

As to the second question, translating "faceva di uso" as "habitually use" creates an additional problem. Her answer is neither clear nor direct. If that is how she understood the question, I think that she is trying to deny that she used drugs as a matter of habit, as opposed to using them at times during October.

The question was unambiguously about her habits during October. Her answer is unambiguously affirmative, and extremely clear -- so clear that it gives more information than was being asked for: not only that she used drugs during October, but also the circumstances in which she did so. There is absolutely nothing evasive about the answer. This particular straw just isn't worth grasping at.

(By the way, the phrase is "faceva uso di", which, word by word, means "you-[habitually]-made use of".)

You objected to Knox’s reply in your post:

Her answer is neither clear nor direct. If that is how she understood the question, I think that she is trying to deny that she used drugs as a matter of habit, as opposed to using them at times during October. But she does not expressly deny it. If that was her intent, the direct answer is "No “. .. She could certainly qualify her answer by adding that she only used them only occasionally with friends.

Yet her testimony is so similar to your objection about her testimony that I cannot tell the difference:
CP: During the period in question, October '97 [sic], did you [singular] use [imperfect tense, meaning "habitually use"] mind-altering substances? 2007 -- sorry -- did you [habitually] use mind-altering substances?
AK: Every once in a while with friends.

Your way just puts it into two questions instead of one. It’s obvious a Yes or No answer to the question posed would be inherently vague, requiring a follow up, because we must guess about what Knox thought she was being asked. Can you imagine the presumptions resulting from her answering that question NO, or answering YES? Every single question posed by the attorney would be followed by a game of '20 questions' to figure out what the witness's Yes/no responses inferred.

Maybe I am missing something but the matter seems so obvious I feel sort of silly arguing it.

 

[TomM43]

Nothing of any real evidentiary significance hangs on this: We know very well that Amanda was specifically pressured to name the person who sent the text, and that the police knew at the time they specifically pressured her to do so that Lumumba sent the text.

Mignini was engaging in pure legal sophistry in his attempts to get Amanda to state that she named Lumumba first. He knew very well that Amanda had been browbeaten into naming Lumumba but he wanted to give the court the impression that her giving the police the name they were specifically after was a deliberate and spontaneous attempt to frame Lumumba on her part.

It's a funny thing how TomM43 keeps needing this kind of thing spelled out for him. Treehorn seemed to think TomM43 had decades of trial law experience, but then again PMF seems to have a few "lawyers" with little evident legal knowledge, "doctors" with no evident medical knowledge, "academics" who wouldn't know a citation from a hole in the ground and others whose claimed personal authority is remarkable and whose evident expertise is less so. I wonder why this would be, in a community so obsessed with status, authority, and prying into the lives of others to see whether they were lying about their own status and authority?

Several days ago I said "Bye" to you (meaning I am not going to continue to read your posts) in answer to a post in which you asserted something to the effect that the cross-examiner is trying to paint a portrait and knows exactly what the answer is to all the questions. You wanted treehorn and me to agree with it. I found your concept of cross-examination to be simplistic, and I was not going to spend time quibbling with you. I am still not willing to do that.

"TomM43" caught my eye as I was scrolling down, so I read this post. I have no idea why you would question that I am a lawyer. I am curious why you would think that.

So I am making a limited exception here. I will read whatever reply you make on this subject.

 

[TomM43]

There is a reason you agreed with Treehorn’s post. You believe that in the example given by Treehorn, Knox was trying to deceive the court by evading the meaning of the questions put to her. You are accusing Knox of equivocation, of speaking with intent to mislead or withhold information.

Yet this is not true. It is unreasonable to hold that position, and to do is itself an act of equivocation.

Komponisto, abler by far to clarify the matter, did so at post 609. I will quote it here in case you missed it:



You objected to Knox’s reply in your post:


Yet her testimony is so similar to your objection about her testimony that I cannot tell the difference:
CP: During the period in question, October '97 [sic], did you [singular] use [imperfect tense, meaning "habitually use"] mind-altering substances? 2007 -- sorry -- did you [habitually] use mind-altering substances?
AK: Every once in a while with friends.

Your way just puts it into two questions instead of one. It’s obvious a Yes or No answer to the question posed would be inherently vague, requiring a follow up, because we must guess about what Knox thought she was being asked. Can you imagine the presumptions resulting from her answering that question NO, or answering YES? Every single question posed by the attorney would be followed by a game of '20 questions' to figure out what the witness's Yes/no responses inferred.

Maybe I am missing something but the matter seems so obvious I feel sort of silly arguing it.

The highlighted matter: Cross-examination in Italy, compared the the US, UK, is respectively less rigorous, less brutal. You had questions about that, wanting to know if it was from tradition. Maybe you forgot.

Maybe I am just tired but the rest of your post makes no sense to me.

 

[moodstream]

The highlighted matter: Cross-examination in Italy, compared the the US, UK, is respectively less rigorous, less brutal. You had questions about that, wanting to know if it was from tradition. Maybe you forgot.

Maybe I am just tired but the rest of your post makes no sense to me.

Maybe your right. Perhaps we are speaking at cross purposes. You must not be saying that Knox intended to deceive the court by giving evasive answers. Yet you say that Knox is not answering directly? I must be missing your point. I apologize.

Could you spell out the point you have been trying to make then in your last several posts?

Are you saying Knox is answering truthfully but her style is ponderous and the attorneys due to a tradition of some sort cannot complete the questioning they intended?

I have to admit it, one of us apparently has wandered off the path.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Several days ago I said "Bye" to you (meaning I am not going to continue to read your posts) in answer to a post in which you asserted something to the effect that the cross-examiner is trying to paint a portrait and knows exactly what the answer is to all the questions. You wanted treehorn and me to agree with it. I found your concept of cross-examination to be simplistic, and I was not going to spend time quibbling with you. I am still not willing to do that.

"TomM43" caught my eye as I was scrolling down, so I read this post. I have no idea why you would question that I am a lawyer. I am curious why you would think that.

Since you have solicited my opinion, I don't think that, if by "think that" I mean "think that you are a lawyer".

I said that Treehorn thought that you were a lawyer.

The fact that you and Treehorn have less evident familiarity with trial processes than educated laypeople and avidly echo each other's uninformed opinions on court matters leads me to think it much more likely that you have approximately the same amount of courtroom experience as Treehorn does. If you were the real deal I would have expected you to bust Treehorn before we did: real lawyers in my experience are not pleased when non-lawyers pretend to be lawyers on the internet.

On balance I think it most likely that Walter Mitty fantasies of making Amanda Knox break down and confess in a Perugia courtroom are the closest either of you have ever come to actual trial experience.

You asked for my opinion and now you have it.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Obviously I'm not privy to the business affairs (or lack thereof) of a man I've never met or had any dealings with.

As a matter of common sense, however, it's clear that, in the event that Douglas is acting as a 'consultant' to Knox (and, FYI, I have yet to see any evidence of this), he is either:

So you made it up, eh? Why am I not surprised.

John Douglas is not for sale at any price. He does not have a contractual service arrangement with anyone in connection with this case. But he undoubtedly does not want to see two innocent people languish in prison, which is why he supports the West Memphis 3 as well.

The back story is that Douglas communicated a request for information. He made it clear that he would make no promises as to what his opinion would be, and he would not form any opinion until he had studied the evidence carefully. The request was passed to me. I gave him everything without a moment's doubt or hesitation. I have read most or all of his books, and I have learned more about crime from him than I have from any other single author. The idea that this man - this expert of world renown and unimpeachable integrity - would somehow look at the evidence and say, "Oh dear! She really is guilty!" was and is absurd.

 

[LondonJohn]

I see that the latest groupthink mantra is that this thread is going round in circles and has nothing new of value

And I'd have to agree: over just the past week, apart from a number of new and illuminating discussions concerning:

- a mistranslation in the Massei report
- the actual evidence of Knox's and Sollecito's prior drug use
- the actual evidence concerning who saw Knox and Guede together, and how many times
- the true nature of the wounds and marks found on Knox's body in the autopsy
- what "reasonable doubt" means
- how Bayes' theorem can be usefully employed to help analyse the crime
- how and why John Douglas came to give his opinion on the case

there really has been nothing of value added in this thread....



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ

 

[LondonJohn]

Oh, just to clarify (for those who might not be familiar with bell curve distributions - or perhaps also for those who choose to willfully misrepresent the issue....):

Research data show that the median t(lag) time (to all intents, the time after ingestion when food starts to leave the stomach) is around 82 minutes. That's just under an hour and a half. The data also show that of course this is not the case for all people, but there is a recognisable pattern of spread either side of the median. The pattern of spread indicates that in 75% of people, t(lag) is 102 minutes or less - or in other words, 25% of people have a t(lag) of greater than 102 minutes.

And to continue the extrapolation of the curve (which is where it gets interesting for our case), the data suggest that only 5% of people have a t(lag) of greater than 130 minutes (2 hours and 10 minutes). And we find that the 99.9% mark lies at around 170 minutes (2 hours and 50 minutes). So only 0.1% of people have a t(lag) of over 170 minutes. And at t=240 minutes (4 hours), the corresponding percentile is beyond 99.995% - meaning that fewer than one person per 20,000 has a T(lag) time greater than 4 hours.

So while it's true (but disingenuous) to state that according to the scientific data, Meredith would have died at around 7.50pm if she were "average" (i.e. if her t(lag) were at the median point of 82 minutes), the fact that she was alive at 9pm means that by definition she was not "average".

Now, 9pm corresponds to a t(lag) of around 150 minutes. And the data suggest that if Meredith's t(lag) was greater than 150 minutes (as we know it must have been), then it is vastly more likely to have been between 150-180 minutes than it is to have been longer than 180 minutes. In other words, the data suggest that Meredith is far, far more likely to have died between 9pm and 9.30pm than at any time later than 9.30pm (the derived probabilities are in the order of 97% and 3% respectively).

And one last thing: the research data also show that it's to all intents and purposes impossible that Meredith died any later than 10.30pm. Of course, this makes the prosecution's (and court's) agreed time of death in the first trial - around 11.45pm - utterly risible and categorically wrong in respect of Meredith's known post-mortem stomach/intestinal contents and all the scientific data. And, in passing, it also puts the prosecution totally at odds with all the expert witnesses for BOTH sides - all of whom put a t(lag) of 4 hours as the upper limit, which corresponds to a ToD of 10.30pm.