Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[RoseMontague]

Once I figured out that SB was Skeptical Bystander over at the PMF forums, I got to this post here on our forums from Piktor (with bonus unfounded claim that Amanda won a prize for a rape-themed essay in prison), which led to identical text at PMF, which led to the original 2007 claim in the comments on an on-line article.

Apparently Skeptical Bystander sent a follow-up email to "Joh" who repeated their story.

So the sum total of the evidence is that in 2007, with the witch hunt in full swing, an anonymous internet denizen made a claim which has never been confirmed or corroborated in any way, shape or form except that when asked the anonymous internet denizen repeated the same story.

This would seem to be the actual origin of the guilter meme that "rape pranks" were a thing that existed, as opposed to a thing that just does not exist. One anonymous commenter's unsupported claim.

I think I'm about ready to declare this mole flat. We've established "rape pranks" don't exist, "hazing" rapes don't fit the crime in any way, and the original source of the claim has been tracked down and found to be without evidentiary merit. Have we missed anything?

Conclusion: We were all far too generous to Treehorn/Michael's "rape prank" theory. While at first it appeared to be an improvement over no theory at all, because the idea of a "rape prank" was not prima facie implausible, it turns out that "rape pranks", like unicorns and farfling, are imaginary. They don't actually exist, and hence they don't count as an explanation of otherwise puzzling phenomena.

Nice work Kevin.

The origin is a comment on that Toy Story 3 hater's blog from 12/2/2007. LOL. Not very anonymous either.

 

[Justinian2]

Those interested in seeing an application of probability theory to the staged break-in (by way of illustrating a more general lesson) may want to read my Less Wrong post Inherited Improbabilities: Transferring the Burden of Proof.

Summary: if the break-in was staged by Amanda and Raffaele, then Amanda and Raffaele are almost certainly guilty of the murder -- from which it follows that the claim that the break-in was staged is just as extraordinary as the claim that they killed Meredith, requiring the same level of extraordinary evidence to be believed.

Great report! The math isn't for everyone though.
Yes, this case swings on the probability of the staged break-in theory.

You gave as reason for the staged break-in the following:

Here's a sample, from p.39:

Additionally, the fragments of broken glass were scattered in a homogeneous manner on the internal and external windowsill, without any noticeable displacement and without any piece of glass being found on the surface below the window. This circumstance...rules out the possibility that the stone was thrown from outside the house to allow access inside via the window after the glass was broken. The climber, in leaning his hands and then his feet or knees on the windowsill, would have caused some of the glass to fall, or at least would have had to move some of the pieces lest they form a trap and cause injury. However, no piece of glass was found under the window and no sign of injury was discovered on the glass found in Romanelli's room.

However, if Guede climbed on the metal window bars he could have taken the rock out of his back pack and smashed it through the window slowly enough for a percentage of the glass to fall straight down. If he knew the house was empty, he would want the best chance of entering. A ten foot rock throw would have given the possibility of missing the window entirely.

 

[Mary_H]

I don't think lionking is firmly on the side of guilt, it seems to me that there is still some doubt there although he rarely gives an opinion on this. In any case I am glad to see the other side still represented here and they do add to the discussion. I don't feel that speculation on who is a lawyer (or doctor, etc) or not is really appropriate or that important.

I think lionking does a good job of playing the devil's advocate.

In my opinion, speculation about who is a doctor or a lawyer is acceptable when, for example, a poster claims to be a lawyer, going so far as to state that he is more qualified to give his opinion on the case than any non-lawyer we will find, but consistently shows he is lacking in training and ability. My concern is that uninformed readers might accept the opinion of a stated authority without further research.

The earlier harassment of KevinLowe for making statements about stomach contents was not acceptable because Kevin never made anything resembling a claim of being a doctor.

When posters voluntarily make an issue of their profession, it's human nature for other posters to be tuned into that and periodically (not habitually) challenge the claim, if they see the need.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

excuse me, but

With regards to the different levels of scrutiny appropriate to Douglas's and Van Zandt's respective opinions: cui bono?

Fuji,

Charlie Wilkes wrote, "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."

 

[Mary_H]

Those interested in seeing an application of probability theory to the staged break-in (by way of illustrating a more general lesson) may want to read my Less Wrong post Inherited Improbabilities: Transferring the Burden of Proof.

Summary: if the break-in was staged by Amanda and Raffaele, then Amanda and Raffaele are almost certainly guilty of the murder -- from which it follows that the claim that the break-in was staged is just as extraordinary as the claim that they killed Meredith, requiring the same level of extraordinary evidence to be believed.

The break-in could have been staged by Rudy. It also could be not a break-in, but just a broken window in a messy room.

 

[Justinian2]

Those interested in seeing an application of probability theory to the staged break-in (by way of illustrating a more general lesson) may want to read my Less Wrong post Inherited Improbabilities: Transferring the Burden of Proof.

Summary: if the break-in was staged by Amanda and Raffaele, then Amanda and Raffaele are almost certainly guilty of the murder -- from which it follows that the claim that the break-in was staged is just as extraordinary as the claim that they killed Meredith, requiring the same level of extraordinary evidence to be believed.

The break-in, and thus the case, relies on whether or not the rock was thrown from ten feet away, from a few feet away or from the inside.

The break-in, and thus the case, relies on whether or not the glass fell straight down, into the room or outside the room.

Also entering into the equation are the investigators and whether or not they disturbed the scene.

I believe the rock was 'thrown' while Guede was hanging on to the window bars. I believe this is the most probable scenario. This scenario supports the lone wolf theory.

I also believe that the evidence should be statistically analyzed BEFORE being given to a jury.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

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

However often you post it, "I refuse to acknowledge the significant possibility that Amanda Knox deliberately lied in her purported internalised false statement" will not become a rational, skeptical or scientifically informed position.

I have argued in the past, and still believe, that if Amanda Knox was deliberately lying and yet somehow accidentally produced a statement that had all the characteristics we would expect to see in an internalised false confession (vagueness, conformity with the police narrative she had been fed, total lack of information which she had not picked up from police, retraction after some time to recover) it was a heck of a coincidence.

If she was deliberately lying and she deliberately produced a statement that had all the characteristics we would expect to see in an internalised false confession then she's not only far more knowledgeable about how police interrogations can go wrong than the vast majority of the public, but she's also a complete idiot because anyone who knows about the phenomenon of internalised false confessions knows that lots of people have spent a very long time in jail as a result of them. Giving the police an internalised false confession would not be a smart move.

Compounding the idiocy would be the fact that if Amanda was guilty she would have known that Rudy's poo, DNA and handprint were all over the murder house and that fingering Lumumba would be entirely pointless.

So what exactly is the pro-guilt hypothesis? If she cracked and gave a genuine internalised false confession then it's not evidence for or against anything other than police incompetence. If she deliberately lied then it's either a wildly implausible coincidence that her statement matches the characteristics of an internalised false confession, or a wildly implausible and immediately counterproductive lie that she would have known could only get her into more trouble.

On one hand we have a well-documented psychological phenomenon that fits perfectly with what we know of how Knox was interrogated. On the other hand we have an unclear mishmash of theories none of which individually make any sense. Until that changes, rational people are going to keep favouring the hypothesis that her statement was just an internalised false confession, like those that feature in many other miscarriages of justice.

 

[Kaosium]

kaosium,

On the first thread BobTheDonkey wrote, "So, even though he can't make up his mind where he (and by extension, she) was that night...we should just believe the last thing he tells us?

Again: If I tell you my name is Bob, then tell you what I'd said before is bollocks, then tell you that I was lying the second time and my name really is Bob...am I still credible?"

Darkness Descending erroneously refers to Raffaele's atatement on 11-5-2007 as a confession. Obviously, it is not; Mr. Sollecito has never said that he even went out that night, and BobTheDonkey is probably not the only person who is confused about this. Moreover based on the transcript, Mr. Sollecito did not say that Amanda went out even for five minutes.

So there's no legal record of what Nopoirot is getting at, the statement to police?

 

[komponisto]

The break-in could have been staged by Rudy.

I don't often find myself citing Massei and Cristiani to support my position (!), but their section devoted to ruling this out is one of the rare examples of more-or-less correct reasoning in the report.

 

[Mary_H]

I don't often find myself citing Massei and Cristiani to support my position (!), but their section devoted to ruling this out is one of the rare examples of more-or-less correct reasoning in the report.

How dare you?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Nice work Kevin.

The origin is a comment on that Toy Story 3 hater's blog from 12/2/2007. LOL. Not very anonymous either.

Actually something else worth pointing out:

This is the original post that started the rumour:

Knox once got a bunch of her friends to dress up in ski masks and break into her apartment and assault her roomates as an "april fools" joke. She's guilty and *********** nuts.

Note that this claim lacks any reference to knives, and any reference to sexual assault. A quick Google search shows that the rumour has grown in the telling to now include "brandishing knives" or "big knives" as a reasonably common element to the story, and it's similarly trivial to see this alleged incident referred to as a "rape prank" despite the original claim being entirely rape-free.

So the original "rape prank" allegation itself had no rape element. Interesting.

I wonder how we got from an unsubstantiated rumour of a prank involving ski masks, to a "rape prank", to a "rape prank" involving brandishing big knives? I'm guessing a succession of guilters embroidered the story just a little bit, and the echo chamber effect ensured that the embroidery was picked up and uncritically repeated.

 

[Justinian2]

I have argued in the past, and still believe, that if Amanda Knox was deliberately lying and yet somehow accidentally produced a statement that had all the characteristics we would expect to see in an internalised false confession (vagueness, conformity with the police narrative she had been fed, total lack of information which she had not picked up from police, retraction after some time to recover) it was a heck of a coincidence.

If she was deliberately lying and she deliberately produced a statement that had all the characteristics we would expect to see in an internalised false confession then she's not only far more knowledgeable about how police interrogations can go wrong than the vast majority of the public, but she's also a complete idiot because anyone who knows about the phenomenon of internalised false confessions knows that lots of people have spent a very long time in jail as a result of them. Giving the police an internalised false confession would not be a smart move.

Compounding the idiocy would be the fact that if Amanda was guilty she would have known that Rudy's poo, DNA and handprint were all over the murder house and that fingering Lumumba would be entirely pointless.

So what exactly is the pro-guilt hypothesis? If she cracked and gave a genuine internalised false confession then it's not evidence for or against anything other than police incompetence. If she deliberately lied then it's either a wildly implausible coincidence that her statement matches the characteristics of an internalised false confession, or a wildly implausible and immediately counterproductive lie that she would have known could only get her into more trouble.

On one hand we have a well-documented psychological phenomenon that fits perfectly with what we know of how Knox was interrogated. On the other hand we have an unclear mishmash of theories none of which individually make any sense. Until that changes, rational people are going to keep favouring the hypothesis that her statement was just an internalised false confession, like those that feature in many other miscarriages of justice.

Defining coerced-internalized false confessions

Kassin and Wrightsman (1985) introduced a taxonomy of false confessions that distinguished among three types: voluntary, coerced-compliant, and coerced-internalized (see Kassin, 1997a; Wrightsman & Kassin, 1993).

1) Voluntary false confessions are self-incriminating statements that are offered to police without external pressure.
2) Coerced-compliant false confessions are those in which a suspect confesses to police in order to escape an aversive interrogation, avoid an explicit or implied threat, or gain a promised or implied reward. This type of confession is a mere act of public compliance by a suspect who knows that he or she is innocent but is highly stressed and comes to decide that confession is more cost-beneficial than denial, at least in the short term.
3) Finally, coerced-internalized false confessions are statements made by an innocent but vulnerable person who, as a result of exposure to highly suggestive and misleading interrogation tactics, comes to believe that he or she may have committed the crime—a belief that is sometimes supplemented by false memories.​

With the language barrier we could also introduce the confusion induced statement, the extortion induced "I want to sleep" statement and the "I want to P" extorted statement.

 

[Justinian2]

The break-in could have been staged by Rudy. It also could be not a break-in, but just a broken window in a messy room.

Car salesmen are taught to ask things like "Do you want red or blue?" to get people to think about purchasing the car. This utilizes the fallacy of too few choises. Mignini and/or Massie would have used this fallacy to induce the jurists to think that there were ONLY TWO possibilities:

1) The break-in was staged by Guede.
2) The break-in was staged by Amanda and Raffaele.

By getting the jury to consider which of those two possibilities is true, the obvious other possibility (Guede broke into the flat) is trivialized.

3) Guede broke into the flat

3 is the correct answer.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Raffaele's statement to the police

So there's no legal record of what Nopoirot is getting at, the statement to police?

kaosium,

Do you mean the text of his 5 November statement? As far as I can tell, this looks OK, but maybe someone who knows it better can say more.

 

[Mary_H]

Car salesmen are taught to ask things like "Do you want red or blue?" to get people to think about purchasing the car. This utilizes the fallacy of too few choises. Mignini and/or Massie would have used this fallacy to induce the jurists to think that there were ONLY TWO possibilities:

1) The break-in was staged by Guede.
2) The break-in was staged by Amanda and Raffaele.

By getting the jury to consider which of those two possibilities is true, the obvious other possibility (Guede broke into the flat) is trivialized.

3) Guede broke into the flat

3 is the correct answer.

I see your point, Justinian. However, we don't know for sure if that's what happened in court, do we?

komponisto, I just reread the section in Massei about the break-in, and although I need to study it more thoroughly, all I see are the same kind of unsubstantiated arguments from incredulity that Massei uses throughout the whole report. Plus, he engages in some inconsistent reasoning when he points out a number of times that Rudy had shown no interest in Meredith, but then says that Meredith would have been motivated to prevent Rudy from making a move on her. If he hadn't shown any interest in her, why would she be worried about that?

I still don't see any evidence of Rudy having climbed the wall and gone in through the window, but if he did, that's fine. Given that there is no evidence connecting Amanda and Raffaele to the crime, the details about the broken window are ultimately irrelevant to their case.

 

[TomM43]

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.

That's rather general. Could you specify what "uninformed opinions on court matters" I have posted?

 

[nopoirot]

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.

I've been involved in hundreds of similar situations from the civil liability aspect, and I've dealt with every theory of "police misconduct" lawyerly ingenuity can contrive. Unfortunately, no system of law enforcement ever devised is capable of effectively winnowing the Rudy Guedes from among us without the occasional injustice. These attract, as they should, widespread attention. Immersing oneself in the history of these instances can give one a very warped view of things. This is fertile ground for conspiracy theory. It makes one oblivious to the questions a more balanced view would suggest. Here, one of those questions is why would the people and governing body of the City of Perugia, a major tourist destination, tolerate an out of control, rogue police department?

Suing law enforcement agencies has become a large and lucrative industry. Making adequate allocations for tort liability has become a major item in municipal budgets. Great sums are expended on trying to control and reduce tort liability. $500 an hour experts are retained to devise and monitor loss control mechanisms. In the US, a city the size of Perugia can't qualify for liability insurance if it does not have up-to-date, effective controls in place. If it has developed a history of citizen complaints and suits, the costs of insurance protection soars, and heads roll.

The worst of all this is the cost of defending litigation. The statistics I've seen indicate that much more is paid in legal fees and expenses than indemnity. Fees awarded a prevailing plaintiff can be crippling. I'm sure it hasn't escaped your attention that Lumumba has sued for false arrest and imprisonment.

One of the primary articles of faith of conspiracy theory in this area is that the accused (and their lawyers), their incentives to be untruthful notwithstanding, are to be believed, and their uniformed tormentors not. This is simply an exercise in self-gratification. One is privy to dark mechanisms, undreamed of by "the masses," which control our destiny.

The reason the police rushed to arrest Lumumba is staring you right in the face: they believed they had a credible, reliable witness in Amanda, and thought they had "probable cause."

With regard to the issue of "coercion," I've said enough about Amanda. With respect to Sollecito, we have several souces available to us: his diary (please, no more 'cherry-picking'), his courtroom "declarations," his statements to journalists, the testimony of his interviewers, and the record of the attempt of his lawyer to suppress the improvident "declaration" of 11-5. With respect to the last item, Frank Sfarzo was present when she rose in Judge Massei's court to protest that her client had given this "declaration" without benefit of requested legal counsel (Perugjia Shock, First Answer: Jail, 1-16-2009.) Do you really suppose Giulia Bongiorno stands in such fear of Perugia Police Department personnel that she would here drop no hint of "coercion"?

The answer to the question you pose is, again, staring you right in the face.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Actually something else worth pointing out:

This is the original post that started the rumour:



Note that this claim lacks any reference to knives, and any reference to sexual assault. A quick Google search shows that the rumour has grown in the telling to now include "brandishing knives" or "big knives" as a reasonably common element to the story, and it's similarly trivial to see this alleged incident referred to as a "rape prank" despite the original claim being entirely rape-free.

So the original "rape prank" allegation itself had no rape element. Interesting.

I wonder how we got from an unsubstantiated rumour of a prank involving ski masks, to a "rape prank", to a "rape prank" involving brandishing big knives? I'm guessing a succession of guilters embroidered the story just a little bit, and the echo chamber effect ensured that the embroidery was picked up and uncritically repeated.

Great job! It's quite shocking how that rumour transformed into
Amanda confessed to instigating the 'rape prank'. that you got by googling "rape prank".

 

[Katody Matrass]

I believe the rock was 'thrown' while Guede was hanging on to the window bars. I believe this is the most probable scenario. This scenario supports the lone wolf theory.

I somehow can't envision it. It would require Rudy to smash window directly in front and above of his face, risking injury.

Compared to this, throwing a rock from across the gap have all the advantages. Hitting that window was very easy for Rudy - basketball player.

 

[Danceme]

The break-in could have been staged by Rudy. It also could be not a break-in, but just a broken window in a messy room.

Bruce Fisher also likes to argue that Filomena’s room was not upset by the burgler, but in fact was always messy with the clothes etc. on the floor being a pretty normal thing. If this were true, Amanda and Raffaele would be quite used to seeing it this way and would not have described her room as a complete mess (other than the broken window of course).

Raffaele: “...Filomena's bedroom was completely disordered: broken glass on the floor and the room upside down. There was an absurd mess.”

Amanda: “… filomenas room was closed, but when i opned
the door her room and a mess and her window was open and completely
broken,”

Also, the picture of Laura's open underwear drawer was certainly interesting to the theory of an actual burglary but if Laura’s underwear drawer was open when Amanda arrived home, why would she say the following in her email,

“convinced that we had been robbed i went to
lauras room and looked quickley in, but it was spottless, like it
hadnt even been touced.”

She had supposedly just seen evidence of a burglary in Filomena’s room so when checking Laura’s room an opened underwear drawer would noticeably stand out. I’m given to believe it was opened by Laura herself when she got home to check if anything she had hidden in there was missing (like a passport perhaps).