Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Mary_H]

Good point. Though I am curious about the lying. Can you point out examples of them being intentionally deceptive?

Check out all of treehorn's posts on this blog about Amanda's criminal "conviction" in Seattle.

 

[Mary_H]

Tell that to Nelson Mandela.

And Mahatma Gandhi. And Alfred Dreyfus.

 

[Fine]

Mumia Abu Jamal is alive today because of a public support movement. And I did give to Knox defense fund.

_______________________

Bingo!
There are several reasons for the family to have hired Marriott PR. One of them is to publicize the case in a sympathetic fashion, receive charitable contributions, to pay the damn legal bills.

And anyone who doubts whether Marriott has been deeply involved in controlling the message, may wish to re-read pages 84 -90 of Barbie's Angel Face:

"... a two-year battle against the Seattle message machine, incurring personal attacks and outright threats." (page 88)

(CDHost, as a matter of principle, I too have contributed to the Amanda Defense Fund. Whether she's guilty or not she's entitled to a first class defense---which is expensive---without bankrupting her family. Still, it's troubling that the family won't publicly disclose the amount contributed to the Defense Fund. Maybe Charlie will ask the family for a clarification on this matter???)

///

 

[Mary_H]

He only has support here (I'm assuming you mean U.S.) because he was supposedly her "boyfriend". Honestly Rose, would have taken any notice of this case if it was just an Italian man who was accused of murdering a British woman?

I would not have. I have never looked deeply into a case like this before; I always assumed people in these situations each have their own set of supporters who work to get them out, and who often succeed. In fact, that is what Amanda (and Raffaele) have.

The kid on the HarvardPoliticalReview asks: "If the anger towards this case is, as you said, based upon a hate for injustice, then I ask where the rabid and persistent support is for similar domestic cases." This is a criticism that has been leveled against Amanda's supporters many times -- would we be standing up for Amanda if she were poor and of color?

Some of us probably would, if we heard about it. Amanda is fortunate in that she has a close, supportive family who have advocated ferociously for her in their own community, and that advocacy has spread. If every victim of injustice had the same type of network, of course it would be to their advantage.

The fact is, though, it's okay to stand up for who we stand up for, and it's okay to care about who we care about. My talents and energy are best suited for supporting one victim of injustice at a time. If I had more talent and more energy, I would advocate for all the poor kids in Seattle, then for all the poor kids in the United States, then all the poor kids in Central America, South America, Africa, Asia, etc. Does the fact that I am not up to those tasks mean I should not stand up for Amanda?

Being of Amanda's "social status" does not guarantee help from a group of supporters every time injustice rears its ugly head. Many people have serious problems they deserve help with, but support is not forthcoming for one reason or another. Yes, Amanda's case initially drew attention because Meredith and she possessed youth and beauty. It draws attention now, though, because the injustice of it is startlingly obvious and beyond ludicrous.

 

[Mary_H]

_______________________
CDHost, as a matter of principle, I too have contributed to the Amanda Defense Fund. Whether she's guilty or not she's entitled to a first class defense---which is expensive---without bankrupting her family. Still, it's troubling that the family won't publicly disclose the amount contributed to the Defense Fund. Maybe Charlie will ask the family for a clarification on this matter???)

///

That is admirable, Fine. I think Amanda's family is already essentially bankrupt, aren't they? I mean, they have at least remortgaged all their properties, as far as I know.

I worry about Amanda's family to a certain extent, but I don't worry about their "creditors," so to speak. Amanda and Raffaele's lawyers have many years of lawsuits ahead of them, recouping the losses suffered by the defendants. They are also famous now, and will have new clients beating down their doors. The same goes for the American lawyers who have been involved in the case. I have faith everyone will be made whole -- financially, that is.

 

[komponisto]

I would not have. I have never looked deeply into a case like this before; I always assumed people in these situations each have their own set of supporters who work to get them out, and who often succeed. In fact, that is what Amanda (and Raffaele) have.

The kid on the HarvardPoliticalReview asks: "If the anger towards this case is, as you said, based upon a hate for injustice, then I ask where the rabid and persistent support is for similar domestic cases." This is a criticism that has been leveled against Amanda's supporters many times -- would we be standing up for Amanda if she were poor and of color?

Some of us probably would, if we heard about it. Amanda is fortunate in that she has a close, supportive family who have advocated ferociously for her in their own community, and that advocacy has spread. If every victim of injustice had the same type of network, of course it would be to their advantage.

The fact is, though, it's okay to stand up for who we stand up for, and it's okay to care about who we care about. My talents and energy are best suited for supporting one victim of injustice at a time. If I had more talent and more energy, I would advocate for all the poor kids in Seattle, then for all the poor kids in the United States, then all the poor kids in Central America, South America, Africa, Asia, etc. Does the fact that I am not up to those tasks mean I should not stand up for Amanda?

Being of Amanda's "social status" does not guarantee help from a group of supporters every time injustice rears its ugly head. Many people have serious problems they deserve help with, but support is not forthcoming for one reason or another. Yes, Amanda's case initially drew attention because Meredith and she possessed youth and beauty. It draws attention now, though, because the injustice of it is startlingly obvious and beyond ludicrous.

Very well said, Mary. Your post reflects my own perspective almost to the letter.

 

[Mary_H]

Very well said, Mary. Your post reflects my own perspective almost to the letter.

Thank you, komponisto. I appreciate the feedback.

 

[komponisto]

A comment I posted on the Harvard Political Review site, in response to the essay linked to by Mary_H:

(1) Amanda Knox is not a "sorority sister". (This mistake suggests that you have misunderstood her personality, which may very well have contributed to your judgement that her guilt is plausible.)

(2) If you want to argue against a position, you have to argue against that position's strongest proponents, not its weakest. Belief in Knox's innocence among intellectually serious people is not based on American nationalism, or a belief that white females never murder. At most, it is based on a belief that people like Knox (who is not merely a typical "white female", but a well-adjusted, intelligent university student) very rarely murder; rarely enough that a miscarriage of justice is just as likely a priori. (A belief that is almost certain to be supported by any comparison of the murder rate among female foreign-language students with the rate of wrongful convictions in Italy or any other country.)

(3) Before getting indignant about support for Knox (and Sollecito, her co-accused), it would behoove you to familiarize yourself with the facts of the case. This can easily be done online in a few minutes. I recommend comparing the arguments presented at Injustice in Perugia (pro-innocence) with those presented at True Justice for Meredith Kercher (pro-guilt). (I don't want to risk provoking a spam filter by posting links, but Google will easily find these sites for you.)

(4) At the risk of stating the obvious, the fact that Meredith Kercher's death is tragic does not constitute an argument that Amanda Knox contributed to it. To accuse the pro-Knox movement of being inherently disrespectful of Kercher, as you came close to doing in your essay, is to imply that punishing an innocent person could somehow be an acceptable response to such a tragedy.

 

[RoseMontague]

I don't have an idealist view of the justice system in the U.S. (where I live) or anywhere else. What I do know is, don't hire an expensive PR firm (even if they are pro bono) to help trash the judicial system that I want to rule in my favor.

It is a fair point and one that is debated by those that support innocence. My opinion is they made the correct decision. The appeal court has responded with a positive first decision to re-look at some of the evidence. We'll have to see how this plays out and what hints the court gives us as to their reasoning. In the written order for the new testing they indicated they did not fully share the first court's opinion on reasonable doubt in this case. That was a significant statement in my view.

I wanted to expand a little on this post. The case of Eric Volz that halides1 brought up is a good example both of the upside and downside of a strategy critical of another countries justice system in regards to a particular case. This is a letter from Eric Volz that goes into the downside. I am sure that most of you are already aware of the upside that had not occurred at the time of this letter. This is a long letter but it is well worth the read. Hard to pick the best quote because there are many good ones. Here is one:

So when the international investigative journalists started providing coverage, it was really the first time the story had been told from an impartial perspective, even though the case was already more than three months old. And although it raised awareness around my situation, which has translated into amazing support from all over the world, the effect that it had on me here in Nicaragua was, for the most part, negative. Let me explain why…
The international press gathered the facts from all sides and for the first time the evidence supporting my innocence was reported. So, when contrasted to the biased version the Nicaraguan public had been fed, it was suddenly a much larger story that not only suggested that there is no way I could be guilty of what I was being accused of, but also leaves you questioning the legality of the judicial process of this case.

http://liestoppers2.blogspot.com/2007/08/letter-from-eric.html

 

[Chris_Halkides]

The Volz PR Machine

I wanted to expand a little on this post. The case of Eric Volz that halides1 brought up is a good example both of the upside and downside of a strategy critical of another countries justice system in regards to a particular case. This is a letter from Eric Volz that goes into the downside. I am sure that most of you are already aware of the upside that had not occurred at the time of this letter. This is a long letter but it is well worth the read. Hard to pick the best quote because there are many good ones. Here is one:



http://liestoppers2.blogspot.com/2007/08/letter-from-eric.html

RoseMontague,

Thanks. Here is another quote from Eric:

"They started with an article called “Campana Peligrosa de Familia Volz” (Dangerous Campaign of the Volz family), in which they claimed that the international media was being directed by my family and that we were attempting to politicize the story by making reference to the political history between the U.S. and Nicaragua. In addition, they ran an article called “Derrocha de Dinero” (Squandering of Money), where they reported that my family was “spending enormous sums” to fund the international media coverage (this is of course absurd, besides the fact that we are all broke, anyone, who thinks logically, would know that a civilian family doesn’t have any influence over what is produced by CNN, NBC, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, or any other international media outlets. They report what sells). The Nicaraguan tabloid “Hoy” also attacked hard with a series of front page stories telling readers that the international news interest and web media was a result of my “power to manipulate.” Several Nicaraguan national TV news programs followed the newspaper’s lead and aired some reports on the “grand and potentially dangerous campaign of the Volz family.” (I encourage people to look these articles up and read them personally)."

Sound familiar?

 

[CDHost]

_______________________
(CDHost, as a matter of principle, I too have contributed to the Amanda Defense Fund. Whether she's guilty or not she's entitled to a first class defense---which is expensive---without bankrupting her family. Still, it's troubling that the family won't publicly disclose the amount contributed to the Defense Fund. Maybe Charlie will ask the family for a clarification on this matter???)

There are in well over a $1m on her defense about a year back. We know both families and the grandparents are borrowing against everything they have. I'm not worried that we don't know where the money is going. I seriously doubt the fund has covered 1/3rd of the expenses much less is turning a profit.

 

[CDHost]

And Mahatma Gandhi. And Alfred Dreyfus.

Dreyfus much better example than mine. Dreyfus exposed the structural injustices in the French system.

The Economist has for the last few years been on a tear regarding how lousy the Italian civil courts are because of the enormous time it takes to resolve cases. They have mentioned Knox as a case that is creating an awareness in America of this problem that has concerned Brits about Italy, "an underground war between an intellectually corrupt opposition and judiciary, and plain corruption"

 

[Mary_H]

A comment I posted on the Harvard Political Review site, in response to the essay linked to by Mary_H:

"(4) At the risk of stating the obvious, the fact that Meredith Kercher's death is tragic does not constitute an argument that Amanda Knox contributed to it. To accuse the pro-Knox movement of being inherently disrespectful of Kercher, as you came close to doing in your essay, is to imply that punishing an innocent person could somehow be an acceptable response to such a tragedy."

This is such a difficult concept for so many people. You explained it well.

 

[Onofarar]

<snip>Let us assume, however, against all statistical data and common sense, that the probability at each stage is 50%. That is, 50% of couples have three-way sex, 50% of such encounters involve weapons, and 50% of weapon-enhanced orgies result in the death of a participant. That yields a prior probability of 12.5%. (This is without considering any other data such as the backgrounds of the alleged participants (criminal histories, etc). ) So even if you grant the plausibility of each of the components of the scenario (some of which are in fact highly implausible), their conjunction rapidly diminishes in probability as the number of components increases.

This is the essential flaw in the colpevoltistis' support of the original guilty verditcs. To arrive at the end result, requires a convoluted series of assumptions and the selection of contradictory statements and data that is consistently pro-guilt. Even assigning high probabilities to these events being true, the end result in fact is that the overall probability that ALL of them happened approaches zero (ie ten percent or less) - thus there is no question that reasonable doubt exists as to AK & RS guilt. Going further, using probabilities, a better case can be made that innocence for the pair is beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

[CDHost]

Saint Meredith

"(4) At the risk of stating the obvious, the fact that Meredith Kercher's death is tragic does not constitute an argument that Amanda Knox contributed to it. To accuse the pro-Knox movement of being inherently disrespectful of Kercher, as you came close to doing in your essay, is to imply that punishing an innocent person could somehow be an acceptable response to such a tragedy."

This is such a difficult concept for so many people. You explained it well.

I would agree he did an excellent job there. One of the things that led to the prosecution doing such a bad job is that Meredith was effectively sainted by the prosecution early as part of a weird psychological dynamic in the "guilters". I wrote about this as one of my first posts: Amanda Knox as the shadow

Its very much the same phenomenon that leads them to not see a humorous, playful, mischievous and overly trusting Amanda; but rather a stone cold psychopath who is also overcome by emotion and guilt for a murder she committed because of narcissistic jealous outburst enhanced by drugs, except on the night of the murder which she callously planned.

Had Meredith been treated as just a murder victim and not a virtual saint most likely we would know what really happened today. I'm going to give a list below of the sorts of things police typically look at when trying to determine who committed a murder. Its going to sound like virtual heresy when I basically start listing this off but these are the kinds of questions that should have been asked:

1. Investigate Meredith's activities
   • What was the true extent of Giacomo Silenzi's drug involvement
   • What was true extent of Meredith's role?
2. Investigate Meredith's previous living situations. Had their been similar incidents? Look especially at a history of bullying.
3. Investigate Meredith's romantic habits. Key to the case has been that she wouldn't cheat on Giacomo with Rudy, verify that.
4. Investigate Meredith's personal drug habit. Was Rudy there for reasons other than sex.
5. We know there have been a lots of murders in Perugia involving knives and overkill of prostitutes. Determine if Meredith was tricking. Was she involved in the industry?

The fact is we know nothing about Meredith, hence we don't know motive and hence we have a murder case that doesn't make any sense. It could be that nothing on this or the expanded list would have panned out and she really was just a 22 year old college student, who didn't like her roommate but didn't do much about it, and essentially randomly ended up getting involved in a torture/rape/murder. But that's very unlikely.

 

[Danceme]

Who's quote is that? I thought Amanda and Raffaele were out in the kitchen area when the door was broken down so neither of them could have seen in. The angle of vision just wouldn't have been there.


On another note, from Ron Hendry's report,

"A close inspection of the photos also shows that the killer wiped blood from several areas near where Meredith's body was found. This would account for the large amount of blood found on the large white towel lying on the floor. A green towel and the top bed sheet may have also been used to wipe up blood on the floor."

and,

"In the photo above, the areas inside and perhaps near the outline appear to have been wiped. Areas by the bed also had this appearance."

Is he actually saying there's evidence of a cleanup?

Bringing this along. I posted it two pages back now with no response and I'd like to hear some theories if anyone has any, on why Ron Hendry sees evidence of a cleanup in the murder room. Who cleaned up and why?

If I recall correctly (let me see, yes I do) much has been written by many innocentisti on there being absolutely NO evidence of a cleanup anywhere, at all. Ron thinks an attempt was made obviously.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Did Meredith and Amanda get along?

CD Host,

You make some interesting points, but I am not sure that Meredith did or did not like Amanda. Undoubtedly there were minor points of friction, such as over household chores and the need to use a brush when flushing. Meredith's English friends may have subconsciously exaggerated the degree of friction. However, the two went to the chocolate festival together, and Meredith signed her last text message to Amanda with an "x." Laura, no friend of Amanda's by the time of the trial, described Meredith's relationship with Amanda as "normal" in her testimony, IIRC. It is possible that I am mixing up Laura and Filomena, but either way, it does not sound like Meredith and Amanda were on bad terms.

 

[CDHost]

CD Host,

You make some interesting points, but I am not sure that Meredith did or did not like Amanda. Undoubtedly there were minor points of friction, such as over household chores and the need to use a brush when flushing. Meredith's English friends may have subconsciously exaggerated the degree of friction. However, the two went to the chocolate festival together, and Meredith signed her last text message to Amanda with an "x." Laura, no friend of Amanda's by the time of the trial, described Meredith's relationship with Amanda as "normal" in her testimony, IIRC. It is possible that I am mixing up Laura and Filomena, but either way, it does not sound like Meredith and Amanda were on bad terms.

I absolutely agree its possible. The evidence here is highly mixed and yet again the investigation didn't dig enough into the relationship. It may not have been easy because people tend to fit facts to their theories and the prosecution was demonizing Amanda. It takes a strong person to stand up and say you see no evidence for the popular wisdom and most people aren't strong. So knowing that, I would have interviewed previous people who lived with Meredith and try and see if there was a pattern.

Most likely there wasn't in which case you conclude that domestic tension is unprovable and move on to other possibilities.

 

[CDHost]

Bringing this along. I posted it two pages back now with no response and I'd like to hear some theories if anyone has any, on why Ron Hendry sees evidence of a cleanup in the murder room. Who cleaned up and why?

If I recall correctly (let me see, yes I do) much has been written by many innocentisti on there being absolutely NO evidence of a cleanup anywhere, at all. Ron thinks an attempt was made obviously.

I don't know why Ron Hendry, but I've heard the smudged footprints are from people standing on towels after the murder wiping the room down. He could mean that. I should say I don't personally know how to evaluate foot print evidence so I don't really have an opinion.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Bringing this along. I posted it two pages back now with no response and I'd like to hear some theories if anyone has any, on why Ron Hendry sees evidence of a cleanup in the murder room. Who cleaned up and why?

If I recall correctly (let me see, yes I do) much has been written by many innocentisti on there being absolutely NO evidence of a cleanup anywhere, at all. Ron thinks an attempt was made obviously.

Interesting. I wasn't aware he'd made that claim, I was just aware that the Massei story required a clean-up but they presented no evidence of one.

In future I'll have to be more careful about saying "there was no evidence of a clean-up" and make sure to specify that the sole evidence of a clean-up is possible wiping with the towels found in the murder room which the police missed at the time.

As for who did it and why, I'd say Rudy did it and who the heck knows why he did it. For now I'll chalk it up to "people do weird things" until a better story comes along. As clean-ups go, wiping blood up with a towel and then leaving it at the scene isn't exactly masterful work. Possibly he had some vague idea about wiping up the blood and concealing or disposing of the body, and then figured that it just wasn't going to work and he'd be better off just locking the room and running for the border.