Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Withnail1969]

Well it would depend on how much marijuana I wanted.

I think Curatolo is the one who could help you if you wanted to buy drugs.

 

[Justinian2]

Well it would depend on how much marijuana I wanted.

I'm not sure that answers my question.

 

[Kaosium]

Not sure I understand your comment about the press visibility or the lack of it during the trial or it's relevance. This appeal will be won or lost in the Perugian court room as should be, not in the news media. As I read on ABC news blog, Amanda and I assume Raffaele supporters seem to function as political rebuttal unit during an election campaign. As for the media, do you accept the reports that jury member(s) were in tears after Amanda addressed the court?

You gave the impression you didn't think the defense 'showed,' which suggested to me to that like many you didn't hear much of the defense arguments. I agree it will be won in the courtroom, however it might be helpful if that courtroom were to know a fair number of people have already realized that last little 'trial' was little more than a stop along a railroad, and Amanda and Raffaele would like to get off now.

As for what you read on the ABC news blog, when I came back to this issue last October, after putting it away for a few months after I discovered it to wait until the Massei Report was finished translating, when I was googling around I noticed some gutter level American political campaign tactics, but oddly enough they weren't as much coming from the supporters of Amanda and Raffaele, but from the ones who thought them guilty--especially Amanda for some reason.

I read a report from a Seattle reporter, sourced to a family member, that some of the jury were crying. I read accounts by Andrea Vogt and Frank Sfarzo (or however it is spelled) that did not see that, thus I would tend to believe it did not occur, but that perhaps the (step?)father of an unjustly jailed girl saw an emotional response from some jury members probably because was looking hard for it and wanted to see it.

 

[Kaosium]

Heh. But ferrets aren't rodents, they are very highly adapted predators, a domesticated species of the weasel family.

Therefore I must apologize to the noble ferret, I wouldn't wanted to offend that illustrious family, after all sometimes reading some of this stuff I'd like to see the persecutors of Amanda and Raffaele 'eaten by weasels.'

 

[Kaosium]

That is funny. What happened to the date range for Google search? Is a year as far back as they go now?

I don't know, I haven't tried it lately and I'm afraid to look. A while back I got irritated with google and tried another search engine when something I downloaded made it my default tool. I switched back to google when I realized that other program sucked like a blast furnace.

 

[Kaosium]

I am not certain but it could be that the "stainless" steel has just become discolored near the handle. This is very common with older flatware. The outer layer of Chromium eventually wears down and what appears to be dirt is just the iron color that composes most of the steel.

I was wondering about that too, but wasn't aware of that feature of 'stainless' steel. I've read this is supposedly a cheap knife, and perhaps this is just another indication that is so.

 

[Kaosium]

Why would he bring that knife to the women's apartment to use when they had knives there already?

RS's father also said that his son's DNA on the bra clasp may be there since the women shared bras. I don't believe anything he says.

What did you think of Monica Napoleoni's testimony about the interrogation? Are you inclined to believe her and her compatriots as they press the calunnia charge?

Incidentally I'm not especially convinced of his version of events regarding that knife story either. However anyone who gave us the fun that was had with 'two girls, one bra' earlier in the thread can't be all bad...

 

[Kaosium]

We've been asking that question since the knife was first said to be the murder weapon. Glad you've seen the light.

She was using it as a bookmark for her Harry Potter book that she carried around everywhere in her bag!


(at least that suggestion was better than Massei's!)

 

[Justinian2]

[...]

I agree it will be won in the courtroom,

[...].

It might be won in the courtroom or forensic labs. That would be utopian.

I actually think the case has been won in the hidden mind of Mignini and others and will continue to be won in the hidden minds of the police, prosecutors, judges and jurists.

The Massei report has brought some of the hidden mind (or lack of it) to the forefront.

 

[Alt+F4]

What did you think of Monica Napoleoni's testimony about the interrogation? Are you inclined to believe her and her compatriots as they press the calunnia charge?

According to Time Magazine, Italian women cops are scary!

Perugia's police murder-squad chief Monica Napoleoni often sits behind Comodi. She shows up for most court sessions — even though she is not required to appear — dressed like an undercover vice cop by U.S. standards. Her Morticia Addams hair, deep tan, deeper décolletage, hot-pink baby-doll tops, stylish white jeans, high wedgies and designer totes bring a whiff of the Via Veneto into the courtroom.

Napoleoni has spent her career working the surprisingly mean streets of this ancient hill town, infested with battling gangs of Albanian and Moroccan drug dealers and a plague of prostitution from international human traffickers who find it a convenient trading post. Napoleoni is occasionally accompanied by another female homicide cop, Lorena Zugarini, who is built like an East German swimmer. It was Zugarini who kicked in one of the doors of the murder house.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1926487,00.html#ixzz1C4Y5OjWl​

 

[CDHost]

Not sure I understand your comment about the press visibility or the lack of it during the trial or it's relevance. This appeal will be won or lost in the Perugian court room as should be, not in the news media. As I read on ABC news blog, Amanda and I assume Raffaele supporters seem to function as political rebuttal unit during an election campaign. As for the media, do you accept the reports that jury member(s) were in tears after Amanda addressed the court?

I'd love to know about how emotion it was. I can accept they were in tears. They essentially convicted on premeditation with the knife charge, but then they refused to convict on pre-meditation in the murder charge They all made comments about how long 20 years was at their age.... I think the jurors understood the moral gravity of what they were doing, taking away everything those two had; taking away everything they would ever be.
I hear her begging for her life and am moved. To deliberately kill a kid has got to eat at you, regardless of how much they think those two did something wrong.

On the other hand you constantly hear stories from the Italian media about how badly Amanda's testimony goes over and how much Italians hate her and want her destroyed. Killing Amanda had had the moral gravity of hitting a wasp's nest with RAID. Its hard to reconcile the two.

But I don't agree this won't be won in the court of public opinion. Demonization was a key part of the prosecution's strategy. Its very easy to go along with the group in a lynching in 1875 not so easy to do it in 1975.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Raffaele as DNA scientist and writer

I don't think it's on there at all but the important thing is RS did.

Alt+F4,

I am not sure whether or not I understand your position. If Raffaele had said in his diary that it must be contamination or error (when he learned of the DNA result), you would assume he is innocent?

As for Raffaele's writing, I am told by someone who speaks Italian that he writes rather well. I think I will go with this evaluation over yours, inasmuch as you do not speak the language, IIRC.

 

[Kaosium]

So I can't blame the Italian too much. If there is some genuine news, I'm sure they would rather cover that. Remember not much actually happened.

I don't know Italy but "True crime" is a female genre in The States, 70/30 in general. Now add in:
-- primarily human interest story about the perps, since nothing much happened unless you are Kercher murder junkie
-- female victim, sex crime angle (much higher percentage of women)

Amanda, the international angle and the prosecutorial misconduct are good if you were aiming for male viewership. But there is no movement there. Think back to true crime coverage in the US like the OJ trial and fashion played a big part. We knew a lot about where Marcia Clark bought her clothes.

As another example, remember the US network most interested in it is Lifetime. I think that's great for AK/RS since Lifetime's brand when it comes to crime is "watch women get screwed over by men" which means its likely that either Rudy or Mignini is going to be the villain. But their old moniker is "television for women" or their new one "the source for women's entertainment". According to the producers they haven't worked out a consistent theory of the events, but you can see they did match Amanda's clothing pretty well.

Always remember the purpose of television is to fill the space between commercials.

LOL at that last bit, it does seem that way these days. When I was growing up you got fifty-two minutes of show, eight minutes of commercials. Now it's about up to eighteen minutes of commercials, forty-two minutes of show. This is why I'm gratified I have something like a thousand channels and a remote, even though it's odd as there's only about one or two shows a week I watch regularly these days, and mostly I wait until I have about four of them saved on the DVR so I can skip the commercials.

I have also discovered the joys of buying whole seasons of DVDs of shows I like, and think it's the best entertainment value available. If I wait until they go on sale I can often get a whole season for $15-20, which comes out to little more than a dollar an hour for a show I then own forever. Which makes me wonder sometimes why I bother with that thousand channel deal I have, other than I expect to start using it any day now!

I was unaware of the demographic for 'true crime,' and it surprises me. More that 2:1 female for a genre dedicated to people getting killed? Perhaps in their hearts the 'female of the species is more deadly than the male' even if they don't act on it very often.

As for the Lifetime movie, that's come up a few times in this thread (actually the last one) and the one previous was based off an article in the Telegraph which also found its way into that noble bastion of integrity in journalism, The Daily Mail, if I recall correctly. That article suggested something to the effect that the movie would be based on the 'psychological descent to murder' which conflicted with earlier accounts that implied it would be neutral on the question of 'whodunit' and just show a fact-based account of what was known to have happened and how it affected the main players.

I have been told Lifetime is rather schmaltzy, and I am going to have to locate it first on my TV system, being as I have no idea where it might be hiding, though I'm sure it's there somewhere. I had gotten the impression the former account detailed above would conflict with their theme, but that is before you brought those true crime demographic figures to my attention.

 

[Alt+F4]

I am not sure whether or not I understand your position. If Raffaele had said in his diary that it must be contamination or error (when he learned of the DNA result), you would assume he is innocent?

No, I still think there is too much circumstantial evidence. In addition I don't think the bra clasp is going anywhere. I don't think the defense can prove contamination.

 

[Alt+F4]

That article suggested something to the effect that the movie would be based on the 'psychological descent to murder' which conflicted with earlier accounts that implied it would be neutral on the question of 'whodunit' and just show a fact-based account of what was known to have happened and how it affected the main players.

I wonder who it is that is supposed to have a "psychological descent to murder"?

 

[Justinian2]

I wonder who it is that is supposed to have a "psychological descent to murder"?

The Craigslist killer was superficially exactly the opposite person that his profile would have suggested. We'll never know what caused his descent. However, he wasn't too fond/proud of his parents. Profiling largely failed with him, but profiling is only a statistical probability, not proof.

 

[Katody Matrass]

________________________


Odd to see you, Katody---of all people---defending Hendry's credibility.
You were the one who---a couple months ago---was able to illustrate a major blunder in Hendry's reconstruction of Rudy's climb into Filomena's window. You were able to show that Rudy could have simply reached into the broken window and unlatched it, while still standing on the grate covering the lower window. As I recall, the "reach" was only about 7 feet, 3 inches, so there was no need for Hendry's invented maneuver in which Rudy pulls himself up with one arm until ---at some elevation--he reaches through the broken window with the other arm to unlatch the window. An implausible and unnecessary maneuver, akin to Rudy breaking Meredith's bra while he's behind her, has her on her knees---or on all fours---with his knife drawn.

Hendry's scenario is just one of many possible. The fact that there are more then one possible way to climb through the window actually strengthens that hypothesis. It's noticeable that Hendry was on the cautious side with his assumptions e.g. in his reconstruction Rudy has to open the shutter first. In fact from Filomena's confused testimony it's entirely possible that the shutter was left wide open.
As to the "blunder" you found, I think you misremembered what Hendry wrote, it is actually fully consistent with my own view. It's entirely possible Rudy supported himself on his left elbow. Hendry says Rudy is "propping himself up with his left arm". To my far from perfect English comprehension it is basically the same:

tr.v., propped, prop·ping, props.
To support by placing something beneath or against; shore up.

prop up - support by placing against something solid or rigid;

 

[Chris C]

Well at least she's dropped that horrible, disrespectful "all you need is love" Beatles tee-shirt.

Horrible disrepsectful to who?

 

[Alt+F4]

Horrible disrepsectful to who?

The Court.

 

[Withnail1969]

No, I still think there is too much circumstantial evidence. In addition I don't think the bra clasp is going anywhere. I don't think the defense can prove contamination.

Ah, the old 'the defence need to prove something' canard again.

How many times do we have to repeat that the burden of proof is not on the defence.