Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[pilot padron]

I am aware of only one error in the Massei translation the PMF community did that favours the prosecution, and it's a mostly inconsequential one.

While there are all sorts of reasons to view the PMF community as a toxic, insular hate cult who are totally out of touch with reality, I know of no reason to think that they are likely to falsify the translation.

Based on previous experience they will translate it accurately and then creatively misunderstand it in all sorts of ways.

Although your personal well worn and endlessly expressed ad nauseam *opinions* about the PMF Community are noted and appropriated the amount of consideration their redundancy and objectivity warrants, I am sure your gracious description of the efforts of the hard working, conscientious, all volunteer translators is appreciated as well as earned.

 

[pilot padron]

pilot padron,
Did Ms. Capezzali not claim to read about the murder in the following morning's paper? That would call her testimony into question, would it not?

Your assertion that she read about the claim the next day is new to me, but readily accepted due to my esteem for your personal credibility reference the chronological events in the case.

The fact that you then conclude from this assertion however that a 70 year old woman would satisfy an uniquely unusual urge to unilaterally and without prompting come forward and perjure herself with false testimony, solely because of her morning reading habits seems to me to be an unwarranted stretch that in fact somewhat undermines my above kudos.

Additionally, my reading of Judge Massei as well as other observers finds little support for your connection between Ms Capezzali's newspaper reading routines and the content and/or credibility of her sworn testimony.

 

[Kaosium]

Although your personal well worn and endlessly expressed ad nauseam *opinions* about the PMF Community are noted and appropriated the amount of consideration their redundancy and objectivity warrants, I am sure your gracious description of the efforts of the hard working, conscientious, all volunteer translators is appreciated as well as earned.

Ah, ever the soul of graciousness...

..and elegant prose as well, Pilot.

How did you like the movie, BTW? I recall your interest in it, and the Telegraph article we discussed months back. I don't recall seeing much of the 'psychological descent into murder' or however they put it, rather instead I saw Hayden playing Amanda with angelic innocence and outside the cheap shot of regurgitating the 1-1-2 call nonsense, rather painted a fairly clear picture of her being the victim of a police mishap. Oh, they had some 'suspicion' as well, which apparently isn't going over well in some quarters, but to make for an interesting movie they kinda had to.

 

[Danny]

Your assertion that she read about the claim the next day is new to me, but readily accepted due to my esteem for your personal credibility reference the chronological events in the case.

The fact that you then conclude from this assertion however that a 70 year old woman would satisfy an uniquely unusual urge to unilaterally and without prompting come forward and perjure herself with false testimony, solely because of her morning reading habits seems to me to be an unwarranted stretch that in fact somewhat undermines my above kudos.

Additionally, my reading of Judge Massei as well as other observers finds little support for your connection between Ms Capezzali's newspaper reading routines and the content and/or credibility of her sworn testimony.

The point Halides hopes to hammer home heuristically is that Ms Cappezalli could not have read about the murder in the newspapers next morning as she claimed to have done, because the murder was not reported until the following day.

 

[Antony]

If Amanda's plea is successful in getting the judge to block the Amanda Knox movie...

1) It means the judge probably doesn't believe in the conspiracy between Guede, Amanda and Raffaele.

2) It opens the doors for suits against Lifetime.

3) It indicates that Amanda will soon be free.


If Amanda sues Lifetime and wins, I wonder if Lifetime will include that in the sequel.

Were I a judge, I'd chuckle to myself at that scenario.

Years ago I saw a film called "The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez", in Spanish and English, about a Mexican who gets into a fight with some cowboys and then becomes the target of a manhunt after one of them dies. It's filmed in 2 parts: firstly from the POV of his accusers, and then the same scenes filmed from his POV, which puts a different spin on the events.

What Lifetime could do to salvage their position if Amanda and Raffaele are exonerated, is to use the footage they've got to illustrate the false accusations against them, and then to refilm the events showing the truth of the story. Whether they have the wit and the integrity to do that remains to be seen.

 

[CoulsdonUK]

The point Halides hopes to hammer home heuristically is that Ms Cappezalli could not have read about the murder in the newspapers next morning as she claimed to have done, because the murder was not reported until the following day.

Ms Cappezalli is not on trial and as such she will provide her testimony to the court and defence lawyers will have their opportunity to ask her questions. However, as already previously and fairly stated it is for the judges and lay judges to determine any witnesses overall all credibility, equally if the appeal judge allows the testimony of the baby killer Alessi or the Mafia enforcer Aviello for both defence teams their overall credibility would be considered in the same way.

 

[Danny]

Ms Cappezalli is not on trial and as such she will provide her testimony to the court and defence lawyers will have their opportunity to ask her questions. However, as already previously and fairly stated it is for the judges and lay judges to determine any witnesses overall all credibility, equally if the appeal judge allows the testimony of the baby killer Alessi or the Mafia enforcer Aviello for both defence teams their overall credibility would be considered in the same way.

What is your opinion on how Ms Cappezalli came to believe she had read about the murder in the newspaper before the body had been discovered?

 

[CoulsdonUK]

What is your opinion on how Ms Cappezalli came to believe she had read about the murder in the newspaper before the body had been discovered?

I might offer an opinion on Ms Cappezalli testimony after I have read as many reports on tomorrow appeal proceedings as I can. I would say it is unfair to isolate a witnesses statement whether it is Amanda’s “I was there” or Mr Curutolo’s “he could see the buses that drive students to the disco”, then make a judgement on their overall credibility, don’t you?

 

[RoseMontague]

I am aware of only one error in the Massei translation the PMF community did that favours the prosecution, and it's a mostly inconsequential one.

While there are all sorts of reasons to view the PMF community as a toxic, insular hate cult who are totally out of touch with reality, I know of no reason to think that they are likely to falsify the translation.

Based on previous experience they will translate it accurately and then creatively misunderstand it in all sorts of ways.

Here are a few that have been noted recently:

Quindi oltre al ricordo ben nitido la teste ha anche riferito di essere entrata nella propria stanza e di aver cercato se mancasse qualcosa ed in tale ricerca ha anche spostato degli oggetti modificando quindi l'ubicazione dei pezzi di vetro.

The PMF translation has it as this:

As she is usually very orderly, the witness also stated that she entered into her own room and searched around to see if anything was missing, and during that search she moved objects, thus changing the position of some pieces of glass.

Machiavelli: "The translation of the snippet of the Massei report is incorrect (I don't know who translated this bit, it was not me)."

"oltre al ricordo ben nitido" means "aside to the very well-defined memory" (and not "as she is usually very orderly")

Would you translate this as on one of these occasions or just on these occasions?

Frequentando la casa di Via della Pergola 7 vi aveva visto Rudi due o tre volte e in una di queste occasioni c'erano anche Amanda e Meredith; Rudi parlava sia con l'una che con l'altra e in una occasione gli confidò che gli piaceva Amanda.

Visiting the house in Via della Pergola, he had seen Rudy there two or three times, and on these occasions Amanda and Meredith were also there; Rudy was talking to both of them and on one occasion he confided in them that he liked Amanda.

I would have to say that the meaning of this one is significant as well.

Durante lo scatto non erano stati adoperati nastrini metrici fluorescenti
(si erano utilizzate strisce metriche comuni, quando si erano scattate le foto a luce naturale, è stato spiegato), dove il riferimento metrico sarebbe servito per la successiva misurazione delle impronte fotografate.

PMF translates this as:

During the shots, fluorescent measuring tapes were used (normal measuring tapes were used when the photos taken in natural light were shot, it was explained), so that the metric reference could be used for the subsequent measuring of the photographed prints.

It should read fluorescent measuring tapes were not used.

I had not really noticed that all of these seem to favor the prosecution side of things until a poster brought this up over here, if I see one that works the other way, I'll let you know.

 

[Danny]

I might offer an opinion on Ms Cappezalli testimony after I have read as many reports on tomorrow appeal proceedings as I can. I would say it is unfair to isolate a witnesses statement whether it is Amanda’s “I was there” or Mr Curutolo’s “he could see the buses that drive students to the disco”, then make a judgement on their overall credibility, don’t you?

Not really. 'I was there' is a clearly ambiguous statement which requires further clarification. Neither Curatolo's nor Cappezalli's statements are ambiguous, they are very clear. And very wrong.

 

[christianahannah]

Here are a few that have been noted recently:








I had not really noticed that all of these seem to favor the prosecution side of things until a poster brought this up over here, if I see one that works the other way, I'll let you know.

Well the benefit of the PMF translation is for the non-Italian reader. Human translations can have mistakes, however, those mistakes are minute in comparison to machine translations.

The original document written in Italian by Massei does not have English errors, so thus, does not favor the prosecution (as far as errors go).

 

[christianahannah]

Christianahannah,

I am not sure, but I think that when one extracts DNA, one often does not amplify all of it. So there might be more DNA to test. However, Stefanoni makes some good points about storing samples in the freezer. My experience is based on proteins, not DNA, but some of the same factors come into play. When one freezes a sample, one subjects it to shearing forces and changes in pH, and these might damage DNA.

Thank you. So it is possible that there is more of the clasp DNA to test? I thought I had read previously that was so and that Stefanoni had stopped after one test because it was a good result.

When one runs a second test should it mirror the first results?

 

[Danny]

Well the benefit of the PMF translation is for the non-Italian reader. Human translations can have mistakes, however, those mistakes are minute in comparison to machine translations.

The original document written in Italian by Massei does not have English errors, so thus, does not favor the prosecution (as far as errors go).

Rose has pointed out a number of serious errors which fundamentally change the meaning of the document to the detriment of the accused.

I would go further and say that the English translation of the Massei Report has been intentionally falsified by the advocacy group that produced it. Luckily the Report is so ridiculous that no amount of tweaking was ever going to make it look credible.

 

[Matthew Best]

Disco buses, smack dealing, all that comes to naught in my mind compared to being a witness in three murder trials in about five years. I understand that Italy has special procedures to deal with 'professional witnesses,' would that apply to Curatolo and if not, why not?

Does anybody know any of the details of the other trials in which Curatolo was a witness? What kind of testimony was he able to give in two further murder trials? What did he see? Where did he see it from? That kind of thing?

I don't believe I've seen any of these details mentioned anywhere, but they surely ought to be available to some resourceful Italian journalist.

 

[Danny]

Does anybody know any of the details of the other trials in which Curatolo was a witness? What kind of testimony was he able to give in two further murder trials? What did he see? Where did he see it from? That kind of thing?

I don't believe I've seen any of these details mentioned anywhere, but they surely ought to be available to some resourceful Italian journalist.

It must have been along the lines of the suspect claiming they were at home watching TV and Curatolo claiming to have seen them on their way to the murder scene. Just like this case.

 

[colonelhall]

NSTK: "I would go further and say that the English translation of the Massei Report has been intentionally falsified by the advocacy group that produced it."

Would you care to give examples of this?

 

[Danny]

NSTK: "I would go further and say that the English translation of the Massei Report has been intentionally falsified by the advocacy group that produced it."

Would you care to give examples of this?

As above quoted by Rose. MOO.

 

[el buscador]

Does anybody know any of the details of the other trials in which Curatolo was a witness? What kind of testimony was he able to give in two further murder trials? What did he see? Where did he see it from? That kind of thing?

I don't believe I've seen any of these details mentioned anywhere, but they surely ought to be available to some resourceful Italian journalist.

Another question would be, how many murders happened in Perugia during the two or three years that Curatolo claimed to witness? I remember reading somewhere that there had only been a few murders in Perugia in the 4 or 5 years before the 2007 murder of Meredith. If this is so, what percentage of those murders did Curatolo witness?

 

[Matthew Best]

It must have been along the lines of the suspect claiming they were at home watching TV and Curatolo claiming to have seen them on their way to the murder scene. Just like this case.

More detail would be appreciated.

 

[Danny]

More detail would be appreciated.

Frank would be your best bet.