Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Branded]

Priceless. You could have at least have tried to be believable. Yeesh.

I don't understand your post. I'm asking a question, not making an assertion.

 

[lionking]

I don't understand your post. I'm asking a question, not making an assertion.

This is the reception you can expect from the innocentisti if you dare question some of their heroes, like Frank.

 

[HumanityBlues]

This is the reception you can expect from the innocentisti if you dare question some of their heroes, like Frank.

Oh sorry, you're right. Branded has just heard of all these people for the first time.

 

[lionking]

Oh sorry, you're right. Branded has just heard of all these people for the first time.

Oh, so you know he or she knows all about Frank et al. Your mind reading skills are exceptional.

 

[HumanityBlues]

Oh, so you know he or she knows all about Frank et al. Your mind reading skills are exceptional.

No mind reading required on this one. I don't think Branded is even trying that hard.

For anyone who is interested, and for those how "have never heard of Frank Sfarzo" (hardi har har), he has written about the case for Gente Magazine in Italy in addition to his blog. He also attended every day of trial.

 

[Branded]

Oh sorry, you're right. Branded has just heard of all these people for the first time.

1) I was asking about one person; &

2) Where, exactly, did I say I was hearing about this "Frank" person for "the first time"?

FWIW, I've read some of the online commentary about this case and I have to confess that I'm having a hard time trying to determine who some of these oft-cited sources are and what value (if any) they are to someone who, like me, is attempting to determine whether the accused are factually guilty.

I suppose I'm old fashioned, but I don't know what to make of an amateur blogger that is not a professional reporter under the paid employ of a legitimate news agency.

 

[HumanityBlues]

1) I was asking about one person; &

2) Where, exactly, did I say I was hearing about this "Frank" person for "the first time"?

FWIW, I've read some of the online commentary about this case and I have to confess that I'm having a hard time trying to determine who some of these oft-cited sources are and what value (if any) they are to someone who, like me, is attempting to determine whether the accused are factually guilty.

I suppose I'm old fashioned, but I don't know what to make of an amateur blogger that is not a professional reporter under the paid employ of a legitimate news agency.

Are you even going to try? I'm going use my mind reading skills and say you made up your mind on the question of guilt or innocence a LONG time ago. Pah-lease!

Edited by Tricky: 

Edited for Rule 12

 

[Branded]

Are you even going to try? I'm going use my mind reading skills and say you made up your mind on the question of guilt or innocence a LONG time ago. Pah-lease!

I might be misinterpreting your posts, but I am not going to click on any of the links you're providing on the ground that you seem to be more than a little hostile toward me.

FWIW, my mind is not "made up." Indeed, I'm finding it exceedingly difficult to sort through all of the bluster being offered up by both the mainstream media and the amateur bloggers covering this case. It seems I'll never be able to come reasonably close to ascertaining what, exactly, the judges saw and heard during the trial.

IMHO, the Fourth Estate has failed the American public in this instance.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I might be misinterpreting your posts, but I am not going to click on any of the links you're providing on the ground that you seem to be more than a little hostile toward me.

FWIW, my mind is not "made up." Indeed, I'm finding it exceedingly difficult to sort through all of the bluster being offered up by both the mainstream media and the amateur bloggers covering this case. It seems I'll never be able to come reasonably close to ascertaining what, exactly, the judges saw and heard during the trial.

IMHO, the Fourth Estate has failed the American public in this instance.

There's a bit of a short cut available: check if the judge's conclusions are actually scientifically possible.

It turns out they aren't, which is a problem the guilter community have been blustering about helplessly for some time now.

The fact is, as stated in the Massei report, Meredith had undigested cheese and vegetable fibre (probably apple but possibly pizza topping) in her stomach and nothing at all in her duodenum. Since she ate around 6pm and we can verify this quite accurately, there's no possible way she died at 23:30.

Boom, done.

 

[Kaosium]

I might be misinterpreting your posts, but I am not going to click on any of the links you're providing on the ground that you seem to be more than a little hostile toward me.

FWIW, my mind is not "made up." Indeed, I'm finding it exceedingly difficult to sort through all of the bluster being offered up by both the mainstream media and the amateur bloggers covering this case. It seems I'll never be able to come reasonably close to ascertaining what, exactly, the judges saw and heard during the trial.
IMHO, the Fourth Estate has failed the American public in this instance.

The best place to look for that is Frank's site, he's reported on it from the beginning and attended all the trial sessions. I made my own judgment on his credibility by corroborating information he provided with other sources and found him an excellent resource. You'll find if you go back to the very beginning he was rather convinced in the probable guilt of Raffaele and Amanda but during the course of the trial, especially when the 'witnesses' were produced, he became dubious of the likelihood of their guilt. It was at this time he became persona non grata amongst the guilt community, with a number of interesting conspiracy theories generated regarding his supposed interest in the case and identity.

As for the reception by others, this has been a contentious debate with a number of strange 'games' played, many of which were seen on this board. It perhaps has been forgotten by some that many entering a debate google about to find information and arguments from various sites, thus producing them here might not be 'trolling' but an attempt to engage in debate employing information gleaned elsewhere. As there's really only two (well, now three) sites to find extensive information on the case that are dedicated to the proposition they are guilty, a newcomer might well appear to be parroting them.

Incidentally, don't try this adversarial approach at either faction of PMF or TJMK if you want to keep your account there, as they don't permit anyone advancing and defending arguments not in line with their theories or the Massei Report.

Or go ahead and do it and provide us with some entertainment.

 

[Danny]

FWIW, my mind is not "made up." Indeed, I'm finding it exceedingly difficult to sort through all of the bluster being offered up by both the mainstream media and the amateur bloggers covering this case. It seems I'll never be able to come reasonably close to ascertaining what, exactly, the judges saw and heard during the trial.

Ah yes, the 'if I haven't read the 10,000 pages of court transcripts in the original Italian I can't make an informed decision about the case' argument.

 

[Chris C]

Do you seriously believe it's reasonable to think that you can determine questions of guilt without seeing and hearing (in your native language) ALL of the evidence adduced and ALL of the arguments advanced by counsel?

For example, how could you assess the credibility of expert A versus expert B if you've never seen them, heard them and watched them under fire during cross-examination?
P.S. You haven't answered my question about your name. What are we to make of it? Without some context, the image it invokes is far from amusing. Do you think it's funny?

Well the prosecution put an expert witness on the stand to discredit the Coroners autopsy and the expert never even reviewed the autopsy.

Edited by Tricky: 

Edited for rule 11.

 

[Branded]

There's a bit of a short cut available: check if the judge's conclusions are actually scientifically possible.

It turns out they aren't, which is a problem the guilter community have been blustering about helplessly for some time now.

The fact is, as stated in the Massei report, Meredith had undigested cheese and vegetable fibre (probably apple but possibly pizza topping) in her stomach and nothing at all in her duodenum. Since she ate around 6pm and we can verify this quite accurately, there's no possible way she died at 23:30.

Boom, done.

I haven't yet read the section of the Court's judgment dealing with this issue, but will keep this argument in mind.

In the mean time, how would an earlier time of death do anything to rule out the possibility that AK, RS, & RG sprung a post-Halloween prank/ hazing on Meredith?

A sudden attack could have been launched immediately upon Meredith's arrival at the cottage and would not have required any time to 'escalate'.

 

[Branded]

Well the prosecution put an expert witness on the stand to discredit the Coroners autopsy and the expert never even reviewed the autopsy.

Interesting, but far from complete. Without more, I have no idea what to make of it. Context is everything.

 

[Chris C]

Interesting, but far from complete. Without more, I have no idea what to make of it. Context is everything.

You asked the question and I responded with an example the prosecution used against the defense. There are lots of less than credible tactics used against the defendants in this case. So what really needs to be evaluated when concerning credibility is the prosecution, the prosecution experts, and the witnesses. You should go through each one and judge for yourself credible or not credible. You should also start with the prosecutor convicted of abuse of office in another case for trying to railroad innocent people.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Do you seriously believe it's reasonable to think that you can determine questions of guilt without seeing and hearing (in your native language) ALL of the evidence adduced and ALL of the arguments advanced by counsel?

This really is just like having Jackie/Treehorn back.

Yes, we seriously believe it's reasonable in cases which are clear-cut enough.

For example, how could you assess the credibility of expert A versus expert B if you've never seen them, heard them and watched them under fire during cross-examination?

Well you see, we have this thing called the "scientific literature". You can find it with Google Scholar, although Lionking will try to make fun of you if you do. If that prospect worries you, there are a variety of databases available through any good university library that index said literature that you can use instead of google. However we just ignore Lionking, because the content of the literature turns out to be unaffected by the search engine you use to find it - who'd have thunk?

Anyway, when Expert A contradicts the literature they're wrong. That's how you can sometimes tell.

P.S. You haven't answered my question about your name. What are we to make of it? Without some context, the image it invokes is far from amusing. Do you think it's funny?

It's kind of a historical reference. I'd call it less funny than Chris Rock but more funny than sock puppets or photoshopping people's faces into your avatar - but humour's a very personal thing, I find.

 

[Branded]

This really is just like having Jackie/Treehorn back.

Yes, we seriously believe it's reasonable in cases which are clear-cut enough.



Well you see, we have this thing called the "scientific literature". You can find it with Google Scholar, although Lionking will try to make fun of you if you do. If that prospect worries you, there are a variety of databases available through any good university library that index said literature that you can use instead of google. However we just ignore Lionking, because the content of the literature turns out to be unaffected by the search engine you use to find it - who'd have thunk?

Anyway, when Expert A contradicts the literature they're wrong. That's how you can sometimes tell...

Where, in your opinion, has an expert contradicted the scientific literature?

 

[Danny]

Do you seriously believe it's reasonable to think that you can determine questions of guilt without seeing and hearing (in your native language) ALL of the evidence adduced and ALL of the arguments advanced by counsel?

For example, how could you assess the credibility of expert A versus expert B if you've never seen them, heard them and watched them under fire during cross-examination?

So you're saying that nobody should be discussing the case unless they were physically present at every hearing and fluent in Italian? Would being physically present and speaking Italian change the facts?

Why not add some further qualifications? Only lawyers in the Perugia legal system are allowed to discuss the case?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I haven't yet read the section of the Court's judgment dealing with this issue, but will keep this argument in mind.

In the mean time, how would an earlier time of death do anything to rule out the possibility that AK, RS, & RG sprung a post-Halloween prank/ hazing on Meredith?

Well actually as I remember explaining earlier to someone with a different username, there's actually no evidence of any "hazing" or "rape pranks" that resemble the prosecution ever happening, any time, ever.

The guilters fascination with "rape pranks" turns out to have its origins in an anonymous allegation in the comments of an otherwise unremarkable on-line article where someone claimed Amanda got a friend to burst into someone's room with a mask on to scare them. Over time various guilters appear to have added their own lies to the story until it got to the point where they actually believed that there was proof Amanda Knox had orchestrated a "rape prank" where multiple attackers with knives stormed someone's apartment and threatened rape them. Pretty stupid.

Anyway, there's no evidence any such "rape prank" or "hazing" ritual has ever happened. It's purely a guilter fantasy, and as such it has no explanatory power. Saying it was a "prank" is exactly equivalent to saying "I have no theory at all".

A sudden attack could have been launched immediately upon Meredith's arrival at the cottage and would not have required any time to 'escalate'.

Well, for starters it would immediately sink the Massei/Mignini theory they were convicted under.

More importantly, there was an excellent reason Mignini settled on the 23:30 fairy story. It's because he needed the allegations of Curatolo to even have a case in the first place, and Curatolo and the broken-down car outside the murder house close off any time before 23:30.

Actually the 23:30 time doesn't even really work in the Massei story since the house was dark and silent right up until that time according to eyewitnesses, but I think at this stage Massei and Mignini had given up on making sense.

A few guilters have tried wrestling with the problem that defeated Mignini, and attempted to come up with a coherent narrative that gets Raffaele and Amanda out of their nice warm love-nest at 21:00 to run home, high-five Rudy and knife Meredith the second they get through the door... but needless to say their attempts haven't amounted to much. Their stories are even more ridiculous than Mignini's, which is something you shouldn't say lightly.

 

[Antony]

1) I was asking about one person; &

2) Where, exactly, did I say I was hearing about this "Frank" person for "the first time"?

FWIW, I've read some of the online commentary about this case and I have to confess that I'm having a hard time trying to determine who some of these oft-cited sources are and what value (if any) they are to someone who, like me, is attempting to determine whether the accused are factually guilty.

I suppose I'm old fashioned, but I don't know what to make of an amateur blogger that is not a professional reporter under the paid employ of a legitimate news agency.

Can I suggest that you read what the different sources say and judge them on their merits rather than be over-concerned with what status the author holds? Anything else smacks of the ad hominem and "appeal to authority" fallacies.

The "professional reporters" and "legitimate news agencies" have in any case been responsible for broadcasting numerous falsehoods that continue to float around this case.