Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Chris_Halkides]

his reporting could have been more accurate

I don't see why all the fuss LJ. I saw the articles as pretty impartial. Both detail the smearing of Mignini by certain American parties and contain quotes from both sides, Anne Bremner and Mignini himself, Fiorenza Sarzanini and Peter Quennell. This was definitely newsworthy at the time and he certainly wasn't the only reporter writing about it. Anne is spokesperson for FOA, Peter heads up TJMK, 50/50 on the representation I think.

Danceme,
I do not see all of Mr. Joyce's articles as being entirely impartial. It may not be conscious bias, but I think he could be a better reporter.

 

[LondonJohn]

SomeAlibi went on a manic rant suggesting that those who disagreed with him were cowards for not debating him. I find it quite humorous that a guy who hides behind a screen name could possibly call anyone a coward. I will also point out that a debate is not possible because people like myself are not allowed to post on PMF.

I actually no longer have any interest in posting on PMF. I signed up once hoping to have a conversation but I was quickly banned. PMF has escalated its hatred and I now consider it a hate site. It's impossible to debate hatred.

I will call PMF out for their lies. They seem to think that I am involved in every single event or action they disagree with. For the record, I have done nothing but ignore the teen blogger that I have been accused of harassing. I do not send trolls to their site, I have never called Peter Quennell a pedophile, and I post using my actual name. Those are just some of the lies told on PMF yesterday. I am not sure it does any good at all to debate a group like PMF, especially with a guy like SomeAlibi who is clearly to angry to see reality.

If others disagree, I have no problem posting the facts that refute SomeAlibi's rant. That's up to everyone here.

I think we can all pretty much refute his "arguments" fairly easily by ourselves

Still, it was an impressive and carefully-aimed outburst: right up there with the "Vileda mop" argument and the "crime scene clean-up lighting" argument

 

[Bruce Fischer]

No I cannot see any iota of 'important difference' in a reporter joining a website over a year ago to gather reliable information for his articles, and never posting or even showing any subsequent activity there at all... for a year.

But I did see one item of interest.
You are now admitting that the two sources "from on high" here, Sfarzo and Dempsey who definitely are not journalists, therefore need not worry about maintaining 'disinterested' views or getting too close to a 'partisan website.

Yes, Vogt and Nadeau are journalists, therefore held to much higher standards compared to mere Bloggers Sfarzo and Dempsey.
That indeed is a difference I do see.

BTW:
Your last statement contains the erroneous conclusion that what you said previously was any help at all.



Never but never concede any iota of error even when a very vulnerable fallacious argument is shown have no credible foundation.

We have another 50,000++ posts to go here

Candace Dempsey is a journalist.

 

[LondonJohn]

PS: For the benefit of Mr Alibi (who I thought knew the case details a bit better than this, I must admit), Filomena's window's outer shutters were not opened to the position detailed in the crime scene photographs, at the time the house was first entered by the police. From Massei:

They (the postal officers) were, then, outside the house, near the side of the wall where the window of the room occupied at the time by Filomena Romanelli is located.
Said window had two half-closed shutters, and the right-hand shutter (the right with respect to the person looking at it) was ‚slightly more open‛ (page 62, hearing of February 6, 2009, Battistelli’s statements).

(Massei, p27, English trans)

In other words, the left hand shutter as seen from inside the room (i.e. the right hand shutter as seen from outside) was most likely closed to the degree in which it's shown in the crime scene photos, but the right hand shutter (as seen from the inside) was likely more closed in that that - as opposed to seemingly open in the crime scene photos. So in fact it would have been quite hard to see that the window had been broken - especially at night.

That's if you believe postal officer Battistelli and his colleague, of course. They DO have form in the area of truthful testimony, after all.....

 

[Chris_Halkides]

sealed crime scene?

SomeAlibi wrote, "Unsurprisingly, he then goes on to make the standard nonsense of the December 16th “delay” as “apparently not important” when we all know it was a sealed crime scene." After the forensic police had done their investigation, my understanding is that the regular police were in many areas of the house. The photo I recall seeing of Meredith's room looks like it had been tossed. Is my understanding correct? If so, it opens up the question of what a sealed crime scene actually means. The regular police would not have had reason to avoid tracking materials from one room to another. This problem applies not just to the bra clasp but also to the luminol-positive areas of the house, which were identified in mid-December.

 

[LondonJohn]

SomeAlibi wrote, "Unsurprisingly, he then goes on to make the standard nonsense of the December 16th “delay” as “apparently not important” when we all know it was a sealed crime scene." After the forensic police had done their investigation, my understanding is that the regular police were in many areas of the house. The photo I recall seeing of Meredith's room looks like it had been tossed. Is my understanding correct? If so, it opens up the question of what a sealed crime scene actually means. The regular police would not have had reason to avoid tracking materials from one room to another. This problem applies not just to the bra clasp but also to the luminol-positive areas of the house, which were identified in mid-December.

True. Nearly every non-furniture item in Meredith's room seems to be in a different place in the photos/video from 16th December than it is in the photo/video from 2nd-3rd November. There's simply no way this can be described - with a straight face at least - as a "sealed crime scene". In addition, of course, the police failed to adequately secure the front door - as shown by the Nadeau photos from November.

On a related issue, it seems to me that the testimony of Filomena became more and more slanted against Knox as time progressed, in line with a change in her underlying attitude towards Knox. It seems that in early interviews she's very uncertain as to the position of her blinds hen she left, as well as the general condition of the room. By the time we get to the first trial, however, her stance seems to have considerably hardened (in the prosecution's favour) on both these issues.

I think that a psychologist with expertise in this area might be able to infer what could be happening here: a circular reinforcement mechanism where Filomena becomes more convinced in Knox's guilt, which makes her more inclined to believe that the shutters were closed and the room was immaculate, which in turn makes her more convinced of Knox's guilt, and so on....

 

[Chris_Halkides]

colors

On a related issue, it seems to me that the testimony of Filomena became more and more slanted against Knox as time progressed, in line with a change in her underlying attitude towards Knox. It seems that in early interviews she's very uncertain as to the position of her blinds hen she left, as well as the general condition of the room. By the time we get to the first trial, however, her stance seems to have considerably hardened (in the prosecution's favour) on both these issues.

I think that a psychologist with expertise in this area might be able to infer what could be happening here: a circular reinforcement mechanism where Filomena becomes more convinced in Knox's guilt, which makes her more inclined to believe that the shutters were closed and the room was immaculate, which in turn makes her more convinced of Knox's guilt, and so on....

LondonJohn,

I agree. There is no need to assume that Filomena is lying (contrary to claims made elsewhere). To the contrary, the Willingham case is an example where one or more witnesses changed their testimony with time. I think that Filomena let her beliefs about Knox's and Sollecito's guilt color her thinking, nothing more.

Would you be willing to comment on whether or not the release of the pink bathroom photo would have happened in England? Thanks.

 

[LondonJohn]

LondonJohn,

I agree. There is no need to assume that Filomena is lying (contrary to claims made elsewhere). To the contrary, the Willingham case is an example where one or more witnesses changed their testimony with time. I think that Filomena let her beliefs about Knox's and Sollecito's guilt color her thinking, nothing more.

Would you be willing to comment on whether or not the release of the pink bathroom photo would have happened in England? Thanks.

That's easy - absolutely, unequivocally not.

But then the UK is subject to far stricter sub-judice rules than most other countries, including most of the US and the rest of Europe (including Italy).

It's quite interesting here: the print and broadcast media are all given access to case information and police interviews/intelligence in pretty much all high-profile cases, but are duty bound not to release the information until the trial has reached a verdict. Therefore, what happens is that they all put together special programmes, news segments or multi-page pres pieces incorporating all this stuff, then they push the button as soon as a guilty verdict is announced.

There was just such an incident this past week, where a guy who ran a small post office / shop with his wife killed her (and stole money from the safe), but then pretended that they were held up by armed robbers, and he "broke free" of his shackles after the robbery to find her dead by the robbers' hands. Within literally minutes of him being found guilty at trial, the two main 24-hour news channels (BBC and Sky) were both running long pieces containing video of his police interviews (mostly witness interviews, incidentally!), and showing details of the crime scene and interviews with locals.

 

[quadraginta]

If only the prosecution would have used this logic during the first trial. We now have a pretty long list of "evidence" that turned out to be nothing at all. When you cherry pick details like they did, you can build a "mountain" of evidence against anyone.

I would think bloody rags found nearby to a murder scene would be thoroughly investigated. How could anyone disagree with this? I know agreement is hard to find on JREF but this one appears to be obvious.

I'm pretty sure no one here has.

But that is not the same as assuming that they didn't.

We know several things with some certainty. We know that they investigated enough find the tissues in the first place, and we know that they investigated them enough to determine the number and genders of the individuals who had been in contact with them. We know that they did not have any records which they had accessed that identified the individuals.

We don't have any way of knowing for certain that they did not exhaust all reasonable avenues of investigation concerning those tissues. That is only supposition, and a clearly biased supposition at that.

... unless you have some evidence which hasn't been shared here.

 

[Justinian2]

Bruce Fisher,

SomeAlibi wrote, "We all know that Guede is accused of being in a school without permission for which the police didn’t even bother to prosecute, so it wasn’t a burglary. Bzzt. We all know he handled a stolen laptop but there was no suggestion of a burglary related to it, as much as one can see the hypothesis. We know that another witness said someone like Guede was in his house but he was discounted as unreliable. As everyone knows, I am a vociferous critic of Guede but one cannot take a law enforcement professional seriously who massively inflates evidence. “5 or 6 burglaries in a month”? NO-ONE in the case or on the internet has ever suggested that. Such a suggestion from a reputably credible law enforcement professional is hugely undermining."

SomeAlibi, meet Bob Graham. Mr. Graham reports on allegations of six crimes over 33 days. What's worse, however, is that SomeAlibi is willing to minimize Rudi's being found in a school with very young children in possession of a knife. Mr. Alibi should explain why this incident should not have been prosecuted. While he is at it, he should explain why the witness to whom he alludes should be deemed unreliable. Given their track record, the say-so of the Perugian authorities is not in the slightest bit convincing. Bruce, you may be correct that there is no good reason to debate with PMF, but I would not like to see SomeAlibi's hyperbole go unchallenged.

Guede was CAUGHT three times. It is very plausible to think that there were others that he got away with.

If you pull three electronic devices out of a bag and all three are bad, you can expect a very high number of defects in a larger sample.

If Guede got caught all three times, he was either a stupid thief (no oxymoron) or he was gathering information. If he got caught three times he may have been successful hundreds of times.

 

[pilot padron]

I actually no longer have any interest in posting on PMF.

Thank you for that informative piece of information stating that you have no interest in doing something that in actuality you could no longer ever do anyway (even if 'interested')

However you are indeed interested enough to obviously still read quite extensively on PMF and report back on what you read often so instantaneously that it is before another poster even has time to submit a subsequent message

For the record, I have done nothing but ignore the teen blogger that I have been accused of harassing. and I post using my actual name. .

For the record; you are directly contradicted as to the truthfulness of that 'statement'.
The contradiction includes copies of what you you sent

Contradictory statement posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 11:13 pm
yes these emails are real
Bruce fisher has created multiple emails and continues to email me pretending to be different people lol actually rather amusing

Also for the record, I have no dog in this race, and am only interested in the truth, which is obviously sorely and surely missing from one of the above personages

 

[Chris_Halkides]

the prosecution in North Carolina

That's easy - absolutely, unequivocally not.

But then the UK is subject to far stricter sub-judice rules than most other countries, including most of the US and the rest of Europe (including Italy).

It's quite interesting here: the print and broadcast media are all given access to case information and police interviews/intelligence in pretty much all high-profile cases, but are duty bound not to release the information until the trial has reached a verdict. Therefore, what happens is that they all put together special programmes, news segments or multi-page pres pieces incorporating all this stuff, then they push the button as soon as a guilty verdict is announced.

There was just such an incident this past week, where a guy who ran a small post office / shop with his wife killed her (and stole money from the safe), but then pretended that they were held up by armed robbers, and he "broke free" of his shackles after the robbery to find her dead by the robbers' hands. Within literally minutes of him being found guilty at trial, the two main 24-hour news channels (BBC and Sky) were both running long pieces containing video of his police interviews (mostly witness interviews, incidentally!), and showing details of the crime scene and interviews with locals.

LondonJohn,

I commented on this recently, quoting a portion of rule 3.6, which shows that the prosecution in North Carolina must follow certain guidelines in this regard, but I suspect that you are quite correct in that the UK is stricter. From Chapter 11 of the book Race to Injustice (pp. 263-264) is a portion of rule 3.8 from North Carolina's codes governing conduct of lawyers, "the prosecutor in a criminal case shall...refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused and exercise reasonable care to prevent investigators" from doing things that the prosecutor is not allowed to do. Rule 3.8 does list an exception, which basically says that the prosecutor may release information needed to inform the public and to serve a legitimate law enforcement purpose.

 

[colonelhall]

Just popped in to see if there has been anything new added to the 50,000 or so posts. I must say that London John has been particularly hilarious with his outrage at that journalist who apparently logged on to a website about the case. I particularly chuckled at his sarcastic jibes about writing large so that we could understand what he was saying. I am not sure whether this pompous attitude keeps me away or keeps me coming back for more. The thought that a journalist investigating the case would not want to subscribe to one of the most informed sites is staggering.

The clarity of the responses would suggest that London John does not need to write large.

 

[Justinian2]

SomeAlibi went on a manic rant suggesting that those who disagreed with him were cowards for not debating him. I find it quite humorous that a guy who hides behind a screen name could possibly call anyone a coward. I will also point out that a debate is not possible because people like myself are not allowed to post on PMF.

I actually no longer have any interest in posting on PMF. I signed up once hoping to have a conversation but I was quickly banned. PMF has escalated its hatred and I now consider it a hate site. It's impossible to debate hatred.
I will call PMF out for their lies. They seem to think that I am involved in every single event or action they disagree with. For the record, I have done nothing but ignore the teen blogger that I have been accused of harassing. I do not send trolls to their site, I have never called Peter Quennell a pedophile, and I post using my actual name. Those are just some of the lies told on PMF yesterday. I am not sure it does any good at all to debate a group like PMF, especially with a guy like SomeAlibi who is clearly to angry to see reality.

If others disagree, I have no problem posting the facts that refute SomeAlibi's rant. That's up to everyone here.

I agree.

I enjoyed your book. In the long term, your book is important to the cause of Amanda's justice and, I am not being facetious, "World Peace". I mean how can any democracy or justice exist when freedom of the press is suppressed?

I really don't know what the cults (PMF or TJKM) are about. Who really knows? Who should care? Don't waste your time on them. Having said that, it does interest me. I mean, how can they be so screwed up?

 

[pilot padron]

You make a great point. Maybe SomeAlibi would be willing to come here to discuss his beliefs. He said he would not but I wonder why his "coward" label wouldn't apply to himself in that case.

Since you are 'interested' enough to extensively quote and characteristically typically ridicule whatever SA says in your 'argument', surely you did not miss his clearly stated reasons as to why he chooses not to 'come here'.
They were explicit and far from your biased blatantly inflammatory and inaccurate 'coward' insinuation

Incidentally, I quite clearly 'dig' his reasons for not 'coming here', and find them to be typically very accurate and incisive.
In fact I have frequently personally experienced them here as well.

Finally, can we once and for all abstain from arguing by tossing out gauntlet style 'questions' to others, and if they choose for any of a multitude of rational reasons to ignore the question....stop childishly concluding that you 'won' some type of point

 

[LondonJohn]

Just popped in to see if there has been anything new added to the 50,000 or so posts. I must say that London John has been particularly hilarious with his outrage at that journalist who apparently logged on to a website about the case. I particularly chuckled at his sarcastic jibes about writing large so that we could understand what he was saying. I am not sure whether this pompous attitude keeps me away or keeps me coming back for more. The thought that a journalist investigating the case would not want to subscribe to one of the most informed sites is staggering.

The clarity of the responses would suggest that London John does not need to write large.

It's a shame you don't understand the difference between the idiom "writ large" and the simple phrase "written large". Perhaps you should look them both up, to educate yourself further.

And, at the risk of repeating myself, there's a difference between viewing a partisan web forum and becoming a member of it, especially when one can access all the pertinent information on that website without becoming a member. Do you understand this one a bit better now too?

Lastly, do YOU have anything to say about the actual case? Or do you join the ranks of those who seem unable to do anything other than comment on others' posts? Thanks in advance!

 

[LondonJohn]

Since you are 'interested' enough to extensively quote and characteristically typically ridicule whatever SA says in your 'argument', surely you did not miss his clearly stated reasons as to why he chooses not to 'come here'.
They were explicit and far from your biased blatantly inflammatory and inaccurate 'coward' insinuation

Incidentally, I quite clearly 'dig' his reasons for not 'coming here', and find them to be typically very accurate and incisive.
In fact I have frequently personally experienced them here as well.

Finally, can we once and for all abstain from arguing by tossing out gauntlet style 'questions' to others, and if they choose for any of a multitude of rational reasons to ignore the question....stop childishly concluding that you 'won' some type of point

It's entirely clear that JREF (and possibly also the IIP public forum) are the best places where anyone can debate any position they like on this case, so long as they don't personally insult or abuse other members. The site on which SA posted his latest amusing "argument" most definitely does not pass this test by any measure, no matter how often some people would like to try to fool people that "not following simple rules" was how people got banned.

And, re your last paragraph, I'm sure even a short Stint over at another site would give you more than enough exposure to these types of tactics to leave you thoroughly fed up with them. I'm betting Rose would agree as well...

 

[lionking]

It's entirely clear that JREF (and possibly also the IIP public forum) are the best places where anyone can debate any position they like on this case, so long as they don't personally insult or abuse other members. The site on which SA posted his latest amusing "argument" most definitely does not pass this test by any measure, no matter how often some people would like to try to fool people that "not following simple rules" was how people got banned.

And, re your last paragraph, I'm sure even a short Stint over at another site would give you more than enough exposure to these types of tactics to leave you thoroughly fed up with them. I'm betting Rose would agree as well...

Perhaps you might want to look at the rule in the MA about posting on topic. This thread is not about Internet forums.

 

[Justinian2]

It's entirely clear that JREF (and possibly also the IIP public forum) are the best places where anyone can debate any position they like on this case, so long as they don't personally insult or abuse other members. The site on which SA posted his latest amusing "argument" most definitely does not pass this test by any measure, no matter how often some people would like to try to fool people that "not following simple rules" was how people got banned.

And, re your last paragraph, I'm sure even a short Stint over at another site would give you more than enough exposure to these types of tactics to leave you thoroughly fed up with them. I'm betting Rose would agree as well...

I'm sure that the members of the "other forums" would, in an earlier life, have attended stonings, events at the coliseum, hangings and crucifixions.

The 'others' are possibly not of this world.

 

[Danceme]

Danceme,
I do not see all of Mr. Joyce's articles as being entirely impartial. It may not be conscious bias, but I think he could be a better reporter.

I guess a lot of reporters could be better at what they do, but they're not, in all aspects of news and not just this murder trial. I did notice he at least used words like "alleged leaks", "reported to have written", and similar to indicate these were not proven facts.

I notice he got the sexy underwear bit in there too. Imagine if the press had known the cost of those items, 60 euros according to what Charlie said was on the receipt, not your run of the mill monday to fridays and pretty costly for a supposedly frugal college girl on a budget. I'm pretty sure that would have been an even bigger story than it was. Sometimes she just seemed to make a rod for her own back unfortunately.