Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[CoulsdonUK]

Are you really expressing an opinion? As far as I can see you are simply making excuses for not having one of your own.



See above. It's not a matter of agreeing or not agreeing; it's one of having anything of substance to discuss with you.



Are you suggesting that there is evidence not known to this forum that changes the balance of proof in this case? That is not a sustainable proposition; we don't need to see "all" the evidence to be able to form an accurate view of this case. There is sufficient evidence in the public domain to show clearly that Meredith died at a time when Amanda and Raffaele were both at his flat, and so couldn't have been involved.

We also know enough to conclude definitively that the evidence used by the prosecution to obtain the convictions was neither conclusive nor scientifically sound. This was a prosecution that did everything to poison the defendants' reputations in the public mind by leaking falsehoods and misleading information in the media throughout the time leading up to the trial and verdict. The idea that they have any other facts not presented to the trial which will change the facts of the crime is ridiculous.



Endlessly repeating variations of this theme, which is one that is not in dispute, just takes up time for no purpose. You appear to be doing it so as to give an exaggerated impression that you have something to say.



It's not unreasonable, it's just vacuous.

I am confused as to why given your opinion of my posts that you bother engaging me at all. May I suggest you exercise a level of selective judgement as to who you choose to respond too!

 

[bri1]

No. In just the same way that I don't think the police were thinking with their 'little head' either. (though this was suggested by an advocate of Knox's innocence in A N Other thread)

I agree, the police weren't thinking with their 'little head'- they weren't really thinking at all. To me, when guilters make this argument, they are betraying the weakness of the case, as well as personally insulting anyone (even women like me, who only have one head!) on the side of innocence.
I think there's more of a case that guilters are doing this, and the police as well, as both groups often gratuitously refer to Amanda's appearance when talking about her.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

The official version and the Birmingham Six

Halides1

Birmingham six, Guildford four happened roughly 40 years ago, there have been changes just like in America to police interrogation procedures such as contemporaneous notes, audio and video recording. Nonetheless the context at the time was the Irish Republican Army (IRA) where waging a bombing campaign on mainland UK; indeed a Pub a couple of miles from where I live now was targeted Caterham Arms in 1975 merely because soldiers from the local barracks drank at the Pub. I find your attempt to draw comparisons between the Birmingham Six which occurred in the 1970’s in the UK with Meredith’s murder in Italy in 2007 bizarre.

Although I am aware of your stance on Guantanamo Bay, I am curious what are your views of Ruby Ridge, Waco or Oklahoma City bombings?

Do you believe there is a link to Raffaele and Amanda with Cavalese Cable Car incident (1998) or maybe the death of Nicola Calipari in Baghdad (2005), what was the official American position on these incidents?

CoulsdonUK,
I mentioned the Birmingham Six for two reasons, because it shows that the official version is not always correct, and because of the remarkably authoritarian statements of someone (I believe Lord Denning) on the matter, as quoted in another thread here. Human nature (in this case the unwillingness of officials to acknowledge wrongful conduct) changes less quickly than interrogation procedures.* That you would fail to understand why I would bring it up is not bizarre, but it is disappointing.

I hold no strong position on whether the official versions of the incidents at Waco, Ruby Ridge, or Oklahoma City are accurate or not, not knowing enough about these case to make such judgments. Based partly on your bringing it up on top of bringing up JFK, I am beginning to see a pattern in your argumentation. You insinuate** that Knox supporters are CTers, but you back away from saying it outright. One wishes that if this were your position, that you would simply say so.

ETA
When I first became aware of the Knox/Sollecito case, I wondered whether there were a connection to the cable car incident, but I soon came to the conclusion that anti-Americanism was an unlikely explanation for the events of the present case, given that they have been as damaging to Mr. Sollecito as to Ms. Knox. I don't know anything about the Calipari case, sorry.

*Perhaps a better example here is the Todd Willingham case. I could say that arson science is much more advanced now than it was almost twenty years ago and that the situation is unlikely to repeat itself. But Governor Rick Perry's response (see gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com for much excellent coverage) suggests that more than faulty arson science needs to be fixed.

**perhaps my initial assessment was too harsh. I am not certain what is driving your choice of incidents here. Perhaps you can clarify it.

 

[Dan O.]

I'd like someone to summarize at least the major hypotheses being put forth and how they are supported by the evidence.

Belz has a point here. It's unconscionable to subject anyone else to the torture of having to read all of these threads in their entirety. We should work to construct such a summary with appropriate links to the relevant facts.

The ideal place to entomb this summary would be the SkepticWiki but it is unfortunately down for the long count. I guess I should contact Ducky and see if he needs help getting the wiki back on it's feet.

 

[Antony]

I am confused as to why given your opinion of my posts that you bother engaging me at all. May I suggest you exercise a level of selective judgement as to who you choose to respond too!

I do it in the hope that you will understand what this discussion is about. The point of the discussion is whether the court that convicted Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito was correct in its verdict. It's completely pointless to go on referring to the factoid that the court found them guilty, as it is to refer to the rather obvious fact that only the appeal court can decide that they should be released.

You have already stated that you agree with the original court's decision. What would take this discussion forward would be an explanation from you as to why you think the court's verdict was correct. Also if you intend to change your view (as you have also stated) should the appeal court decide differently, an explanation as to how you can reconcile this with your current view.

Until you do this, there's no point in trying to claim that you are "expressing your opinion", because the implication is that your opinion (like the Vicar of Bray) is entirely dictated by the official viewpoint of the day.

 

[babycondor]

I do it in the hope that you will understand what this discussion is about. The point of the discussion is whether the court that convicted Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito was correct in its verdict. It's completely pointless to go on referring to the factoid that the court found them guilty, as it is to refer to the rather obvious fact that only the appeal court can decide that they should be released.

You have already stated that you agree with the original court's decision. What would take this discussion forward would be an explanation from you as to why you think the court's verdict was correct. Also if you intend to change your view (as you have also stated) should the appeal court decide differently, an explanation as to how you can reconcile this with your current view.

Until you do this, there's no point in trying to claim that you are "expressing your opinion", because the implication is that your opinion (like the Vicar of Bray) is entirely dictated by the official viewpoint of the day.

Nominated.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

about 45 minutes

Just a note to the non-skeptics here. CSI. You know, the show you watch on your television? It. Isn't. Reality. Murders are not solved in 30 minutes. Google is not the answer to your questions.

SNIP

I bid you all Goodbye. This is not a place for skeptics. It is a place for zealots. Please cancel my membership, though I leave this post to find out how to remove myself from this facade.

(bolding mine)
Maya C,

You have the wrong TV show. I have sometimes wondered whether some members of the pro-guilt community watched too many episodes of "Murder She Wrote," in which the killer usually gave away himself/herself by something that he or she said. Commenters like yourself, who claim that Amanda lies more than she tells the truth without being specific about which of her words you actually believe are lies, are unhelpful in moving the conversation forward. Perhaps you can produce a list that we can discuss. More generally the pro-guilt community seems overly enamored with "statement analysis" of Amanda's words, to the detriment of a study of the forensics. A skeptic might ask each side to recreate the rock's breaking the window. One side did, and the other did not. Who are the zealots again?

 

[Justinian2]

I wouldn't want to fly on a plane that was boarded by three or more shaved Muslims. I wouldn't want to meet Guede in a dark alley. I wouldn't want to be kissed by an Italian godfather. But most of all, I wouldn't want to be prosecuted by Mignini.

Made an interesting post about my own home being burgularized by snow white and/or her seven dwarfs, but nobody responded.

Everybody fell asleep while the defense presented their case. I wonder why.

Oh well, as you were.

 

[Justinian2]

Now that the Navy Seals have had a little practice, perhaps they can rescue Amanda and put a couple of boom booms in the left side of Mignini's face.

 

[theRealBob]

So Amanda Knox is now in the realm of JFK and Christ? Really?

O, Great Spaghetti Monster. I truly believed there was more intelligent life out there.

Well she has been crucified.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

front door

Just got back from a burglary of my own home. I know who did it. The local police found no evidence. They only looked for typical evidence from outside. I found where a knife was used on the door latch to push it back. It was an inside job.

Justinian2,

Do you have any thoughts on whether Guede could have broken into the flat via the front door? I seem to recall that Chris C suggested this some time ago.

 

[theRealBob]

IYou have already stated that you agree with the original court's decision. What would take this discussion forward would be an explanation from you as to why you think the court's verdict was correct. Also if you intend to change your view (as you have also stated) should the appeal court decide differently, an explanation as to how you can reconcile this with your current view.

.

This is a court that appointed a tainted prosecutor/mate to oversee a slander case from a dodgy non-taped interroagtion (when anything all day long outside that room was strangely taped) Mignini is a participant in the investigation and may be one of the ones to incur the real share of guilt instead of the defendant. But he, of all people, is in charge of looking into it. I can't remember the exact dates or times now but didn't he just gain a conviction, for corruption in cases he's involved in, a few days before receiving this appointment ?

This is a court conducting a trial which attracts world wide media attention that refused the $1500 to repair the hard drives fried by the police (not deliberately I hope.) They may well, paricularly earlier in the trial when things like phoning the carbonari times etc etc etc were slipping down the slime pit, have contained critical case-defining information.

This is also a court that continuously admits statements from Patrick's slander case into the murder trial. Genuine Judges bang their gavel again and again and say ' out of order.' Proper Judges know the rules that are obvious to lay observers commenting on the fact and can think in real-time.

This is a court with no particular interest really in asking too many questions about the interrogation tapes. (also possibly case-defining)

This is a court that had an uncomfortable degree of one way latitude in all things it addressed. To be blunt everything went one way all the way.

What about coaching Curatolo through his different tales of murder night ? This began with him giving them an aliibi by stating they were definitely at the basketball court from 9-12. But if this were true they couldn't have been in the house during the possible times of the murder. He was then coerced and managed in front of everybody into an entirely different set of times that Massei eventually cherry picked. This was more comfortable for our Judge's eventual (well, iinitial really) stance. Let's go with that version, he said. That one sounds right.

It goes on and on and on....

Massei had a one track mind all the way through the trial and I beliave the only time he gave the proceedings his honest and total attention was at the mention of Amanda's vibrator.

We all know he didn't fall asleep during that bit of testimony.

 

[Justinian2]

Justinian2,

Do you have any thoughts on whether Guede could have broken into the flat via the front door? I seem to recall that Chris C suggested this some time ago.

Well, if the tenants that broke into my part of the house had broken a window, I wouldn't have suspected them. The cops wouldn't suspect them either. There isn't sufficient evidence to prove one of them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Snow White or one of her seven boyfriends did the crime. But which one?

Police in the USA don't torture someone guilty of only stealing $5000 worth of jewelry especially when there is a thing called insurance.

Yes, I can see the motive for someone to stage a break-in to distract the police. However, it makes NO sense in the Amanda Knox case. Staged break-in or no staged break-in, I can't understand any logic that would implicate a conspiracy with Guede.

 

[theRealBob]

Justinian2,

Do you have any thoughts on whether Guede could have broken into the flat via the front door? I seem to recall that Chris C suggested this some time ago.

There are many reasons for Rudy to stage-manage a burglary.

One being he knew most of the people in the house.
You've just got to toss a rock anyway, don't you ? It could easily be an off the cuff act when walking away from the house.

I can't remember offhand but I think the whole look of the staged burglary scenario we were left with fits Rudy's breakin modus operandi more closely than Amanda's own burglary m-o.

 

[RoseMontague]

Made an interesting post about my own home being burgularized by snow white and/or her seven dwarfs, but nobody responded.

I was trying to find the tape of her interrogation but the cops forgot that part. An interesting quote from the less fair Queen however:

Mummy dust, to make me old. To shroud my clothes, the black of night. To age my voice, and old hag's cackle. To whiten my hair, a scream of fright. A blast of wind to fan my hate. A thunderbolt to mix it well. Now, begin thy magic spell.

There was a pair of glass slippers left on top of the clothes so I am thinking it could be the more or less fair Beauty and even though her and the Sleepy one had only met once at a pot party they must have conspired to team up on this one. My theory is the other Beauty believed she was the mostest fairest of all and sent the Beast to assist in the deed, trying to put the blame on the less fairest queen.

Update:
The Beast has been ruled guilty in the first instance.

Raise the flag, sing the song, here we come, we're fifty strong, and fifty Frenchmen can't be wrong... Let's kill the Beast!

 

[Justinian2]

Anyone ever think that Guede is a serial killer?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

blood brothers

North Carolina’s state bureau of investigation (SBI) laboratory has come under fire recently, after an audit and a series of articles from the Raleigh News and observer. There are at least two articles on blood tests alone. I found the following quotes interesting. Jed Taub, a 30-year veteran of the SBI, said, "’We didn't report the negative result of a confirmatory test because, really, it's misleading,’ said Taub, who now works as a forensic investigator for the Pitt County Sheriff's Office. ‘We couldn't be sure it wasn't blood, so those tests really didn't matter.’" Mandy Locke and Joseph Neff continued, “Taub said that the only times he reported the absence of blood was when he got a negative result on that first, presumptive test. Any negative results after that were irrelevant, he said.”
Another article in the series noted, “A new audit says more than 200 criminal cases will require official reviews because of questionable blood analysis work by the SBI. Seven involve death penalty cases, three of which have resulted in executions. In at least some of the cases the presumptive test used phenolphthalein (Kastle-Meyer test), but the parallels to the use of luminol in the present case are remarkable.

 

[RoseMontague]

North Carolina’s state bureau of investigation (SBI) laboratory has come under fire recently, after an audit and a series of articles from the Raleigh News and observer. There are at least two articles on blood tests alone. I found the following quotes interesting. Jed Taub, a 30-year veteran of the SBI, said, "’We didn't report the negative result of a confirmatory test because, really, it's misleading,’ said Taub, who now works as a forensic investigator for the Pitt County Sheriff's Office. ‘We couldn't be sure it wasn't blood, so those tests really didn't matter.’" Mandy Locke and Joseph Neff continued, “Taub said that the only times he reported the absence of blood was when he got a negative result on that first, presumptive test. Any negative results after that were irrelevant, he said.”
Another article in the series noted, “A new audit says more than 200 criminal cases will require official reviews because of questionable blood analysis work by the SBI. Seven involve death penalty cases, three of which have resulted in executions. In at least some of the cases the presumptive test used phenolphthalein (Kastle-Meyer test), but the parallels to the use of luminol in the present case are remarkable.

Terrific reporting, laws were changed, people were fired from the SBI, and well deserved journalist awards were given out.

Raffaele was very fortunate to find out about the negative tests in his case after they were not reported initially.

 

[theRealBob]

Anyone ever think that Guede is a serial killer?

I have often thought he is a serial liar.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

forensic reform

Joseph Neff and Mandy Locke wrote, “Perhaps the biggest challenge facing new SBI Director Greg McLeod is changing the culture of the SBI and the laboratory. Analysts have worked to support the theories of prosecutors, instead of rendering detached scientific analysis. Training manuals, some which have been withdrawn, have coached analysts to support prosecutors and distrust defense attorneys. This bias extended down to the very way analysts reported test results. ‘They were writing reports to law enforcement,’ said Chris Swecker, the former FBI supervisor who audited the blood cases. ‘They were trying not to write any negative test results.’”
http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/08/19/635629/sbi-labs-prosecutorial-slant-still.html#ixzz1LFq4Z1h4
Perhaps consciously echoing a suggestion for reform from the National Academy of Sciences, “Legislators and defense attorneys have repeatedly called for removing the lab from the SBI and making it an independent entity loyal to science, not prosecutors.” My point is that the behavior of the forensic workers with respect to this case are not unprecendented, and some of us who criticize their work are not being selective.