Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[billyryan]

What concerns me about forensic science in Italy is the seeming inability of both Stefanoni (whom Mignini has trumpeted as pretty much the best in the Italian Scientific Police) and Garofano (ex-head of forensics at the Carabinieri) to understand the importance of internationally-agreed standards on testing, interpretation, documentation and contamination of DNA evidence. These standards have evolved for very good reasons: to minimise the chance of errors, and to provide as dispassionate and accurate an analysis as possible to the court (and, of course, to the defence).

I wonder how many other people have been convicted on the strength of Stefanoni's special crank-up-the-machine-beyond-its-agreed-operational-parameters let-have-a-crack-at-LCN-even-though-we-don't-have-any-of-the-necessary-additional-cleanliness-safeguards DNA evidence, or on the strength of Garofano's "expertise" as a prosecution witness. If I were one such person, I'd be observing the media reports with interest, and requesting that my lawyer visits me in prison pretty sharpish!

Precisely LJ this case must surely if the appeal is successful open up a can of worms that could possibly ruin a lot of careers in the Peruvian judicial system.We already know that Curatolo has been a prosecution witness in two other murder trials,I wonder was Mignini or Comodi the prosecuters or Stefanoni the DNA expert in either of these other trials,were some of the same police involved.The only other case that I know Mignini was involved in led to him been convicted of abuse of power. How many cases have Monica Napoleoni and Mignini worked together on. In this case Frank Sfarzo says everyone here knows what happened to bra clasp and knife,meaning the police planted DNA on both,I bet this is not the first time that convictions were obtained by these methods

 

[RandyN]

Hi RandyN

"Just a thought:
Might Raffaele, being a young buck, have awoke with wood, so to say?
Put a few tunes on the computer and get it on with his new girlfriend in the early mornin' hours before fallin' asleep once again, this before finally getting up and heading out on their planned day trip to Gubbio? "


Hi there RWVBWL...thanks for the warm welcome.

I'll go for "wood" idea. The need for music seems a little overboard but hey they did just meet. And I'm an old fart.

But I aint buying this Dan O.


Dan O. said
Originally Posted by RandyN View Post
Id like to know what the heck RS was doing awake at 6 AM on the 2nd.


"It's quite obvious what Raffaele was doing up at 6 am. He was dinking around on his computer like any geek and simply lost track of the time partly due to smoking weed. This is consistent with everything Raffaele said about that night and is evidenced by the screensaver logs showing human activity on the computer throughout the night and the phone record that shows he received the "Good night" SMS from his father at 6:02 and went to bed. The screensaver kicked in for the last time that night 20 minutes later at 6:22 am.

Around 10 am when Amanda gets up, Raffaele goes back to sleep since he's only had 4 hours of sleep. He's finally up when Amanda returns from the cottage shortly before noon. ".................

Nobody's that geeky...If I were to believe this then Id have to say AK wasn't there in the bed then.

They watched movies, answered email, read a book, ate fish, showered, smoked a dubie and then did the horizontal mambo.

Now you want me to believe RS got back up to "dink around on his computer" til 6 AM? This being the night after Halloween where late nite parties seemed to be what went on. To me, he would be tired. Maybe I'm just too old.

Is there any testimony or questioning about this? I can understand turning off the phones so as not to be bothered by Dad or to be unexpectedly called into work for AK...but I cant see any geek dragging himself out of bed after sex and hash. That's like a double dose of sawing zzzzzzzz's.
I can see him waking at 6AM... putting on some music and hitting it (excuse the French please) again and then re-passing out. But I'm saying no way to the geek squad theory. Unless he was alone.

 

[RWVBWL]

Hello everyone,
Here is an interesting statement:
"“Prosecutor Giuliano Miginini is, in my opinion, a rambling, confused individual,” says CNN investigative correspondent Drew Griffin."

Candace Dempsey has a new post up. It is worth a read, IMHO.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/2011/05/06/cnn-amanda-knox-prosecutor-rambling-confused/

 

[Mary_H]

<snip>But I aint buying this Dan O.

Dan O. said
Originally Posted by RandyN View Post
Id like to know what the heck RS was doing awake at 6 AM on the 2nd.

"It's quite obvious what Raffaele was doing up at 6 am. He was dinking around on his computer like any geek and simply lost track of the time partly due to smoking weed. This is consistent with everything Raffaele said about that night and is evidenced by the screensaver logs showing human activity on the computer throughout the night and the phone record that shows he received the "Good night" SMS from his father at 6:02 and went to bed. The screensaver kicked in for the last time that night 20 minutes later at 6:22 am.

Around 10 am when Amanda gets up, Raffaele goes back to sleep since he's only had 4 hours of sleep. He's finally up when Amanda returns from the cottage shortly before noon. ".................

Nobody's that geeky...If I were to believe this then Id have to say AK wasn't there in the bed then.

They watched movies, answered email, read a book, ate fish, showered, smoked a dubie and then did the horizontal mambo.

Now you want me to believe RS got back up to "dink around on his computer" til 6 AM? This being the night after Halloween where late nite parties seemed to be what went on. To me, he would be tired. Maybe I'm just too old.

Is there any testimony or questioning about this? I can understand turning off the phones so as not to be bothered by Dad or to be unexpectedly called into work for AK...but I cant see any geek dragging himself out of bed after sex and hash. That's like a double dose of sawing zzzzzzzz's.
I can see him waking at 6AM... putting on some music and hitting it (excuse the French please) again and then re-passing out. But I'm saying no way to the geek squad theory. Unless he was alone.

I don't necessarily disagree with Dan, but if the computer was a laptop, and they had it on the bed with them (the better to watch a movie together), then they wouldn't even have to use the computer to engage the screen saver activity -- it would just happen every time they moved, whether awake or asleep.

Raffaele had two computers in his apartment -- one was his and one was his sister's. If he had a choice, using a laptop would be more convenient under the circumstances, and he wouldn't have had to get up to put the music on.

Maybe the Perugian police specialize in destroying only desktop computers.

 

[Dan O.]

A laptop is certainly a convenient bedside appliance. That's where I often used mine until it was replaced by an iPad which works as well in bed as out.

I already presumed that Raffaele was in bed while reviewing videos and putting together the play list that was completed sometime around 5 am. He was probably dozing between episodes which would account for the screensaver kicking in periodically for a maximum of 6 minutes (assumed to be 26 minutes since the last click).

 

[tsig]

This raises an interesting point. If Knox and Sollecito had staged the break-in, their choice of window is even more perplexing than it first seems. In their staging, their main concerns would have been, in order, a) to make it look real and convincing; and b) to avoid being observed while they carried out the staging. Now, Filomena's window meets the first criterion, but - when set against the rear kitchen - it definitely doesn't meet the second one.

And before anyone points out something along the lines of "But surely a real burglar would have had the concern about not being seen as well", I'd argue that a real burglar would have had an additional criterion that wasn't important at all to anyone staging the break-in from inside the cottage: it must be easy and quick to escape the scene if anyone inside or outside the cottage hears/sees the break-in.

I'd argue that for a real burglar, this additional criterion might make it well worth sacrificing the additional potential visibility of breaking in through Filomena's window (as opposed to the rear kitchen window), in order to have a quicker, faster escape route if disturbed. And incidentally, in this regard quadraginta was incorrect when he said that the same bottleneck problem applied to the area below Filomena's window as to the rear of the cottage:



He is incorrectly assuming that the bottleneck to which I was referring is the driveway from the main road down to the cottage's front door. In fact, I'm referring to the increasingly narrow (down to one person's width) passageway along the side of the house - past the large bathroom window and Laura's room - which has the cottage wall on one side and the retaining wall of the main road on the other. It would be impossible to pass someone on the narrow part of this passageway without coming into physical contact with them, whereas the driveway has enough width for someone fit fast (e.g. Guede....) to evade contact. Plus, of course, an escape from the rear of the house to the main road would take another 10-15 seconds longer to accomplish than an escape from below Filomena's window, owing to the extra distance involved.

In short, Filomena's window seems like a reasonable window for a real burglar to choose, considering a burglar's important criteria. However, it doesn't seem like a reasonable window for someone staging a break-in from inside the cottage to choose, considering the different criteria that apply in this case.

Looks like a special pleading fallacy to me:

Special pleading is a claim that standards of evidence should be modified or reversed for a particular claim or type of claim.

http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Special_pleading

 

[LondonJohn]

Looks like a special pleading fallacy to me:

Special pleading is a claim that standards of evidence should be modified or reversed for a particular claim or type of claim.

http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Special_pleading

Erm... I'm not sure that you understand what "special pleading" means, despite having linked to the Wikipedia entry on it. My argument was that those doing any sort of "staging" from the inside would have a different (reduced) set of criteria when choosing the window than a real burglar selecting a window from the outside. This might therefore mean that the "stagers" would choose a different window than the one that would be selected by a real burglar.

And that ain't special pleading, whichever way you choose to look at it. As the saying goes: "Ko drugome jamu kopa sam u nju pada."

____________
"Srce ima svoje razloge iz kojih razloga ne zna ništa, znamo hiljadu stvari."(Blaise Pascal's Serbian cousin)

 

[Dan O.]

tsig was not saying that your argument was special pleading. He only said that is what it looked like to him. Someone that is so biased would naturally see any argument for innocence as some form of logical fallacy if not an outright lie. Notice the complete lack of actually addressing the argument let alone any attempt at a counter argument. This is a sign of someone that doesn't have a case to argue.

 

[snook1]

Does anyone know if the documentary that runs tomorrow on the CNN will be also broadcasted on CNN Europe?

 

[babycondor]

As the saying goes: "Ko drugome jamu kopa sam u nju pada."

____________
"Srce ima svoje razloge iz kojih razloga ne zna ništa, znamo hiljadu stvari."(Blaise Pascal's Serbian cousin)

It would be nice if you'd provide translations of these undoubtedly pithy quotes. Google Translate is not conversant in Bosnian.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

bra clasp DNA

I see that anonymous commenter stint7 is grabbing random quotes over here and posting them elsewhere. Perhaps he can pilot over to other places with the following question. If 10 of 16 loci really had Amanda's profile, then why did the prosecution not bring this up? The passage on page 379 in the book "Darkness Descending" does not give peak heights or exact loci, but I still think this is hokum. Meredith's peaks are strong, and Raffaele's are weak; beyond a small number of peaks mostly in two loci, I don't believe much else is present at a reasonable signal-to-noise level.

 

[LondonJohn]

I see that anonymous commenter stint7 is grabbing random quotes over here and posting them elsewhere. Perhaps he can pilot over to other places with the following question. If 10 of 16 loci really had Amanda's profile, then why did the prosecution not bring this up? The passage on page 379 in the book "Darkness Descending" does not give peak heights or exact loci, but I still think this is hokum. Meredith's peaks are strong, and Raffaele's are weak; beyond a small number of peaks mostly in two loci, I don't believe much else is present at a reasonable signal-to-noise level.

Unfortunately I don't think that many on the pro-guilt side of the argument have very scientific minds. I think that the complex intricacies of DNA typing (or, for that matter, human pathology/physiology) are beyond their knowledge and/or capabilities - which is why they are almost exclusively relying these days on risible "arguments" such as: "Why did Knox accuse her boss - a totally innocent man - if she wasn't guilty?!"

I don't think that stint7 is really bright enough to understand the case properly. That's why he limits himself (herself?) to "commenting on the commentators" - specifically those commentators who question the safety of the Knox/Sollecito convictions. He believes that alliteration and adjectives will compensate for intellect or argument. Unfortunately for him/her, (s)he's wrong about that. And (s)he really should learn to hyphenate those strings of adjectives that (s)he thinks is so clever. It's basic writing skill, really......

PS: Of course, I'm not discussing a member of JREF above: stint7 is in no way publicly related to anyone who posts on JREF

 

[LondonJohn]

It would be nice if you'd provide translations of these undoubtedly pithy quotes. Google Translate is not conversant in Bosnian.

They're Serbian

I've taken to pointlessly littering my posts with quotes and phrases in a non-English language, because I think it's important that I try hard to demonstrate my "superiority" via such a means. I feel it's important that everyone knows that I'm really clever and cosmopolitan because I speak and write a second language

Oh, and the first one translates loosely to the English idiom "What goes around comes around". And the second is a literary quote. It translates as "The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know; we feel it in a thousand things." The original French quote reads "Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point; on le sait en mille choses."

 

[LondonJohn]

Does anyone know if the documentary that runs tomorrow on the CNN will be also broadcasted on CNN Europe?

I've looked on my Sky EPG (UK satellite TV) up to Wednesday evening, and I can't see it listed so far. It might be on later in the week, but I haven't scrolled that far ahead in the guide yet.....

 

[Kaosium]

Unfortunately I don't think that many on the pro-guilt side of the argument have very scientific minds. I think that the complex intricacies of DNA typing (or, for that matter, human pathology/physiology) are beyond their knowledge and/or capabilities - which is why they are almost exclusively relying these days on risible "arguments" such as: "Why did Knox accuse her boss - a totally innocent man - if she wasn't guilty?!"

Something occurred to me recently along these lines. If there is a person with a B.S. in Biology with something like twelve years experience working in a lab that a reporter thought qualified to give an opinion on the methodology of Stefanoni and co; how is it this 'forensics moderator' never bothered to point out to the legions of lemmings who fought you, Kevin Lowe, Halides1 and others that they were making damned fools of themselves over the duodenum argument regarding time of death?

 

[LondonJohn]

Something occurred to me recently along these lines. If there is a person with a B.S. in Biology with something like twelve years experience working in a lab that a reporter thought qualified to give an opinion on the methodology of Stefanoni and co; how is it this 'forensics moderator' never bothered to point out to the legions of lemmings who fought you, Kevin Lowe, Halides1 and others that they were making damned fools of themselves over the duodenum argument regarding time of death?

I think you may have answered your own question. The groupthink mentality in some quarters means that battles are picked very selectively. Besides, the "forensics moderator" has made a bit of a fool of him/herself over the DNA evidence as well.....

 

[snook1]

I've looked on my Sky EPG (UK satellite TV) up to Wednesday evening, and I can't see it listed so far. It might be on later in the week, but I haven't scrolled that far ahead in the guide yet.....

Thanks, hopefully it'll be on the european edition also.

 

[babycondor]

....
Oh, and the first one translates loosely to the English idiom "What goes around comes around". And the second is a literary quote. It translates as "The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know; we feel it in a thousand things." The original French quote reads "Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point; on le sait en mille choses."

Thank you

 

[Kaosium]

Anonymous commenter The Machine asked about Luciano Garofano’s words in the book Darkness Descending elsewhere Here are the quotes: “However, here is the electropherogram and you can see that the RFU value is very high, so the sample is undoubtedly blood, which is the body fluid that provides the greatest amount of DNA. In some cases you see higher peaks of Amanda's DNA than Meredith's. Amanda has been bleeding. Nor is it old blood, as the defence might say, because blood decays fast. We have the same result on the cotton-bud box. The light switch was over-scrubbed, but from the film the way the cotton-bud was good enough. There too we have mixed blood. So that's pretty significant for Amanda, Unfortunately for her, she bled at the same time Meredith was bleeding. That's a lot to explain" (Darkness Descending, page 371).

"Look, ten out of sixteen loci have peaks that correspond to Amanda's DNA profile. The hypothesis is that Amanda also touched the bra clasp"

"My conclusion is that the bra clasp certainly works as a piece of evidence - it is a strong clue against the suspects Amanda and Raffaele. The RFU number is high enough. So the result is perfect." (Darkness Descending, page 379).”

These passages are pure drivel. (1) The size of the peaks (their RFU values) cannot be related to tissue-type, as Greg Hampikian told Charlie Wilkes, at the IIP forum, IIRC, and also on the first continuation thread. Consider Meredith’s peaks on the clasp, as just one of many examples in which the peaks are strong but there is no blood. The cigarette butt may be even a better example of a piece of evidence with strong peaks but no blood. (2) Garofano is trying to claim that the lack of degradation means that it is a fresh sample. In general, the rates of decay of DNA depend upon so many factors that one cannot say when the DNA was deposited. (3) I have looked at the electropherogram myself, and I see a small number of extra peaks in a few loci. Anyone who claims that there are ten loci out of sixteen that have Amanda’s DNA is a knave or a fool. MOO.

Brilliant post! I nominated it. Rolling thunder, brutally honest, and naturally, very sciency. Garofano wants to make it so that DNA is a blood test, a time stamp, and of course 'proof' that 'AmandaDidIt!' and you took it apart.

 

[Kaosium]

I think you may have answered your own question. The groupthink mentality in some quarters means that battles are picked very selectively. Besides, the "forensics moderator" has made a bit of a fool of him/herself over the DNA evidence as well.....

I think perhaps around page 350 of the last thread when they hit the earth's mantle that 'forensics moderator' might have told them to stop digging...

Regarding that DNA 'evidence,' what do you see when you go to page 16 and note that's the kit they used on the 10 pg sample on the 'murder knife?'