Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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lionking said:
As I suspected. That an Internet warrior would know far more than a duly constituted court in a first world nation which accepts the rule of law. See, if the court released them, I would say "fair enough, justice done". I don't expect this to happen, but I would accept it if it did. Why would you know better?
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So if they're acquitted, will you say "they are innocent".
 
HumanityBlues said:
You just spout off nonsensical phrases that have no meaning. "A first world country which accepts the rule of law"? What does that even mean? It's just cheesy jargon. I know you think they sound good, but they really mean nothing.

The United States is a first world country btw, and our criminal courts are a total disaster. But wait, that actually can't be true, because we're a first world country and all.
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Cases are appealed. Sometimes the decisions are overturned. This is what's happening in Italy. What do you want, an internet poll?

The level of certainty of innocentisti is really quite amazing.
 
lionking said:
Neat. To believe in guilt makes one an authoritarian. I'll cop that.
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I think you misread what I wrote, although I'm not sure how. Since clarification is obviously needed for you, however: To believe in guilt for the reason you stated makes you an authoritarian.

If you believed in guilt for a different reason the conclusion that you are an authoritarian would not follow. For example many people believe in guilt simply because they have been misinformed about the facts of the case by one source or another. That says nothing about whether or not they are authoritarians.

I'd rather accept the authority of an appeal court in a first world country which accepts the rule of law than an internet forum without access to all the evidence.
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Ah, it seems you are channelling Alt+F4.

She too seemed to think it was rational to believe that the court had access to special, secret evidence which was never mentioned in the press coverage of the trial nor in the motivations report that supposedly summarised the evidence and reasoning leading to the conviction. Nor for that matter has it ever been mentioned by Mignini, or anyone else with a vested interest in supporting the conviction. Even the jolly crowd at PMF have absolutely no idea what this secret evidence might be.

Yet she and you have faith it must exist, somewhere, somehow, and that it determined the court's verdict even though nobody involved with the process has ever even hinted that it exists, let alone that it was decisive.

I could ridicule that position but really for any rational person it's self-ridiculing. I could ask for the evidence or reasoning that led you to that ridiculous position but I think that I can rationally have a very high degree of certainty that doing so would be a pointless endeavour.
 
lionking said:
Neat. To believe in guilt makes one an authoritarian. I'll cop that. I'd rather accept the authority of an appeal court in a first world country which accepts the rule of law than an internet forum without access to all the evidence.
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Why accept either? Why do you have to believe anyone else? Why not look into the evidence in depth and come up with a verdict yourself?

lionking said:
The level of certainty of innocentisti is really quite amazing.
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Perhaps that is because instead of relying on others to tell them what to believe they have looked at the evidence themselves and currently found it wanting.

lionking said:
What's so amazing about that?
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Well from your previous posts it would require you to accept that there was a conspriacy to frame both AK and RS and you claim that you don't believe in them.

Of course if you admit that your current position is actually a false dichotomy, which it is, you might have a little wiggle room.
 
lionking said:
Yes I would concede they are innocent if the appeal is successful.
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Again I'd have to ask why? Surely as a skeptic one should only believe that someone is not-guilty based on the evidence presented failing to prove guilt, not based on what a court decides, otherwise you are letting others make you mind up for you.
 
PhantomWolf said:
Why accept either? Why do you have to believe anyone else? Why not look into the evidence in depth and come up with a verdict yourself?.
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you've read the 10,000 pages of court documents have you?

See, neither you nor I have access to full information about the case. I accept the decision of the court. You accept the musings of internet bloggers. So be it.
 
PhantomWolf said:
Again I'd have to ask why? Surely as a skeptic one should only believe that someone is not-guilty based on the evidence presented failing to prove guilt, not based on what a court decides, otherwise you are letting others make you mind up for you.
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Again, you believe that you have access to all the evidence. Prove it.
 
lionking said:
Evasion noted. Will you accept the decision of the appeal court or not?
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I know this wasn't aimed at me, but my answer is simple, I'll accept the decision of the court if that decision is backed up with evidence that matches.

If the DNA experts come back and say that the prosecution had it right first thime, and the rest of the evidence supports that conclusion, showing that they are guilty, then I'll believe that they are guilty regardless of what the court says.

Likewise if the DNA experts come back and claim that the prosecution screwed up and there is no way that they could have matched the DNA samples as they claim to have done, and the rest of the evidence supports innocence, then I'll believe that they are innocent regardless of the court's decision.

I'm not willing to have the court tell me what to believe, I can decide that myself based on the evidence that is presented to them and by them, and what I can't understand is how anyone that claims to be a skeptic can willing gave up their own brain to accept someone else's beliefs without question.
 
lionking said:
you've read the 10,000 pages of court documents have you?

See, neither you nor I have access to full information about the case. I accept the decision of the court. You accept the musings of internet bloggers. So be it.
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I have read the Judge's summary, and parts of the transcripts that have been translated into English, I have also looked over a lot of the photos. What have you done? I don't accept the musings of internet bloggers, if I want to find out the truth about something I go and look up my own resources on it. I have looked into DNA testing, into digestion times and into many other things, including into how the Italian justice system works to see who is telling the truth.

See this is the difference between us, you accept what you get told, I don't. I go and find out whether what I am being told is actually correct or not. It's amazing what you can find out when you do that.
 
PhantomWolf said:
Again I'd have to ask why? Surely as a skeptic one should only believe that someone is not-guilty based on the evidence presented failing to prove guilt, not based on what a court decides, otherwise you are letting others make you mind up for you.
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Surely there is insufficient evidence in the public domain in the vast majority of cases to prove guilt? Clearly you don't mean that the sceptical position is to assume the the jails are rammed with innocent people. The natural position, sceptical or otherwise, is surely to assume that people who are found guilty are, in all probability, guilty and people who are found innocent are, in all probability, innocent.

Presumably you in fact mean that the evidence now in the public domain is so compelling that you are able to make a judgement even without access to the case file?
 
lionking said:
Again, you believe that you have access to all the evidence. Prove it.
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Exactly what evidence do you think was important and not in the Judge's summary but was given in court?

And no, I'm not going to attempt to prove a negative.
 
lionking said:
Obtuseness and pedantry rules. Yes I would concede they are innocent if the appeal is successful.
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The thing is that the positions you're taking seem to contradict one another and aren't consistent.

On the one hand you are making your own judgment on the evidence, claiming that Knox and Sollecito being innocent would require an unlikely "years long" "large, ironclad conspiracy" and a "framing" of the accused. On the other, you say if the Court were to acquit them, you would accept that they're innocent. Does this mean you would now believe Knox and Sollecito were framed and that there was a years long ironclad conspiracy to cover it up? Logically, it must do.

The only other way I can see to reconcile your arguments is that your belief that the innocence of the accused would require a very unlikely conspiracy has nothing to do with the evidence in this particular case; it's just that you think any deviation from the official explanation is automatically a highly unlikely conspiracy theory. Rolfe has touched on this as a tendency amongst some on JREF, and I agree with her that it's an odd kind of skepticism. But in this scenario, your position does at least make some kind of sense: if Knox and Sollecito were acquitted, the "large, ironclad conspiracy" would immediately apply to the guilty theory on the basis that it's no longer the official story. So there's no contradiction with your earlier position, since you were basing that opinion only on your belief that the official story is always the correct one, and not on anything specific to this case.

So is that it - the official story is always correct and any deviation from it is a crazy conspiracy theory? If so I would strongly disagree (and the simple fact that miscarriages of justice happen immediately disproves it, unless you think those are also the result of ironclad conspiracies) but at least what you're arguing would then make some kind of logical sense.
 
shuttlt said:
Surely there is insufficient evidence in the public domain in the vast majority of cases to prove guilt? Clearly you don't mean that the sceptical position is to assume the the jails are rammed with innocent people. The natural position, sceptical or otherwise, is surely to assume that people who are found guilty are, in all probability, guilty and people who are found innocent are, in all probability, innocent.

Presumably you in fact mean that the evidence now in the public domain is so compelling that you are able to make a judgement even without access to the case file?
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Unless there is some reason for the judge to deem evidence as supressed, then all evidence given in court becomes a matter of the public record and is available to see. This is part of having justice seen to be done, if the public doesn't have access to all non-suppressed transcripts and evidence then they can't be sure that the courts are working.

The other major thing is the judges write up a summary about why they made the desicion they did and what evidence they used to come to that conclusion. Do you believe that it is common practice to leave out important information that seriously affected the outcome of the trial?
 
PhantomWolf said:
The other major thing is the judges write up a summary about why they made the desicion they did and what evidence they used to come to that conclusion. Do you believe that it is common practice to leave out important information that seriously affected the outcome of the trial?
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The summary led to the guilty decision. Yet you seem to have access to information that leads to another conclusion. Fair enough. I don't accept your conclusion.
 
PhantomWolf said:
Unless there is some reason for the judge to deem evidence as supressed, then all evidence given in court becomes a matter of the public record and is available to see. This is part of having justice seen to be done, if the public doesn't have access to all non-suppressed transcripts and evidence then they can't be sure that the courts are working.
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If this information is, for practical purposes, in the public domain, then you have access to the case file? I remember being told by Dr Waterbury that the case file was available to all, I just had to go to Perugia and pay quite a few thousand euro in photo copying, then I dread to think how much in translation fees.

[In replying, I realize that, to me, public domain means I can find it via Google.]

PhantomWolf said:
The other major thing is the judges write up a summary about why they made the desicion they did and what evidence they used to come to that conclusion. Do you believe that it is common practice to leave out important information that seriously affected the outcome of the trial?
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Certainly not. Personally I would expect the judges summary to be a good general indication of what evidence been brought before the court. But we don't have access to all of the evidence, do we? The trial transcripts would be nice to have as well.
 
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