Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Rolfe]

Why? Perhaps folks on the JREF forums either agree with you or just don't care. Your seem to want to pick a fight.

No, I want to understand why an infinite number of posters comes out of the woodwork denouncing "the Lockerbie bomber" for everything from being met at the airport to causing the Gulf oil spill to fiendishly living longer than expected, but vanish again like snow in July when it's pointed out that according to the evidence he's less likely to be the Lockerbie bomber than I am.

But we shouldn't pursue that in this thread, I was merely explaining the nature of my interest in this thread. If you want to discuss the Megrahi conviction further, there are other threads.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I don't like posting my same responses over and over again but since you are somewhat new to this thread and I have respected your opinions in threads on other subjects I will state again:

Except for the testimony of Amanda Knox, there is no other testimony evidence that was presented in court that is available to the public to see/read. Everything else has come through the media and/or the families.

In that case, I can't see how anyone can have an opinion at all - still less be personally convinced that the defendants are guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

Rolfe.

 

[Alt+F4]

I thought it was 500ml stomach contents and an empty duodenum.

Maybe, maybe not. Without being able to read the actual autopsy report who is to say.

 

[Rolfe]

Not a clue. Good question though. I know it's been discussed a number of times before. Like so much of the evidence, I wish I had access to the transcript of this being discussed in court so I knew what the arguments were. The motivations report will have it in if you're interested.

Frankly, not that interested. As I said, I have other fish I'm taking a brief break from frying. I'm actually interested in this thread, and in how various posters manage to support the positions they're taking.

The evidence as far as I understand it is that Meredith ate dinner, a pizza, at about 6pm. At post mortem, 500ml ingesta was found in her stomach and nothing in her duodenum.

Either these facts are untrue, or she was dead well before ten o'clock.

Rolfe.

 

[shuttlt]

I agree that those on PMF have done a laudable job translating key documents. I'd also argue that whoever's doing this work must have an awful lot of available time to devote to this hobby - time that most of the rest of us don't have.

For the translation quite a lot of people were involved. Also lots of people on the pro-guilt side seem to manage to spend a lot of time on this. Frank would be the obvious example, but how many pro-Innocence folks turned out to have been writting books all this time? Halides isn't going to publish one is he?

I think that this reflects a certain very high level of..... shall we say..... commitment to this case amongst certain people on the pro-guilt side, many of whom also seem to think that they are on some sort of quasi-evangelical mission to "honour the memory of Meredith". This huge time-sink effort is further reflected in the enormous (and enormously pompous) "open letters" that this group is fond of composing and sending.

Much time has been wasted on both sides. Some people are directly related to the case, so I understand it. I don't think one should underestimate the power of feeling pissed off. The police were contacted at one point weren't they?

The ironic* thing about the large translation efforts undertaken by those members of PMF is that the translated documents have consistently tended to undermine the argument for guilt. And one of the sociologically-interesting factors in all this is to watch those involved in the translations (and their pro-guilt supporters) trying to ex-post rationalise all this: "See: the documents we translated show just how guilty Knox and Sollecito are!" All I can say is that I am especially looking forward to their customary zeal in translating Judge Hellmann's appeal report......

Partly I'm not convinced that it's rationalizing in the way you imply. Take Mignini's terrible CNN interview. We just debated it a little while ago. The example of Amanda's hickie came up. As far as I'm concerned there are two perfectly plausible readings there. Perhaps other things are more damning. I haven't seen them.

 

[Rolfe]

Maybe, maybe not. Without being able to read the actual autopsy report who is to say.

Well, in that case I'll get back to my 3,000 pages of court transcript (handily in the original English), other assorted official legal pronouncements, reports of expert witnesses who have had access to individual witness statements, and dozens of jpegs of court productions.

But if we're all in "who is to say" territory, I'm completely baffled as to how anyone can declare a personal conviction of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. It's nothing more than argument from authority.

Rolfe.

 

[Alt+F4]

In that case, I can't see how anyone can have an opinion at all - still less be personally convinced that the defendants are guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

Rolfe.

I have no dog in this fight, I don't know any of the people involved. What intrigues me is that people can say that RS and AK are 100% innocent when they haven't read the trial transcript and don't speak/read Italian. I find it disturbing that folks think they can determine guilt or innocence based on what they can Google.

 

[NewtonTrino]

I have no dog in this fight, I don't know any of the people involved. What intrigues me is that people can say that RS and AK are 100% innocent when they haven't read the trial transcript and don't speak Italian. I find it disturbing that folks think they can determine guilt or innocence based on what they can Google.

Nobody is saying 100% innocent. All I've ever said is that they certainly aren't guilty beyond a reasonably doubt.

Although I have yet to hear a cogent theory of the case that actually ties them together with Guede.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Every comment from annonymous on PerugiaShock.

I think we misunderstood each other. I was asking for reference to the scenario you proposed once.

That's your view of the case. Others think accomplices explain other bits of evidence and hence simplify the case.

That's certain, but the problem lies in how exactly to connect the dots. Everytime someone tries it, the real problems emerge.
E.g. Machiavelli tried to show on IIP how AK and RS left the luminol prints and it ended up as a quite complicated scenario with much conjecture. Allegedly they strewed towels along the corridor and murder room to walk on them, thus preserving Guede's numerous prints ( I'm recalling from memory it was a complicated explanation that stalled on the way ). The alternative that they are not connected to the crime ( we can go this way without problems because there is no proof otherwise whatsoever ) is sufficient and simple.

And I don't see any sense in providing a scenario of the murder.

That's what contributes to the negative view of your side of the argument.

Are you counting the bra clasp and so on here, or do you get to decide what bits of evidence your scenario needs to cover?

Of course you're free to include and use it. I just don't see how it does fit into the picture and I'd like to see it explained somehow. Simply that sole trace of Raffaele's stands out in the context of what had and what hadn't been found in that room.

I haven't thought about it and it doesn't interest me. In fact, I never said there was space. You are putting words into my mouth.

I'm sorry I somehow got it wrong from the context. So your position is that there is no space for the "guilt scenario" to fit in?

 

[Rolfe]

I have no dog in this fight, I don't know any of the people involved. What intrigues me is that people can say that RS and AK are 100% innocent when they haven't read the trial transcript and don't speak/read Italian. I find it disturbing that folks think they can determine guilt or innocence based on what they can Google.

Ah, I must have misunderstood your posts. You appeared to me to be countering people who were expressing their apparently reasonable doubts by arguing the case for guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

Rolfe.

 

[shuttlt]

Well, in that case I'll get back to my 3,000 pages of court transcript (handily in the original English), other assorted official legal pronouncements, reports of expert witnesses who have had access to individual witness statements, and dozens of jpegs of court productions.

But if we're all in "who is to say" territory, I'm completely baffled as to how anyone can declare a personal conviction of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. It's nothing more than argument from authority.

I don't understand why anyone needs to. The pro-innocence claim is that this is a miscarriage of justice and there is not guilt beyond reasonable doubt. As far as I can see, the opposing view is that it's perfectly possibly that there is guilt beyond reasonable doubt. For some reason it's always presented as if the case should be provable on the Internet.

 

[Katody Matrass]

I thought it was 500ml stomach contents and an empty duodenum.

Rolfe.

You're right of course. I'm not expert but I remember the meaning of various arguments

 

[Chris_Halkides]

hammer and nail

In my opinion keeping this case afloat and in the media spotlight is the only thing that can save Amanda and Raffaele. I wholeheartedly welcome recent own goals by the prosecution - the CNN interview, Frank Sfarzo's harassment and the affair with perugia-shock. There's a visible change of tide in the media that is encouraging.

Katody_Matrass,

Thanks for putting the hammer squarely on the nail. Once a wrongful conviction has happened, there are no incentives built into the system to reverse it; quite the contrary, people have to admit that they were wrong, or that their colleagues were wrong. Only publicity can act as a counterweight. MOO.

 

[Alt+F4]

Well, in that case I'll get back to my 3,000 pages of court transcript (handily in the original English), other assorted official legal pronouncements, reports of expert witnesses who have had access to individual witness statements, and dozens of jpegs of court productions.

And when those who tell you that al-Megrahi is guilty what do you tell them? Do you tell them to read the trial transcript or should they just accept what the media and the victim's families say?

The trial transcript is not available in English in this case. Neither is the reports of expert witnesses who testified or (hardly any) individual witness statements.

 

[shuttlt]

I'm sorry I somehow got it wrong from the context. So your position is that there is no space for the "guilt scenario" to fit in?

Its a long while (better part of a year) since I last looked at the phone records or thought about the stomach contents. I don't know if there is space or not.

 

[Alt+F4]

Ah, I must have misunderstood your posts. You appeared to me to be countering people who were expressing their apparently reasonable doubts by arguing the case for guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

Let me ask you Rolfe, why did you determine that a-Megrahi was not guilty?

 

[Rolfe]

And when those who tell you that al-Megrahi is guilty what do you tell them? Read the trial transcript. Not available in this case.

No, actually I don't. The trial transcript is 3,000 pages of single-spaced 10-point Arial. I haven't read it all myself.

I ask them to explain why they think he's guilty. They either have absolutely no idea at all and are merely parroting argument from authority, or they are relying on things they believe to be true but are in fact simply not so. I can then explain why these things are not so, with reference to the relevant parts of the evidence or other documentation.

But see, the first thing is to understand why someone believes a particular thing. If it's just that someone else says so, then there's not much discussion until they get a bit more educated. If in this case the education is not to be had, then how can anyone believe personally in anything "beyond reasonable doubt"?

Rolfe.

 

[katy_did]

No. It is not all possible doubt. It is reasonable doubt. Some doubt is allowed.

Oh, I know this one! 'Beyond reasonable doubt' doesn't mean some doubt is allowed, it means a reasonable person should have no doubt of guilt. So it really means beyond any doubt, for the reasonable person. This is as I understand it anyway.

 

[Rolfe]

Let me ask you Rolfe, why did you determine that a-Megrahi was not guilty?

Look, that's way far too off topic for this thread. I'd be happy to discuss that case with you in an appropriate thread.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I don't understand why anyone needs to. The pro-innocence claim is that this is a miscarriage of justice and there is not guilt beyond reasonable doubt. As far as I can see, the opposing view is that it's perfectly possibly that there is guilt beyond reasonable doubt. For some reason it's always presented as if the case should be provable on the Internet.

But not, apparently, through evidence available to members posting in this thread.

Rolfe.