Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[shuttlt]

One can soft pedal the charge that the pro-innocence case is a CT theory, but that does not change the nature of the claim. One problem with such a claim is that there have been many miscarriages of justice, but CT theories usually deal with one-off events: the only one that comes to mind at the moment is a claim that all of the Jewish people who worked at the Twin Towers were told not to go to work on September 11th, 2001.

Sometimes there are conspiracies. I didn't mean to imply that any theory that involves a conspiracy is necessarily false. I'm not sure whether you are saying that the WTC/Jews thing is a "one-off event" or not. If you are, I disagree, as its part of the wider Jewish conspiracy theory that's been going on for ages.

 

[babycondor]

...

After celebrating Halloween, Meredith went to bed, the "blood" still dripping from her chin. Head on her pillow, presumably, she slept from about 6:00 am till about noon on November 1st. None of the "blood" found on the pillow was examined by Stefanoni for DNA identity, saving the pillow for the study of handprint and shoeprint analysis only. Had she performed DNA analysis on some of that "blood" and found no DNA profiles, she might have concluded she was discovering both real and fake blood in Meredith's room......and elsewhere in the cottage.///

Hmmm. I wonder if that mysterious "Luminol blob" in Filomena's room was a drop of fake blood.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

real conspiracies

Sometimes there are conspiracies. I didn't mean to imply that any theory that involves a conspiracy is necessarily false. I'm not sure whether you are saying that the WTC/Jews thing is a "one-off event" or not. If you are, I disagree, as its part of the wider Jewish conspiracy theory that's been going on for ages.

shuttlt,

I meant that 9/11 was one-off, and the idea that presumably dozens of people could be told not to come in to work to avoid a catastrophe is one-off. I agree that there are sometimes conspiracies, and the Duke lacrosse case did feature a conspiracy between DA Nifong and Dr. Meehan to withhold evidence.

 

[Mary_H]

I'm starting to wonder. I've been saying the same the same, as I thought it, fairly innocuous point for two days. Post-hoc reasoning is to some extent inevitable. It is much easier to accept explanations that fit in with our existing beliefs. My point was that many of the cases where pro-innocence posters look at "guilters" and say "how can they possibly buy that explanation", or vice versa, is down to this. If you were favorably disposed to the claim that Amanda was guilty, you would find it much easier to accept post-hoc explanations for her guilt. Since you don't you find it much easier to accept post-hoc explanations for her innocence.

Is this really a contentious thing to say?

It comes across as contentious because you appear to be giving equal weight to the validity of the positions of pro-innocence and pro-guilt. In legal terms, the pro-innocence position is a given, ergo, it is irrelevant and inaccurate to focus on describing it as accepting post-hoc explanations, even if that happens incidentally.

It is the job of the pro-guilt side to prove their post-hoc explanations, while it is not the job of the pro-innocence side to prove anything. The pro-innocence side is in this essentially for the sake of argument, to prevent the pro-guilt side from wreaking havoc.

Again, a post-hoc rationalization is not generally a valid form of reasoning.<snip>

There are plenty of poorly designed, unreplicated studies and testimonials. The point here is that if you believe in homeopathy and go looking for evidence to support your belief, you will find it. You can also come up with theories about how homeopathy works, and find evidence to support them as well. Of course, if you go looking for evidence against homeopathy, you'll find a bunch of that.

You said that the scientific process is that you try to confirm your theory. Most people would say that this is wrong and that you are supposed to go out and try to refute your theory (whether this is what individual scientists actually do is another question). A theory is accepted when you have failed to refute it, not when you've found a bunch of evidence in support of it. There are very few theories so pathologically rubbish that you can't find any evidence at all in favor of them.

This position mistakenly assumes that innocence, like homeopathy, is a theory that needs to be proven. A criminal case is not in the realm of science, it is in the realm of law. What is required is that the "refutations" of innocence, that is, the claims of guilt, are proven. The prosecution case is the only case that must be built, through the collection and presentation of data. Ideally, "proving" innocence should be merely an interesting exercise.

 

[Mary_H]

I'm starting to wonder. I've been saying the same the same, as I thought it, fairly innocuous point for two days. Post-hoc reasoning is to some extent inevitable. It is much easier to accept explanations that fit in with our existing beliefs. My point was that many of the cases where pro-innocence posters look at "guilters" and say "how can they possibly buy that explanation", or vice versa, is down to this. If you were favorably disposed to the claim that Amanda was guilty, you would find it much easier to accept post-hoc explanations for her guilt. Since you don't you find it much easier to accept post-hoc explanations for her innocence.

Is this really a contentious thing to say?

My post above is not to say that I completely disagree with your claim. It is similar to the claim some of us pro-innocent supporters have made in the past, which is that the pro-guilt contingent essentially want the defendants to be guilty, and the pro-innocent contingent essentially want them to be innocent.

What I disagree with is calling the explanations for innocence "post-hoc."

 

[shuttlt]

It comes across as contentious because you appear to be giving equal weight to the validity of the positions of pro-innocence and pro-guilt.

I wasn't making a quantified statement about the two sides.

In legal terms, the pro-innocence position is a given, ergo, it is irrelevant and inaccurate to focus on describing it as accepting post-hoc explanations, even if that happens incidentally.

If you start with innocence as a given and then come up with a scenario with the purpose of explaining how it could be that they could be innocent, given the other facts that you happen to believe, then that is a post-hoc rationalization. Surely? It's fine in so far as it goes, but dangerous if it gets muddled up with your reasons for believing in innocence. That's when it becomes a fallacy.

If the post-hoc fallacy is committed in court based on the presumption of innocence, though this clearly didn't happen in this case, then you have a problem.

It is the job of the pro-guilt side to prove their post-hoc explanations, while it is not the job of the pro-innocence side to prove anything. The pro-innocence side is in this essentially for the sake of argument, to prevent the pro-guilt side from wreaking havoc.

This is an Internet forum, not a court. There is no rule about who has to prove what. Let's not call it prove then, presumably there is something that you want to convince people of? It is for the people who you are trying to convince to set the rules on what you have to do to convince them. Saying that you don't have to prove anything seems to me like a reason for not posting (I enjoy many of your posts, so I'm not pushing for you to do that).

This position mistakenly assumes that innocence, like homeopathy, is a theory that needs to be proven. A criminal case is not in the realm of science, it is in the realm of law. What is required is that the "refutations" of innocence, that is, the claims of guilt, are proven. The prosecution case is the only case that must be built, through the collection and presentation of data. Ideally, "proving" innocence should be merely an interesting exercise.

This has nothing to do with my post. Again, since this is not a court, and we are on an internet forum we don't have a mandatory rule as to who has to prove what, I disagree with you. You can't demand other people be convinced of something. If they aren't convinced and you happen to care, then it's your job to convince them.

 

[shuttlt]

My post above is not to say that I completely disagree with your claim. It is similar to the claim some of us pro-innocent supporters have made in the past, which is that the pro-guilt contingent essentially want the defendants to be guilty, and the pro-innocent contingent essentially want them to be innocent.

What I disagree with is calling the explanations for innocence "post-hoc."

That's not what I was doing, or at least I was being deliberately non-committal as to the extent. I was saying that I believe it in operation enough to account for the difficulties the two sides have in seeing one another as rational human beings. Which side is more to blame, I really couldn't say. You could be more to blame and still right about your conclusion. The pro-innocence side, to me, seems to find it very easy to believe anything good about Amanda and to require very little proof. Similarly the pro-innocence side, to me, seems to find it very hard to believe anything bad about Amanda, even quite ordinary non-incriminatory levels of bad, and require lots of proof. The Mignini interview is another example, where the two sides have totally different readings. I could pick other pro-guilt beliefs and say the same thing to show how balanced I am, but since you are pro-innocence I assume you are able to provide at least as many, and possibly better, examples than I can think of.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

trench warfare

The pro-innocence side, to me, seems to find it very easy to believe anything good about Amanda and to require very little proof. Similarly the pro-innocence side, to me, seems to find it very hard to believe anything bad about Amanda, even quite ordinary non-incriminatory levels of bad, and require lots of proof. The Mignini interview is another example, where the two sides have totally different readings. I could pick other pro-guilt beliefs and say the same thing to show how balanced I am, but since you are pro-innocence I assume you are able to provide at least as many, and possibly better, examples than I can think of.

shuttlt,

You have offered no specific examples, making your two claims about pro-innocence commenters difficult to evaluate. My experience has been different. We had a discussion here about Amanda's photograph behind a machine gun last summer. Former JREF member Loverofzion claimed that the photo was taken in a Holocaust museum and used its existence to show Amanda's insensitivity toward the Holocaust or toward the Jewish people, IIUC. I asked a friend to identify the machine gun, and he said that it was probably from WWI and obsolete by WWII. A topic for another day is how and why the false story originated (I have seen it elsewhere but cannot recall where).

Present JREF member capealadin argued that Patrick fired Amanda. When shown to be incorrect, she said that Patrick demoted Amanda, a claim that is only slightly less problematic. Both discussions took up time that could have been used to evaluate questions that I believe are more germane to the case at hand. The conversations were civil, but neither loverofzion nor capealadin indicated that any new information with which they were provided changed their views of Amanda's character. Several of us also had long go-arounds with Treehorn concerning the noise violation and Daniel De Luna (I even quoted from his witness statement). I concluded that Treehorn was at best indifferent to the truth and probably had an entirely different agenda from rationally considering the facts.

I happen to believe that some who believe that Amanda is guilty are dispassionate but who have misevaluated the evidence. I just don't believe that this describes all pro-guilt commenters. I would be OK having an honest discussion of Amanda's and Raffaele's characters with the former group, but it is not possible to have or desirable to attempt such a conversation with some other members of the pro-guilt community. MOO.

 

[LondonJohn]

I wasn't making a quantified statement about the two sides.


If you start with innocence as a given and then come up with a scenario with the purpose of explaining how it could be that they could be innocent, given the other facts that you happen to believe, then that is a post-hoc rationalization. Surely? It's fine in so far as it goes, but dangerous if it gets muddled up with your reasons for believing in innocence. That's when it becomes a fallacy.

If the post-hoc fallacy is committed in court based on the presumption of innocence, though this clearly didn't happen in this case, then you have a problem.


This is an Internet forum, not a court. There is no rule about who has to prove what. Let's not call it prove then, presumably there is something that you want to convince people of? It is for the people who you are trying to convince to set the rules on what you have to do to convince them. Saying that you don't have to prove anything seems to me like a reason for not posting (I enjoy many of your posts, so I'm not pushing for you to do that).


This has nothing to do with my post. Again, since this is not a court, and we are on an internet forum we don't have a mandatory rule as to who has to prove what, I disagree with you. You can't demand other people be convinced of something. If they aren't convinced and you happen to care, then it's your job to convince them.

I see a lot of this contention: "well, this is not a courtroom, so each side of the argument has an equal burden of proof here on the internet". The simple fact is that this is an illogical position. Whenever Person A (or a nation state) accuses Person B of something, it's entirely incumbent upon Person A to prove that accusation - it's not incumbent upon Person B to prove that (s)he didn't do what it is (s)he has been accused of. That's the same in all areas of life - not just within a courtroom.

An example: suppose that you and I met for a coffee. Suppose that I went off to the bathroom, leaving my jacket on the back of my chair, with my wallet inside the jacket. Suppose I returned from the bathroom, examined my wallet, and believed that £100 was missing. Suppose I accused you of stealing the money. Would you need to (or even be able to) prove that you didn't take the money? No. I would need to prove that you took the money. And if I couldn't prove that you took the money, I should withdraw the accusation and consider that you weren't a thief.

Moreover, suppose that two other people knew about this situation, and were arguing about it: one of them arguing that you were guilty, and the other arguing that you're not guilty. The burden of proof would still rest entirely with the person who thought you were guilty; the other person who considered you not guilty would only have to show that you couldn't conclusively be proved guilty, in order to "win" the argument.

The hypothetical situation above is exactly the same when applied to any criminal case. The state is accusing someone of a crime, and therefore it's entirely incumbent upon the state to prove its case. The defendant only has to show that the state hasn't proved its case in order to gain acquittal. And that's generally a moral acquittal, as well as a legal one. In the same way as above, third-party commentators have the same asymmetry of proof applied to them as well.

As I've said many times before, in the absence of a watertight alibi I have no idea whether Knox and Sollecito really are completely innocent of any involvement whatsoever in the murder: the only people who truly know this with 100% certainty are Knox and Sollecito themselves. But I don't need to have a total belief in their innocence to argue forcefully that they should not be found guilty - my argument is predicated on the belief that there is woefully insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they participated in the murder. And this lack of decent evidence lends itself to a belief that they likely had no involvement, but not a certainty. Fortunately, neither I nor the Perugia courts need anything like that certainty of innocence in order to consider the pair not guilty - with good reason.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

That's not what I was doing, or at least I was being deliberately non-committal as to the extent. I was saying that I believe it in operation enough to account for the difficulties the two sides have in seeing one another as rational human beings. Which side is more to blame, I really couldn't say. You could be more to blame and still right about your conclusion. The pro-innocence side, to me, seems to find it very easy to believe anything good about Amanda and to require very little proof. Similarly the pro-innocence side, to me, seems to find it very hard to believe anything bad about Amanda, even quite ordinary non-incriminatory levels of bad, and require lots of proof. The Mignini interview is another example, where the two sides have totally different readings. I could pick other pro-guilt beliefs and say the same thing to show how balanced I am, but since you are pro-innocence I assume you are able to provide at least as many, and possibly better, examples than I can think of.

"But, to borrow an aphorism whose source I am unable to pin down, when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal force, the truth does not necessarily lie midway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong. And that justifies passion on the other side". - Richard Dawkins, from The God Delusion.

By the same token it is potentially totally rational to be strongly inclined to believe ill of Mignini et. al and well of Knox and Sollecito. All that requires is that there be enough sound evidence available to bring a rational person to a high degree of belief in the proposition that Mignini is a dangerous fruit loop and that Knox and Sollecito are ordinary, harmless people caught up by a corrupt and self-serving prosecution.

To put it more formally, your argument is:

1. Pro-innocence posters tend to believe ill of the prosecution and well of Amanda.

2. Therefore pro-innocence posters are irrational and engaging in post hoc rationalisations.

(2) simply does not follow from (1).

What you would have to do to establish (2) is to show some actual evidence.

 

[Antony]

I'm starting to wonder. I've been saying the same the same, as I thought it, fairly innocuous point for two days. Post-hoc reasoning is to some extent inevitable. It is much easier to accept explanations that fit in with our existing beliefs. My point was that many of the cases where pro-innocence posters look at "guilters" and say "how can they possibly buy that explanation", or vice versa, is down to this. If you were favorably disposed to the claim that Amanda was guilty, you would find it much easier to accept post-hoc explanations for her guilt.

I would be favourably disposed to the claim that Amanda was guilty, if and only if there was actual evidence to that effect. If there were evidence, then I wouldn't need post-hoc rationalisations (or "explanations" as you call them now).

Since you don't you find it much easier to accept post-hoc explanations for her innocence.

Is this really a contentious thing to say?

When have I ever said anything in support of Amanda and Raff that could be described as a "post-hoc explanation"?

I did, but people didn't like it or weren't very interested in working on a guilty scenario. I'm the wrong person to come up with a scenario as my knowledge of the totality of the evidence that needs to be accounted for isn't anything like as good as some and in any case, I don't subscribe to a particular version of the events of that night. The only criticisms that I can recall was that I hadn't accounted for Nara, and "Amanda wouldn't do that". In my version Nara was mistaken.

Can you post a link to your narrative of the crime involving Amanda and Raffaele?

Having said all that, you again miss my point. You do not accept their guilt, hence you don't accept the post-hoc rationalization. Were you to accept guilt you would find it much easier to accept such a rationalization as Massei does. I suspect many "guilters" believe the conspiracy theory (or more nuanced versions of it) version of the case is a post-hoc rationalization as well.

I haven't missed your point - I just don't accept your thinking. You cannot equate post-hoc rationalisation with the evidence-based arguments for innocence. And all of your hypothetical statements about what I would accept if I were to accept guilt is just so much idle talk - I do not accept the claims of guilt because they are not supported by evidence. Can you not get that into your head?

There are plenty of poorly designed, unreplicated studies and testimonials. The point here is that if you believe in homeopathy and go looking for evidence to support your belief, you will find it. You can also come up with theories about how homeopathy works, and find evidence to support them as well. Of course, if you go looking for evidence against homeopathy, you'll find a bunch of that.

You've already claimed you can find evidence for homeopathy, and I have asked you to post links to show what this evidence is. If you're not going to do that, then how can anyone understand what you mean by this claim?

You said that the scientific process is that you try to confirm your theory. Most people would say that this is wrong and that you are supposed to go out and try to refute your theory (whether this is what individual scientists actually do is another question). A theory is accepted when you have failed to refute it, not when you've found a bunch of evidence in support of it. There are very few theories so pathologically rubbish that you can't find any evidence at all in favor of them.

I've got better things to do than endlessly argue whether saying "looking for evidence to support your beliefs" is the same as "looking for evidence to test your beliefs". Obviously I chose my words loosely - but in no way did I seek to imply that it was acceptable to select evidence to suit a conclusion. This point arose because I was saying that this process - verifying beliefs against evidence - is a world away from your post-hoc rationalisations. Can we leave it at that, please?

 

[PhantomWolf]

I've been a little quiet for a while in this thread, mostly because it has been taking me all day just to catch up the 2-3 pages a day that have been occuring, so any points I'd make would be well out of date or already made before I even got close to the end of the thread to think about posting.

I do have to agree with what Mary_H and Halides1 have said.

We are talking about a legal case here, and so legal rules need to be applied. Science is great for determining how to view the evidence in the case and whether it is useful, but not for attempting to determine a verdict of guilt or innocence. In fact evidence that can be scientifically proven as fact, can be discarded from the equation of guilt or innocence if it doesn't actually allow us to distigush between them in a useful manner (i.e. if can be explained equally regardless of guilt or innocence and so doesn't provide evidence of either.)

To make such a call the question "Has the Prosecution proven its case beyond all reasonable doubts?" needs to be asked. If the answer is no, then by default the verdict must be "not guilty". That doesn't mean that those found such are actually innocent, merely that the State failed to demonstrate its case to meet the high levels required by their burden of proof.

To me this means that for me to declare that a person is guilty of the crime I must do one of the following:

1) Believe that the courts are never wrong (or so rarely wrong as to make little difference) and that since the court determined that the person is guilty, that they must have had the evidence to do so and so even if I don't have all the evidence to show that the person was guilty, I have to believe that the court did and I must be missing something.

2) Be able to use the evidence to create a senario and narrative that will stand up to the burden of proof , but wasn't given in court, and shows that the person did indeed beyond all reasonable doubt, commit the crime for which they were accused.

3) Believe that the evidence provided by the prosecutor and reported by the judge in his summary of the case create a valid and correct representation of what really occured and that such evidence is strong enough to prove that such a narrative is indeed correct, rendering the person charged guilty.

Many of those proclaiming guilt here seem to fall in to category #1, they believe that the court must have gotten it right, and if the evidence isn't there to back up the court's claims, well that must simply be because that evidence has not been publically released, i.e. the court must know things I don't that proves the person is guilty, otherwise they wouldn't have given a guilty verdict. This is an Apeal to Authority fallacy, but one that is rather popular. The claim is that the court is an Authority and so should be accepted, however this is a very dangerous position to take as without the evidence to judge if it's verdict is correct, and without knowing what other courts would say based on the same evidence, it is simply belief in a single authority of unknown merit.

Some fall into category #2, however this is a dangerous place to tread as creating a senario that was not tested in court by the defense can lead to relying on speculations instead of facts when there is no evidence to back the sort of assumptions that are required to fill in the holes of the narrative. It also means that even if the new senario is in fact correct, that a miscarriage of justice still quite likely occured because if the Prosecution's narrative is incorrect, then they most likely failed to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt.

Some claim to fall into category #3, and this is certainly the best place to truely be, however if this were the case, then by using the evidence supplied by the court those that do fall into category #3 should be able to provide a short and ultimately convincing argument for exactly why the court got the verdict right since the evidence for guilty beyond a reasonable doubt would be right there and plainly visable to all. I have yet to see this occur.

So this is where I am. Without a clear argument for category #3, I have to lean towards not-guilty simply because there are still doubts for guilty, and they are reasonable, and until those are cleared up, something that no one seems willing, or possibly able to do, this case appears to be very much a miscarriage of justice.

 

[Antony]

This is an Internet forum, not a court. There is no rule about who has to prove what.

I have seen this posted previously, and it's not a point I find impressive. We are debating whether the guilty verdict of the court was correct. In order to demonstrate that the court got it wrong, all the pro-innocence side need do is show that there was no proof of Amanda and Raffaele's guilt; conversely, the pro-guilt side have to show that there was proof of guilt.

In other words, the debate here is exactly the same as a case argued in court: if there was no proof of guilt, then the 2 of them were wrongly convicted.

(As it happens, I believe that there are enough facts to show that Amanda and Raffaele are entirely innocent; my point here is that there is no validity in claiming different standards of proof in an internet forum as against a court of law.)

 

[shuttlt]

"But, to borrow an aphorism whose source I am unable to pin down, when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal force, the truth does not necessarily lie midway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong. And that justifies passion on the other side". - Richard Dawkins, from The God Delusion.

Yes. Certainly. Either Amanda is innocent or she isn't. Both sides can't be right. I wouldn't argue anything else.

By the same token it is potentially totally rational to be strongly inclined to believe ill of Mignini et. al and well of Knox and Sollecito. All that requires is that there be enough sound evidence available to bring a rational person to a high degree of belief in the proposition that Mignini is a dangerous fruit loop and that Knox and Sollecito are ordinary, harmless people caught up by a corrupt and self-serving prosecution.

To put it more formally, your argument is:

1. Pro-innocence posters tend to believe ill of the prosecution and well of Amanda.

2. Therefore pro-innocence posters are irrational and engaging in post hoc rationalisations.

(2) simply does not follow from (1).

What you would have to do to establish (2) is to show some actual evidence.

That is not my argument. It's not that pro-Innocence posters believe good things about Amanda, it's that I believe they accept evidence that supports her very readily, and evidence that undermines her with the greatest of reluctance, if at all. I don't know if pro-innocence posters are more irrational than any other group. I also think that everyones reasoning works post-hoc to some extent. This didn't seem like a massively contentious thing to say. I hadn't intended to write a whole bunch of posts expanding on it.

This is my view and I'm content to leave the topic without having convinced anybody.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Yes. Certainly. Either Amanda is innocent or she isn't. Both sides can't be right. I wouldn't argue anything else.

Actually this is a false dichotomy. It would be true to say that she is either Guilty of the Murder of MK, or Not Guilty of it, but she could be involved to the point of being not entirely innocent, but also not actually involved in the killing itself.

For instance, if you take the stance that Mignini seems to now be running with of Amanda being outside the room while the boy's did the deed, or even Alt-F4's idea of Amanda being in the kitchen with her ears covered while Rudy was doing the killing, but having let him in, then she would certainly share the guilt of the attack, but would not be guilty of the murder itself (unless she was part of a conspriacy to do so.)

Basically, she could be an accessory after the fact, which would make her innocent of the murder, but guilty of covering it up.

 

[Justinian2]

I've been a little quiet for a while in this thread, mostly because it has been taking me all day just to catch up the 2-3 pages a day that have been occuring, so any points I'd make would be well out of date or already made before I even got close to the end of the thread to think about posting.

I do have to agree with what Mary_H and Halides1 have said.

We are talking about a legal case here, and so legal rules need to be applied. Science is great for determining how to view the evidence in the case and whether it is useful, but not for attempting to determine a verdict of guilt or innocence. In fact evidence that can be scientifically proven as fact, can be discarded from the equation of guilt or innocence if it doesn't actually allow us to distigush between them in a useful manner (i.e. if can be explained equally regardless of guilt or innocence and so doesn't provide evidence of either.)

To make such a call the question "Has the Prosecution proven its case beyond all reasonable doubts?" needs to be asked. If the answer is no, then by default the verdict must be "not guilty". That doesn't mean that those found such are actually innocent, merely that the State failed to demonstrate its case to meet the high levels required by their burden of proof.

To me this means that for me to declare that a person is guilty of the crime I must do one of the following:

1) Believe that the courts are never wrong (or so rarely wrong as to make little difference) and that since the court determined that the person is guilty, that they must have had the evidence to do so and so even if I don't have all the evidence to show that the person was guilty, I have to believe that the court did and I must be missing something.

2) Be able to use the evidence to create a senario and narrative that will stand up to the burden of proof , but wasn't given in court, and shows that the person did indeed beyond all reasonable doubt, commit the crime for which they were accused.

3) Believe that the evidence provided by the prosecutor and reported by the judge in his summary of the case create a valid and correct representation of what really occured and that such evidence is strong enough to prove that such a narrative is indeed correct, rendering the person charged guilty.
Many of those proclaiming guilt here seem to fall in to category #1, they believe that the court must have gotten it right, and if the evidence isn't there to back up the court's claims, well that must simply be because that evidence has not been publically released, i.e. the court must know things I don't that proves the person is guilty, otherwise they wouldn't have given a guilty verdict. This is an Apeal to Authority fallacy, but one that is rather popular. The claim is that the court is an Authority and so should be accepted, however this is a very dangerous position to take as without the evidence to judge if it's verdict is correct, and without knowing what other courts would say based on the same evidence, it is simply belief in a single authority of unknown merit.

Some fall into category #2, however this is a dangerous place to tread as creating a senario that was not tested in court by the defense can lead to relying on speculations instead of facts when there is no evidence to back the sort of assumptions that are required to fill in the holes of the narrative. It also means that even if the new senario is in fact correct, that a miscarriage of justice still quite likely occured because if the Prosecution's narrative is incorrect, then they most likely failed to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt.

Some claim to fall into category #3, and this is certainly the best place to truely be, however if this were the case, then by using the evidence supplied by the court those that do fall into category #3 should be able to provide a short and ultimately convincing argument for exactly why the court got the verdict right since the evidence for guilty beyond a reasonable doubt would be right there and plainly visable to all. I have yet to see this occur. So this is where I am. Without a clear argument for category #3, I have to lean towards not-guilty simply because there are still doubts for guilty, and they are reasonable, and until those are cleared up, something that no one seems willing, or possibly able to do, this case appears to be very much a miscarriage of justice.

That's a very good essay. I however would question how a court that built a house of cards on sand with an incoming tide could be considered credible by any.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

not convincing

That is not my argument. It's not that pro-Innocence posters believe good things about Amanda, it's that I believe they accept evidence that supports her very readily, and evidence that undermines her with the greatest of reluctance, if at all. I don't know if pro-innocence posters are more irrational than any other group. I also think that everyones reasoning works post-hoc to some extent. This didn't seem like a massively contentious thing to say. I hadn't intended to write a whole bunch of posts expanding on it.

This is my view and I'm content to leave the topic without having convinced anybody.

This is the second time you have offered this assessment without examples or proof of any kind. I offered you examples to show the same behavior in the pro-guilt faction. It is your right to offer unsupported arguments and to avoid engaging in debate. It is not very convincing.

 

[Mairanse]

Hi All,

I'm new here and have just recently become intrigued by this case. I promise to try to read all of the material I can and not clog up the thread with easily answerable questions.

I did have a question. Can anyone link me to documentation of what RS's ISP records revealed about the night of the murder? How detailed were the records? Did they have HTTP header info and things like that? SMTP logs? It seems to me the computers themselves wouldn't be needed if that information was available.

I've read some recent posts suggesting that the defense has documentation that they launched a movie file around the time of the murder, but I'm very interested in what the ISP was able to provide.

Christopher

 

[PhantomWolf]

I however would question how a court that built a house of cards on sand with an incoming tide could be considered credible by any.

This would be the case of my Category #1. In a way I can understand it, we have to assume that our courts get it right, or the whole premise of our justice system is in danger. This of course extends to other first world countries, we place our view or our own justice system on theirs.

Few people would suggest that the justice system is Turkey was close to perfect and that the courts are almost always right, but the same admission about the courts in the UK would be far harder.

People see the Italian courts in the same way as the UK ones, though funnily enough, it seems those that have spent a little time in Italy and know the systems aren't quite so willing to accept their infalibility.

So it is that when they see a case that is not a lot more then a house of card built on sand, they can't accept that any credible court could fashion such a case, and so there must be more to it than what they are seeing, there must be more evidence that takes it from being a house of cards on sand to a substantial and sturdy structure, because otherwise a credible court could not have backed it. The idea that the court might actually be anything but credible is a far harder one to get around to seeing because of our implicit trust in our justice systems, and so becomes a stumbling block that our category #1 friends simply can't overcome, and hence they find it easier to believe that the court knows more than it is telling, than it is for it to be so dreadfully wrong because it's totally imcompetent.

I also believe that the whole "You must believe in a CT to frame them to believe in their innocence" comes from the same place. The possiblity that a so-called first world justice system could be so incompetent and corrupt that such a massive injustice could take place in it is so incomprehensible to some people that they simply can't apply Hanlon's Razor to the situation.

 

[souldonut]

Ted Mieczkowski murder

Dear JREFers -
I was hunting around the net and ran into yet another murder case, in which the police/prosecution may have went down the track, possibly convicting the wrong person. I don't believe I've seen this mentioned before on this forum. In this case, which occurred in Winnipeg, Canada, Prof. Zbigniew Mieczkowski was allegedly murdered by his wife, Dr. Ludmila Ilina.
Dr. Ilina was convicted and has served 15 years of a life sentence. She is currently being assisted by the Innocence Project, which seeks to exonerate her.

A couple of highlights, although this is from my own cursory reading about the case.
a) no clear motive; the suspect found the body and called the police.
b) suspect is an established and well published scholar, no history of violence.
c) no inculpatory DNA evidence related to the murder, weapon not recovered
d) 16-18 hours of continuous police interrogation, without audio or video recording
e) 50 white hairs found around the victim's body, not matching the victim or the suspect
f) the suspect had no physical signs of participating in a violent assault, as the prosecution contended.

I want to post a link to an interesting URL that discusses key aspects of the case, but JREF won't let me since I'm a noobie here. If interested, do a google search for "westernstandard Ludmila Ilina"

I know it's a little off topic, but I thought people would enjoy reading this, since there are at least slight similarities to the Knox case. News like this rarely trickles down from Canada to the US, so this is the first I've heard of it. There was a "5th estate" TV show about this, but it doesn't seem to stream outside of Canada.

I wonder if this case has generated a pro-guilt/pro-innocence controversy around it as well.