Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Just replace UFOs and Yetis with "one of the most unusual crimes in history".

Seriously?

I'll grant you that the bizarre internet CT obsession about it is certainly unusual, but not the crime itself. Pretty much a run of the mill murder.

 

[Katody Matrass]

I would prefer answers to #12478.

No problem, I'll answer it (though it's not directed to me), then you answer my question, deal?

 

[Rolfe]

More evasion. I'd like to see a rational explanation for a widespread conspiracy of many police and forensic scientists without anyone breaking ranks. Come on guys, this is an incompetent justice system after all.

I don't think these cases are conspiracies within the usual meaning of the term. Someone else likened it to gold prospectors becoming "married to the vein". These men were so convinced there was gold in the place they were looking that they dismissed all evidence suggesting there wasn't, and even interpreted evidence of the absence of gold as being suggestive of its presence.

It seems to be the same with these policemen, and the forensics officers who so often see themselves as part of the prosecution team, rather than as independent seekers of truth. There comes a time in the investigation when they get someone in their sights as the suspect, and then the whole focus changes from finding out the truth to building a case against that person.

God help you if you are that person, and you didn't do it, and you don't have a cast-iron alibi.

Rolfe.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Seriously?

I'll grant you that the bizarre internet CT obsession about it is certainly unusual, but not the crime itself. Pretty much a run of the mill murder.

LOL you obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

However the rational alternative for the prosecution's crazy theories is indeed a "run of the mill murder".

 

[Rolfe]

Seriously?

I'll grant you that the bizarre internet CT obsession about it is certainly unusual, but not the crime itself. Pretty much a run of the mill murder.

How would you know? You're not interested enough to find out anything about it, or to Google the simplest information, or even to read other people's posts.

What time do you think Meredith died, and what is your reason for coming to that conclusion?

Rolfe.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

competence of a sort (alt title: upside, downside, and inside)

How many were involved? How have the conspirators all remained silent?

lionking,

The police may not be very objective, but they have shown both the power and the willingness to punish via calunnia/slander charges (or in Spezi's case imprisonment those who speak out against their theories. Under those conditions there is little upside and a great downside (possible loss of job, etc.) to someone's speaking out from the inside. It is much harder to see why (in the prosecution's CT) that Amanda would not rat out the other two. Or Raffaele for that matter.

 

[Rhea]

I would agree that people who assert that Knox and Sollecito are "100% innocent" (who I would say are in the minority here) would need to provide active proof of innocence. I have said many times before that I think that an active belief in their innocence is untenable at the present time - I've stated that currently the only people who know for sure whether they are innocent are Knox and Sollecito themselves (and probably also Guede). However, if the new computer evidence proves to be accurate and reliable, then it would point strongly to the innocence of at least one of the two defendants.

I am 100% certain of their innocence, but I would still concede that this is my opinion …

I personally don't understand how anyone considering the evidence we have in this case could seriously be contemplating their involvement, I see it akin to Steve Moore; the evidence totally precludes their perpetration. It's a matter of interpretation though of course …

 

[Katody Matrass]

There's another interesting part of Guede's Skype call, in which he discusses the doorbell ringing while he was in the bathroom:

"Then the doorbell rang. As far as I was concerned, it was one of the girls who lives with her (Meredith). So, I remained quietly in the bathroom"

Now why would Guede automatically think that a person ringing the doorbell would have been one of the other housemates? Surely the logical assumption would be that the housemates all carried their own keys to the door, and would therefore have no need to ring the doorbell. To most people, the ringing doorbell would imply that the person outside the front door was not a member of the household - the exact opposite to what Guede claims was his immediate assumption.

IIRC this was exactly the reasoning of Supreme Court when it rejected Guede's version of events in the appeal motivation.

My opinion on this is that Guede most likely tried ringing the doorbell while he was casing the house, and he's weaving it into his narrative. He's also (in my view) taking the simultaneous opportunity to weave Knox into this narrative, by implying that it was Knox who was returning to the house while he was in the bathroom. Remember that Guede would have known all about Knox's/Sollecito's detention at the time he made this Skype call (on 18th or 19th November), so he already had a strong vested interest in linking them to the murder. That he chose such a gauche and unlikely way to do so (Knox ringing her own front door bell to be let in) is very telling, as far as I'm concerned.

Guede was careful in that Skype talk to not commit himself to anything definitely. As soon as he realized that AK and RS won't be let go any soon he "remembered" that it was really Amanda who rang the door bell. It didn't go well for him to stick to such a weak lie.

 

[LondonJohn]

How would you know? You're not interested enough to find out anything about it, or to Google the simplest information, or even to read other people's posts.

What time do you think Meredith died, and what is your reason for coming to that conclusion?

Rolfe.

As a general point, I don't think it's really worth engaging in a debate with people who are obviously not prepared to engage in good faith or within the parameters of decent, reasonable debate.

For example, imagine if a person asserted that in order to believe Knox/Sollecito should be acquitted, one would necessarily need to believe in a large, sophisticated conspiracy amongst Italian law enforcement officials. Imagine if that person were asked to back up this assertion with some evidence of the kind of conspiracy that (s)he alleges is a necessary precondition to a miscarriage of justice in this case. Then imagine that the person responded to this request not with an answer of any sort, but by asking the questioner (who believes Knox and Sollecito should be acquitted) why he (the questioner) believes in a conspiracy.

Now, you and I would call that circular arguing and willful distortion of logic: the person is making an assertion, then immediately assuming that this assertion is automatically correct. Here's another version of it:

1) I assert that in order for Hillary Clinton to run for the Presidency in 2012, she will first need to divorce Bill Clinton.

2) You (who think that Hillary will run for President in 2012) ask me why I think that the divorce is a necessary precursor to her running for the Presidency.

3) I reply by asking that since you think Hillary will run for the Presidency, why you think that Hillary and Bill Clinton will get divorced.

I think that even a toddler might be able to find the logical flaw in this "argument"...

 

[Rolfe]

This post, and many others like this, assume that there are a number of police who know the "truth" and simply remain silent. That is not a skeptic position.

I don't think the post assumes anything of the sort.

What seems to be common to all these cases, and this one is hardly unique, is that the investigators are irrationally convinced they have the right culprit, in the teeth of the evidence.

An interesting example is the first defendants who were tried for the murder of Damilola Taylor. The police went flat out after them trying to build a case, even though they had an alibi. They were convinced the alibi was breakable, and brought them to court on the basis of the contention that they could have run from the scene, the very second Damilola was stabbed, and reached the spot where their mobile phones had connected to a transmitter within a couple of minutes.

This would have had to assume they were excellent prospects for the next Olympics. It also presumed that they were bright enough to take off the very second they realised the boy was stabbed, without hanging around for a second, and that they knew there was a particular place they could reach that would give them an alibi through mobile phone masts.

The police bought it to a man. They bought it to the point that they started grooming a witness, a teenage girl from a poor background, putting her up in an expensive hotel with room service on tap to encourage her to get her statement right.

Fortunately the jury didn't buy it. There was tabloid outrage at the time, that these killer lowlives had gone free.

But then someone looked again at the evidence, found some quite obvious bloodstains that had been overlooked by forensics the first time round, got them tested, and hey presto the true culprits were traced, prosecuted and convicted.

Was there a "conspiracy" to accuse the first bunch of suspects, with a number of police who knew the truth and remained silent? No. They were "married to the vein", and genuinely believed these people were guilty in spite of the evidence.

I see no reason to assume that this case is any different.

Rolfe.

ETA: I should say that in the Taylor case, the reason the jury didn't buy it wasn't apparently because they didn't think the sprinting-for-an-alibi story wasn't credible, but because the police handling of the teenage "star witness" became public and was much criticised. The news about her behaviour at the plush hotel, and the way she seemed to be milking the situation for favours, led to her testimony being discredited. If that hadn't happened, it's likely the first defendants would have been convicted, and nobody would ever have re-examined the evidence and found that bloodstain.

 

[spartacus]

And how many cops knew that Curatola was asked if he had seen something at the very beginning of the investigation and had denied seeing anything or anyone suspicious. This little factoid is curiously missing from both the Massei report and the appeal documents.

Or that the Polizia di Stato never interviewed Nara Capazelli, they just saw her on TV?

 

[LondonJohn]

I don't think the post assumes anything of the sort.

What seems to be common to all these cases, and this one is hardly unique, is that the investigators are irrationally convinced they have the right culprit, in the teeth of the evidence.

An interesting example is the first defendants who were tried for the murder of Damilola Taylor. The police went flat out after them trying to build a case, even though they had an alibi. They were convinced the alibi was breakable, and brought them to court on the basis of the contention that they could have run from the scene, the very second Damilola was stabbed, and reached the spot where their mobile phones had connected to a transmitter within a couple of minutes.

This would have had to assume they were excellent prospects for the next Olympics. It also presumed that they were bright enough to take off the very second they realised the boy was stabbed, without hanging around for a second, and that they knew there was a particular place they could reach that would give them an alibi through mobile phone masts.

The police bought it to a man. They bought it to the point that they started grooming a witness, a teenage girl from a poor background, putting her up in an expensive hotel with room service on tap to encourage her to get her statement right.

Fortunately the jury didn't buy it. There was tabloid outrage at the time, that these killer lowlives had gone free.

But then someone looked again at the evidence, found some quite obvious bloodstains that had been overlooked by forensics the first time round, got them tested, and hey presto the true culprits were traced, prosecuted and convicted.

Was there a "conspiracy" to accuse the first bunch of suspects, with a number of police who knew the truth and remained silent? No. They were "married to the vein", and genuinely believed these people were guilty in spite of the evidence.

I see no reason to assume that this case is any different.

Rolfe.

You're absolutely spot-on. In many ways, the Damilola Taylor murder investigation is a fascinating proforma for the Meredith Kercher murder investigation. In neither case has there been any kind of huge, well-organised conspiracy. Instead, there has been tunnel-vision, confirmation bias and sheer incompetence (amongst many individuals), coupled with elements of personal pride/ego and the pressure of investigating a high-profile crime under the white light of media attention.

 

[tsig]

No, it doesn't mean there would have to be a "large and sophisticated conspiracy involving the police, forensic scientists and probably also the prosecution". Please explain why you think that such a conspiracy would be a necessary precursor to a miscarriage of justice in this case. In addition, do you think that all (or even most) miscarriages of justice are the result of these "large and sophisticated conspiracies" among law enforcement officials, or is this case special in that regard?

I'd also add the following - just as a footnote: how many of the police and prosecutors do you think were aware that Curatolo was under active investigation for drug dealing dating back several years, at the time they were presenting him as a reliable, accurate and trustworthy witness? After you consider that, then try to estimate how many of the police and prosecutors you think might have colluded in the apparent decision not to disclose this information to the defence or to the courts, let alone offer any reason why he had not even been prosecuted in 2009 (some five years or so after the police photographed him supplying heroin to a user (who might well have been a police plant or informant))? How many of the police and prosecutors knew that Curatolo had his own ongoing heroin abuse problem at the time of Meredith's murder and long before/after the murder? How many of the police and prosecutors knew that he was almost certainly (by his own admission) using heroin on the very day that his testimony concerned?

That sounds like a conspiracy to me.

collude [kəˈluːd]
vb
(intr) to conspire together, esp in planning a fraud; connive
[from Latin collūdere, literally: to play together, hence, conspire together, from com- together + lūdere to play]

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/collude

 

[Rolfe]

You're absolutely spot-on. In many ways, the Damilola Taylor murder investigation is a fascinating proforma for the Meredith Kercher murder investigation. In neither case has there been any kind of huge, well-organised conspiracy. Instead, there has been tunnel-vision, confirmation bias and sheer incompetence (amongst many individuals), coupled with elements of personal pride/ego and the pressure of investigating a high-profile crime under the white light of media attention.

And see my addition to that post. It wasn't that the jury didn't buy the Olympic sprint story. It was because the way the police had been grooming their star witness became public, and it was obvious she was milking her situation for favours and likely to say anything the police wanted her to say.

If that hadn't come out, and her testimony had been accepted, the first defendants would probably have been convicted and nobody would even have looked again at that training shoe and found the incriminating bloodstain.

And JREF posters would be vehemently insisting that there was no doubt about their guilt, and accusing anyone who expressed any doubt of conspiracy theorising....

Rolfe.

 

[LondonJohn]

That sounds like a conspiracy to me.

collude [kəˈluːd]
vb
(intr) to conspire together, esp in planning a fraud; connive
[from Latin collūdere, literally: to play together, hence, conspire together, from com- together + lūdere to play]

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/collude

The allegation was there there had to have been a "large and sophisticated" conspiracy. I have never said that I believe that there was no low-level conspiracy (a.k.a. collusion) whatsoever involved in this case - such as the apparent decision taken by several police officers and/or prosecutors not to reveal Curatolo's real situation to the court in the first trial. I was rebutting the "argument" that there had to have been some sort of grand, vast, all-encompassing conspiracy.

But thanks anyhow for your dictionary definition of collusion - even if your comprehension of the underlying issue is a little off-colour.

 

[tsig]

lionking,

They are not easy questions. I have never said that there is evidence of outright evidence tampering, but I do not rule it out, either. I think what happened fell into a gray area where confirmation bias was going on subconsciously and where a certain amount of corner-cutting went on consciously: The police thought that they had the right suspects and were not too concerned about rigorous standards but did want to help the process along. I am not entirely sure what you mean by complicit, but I suppose that the number of people within ILE who think that AK and RS are innocent is small. I have previously posted many links to articles on forensic bias. Here is one more.

Not long ago I posted a list of people involved in the Duke lacrosse (pseudo) conspiracy. The same sort of list could be compiled for the Cameron Todd Willingham case. It would include about 10 appeals panels, his own attorney David Martin, Fire Marshall Vasquez, and Governor Rick Perry, who called Willingham a monster within the last two years after failing to stay his execution in 2005. It might also include one or more witnesses whose testimony changed over time, according to a fine David Grann article in The New Yorker. I don't really think that there was a giant conspiracy in Willingham's case any more than there was one in the Duke case (one must say that two people conspired in the DL case). I think that his first attorney was quite incompetent, and anyone who doubts this should check out his performance on Anderson Cooper's show some time. FM Vasquez had apparently never seen a fire that was not arson, if I understand his testimony correctly (more incompetence). Perry probably conspired with his newly appointed head of the Texas forensics commission John Bradley to slow down the inquiry in 2009, but that was just CYA and politics as usual.

Cases that occurred in another country with a different system of justice hardly seem relevant to this case.

 

[tsig]

The allegation was there there had to have been a "large and sophisticated" conspiracy. I have never said that I believe that there was no low-level conspiracy (a.k.a. collusion) whatsoever involved in this case - such as the apparent decision taken by several police officers and/or prosecutors not to reveal Curatolo's real situation to the court in the first trial. I was rebutting the "argument" that there had to have been some sort of grand, vast, all-encompassing conspiracy.

But thanks anyhow for your dictionary definition of collusion - even if your comprehension of the underlying issue is a little off-colour.

I see, you refute the idea of a "grand, vast, all-encompassing conspiracy"
by postulating a "low-level conspiracy".

So then the judges reached a proper verdict based upon the evidence* they had?

*tainted by low level collusion.



No need for thanks LondonJohn, when I see someone drowning in a sea of words I generally throw out a lifeline.

 

[LondonJohn]

I see, you refute the idea of a "grand, vast, all-encompassing conspiracy"
by postulating a "low-level conspiracy".

So then the judges reached a proper verdict based upon the evidence* they had?

*tainted by low level collusion.



No need for thanks LondonJohn, when I see someone drowning in a sea of words I generally throw out a lifeline.

Er no, that's a straw man. There were (in my opinion) myriad other malpractice factors at play here which do not meet the definition of conspiracy. They include confirmation bias, rush to judgement, tunnel vision, personal ego, and plain incompetence. I merely postulate that there may have been some low-level collusion as a minor addition to that mix. Is that a difficult proposition for you to understand (I don't expect you to agree with it...)?

 

[Mary_H]

Evasion noted.

I've read countless posts about how police and forensic scientists were complicit in the framing of AK and RS. Is it too much to ask how many?

My guess would be about two dozen. Not all of them knew what was going on, though; most of them were just following orders or standard procedure.

Or are you saying that there was no intentional wrong doing by the police and forensic scientists? Was there a conspiracy, yes or no? How many were involved? How have the conspirators all remained silent?

These are not hard questions.

There was intentional wrongdoing at certain junctures, all of which has been well-established as fact. For example, the police changed the record of the time of the original dispatch to the house. The officer who entered Meredith's room later denied doing it.

Most of the wrongdoing does not have a conspiratorial aspect to it. Individuals took it upon themselves to act in ways that would protect themselves or the case they had been ordered to believe in. If they blow the whistle, it will be only on themselves. Their superiors can deny culpability in instances of their employees acting out of loyalty or because they know what is expected of them.

To go out and arrest Lumumba without prior investigation was a stupid, illegal and immoral thing to do. It was not necessarily an intentional conspiracy to frame Lumumba, though, because most of the people who participated in it didn't have enough information to understand how stupid, illegal and immoral it was.

Some of the wrongdoing does have a conspiratorial aspect to it. The night of the interrogations, the defendants were deprived of legal counsel and their interrogations either were not taped or the tapes are being withheld. To boldly violate two well known laws of the Italian criminal system may have taken cooperation. In that case, it is certainly valid to ask, as you have, who was involved and why have none of them voiced their disapproval of the procedures. Even if there was collusion, though, it cannot necessarily be labeled "vast" -- it may have been the work of as few as two people with the right to make decisions.

The DNA evidence is also suspicious. If it weren't, Patrizia Stefanoni would not be withholding documentation from the defense and from the court. Whether or not the questionable forensics represent collusion or conspiracy, though, rests on whether such evidence can be produced by one person or whether it requires the cooperation of a number of people in and outside of the lab. If it was a simple case of the prosecutor suggesting to the forensics director that certain findings would be beneficial, that, again, might take as few as two people. Nothing vast about it.

 

[Rolfe]

I think there's always low-level collusion in these cases. I think that's quite different from conspiracy though.

For example. A colleague who witnessed my examination of the remains has (unusually) also been cited to give evidence in next week's case. Of course we will collude, to make sure both of us remember the examination as clearly as possible, in as much detail as possible, and to avoid giving any hostages to fortune by inadvertantly contradicting each other.

If we were deliberately concocting a false story, or colluding to agree to draw conclusions which are not warranted by the evidence, we'd be conspiring. But we're not. The hole in the prosecution's case will be laid plain before the sheriff, and the fiscal has been made aware of this.

It's impossible to prevent investigators checking their stories with each other like this. Maybe it does lead to too much "singing from the same hymn sheet". But it doesn't have to spill over to deliberate conspiracy to deceive to become misleading.

Rolfe.