Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Katody Matrass]

"So Hellmann should drop Curatola from his motivation and agree with the defense on the ToD."

Depending on what Curatolo said exactly.

Hellmann even gave him another chance to say it. We know what he said. That he was high on smack.

 

[Rolfe]

I've wondered for a long time why they don't just invest in better CCTV cameras. Fewer, if necessary, but what's the point of most of them? They're so fuzzy you can't tell who the person is, and now they can't even tell the right time.

The ones that should have caught the last minutes of the life of Jean Charles de Menezes weren't working.

Huh. Not impressed.

Rolfe.

 

[Kaosium]

http://www.groundreport.com/Media_and_Tech/NYC-Super-Lawyer-Offers-Services-to-GroundReport/2939757

NYC “Super-Lawyer” Offers Services to GroundReport
by Ground Report for GroundReport Community June 23, 2011

We are pleased to announce that after our request two weeks ago for a volunteer attorney; one of the most prominent lawyers in New York City has stepped forward and offered pro bono counsel for GroundReport. He began his work this week and did discovery on a First Amendment issue involving one of GR’s citizen journalists who was challenging a powerful advocacy group regarding a controversial topic in the news. The attorney resolved the issue with a few phone calls to the ‘opposing’ counsel. The issue was resolved in GR’s favor due to the “plaintiff’s” misrepresentation of his relationship with the ‘opposing’ counsel. We are thrilled to have this resource available to us on matters of First Amendment rights and now have a person who can defend our reporters from harassment and attempts to silence their voices


This made my whole week. lol

Let me see if I have this right, did a 'very big dog with very big teeth' get his nose swatted with a newspaper and then slink off mewling?

I'm just guessing here, but would this have to do with someone trying to bully Ground Report into removing a member of this forum's articles, and it just so happened a Big Time Lawyer stepped in with a few phone calls and called a bluff? Would this have been a transatlantic call perchance?

 

[Rolfe]

Steve Moore has a new blog. For those unaware, he's the FBI veteran of 25 years who looked into the case and came to the conclusion Raffaele and Amanda had nothing to do with it and started campaigning on their behalf. His latest post is on the Daily Beast and Barbara Nadeau, pointing out just how badly this particular media outlet has served its readers regarding this case, and actually served to harm innocents in an attempt to carve out a 'niche' in the American media.

Following on from what I was saying yesterday, I had a read round some of this. I'm even more baffled by the attitudes of those pushing the "guilt" line.

What is their connection to the case? Who are they to write to people's employers and try to get them silenced for expressing an opinion that differs from their own? Why are they championing this hate campaign, when the Italian criminal justice system seems to have the situation under control anyway (from their point of view)?

Do they go after everyone involved in the Innocence Project, or MOJO, to insist that nothing should ever be published suggesting someone convicted of a crime might actually have been innocent? And dammit, the people these organisations champion have actually been through the full legal process and been confirmed as convicted!

Amanda Knox is not the only accused or convicted person who has been the centre of a campaign suggesting there has been a miscarriage of justice. It's actually quite common. I never heard of anyone being threatened like this in any other case.

It's really quite bizarre.

Rolfe.

 

[spartacus]

Let me see if I have this right, did a 'very big dog with very big teeth' get his nose swatted with a newspaper and then slink off mewling?

I'm just guessing here, but would this have to do with someone trying to bully Ground Report into removing a member of this forum's articles, and it just so happened a Big Time Lawyer stepped in with a few phone calls and called a bluff? Would this have been a transatlantic call perchance?

That means that someone threatened GR and said they had a lawyer, and when GR volunteer called that lawyer he said they had never been hired as attorny for the bunnies. In other words, called their bluff.

 

[Rolfe]

Also, Rolfe it might amuse you to know that back in 2009 Stilicho was happily arguing that the JREF forumites must all be wrong because you personally had not weighed in on the autopsy evidence.

Link, search for "Rolfe".

Oh well. So much for that argument. I wonder if Stilicho's professed respect for your professional opinion actually extends to respecting it? As opposed to ignoring it completely when it conflicts with his pre-existing views, I mean, which is what he currently seems to be doing.

Actually, one reason this confused me a bit was that as well as that approach from Stilicho I also had a couple of approaches from people on the innocence side, asking me to get involved. While Stilicho seems to have been impressed by my takedowns of our homoeopathic friends, these approaches were prompted by my work on the Pan Am 103 case.

As with Stilicho, I pleaded lack of time, and also that the Pan Am 103 case was unusual in that there simply wasn't a shred of evidence that the convicted man had had anything to do with it. While as I saw it the Amanda Knox case had reasonable advocates on both sides, and an ongoing judicial process which should presumably sort matters out.

The case was made to me that in fact the Knox case wasn't evenly balanced, but was again a situation of there being pretty much no credible evidence for guilt, but (as with Megrahi) there had been a lot of peripheral blackening of the accused's character and indeed monstering of her, to make it credible to pin the crime on her. I was linked to a couple of web pages making a decent case for this interpretation, but again I imagined there must be another side to the story (Fiona again....)

A lot has been said about the complexities of the Kercher murder case, and several people have refused to re-state their arguments on this account, or even said it's impossible to give a simple outline of the case for guilt because of this. This rung alarm bells for me.

The Lockerbie case is as complicated as it gets. However, once one has examined the detail, it is indeed possible to encapsulate it quite simply. Megrahi did not buy the clothes (in the bomb suitcase) from Tony Gauci, and there is no evidence at all that the bomb travelled on flight KM180, or was even within a thousand miles of the island of Malta. That's it. You can argue details if you like, but unless you can make Megrahi the clothes purchaser and place the bomb suitcase on that flight, you have no case. (It's amazing the lengths some people will go to to avoid discussing these issues.)

With my relatively limited grasp of the details of the Knox case, I have a similar simplistic take, which I already explained.

Fact: Meredith had recognisable semi-digested pieces of pizza in her stomach at post mortem, and her duodenum was empty.
Fact: Meredith ate her last meal somewhere around 6 to 6.30pm.
Fact: There does not appear to be a credible scenario which allows Knox (or Sollecito) to participate in a murder that occurred soon after nine o'clock.

Now you can argue about time stamps and DNA and mobile phones till you're blue in the face, but unless you can shift one of these facts, you're screwed.

It may be that these facts are not as immutable as they appear, which would give a priori reason to doubt the syllogism. But so far I'm not seeing it. Or, possibly, there is compelling evidence from elsewhere that at least one of these facts must be wrong, at which point you have to try again to see if you can find the weak point.

But it's not happening. The evidence relating to the time of death seems solid. So what's happening? People are trying to reach and stretch to place either Amanda or Raffaele at the scene of the crime at the earlier time. But why? Where is the evidence that demands that their albis must have a hole in them?

I'm not seeing it. They can't even sustain the argument that Amanda was even in the room at the time of the murder (so much for her striking the fatal blow with the knife she was carrying). None of this makes any sense. There's no reason to try to break these alibis, because there's no strong evidence that places either of them at the scene of the crime.

I imagine they'll argue a lot more in court, just as they argued about the timer fragment and the manual page and the computer printout and the mysterious brown suitcase and who Megrahi knew and who he was related to and so on. But just as you can't make a case against him if he didn't buy these damn clothes, you can't make a case against Knox or Sollecito unless you can get them at the scene at the time the crime actually happened. And you need POSITIVE reason for this, not just a hole in their activity when they could have been there. You need some evidence they were there.

So does anyone have any?

Rolfe.

 

[Kaosium]

But if this were the case, wouldn't they have used the CCTV as evidence early on, in front of Matteini?

Hrm. Good point. Why wouldn't they have? They were sure beating their chests about it by the 12th. Maybe because they weren't sure about it yet? They might want to move around the ToD, as they certainly did? That Fox/Times article has them suggesting Tods from anywhere from 9 until eleven, I just reposted it before the last court date, lemme look it up.

It's hilarious that they grilled that poor professor for seven hours to try to break Patrick's alibi, were eventually forced to accept it, and then in the trial had to move the ToD back to a time when Patrick didn't have an alibi! You couldn't make this stuff up!

IIRC, they did claim the 112 call was made after the postal police's arrival, but as evidence they gave Battistelli's statement and something about a police log book; I don't think they mentioned the CCTV time (quite a coincidence, when you think about it, that they got it wrong in a way that confirmed their earlier theory...).

I'm ambivalent on the whole timing thing, probably lean towards 20:53 - but with so many different times being mentioned, and the adjustment or otherwise not specified, I think only the actual footage would properly settle it!

I think you're right!

I don't know about what though, outside what I highlighted.

8:53 for the timestamp, or 8:53 for the real time?

I wonder if I have managed to confuse myself and others in the process? I just went back and looked and I'm not sure what people are contending now. What I'm thinking is the actual timestamp on the camera is 8:53 or so. Now for some reason there are both 10 and 12 minute adjustments to this based on what was said in court? I will assume for the sake of clarity that the stamp was actually twelve minutes off and it got rounded off to ten by some.

Thus mine is with a stamp of 8:53 the cops thought it was 8:41 and it was really 9:05 when the possible female figure walks past.

Draca thinks the stamp was 8:43, the cops made it 8:31 and the real time was 8:55 which correlates nicely with the unconnected phonecall at 8:56.

I have totally lost track of what Bolint and Dan-O were saying now, I thought I was agreeing with him, but as I look at this more carefully, I get the impression he and Draca actually agree! I think I agree with Bolint, except he's using the ten minute time differential.

Is that right everyone, dismissing the two minutes from the 8:41-8:43 thing and making the 10 minutes 12 just for the ease of comprehension?

 

[RoseMontague]

RoseMontague:
"Comodi did move the police arrival time up some in her closing comments (12:46 IIRC) but still kept it slightly before Raffaele's calls to 112."

She only said that even if it was at 12:46 it was still 5 minutes before the call.
So it was not a real admission, but I think that they have dropped this argument.
At any rate, Massei did not use it.



"I think the key to this quote is the long shoulder strap part. What you see as a skirt I see as this bag. No way to tell with certainty by the video provided."

I saw that bag, it is right to the duvet on the crime scene photos (letter H).
It is not big enough to be a skirt.

In some positions on the video you indeed see a whiter square at the middle of the figure that could be a bag like that.
But the skirt is longer.
And Amanda also had a big sized bag, which was greenish and it also could reflect light that results in a white area in the night frames of the black and white camera.

At any rate, next day Amanda was wearing a skirt that could have been the one in the video.

Wow, another large bag argument. Remind me to take all of mine to Goodwill.

Are you implying that Amanda wore the same skirt the next day? After an alleged violent and bloody struggle? Was this part of the magic clean up as well?

 

[LondonJohn]

Well, that solves it! Battistelli lied!

As I recall Altieri was adamant about two phones, and then Battistelli claimed one of the phones he saw was his own. Is there any reason, outside Battistelli saying so, to believe he wouldn't have had both phones with him?

There is in fact a good reason why Battistelli couldn't have had both phones with him: The phones were found and handed in at very different times. Filomena's phone was found at around 10am and handed in to the police at around 11am. But Meredith's UK phone wasn't even found in Sig.ra Lana's garden until shortly after midday*. It wasn't delivered to the police until around 12.45pm or so - after the two postal officers had left for the girls' cottage. I believe that Battistelli and Marzi were informed of the discovery of this second phone either before they reached the cottage, or while they were there.

* Meredith's UK phone was evidently not lying in plain view in Sig.ra Lara's garden. It was discovered because Knox was calling it and the ringtone alerted Sig.ra Lara's daughter who then discovered it in the garden: great move from "master criminal Amanda Knox"!

 

[LondonJohn]

That means that someone threatened GR and said they had a lawyer, and when GR volunteer called that lawyer he said they had never been hired as attorny for the bunnies. In other words, called their bluff.

Yes: the wording of the GR article (particularly the apostrophes around the word "opposing") clearly indicates that an individual contacted GR demanding the removal of certain articles, and claimed to be represented by a certain named lawyer. Then, when GR's attorney contacted this lawyer directly to discuss the situation, the lawyer stated that (s)he had not been retained by the individual lodging the complaint.

So it sounds to me like the individual in question was attempting to bully/threaten GR into taking down certain articles, and falsely claiming specific named legal support and representation to support his claim (I wouldn't be at all surprised if the individual's complaint had included something like the following: "I am being advised by renowned attorney XYZ, who tells me that I have a watertight claim for libel"). Ah well, I'm sure that this individual can find a super-duper lawyer who really will represent him in this matter. If not, he can always summon up the big guns of the United Nations

(PS: I make these observations since I think it's interesting that certain people are apparently trying very hard to suppress free speech: a matter that affects us all. Of course, if someone has a genuine case for libel, they are entitled to the full protection of the law. If that's the case, then the correct procedure is to issue a writ and start due process. It certainly seems more than a little fishy to me that someone who felt they had been libelled would instead apparently choose to start their process by issuing threats to the publisher to remove the article, seemingly also falsely claiming to have named legal representation).

 

[Draca]

Draca thinks the stamp was 8:43, the cops made it 8:31 and the real time was 8:55

I don't think and didn't write ANY of those things.

The time given in court on Mar 13 was 8:41 p.m.
The 10-12 minutes difference comes from the Sollecito defense Postal Police arrival time demonstartion.

8:41 + 10-12 minutes makes the actual image 8:51-8:53 p.m.

I don't understand why you are giving conjecture that the police moved the time in court.
Where is the evidence of this?

 

[RoseMontague]

I don't think and didn't write ANY of those things.

The time given in court on Mar 13 was 8:41 p.m.
The 10-12 minutes difference comes from the Sollecito defense Postal Police arrival time demonstartion.

8:41 + 10-12 minutes makes the actual image 8:51-8:53 p.m.

I don't understand why you are giving conjecture that the police moved the time in court.
Where is the evidence of this?

I am with you on this one.

 

[LondonJohn]

Wow, another large bag argument. Remind me to take all of mine to Goodwill.

Are you implying that Amanda wore the same skirt the next day? After an alleged violent and bloody struggle? Was this part of the magic clean up as well?

Yes, this is one of the most laughable attempts to shoehorn in the "It was Knox wearing a pale-coloured long skirt" explanation. We are either supposed to believe that Knox was so extraordinarily devious (or stupid) that she chose to wear the very same skirt* the following day while arranging and carrying out this cunning staged discovery of the body. Or the alternative is that Knox owned two similar skirts.

I would have thought that Filomena would have been able to testify as to what Knox was wearing on the early afternoon of November 1st - she spent time with Knox chatting and wrapping a present. Of course, Knox could have changed clothing after that and before the murder, but either way I think the fact that she was wearing a long pale-coloured skirt the following day is of no value.

In any case, I maintain that the grainy CCTV images are nonetheless clear enough to show that the light area below the waist is not properly aligned with the visible torso and head. I believe that there is a dark area directly below the lighter torso, which corresponds with the position of the legs relative to the torso of a person walking. I therefore believe that the CCTV shows a person wearing a mid-light top and dark trousers/jeans, but carrying something light that is hanging down just in front of the legs. I believe that this correlates with Meredith, who was wearing a light blue tracksuit top and mid-dark jeans, and carrying a large beige fabric shoulder bag. I very much wish we could see the time stamp on that CCTV footage though...

* Of course, if Knox were naked during the attack and its aftermath (yeah, right....), then her skirt could have remained untainted by forensic evidence. I still think it would take brass balls or extreme stupidity on her part to wear the same skirt the following day.

 

[LondonJohn]

I am with you on this one.

Me too. I believe that the image is that of Meredith arriving back at the cottage at around 8.53pm. This tallies with the adjusted testimony of Sophie Purton, who recognised that she actually arrived back at her house at around 8.55pm. It also tallies with Meredith deciding to get back indoors and sit/lie down to relax before placing her call to her mother at 8.56pm, and it tallies with her cutting off this call before it connected because she was disturbed by the presence of someone else inside the cottage.

 

[LondonJohn]

Following on from what I was saying yesterday, I had a read round some of this. I'm even more baffled by the attitudes of those pushing the "guilt" line.

What is their connection to the case? Who are they to write to people's employers and try to get them silenced for expressing an opinion that differs from their own? Why are they championing this hate campaign, when the Italian criminal justice system seems to have the situation under control anyway (from their point of view)?

Do they go after everyone involved in the Innocence Project, or MOJO, to insist that nothing should ever be published suggesting someone convicted of a crime might actually have been innocent? And dammit, the people these organisations champion have actually been through the full legal process and been confirmed as convicted!

Amanda Knox is not the only accused or convicted person who has been the centre of a campaign suggesting there has been a miscarriage of justice. It's actually quite common. I never heard of anyone being threatened like this in any other case.

It's really quite bizarre.

Rolfe.

I wholeheartedly agree with you here. Some people on the pro-guilt side have taken a near-evangelical stance based on "justice for Meredith", and in the process have attempted to polarise the debate (in an extremely distasteful way) by introducing the false corollary that those arguing for acquittal are somehow "anti-Meredith".

In addition, many pro-guilt commentators (including pretty much all of the above group) feel that they are performing some sort of public service in fighting against what they view as a concerted (and well-organised and well-funded) campaign of disinformation from "Knox supporters". This gives them the zeal and the justification (in their minds) to go on the full-frontal attack.

It really is quite something to behold, and I think that it's worthy of study by social scientists. It's also more than a little sad and pathetic (in the true sense of the word). I enjoy debating this case, and would like to have more people in this forum challenging my views (not that I think my views are often weak or unsupportable, but I'd enjoy a decent debate with someone who can rationally argue a different position - if that's not an oxymoron )

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Have you looked at that street? (google map street view)

Perhaps it looks more tempting at night. The person is crossing from about the walkway on the right where they could just follow the sidewalk over the parking garage and go to where if they stay on the road there is little if any space for pedestrians.

I see what you mean, it's a funny place to walk unless you are going right to Amanda's house. That substantially decreases the chance it was anyone but Amanda or Meredith.

I wouldn't say it rules it out completely, and it I had ironclad proof that it could not have been either Amanda or Meredith then I'd say it was someone who didn't know the area trying to take a short cut without realising that the pedestrian walking space ended not too far ahead.

The problem is that while the video sucks, it apparently doesn't look much like either Meredith or Amanda as we know them to be dressed on the night of the murder, so something seemingly unlikely is going on whichever option we choose. I'll go with the theory that it's Meredith and the illusion of a skirt is caused by the crappy video quality for now, since that best fits the other facts we have.

 

[Dan O.]

Kaosium and Dan O.,

Bolint has given his evidence as being a quote from stewarthome who was in court. Do the two of you also use this as your evidence or is there more you could provide?

Thanks Bolint, I don't accept that he is correct.

There isn't a single piece of evidence that proves this one way or the other. What we have is incomplete information and some apparent inconsistencies or contradictions.

What I have done to try and find the best compromise is to gather all the reports that relate to the CCTV timing and order them by the date they were made. Then I looked at this data to see when things changed and what type of evidence was behind the changes.

From looking at the collection of records I came up with a hypothesis to explain it. The hypothesis is simple: the police made an initial mistake recording the direction of the offset of the CCTV clock. Everything else falls out as a consequence of this mistake.

Now, I don't claim that this hypothesis is the absolute truth. It could be total bunk and one frame from the CCTV camera could demolish it. It's just that this is the best hypothesis I have that explains the data we can see.

 

[Kaosium]

Following on from what I was saying yesterday, I had a read round some of this. I'm even more baffled by the attitudes of those pushing the "guilt" line.

What is their connection to the case? Who are they to write to people's employers and try to get them silenced for expressing an opinion that differs from their own? Why are they championing this hate campaign, when the Italian criminal justice system seems to have the situation under control anyway (from their point of view)?

Do they go after everyone involved in the Innocence Project, or MOJO, to insist that nothing should ever be published suggesting someone convicted of a crime might actually have been innocent? And dammit, the people these organisations champion have actually been through the full legal process and been confirmed as convicted!

Amanda Knox is not the only accused or convicted person who has been the centre of a campaign suggesting there has been a miscarriage of justice. It's actually quite common. I never heard of anyone being threatened like this in any other case.

It's really quite bizarre.

Rolfe.

Funny you mention the Innocence Project, as that's another one of their 'campaigns.' They are deeply suspicious of Dr. Greg Hampikian's involvement and that of the Idaho Innocence Project. Amanda isn't from Idaho! Thus e-mail campaigns have been waged, they're defrauding their contributors somehow! Someone should look into their tax exempt status!

In a very real sense it can be summed up by the article of Barbie's I linked in the message you quoted. Some of them really believe there's this Sinister PR Conspiracy headed by the Friends of Amanda and the PR firm their parents hired to handle press requests and get their side of the story out, after their poor daughter had been lied about outrageously by the cops and then smeared to high heaven by the tabloids as that was 'the story'--that's probably what the slander charge on Amanda's parents is really about. The Sollecitos also tried to contest Raffaele's arrest through the media, and that's why five of them are also going to trial. It's like they decided to ape Mignini's methods, even though I've reason to believe some of them don't like him very much...

It is bizarre, I've never seen anything quite like it online. Not for something like this at any rate. There's more to it than meets the eye, I wrote this once to try to explain how people could get caught up in it, since it sounds kinda...weird...it was only satire...

 

[Kaosium]

I don't think and didn't write ANY of those things.

The time given in court on Mar 13 was 8:41 p.m.
The 10-12 minutes difference comes from the Sollecito defense Postal Police arrival time demonstartion.

8:41 + 10-12 minutes makes the actual image 8:51-8:53 p.m.

I don't understand why you are giving conjecture that the police moved the time in court.
Where is the evidence of this?

This is what I'm trying to figure out, Draca, I'm lost!

If they moved the time 12 minutes in the wrong direction, then the overall difference has to be 24 minutes, right? If they thought it fast when it was actually slow, that means the real time is 24 minutes after what they said in court. Am I making any sense?

 

[pipelineaudio]

can you show any links of them going after the innocence project? That would be an awesome display of crazy! I'm assuming its more something you'd have to piece together from posts, but if there were a straight up link that would be uber