Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Katody Matrass]

Yes, added that on the same night or next morning there was some clean up and cover up.

I see. What were they cleaning up / covering up?

 

[komponisto]

Komponisto,

I agree with you about forensic versus behavioral evidence. I would only like to add that the Scientific American article implies that the CSI effect only runs in one direction. This is false, and the present case is a good illustration of the problem. When they hear that the prosecutor has DNA evidence, some defense attorneys say they start looking to make a plea deal. This ignores the fact that many DNA profiles are partials, and many samples show a mixture of two or more persons’ DNA. Moreover, DNA does not carry a time stamp, nor a message saying whether it was deposited via primary or secondary transfer, or even from contamination. The presence of DNA evidence is not a permission slip to the jury to check their brains at the courthouse door.

If nothing else, this case teaches us that rules requiring the discovery of the electronic data files in cases where DNA evidence is introduced, is absolutely essential to a fair trial; without them, it is questionable whether or not Conti and Vecchiotti could have produced the detailed analysis that they did.

This article also had a picture of a bloody knife as a graphic at the top of the page. Sollecito’s ordinary kitchen knife tested negative for blood. It is very unlikely that a knife that was used in a murder would be cleaned in such a way that blood would be removed but that DNA from the crime would remain.

All good points. Regarding people being too accepting of prosecution DNA evidence (as opposed to being too skeptical in its absence), I suppose I would classify that as a separate phenomenon: a special case of placing too much trust in law enforcement or the prosecuting authority. (Something that has existed since long before CSI.)

 

[bolint]

No, they are not irrelevant, and there is frankly no way that you could have read them all and digested their contents in that amount of time. Read them! They contain information that you didn't know or weren't taking into account.

Of course I did not take it into account as it was irrelevant.
I take it as an insult that you suggested reading such utter nonsense:

(1) What happened to Patrick was really crappy.
(2) What happened to Patrick was caused by Amanda.
(3) Therefore, Amanda did a really crappy thing to Patrick.
(4) Therefore, Amanda is a really crappy person.
(5) Murder is something that really crappy people do.
(6) Therefore, Amanda must have committed murder.​

Spell out the causal chain of events that you think led from Amanda's supposed presence at the cottage to her statements at the police station. Be prepared to compare the likelihood of that scenario with alternative scenarios leading to the same result.

Here you are:

She learns that Raffaele no longer protects her.
She learns that he has even placed hard evidence against her.
And still for some reason they keep asking her about the unrelated Lumumba.
She thinks that Raffaele may have said that she went to Lumumba's bar or even that he may have lied that Lumumba had killed Meredith.
Either she wants to gain time to think or she decides to go with Raffaele's supposed version, in both cases she names Lumumba.​

I think this version is more likely than the version "they asked her to imagine what happened and she accused Lumumba to satisfy their will".

Then proceed to the one on the affect heuristic. Understand that your reaction of "Ugh! I am appalled by Amanda Knox's behavior!" does not constitute significant evidence that she killed Meredith Kercher

Nonsense. I don't look at it emotionally.

unless you can specifically link the behavior to the crime in a logical fashion, as per the above discussion of entanglement.

I think I do that.
It is exactly the rationalist in me that does not allow me to accept their version. Because it is not credible.

We have physical evidence about what happened in the room.

Partially.

We know that Guede was there.

Yes.

We have an adequate explanation for Meredith's death.

Partially. For example, Guede's entering the house is not explained satisfactorily in this version.

By Occam's Razor, we should not postulate any more guilt to go around without a compelling reason.

Yes, but we have compelling reasons. The problems with the Lone Killer theory and the problems with the pair's versions.
The Occam's Razor principle says only that we can choose the simpler of otherwise equivalent explanations. If the more complicated version is better than Occam's Razor does not apply.

Now, in view of what we know from many other cases about coercive interrogations, false confessions, and -- most importantly -- the general fallibity of human memory and the fact that people are very easily manipulated -- ask yourself whether you think that whatever scenario you came up with in the first step above is so vastly more likely than any alternative that
it requires us to assume that a 20-year-old female college student with no criminal history is somehow complicit in the murder of a roommate with whom she had nothing but friendly relations

I don't have to assume it, I know it from my experience that this could be reality.
To this day I don't know why one of my roommates wanted to stab me on a New Years Eve party, all this without any previous quarrel, conflict, whatever with him.
We both happened to be 20 years old university students...
My best guess is alcohol fueled unfounded jealousy.

If you think your scenario truly is that much more likely than the alternative of "Knox's statements are complete nonsense uttered with no malice or intent to deceive

It was not malice, she did not want to hurt Lumumba. Simply she did not care what happens to him.

produced by aggressive, coercive, and manipulative police interrogation

This is the standard defence mantra for retracting any inconvenient previous statements made to the police. It must be part of the lawyers' bar exam.

Amanda confirmed it in her spontanoeus statement to the police. And then kept to it to the very day of Lumumba's release.
What are you talking about?

 

[bolint]

I see. What were they cleaning up / covering up?

Clean up: Corridor, bathroom, kitchen.
Cover up: Staged break-in.

 

[Diocletus]

In Memory of . . .

Anyone know that song by the Allman Brothers, "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed"? I never knew Elizabeth Reed, of course, but when I think of her, I think of that wonderful song. That's a nice way to make a memory for someone.

On the other hand, I also never knew Meredith Kercher. And when I think of her, all I think of is a hateful, inane website that purports to be "In Memory of Meredith Kercher".

Wouldn't a song have been nicer?

PS: Did any of those people actually know Meredith Kercher, such that they have a "memory" of her???

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Hampikian on the appeal system in Italy

Here.

 

[Draca]

Clean up: Corridor, bathroom, kitchen.
Cover up: Staged break-in.

I'm intrigued by your kitchen response.
What would have been cleaned up in the kitchen?

 

[Draca]

Here.

Great article, I'm impressed with Hampikian's graceful comments on the Italian judicial system.

"The DNA expert was impressed by the Italian justice system which it believes is proving very effective and fast on appeal. "The Italians gave us Galileo, the father of modern science, but there are also demonstrating how to do a trial on appeal." Hampikian argues that contrary to what happens in the United States "the Italian system allows a genuine process of second degree, the court wisely can make use of independent experts, truly independent, as has happened with this case. And 'a triumph for the Italian justice system, I was very impressed by the speed with which everything happened."

I would disagree with the speed, but the Italian system does make getting an appeal easier. IF Amanda and Raffaele hadn't been held in prison during the whole process it would seem more fair. The first trial I having nothing good to say about.

 

[Draca]

Yes, the cottage is the only reasonable destination for someone heading in that direction. Someone could decide to walk down the road in a traffic lane, but if a car shows up there is no place to get out of the way. If I recall correctly, there is a sign telling pedestrians to go up the parking lot ramp.

Given the time, it's almost certainly Meredith. She leaves Sophie at 8:55, and attempts to call her mother one minute later. But at that time, she is on a narrow street and her phone doesn't connect to the tower. From where she left Sophie, it's about 500 meters to the cottage. She does not take the shortcut, a dark tunnel to the upper parking lot deck, so the walk home takes a bit longer. (The CCTV image shows her coming from the right direction for the longer route). She passes in front of the CCTV between 9:01 and 9:03 and heads down the driveway to the cottage. Rudy Guede is already inside.

Kestrel,

This sound right to me, you've laid this out very nicely.

I don't know much about the long way vs. short way home. It should be about a 4 minute or so walk from Sophie's place. Accepting Sophie's statment that she was home by 8:55 p.m. this timing fits. Katody's description also matches what MK was wearing that night.

 

[bolint]

I'm intrigued by your kitchen response.
What would have been cleaned up in the kitchen?

Being there.
The kitchen is the hub of the cottage.

Even in the Lone Killer theory there is some cleanup to be made there.
See Rudy's mentioning that he drank from the juice bottle in the refrigerator.
This was a preventive explanation for the case they find his DNA on it.

 

[bolint]

Given the time, it's almost certainly Meredith.

Hadn't been for the skirt.

 

[Kaosium]

Clean up: Corridor, bathroom, kitchen.
Cover up: Staged break-in.

How did they clean up the corridor without smearing Rudy's barely visible shoe-prints in blood (remember they were walking over them awhile until they noticed) and the entirely invisible prints that would be picked up with luminol?

Why not clean up the bathmat too if you think that print is Raffaele's?

If you think it's Rudy's, why did Amanda lead the cops straight to it, as well as the mess in the toilet, and then sign papers with Patrick's name on it after an all night interrogation?

What makes you think the break-in was 'staged?' If someone were to 'stage' a break in, why wouldn't they just throw a rock through the window from outside, open it up, and brush glass off part of the sill? Sixty seconds of work.

 

[Dan O.]

Occam's Razor

When it becomes necessary to invent a cleanup to explain a lack of evidence and then invent a cleanup of the cleanup to explain a lack of evidence of the cleanup, it is time to consider that you just possibly might be on the wrong track.

 

[Kaosium]

I think I do that.
It is exactly the rationalist in me that does not allow me to accept their version. Because it is not credible.
*snip*

Bolint, what did you find credible about the police version? That is, a compilation of the testimonies of Domino, Zugarini, Napoleoni, Ficarra and Giobbi.

Remember, at the end of it you must explain how the two statements lead to rushing out to arrest Patrick, interrogating him while under arrest and no lawyer or tapes of the session, then packaging all three of them up for a ten car sirens-blaring/lights flashing parade through Perugia and the infamous 'Cased Closed' statement with the immortal words about her 'buckling and giving a version of the facts we knew to be correct.'

Yes, but we have compelling reasons. The problems with the Lone Killer theory and the problems with the pair's versions.
The Occam's Razor principle says only that we can choose the simpler of otherwise equivalent explanations. If the more complicated version is better than Occam's Razor does not apply.

When you add two college kids with no history of violence to a rape murder with someone they barely met, with no compelling evidence to support it, you're definitely multiplying entities without necessity.

There hasn't been a challenge to the Lone-Killer theory in quite some time. What do you now find as actual positive evidence anyone else was involved?

This is the standard defence mantra for retracting any inconvenient previous statements made to the police. It must be part of the lawyers' bar exam.

That might be because it sometimes happens. It also might be why there are Miranda laws in the United States and why Italy has stringent laws regarding the interrogation of suspects.

Amanda confirmed it in her spontanoeus statement to the police.

No, she didn't. That note is a contemporaneous record of her state of mind when the police were done with her, and she's not 'confirming' anything. Taking things out of context can absolutely change their meaning.

And then kept to it to the very day of Lumumba's release.

Where did you ever get the idea that Amanda's opinion on the matter was solicited or relevant? If the police hadn't realized it with her note, or the conversations with her mother they were taping, do you suppose they were honestly waiting for a girl barely out of her teens who wasn't admitting to the murder to 'clear' Patrick? How hard do you suppose a real police force would laugh in that situation, that a silly girl thinks the police are going to let someone they suspect of murder go because the one they think complicit with them and won't confess says he didn't do it?

Even if she'd wanted to, her lawyers might have told her not to as it would cause the police to think she was even crazier than they already did.

Keep in mind until they lose in the Supreme Court they were pretending that was a 'confession.' They don't retcon it into primarily an 'accusation' until later.

 

[komponisto]

Of course I did not take it into account as it was irrelevant.

If you seriously think that an essay called "What is Evidence?", on a blog whose topic is how to reason properly and avoid making mistakes due to human cognitive biases, is irrelevant, then you are pathologically incapable of determining what is relevant and what isn't. In which case I suppose it's not much of a surprise that you can't think straight about this case.

I take it as an insult that you suggested reading such utter nonsense:

(1) What happened to Patrick was really crappy.
(2) What happened to Patrick was caused by Amanda.
(3) Therefore, Amanda did a really crappy thing to Patrick.
(4) Therefore, Amanda is a really crappy person.
(5) Murder is something that really crappy people do.
(6) Therefore, Amanda must have committed murder.​

Nonsense it is; however it is exactly what is going on in the brain of nearly every person who presents "She accused an innocent man!" as an argument in favor of the proposition that Amanda Knox killed Meredith Kercher. I'm glad you wish to disassociate yourself from this thinking, which however is positively ubiquitous among those who believe in guilt.

Here you are:

She learns that Raffaele no longer protects her.
She learns that he has even placed hard evidence against her.
And still for some reason they keep asking her about the unrelated Lumumba.
She thinks that Raffaele may have said that she went to Lumumba's bar or even that he may have lied that Lumumba had killed Meredith.
Either she wants to gain time to think or she decides to go with Raffaele's supposed version, in both cases she names Lumumba.​

I think this version is more likely than the version "they asked her to imagine what happened and she accused Lumumba to satisfy their will".

I will say this for you: you are at least willing to acknowledge that the police are the ones who brought up Lumumba.

However, you did not complete the task. You started not only with Amanda already in the police station, but with her having been "informed" that "Raffaele was not protecting her"; you were supposed to causally link her statements back to her having been present in the cottage. What you described above fails to do that -- your interrogation scenario could apply pretty much regardless of where she was that night! So I'm afraid you'll have to try harder.

(This, by the way, is where you need to understand the entanglement article on Less Wrong. You would not have made this mistake if you had read it and understood it.)

unless you can specifically link the behavior to the crime in a logical fashion, as per the above discussion of entanglement.

I think I do that.

Unfortunately, you didn't, as discussed above.

It is exactly the rationalist in me that does not allow me to accept their version. Because it is not credible.

What prevents it from being credible?

Partially. For example, Guede's entering the house is not explained satisfactorily in this version.

It doesn't need to be. The DNA proves he was there. (Plus, he admitted to being there, for those who fallaciously weight that sort of thing more.) His presence provides sufficient explanation for Kercher's death, which is the unusual event that needs to be explained.

Once that has been explained, there is no longer anything "unusual" left to explain. By which I mean: if you want to present some other fact to cast doubt on the (Guede alone) theory, it has to be just as unusual -- just as demanding of an explanation -- as Kercher's death itself.

Nothing at the scene meets this standard. Every argument in favor of multiple actors -- crime scene details, behavior, etc. -- implicitly reasons from the premise that there was a murder. This is fallacious. The murder has already been explained away by Guede's presence. To suspect Knox or Sollecito, you either need to connect them to Guede, or you need truly extraordinary evidence of guilt (the same amount you would need if you didn't know Meredith was dead); slightly puzzling details subject to interpretation (such as all the arguments alleging staging) will not do.

The Occam's Razor principle says only that we can choose the simpler of otherwise equivalent explanations. If the more complicated version is better than Occam's Razor does not apply.

No. Occam's Razor never "does not apply". It is a mathematical law, which ultimately reduces to the fact that P(A&B) is always bounded from above by P(A).

Now, what is true is that "simplicity" is not a function merely of the number of people being postulated. It might sometimes be the case, for instance, that it is simpler to assume that a murder was committed by three people than that it was committed by one. But what the laws of probability theory say is that you can only find yourself in this situation as a result of very unusual evidence.

I don't have to assume it, I know it from my experience that this could be reality.
To this day I don't know why one of my roommates wanted to stab me on a New Years Eve party, all this without any previous quarrel, conflict, whatever with him.

Here you are saying that you do not believe the type of crime being hypothesized by the prosecution is particularly unusual. You are factually incorrect about this as a matter of statistics, New Year's Eve anecdotes notwithstanding. (And once again, you are secretly sneaking in the fact of the murder itself to provide plausibilty for the theory. As explained above, this is illegitimate -- unless you are regularly terrified of all 20-year-old language students without criminal backgrounds.)

It was not malice, she did not want to hurt Lumumba. Simply she did not care what happens to him.

Do you think most people like Amanda (20-year-old exchange students) are this callous? What evidence is there that Amanda is? (Remember, no vicious circles: you can't use your theory as evidence of itself!)

This is the standard defence mantra for retracting any inconvenient previous statements made to the police. It must be part of the lawyers' bar exam.

Is this an argument, or a snark? Do you have the slightest clue what you're talking about? Do you know anything about the subject of harsh interrogation techniques or false confessions?

Are you under the impression that there is some law to the effect that the most incriminating statement a person makes is the most likely to be true?

Amanda confirmed it in her spontanoeus statement to the police. And then kept to it to the very day of Lumumba's release.

You are misinformed. Amanda was clear in her note that her "memories" were not to be trusted. And the police didn't ask her what she thought about Lumumba between her arrest and Lumumba's release.

What are you talking about?

Exactly my question for you.

 

[Justinian2]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/amanda-knox-hopes-home-christmas/story?id=13974676

"At times I cry and remember the first days," Knox said to Ghirga. "I was young and didn't understand all this. But now there's a light, the hope to be free. The hope of spending Christmas in my America."

She also repeated that she is innocent of Kercher's killing.

"I did not kill her. I will never tire of repeating this. We lived together, we were friends, I would never have harmed her. I too want to find out who killed her," Knox told her lawyer, La Repubblica newspaper reported.

That kind of answers my question. I was wondering whether Amanda was going to use her Italian fluency in Italy or just come back to the States to be free of bad memories and threats of a fascist court system.

My America, Amanda says My America.

 

[Kaosium]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/amanda-knox-hopes-home-christmas/story?id=13974676



That kind of answers my question. I was wondering whether Amanda was going to use her Italian fluency in Italy or just come back to the States to be free of bad memories and threats of a fascist court system.

My America, Amanda says My America.

"Knox and her family have other legal battles. She will be in court on Monday as her lawyers try to block the Lifetime movie "Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy" starring Hayden Panettiere from airing in Italy. Her lawyers also want Google and YouTube to remove clips of the movie from the internet and seek more than $4 million in damages. "

I still don't like this, at all. The idea that a court in Italy can decide what movies Hollywood is allowed to make or what is allowed on the internet is obscene to me. I think that sort of sublime arrogance needs to be rectified posthaste. With extreme prejudice.

 

[Rolfe]

"I too want to find out who killed her."

You dim bird, we all KNOW who killed her. It's daffy remarks like this that some people take the wrong way.

Rolfe.

 

[komponisto]

"I too want to find out who killed her."

You dim bird, we all KNOW who killed her. It's daffy remarks like this that some people take the wrong way.

Rolfe.

You know, I had the same thought.

Unfortunately, although Amanda is a serious and intelligent young woman, she does not have any understanding of the psychology of those who suspect her. This was her problem from day one. It never crossed her mind that people would deduce guilt from the kind of things they do.

In her mind, I think she's avoiding "being judgemental" or "confrontational" by directly accusing Rudy. (If this quote is actually accurate -- remember it's second hand, and then through a translation.) What she means to say is "I, more than anyone, want justice for Meredith and her family."

 

[Rolfe]

You horrible people, you've got me reading that thread at PMF now, despite the atrocious colour scheme that makes me see double. I'm not sure whether to be complimented or insulted.

Quite a few long-time JREF'rs have ambled into the discussion and strongly oppose the convictions. It's not only a few of them and it confirms a suspicion I've had about exactly the level of critical thinking employed over there. In the end, Fiona, it's just a board like any other. Nobody is really any smarter than anyone else.

And--this is the worst violation--a small amount of understanding about a topic + Google-Fu = credible expertise. That's virtually a JREF law.

This is wrong for so many reasons it scarcely bears analysis.

But the JREF is a perfect example of why there are experts and why there are mere skilled amateurs in this world. Almost all the long-time JREF players (including several moderators or former moderators) have come to the conclusion that there can only be two outcomes in this case:

1] Science is right and Knox and Sollecito will be freed.

or

2] The Italians are medieval barbarians who don't know anything and Knox and Sollecito will continue to remain in jail.

That's the false dichotomy they've buttressed over and over again because they seriously overstate their qualifications in assessing or researching scientific subjects. I saw it presented again today while on a brief visit by one of the most respected anti-homeopathy voices at the JREF.

None of them will admit that they might be mistaken, the Italians might also understand science, and both Knox and Sollecito are guilty of murder. That option doesn't occur to them because they're trained to copy and paste URLs instead of thinking critically. That's long-time JREF'rs we're talking about and not the current crop of Bruce Fishers™.

The complaint is raised several times that the long-time JREF members who have wandered into this thread support innocence because the thread only presents that side. Well, if that's true, whose fault is it? I agree I incline to the opinion the students had nothing to do with the murder, because that's the argument I've seen clearly laid out here. I've asked to have the case for guilt explained to me, and I've seen others ask, but nothing coherent has been said. Occasionally, "well what about this, and what about that, then?" Well, what about them?

I simply don't recognise this thread or this forum in the above quote. I'm perfectly willing to believe anyone at all killed Meredith Kercher, presented with actual evidence. At the moment, what's coming out is about the equivalent of "but Megrahi told lies to a journalist, and had a passport in a false name, how can you possibly suggest he didn't murder 270 people?!"

I don't think I'm trained to "copy and paste urls instead of thinking critically". What I am trained to do is keep an open mind, and change my opinion as new information emerges. What I see on PMF is people who are extremely unwilling to consider a different viewpoint even as the evidence changes.

I was surprised to read that Fiona didn't know what RT-PCR is, but I suppose, why should she. But then she went off and googled it, and has now written a long post trying to explain how the results from the bra clasp really do show a large amount of Raffaele's DNA, and the only reason the evidence is on shaky ground is because the documentation was inadequate.

Er, wait a minute....

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, if only one side is presented here, and the only reason the innocenti case looks good is because the much better case for guilt isn't getting an airing, why doesn't someone just present it?

My position, and I've said this several times, is that the murder occurred at or soon after nine o'clock. I understand the basis for the original guilty verdicts was that the murder occurred at 11.40. Well, it didn't. If that doesn't completely scupper the case, someone needs to explain to me why not.

Rolfe.