Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Supernaut]

I have a few speculations about this puzzle.

1.) When it came to this case, Fiona was biased, as I illustrated in this post. Her bias might have been attributable, at least in part, to the fact that she "fell in with the wrong crowd." She joined PMF on the 11th of December, 2009, which was a week after the OP of the cartwheels thread. Her first comment on PMF included this statement: "I have only been following this seriously for a few days and I have found this site awesome for the wealth of information and the tone as well."

Perhaps they took her under their wing and she became attached to them. The PMF members who have been in the inner circle have struggled painfully with expressing their disagreements, and it is usually very hard on them when they are banned, as everyone who openly disagrees there eventually is.

2.) Fiona had emotional difficulty dealing with certain personalities. She expressed her contempt for me a number of times (which also may be attributable to the onslaught of negative PR I received on PMF when I first started on JREF).

Believe it or not, the argument that finally sent her packing was one with halides1. Is there anyone here who is more rational or more even-handed than halides1? A person has to really want to tangle, to get into it with halides1, and then go to another website and complain about how rude and irrational the JREF posters are.

3.) Fiona was not used to being wrong. I could be completely off base about this, but isn't there a number of discussions on JREF that involve the expression of opinions that aren't necessarily based on fact? I mean, the facts of Sasquatches or psychic phenomena may never be known in our lifetimes, so people must use reason and logic exclusively to reach conclusions about their existence.

In this case, however, facts can be known and facts are known. This is something a lot of the guilters, e.g., Fulcanelli, had trouble acknowledging. Fiona may be good at reason and logic, but in this case, they do not suffice.

I never thought Fiona puzzling at all (although I admit the only posts I’ve read of hers were those on the original “… all because of a cartwheel” thread);

I found her to be pompous and self-important, the archetypal “big fish in a little pond” (PMF is a smaller “pond” than JREF, and rather less challenging intellectually, to say the least).

She got ‘owned’ repeatedly (how rude of everybody concerned) and simply couldn’t take the hit to her self-regard.

I pointed out at the time that she’d weighed in to the discussion before she’d even got Meredith Kercher’s name right, referring to her repeatedly as “Krechner” (until someone finally asked why she was doing it, to which she replied “I’m dumb?”, probably intended as irony) - I myself remember scanning the name as “Kerchner” the first 2 or 3 times I read it, but I cannot imagine holding forth on any subject before I was familiar with such, er, details, and I find it extraordinary that anyone else would do so.

 

[LondonJohn]

If that were the case, why isn't the reporter that printed what they said also charged?

In libal laws that I have looked up, the conditions for libal require that the person making the statement know that the statement is false. In your example, where attributing the statement to "a person in a bar" is itself false makes the statement false and thus subject to libal.

Amanda's parents reported only what their daughter said. They are not attributing this to some undisclosed or unknown party. Also, there is no possibility that they could be reporting first hand knowledge of the event because it was well established that they were on a different continent at the time.

To allow a charge of defamation to proceed against someone for repeating a statement made by someone else will severly limit the ability of the press to report the news. Under such conditions, it wouldn't take long till the press only talked about sports and the weather.

Reporters and publishers are often charged in such cases. I suspect that the Perugia police didn't fancy taking on the well-oiled behemoth that is Rupert Murdoch's News International (owner of The Times newspaper), so they decided to stick to people who could only afford basic legal assistance...

 

[LondonJohn]

This is just the argument about how many hours you count as her being abusively interrogated by the police and whether being denied food and water for a couple of hours counts as abuse and so on.


It isn't unbelievable to me. I don't think I've been arguing that cops are necessarily truthful, or that they have always been truthful in this case. I thought we were talking about Knox's honesty and we somehow are now arguing about whether the cops are honest. Perhaps I'm getting muddled by the several people I'm talking to at the same time again.

Yet again, there is an apparent failure to understand the asymmetry inherent in a criminal prosecution. Imagine if there was a crime in which the only evidence was the testimony of the defendant and the testimony of the victim (or a witness). If the defendant is deemed unreliable in his/her testimony, then it is damaging to the defendant, but usually not enough to secure a guilty verdict*. But if the victim/witness is unreliable, this would be enough to secure an acquittal. If there is any reasonable doubt, the court must acquit. One needs only look at the current DSK case to see this principle in action. DSK lied as well, allegedly - and a pretty serious lie at that.

So the issue of whether the police testimony is reliable is of far more importance to the murder trial that the issue of whether Knox was being entirely straight/consistent in her statements. Of course, if it can be shown that Knox was not being straight/consistent, that is of detriment to her - but it's not indicative of guilt on its own. But if key players in the case against her are shown to be unreliable witnesses, you immediately start to bring in the element of reasonable doubt.

* unless the defendant is caught lying about something fundamental to the case - e.g. claiming they were somewhere completely different at the time of the crime, where that claim is shown to be false.

 

[LondonJohn]

I understand. The debate usually ends with the conclusion that apart from the two statements she signed during the overnight session there is nothing Amanda said or wrote that could be shown to be untrue. I think we can agree on this and wrap it up with the disclaimer that subjective impressions that she is lying about anything or everything else are allowed but are just impressions.

I agree. And it's no coincidence (and no mere legal technicality) that the Italian Supreme Court banned these first two statements as evidence against Knox.

Additionally, I suspect that if Knox/Sollecito were found guilty in the appeal trial (which I find very unlikely), the Supreme Court would take a very dim view of these statements having been heard by the jury in any case, owing to Massei's awful (and probably unlawful) decision to hear Lumumba's slander case concurrently.

 

[Draca]

As a footnote, I still think that the authorities might continue to pursue the case against the Sollecito family and Telenorba regarding the leak of the crime scene video footage, regardless of what happens in the murder appeal. We'll see.....

It's my understanding that Telenorba has not said the Sollecito's leaked the film to them. It is Mignini and Maresca who have claimed this. The Sollecito's have said that they did not give the film to Telenorba.

Mignini said something like "how else did the station get the film?"

I don't know Mignini; how did Amanda's diary get in the hands of the press? How did so many crime scene photos get leaked? And CCTV video of what was not Amanda Knox arriving at the cottage?

I would be very leary of this case......

 

[komponisto]

Translation of Conti-Vecchiotti report begun:

http://knoxdnareport.wordpress.com/

 

[shuttlt]

Yet again, there is an apparent failure to understand the asymmetry inherent in a criminal prosecution. Imagine if there was a crime in which the only evidence was the testimony of the defendant and the testimony of the victim (or a witness). If the defendant is deemed unreliable in his/her testimony, then it is damaging to the defendant, but usually not enough to secure a guilty verdict*. But if the victim/witness is unreliable, this would be enough to secure an acquittal. If there is any reasonable doubt, the court must acquit. One needs only look at the current DSK case to see this principle in action. DSK lied as well, allegedly - and a pretty serious lie at that.

So the issue of whether the police testimony is reliable is of far more importance to the murder trial that the issue of whether Knox was being entirely straight/consistent in her statements. Of course, if it can be shown that Knox was not being straight/consistent, that is of detriment to her - but it's not indicative of guilt on its own. But if key players in the case against her are shown to be unreliable witnesses, you immediately start to bring in the element of reasonable doubt.

* unless the defendant is caught lying about something fundamental to the case - e.g. claiming they were somewhere completely different at the time of the crime, where that claim is shown to be false.

You're jumping far ahead of what I've said.

 

[shuttlt]

I don't know Mignini; how did Amanda's diary get in the hands of the press?

If you look back you find a small amount of material of poor quality coming out early on. Presumably via press conferences, or some similar prosecution/police channel. At that stage it's a few sentences here and there that appear to have been translated from English to Italian and back into English. Within a few weeks (three?) of the first mention of the diaries there is a newspaper story that says the family has released another extract of the diary. I put a bit of effort into this getting on for a year ago probably and from what I could see the family/defense was the source of almost all the diary releases.

 

[shuttlt]

It's my understanding that Telenorba has not said the Sollecito's leaked the film to them. It is Mignini and Maresca who have claimed this. The Sollecito's have said that they did not give the film to Telenorba.

Mignini said something like "how else did the station get the film?"

I don't know Mignini; how did Amanda's diary get in the hands of the press? How did so many crime scene photos get leaked? And CCTV video of what was not Amanda Knox arriving at the cottage?

I would be very leary of this case......

Is your thinking that Mignini gave the video to Telenorba and then filed charges on them, or that if the police were allowed to release material to the press, other people should be allowed to as well?

In any case, is leak the right word? Some information was clearly from the police and unattributed, but were the crime scene photos, CCTV footage and so on "leaked"? I honestly don't remember, I'd have thought a lot of it they could simply release.

 

[Draca]

Been away most of the day and see everybody is on other subjects. Anyway, the Graham-Mignini interview (43 pages) has been posted on my docstoc page. If anyone is interested.

http://www.docstoc.com/profile/rosemontague

Translation of Conti-Vecchiotti report begun:

http://knoxdnareport.wordpress.com/

Komponisto and Rose,

Thanks so much for your work on this.

This is tremendous.

 

[Mary_H]

But ad hominem attacks are not what you're describing here. Ad hominem attacks are those that seek to invalidate a person's argument by attacking the person rather than the argument itself*. If a person arguing about this case makes arguments relating to the case which (s)he cannot defend and which contain logical/reasoning errors, then I think it's perfectly valid to call into question that person's overall credibility when it comes to debating this case. For example, one might argue (incorrectly) that any accusation of confirmation bias could be described as an ad hominem attack. But if there's a demonstrable pattern of thinking that indicates confirmation bias, it's a totally valid and reasonable attack to make.

By the way, Happy 4th July to you and all other merkins


* For example, this example from the wikipedia entry: "You can't believe Jack when he says the proposed policy would help the economy. He doesn't even have a job."

Ad hominem was not the best term to use, but note I said ad hominem analyses, not attacks. I was referring to what shuttlt summed up as, "Either many of the documents, statements, and so on can genuinely support multiple readings - or one or other side are pathological."

This reminds me of the time when stilicho insisted that in Amanda's e-mail to friends on November 4th, 2007, she was commenting editorially on Meredith's sexual practices for the benefit of her reading audience. Just about everyone else said Amanda was recounting that the police had questioned her about Meredith's sexual practices. Despite being shown the context and the exact quote, plus being corrected many times, stilicho continued to maintain that his interpretation of Amanda's e-mail was correct:

"That's the email (to her spam list) where she muses about whether Meredith had anal sex."

"It was Amanda musing about Meredith's sexual practices and she simply wanted to share her 'concerns' with her spam list."

"Amanda wrote it. I wouldn't have even thought it was important. She thought her spam list would enjoy knowing how she felt about Meredith."

"She wrote only about the evidence piling up against her and mused about Meredith's sexual practices and the inconvenience caused to herself by the murder."

"These are Amanda's words. She simply wanted about two dozen people to know that Meredith might be into unusual sex."

"She sent her idle musings about her "friend's" sexual proclivities to her spam list. I stand by that statement as I always have."

Here is the excerpt from Amanda's e-mail:

at the house they asked me very personal questions about meredith's life and also about the personalities of our neighbors. how well did i know them? pretty well, we are friends. was meredith sexually active? yeah, she borrowed a few of my condoms. does she like anal? wtf? i dont know. does she use vaseline? for her lips? what kind of person is stefano? nice guy, has a really pretty girlfriend. hmmm...very interesting....

Can it support multiple readings, or is one side pathological?

 

[Mary_H]

Some people believe her explanation in her "gift" for what she said at the police station isn't absolutely truthful. My recollection is that in court she pretty much stands by what she wrote - she certainly doesn't say anything like RoseMontague's explanation. If the "gift" strikes people as her avoiding giving a straightforward account of herself, surely the trial testimony is likely to as well?

In her trial testimony, Amanda made it clear that the intention of her gift statement was to let the police know that she could not be counted on as a reliable witness against Patrick Lumumba. She wrote a lot of things in the note, but what she stood by in court was that the note was confused and self-contradictory, not a solid basis for arresting someone.

 

[shuttlt]

In her trial testimony, Amanda made it clear that the intention of her gift statement was to let the police know that she could not be counted on as a reliable witness against Patrick Lumumba. She wrote a lot of things in the note, but what she stood by in court was that the note was confused and self-contradictory, not a solid basis for arresting someone.

I'm tired and right now I don't think either of us is likely to benefit from anything the other says. Perhaps this is my failure. You have your reading of this stuff and I have mine. Anyway, I'm going to take a break from the thread for a bit. Hopefully something exciting will happen in the mean time.

 

[Draca]

If you look back you find a small amount of material of poor quality coming out early on. Presumably via press conferences, or some similar prosecution/police channel. At that stage it's a few sentences here and there that appear to have been translated from English to Italian and back into English. Within a few weeks (three?) of the first mention of the diaries there is a newspaper story that says the family has released another extract of the diary. I put a bit of effort into this getting on for a year ago probably and from what I could see the family/defense was the source of almost all the diary releases.

They got her AIDS sex partners list in their hot hands and it was published.

If her family gave the press parts it would be with her permission and trust. They have the right to do that. The police do not have the right to publish portions of her diary with out her permission.

I couldn't say it's not possible the police leaked the video to the station.

Is your thinking that Mignini gave the video to Telenorba and then filed charges on them, or that if the police were allowed to release material to the press, other people should be allowed to as well?

In any case, is leak the right word? Some information was clearly from the police and unattributed, but were the crime scene photos, CCTV footage and so on "leaked"? I honestly don't remember, I'd have thought a lot of it they could simply release.

I think it is possible that the Sollecitos gave the TV station the video; of course not with the intention of the station to be dumb, callous enough to show MK's body. However, I get the impression that people are stating as fact that the Sollecitos did this. They, from my understanding, are denying this. No one should assume they have done this until it's proven in court.

Since the mendacious Maresca and Mignini are involved in this case I can not trust something nefarious isn't going on.

 

[komponisto]

This reminds me of the time when stilicho insisted that in Amanda's e-mail to friends on November 4th, 2007, she was commenting editorially on Meredith's sexual practices for the benefit of her reading audience. Just about everyone else said Amanda was recounting that the police had questioned her about Meredith's sexual practices. Despite being shown the context and the exact quote, plus being corrected many times, stilicho continued to maintain that his interpretation of Amanda's e-mail was correct:

"That's the email (to her spam list) where she muses about whether Meredith had anal sex."

"It was Amanda musing about Meredith's sexual practices and she simply wanted to share her 'concerns' with her spam list."

"Amanda wrote it. I wouldn't have even thought it was important. She thought her spam list would enjoy knowing how she felt about Meredith."

"She wrote only about the evidence piling up against her and mused about Meredith's sexual practices and the inconvenience caused to herself by the murder."

"These are Amanda's words. She simply wanted about two dozen people to know that Meredith might be into unusual sex."

"She sent her idle musings about her "friend's" sexual proclivities to her spam list. I stand by that statement as I always have."

Here is the excerpt from Amanda's e-mail:

at the house they asked me very personal questions about meredith's life and also about the personalities of our neighbors. how well did i know them? pretty well, we are friends. was meredith sexually active? yeah, she borrowed a few of my condoms. does she like anal? wtf? i dont know. does he use vaseline? for her lips? what kind of person is stefano? nice guy, has a really pretty girlfriend. hmmm...very interesting....

Can it support multiple readings, or is one side pathological?

How timely to draw attention to this, when just today the very same individual has been going on about how supposedly incriminating and "evasive" Amanda's testimony was:

They should try to count up the number of "can't remembers/don't knows" in Knox's testimony and other statements. You can practically fill a book with them. When she's asked about something that might look important (to her) then she launches into an elaborate tale. Two examples are the story about switching off her phones and the other one about doing her homework by the elevator. Her alibi email contains a similar story about an unflushed toilet and other "ew" things that distract from the main story about her slain roommate.

Amanda's middle name is Evasive.

She came across so poorly in her testimony that it probably swung any reticent jurors/judges fully against her. A good witness or defendant will answer questions confidently and directly, supplying no more or less information than is required. An evasive witness or defendant tells unconnected anecdotes, weaves elaborate explanations, or claims not to remember easy things such as whether her lamp is really hers.

The statements you quoted are telling context for anyone considering giving weight to opinions such as the above.

 

[HumanityBlues]

Ad hominem was not the best term to use, but note I said ad hominem analyses, not attacks. I was referring to what shuttlt summed up as, "Either many of the documents, statements, and so on can genuinely support multiple readings - or one or other side are pathological."

This reminds me of the time when stilicho insisted that in Amanda's e-mail to friends on November 4th, 2007, she was commenting editorially on Meredith's sexual practices for the benefit of her reading audience. Just about everyone else said Amanda was recounting that the police had questioned her about Meredith's sexual practices. Despite being shown the context and the exact quote, plus being corrected many times, stilicho continued to maintain that his interpretation of Amanda's e-mail was correct:

"That's the email (to her spam list) where she muses about whether Meredith had anal sex."

"It was Amanda musing about Meredith's sexual practices and she simply wanted to share her 'concerns' with her spam list."

"Amanda wrote it. I wouldn't have even thought it was important. She thought her spam list would enjoy knowing how she felt about Meredith."

"She wrote only about the evidence piling up against her and mused about Meredith's sexual practices and the inconvenience caused to herself by the murder."

"These are Amanda's words. She simply wanted about two dozen people to know that Meredith might be into unusual sex."

"She sent her idle musings about her "friend's" sexual proclivities to her spam list. I stand by that statement as I always have."

Here is the excerpt from Amanda's e-mail:



Can it support multiple readings, or is one side pathological?

Touche.

 

[LondonJohn]

Ad hominem was not the best term to use, but note I said ad hominem analyses, not attacks. I was referring to what shuttlt summed up as, "Either many of the documents, statements, and so on can genuinely support multiple readings - or one or other side are pathological."

This reminds me of the time when stilicho insisted that in Amanda's e-mail to friends on November 4th, 2007, she was commenting editorially on Meredith's sexual practices for the benefit of her reading audience. Just about everyone else said Amanda was recounting that the police had questioned her about Meredith's sexual practices. Despite being shown the context and the exact quote, plus being corrected many times, stilicho continued to maintain that his interpretation of Amanda's e-mail was correct:

"That's the email (to her spam list) where she muses about whether Meredith had anal sex."

"It was Amanda musing about Meredith's sexual practices and she simply wanted to share her 'concerns' with her spam list."

"Amanda wrote it. I wouldn't have even thought it was important. She thought her spam list would enjoy knowing how she felt about Meredith."

"She wrote only about the evidence piling up against her and mused about Meredith's sexual practices and the inconvenience caused to herself by the murder."

"These are Amanda's words. She simply wanted about two dozen people to know that Meredith might be into unusual sex."

"She sent her idle musings about her "friend's" sexual proclivities to her spam list. I stand by that statement as I always have."

Here is the excerpt from Amanda's e-mail:



Can it support multiple readings, or is one side pathological?

I think the latter is the correct interpretation......

It's actually very instructive to see the way some of the idiots willfully misrepresent things like this. And the way they make ludicrous comparisons - e.g. comparing Knox to Dennis Rader, Gary Ridgway, Myra Hindley: even if Knox were guilty of the murder of Meredith Kercher (which she likely isn't), this murder was a completely different type of crime to the ones committed by these characters, and the crime-fanatic author of these distortions well knows this.

I also find the obsession with the Wikipedia article on the case to be strange (as I've written before). I can understand that some people wish the Wikipedia entry to reflect certain views etc, but to me it's really not very important. Wikipedia follows events: it doesn't lead them. And that's especially true when the article in question is in the English-language version, and the case is being tried in Italy in the Italian language. If I ever take a quick look at the discussion page for the MOMK article, I am amazed at the length and depth of debate over the tiniest of aspects of the article.

To me, the Wikipedia article is bound to reflect the true position in time. So if (when) Knox and Sollecito are acquitted in the first appeal trial, I predict that the Wikipedia article will change dramatically to reflect this, and within an hour or so of the acquittals announcement. I just don't see why it's that important right at this moment. If Knox and Sollecito are acquitted, they will have little problem rehabilitating their reputations around the world, regardless of what the Wikipedia article says in July 2011.

 

[Mary_H]

Touche.

You had some good arguments in those exchanges, HB; you should go back and look.

Love your new signature, by the way. LOL

 

[LondonJohn]

You had some good arguments in those exchanges, HB; you should go back and look.
Love your new signature, by the way. LOL

Yeah - I wonder how THAT libel case is coming along......

 

[pipelineaudio]

Exactly. There is an impression that you'll get. The prosecution worked hard during the questioning to create that impression. The problem is that when you delve into the substance of the questions and answers you no longer see any evasion. Straightforward answers that the questioners either try to interrupt at once or they pretend they didn't got and ask again to the point where the judge repeatedly says "she already answered, let's move on".

And yet another claim bites the dust. Sadly I doubt that thats the last we will hear of it. Maybe at least shuttit won't use it anymore. Small victories