Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[platonov]

I didn't say it was necessary; I implied that it was sufficient.

Another invisible edit ! OK.

Necessary or sufficient - I don't see how such sophistry helps your point so lets drop it.
Unless you want to defend the 'Serious Business' argument from a logical perspective.

Now, how are we doing on the Questions I asked above ?

 

[PhantomWolf]

You think.

OK - that's good enough for me !

As expert witnesses go your arguments are on a par with those of halides1 and Rolfe.

Simply Irrefutable.

So Platonov, perhaps you might like to have a shot at answering my question, since it appears that others that believe in guilt aren't.

What would it take for you to come to believe in reasonable doubt?

 

[Mary_H]

Another invisible edit ! OK.

Necessary or sufficient - I don't see how such sophistry helps your point so lets drop it.
Unless you want to defend the 'Serious Business' argument from a logical perspective.

Now, how are we doing on the Questions I asked above ?

I don't suppose you would be willing to clarify which questions you want answered by copying and pasting them in a new post, would you? (If you provide a link to your previous questions, then I will know your answer is no.)

I like what Chris said -- that you haven't provided any counterarguments for whatever it is you claim other people are claiming.

LondonJohn wrote: "Again, I would suggest that Stefanoni either needs extensive retraining and re-evaluation (and probably needs to work under supervision for a year or two), or she needs to leave the front line of DNA testing."

He's being very generous, and you call it nonsense.

Randy N. goes much further, saying Stefanoni likely belongs in jail, for illegal activities.

I bet you think that's nonsense, too.

Frank Sfarzo says it wasn't Stefanoni's fault -- the prosecution put the DNA there for her to find.

Even I know that's nonsense.

So where does the truth lie, platonov? What did Stefanoni do to mess up those reports so badly? Were the knife and the bra clasp just accidents? Did lightning strike twice in the same forensics lab?

 

[HumanityBlues]

I recall posting several comments on that blog and all of them were deleted.

I as well have left comments.....

This is my favorite:

"After one hearing, Maresca even used sarcasm to get his point across. Speaking in regard to whether or not more than one person was involved in the killing Maresca said, “If it was only one person then that person had more than two hands.” He later answered that question much more directly: “…the attack [on Kercher] was strong, and repeated, and carried out by more than one person.”

Did you hear that? This guy is so amazing he even used sarcasm at one point!

He forgot to add the part where Maresca, upon hearing the witnesses claiming Bongiorno had offered money for a sex change in exchange for a favorable sentence, Maresca said it sounded "credible". That is truly his finest moment. Proof that he will say literally anything.

I have only read excerpts of his book on Amazon, but it's pretty much as follows: and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, repeat.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

counting method

What I meant to say was, somebody please save me from looking this up, but are they only talking about Raffaele's Y-chromosome haplotype being possibly on that bra catch?

How many distinct y-chromosome haplotypes are there anyway? Is this any better than saying there was type A-positive blood at the scene and the suspect is A-positive?

Rolfe.

Rolfe,

John Butler's textbook (Forensic DNA Typing, pp. 213-214) says "the observation of a match with Y-STRs does not carry the power of discrimination and weight into court as an autosomal STR match." Budowle and coworkers suggest using a counting method that is similar to mitochondrial DNA analysis. I do not plan on contributing many comments over the next few days.

 

[Dan O.]

"After one hearing, Maresca even used sarcasm to get his point across. Speaking in regard to whether or not more than one person was involved in the killing Maresca said, “If it was only one person then that person had more than two hands. ...”

So we can rule out that a paraplegic was the lone attacker.

 

[Justinian2]

Recently they solved a cold case that had been cold for 54 years!

After a young man had killed a 7 year old girl, he became a police officer and escaped prosecution his entire life. He is now 71 and just being indited.

At least the American system didn't prosecute the wrong person and either execute him or let him languish in jail for 54 years.

I also think people are weird that would rather spend life in prison than face execution or suicide. Some of the guilters think that Amanda is lucky to be serving a 26 year sentence rather than death. That the appeal is likely to be won is the only hope better than suicide.

T

 

[Rolfe]

Rolfe,

John Butler's textbook (Forensic DNA Typing, pp. 213-214) says "the observation of a match with Y-STRs does not carry the power of discrimination and weight into court as an autosomal STR match." Budowle and coworkers suggest using a counting method that is similar to mitochondrial DNA analysis. I do not plan on contributing many comments over the next few days.

Thanks. I wonder why there would be only a y-haplotype, and no autosomal DNA? Are they suggesting the source was semen? But even so, there should be somatic cells in it. And x-haplotype as well. I'm a bit hazy how they recover just y-chromosome material.

And, it just might have been there. And if it was, it just might have been Raffaele's. This doesn't sound very convicing to me.

Rolfe.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

no differential extraction

Thanks. I wonder why there would be only a y-haplotype, and no autosomal DNA? Are they suggesting the source was semen? But even so, there should be somatic cells in it. And x-haplotype as well. I'm a bit hazy how they recover just y-chromosome material.

And, it just might have been there. And if it was, it just might have been Raffaele's. This doesn't sound very convicing to me.

Rolfe.

Rolfe,

Again this is an interim comment. Y-STR typing avoids the need to do differential extraction of cells, so I see no reason to believe that the source was semen. My take on the autosomal DNA on the clasp is (provisionally) that it is not that Raffaele's DNA is definitely not there; it is that one should not conclude that it is there. This view might be different from other commenters here.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

peak threshold cutoff

Kaosium,

I only found two unattributed peaks (drop-ins) in the knife profile; therefore, it is not obvious to me that the issues raised in using the reference profile would be as severe as they are for the clasp. One of my complaints about the analysis of the knife is one that you touched upon; one would have to make an exception after the fact to one's rule of rejecting all peaks below a threshold of 50 RFU in height (if that is the cutoff Dr. Stefanoni used). That raises the question of forensic bias, as I have argued previously.

 

[Kaosium]

Kaosium,

I only found two unattributed peaks (drop-ins) in the knife profile; therefore, it is not obvious to me that the issues raised in using the reference profile would be as severe as they are for the clasp. One of my complaints about the analysis of the knife is one that you touched upon; one would have to make an exception after the fact to one's rule of rejecting all peaks below a threshold of 50 RFU in height (if that is the cutoff Dr. Stefanoni used). That raises the question of forensic bias, as I have argued previously.

Which kinda suggests she must have had a picture of what she was looking for, otherwise she'd have obeyed the 'too low' proscriptions and not have moved her RFU threshold....

 

[Fine]

My understanding is that there is a civil portion to the case that will run concurrently with the criminal one. There are still some arguments on this that have not been settled by the court from what I recall.

______________

Rose,

There is (or was) an argument over which regional court would hear the case. Here's a brief summary of this case: Summary

I believe that the crimes have been compounded by the copying of the police video. Originally aired by Telenorba in April 2008, the video could still be seen online as recently as March 2010. That's when I saw it.

///

 

[Dan O.]

I'm a bit hazy how they recover just y-chromosome material.

They simply use tags that only target alleles on the y-chromosome. Everything else is still there, it just doesn't light up.

 

[LondonJohn]

Rolfe,

Again this is an interim comment. Y-STR typing avoids the need to do differential extraction of cells, so I see no reason to believe that the source was semen. My take on the autosomal DNA on the clasp is (provisionally) that it is not that Raffaele's DNA is definitely not there; it is that one should not conclude that it is there. This view might be different from other commenters here.

Yeah, this is how I read things too. The comparison with blood group matching was quite a good one, in my opinion (although y-haplotype matching is more accurate than blood group matching). Everyone can visualise a scenario (which was very common before DNA profiling) where a prosecutor would say "The perpetrator had type AB+ blood, and Mr X (the defendant) has AB+ blood"; then the defence would say "Ah, but around 5% of the population has AB+ blood, so there are very many people other than Mr X who may have committed the crime."

Sollecito's y-haplotype would be shared by a significant proportion of the population of Italy (I don't know the precise percentage, since I don't know exactly which haplogroup Sollecito belongs to). So if his haplotype was found, it's consistent with his DNA being on the clasp, but it doesn't prove that his DNA was on the clasp.

BTW, there are some hilariously inept DNA-related discussions going on at the moment over on "DSK Rape File", in tandem with the to-be-expected dollops of illogical rationalisation and confirmation bias. Only thoughtful seems to at least understand the significance and meaning of the DNA report - although even she is still firmly wearing the "confirmation bias" spectacles regarding the wider matter of conviction/acquittal.

 

[Rolfe]

They simply use tags that only target alleles on the y-chromosome. Everything else is still there, it just doesn't light up.

Oh, I see. Do you know why?

Rolfe.

 

[RoseMontague]

______________

Rose,

There is (or was) an argument over which regional court would hear the case. Here's a brief summary of this case: Summary

I believe that the crimes have been compounded by the copying of the police video. Originally aired by Telenorba in April 2008, the video could still be seen online as recently as March 2010. That's when I saw it.

///

Thanks, Fine. I guess the discussion was over holding it in Perugia or Puglia but the civil case (led by Maresca) has been combined with the criminal and Meredith's parents are wanting compensation. At least that is the way I read it.

 

[el buscador]

Frank has a new article up:

http://perugiashock.com/

Along with a lot of other things he claims that: ‘NAPOLEONI WAS PASSING DOCS TO THE JOURNALIST’

So is she the master leaker in the case?

 

[RoseMontague]

TJMK has an article up by The Machine called A Deeply Ugly, Inaccurate And Callous Piece Of Junk By Nathaniel Rich In “Rolling Stone”. Personally I thought the article was pretty good, not perfect, but not bad. It is a little bit silly, in my opinion that The Machine uses a phrase to describe this article that many would use to describe his postings.

In any case, I thought I would go through the "false claims" list (I think I have seen some such list before) one by one to see if they really deserved the status of "false claim". I had started with Number 9 (no, not the read the Massei report meme) which dealt with Mignini and the claims of a ritualistic murder:

False Claim 9: Mignini suggested that the victim had been slaughtered during a satanic ritual

Another Knox cult myth. He did no such thing. Mignini has never claimed that Meredith was slaughtered during a satanic or sacrificial ritual, and that’s the reason why neither Nathaniel Rich - or anybody else for that matter - has been able to provide a verbatim quote from Mignini.

Mignini specifically denied claiming that Meredith was killed in a sacrificial rite, in his letter to the Seattle reporter Linda Byron:

“On the “sacrificial rite” question, I have never said that Meredith Kercher was the victim of a “sacrificial rite”.

You can see the discussion on the old (Michael PMF) and it really did not generate much discussion so I am moving it here. I did provide a verbatim quote from Mignini and my conclusion is that there is some truth to the claim and that Mignini is a bit whacked.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/masonic-theory-that-put-knox-in-the-dock-981759.html

Let's look at some of the other "false claims" listed. Feel free to give your thoughts on these. I want to talk about Number 2:

False Claim 2: A provincial police force botched one of the most intensely observed criminal investigations in Italy’s history

A Knox cult myth. Nathaniel Rich attempts to disparage the investigation in Meredith’s murder with the smearing claim that it was seriously botched (it wasn’t) and by a provincial police force. Nathaniel Rich is trying to insinuate that that the police officers involved in the investigation were unsophisticated. However, again he only succeeds in revealing his ignorance of even the most basic facts of the case.

Two separate police departments from the Italian equivalent of the FBI in Rome were heavily involved in the investigation into Meredith’s murder: a forensic team from the Scientific Police led by Dr. Stefanoni, and the Violent Crimes Unit, led by Edgardo Giobbi.

I am not sure that The Machine is really addressing the claim. Mr. Rich is aware that there were other police forces involved, that is clear in the article itself:

Had the lovers waited for the carabinieri, a series of catastrophic blunders would likely have been avoided. For starters, the carabinieri would have prevented anyone from tramping through the crime scene. The two postal-police officers, however, allowed themselves to be led through the house in search of clues by a band of child sleuths out of Scooby-Doo. For there were now six of them in all — shortly after the officers showed up, two cars had arrived with Romanelli, her boyfriend and a third couple, friends of

So it is the local cops that get this particular criticism. These are the ones that let Filomena contaminate the scene of the alleged "staged break-in" despite the officer declaring they thought it was staged from the beginning.

Dr. Mignini in the interview with Graham that I recently posted is not very complimentary towards the local cops and he should know from experience. He indicates that the scientific police told him that the locals made mistakes in the crime scene. He also indicated a lack of professionalism, a passion to get things done (sounds like Scooby-Do bounding all over the crime scene), a lack of patience in declaring the case closed after just a few hours.

My conclusion is that the claim that this is a false claim is also false. There is truth in the Rolling Stone article regarding this fact.

 

[zeb]

Slander

LJ you say it up to the knoxs parents to prove to the court that did not slander the police force in Perugia.
this I agree with you 100%, but shorly the defence can ask for real real facts that the police are hiding something and demand the interrogation tapes to be played, if the police force could not prove or cannot release these tapes would it not end in a stale mate.
and there is no case to answer to.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

mixtures are problematic

Oh, I see. Do you know why?

Rolfe.

Rolfe,

I am not sure that I understand your question. I think that the reason to target regions on the Y-chromosome is that in a sexual assault, you might have a mixture between alleged victim and alleged perpetrator in the autosomal DNA. One can sometimes do a differential extraction of cells when semen is present, but I am under the impression that this extraction does not always work. It may be time again to state that the interpretation of mixtures adds an element of subjectivity. Or putting it another way, if two forensics personnel disagree in their interpretation of a mixture, it is not necessarily the case that one is dishonest or incompetent (references available upon request).