Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Dan O.]

Note that the gate hinges on the left side (as viewed from the outside), then concertinas across the doorway and attaches to the wall on the right side. This photo suggests that the locking point is just below half way down the height of the gate (there appears to be a flange visible on the outer edge of the gate right at the bottom of the photo).

The flange you see is the lower raceway that folds up to be out of the way when the gate is in it's stored position. Though a padlock is an option on thesE gates, the more common configuration is a double key cylinder lock built into the gate.

On november 2nd, the gate is seen partially rotated away from the wall so the outside intercom is visible behind it. When the gate is fully retracted, the doorbell is inaccessible. Also visible on the 2nd is a hole in the brick in front of e right side of the door where a pin on that folding raceway sits. What is notable is that hole is not filled with debris which indicates that the gate had been used recently.

 

[Kaosium]

That's highly-believable, particularly given their antics on the notorious bra-clasp collection video. This was at a time when they badly needed evidence against Raffaele, and their behaviour on the video strongly suggests that they knew the results of the DNA tests at the time. If the bra-clasp, then why not the pillow-case?

That's another thing I've always wondered about, Antony. I think it was Mary H who used to hammer that point home: why are they celebrating this 'finding' when it would seem unlikely that Raffaele's DNA would show up there anyway, at this point knowing they have absolutely nothing else of him in that room? Also, why did they just leave it there in the first place if it was such a damning place to find DNA?

You and Bob have also caused me to reconsider the stain, as I always gave them the benefit of the doubt on this one, being as one of the first people they interviewed was the boyfriend, and I figured they had the 'answer' on that and didn't bother for that reason, and that it might 'confuse' the jury thus why would they want to put anything on paper the defense might exploit?

However, it occurs to me the Polizia Scientifica would have been doing the tests, and it was the Squadra Mobile doing the interviewing as I recall, and you'd think any forensics team would naturally test that as a matter of course. Of course that would suggest they deliberately withheld those results from the defense and then just lied about it....

 

[Kaosium]

I suppose the argument will go along the lines
"right, contamination, right. But we found his DNA on the clasp! What is the chance that it got contaminated by Raffaele's DNA of all? His DNA is nowhere to be found in the cottage, how did it get there, then?"

They will try to distance the discussion from Stefanoni's criminal ineptness by opposing the simple "contamination or not, it is there" against defence's long winding explanations of various paths of contamination.

Can they? I'm trying to clear this up, not be a jerk about it Katody, I was just under the impression this was a review of Stefanoni's work, and if accepted by the court invalidated her findings. As Frank put it, those 'two pieces of paper' would no longer say Raffaele's and Meredith's DNA were on those items, thus they'd be just a knife in Raffaele's drawer and a bra clasp that kicked around the crime scene for six weeks.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Then you suppose the Court will reject the conclusions of the experts? Those two pieces of paper no longer say Raffaele's and Meredith's DNA were on those items. I still haven't seen something that indicates Stefanoni ever put together a legitimate profile suggesting there ever was a scientific reason to believe Raffaele and Meredith's DNA was there.

There is a Y-haplotype corresponding to Raffaele's. By my understanding it's not contested by the experts.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Can they? I'm trying to clear this up, not be a jerk about it Katody, I was just under the impression this was a review of Stefanoni's work, and if accepted by the court invalidated her findings. As Frank put it, those 'two pieces of paper' would no longer say Raffaele's and Meredith's DNA were on those items, thus they'd be just a knife in Raffaele's drawer and a bra clasp that kicked around the crime scene for six weeks.

The prosecution can argue most outlandish things, whatever they fancy. What the court will accept is another thing. The "Dingo ate my baby" case shows that catchy falsehoods thrown in by phony experts are better remembered and easier to assimilate for the jury than perfectly rational but more complex reasoning of the defence.
By the time the of final deliberations the jury might much better grasp the "DNA was on the clasp" then lengthy and incomprehensible quarrels between experts.

In the end it all hangs on the awareness of the defence and Hellmann's wisdom and independence.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Maundy Gregory is taking a more interesting tack on this than his compatriots, and appears able to read Italian, but seems to me to equivocate on Y-haplotype like he was Massei or something, and commits the fallacy where he pretends 13 of 16 is the same as 13 of 13, whatever that one's called, and perhaps no one could ever convince him differently. It's certainly a more interesting contribution than TJMK is making, though his cognition is no less motivated to a predetermined conclusion than theirs it appears.

Ah, Maundy! He is misguided in his overly optimistic assessment of Stefanoni's defensive options. For some reason he dislikes my comments, too, as they rarely get through the moderation there

In my opinion Stefanoni's methods are completely indefensible. That's why the prosecution will try to steer away from discussing them and concentrate on the single thing that experts accepted - the Y-haplotype.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

confirmatory blood test

Kaosium, Katody, and Anthony,

It is also possible that the forensic police did confirmatory blood tests on some of the luminol-positive stains and forgot to tell the defense that they turned up negative. Evidence of multiple failures to report negative confirmatory tests at the North Carolina SBI forensic laboratory was discussed in some recent news articles coauthored by Joseph Neff. The technician thought that such results were misleading. The Lindy Chamberlain case (the dingo stole my baby) is a good example of a situation that could have benefitted from confirmatory blood testing, inasmuch as a presumptive test gave a false positive.

 

[Antony]

Kaosium, Katody, and Anthony,

"Antony", please, not "Anthony"! No connection with the lady Casey!

 

[Chris_Halkides]

more on the D5S818 locus

Stefanoni was asked about an alternate interpretation, one in which a minor contributor would have the alleles 12 and 13. “In response to this question-observation, Dr Stefanoni explained that in this case, it would not be possible to explain the Y chromosome, and thus reaffirmed the correctness of the interpretation she had given.” It sounds as if Stefanoni used her attribution of the Y-chromosome profile to Raffaele to then interpret the autosomal DNA as having his profile. I would very much like to see what Conti and Vecchiotti have to say about this procedure.

I do not know with certainty what she means by "not be possible" and "reaffirmed." The Y-chromosomal test is independent of the autosomal test. If this were not the case, one could not multiply the two probabilities of the suspect matching the evidence together, yet I have read that one can, even though they are calculated differently.

It seems to me that Stefanoni's words allow for two interpretations. One is that she got the desirable-to-the-prosecution result in the end (Raffaele's DNA was present in both tests), so her method of interpretation must be correct. This would still fail to answer the question of what her method actually was. Two is that she identified the Y chromosomal DNA as Raffaele's profile, then used his known autosomal reference profile to identify the peaks in the D5S818 autosomal locus. Neither interpretation puts her in a good light, IMO.

 

[RoseMontague]

Ah, Maundy! He is misguided in his overly optimistic assessment of Stefanoni's defensive options. For some reason he dislikes my comments, too, as they rarely get through the moderation there

In my opinion Stefanoni's methods are completely indefensible. That's why the prosecution will try to steer away from discussing them and concentrate on the single thing that experts accepted - the Y-haplotype.

I have had a couple of recent comments not show up as well.

 

[Katody Matrass]

I do not know what she means by "not be possible" and "reaffirmed." The Y-chromosomal test is independent of the autosomal test. If this were not the case, one could not multiply the two probabilities of the suspect matching the evidence together, yet I have read that one can, even though they are calculated differently.

It seems to me that Stefanoni's words allow for two interpretations. One is that she got the desirable-to-the-prosecution result in the end (Raffaele's DNA was present in both tests), so her method of interpretation must be correct. This would still fail to answer the question of what her method actually was. Two is that she identified the Y chromosome as Raffaele, then used his known autosomal reference profile to identify the peaks in this locus. Neither interpretation puts her in a good light, IMO.

Funny that Massei argues that Stefi was not biased despite having Raffaele's reference profile at hand because she promised not to look
Apparently she took a peek anyway.

 

[Kaosium]

There is a Y-haplotype corresponding to Raffaele's. By my understanding it's not contested by the experts.

This is what has been driving me nuts!

What does that mean? For example, in Massei he starts out with:

The attributability of trace 165B to Raffaele Sollecito derives also from examination of the Y-haplotype in respect of which, as was emphasised, it is not possible to consider any objections whatsoever because the haplotype obtained from the trace present in the hooks emerged from the machine which attributed those numbers and in that sequence.

That sounds to me like a Y-Haplogroup that just somehow gets translated from Italian to English, or is perhaps used colloquially as Y-haplotype. If you go googling for y-haplotype you'll find a lot links that simply interchange the two. That's the sort of thing I can imagine a machine spitting out. It also strikes me as the sort of thing that a defense expert might say of:

Speaking of the Y haplotype, which was also found in specimen 165B, Professor Tagliabracci made no criticism of the reading/interpretation, but emphasised that such analysis could exclude, but not establish, the presence of a given male subject.

As it would kind of like be a blood type of O+ or something, it could exclude but hardly identify. There's kits you can use to take these Y-SNP tests at home, they're hardly complicated. It's the sort of thing Tagliabracci might have said this of:

Moreover, with reference to the haplotype found on the [bra] hooks, no criticisms were advanced (except those, already discussed, concerning collection and contamination) and even Professor Tagliabracci declared that it was a different haplotype from that of Rudy Guede, and compatible with Raffaele Sollecito’s genetic heritage. The problem brought to [the court’s] attention pertains instead to the frequency of this haplotype, which Professor Tagliabracci declared that he knew only with reference to 11 loci, which is seemingly equivalent to 3.36 per thousand subjects.

Note I suspect that figure might well refer to worldwide population, the nature of these means they are highly regional.

What Maundy Gregory is talking about, and what has been posted here regarding the y-Haplotype strikes me as the results of a Y-STR haplotype test. That's the sort of thing that has to be interpreted and Stefanoni might have stuffed up. That's where 'several males' might mean you might be able to put together a profile of just about anyone, but done correctly would narrow it down to a tiny percentage.

There's something wrong here, I don't see how they can say "There was an erroneous interpretation of the electrophoretic profile relative to the Y chromosome" and then elsewhere blithely note that his y-haplotype (meaning the y-str haplotype test) was on the clasp. It occurs to me that the translations we're getting here are highly likely to be the same person doing them, and if they made a mistake in Massei they might well have made the same mistake here, or it could simply be they're used interchageably in Italian, as some do going by that google result I posted.

I haven't seen any evidence so far that they allowed for Raffaele's DNA being on that clasp, and I don't think this qualifies. Something just isn't adding up, if the experts contested her findings in numerous places on the Y-STR test, noting she threw out a dozen or more alleles as stutter, then I simply cannot see why they'd be confirming the results of that test being as with this level DNA they'd have to run the test again anyway going by the standards they seemed to have cited.

Can anyone who reads Italian find the context of that quote where she notes his y-haplotype is present along with that of several other males? Or anywhere else in the report where they might have made such a declarative statement?

 

[Katody Matrass]

Kaosium,

As I see it, erroneous interpretation refers to ignoring the additional (although weaker) alleles on the Y-STR test. C&V basically say that there are additional contributors that Stefi failed to report.

By my understanding Y-haplotype with as many loci basically allows to pinpoint father's lineage of the donor up to the surname. It means it's either Raffaele's, his grandpa's, cousin's, or someone else's related from the father side.

 

[Kaosium]

The prosecution can argue most outlandish things, whatever they fancy. What the court will accept is another thing. The "Dingo ate my baby" case shows that catchy falsehoods thrown in by phony experts are better remembered and easier to assimilate for the jury than perfectly rational but more complex reasoning of the defence.
By the time the of final deliberations the jury might much better grasp the "DNA was on the clasp" then lengthy and incomprehensible quarrels between experts.

In the end it all hangs on the awareness of the defence and Hellmann's wisdom and independence.

However, unlike most evidence, they can't show the 'DNA' in court, they can just say that their scientific prowess has revealed it must be there to an infinitesimal percentage it might not be. The DNA experts are saying, 'no, it's not there, you misused your microscope, we're taking away the certification for your procedure.' At least that's the way I read it.

Otherwise why would it matter what the independent experts said? They'd just be the same as defense experts. The court still has to confirm their findings, but after that doesn't the DNA actually 'disappear?'

 

[Kaosium]

Kaosium,

As I see it, erroneous interpretation refers to ignoring the additional (although weaker) alleles on the Y-STR test. C&V basically say that there are additional contributors that Stefi failed to report.

Yeah, and used all their alleles together to produce Raffaele's profile! That's what I'm getting at, they have to make sure they actually have Raffaele and not a compilation of a buncha other dudes whose allele's can also produce his profile.

By my understanding Y-haplotype with as many loci basically allows to pinpoint father's lineage of the donor up to the surname. It means it's either Raffaele's, his grandpa's, cousin's, or someone else's related from the father side.

If they actually produced that, in an Italian population wouldn't many of the allele's be similar?

 

[Katody Matrass]

However, unlike most evidence, they can't show the 'DNA' in court, they can just say that their scientific prowess has revealed it must be there to an infinitesimal percentage it might not be. The DNA experts are saying, 'no, it's not there, you misused your microscope, we're taking away the certification for your procedure.' At least that's the way I read it.

Otherwise why would it matter what the independent experts said? They'd just be the same as defense experts. The court still has to confirm their findings, but after that doesn't the DNA actually 'disappear?'

They will just hammer repeatedly "the experts confirm the Y-haplotype".

It's up to the defence to make good use of the heavy spanking that C&V dealt to Stefi and the rest of the geniuses that all operated on the crime scene.

I think it's not unreasonable for them to point out that among the incompetence and mishandling there are indications that some malicious sleights of hand to "help the investigation" also took place. It's really not easy to explain Stefi's actions just by extreme ineptness.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

wishing away the alleles

Kaosium,

As I see it, erroneous interpretation refers to ignoring the additional (although weaker) alleles on the Y-STR test. C&V basically say that there are additional contributors that Stefi failed to report.

By my understanding Y-haplotype with as many loci basically allows to pinpoint father's lineage of the donor up to the surname. It means it's either Raffaele's, his grandpa's, cousin's, or someone else's related from the father side.

Katody Matrass,

I think that the same may be true for the autosomal DNA on the clasp. My rereading of the Massei report suggests that Stefanoni was trying to say that all of the peaks that were not Meredith's or Raffaele's were either stutter peaks or fell below the 50 RFU threshold. I don't buy her interpretation for one millisecond, for reasons that I gave yesterday. Besides one's male relatives, I think it is also possible for an unrelated person to match one's YSTR profile, but it is not terribly likely.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

innocent transfer

They will just hammer repeatedly "the experts confirm the Y-haplotype".

Katody Matrass,

The defense needs to counter with the existence of other DNA on the clasp. If that arrived innocently, then Sollecito's DNA could also have arrived innocently, from a number of mechanisms, such as secondary transfer or contamination during collection.

 

[komponisto]

There's something wrong here, I don't see how they can say "There was an erroneous interpretation of the electrophoretic profile relative to the Y chromosome" and then elsewhere blithely note that his y-haplotype (meaning the y-str haplotype test) was on the clasp.

It's pretty clear (to me, at least) that the "erroneous interpretation" refers to Stefanoni's disregarding of the non-Sollecito alleles.

Here is a table from p. 134 of the report (which you may have seen before, I'm not certain):

This pertains to the Y chromosome. The second column from the left is what Stefanoni reported, the third column is Conti and Vecchiotti's reading, and the fourth column ("ALLELES NOT READ") is the difference.

They concede that his Y-haplotype was among those on the clasp. Unfortunately, they do not explain how rare a particular Y-haplotype is. I cannot find any explicit statement that Sollecito's autosomic DNA is represented, even though the situation looks similar, at least superficially.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Yeah, and used all their alleles together to produce Raffaele's profile! That's what I'm getting at, they have to make sure they actually have Raffaele and not a compilation of a buncha other dudes whose allele's can also produce his profile.

Unlike the autosomal STR, Raffaele's profile stands out from the additional alleles. Take a look at pages 132-134 of the report. (ETA compare the table komponisto posted above)

If they actually produced that, in an Italian population wouldn't many of the allele's be similar?

I suppose it is possible that the profile is product of similar overlapping haplotypes. I have no idea what would be the probability of such, but it seems fairly low. Let's see if this argument emerges in court and what the experts think..