Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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I'm not completely sure you would be the person I would go to for an expert opinion on what is rational.

Mr. Kercher is definitely wrong about a number of issues of fact, and definitely wrong in thinking that there is proof beyond reasonable doubt that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were in any way involved with the murder of his daughter.

Then again, perhaps any of us would feel the same way if we lost a child and then someone dangled a few million dollars in front of us and told us that we got to keep the money if one particular suspect did it. I'd like to think I'd retain the faculty of rational thought in such circumstances but then again we'd all like to think that. Heck, all sorts of demonstrably irrational people would like to think that they were rational in the first place.

I agree with lionking for suggesting that excessive certainty in some situations is irrational. I am certain that Amanda is innocent, I am just not certain what the verdict will be.

I think you would retain rational thought after a loss. People that lose a loved one to murder don't change their mind after their loss. If they had reason to be against the death penalty before their loss, they will have the same reasons after their loss. (I might change my mind if I lived in Norway)

I am also certain that you will never reply to this, because you never have replied to my comments. Why change now?
 
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Are you suggesting she took a shower and then used a bloody bathmat to cross the hall?

You find it strange, don't you.
So do I.
And for some reason Amanda told this amazing "bathmat boogie" story to Mignini in the Dec 17 interrogation that was requested by herself and was conducted in the presence of her lawyers.
 
Everyone can say what they want. But you are falsely suggesting that there is a moral equivalency here. The difference between Kercher and the Knox/Sollecito families, is that Kercher is wrong.

Is it "unusual" that he is wrong? I don't know. And it doesn't matter. Wrong is wrong. And, the wrong in this case is contributing to the lengthy incarceration of two innocent people--a very serious kind of harm.

It would be nice if somebody in Coulsdan, UK had sat down with Kercher and explained this to him, since he seems to have been duped by his lawyer.
Okay well I prefer to continue following the appeal to its conclusion.
 

Thanks for that Rose. It was interesting looking back to those heady days of, er, last November, when Machiavelli was able to say with enormous confidence:

Machiavelli said:
Amanda and Raffaele will be convicted again, probably within the next month.
There is no doubt they are guilty.

Although, to be fair, he's probably posting the exact same words this month as well.
 
Wouldn't you be? A lot of money can be a strong motivator.


Indeed. And yet Lionking thinks it is somehow "unsceptical", as well as disgusting and without evidence, to contemplate the possibility that anyone might conceivably be so motivated.

On the contrary, I think it is profoundly unsceptical to dismiss the possibility. It is profoundly unsceptical to refuse to contemplate an obvious possible motivator on the grounds that you find it "disgusting". And it is profoundly unsceptical to claim that something is "without evidence" when there is circumstantial evidence pointing in that direction.

The thing that's unsceptical is the proposition that Mr. Kercher is such a saint that the realisation he will be rich beyond most people's wildest dreams if Rafaello Sollecito is convicted of Meredith's murder has never even entered his head.

Rolfe.
 
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Have any of those arguing for guilt ever proposed a detailed narrative of what they "believe" happened that night? Have any even offered a time of death?

It seems like all we are getting is vague personal beliefs.
 
In the context of your comments relating to Brits posting here, I don’t think Antony, Matthew Best or LondonJohn would agree with you, I am in a majority of one.

I can't speak for everyone in the UK - only for myself. All I can really say is that people I've spoken to face-to-face have, mostly, seemed to agree that it was a thoroughly dubious prosecution.

If Draca has made a study of the responses in the comments sections of UK newspapers, compared with Italy, and concluded there is more ill-informed hatred from UK respondents, then that's something I find interesting. I wouldn't necessarily argue with it.
 
I see the UK media as much as you do, and I don't see any lack of the Kerchers' point of view being put forward. Meredith as a person has been very sympathetically portrayed, and rightly so.

I don't see anyone denying Mr. Kercher the right to speak about the case. However, I agree with those who believe it is inappropriate (to put it no more strongly) for him to speak out saying that the Knox family should have no right to say in public that they believe their daughter is innocent. The implication that Knox and Sollecito should be denied the right to the automatic second trial and simply jaled on the basis of the preliminary verdict, because he believes the judicial process is denying him "closure", is frankly monstrous.

I feel for the man, I really do, but when blind emotion prevents him from seeing that the case against Knox and Sollecito was always flaky and is now collapsing in a heap, then sympathy for his ordeal gives way to a desire to shake him till his teeth rattle.

Rolfe.
Is this the section you are referring to?

Quote from Daily Mail:

“This appeal, like the initial court case, will drag on for months, while the dark tunnel between my family and our ¬ability to grieve for Meredith in peace becomes ever longer.
If Knox doesn’t get the result she wants, our agony will be even more ¬protracted: she may then take her case to Italy’s Supreme Court in Rome. Put simply, our ordeal could go on for years.”

End quote.

If it is then my interpretation is that he is clearly writing about the slow legal progress and the impact it is having on his family. Most of the article is about Meredith the person as opposed to the how we all know her.
 
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Have any of those arguing for guilt ever proposed a detailed narrative of what they "believe" happened that night? Have any even offered a time of death?

We're working with bolint (glad to see him back) on such a reconstruction, IIRC he accepts the ToD of around 21:00.
 
Thanks for that Rose. It was interesting looking back to those heady days of, er, last November, when Machiavelli was able to say with enormous confidence:


Originally Posted by Machiavelli
Amanda and Raffaele will be convicted again, probably within the next month.
There is no doubt they are guilty.


Although, to be fair, he's probably posting the exact same words this month as well.

I have seen zilch from Machiavelli lately.

On the computers, additional evidence emerges that there is a log kept whenever a key is touched. It evidently activates a keyboard light and a log is kept of this. This would cover any action on the computer, not just the things that can be seen with the software the cops used. The police computer frying expert missed this one as well.
 
If Knox doesn’t get the result she wants, our agony will be even more protracted: she may then take her case to Italy’s Supreme Court in Rome. Put simply, our ordeal could go on for years.


Is that what I'm referring to? Probably, I was speaking generally.

I think that's a pretty :rule10 thing to say, quite honestly. He's not talking in general terms about the slow nature of the Italian justice system, which is probably bugging the accused a lot more than it's bugging him by the way, he's not stuck in jail during the years he should be completing his education. He's specifically talking about Knox looking for "the result she wants", and expressing resentmant that she might take her case to a higher court.

Just because he has lost his daughter in tragic circumstances doesn't mean he's a saint, or above criticism. I don't think some of what he's been saying is very nice at all.

Rolfe.
 
"Vengeance"? Cut it out.


Vengeance is the desire to harm or bring consequences to someone who has harmed you. Vengeance is the reason for Maresca. Or, are you suggesting that there is some other reason for Maresca?
 
It is strange how some posters passionately argue that Raffaele and Amanda’s parents have a right to speak out about the case as they see it, but somehow when Mr Kercher does the same thing it’s wrong, should anyone really be surprised that he believes in the prosecution’s case is this unusual in some way?

Why is it strange? I think the differences between the situations of Meredith's family, and the families of Amanda and Raffaele, have been explained to you clearly enough. There is no parallel to be drawn.

Amanda and Raff's families are fighting for their loved ones' freedom and to clear their names, entirely reasonably. John Kercher has nothing to fight for that isn't thoroughly distasteful; if it's not the Sollecito money, then what?
 
The quote from Mr. Kercher that really gets to me is this one:

There are many more factors, almost 20 in all, among them the suspicion that there may have been something ritualistic about Meredith’s death. The prosecutor was criticised for mentioning this, but she was killed on the eve of the Day of the Dead, November 2. Sollecito was said to have Japanese manga comics that described the rape and killing of female vampires. Meredith had been dressed as a vampire to celebrate Hallowe’en.

This convinces me that he is willing to believe anything that confirms his chosen course of action.
 
I read it differently; he seemed fed up of Amanda’s parents on or in the UK media, quite natural if he feels his family’s pain and loss are being ignored and his daughter’s murder being forgotten by the media. Just as Amanda’s parents have been publicly defending their daughter Mr Kercher clearly wanted people read about his family view and as I have said know something of Meredith other than a murder victim.

It is strange how some posters passionately argue that Raffaele and Amanda’s parents have a right to speak out about the case as they see it, but somehow when Mr Kercher does the same thing it’s wrong, should anyone really be surprised that he believes in the prosecution’s case is this unusual in some way?

The difference is he prejudged them, and then his lawyer attempts to use every opportunity to silence and punish the families of Amanda and Raffaele. It is quite a bit different to defend someone than it is to attack the families of the two accused. I don't see how you can equivocate them.

As for the articles, the part about Meredith would hardly be discomfiting, it's the part about him expressing that he's made up his mind already without due process, he doesn't think she should be allowed (the mandatory) appeals, that people speaking out in her defense are 'cultists' and by giving a vague blessing to TJMK/PMF which never saw a cheap shot it wouldn't take at either family.

Just because he's the father of the victim doesn't mean that the accused don't get their day in court, that 'innocent until proven guilty' does not apply, nor that he can adopt the standards of the lynch mob without censure.

Maresca is party to the suits and charges against Amanda for daring to tell her side of the story, Amanda's parents for trying to tell her side of the story, and the Sollecitos, again for trying to tell Raffaele's side of the story. There's no universe where this is 'commendable' behavior. It may be legal, but there's nothing dignified about it, and there's no pretending it won't have consequences just by wishing that is so.

Lemme put it this way: which parts of his interaction would you prefer be left out of the movie? The big one I mean, the one perhaps written off of Grisham's book. Do you really want to be sitting there in the theater as they watch the sequence of events unfold and find that Maresca is involved in every reprehensible attack by the prosecution on the families of the accused? Do you suppose that would garner him sympathy with the audience?

Do you really want the audience watching as Maresca is participating in the persecution of the Sollecitos for Raffaele's father supposedly using his 'influence' to get on TV, while John Kercher is even more probably using his 'influence' as a former tabloid writer to write articles in the Daily Mail, Star and Times condemning them in no uncertain terms and writing something to the effect that it pains him that people think them innocent implying they should shut up and go away? The Times would be the same paper that got Amanda's parents charged for this piece, of which no-one has been able to point out the offending passage that could mean jail time for them. That article is almost six months before charges were filed! Does that mean they objected to the very idea of Amanda voicing a defense?

How about the part when Maresca is hugging the villain, Mignini, over the bogus DNA evidence? How do you suppose that's going to play with the folks in the theater? Or how about every sleazy line in court, as Maresca plays the prosecution's bitch pitbull?

There's a concept know as 'innocent until proven guilty.' It's one a few nations have found wise to adopt, even Italy as of late. It perhaps should have been remembered by those who chose to take such an aggressive posture on such ridiculous charges. Especially as that mindless embrace of the ludicrous notion that Meredith died in some bizarre ritual was just made up by the crackpot last seen digging up bodies checking pants sizes, looking for Satanic cults responsible for cases twenty or thirty years cold.

You can believe this commendable all you wish, it won't change what those audiences are going to think, if the whole story gets told in the movie. Personally I'd prefer it was not, my suspicion is John Kercher was used by Mignini and Maresca, and I can understand why he might have been susceptible to it. Just like those journalists he got played and it might never have occurred to him Mignini would lie to him, he supposedly has quite a commanding visage in his element, and in the end I think the Bad Guys here are the players and not the played.

Just for curiosity's sake is there anything you would consider 'not commendable' that the Kercher's could do, short of physically attacking Raffaele and Amanda in court? How about they show up and throw rotten eggs, that wouldn't damage them much, would that be also commendable? There's not much more they can do, short of physical violence, that's more damaging to them than supporting the trumped-up charges of the corrupt prosecutor as he tries to silence criticism of the railroad he's engineered. They could end up in jail, that's the worst most countries do these days--to those who do violence.

This isn't just me being mean Coulsdon, I'm just pointing out the obvious. If that movie is ever made--telling the whole story--in the end audiences may wonder just what makes the Kerchers think they have a license to attempt to deny justice to the accused, and destroy two additional families.
 
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Then how did they avoid them? You've seen what this hall looks like, right?

Or wait, are you arguing they just didn't do a 'clean-up' of the hall?

Yes. The problem area was the corridor and the bathroom.

Why, when they just called the police? At first they said they thought they were the Carabinieri they'd called, a pretty natural assumption.

Yes, but they arrived too quickly after the call, in 2 minutes, and immediately started to talk about the phones.



If I recall her e-mail correctly she mentioned it there, though from a cursory search I couldn't find it in the requisite section of Massei.

Massei p105:
"The witness testimony of Monica Napoleoni proceeded in the hearing on February 28, 2009.
...
To a related question put forward by the defence of Raffaele Sollecito, she confirmed the information content of November 5 in relation to which, upon arrival at the house in Via della Pergola on November 2, Raffaele Sollecito had told her: "My girlfriend has now remembered and told me that when she went into the bathroom this morning by herself there were feces in the toilet and that when we returned to the house it was no longer there‛ (page 22, hearing of February 28, 2009)."



She told it to Napoleoni through Raffaele obviously after the discovery of the murder.
As it turned out Raffaele even lied about it for some reason.


However, the point was why would she lead the police straight to evidence of Rudy Guede that she could have easily destroyed by actually doing a clean-up?

Well, the cleanup was never directed to destroy Rudy's traces.
It was directed to make Amanda's cockamamie story at least minimally credible about her shower and not suspecting anything, etc.

"She must know that people's DNA can be traced, she grew up in a world where such knowledge is commonplace.

Think about it for a second, outside the murder room there's not much actual evidence, it would have taken maybe five minutes to mop that floor down with bleach, then to wipe up the bathroom. Why would she have left all that of Rudy, then brought it to the attention of police, but when she gets panicked she mentions Patrick?"

You could equally ask even in the full innocence version why she left Rudy's souvenir in the toilet in the first place.

As for naming Patrick, she evidently could not name Rudy. Naming specifically Patrick is best explained through her knowledge of what Raffaele knows about it, I think, as I have written above.




"Well at least it was proven it was possible for the glass to broken in that pattern from a rock thrown from the outside, Massei gets points for thinking outside the box with his 'bank shot ballistics,' but the entirety of the glass pattern falsifies that, are you just wondering about the big pieces on the sill?"

Yes, and the formation they are placed in.

I mean, if anyone is going to go to that much trouble to figure out how to make it look like someone broke the window from the outside, why not just throw the damn rock from the outside as they left and could flee the area, immediately being able to disappear into those trees?

Not much figuring out took place.
The window was broken, not necessarily with a rock, and a rock was thrown into the room through the door.
It is much more silent and less visible than to throw a rock from outside.
 
Okay well I prefer to continue following the appeal to its conclusion.

It's also a fallacy that the truth can't be ascertained until some court tells us how it adjudicates this case. So, wait if you want, but I don't think that John Kercher will ever accept that Hellmann's decision means that Kercher was wrong all along. But he was.
 
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