Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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Lothian said:
:id:


No wonder these threads get moderated.

Quick tip. Posts are looked at in isolation. You may have actually detailed his/her arguements and explained why they are wrong elsewhere but the above post to me looks like a classic rule 12 breach.
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Well, I'd hate to disagree with you, but it looks to me like I am attacking the argument and not the arguer. Where do you see a personal attack on the arguer taking place? Am I calling the poster ignorant or incoherent, or one specific "argument" made by that poster? I am clearly discussing a specific post (and one, funnily enough, which is essentially composed of a succession of personal attacks on those who have researched and debated the ToD issue).

Thanks for the quick tip though. I love the smell of condescension in the mid-afternoon.... :D
 
Strange way of showing respect

This is how TJMK shows respect for Meredith Kercher. This is Kermit's way of showing readers that Meredith's DNA is on the blade. But remember, it's all for Meredith!

 
Diocletus said:
Yes, Hellmann will have to determine a TOD.

With Curatalo gone, 11:30 doesn't make sense anymore.

Also, 10:30-11:15 is out, due to the broken down car.

Then, we have the phone activity at 10:00-10:15. So, 10:00 is a TOD bookend.

9:00 is the other bookend.

Therefore, Hellmann will conclude that Kercher died between 9 and 10. It's very simple, really.

If he wants to put a finer point on it, he will go to stomach contents and/or Rudy's Skype. They point to around 9:15.
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Ah yes, I forgot about Guede's Skype call in my list of reasons for a pre-9.30pm ToD.

For those who are unfamiliar with the issue, Guede made a Skype call to a friend in Perugia while he was on the run in Germany. The police recorded the call because the friend had known that the police were looking for Guede and had agreed to help them by setting up the call.

Anyhow, in the call Guede takes his first stab (ETA: no pun intended) at constructing a narrative of events in which he's not a perpetrator but merely an innocent bystander who was sitting on the toilet listening to his iPod when Meredith was being killed. But there are a few notable time stamps during the conversation, which have potentially high significance. The first one is that Guede states that he met up with Meredith by 9pm - which is of course when Meredith got home from her friends' house. And the second one is that he claims to have heard Meredith scream (while he was sitting on the toilet in the large bathroom) at around "9.20-9.30".

Now, the reason why this second time is particularly interesting is that Guede states that the scream was load - loud enough, in his version, to have been heard from the street. There is therefore a strong possibility that Guede was aware that the scream might have also been heard by one or more earwitnesses outside the cottage, and that this is why he needed to account for it in his version of events. It also provided Guede with a point in his narrative to jump up from the toilet ("I heard the scream and jumped up to find out what was going on" etc). Of course, the likely truth is that it was Guede himself who was stabbing Meredith at this very time.

In my view, therefore, I think it's possible to make a strong argument that Guede's Skype call is a significant indicator that Meredith was indeed attacked before 9.30pm. It's very telling, in my opinion, that Guede made specific reference to the scream being loud enough to be heard from the street. I believe he was worried that someone else had indeed heard the scream, and so he therefore needed to include the scream - and its timing - in his "I didn't do it" narrative.
 
pilot padron said:
Oh Dear, OMG, Oh Dear

How could Judge Hellman not pay appropriate acclaim,homage and heed to the game changing 'get out of jail immediately', (or at least at any hour or at least to house arrest), information posted in so many of the 58,345+ posts here and confirmed here by:
1) A Library Card Holder
2) A Googler
3) A teacher of 7th grade *gifted* students
4) a communications engineer
5) A Vertical Gardener
6) A Veterinarian
7) A) self produced, self submitted You Tube

Apologies if I missed any other holders of higher post graduate degrees and professionally renowned TOD pontificators from here.

RE your concluding question:
One cannot even imagine Judge Hellman could possibly ever overlook this in light of information from the above sources here.
But in that ever so remote 'idiot like' instance; yes, all the information from the appropriately PhD holders and fully professionally accredited experts from the first trial is thereby accepted as accurate and certainly can be used by jurors at this level.

But this is really no cause for concern.
After all, these same above sources have unequivocally proclaimed..."It is over" and the "truth has set them free"..... at any hour.:cool:
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Pilot!

Glad to see you're back for a bit.

How do you know all of the evidence from the first trial is accepted as accurate? Is it because it hasn't been reviewed by any Hellman-appointed experts? What if Hellman just doesn't think it was all that damning in the first place?
 
DrDave said:
From what I am reading here, the majority of posters are of the opinion that the case (for guilt) is falling apart - coupled with your point about their presumed innocence, why are the defence not pushing for release from prison (or maybe why are they not succeeding)? I gather there's roughly another month of this trial still to go so it seems harsh to keep them in if in the eyes of the law they are innocent and if some (most?) of the crucial evidence for guilt has been shown to be lacking.

Can anyone who is more closely following events explain this apparent disconnect?
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Until (or unless) they are acquitted, the same rules apply. They have been legally innocent ever since their arrest on November 6th 2007. But the courts ruled that the severe nature of the crimes, coupled with potential flight risk, meant that Knox and Sollecito have had to spend the entire pre-trial and trial periods in custody. In that respect, absolutely nothing has changed: just because the appeal trial seems to be moving in their favour, nothing has changed in law: they are still on trial charged with very serious offences.

Therefore if it wasn't appropriate to release them on house arrest in November 2007, July 2008, December 2009 or October 2010, it's still not appropriate to do so in August 2011. That's the nature of the system (for right or wrong). I happen to think that they were detained in custody for the correct reasons (even though we now know that the initial detention order was made on substantially false allegations from the prosecutors).

Given my take on Italian criminal procedures, I think the courts had little option but to remand them into custody from November 2007 until now and beyond. They will only be released if (when) verdicts of not guilty are reached by Hellmann's court. If that happens, it will be a crying shame that four years of their lives will have been essentially lost - but that's an unfortunate byproduct of the system I'm afraid.
 
pilot padron said:
Oh Dear, OMG, Oh Dear

How could Judge Hellman not pay appropriate acclaim,homage and heed to the game changing 'get out of jail immediately', (or at least at any hour or at least to house arrest), information posted in so many of the 58,345+ posts here and confirmed here by:
1) A Library Card Holder
2) A Googler
3) A teacher of 7th grade *gifted* students
4) a communications engineer
5) A Vertical Gardener
6) A Veterinarian
7) A) self produced, self submitted You Tube

Apologies if I missed any other holders of higher post graduate degrees and professionally renowned TOD pontificators from here.

RE your concluding question:
One cannot even imagine Judge Hellman could possibly ever overlook this in light of information from the above sources here.
But in that ever so remote 'idiot like' instance; yes, all the information from the appropriately PhD holders and fully professionally accredited experts from the first trial is thereby accepted as accurate and certainly can be used by jurors at this level.

But this is really no cause for concern.
After all, these same above sources have unequivocally proclaimed..."It is over" and the "truth has set them free"..... at any hour.:cool:
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I think this is more a reaction to this. You clearly lost that argument----and in degrading fashion to boot. Do you really have NO response to this? Or have you just decided to let the egg on your face dry?
 
Lothian said:
....and they laughed at CoCo the clown.

You are taking the wrong starting point. You are starting with Amanda Knox being innocent and that is preventing you undertaking any rational analysis.

You see a guilty verdict as questionable (wrong) but a not guilty verdict as 100% proof she is innocent.

I could give you a list of guilty people found not guilty. The cases you list mean nothing.

The fact is innocent people sometimes are found guilty and guilty people are sometimes found not guilty.

If Amanda Knox is found not guilty don’t make the mistake of assuming that means she is innocent. The beyond reasonable doubt burden of proof required in most criminal jurisdictions is high. The prosecution have a higher bar to jump over than the defence. Logic dictates there is far more chance of a guilty Amanda being freed than an innocent Amanda found guilty.
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You are conflating the legal term "guilty" with the factual term "culpable" (i.e. "the person actually did commit the crime"). And, worse, you're conflating the legal term "not guilty" with the factual term "innocent".

Let's set it out in logic. Suppose a murder was committed. Suppose we are omnipresent, omniscient beings, and we know for a fact that Mr A committed the murder, and that Mr B did not commit the murder. So, using the terminology above, Mr A is culpable, and Mr B is innocent.

Suppose that both Mr A and Mr B are tried for the murder. Mr A could be found guilty (correctly), or he could be found not guilty (also usually correctly, if there was insufficient evidence to prove his guilt). Mr B could be found not guilty (correctly) or he could be found guilty (totally incorrectly, since if he was innocent there should - by definition - be insufficient evidence to prove his guilt). Therefore only one of these four verdict possibilities can be definitively said to be incorrect. The other three are usually correct in law (and in ethics).

Note, however, that if Mr A is found not guilty, then he is indeed innocent in law (and in ethics) - even though we happen to know (through our omnipresence and omniscience) that he was in fact the culprit. There is a rule in jurisprudence that you may or may not be familiar with: innocent until proven guilty. If Mr A cannot be proven to be guilty, he must - by definition - be presumed innocent.

And that leads me to a very interesting portion of your post, where you state:

You are taking the wrong starting point. You are starting with Amanda Knox being innocent and that is preventing you undertaking any rational analysis.
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In fact, the entirely correct approach to take is one that starts with Knox - and Sollecito (Remember him? He's the other dude currently on trial for the murder? Maybe you hadn't heard of him though.....) - being presumed innocent. It's therefore at the heart of rational analysis - quite contrary to your argument.

And lastly, you've tied yourself up in knots again over the difference between acquittal and innocence. An acquitted person is presumed innocent, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are actually factually innocent (going back to our omnipresent, omniscient powers of observation). But from both a legal and ethical perspective, we are required to presume that the person is innocent - to do otherwise would strike at the very heart of a proper system of criminal justice.

To flesh this out, I cannot be totally certain that Knox and Sollecito did not participate in the murder. And I've said this many times. I would indeed have to be an omnipresent, omniscient being in order to know this for sure. Unfortunately I do not possess such divine powers. In the absence of an unimpeachable alibi*, only Knox and Sollecito (and probably also Guede) know for sure whether or not they are factually innocent. But that's fine. I am highly confident that there's insufficient evidence of their guilt to convict, and therefore I'm happy to presume innocence on that basis (as the law and ethical consideration requires).

* Although if Sollecito's laptop log data were to be shown to reliably place him in his apartment during the whole night of the 1st/2nd, that would constitute a good enough alibi for me to consider Sollecito factually innocent, and for me to be near-certain of Knox's factual innocence too.

ETA: I see that halides made a very similar rebuttal to the one I've given above, but I hadn't read it when I wrote my post. Apologies for somewhat of a duplication of argument!
 
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DrDave said:
From what I am reading here, the majority of posters are of the opinion that the case (for guilt) is falling apart - coupled with your point about their presumed innocence, why are the defence not pushing for release from prison (or maybe why are they not succeeding)? I gather there's roughly another month of this trial still to go so it seems harsh to keep them in if in the eyes of the law they are innocent and if some (most?) of the crucial evidence for guilt has been shown to be lacking.

Can anyone who is more closely following events explain this apparent disconnect?
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In addition to other answers proffered, I'd note that perhaps they are thinking the media attention that would be visited upon them and they would be unable to 'escape' in a sense were they under house arrest somewhere, might not be helpful to the remainder of the trial. It might be damned tempting for one of them to say something that might not come across very well, and juries in Italy aren't sequestered.

From what I've seen prisons in Italy aren't exactly tiger cages, in fact Amanda's quarters look more like a dorm room. There's reason to believe it might well be different for males, however Raffaele has managed for going on four years now, there's little reason to imperil the result of the trial, and their futures themselves in a sense.

Plus, they're gonna get paid for every last day they spend in jail, first the per-day pittance offered automatically, then what the ECHR is gonna make them cough up. Patrick Lumumba wants 500k Euros for his two weeks in jail, dunno if he'll get that much of course, but simply projecting that out to four years for each suggests a nice figure to start 'negotiations' at... :p
 
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detention prior to conviction

DrDave said:
Can anyone who is more closely following events explain this apparent disconnect?
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DrDave,

Knox might be a flight risk, but Sollecito is no more a flight risk than any other murder suspect is. Knox was also cited for her negative personality, being disposed to following any impulse, being histrionic, and not disdaining "multiple frequentations." I am not making this up. These claims are dubious at best, and not all would justify detention prior to conviction even if true, IMO.
 
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Where are the original documents?

In reviewing the C-V report, you can see that the e-grams that Stefanoni sent to C-V for the knife results are dated Sept. 2008 and later. http://http://knoxdnareport.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/sample-b-run-1.jpg

But, shouldn't there have been e-grams run in November and December 2007, at the times Stefanoni did the extractions and came up with her test results? http://http://knoxdnareport.wordpress.com/contents/examination-of-the-technical-report-on-the-forensic-genetic-tests-by-dr-patrizia-stefanoni/laboratory-analyses-reported-in-the-rtgif-regarding-item-36-knife/extraction-of-dna/

Where are the original documents for the 2007 tests?

Why didn't Stefanoni produce them?
 
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halides1 said:
DrDave,

Knox might be a flight risk, but Sollecito is no more a flight risk than any other murder suspect is. Knox was also cited for her negative personality, being disposed to following any impulse, being histrionic, and not disdaining "multiple frequentations." I am not making this up. These claims are dubious at best, and not all would justify detention prior to conviction even if true, IMO.
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Wasn't she labelled as a borderline psychopath because of her behaviour?
 
LondonJohn said:
You are conflating the legal term "guilty" with the factual term "culpable" (i.e. "the person actually did commit the crime").
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Guilty although I consider in context it is obvious which means which.
And, worse, you're conflating the legal term "not guilty" with the factual term "innocent".
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Innocent, I am using the term innocent for not committing the crime not guilty for the legal decision.

I said "The fact is innocent (meaning innocent) people sometimes are found guilty (meaning legally) and guilty (meaning factually) people are sometimes found not guilty (meaning legally)."

Which is what you say here
Let's se...snip....

And lastly, you've tied yourself up in knots again over the difference between acquittal and innocence. An acquitted person is presumed innocent, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are actually factually innocent
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I am not in knots. I have been talking all the time about factual innocence. I have only just joined the thread. I am not reading it all. My starting point was:
Supernaut said:
They are totally innocent and should be exonerated, not merely found 'not guilty' and released.
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The points I made, after my witty and cool opening are.

You can not know for sure Amanda is innocent
Courts get it wrong both ways.

Seems to me you have now come around and agree with me. Or perhaps you have always agreed with me but made a false assumption that somewhere in my posts above I made a suggestion she was guilty.
 
halides1 said:
DrDave,

Knox might be a flight risk, but Sollecito is no more a flight risk than any other murder suspect is. Knox was also cited for her negative personality, being disposed to following any impulse, being histrionic, and not disdaining "multiple frequentations." I am not making this up. These claims are dubious at best, and not all would justify detention prior to conviction even if true, IMO.
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I think that the flight risk element was hyperbolised for both Sollecito and Knox. I think Knox couldn't have gone anywhere beyond the Schengen countries without her passport (and I am certain that the US State Department would have agreed not to supply her with a replacement passport while legal proceedings were ongoing - it's a totally separate issue from extradition). In any case, both Knox and Sollecito could have been kept under curfew with electronic tags, which would have alerted the authorities virtually immediately if either of them had threatened to abscond.

But I think that the house arrest angle is a slight red herring anyhow. I think that the nature of this crime, and its high profile, virtually dictated that anyone arrested for it would be remanded into custody pending the trial process. Don't forget that it was a pretty vicious murder with sexual elements: I think that any judge who had let those suspected of participation remain within the community would have come under extreme pressure. As I understand it, nearly all murders of this sort - especially if they also involve elements of a sex crime - result in the arrested parties being remanded into custody. Even in the UK, people suspected of murdering their spouses under particular circumstances can be spared custody before any trial and verdict. Similarly, in Italy, it's clearly true that certain types of murder suspect are allowed to remain free pending trial. But I don't see that such a move was ever feasible in this particular case.
 
what the media said

Skwinty said:
Wasn't she labelled as a borderline psychopath because of her behaviour?
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Skwinty,

From Benjamin Sayagh's article "Arrested Abroad,"
Quote
It calls Amanda “histrionic”, states that she had never displayed grief at the murder of her roommate, and is a “restless person who does not disdain multiple frequentations” – i.e. she sleeps around.92 Most importantly, the court also found the requisite “grave indications” necessary under precautionary detention laws that Amanda, Sollecito and Guede had committed a “group homicide” and that she was a danger to the public to commit more violence.93
Endquote

Testimony at the trial showed that Amanda cried about Meredith's murder on at least one occasion (probably more, but my memory is uncertain). Amanda had a normal intimate life for a person of her age. Based on everything I have read, no one who knew Amanda in Seattle would recognize the description above. I am unaware of any evidence that the judges' comments above were influenced in any way by a proper psychological examination. I think the statements made by the intermediate court are a bunch of sexist drivel that are based upon what the media said about her. MOO.
 
Don't go there, girlfriend

Skwinty said:
http://www.google.co.za/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-ZA:official&sa=X&ei=qTk4ToK3N8PNhAfMxICEAg&ved=0CBYQvwUoAQ&q=amanda+knox+psychopath&spell=1&biw=1280&bih=586

So this does not constitute being labelled as a borderline psychopath.

As you were....:D
http://www.google.co.za/search?q=am...s=org.mozilla:en-ZA:official&client=firefox-a
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Coline Covington? Are you trying to turn this into a lighthearted Knox thread?
ETA
Covington wrote, "An entry from the American girl's diary listed seven sexual partners, three of whom she met after she had moved to Italy, excluding her co-defendant, Rafaelle Sollecito. She had had sex with one of the men on the train as she was travelling to Perugia...Meredith Kercher soon began having reservations about Knox, particularly about her bringing 'strange men' to the house." Meredith thought one man (Juval?) Amanda invited over was strange, but he was not Amanda's intimate partner. Amanda did not have sex with anyone on the Perugia-bound train, and indeed had only one other sexual partner in Italy before Raffaele. So the facts that underlie her opinion are false.
 
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Skwinty said:
http://www.google.co.za/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-ZA:official&sa=X&ei=qTk4ToK3N8PNhAfMxICEAg&ved=0CBYQvwUoAQ&q=amanda+knox+psychopath&spell=1&biw=1280&bih=586

So this does not constitute being labelled as a borderline psychopath.

As you were....:D
http://www.google.co.za/search?q=am...s=org.mozilla:en-ZA:official&client=firefox-a
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".....says The First Post's psychoanalyst" :P

Let's start by noting what I wrote in my post. This is what I wrote:

No. She wasn't. Not by anyone qualified to make such a diagnosis.
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You obviously don't understand what is meant by the term "qualified to make such a diagnosis". This does not simply refer to whether the person has any qualifications in the field. It also means that the person should have had direct consultative access to the person being studied, with multiple opportunities to observe, question and test that person, before coming to any sort of diagnosis.

The person making this magazine "diagnosis" was doing so based on what she has read, heard and seen from the publicly-available information on Knox. She has absolutely no first-hand knowledge of Knox, and must therefore know that her "diagnosis" is nothing more than a sham which brings her into quite some disrepute. I suspect that she may have been using the article as an advertisement for her commercial services:

http://www.coline-covington.co.uk/

Either way, she has no basis to make this claim with any professional justification, and she must know that as well.

As you were.....
 
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