Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

Status
Not open for further replies.
As a side note: the reason why I'm primarily concerned with the issue of the legal guilt (or non-guilt) of Knox and Sollecito is that this is the only thing that really matters. And in addition, it will probably be impossible to ever fully ascertain their factual culpability or innocence.

The only thing that matters is whether there is sufficient evidence to find Knox and/or Sollecito guilty (beyond all doubt based in human reason) of the crimes with which they are charged. If there is not sufficient evidence to do so - and I'm personally convinced that this is the case here - then they both should be acquitted. And in law that also means that they are considered factually innocent of criminal acts. It's interesting to have a side debate on whether one thinks Knox and Sollecito were actually involved to any degree (I pretty strongly believe that they were totally uninvolved, but I can't be certain), but this is not the issue that's being addressed in Perugia right now.
 
LondonJohn said:
As a side note: the reason why I'm primarily concerned with the issue of the legal guilt (or non-guilt) of Knox and Sollecito is that this is the only thing that really matters. And in addition, it will probably be impossible to ever fully ascertain their factual culpability or innocence.

The only thing that matters is whether there is sufficient evidence to find Knox and/or Sollecito guilty (beyond all doubt based in human reason) of the crimes with which they are charged. If there is not sufficient evidence to do so - and I'm personally convinced that this is the case here - then they both should be acquitted. And in law that also means that they are considered factually innocent of criminal acts. It's interesting to have a side debate on whether one thinks Knox and Sollecito were actually involved to any degree (I pretty strongly believe that they were totally uninvolved, but I can't be certain), but this is not the issue that's being addressed in Perugia right now.
Click to expand...


PS: Look out for a classic reverse ferret by stilicho on .org on the issue of whether it was a good tactic for Sollecito not to take the stand :D
 
Kaosium said:
...I found a very interesting quote. From John Follain's Times piece, the one that got Amanda's parents charged with libel:

"In December 2006 she posted a story on MySpace in which a young woman drugs and rapes another woman. It reads in part: “She fell on the floor, she felt the blood on her mouth and swallowed it. She couldn’t move her jaw and felt as if someone was moving a razor on the left side of her face.” Her family claims to have spoken to the teacher who made her write this as a course assignment. She was told to write everything that happens right up to a crime. Curt says: “Amanda was graded down because the story she wrote wasn’t dark enough. It wasn’t what the teacher wanted.” University authorities have banned staff from talking publicly about Knox." "


From PMF.net:


"Edgar dropped to the floor and tasted the blood in his mouth and swallowed it. He couldn't move his jaw and it felt like someone was jabbing a razor into the left side of his face. His eyes blurred and became focused intermittently and he gently shook this off, watching his hands until they came into focus. He looked up at Kyle and waited a moment to focus there too. Kyle's hands covered his face."

This is bizarre! Could .net have it wrong? How could they? It would make no sense in the context of the story. In the context of the article it makes the parents out to be liars, or at least disingenuous. What the hell? If anyone's ever noticed, I almost never use double-quotes. That's because I used to post regularly on the board of a British newspaper, and I was tamed! Some stuffy old guy, I always imagined Sir John Gielgud's orotund Shakespearean tones when I read his posts, took one look at my seat of the pants, kinda stream of consciousness, what's grammar (?) style and told me: 'You barbarous colonial, if you're going to use our language you're damn well going to do it right!' He then proceeded to point out every possible flaw in my post, especially my tendency to miss little words in quotes which was unforgivable in his view. I thanked him for the free copy-editing and we went back and forth a little while and I decided I liked the guy, so I held my ground on everything else but decided he had a point on the quotes so I decided to paraphrase almost everything from there on out. :p

However he used to tell me it was very important to get quotes right, especially newspapers, there were laws and such. I've seen LJ say similar things I do believe. So what I'm wondering is how on earth could someone mess up a quote this bad? This piece is going to come up again, it's not some forgotten Mail piece, it's the Sunday Times for crissakes! Wouldn't this have been actionable? How could someone make an error like this? It's summer '08, so I wouldn't think there's be any influence from...elsewhere...but this is bizarre! What's the statute of limitations on libel? Would this qualify? Does the fact the article was written in Seattle make it exempt at this time?

Did he get the quote from a tabloid article when they trashed her with the myspace stuff? Is that how the mistake could have been made? I'm not getting how something like this could have happened in the Times without consequence, and this will come up again.
Click to expand...

Here is what is said to be the "unedited" version of her myspace story:

http://patrishka.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/amanda-knox/
 
Reading that again for the first time in a while, I don't see how anyone can interpret this story as glorifying sexual violence. It speaks out against date rape and taking advantage of girls, in my opinion.
 
After four threads, I wish someone would post a summary of this whole conversation and start over. No one can read through all that except Data from Star Trek.
 
Belz... said:
After four threads, I wish someone would post a summary of this whole conversation and start over. No one can read through all that except Data from Star Trek.
Click to expand...

I believe I recall a poster (VW?) that had claimed to have read every post ever made on the entire forum. If you don't start you won't finish.
 
To boldly split infinitives that no one has split before

Belz... said:
After four threads, I wish someone would post a summary of this whole conversation and start over. No one can read through all that except Data from Star Trek.
Click to expand...
Belz,

Kaosium has written several extensive comments recently with the intention of catching people up. Is there anything about which you are particularly interested?
 
Last edited:
LondonJohn said:
So the passage misquoted by Follain is actually a description of Edgar after having been hit by his younger brother Kyle. It doesn't even refer to the rape that is only ever alluded to in the story.
Click to expand...

Exactly, and the context of Follain's quote suggests the parents are misrepresenting her story, when Follain has completely changed the meaning of it by substituting "she," "her" etc for "Edgar," "him" etc!

Follain Times Piece said:
At Washington University, where she studied Italian, German and creative writing, Knox was again the model student, achieving top marks. In December 2006 she posted a story on MySpace in which a young woman drugs and rapes another woman. It reads in part: “She fell on the floor, she felt the blood on her mouth and swallowed it. She couldn’t move her jaw and felt as if someone was moving a razor on the left side of her face.” Her family claims to have spoken to the teacher who made her write this as a course assignment. She was told to write everything that happens right up to a crime. Curt says: “Amanda was graded down because the story she wrote wasn’t dark enough. It wasn’t what the teacher wanted.” University authorities have banned staff from talking publicly about Knox.
Click to expand...

The original story again:

Amanda's Story said:
Edgar dropped to the floor and tasted the blood in his mouth and swallowed it. He couldn’t move his jaw and it felt like someone was jabbing a razor into the left side of his face.
Click to expand...

Now, the reason I think this more interesting than any other mistake, is this is the piece Mignini chose to use to file the calunnia charge against her parents. Thus it's going to come up again, and this article makes Amanda's parents out to be misrepresenting the story, when in fact it's Follain changing the words in order to completely distort the meaning of the passage. How does someone make that mistake? It's not one word, it's not meaningless in the context of the piece, it's a mendacious distortion of what Amanda wrote. What could possibly have been his original source?

How can Amanda's parents be charged with calunnia due to a quote from a piece that contains a gross error like this? How can they assume any of the quotes are accurate if this one has been mangled so badly and then used to suggest Amanda's parents are misrepresenting her story when in fact it's Follain whose done so?

Does anyone see what I'm getting at? :)
 
Last edited:
Kaosium said:
Exactly, and the context of Follain's quote suggests the parents are misrepresenting her story, when Follain has completely changed the meaning of it by substituting "she," "her" etc for "Edgar," "him" etc!



The original story again:



Now, the reason I think this more interesting than any other mistake, is this is the piece Mignini chose to use to file the calunnia charge against her parents. Thus it's going to come up again, and this article makes Amanda's parents out to be misrepresenting the story, when in fact it's Follain changing the words in order to completely distort the meaning of the passage. How does someone make that mistake? It's not one word, it's not meaningless in the context of the piece, it's a mendacious distortion of what Amanda wrote. What could possibly have been his original source?

How can Amanda's parents be charged with calunnia due to a quote from a piece that contains a gross error like this? How can they assume any of the quotes are accurate if this one has been mangled so badly and then used to suggest Amanda's parents are misrepresenting her story when in fact it's Follain whose done so?

Does anyone see what I'm getting at? :)
Click to expand...

I see.

And, his quote is so off the mark, that I'm tempted to think that it is a google translation of something in Italian instead of an actual quotation of an original piece in English. Remember the reverse-translation of the hypothetical about Raffaele?

Then I wonder, where might Follain have gotten an Italian version of Amanda's myspace story? Hmm.
 
Kaosium said:
How can Amanda's parents be charged with calunnia due to a quote from a piece that contains a gross error
Click to expand...

What a insane set of legal issues this case has spewed, mainly from Mignini.

several of you really put in the time on these details, it amazes me. great question but who can answer it?
 
Diocletus said:
I see.

And, his quote is so off the mark, that I'm tempted to think that it is a google translation of something in Italian instead of an actual quotation of an original piece in English. Remember the reverse-translation of the hypothetical about Raffaele?

Then I wonder, where might Follain have gotten an Italian version of Amanda's myspace story? Hmm.
Click to expand...

Heh...that's an interesting thought, that 'feature' of Google translate has practically driven a railroad spike through my head trying to figure out who was whom if there was a male and a female both in the same paragraph. However it doesn't work with 'Edgar,' that would have to be deliberately changed, it's not going to be rendered 'she' no matter what.

It was the tabloids that tore apart the myspace pages, right? Lemme see if I can find it. Hrm, here's another one of his own pieces from September, when they were building the 'case' against Amanda and Raffaele:

Follain Sunday Times said:
“I got home when she was still asleep, but after having a shower, while I was in the kitchen, she came out of her room with the blood of her costume (a vampire’s) dripping from her chin,” Knox writes in the Italian police translation.

The graphic way Knox describes Kercher’s bloody chin echoes a story she wrote as part of a creative writing course about one woman raping another which included the passage: “She fell on the floor, she felt the blood on her mouth and swallowed it. She couldn’t move her jaw and felt as if someone was moving a razor on the left side of her face.”
Click to expand...

That's the only other reference to that precise wording found with Google. Thus it probably wasn't a mistake due to him using a tabloid source from when they tore apart her page looking to smear her. Oddly enough I couldn't find the other line with Google either, did the tabloids ignore this as an innocuous story? Did they just refer to it salaciously but not quote it as it would have betrayed their smutty spin?

Here's the thing though, it had to come from somewhere, either Follain just deliberately changed it to deceive, or he was given it by someone and just didn't check it. I think the latter more likely, so who would have done so? My guesses would include his picture-pal Monica Napoleoni, or Mad-dog Mignini himself. However, why would Mignini want to bring attention to it by making that piece the subject of the calunnia charge? He must have realized when he filed it people would look at the actual article, I never understood why that one was chosen anyway, what could possibly have been defamatory about it?

He introduced this whole 'rape fantasy meme,' or at least it seems that way with the evidence I've been able to uncover. However it was a regular feature of the online lynch mob's 'talking points,' in fact I saw Bucket of Tea bring it up just the other day. The first Sunday Times article they were still on Steve Huff's crime board, I highly doubt anyone would have paid attention to them then. No, it seems to me this was Follain's own doing, either inventing it or not checking his source. When was Maresca hired, does anyone know? I heard he was picked up earlier than I originally thought, but as far back as July (or whatever) of '08? That wouldn't seem to make sense.

It ought to have been one of the mendacity triplets, Mignini, Monica or Maresca, and I doubt the latter was involved at the time. My money would be on Monica Napoleoni, who of course had her ass in the ringer over the interrogation anyway. Did she deliberately feed disinformation to John Follain? Did he just fail to check? I've heard of him, he's written several books as I recall off the top of my head, and I just heard the one about this case got moved back again to March of next year. It was originally scheduled for June or July of this year, then as it approached moved back to January.

He better do one damn fine job re-writing it, I betcha there will be people just poring over it looking for libels. This is just pathetic! :boggled:
 
Originally Posted by Follain Sunday Times
“I got home when she was still asleep, but after having a shower, while I was in the kitchen, she came out of her room with the blood of her costume (a vampire’s) dripping from her chin,” Knox writes in the Italian police translation.

The graphic way Knox describes Kercher’s bloody chin echoes a story she wrote as part of a creative writing course about one woman raping another which included the passage: “She fell on the floor, she felt the blood on her mouth and swallowed it. She couldn’t move her jaw and felt as if someone was moving a razor on the left side of her face.”
Click to expand...

Note reference to "the Italian police translation." So, perhaps Follain also got his "Edgar" quote out of the Italian police translation and didn't bother checking it against the real version. That would mean that the Italian police translation might be (try to contain your astonishment) screwed up.

But this also raises another issue. Presumably, the Italian police translation is a translation of the English original into Italian. So, how is it that Follain is quoting the Italian police translation in English? He must have had someone reverse translate the Italian police translation? Comical if true.
 
Diocletus said:
Note reference to "the Italian police translation." So, perhaps Follain also got his "Edgar" quote out of the Italian police translation and didn't bother checking it against the real version. That would mean that the Italian police translation might be (try to contain your astonishment) screwed up.

But this also raises another issue. Presumably, the Italian police translation is a translation of the English original into Italian. So, how is it that Follain is quoting the Italian police translation in English? He must have had someone reverse translate the Italian police translation? Comical if true.
Click to expand...

Thank you! I overlooked that. I don't think this is something they could have 'screwed up.' Google may have trouble with male/female pronouns, but real people don't make that mistake. Edgar is pretty hard to render 'She' too. He doesn't mention the Italian police translation in the original June 15th article, and I noted they dis-informed him even more with this:

"In December 2006 she posted a story on MySpace in which a young woman drugs and rapes another woman." That's...ummm....wrong too. Reading through it there's just too many errors to proffer the benefit of the doubt, with the caveat Amanda's writing flits around worse than mine so it's not especially easy to follow, but there's no real way to come to the conclusion it's about a woman raping a woman. No way to imagine how it could be translated that badly either.

This is the case where it's basically Napoleoni, Ficarra, Lugarini and the translators, isn't it? I couldn't find it in a look through Google and the Conspiracy thread, I'm positive I saw it though, I did find a report of when the investigation was filed, right before the verdict. That has the total as six, but I think that was simply an error, it should be five. It does mention Napoleoni, and I'm pretty sure she was one of the instigators; seems she keeps popping up whenever there's dirty dealings...

This should be interesting. The 'heroes' of November 6th in court to try to punish Amanda's parents for that article when it seems the most likely probability is they were involved in making that article fraudulent, either through incompetence or corrupt practices. That seems to be a recurring theme... ;)
 
I'll offer to contribute $100 to any legal fund that sues Mignini for serial calunnia against the Knox family. Were I Trump, I would pay for the entire prosecution of Mignini myself.
 
Kaosium said:
Thank you! I overlooked that. I don't think this is something they could have 'screwed up.' Google may have trouble with male/female pronouns, but real people don't make that mistake. Edgar is pretty hard to render 'She' too. He doesn't mention the Italian police translation in the original June 15th article, and I noted they dis-informed him even more with this:

"In December 2006 she posted a story on MySpace in which a young woman drugs and rapes another woman." That's...ummm....wrong too. Reading through it there's just too many errors to proffer the benefit of the doubt, with the caveat Amanda's writing flits around worse than mine so it's not especially easy to follow, but there's no real way to come to the conclusion it's about a woman raping a woman. No way to imagine how it could be translated that badly either.

This is the case where it's basically Napoleoni, Ficarra, Lugarini and the translators, isn't it? I couldn't find it in a look through Google and the Conspiracy thread, I'm positive I saw it though, I did find a report of when the investigation was filed, right before the verdict. That has the total as six, but I think that was simply an error, it should be five. It does mention Napoleoni, and I'm pretty sure she was one of the instigators; seems she keeps popping up whenever there's dirty dealings...

This should be interesting. The 'heroes' of November 6th in court to try to punish Amanda's parents for that article when it seems the most likely probability is they were involved in making that article fraudulent, either through incompetence or corrupt practices. That seems to be a recurring theme... ;)
Click to expand...


I can just picture them feeding this BS to Follain and then snickering about how badly he would skewer Amanda in the English-speaking press. And then, they finally get their grubby hands on the article and Follain has not just fawningly repeated their lies, but also interviewed the Knox family. This kind of ruined the whole scheme, especially when mom and dad make reference to the smack down allegations.

So some genius decides to sue. But they don't sue Follain, because he would spill the goods about the misinformation the cops were feeding him. He knows too much. They just sue the Knox family, hoping that the police lies will be swept under the rug.

I have always had an inkling that Mignini is the one who really initiated the suit against the Knox family, because it can help only him. If the cops win, then everybody loves him and Amanda's "lie" about the smack down will be debunked. If the Knox family wins, then Mignini just shrugs his shoulders and walks away, leaving the cops looking like the criminals.

The leaks have Napoleoni written all over them. By the way, a recent Perugia Shock article had an oblique reference to Monica Formica, or something like that, making it known that Napoleoni was the leaker. Anyone know what that's all about?
 
Diocletus said:
And, his quote is so off the mark, that I'm tempted to think that it is a google translation of something in Italian instead of an actual quotation of an original piece in English. Remember the reverse-translation of the hypothetical about Raffaele?
Click to expand...

Yeah I had the same thought, and did some searching - I think Follain got it from here:

Cadde sul pavimento, sentì il sangue sulla sua bocca e lo ingoiò. Non poteva muovere la sua mascella e sentiva come se qualcuno stesse agitando un rasoio sul lato sinistro della sua faccia.
Click to expand...
Follain's version:
She fell on the floor, she felt the blood on her mouth and swallowed it. She couldn’t move her jaw and felt as if someone was moving a razor on the left side of her face.
Click to expand...
Google version:
He fell on the floor, felt the blood on his mouth and swallowed it. He could not move his jaw and felt as if someone was waving a razor on the left side of his face.
Click to expand...
The funny thing is that Google gets the pronouns right, so Follain must have altered them himself! In the article it's not clear why the person is lying on the floor, so I guess he just assumed it was the woman who'd been 'drugged and raped by another woman'. :rolleyes:

Another possibility could be that it's a police translation which both Follain and the journalists had access to? You'd have thought the context would've been clear in the full story but perhaps not! It certainly suggests Follain's accuracy and fact-checking leave a lot to be desired...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom