Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[pilot padron]

Thanks and a sincere well done for Rose

Nope, I only have a few of the transcripts. I like them to come out as well. Here is the one following the last one, I'll try to give you the entire day (Google translation)

Rose, and volunteers:
Your gracious efforts to translate and make these facts available to all of us interested in the case are very, very sincerely appreciated

I also sincerely hope the regretful early objection to adding the PMF volunteer was resolved so that you do receive all transcripts you seek.

This since we have all seen from the Motivations how well intentioned and laboriously produced translations are often unfairly criticized as being biased.
Particularly due to the apparent differing meanings of many Italian words/phrases.

Obviously a translating team so 'thoughtfully' comprised would blunt a lot of the criticism

 

[smkovalinksy]

Just saw this piece on TJMK and am hoping others can refute it better than I. I long to see Knox and Sollecito acquitted, but am a bit pessimistic and do not believe in proclaiming victory before it is certain. Just a bit worried....

. . . the present Knox PR hype is very reminiscent of the hype just before Judge Massei’s blunt and unequivocal verdict was read out.

Our Italian lawyers are not rating chances of a full acquittal above one or two percent. They believe the groundwork for that has simply not been laid. The judges and jury dont have what is needed to upend the detailed outcomes of two trials and two other appeals. And the Italian system is nothing if not very cautious and lacking in surprise.

The Supreme Court has accepted that THREE attackers had to have been present on the night. Not the slightest evidence of any perps other than the three put on trial has been advanced. No scenario has been offered in court for Guede having committed the crime on Meredith alone - in fact Guede accused the other two of being there right to their faces in court.
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php

 

[Grinder]

I was mulling over the door was never locked argument.

After reading a week of discussion of the translation of one word, it seems that Amanda could have meant closed instead of locked or Raffaele might have translated incorrectly.

 

[Grinder]

Shuttlt,

You haven't changed much from your Shock days.

What would you have expected to change since 2009? The police admitting transgressions? A video of the planting of evidence?

The difference is the experts.

 

[LondonJohn]

I was mulling over the door was never locked argument.

After reading a week of discussion of the translation of one word, it seems that Amanda could have meant closed instead of locked or Raffaele might have translated incorrectly.

It appears that this alleged quote from Knox regarding Meredith "always locking" her bedroom door was only heard by Luca Altieri (Filomena's friend's boyfriend, who had come with Filomena's boyfriend to the cottage). Altieri didn't speak much English, and Knox spoke only rudimentary Italian at that stage, so there is ample opportunity for mistranslation to have occurred from either end of the conversation.

 

[Kaosium]

A) At this stage of the process the knife has not been *officially decided* to be anything other than Judge Massei last stated it to be and innumerable others still so state.
B) Albiet, admittedly, your *opinion* about same may now be easier to support than it was last month.

LOL!

Something just occurred to me, something it appears both you and Shuttlt forgot, or were not aware of. Professors Conti and Vecchiotti couldn't perform any new tests, the knife sample was 'consumed in testing' and the bra-clasp 'consumed in storage' (neat trick that!) thus all they could do was check the old work which they invalidated. Thus there never was any DNA on either item, they never should have been allowed in Massei's court. Thus this has been officially decided, which is merely one giant leap towards totally overturning everything decided by the Massei court.


Fancy a swim?

 

[LondonJohn]

Just saw this piece on TJMK and am hoping others can refute it better than I. I long to see Knox and Sollecito acquitted, but am a bit pessimistic and do not believe in proclaiming victory before it is certain. Just a bit worried....

Dont worry: Quennell has no idea what he is talking about, and is exhibiting blind bias in an attempt to rationalise the situation and defend his near-indefensible position.

He has no idea of juicial process - either in US/UK or Italian courts. He therefore is not only ignorant of the fact that Guede's trials (including the Supreme Court ruling) have zero material effect upon Hellmann's court's ruling, but he's also ignorant of the fact that the appeal trial is a completely de novo trial. This is not about "overturning" or "upending" the verdict in the Massei court (or any of the Guede rulings for that matter). Hellmann;s court will determine its verdict in total isolation from all other rulings related to this case, and will purely use the evidence/testimony and arguments presented in the Hellmann courtroom to determine a very specific issue: whether sufficient proof was presented in Hellmann's courtroom to prove Knox's/Sollecito's guilt beyond all doubt based in human reason.

Hellmann's court therefore has nothing to do with any other ruling on this case. The only way in which there is any connection with the Massei trial is that all of the evidence/testimony introduced into Massei's court is automatically introduced into Hellmann's court. This is primarily a time- and cost-saving measure: it makes no sense to call all the same witnesses all over again just to give the same testimony and introduce the same evidence. The exception to this, of course, is if new evidence/testimony will offer a different perspective to Hellmann's court. This is exactly why the independent DNA report was ordered by Hellmann, and why Curatolo was recalled to the stand.

Quennell's stuff about the Guede Supreme Court ruling is nothing more than ignorant nonsense. If Quennell or "our Italian lawyers*" knew anything about separation of judicial processes, they would know that Knox's/Sollecito's trial process is empowered to reach verdicts entirely independent from any other trial process. It's actually one of the bedrocks of modern jurisprudence (although those idiots don't know it). In fact, evidence for this is sitting right in front of the idiots' faces: the same Supreme Court ruling on Guede ruled that the lower courts were correct in their finding of fact that the murder occurred at some time before 10.30pm, whereas Massei's court found that the murder took place between 11.30pm and 11.45pm.

I repeat: Quennell simply doesn't know what he's talking about. He's a sad, deluded individual with an agenda to pursue and protect. I'm afraid he's fiddling while Rome burns.

* I love how Quennell consistently refers to things such as "our Italian lawyers" - clearly intending to mislead readers into thinking that TJMK is some sort of organised multinational concern, with bustling offices and a group of dedicated professionals across the globe. In reality, it's one small (in intellect) man sitting in a windowless room stuffed with papers, who has some internet contact with a disparate group of misguided, intellectually-challenged individuals; together, they form a self-deluding self-supporting little group of misfits.

 

[komponisto]

for me it was in the tool.

had she not magnified the chart to blow up the size of the 12 and 20RFU peaks to appear large, the chart would not have shown anything but a flat line.

if there is in fact neg and pos controls, for that time frame proving the tool was clean, then I would admit my view is incorrect.

If Stefanoni had magnified all the DNA charts to study the garbage range of 0RFU to 30RFU for example, then we probably would se a lot more....er ...garbage and noise in the charts.

Its this simple reason the Applied BioSystem manufacturer states the RFU minimum levels, and below that minimal level are not reliable and can be contamination in the tool or noise.

Exactly. This is the point: for all we know, zooming in on the noise in the electropherograms for other samples might have shown Meredith's alleles also.

Novelli (apparently) said he looked at hundreds of other contemporaneous results from the lab, and didn't find any trace of Meredith; but how many of those results were obtained via peaks below the noise threshold?

The question, from a Bayesian perspective (if you want to call it that), is how exactly Stefanoni's result distinguishes the knife from samples which are known not to be incriminating. This why the negative controls are so important, and why it's so incredibly suspicious that she presented "zoomed in" (below 50 RFU) results for just this one sample.

 

[JREF2010]

I agree that this would be important. With that caveat I'm not sure I have much to say against you. Would you also reconsider if it really did turn out that 6 days had elapsed and the equipment had been in regular use throughout with unrelated material?

The tool sitting idle makes no difference; the tool will not clean itself by sitting idle, the tool does not calibrate itself by sitting idle.

"with unrelated material", is another issue. If true, it would be in favor that the tool was not a source of the DNA. Proving this would be difficult if anything from the cottage or Raffaele or Amanda samples were ran, as they had both been at the cottage where Meredith lived.

I agree with Hellman though, this DNA will never make the Knife a murder weapon, it now has very little importance, none actually.

 

[Onofarar]

Although I applaud the Judge's decision to deny the additional testing, since the items have been examined by a series of experts already (when would it stop?), part of me wants to say "bring it on!!". Although it would delay the trial and allow the prosecution to go on a fishing expedition, the defense, and Amanda and Raffaele, are not afraid of finding more information. I suspect if they did test the knife again, either nothing would be found, or it could be shown that whatever is found was the result of contamination. How the hell do they collect evidence in this manner, test it using the wrong processes, and then claim it is valid evidence? It is completely invalid, because they don't have any real evidence, and they needed to trump something up.

I don't think it is necessary to do this and it is just an effort by the prosecution to hold them both in jail longer for something they know the kids never did - murder Meredith -(may she rest in peace).

However, if there is still concern on the defense's part about the outcome of the appeal then they may want to join the prosecution's call for more testing ONLY IF in exchange a complete reexamination by proper experts is made of the computers to extract more data from the hard drives and determine how they were fried in the first place.

IMHO - such a review may result in more charges against more members of the Perugia police force and those who direct them!

 

[shuttlt]

Shuttlt,

You haven't changed much from your Shock days.

What would you have expected to change since 2009? The police admitting transgressions? A video of the planting of evidence?

The difference is the experts.

I don't know. To clear them either a significant amount has to change, or it has to just come down to the luck of the draw with judge and jury. Perhaps more has changed with the bra clasp.

 

[smkovalinksy]

Dont worry: Quennell has no idea what he is talking about, and is exhibiting blind bias in an attempt to rationalise the situation and defend his near-indefensible position.

He has no idea of juicial process - either in US/UK or Italian courts. He therefore is not only ignorant of the fact that Guede's trials (including the Supreme Court ruling) have zero material effect upon Hellmann's court's ruling, but he's also ignorant of the fact that the appeal trial is a completely de novo trial. This is not about "overturning" or "upending" the verdict in the Massei court (or any of the Guede rulings for that matter). Hellmann;s court will determine its verdict in total isolation from all other rulings related to this case, and will purely use the evidence/testimony and arguments presented in the Hellmann courtroom to determine a very specific issue: whether sufficient proof was presented in Hellmann's courtroom to prove Knox's/Sollecito's guilt beyond all doubt based in human reason.
Hellmann's court therefore has nothing to do with any other ruling on this case. The only way in which there is any connection with the Massei trial is that all of the evidence/testimony introduced into Massei's court is automatically introduced into Hellmann's court. This is primarily a time- and cost-saving measure: it makes no sense to call all the same witnesses all over again just to give the same testimony and introduce the same evidence. The exception to this, of course, is if new evidence/testimony will offer a different perspective to Hellmann's court. This is exactly why the independent DNA report was ordered by Hellmann, and why Curatolo was recalled to the stand.

Quennell's stuff about the Guede Supreme Court ruling is nothing more than ignorant nonsense. If Quennell or "our Italian lawyers*" knew anything about separation of judicial processes, they would know that Knox's/Sollecito's trial process is empowered to reach verdicts entirely independent from any other trial process. It's actually one of the bedrocks of modern jurisprudence (although those idiots don't know it). In fact, evidence for this is sitting right in front of the idiots' faces: the same Supreme Court ruling on Guede ruled that the lower courts were correct in their finding of fact that the murder occurred at some time before 10.30pm, whereas Massei's court found that the murder took place between 11.30pm and 11.45pm.

I repeat: Quennell simply doesn't know what he's talking about. He's a sad, deluded individual with an agenda to pursue and protect. I'm afraid he's fiddling while Rome burns.

* I love how Quennell consistently refers to things such as "our Italian lawyers" - clearly intending to mislead readers into thinking that TJMK is some sort of organised multinational concern, with bustling offices and a group of dedicated professionals across the globe. In reality, it's one small (in intellect) man sitting in a windowless room stuffed with papers, who has some internet contact with a disparate group of misguided, intellectually-challenged individuals; together, they form a self-deluding self-supporting little group of misfits.

Phew, am I glad I posted this and got your response. I was picturing the bustling offices, yes, and Italian lawyers sending faxes about the gravity of the situation. You know, I was wondering why the heck Guede's appeal would bear on Hellman, and now you have confirmed my suspicion: It doesn't.

I cannot wait until this thing is over. I saw on PMF yesterday they were saying things about those of us who believe a justified acquittal is coming; how deluded we are, and how we were setting ourselves up for a huge fall, predicting things like, "there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and I can't wait"--ugh.

Thanks for all your clarification, and I long for an acquittal, and to silence such persons as are now gloating early. This has become a rather sordid business, and I would like to see simple justice assert itself. Thanks once more.

 

[smkovalinksy]

May I observe that it is certainly a blessing that Mr Quennell is not a member here.
This because that 'argument' above is about as vicious batch of ad hom opinionated agenda driven vitriol as I have ever seen spewed at an absent person in any argument of the 65,000 here about the murder of Meredith by Knox and Sollecito.

Although I hasten to admit that others in similar vein against any of the myriad of absent other non members who merely oppose the 'company line' so ingrained and in vogue here by 'similar' authors do come sadly close.

Well, um, I am the one who asked for some clarification of Quenell's argument, and have received it. And Q et al have dished out similar, many times, about others in absentia. Cannot wait until this case wraps, and all of this bizarre psychological warfare will move on to other venues....

 

[LondonJohn]

Phew, am I glad I posted this and got your response. I was picturing the bustling offices, yes, and Italian lawyers sending faxes about the gravity of the situation. You know, I was wondering why the heck Guede's appeal would bear on Hellman, and now you have confirmed my suspicion: It doesn't.

I cannot wait until this thing is over. I saw on PMF yesterday they were saying things about those of us who believe a justified acquittal is coming; how deluded we are, and how we were setting ourselves up for a huge fall, predicting things like, "there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and I can't wait"--ugh.

Thanks for all your clarification, and I long for an acquittal, and to silence such persons as are now gloating early. This has become a rather sordid business, and I would like to see simple justice assert itself. Thanks once more.

You're welcome. I think it's important for everyone (including the media) to understand that the Hellmann trial is not an appeal in the UK/US common law definition of the term. In fact, it's far more accurate to refer to the Massei trial as the "preliminary" trial, and the Hellmann trial as the "main" trial: the judicial dynamic of the process is exactly the same as if the two trials carried these descriptors. In other words, if defendants are found not guilty in the preliminary trial, they are acquitted and the process finishes; but if they are found guilty in the preliminary trial, they then progress to the main trial, in which they also must be found guilty or not guilty (in a process entirely independent form the preliminary trial).

I think it's also important to put the past couple of days into the correct context. I certainly think it incorrect to reason that a) just because Hellmann has made certain rulings on the independent DNA report it automatically follows that b) there are bound to be acquittals. There are plenty of other areas to be considered, and there is still a small amount of (weak and getting weaker) evidence pointing towards guilt. But in my opinion - and that of most objective commentators - there is clearly now insufficient evidence to find Knox or Sollecito guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt; and in fact, there's pretty much no evidence of their involvement in the murder whatsoever (although that's far beyond the threshold of reasonable doubt required for acquittal).

I am now virtually certain that Knox and Sollecito will be acquitted in Hellmann's court, and that this will be the correct decision. I'm also pretty confident that neither Knox nor Sollecito had anything whatsoever to do with the murder of Meredith Kercher. The idiots assigning a 1% probability to acquittals are exposing themselves as either ignorant, biased, or both.

 

[komponisto]

LOL!

Incidentally, nothing I wrote yesterday or the day before (?) was meant in the slightest to be derogatory to you, re-reading it occurred to me that it might have come across that way, when that was in no way my intention!

LOL -- well, I certainly noticed nothing of the sort! To the contrary, all I've been detecting in your posts has been the usual clarity, coherence, and general rationality regarding the evidence in this case, a refreshing contrast after dirtying oneself in certain other "trenches", let me tell you.

If you've been somehow secretly insulting me in the process, I can only say: keep up the good work -- these are "insults" I will take.

 

[smkovalinksy]

You're welcome. I think it's important for everyone (including the media) to understand that the Hellmann trial is not an appeal in the UK/US common law definition of the term. In fact, it's far more accurate to refer to the Massei trial as the "preliminary" trial, and the Hellmann trial as the "main" trial: the judicial dynamic of the process is exactly the same as if the two trials carried these descriptors. In other words, if defendants are found not guilty in the preliminary trial, they are acquitted and the process finishes; but if they are found guilty in the preliminary trial, they then progress to the main trial, in which they also must be found guilty or not guilty (in a process entirely independent form the preliminary trial).

I think it's also important to put the past couple of days into the correct context. I certainly think it incorrect to reason that a) just because Hellmann has made certain rulings on the independent DNA report it automatically follows that b) there are bound to be acquittals. There are plenty of other areas to be considered, and there is still a small amount of (weak and getting weaker) evidence pointing towards guilt. But in my opinion - and that of most objective commentators - there is clearly now insufficient evidence to find Knox or Sollecito guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt; and in fact, there's pretty much no evidence of their involvement in the murder whatsoever (although that's far beyond the threshold of reasonable doubt required for acquittal).

I am now virtually certain that Knox and Sollecito will be acquitted in Hellmann's court, and that this will be the correct decision. I'm also pretty confident that neither Knox nor Sollecito had anything whatsoever to do with the murder of Meredith Kercher. The idiots assigning a 1% probability to acquittals are exposing themselves as either ignorant, biased, or both.

Thank you for such illuminating material. Really helps to put the appeal into its proper perspective. Within this purview of jurisprudence, I can understand that the appellate process is very much different to the US appeals trials which had formed my perspective.

 

[komponisto]

You're welcome. I think it's important for everyone (including the media) to understand that the Hellmann trial is not an appeal in the UK/US common law definition of the term. In fact, it's far more accurate to refer to the Massei trial as the "preliminary" trial, and the Hellmann trial as the "main" trial: the judicial dynamic of the process is exactly the same as if the two trials carried these descriptors. In other words, if defendants are found not guilty in the preliminary trial, they are acquitted and the process finishes;

Not necessarily: remember that the prosecution can also appeal.

In my opinion, the correct way to view it is that the "trial" is simply a three-stage process, of which Knox and Sollecito's case is currently on the second stage.

I think it's also important to put the past couple of days into the correct context. I certainly think it incorrect to reason that a) just because Hellmann has made certain rulings on the independent DNA report it automatically follows that b) there are bound to be acquittals.

You're right that this doesn't automatically follow, of course; but it does seem to me that Hellmann would have been more likely to rule the way he did if there was going to be an acquittal than if there was going to be a conviction; and that therefore the ruling is evidence of the former.

 

[Onofarar]

Talking about contamination is fools errand, as it plays into the the prosecution theory of the DNA being present in a small amount on the knife. I think JREF is getting to the point. The unreliable finding of MK's DNA was false because it was below the noise threshold of the machine. Correct me if I'm wrong. I think the paper traces only amplify this problem as they only represent a snapshot in time of data points (lines) that are in fact randomly moving up and down. In real time it looks like slow motion waves in choppy water. Having spent a large part of my adult life in anti-submarine work looking for specific line patterns in the grass of oceanic noise, I can tell you that finding and even tracking ghosts happens all the time. Everything looked great until next couple integration passes and your certain contact slowly faded away.

What C&K also said is that MK's DNA trace on the knife is probably a ghost. Ms. Stephi never did the reintegration runs so we will never know if the lines in the noise went back down. From my view point there is no need to show or prove contamination because the DNA traces were most likely never there.

As Amanda can tell you speculating to the prosecutor about the existence of false evidence is never a good idea.

THe point about the limits of the testing equipment is a good one. When some months ago I asked Chris for info on the testing equipment. I then asked a fraternity brother of mine (we go back to the 60s) who was the audit manager for the company that owned Applied Biosystems what he knew about the ability of their equiment to test 10 pico grams - he stated unequivocally that was too small a sample for their machine to test.

 

[Diocletus]

The idiots assigning a 1% probability to acquittals are exposing themselves as either ignorant, biased, or both.

It's delusional. It's just bizarre to think that Hellmann would identify three (Curatalo, knife, clasp) issues for further examination on appeal, have all three get blown up in spectacular fashion, and then say "well, anyway, none of that matters . . . guilty." To believe this, you have to believe that Hellmann wasted the last 6 months on investigation when he could have just convicted the day he got the appeal. Hellmann would look ridiculous if he tried something like this, and therefore, it won't happen. They walk.

 

[Onofarar]

It's delusional. It's just bizarre to think that Hellmann would identify three (Curatalo, knife, clasp) issues for further examination on appeal, have all three get blown up in spectacular fashion, and then say "well, anyway, none of that matters . . . guilty." To believe this, you have to believe that Hellmann wasted the last 6 months on investigation when he could have just convicted the day he got the appeal. Hellmann would look ridiculous if he tried something like this, and therefore, it won't happen. They walk.

OK - assuming an acquittal - will ILE be able to hold AK in Italy (perhaps under house arrest) if the prosection appeals and another year or two go by while that case is heard by the Itlian Supreme Court? If not then RS should get the hell out too!