Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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Merely contradicting the other person isn't useful. How about explaining why you believe what you believe? Why is your interpretation preferable to moodstream's?

moodstream said:
Thus Knox’s version is at least as credible as yours. Therefore, you should believe her version to the extent you believe your own.
Just because two possibilities get mentioned doesn't mean they are both equally credible or likely. Moodstream says that he/she has demonstrated that they are equally credible and I don't think he/she has. So, I disagree.

What does moodstreams view of what happened come down to but a hunch that the whole false memory thing is the Truth. If I went about giving everybody elses hunches equal weight to my own, I couldn't function. Does moodstream give everybody elses hunches about the case equal weight? I certainly don't claim my hunches to be the One Truth.
 
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What I think the evidence suggests is from the arrival of the postal police ~1 PM November second to 5:45 AM November 6th 2007 Amanda was with the police ~53 hours of that ~89 hours, at the cottage, at Raffaele's and at the Questura. In other words most of her waking hours, and she wasn't sleeping well, as per her e-mail on the forth. It could be 57, that's just not the way I remember calculating it and frankly 53 is enough to make the point.
I'm well aware that it's possible to add the the time she spent with the Postal Police, the time she spent in the back of the police car and so on and come up with a figure of 50 some hours. To me it feels like an exercise in coming up with the largest number that, with the wind behind it, can possibly be justified. Shouldn't we be trying to come up with the number that best communicates the specific facts of the case to people? Calling that time "interrogation" is a bit naughty, but I won't quibble. It then gets used to talk about why she confessed to the murder in an hour (or shall we say three hours as an upper limit so we don't have to debate it?).

I've been asked to check Google recently. If you Google 'amanda knox "53 hours"' you find this claim over and over on media sites and blogs. Some think that it was all interrogation, but spread over four days - most of them thing that the whole denied food and water thing was spread over the four days. Many clearly believe it was a single 53 hour interrogation - in which she was denied food water and toilet breaks. Sure, I can decrypt that what Bruce means when he says 53 hours of interrogation, is 53 hours in close proximity to the police, but it's a willfully misleading way of putting it.

Now I think about it, the denied food and water claim is stupidly misleading as well. She confessed because she was denied food for a couple of hours three-four hours after she ate dinner?
 
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I would be stunned if he means that she should have insisted she knew for a fact he wasn't involved. That would make no sense. If that is what he means he is clearly wrong. Have you got a different quote from him, because what you suggest seems like the least likely interpretation to me.

I have asked for clarification of what is meant by this on PMF.


Why did you pose the question on PMF in such a slanted way (my highlighting)?

Hi everyone,

I've got a silly clarification stemming from a discussion of the JREF.

1. Has anybody here actually ever believed that Amanda should have said that Patrick definately was not involved in the murder? For some reason people on the JREf seem to believe you all think she was claiming to know nothing about the crime, and yet should have said that she knew for definite that Patrick wasn't involved.
2. Is this demand predicated on a belief that Patrick would have immediately been released, or is that not really the point?

To me the answers seem perfectly obvious, but clearly I'm wrong. I can see that there is ambiguity in the way it is often put, but common sense tells me there can really only be one meaning to the demand for a proper retraction.

Incidentally, the Machine was specifically mentioned as believing she should have asserted that Patrick definitely wasn't involved, so this question goes to him in particular.

Thanks

Shuttlt


Is it that you are afraid of vitriol being poured on you over there, or is there another agenda at work that we ought to know about? Thanks in advance for the clarification.
 
What on Earth do you mean? Guilters use this talking point all the time! The Machine for example has on numerous occasions made statements like "Knox never retracted her false and malicious accusation against Diya Lumumba the whole time he was in prison".
First replies back from Thoughtful and Fiona. They both agree with me.
 
After the Daily Mail article, we can be fairly sure that Patrick was physically and verbally abused on the day of his arrest, and if he had been thinking rationally, he would have realised that Amanda must have been subjected to something of the same treatment. But as you say, he didn't have any knowledge of false confessions, and in addition, he (maybe subconsciously) knew that it was a bad idea to take sides against the police in any argument of facts.

It's highly-significant that in spite of the horrendous treatment described in his DM article, he disowned the account for whatever reason, once he had a chance to "reflect" on his situation.


I believe that Lumumba truly did say the things that are directly attributed to him in the Daily Mail piece. I think this because I believe the Daily Mail would not have published such inflammatory quotes from Lumumba (printed as direct quotes within quotation marks) without solid legal clarification that Lumumba actually said those things. I think it's more than likely that the Mail has Lumumba's words on tape.

Secondly, I think that Lumumba was very likely telling the truth when he spoke about the police brutality and the verbal/physical abuse. I think this because Lumumba himself would appear to have nothing to gain from making these accusations, and because he himself would know that making such accusations would be extremely stupid (and dangerous) if they were not true. So I think that the police really did do and say all those things to Lumumba during and after his arrest.

And lastly, I think that there is a clear rationale as to why Lumumba subsequently tried to disassociate himself from these accusations against the police. I think that either the police or prosecutors contacted him and told him in no uncertain terms that they had the power to make life very difficult indeed for him. Furthermore, I think they very likely told him that he would be unable to ever prove these accusations, and that if he didn't publicly retract them he might be hit with a criminal slander charge which he would almost certainly lose. Lumumba owned a business at that time (although the police/prosecutors managed to sink that by ludicrously keeping his bar closed for months as a "crime scene"), and would have known full well that the police could make life very difficult for him at both a business and personal level.

OT: Could the mighty Wales be about the beat the 'boks in the World Cup?! Dowch 'laen Cymru!
 
This has been answered a bunch of times by guilters in the past. The theory is that she didn't perceive that how bad it would go for her to place herself at the scene as a poor frightened observer. Presumably that could seem better than the cops believing she was at the scene as an active participant.

What are you presuming that from? Only if the police could already place her at the cottage. Could there be another reason? How would she come by this belief except through the interrogation. If so, she is making a decision about her best interest based on information she believes to be true.

Yet, a few hours later she modifies her stance. But nothing has changed. Whatever information she based her decision to place herself at the scene of the crime on has not changed over this time.

If that view were correct, there would be no memorial. How would you explain that? It seems like you are inventing quite a winding river to force her actions into the mold of your view.
 
I don't believe any great change in personality is required. People act and behave differently under different situations.

The situation is not so different. I don't know if she was interrogated for 57 hours or not, but she was questioned by the police before. Yet her behavior changes radically in just this interrogation. For your theory to be correct, you have to incorporate a complete folding of her personality. Prior she led the police through the house and withstood hour upon hour of questioning and showed not one hint of panic or fear. She is very deliberate. And yet, for your version of the interrogation to have occurred, she has to have been very deliberate and calculating prior to the interrogation, still never have worked out a 'plan B' or an alternative explanation, and relied instead on a story that had she given it any thought at all she would have realized that it would not help her.
 
I'm well aware that it's possible to add the the time she spent with the Postal Police, the time she spent in the back of the police car and so on and come up with a figure of 50 some hours. To me it feels like an exercise in coming up with the largest number that, with the wind behind it, can possibly be justified. Shouldn't we be trying to come up with the number that best communicates the specific facts of the case to people?

Didn't I note a reason for every number I used? Spending 53 of 89 hours with police means something. Spending the grand majority of that time at the Questura explains something. Having spent some 8 hours in interviews already indicates something. Going all night from ~10:45 PM on the 5th to 5:45 AM on the 6th without being able to eat, drink or be able to go to the bathroom until a statement is signed describes something.

Calling that time "interrogation" is a bit naughty, but I won't quibble. It then gets used to talk about why she confessed to the murder in an hour (or shall we say three hours as an upper limit so we don't have to debate it?).

What evidence do you have it was not three hours? That's the time period from when she cut off Filomena when they approached until the first statement was signed. It also happens to correlate well with the time Raffaele signed his statement, which if you read it suggests they'd want to be talking to Little Miss Cartwheels posthaste and they wouldn't be letting her wander off.

I've been asked to check Google recently. If you Google 'amanda knox "53 hours"' you find this claim over and over on media sites and blogs. Some think that it was all interrogation, but spread over four days - most of them thing that the whole denied food and water thing was spread over the four days. Many clearly believe it was a single 53 hour interrogation - in which she was denied food water and toilet breaks. Sure, I can decrypt that what Bruce means when he says 53 hours of interrogation, is 53 hours in close proximity to the police, but it's a willfully misleading way of putting it.

I can only write my own posts, not anyone else's. The 53 hour figure has definite significance, it is not 'misleading' to suggest spending all that time with police contributed greatly to those nonsensical statements. I really wish you'd read that LE site link I provided, it would be helpful for you to know what they shouldn't have done but obviously did.

I dunno who could honestly believe it would take 53 hours of intensive interrogation to break a girl still practically a teen-ager down to her component parts. At any rate I don't use it in that manner.

Now I think about it, the denied food and water claim is stupidly misleading as well. She confessed because she was denied food for a couple of hours three-four hours after she ate dinner?

It means she was denied amneities that would have been available to a witness, and when they expect you to talk all the time under pressure lack of water can be quite debilitating. Ever seen a person at a podium gulp down a glass of water having only spoken for an hour or less?

At any rate it means she was under their power, which changes her frame of mind and makes her more amenable to coercion and suggestion. She was a suspect, not a witness, and they lied through their teeth about the whole interrogation and ought to be punished for it. Instead they filed charges on her, I find that repellent.
 
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I would be stunned if he means that she should have insisted she knew for a fact he wasn't involved. That would make no sense. If that is what he means he is clearly wrong.

Stilicho insists that "she knew he was innocent". Therefore she should have told the police that. Obviously if she was not involved in the murder, then she didn't know he was innocent.

This isn't rocket surgery.
 
It would seem so, as I really have been extensively researching and cannot seem to find any indication that Italian commentators are declaring the defendants "cooked". I would like to see some robust analysis with detail, and reasons, but cannot find anything like what he is referring to. Frustrating.

Most of the Italian articles say things such as this one, which is amusing in the Google translation::p:p


http://www.ilmessaggero.it/articolo.php?id=162317&sez=HOME_INITALIA

One of the problems common to both sides in this debate is the tendency of the English speakers to apply the traditions of English common law to their interpretation of what is happening in this case in Italy where most of the trappings of civil law NOT common law procedures are used. In particular PQ's reliance on the rulings of the Italian Supreme Court in Rudy's case supporting a multi-killer theory of the murder.

In common law, appelllate and Supreme (higher) court rulings set precedenct that lower court must follow and when lower court ignore sch rulings they do so at the peril of being oveturned. In civil law, the codiified laws and statutes are supreme - individual judges and courts may interpret these laws differently and come to different conclusions and not be bound by prior rulings of higher level courts.

The classic example of this situation in this case is the matter of AK's confessions, which the Italian Supreme Court ruled inadmissible in the case. But Massei took the narrow view that this ruling only applied to the CRIMINAL case and allowed the confessions as evidence in the civil slander case being held at the same time in front of the same jury!

BTW - If you want a relatively brief primer on civil law and the differences versus common law use our trusty friend Google.
 
Just because two possibilities get mentioned doesn't mean they are both equally credible or likely. Moodstream says that he/she has demonstrated that they are equally credible and I don't think he/she has. So, I disagree.

What does moodstreams view of what happened come down to but a hunch that the whole false memory thing is the Truth. If I went about giving everybody elses hunches equal weight to my own, I couldn't function. Does moodstream give everybody elses hunches about the case equal weight? I certainly don't claim my hunches to be the One Truth.

That is not the point. You and Knox make the same claim. The police used coercive tactics which resulted in Knox giving a false statement. There is no greater reason based on your version to believe Knox is lying when she said the police got her to doubt her own recollections. You are simply saying whatever Knox said is the result of police coercion. You happen to believe that Knox is guilty, therefore your explanation of the meaning of the false statement reinforces your belief in her guilt.

However, the argument you are using - that Knox's statements are the product of police coercion - has no probative value towards establishing guilt. You have to rely on other reasons to believe she is guilty, and then, once you have established guilt, you can say because she is guilty, this must be the meaning of the interrogation. However, you want to go the other way around which I do not believe your argument supports.
 
First replies back from Thoughtful and Fiona. They both agree with me.

It doesn't really surprise me that thoughtful and Fiona would answer that way. Given the loaded phrasing of the question ("silly clarification...Has anybody here actually ever believed that Amanda should have said that Patrick definately was not involved in the murder?") I'd be surprised if any of those who have argued that Amanda should have said Patrick definitely wasn't involved reply in the affirmative, though!

Nonetheless, it's been argued often. No doubt that's due to those posters' overwhelming belief in guilt, which wouldn't allow them to even consider the possibility that she couldn't have known for sure whether Patrick was innocent or not (see stilicho's post as an example: "She knew he was innocent. Period").
 
First replies back from Thoughtful and Fiona. They both agree with me.

What she did say was basically to ignore what she had said because she was confused. At that point if she just claimed she lied she would still be in a heap of trouble and I doubt it would have done her much good to say I just said what you wanted me to say. No, I think Fiona has it pretty close to reality in one of her prior posts (I have lined through the part I don't agree with).

My understanding is this: AK went voluntarily to the police station when RS was asked to go in. She waited for him. At some point they decided to talk to her too, presumably because he changed his story and so they wanted to ask her about it: and since she was there why not now? They had suspicions: I think they may have thought she was shielding someone and knew far more than she was saying. But RS was now saying she went out: and the message on the phone appeared to confirm that because it appeared to arrange to meet someone, in normal Italian. It did not, in fact, mean that, as it was not very good Italian: but to them is seemed to. She was unlucky here, as she was over the postal police and the phones. So they asked her who she was meeting. I think they still thought she was shielding someone, and so pushed her a bit on this. I think they were astonished when she accused Patrick directly and said she was there. But once she did I cannot think that any police force in the world would not instantly arrest him: you cannot leave a sexual murderer on the street when you have a direct accusation from someone who says they were there. I don't think that she had to give details that "only a perp would know": I do not think it is a risk any police force would take in those circumstances.

I think that AK did not realise she was confessing to a crime: I think she believed that she was portraying herself as a terrified victim and that they would let her go home. I think that might have been true in this country and in the US: but Italian law is different and that is where it came unstuck. I also believe her when she says she did not understand they were arresting her: because she was still founding on her understanding of US law (as reported on TV): at first I think she probably assumed she was held for her protection: and the truth gradually dawned over the course of the rest of the night. I think that is why she volunteered her statement: to make sure they understood that she was still traumatised and still a victim and once they had picked PL up she should be allowed to leave the questura: because by then she had begun to have doubts that it was going down they way she thought it would: and she left some wriggle room for that reason too

On the lined out part. I think the police were happy she had confirmed a version of events they knew to be true. Anybody reading that "confession" can plainly see that it is pretty much worthless, lacking detail and vague to an extreme.

I don't subscribe to the false memory scenario, both Amanda and Raffaele said some things that were not true when they were backed into a corner with what amounts to the cops saying things that were also not true.

I agree with Kaosium on the interrogation times, my research has it at about 20 hours of actual interrogation. That is still a lot.
 
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Shuttlt,

but I do have one question (to you or anyone else who may know). Was her recant originally written in English or Italian? If it was originally written in Italian and then translated into English, or if she originally wrote it in English than it was translated into Italian and than back into English; both cases might explain the ambiguity,

Dave

It is also indicative of her family's support and belief in her character and innocence that not only have her parents gone deeply in debt to support her legal defense but so has her extended family - aunts, uncles and grandparents.
 
WIlliam Thompson

My interpretation of his position is that he has an very high level of confidence in the DNA results, which seem to be the primary driver of his belief in guilt.
komponisto,

That is interesting. My most recent discussion of DNA contamination was directed at those who think it is an extremely unlikely event, although I cannot give a number. The quotes from William Thompson alone suggest this.
 
Stilicho insists that "she knew he was innocent". Therefore she should have told the police that. Obviously if she was not involved in the murder, then she didn't know he was innocent.

This isn't rocket surgery.


And that's the important point (although most of the idiots can't see it, or don't want to). If Knox was not present at the murder scene, she would have no idea whatsoever whether Lumumba was a participant or not. The last communication she had with him, he'd told her not to come into work that night because there were so few customers in the bar. For all Knox knew, therefore, Lumumba might have closed the bar then decided to pay Meredith a visit.

And there's another important thing to understand here. It appears that the police told Knox they had solid physical evidence which not only confirmed Lumumba as the killer, but which also placed her in the cottage at the time of the murder. If that was the case (as I believe it was), then I also think that Knox would not have been prepared to believe that the police were deliberately lying to her. Therefore she would have experienced extreme cognitive dissonance: "Hang on: I remember I was at Raffaele's apartment all night, yet the police are now telling me they have proof that I met up with Patrick and went to the cottage, where I was present when Patrick raped and murdered Meredith". It appears perfectly clear to me that this cognitive dissonance had the effect that Knox initially (but reluctantly) chose to distrust her own mind, in the belief that physical evidence trumped intangible memory. It's further clear to me that by the time of the "gift" statement, Knox had had enough time to realise that no matter what the police had told her about physical evidence placing her at the murder scene, her memory was accurate. But Knox was in no position whatsoever to question the supposed physical evidence pointing to Lumumba. As far as she was concerned, it might well be that the police did have solid evidence showing that Lumumba was the killer, but that they had erred regarding the physical evidence tying her to the murder scene.

I think that when you look at the statements of November 5th/6th 2007 (and Knox's discussions with her parents in prison the following week) in the correct context, it's perfectly reasonable to conclude that Knox still had internal conflict regarding the alleged police physical evidence versus her own memory. I therefore don't think she could even state with certainty that she wasn't in the cottage: after all, the police said they had physical evidence placing her there at the time of the murder. And she most certainly couldn't say that Lumumba was not responsible for Meredith's murder. In that position, therefore, she was in no position to contact the police or her lawyer and make an assertive statement to the effect that she definitely wasn't at the cottage that night and she definitely didn't go there with Lumumba.

Lastly, let's never lose sight of the fact that, as with everything else, it's up to the police/prosecutors to prove each element of their case. In this instance, it quickly became clear that a) Lumumba was in his bar all evening, and had nothing to do with the crime; and b) there was no physical evidence whatsoever tying either Lumumba or Knox to the murder or the murder scene. Therefore, the police had absolutely nothing to substantiate the statements made by Knox, and in fact they had evidence to positively refute the statements. When you add it all together, the coercion, the police lies (albeit legitimate ones, but ones which Knox trusted as accurate) and the subsequent provable inaccuracy of the narrative, it's clear to most reasonable people that the "confession/accusation" and its aftermath are totally irrelevant in terms of assessing the guilt or non-guilt of Knox.

And yet still we see idiots saying things like: "Well, the clincher for me was when I discovered that Knox had falsely accused an innocent man of the murder: who but a guilty person would do such a thing?!" It's rather sad to see such ignorance, lack of intelligence and poor reasoning skills in action.
 

I've seen it before but I still laughed out loud.

(I met David Mitchell once, in the Phoenix Artists Club. Have you ever been there, LJ? It's rather good. I also once saw someone who looked similar to Ricky Gervais, and pointed him out to my companions, saying "Look, that bloke looks just like Ricky Gervais!". They pointed out that it was Ricky Gervais and that I was an idiot.)
 
I would imagine it's quite hard to make up a lie on the spot while being questioned by police when you don't know what evidence they have or what your accomplice may or may not have told them. Unless she was very well prepared, she may surely have been winging it. <snip>

Great example of working from the assumption of guilt backwards to explain an event!

It just as likely or more so given the total lack of any convincing physical evidence that she had no clue what had happened because she wasn't at the cottage when the murder occurred (or at all that night for that matter)because she was blissfully sleeping after an evening of good food, a little pot and some (good) sex.

BTW - Why did she "buckle"? - After all an innocent person would never confess right? EXCEPT that they do in about 25% of confessions! She had answered the same questions over and over, provided the same details many times, even so was being told she was involved and would never see her parents of fsmily again and would spent the rest of her life in prison. The police KNEW Patrick did it - she wanted to sleep - wanted to pee - she just gave up and gave them what they wanted.
 
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