Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[charlatan]

I think that the police may have tracked Meredith's blood into Filomena's room. I see no evidence that they changed shoe covers going from one room to another, as I have watched the Oggi-hosted videos. However, luminol-positive spots are only presumptive blood, and these tested negative by TMB (and there is no record of confirmatory testing). Amanda's DNA might have been present in either the hall or in Filomena's room; if the former, it could have been tracked in on the shoes of the forensic police.

Or to put it even more simply, how do we know traces weren't tracked in during the chaos on the afternoon after the murder? Anyone could have stepped on Rudy's bloody shoeprints. At a minimum we know Filomena was allowed to enter her room, move stuff around and do preliminary forensic analysis of 'glass on top of clothes'. Only Meredith's room was secured before the investigation began.

 

[billyryan]

There is no evidence of guilt in this case there never was,it is just the powers that be in Perugia probably for the first time in a long time being forced to defend their accusations,with what is a well practiced method of operation they have lied on the witness stand,they have destroyed evidence of innocence,Mignini Comodi Stefanoni and the police have lied and lied and they have encouraged/forced others to lie on their behalf


All that is now left despite the posturing that will take place in court over the next few days,is if Mignini and the entire Perugian judiciary and police department can put enough pressure on Hellmann behind the scenes to save their bacon,why not,governments put pressure on one another to accept unpopular deals governments put pressure on trade unions, trade unions in turn put pressure on their members to accept unpopular deals, at the moment the ECB and the IMF is putting Greece under pressure to raise taxes and cut public spending,the only real questions to be decided is has Hellmann the balls to look Mignini Comodi in the face and say no to their demands to convict two innocent defendants and in doing so saying to hell with the consequences for your careers and the careers of all kangaroos who should have stopped you before it ever got in front me,even when those kangaroo's are his collegues.


If you read for a bit at the loony sites PMFand TJMK and god knows that is real punishment for anyone who is sane,they know,even though they will never admit it publically that that there is no evidence of guilt,they have only one reason for hope the huge ordeal it will be for Hellmann to acquit and open up all of his collegues to the possibility of judicial enquiries.

 

[RoseMontague]

Or to put it even more simply, how do we know traces weren't tracked in during the chaos on the afternoon after the murder? Anyone could have stepped on Rudy's bloody shoeprints. At a minimum we know Filomena was allowed to enter her room, move stuff around and do preliminary forensic analysis of 'glass on top of clothes'. Only Meredith's room was secured before the investigation began.

I saw no mention of the visible footprints from those present when Meredith's door was broken down. The odds that they were not stepped on is pretty low, in my opinion. Several people went into Filomena's room. Where are the photo's of the blobs in her room, btw?

 

[RoseMontague]

There is no evidence of guilt in this case there never was,it is just the powers that be in Perugia probably for the first time in a long time being forced to defend their accusations,with what is a well practiced method of operation they have lied on the witness stand,they have destroyed evidence of innocence,Mignini Comodi Stefanoni and the police have lied and lied and they have encouraged/forced others to lie on their behalf


All that is now left despite the posturing that will take place in court over the next few days,is if Mignini and the entire Perugian judiciary and police department can put enough pressure on Hellmann behind the scenes to save their bacon,why not,governments put pressure on one another to accept unpopular deals governments put pressure on trade unions, trade unions in turn put pressure on their members to accept unpopular deals, at the moment the ECB and the IMF is putting Greece under pressure to raise taxes and cut public spending,the only real questions to be decided is has Hellmann the balls to look Mignini Comodi in the face and say no to their demands to convict two innocent defendants and in doing so saying to hell with the consequences for your careers and the careers of all kangaroos who should have stopped you before it ever got in front me,even when those kangaroo's are his collegues.


If you read for a bit at the loony sites PMFand TJMK and god knows that is real punishment for anyone who is sane,they know,even though they will never admit it publically that that there is no evidence of guilt,they have only one reason for hope the huge ordeal it will be for Hellmann to acquit and open up all of his collegues to the possibility of judicial enquiries.

I saw some posts there today that seemed pretty reasonable despite being from a pro-guilt standpoint. There are significant differences in posters there as well as here. Some of us are members at both places.

 

[Rolfe]

Thoughtful quite often seems to get it. I'm not sure whether she still really believes the defendants are guilty or not. I wonder if her arguing from a pro-guilt position and repeatedly stating that she believes in guilt are ploys to avoid being attacked and dismissed with a "thanks for stopping by". Now and again I've even seen other posters reassure each other that Thoughtful believes in guilt - with the fairly obvious subtext that she'd be banned if she didn't, no matter how reasonable her arguments.

This post is a decent summary of the position as regards evidence and the Hellman court. Though why she thinks it's the Knox family who are making a mistake about this.

Not revisiting them in the trial doesn't mean the judges aren't going to think them through, just that the judges believe that all the facts are already known. I think it's a big mistake for the Knox family to believe that because certain pieces of evidence haven't come up at the trial, they aren't important. I'm convinced that this means nothing other than that the judges feel that the facts concerning these pieces of evidence are already known.

This said, I do think that the present judges/jury will weigh all the facts/doubts/uncertainties/questions surrounding each piece of evidence for themselves, not trust to the judgment of the previous trial. If no more facts can be obtained on some given piece of evidence, then you just have to assess what you have, and come to your own conclusions. Wouldn't you do the same? In that sense, I'm sure every single piece of evidence will be revisited, whether or not it was discussed in court.

Rolfe.

 

[Grinder]

Thoughtful is unique on that PG site

 

[Katody Matrass]

I was wondering what kind of strategy is there left for the prosecution to take.

The procesution witnesses either saw nobody - like the ladies that heard screams, loud arguments, running people etc. - or they aren't going to be taken seriously - like the shopkeeper, the Albanian and the hobo. It seems that the only solid eyewitnesses are those that add to the defence case - the woman that saw the black guy, the broken car people and Raf's friend Popovic.

Forensic evidence - the independent experts demolished not only what they were asked to review but effectively all of Stefi and her squad's work. I think all the rest of the traces - the mixed dna, bathroom, luminol will be taken with a serious grain of salt by the court.
Footprints - the court is aware this is fiercely contested. A sober look at the prints is enough to see they're unusable for any kind of identification.
Computer records - this again is contested, with some strong arguments up the defence's sleeve. Dangerous ground.


I think the prosecution is going to concentrate on the more nebulous, unverifiable claims. The staging will get a lot of time. It's convenient because no photo documentation exist to disprove cop's word. The confession/accusation - again, no recording, only "blue wall" of cops' claims.

Finally, the inconsistencies in AK's and RS' stories - this one is a bit tricky, because there really is no good reason for them to not have a rehearsed story if they are guilty. There are also "lies" that make completely no sense when guilty, yet have easy innocent explanation. E.g. it makes no sense for Raffaele to lie about the phone call from his father or about web browsing when he must have known those things are incredibly easily verifiable. We'll see how this one plays out in court.

I expect they'll let Mignini off the chain and we're up for some more of his "luciferina, manipulative sex demon" stuff.

 

[JREF2010]

I saw no mention of the visible footprints from those present when Meredith's door was broken down. The odds that they were not stepped on is pretty low, in my opinion. Several people went into Filomena's room. Where are the photo's of the blobs in her room, btw?

I think its common logic, given the situation and those present, that they all walked on the bloody shoeprints from Nov 2, 1pm to 13:15pm. Amanda and Raffaele even earlier (they're lucky they didnt get any transferred to their shoes!)

 

[JREF2010]

I think the prosecution is going to concentrate on the more nebulous, unverifiable claims.

Why should they change now?

 

[RoseMontague]

Mountain of evidence.

There is a lot of evidence in this case, I have seen enough to make a mountain, I suppose. The point where I disagree with those on the side of guilt is the reliability and significance of the evidence. If you examine each piece of evidence I think most are either not indicative of guilt, are disputed, or are completely unreliable. The DNA, the witnesses, the shoe/foot prints, the cell phone records, the computer evidence, all is in doubt in my opinion.

The cops, prosecution, and forensic scientists and experts.

Those on the pro guilt side seem to refuse to believe any of these people are capable of cheating, lying, misleading, being totally incompetent, or hiding evidence. The recent video posts on the collection of evidence is a good example of this refusal to see obvious problems. The argument about there being different standards of collection is a very weak one. I have asked what the significant differences are and have never received an answer. There are obvious problems with discovery in this case and the refusal to acknowledge this is also hard to comprehend.

The judge/judges.

The pro-guilt side seems to think that Massei gets it right and all the judges have agreed on this and that so they must be right. They tend to ignore obvious problems with Massei's reasoning and trust that what Massei says is correct. Reading some of the testimony I obtained, it is quite obvious he did not give the defense experts any credibility on anything, choosing to trust Stefanoni and Rinaldi on some conclusions that were not supported by common sense. Massei's dismissal of the defense expert on the staged break in and his untested theory on this is very strange. His acceptance of the witness testimony and his reasoning behind that is completely irrational.

Reasonable doubt versus suspicious activity.

Those on the side of guilt tend to take anything that could be considered suspicious as evidence of guilt rather than considering other alternatives. The many things they find suspicious seem to add up to guilt and they don't accept any other explanation as a possibility. There is a ton of reasonable doubt and in fact, much of the evidence points towards Raffaele and the Knox girl being completely uninvolved in this crime.

Debate and discussion.

Those on the side of guilt tend to go with the vocal few who attack those that disagree. Others think everything has been decided and some don't see any point in continuing the debate. I disagree with all of these things. Much of the case remains a mystery and that is one reason I find it so interesting.

Reasons posters have one opinion or another.

Both sides tend to think the other side is not capable of rational thought. Those on the side of guilt seem to think that the reason a lot of people support Knox is because she is attractive. They have also accused the side of innocence of racism.

Posters that have changed their position during the discussion.

This is seen as either a betrayal or that the poster was deceitful with their position to start with. Sometimes people cahnge their minds or are convinced differently by the discussion or new information or research.

Making the debate personal.

Not cool, in my opinion. Also not easy to avoid if the other side makes things personal first.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Why should they change now?

With the knife and the clasp gone something else raises in importance. I think prosecution is still going to throw in everything and the kitchen sink to create impression of a "heap of evidence", but they have best chance to tip the scales not with the forensics or witnesses, but with the "staging", "confession" and "multiple lies". IMO that's where the defence will need to work really hard.

 

[billyryan]

I saw some posts there today that seemed pretty reasonable despite being from a pro-guilt standpoint. There are significant differences in posters there as well as here. Some of us are members at both places.

I think the posts could get very interesting over there if the verdict is not guilty,Peter Quinnell has made no secret of the huge test of character it will take on Hellmann's part to declare all of his collegues judgements wrong


Harry Rag claims to have information that the defendants will be found guilty with lesser sentences,I take this to mean that people connected to the case on the prosecution side have told him they are able to put enough pressure on Hellmann to force him to allow them to save face at the expense of justice


I believe anyone who tows the line enough to be allowed post over there on them two sites have compromised there integrity

 

[Katody Matrass]

Excellent and balanced summary, RoseMontague!

 

[billyryan]

With the knife and the clasp gone something else raises in importance. I think prosecution is still going to throw in everything and the kitchen sink to create impression of a "heap of evidence", but they have best chance to tip the scales not with the forensics or witnesses, but with the "staging", "confession" and "multiple lies". IMO that's where the defence will need to work really hard.

I don't know Katody about the "multiple lies", part anyway they have being caught out lying so many times themselves they might be inclined to keep the "lies"part out of it,but then if you have a neck like a jockeys b~~~~ I suppose anything is possible

 

[RoseMontague]

I think the posts could get very interesting over there if the verdict is not guilty,Peter Quinnell has made no secret of the huge test of character it will take on Hellmann's part to declare all of his collegues judgements wrong


Harry Rag claims to have information that the defendants will be found guilty with lesser sentences,I take this to mean that people connected to the case on the prosecution side have told him they are able to put enough pressure on Hellmann to force him to allow them to save face at the expense of justice


I believe anyone who tows the line enough to be allowed post over there on them two sites have compromised there integrity

I just don't see this as a possibility. If the judge accepts that they are guilty, there is a greater chance of increased sentences, in my opinion. Going into the appeal I think the judge felt the three main pieces of evidence needed further examination, and the reason for that was because the court did not fully share the first court's opinion on reasonable doubt. Those key pieces of evidence have been shredded, in my opinion.

My personal opinion is that the Machine knows the case is in doubt and this is her fall back position. We shall see soon enough. The prosecution is up first and I think what they focus on will tell us a lot about how they think the court is leaning.

 

[pilot padron]

Very Much Agree With That.

Excellent and balanced summary, RoseMontague!

One of the best posts I have read on any Board recently.
Well done RoseMontague.

 

[RoseMontague]

One of the best posts I have read on any Board recently.
Well done RoseMontague.

Thank you pilot and Katody. I greatly appreciate that.

 

[RoseMontague]

Part three rebuttal of the Massei report is up here:

http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/

It covers the section dealing with the "staged" break in. Nicely done, in my opinion.

 

[christianahannah]

I saw no mention of the visible footprints from those present when Meredith's door was broken down. The odds that they were not stepped on is pretty low, in my opinion. Several people went into Filomena's room. Where are the photo's of the blobs in her room, btw?

I haven't seen the individual photos of the traces in Filomena's room but have seen the location from where those traces are said to exist. Since they were found with luminol I would think there were photos of them. Yummi/Machiavelli has stated he thought there was another report from Rinaldi (I think that is what he has said but I am not certain as I do not have that statement). Perhaps those photos were there (if there was a second report).

 

[HumanityBlues]

I think this is relevant seeing how Ann Coulter wrote a timely article about Amanda Knox. Now she is writing about Troy Davis, who is innocent: http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2011-09-21.html. She tweets:

Ann Coulter, wrong about everything.