Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[js202]

Curatolo appeared to be behind bars when interviewed. The Oggi editor then mentioned he was in prison, which Maresca responded was not true. Well, if that wasn't a prison, he has a wierd house...

No mention by Curt Knox of any hits to the head. He was very dignified, and spoke of his pride at how his daughter spoke up for herself during the hearings.

Maresca looks like some disenchanted gargoyle, brooding in his chair. I'd sooner take the word of Lucifer himself, than the likes of him. Milton taught us that at least Satan has honor.

 

[JREF2010]

Yesterday they aired a 1 hour 4 min discusion on Rai about this case.

http://www.rai.tv/dl/RaiTV/programmi/media/ContentItem-6f179f02-9dc8-4423-81b1-3f8f5324ec0f.html

It started out well for the defence, with Amanda's father talking. Then they brought on a series of guest speakers, including Maresca, Giuseppe Castellini (the newspaper reporter that "helped" the police), some judge named Simonetta Matone, an editor of Oggi magazine, a pyschologist, and a lady (forget her name) that was in favour of the defence.

All I can say, is that if this program is the general feeling in Italy, and of the court in this case, Amanda and Raffaele are in trouble.
>cut>
Overall, a very disappointing and worrying account of the events of this case.

I felt that way after seeing the US Lifetime movie... horrifically incorrect and ignorant of the facts.

It's a possibility this could go to SC, if for no other reason than politics.

Frank spoke of this in one of his early 2011 articles.
I'm going to go read up on that. There was a mention about the multi-courts and Judges not wanting to upset their counterparts verdict who didnt want to upset their local police and clan's credibility.....etc.etc...

here it is...
http://perugiashock.com/2011/01/12/behind-the-knox-sollecito-trial/

 

[snook1]

As the appeal's end is getting closer, I feel less and less confident. I'm really afraid of how the prosecution will do anything and everything just to make sure Amanda and Raffaele will be convicted, again.

I'm afraid Hellmann will be afraid to overturn the verdicts, simply beacuse he might not want to turn his back on his pals.

 

[Diocletus]

As the appeal's end is getting closer, I feel less and less confident. I'm really afraid of how the prosecution will do anything and everything just to make sure Amanda and Raffaele will be convicted, again.

I'm afraid Hellmann will be afraid to overturn the verdicts, simply beacuse he might not want to turn his back on his pals.

I do believe that there will be some trickery. Perhaps it will involve the civil parties trying to get some backdoor evidence in.

That said, the prosecution has to lay their cards down first. And it doesn't seem that they can really deviate too much from what they said the first time around, otherwise they will get slammed when it's the defense turn. I say that trickery might involve the civil parties, mostly because it's difficult for the defense to really trash the Kerchers and Lumumba in the same way. After all, they're not the ones that screwed up the investigation.

 

[JREF2010]

Interesting, are they interviewing Curatolo in jail?

It doesn't surprise me no one wants to speak openly on the TV. They don't want a diffamazione or calunia charge. They showed the bra clasp video and the bloody "felpa" being found, though.
Did Curt mention the hits to the head, or was he cautious too?


Prepare for more worry and disappointment, as the next few days belong to the prosecution and their "civil party" goons.

Very good point...this should be expected.

And when the defense gets some time, Maresca will yell, Commodi will threaten and Mignini can abuse his power.

I'd like to hear what Curatolo said, if only for the humor.

 

[billyryan]

As the appeal's end is getting closer, I feel less and less confident. I'm really afraid of how the prosecution will do anything and everything just to make sure Amanda and Raffaele will be convicted, again.

I'm afraid Hellmann will be afraid to overturn the verdicts, simply beacuse he might not want to turn his back on his pals.

This is all the prosecution has got left they have no credible evidence,I am pretty sure that Hellmann has by now being made aware of what his life will be like in the future if he allows the Perugian judicial system to be held up to international humiliation,I often wonder if he has daughters or grand daughters and if he worries about vengeance being taken against some members of his family by powerful people in Perugia

My prediction is that "Cometh the hour Cometh the man" Hellmann will look the prosecuters in the eyes and tell them and the world that Amanda Maria Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are innocent

 

[Chris_Halkides]

the right to remain silent

From the translation quoted by RoseMontague above:

He [Pacelli] concludes: "... on November 8th she availed herself of the faculty of not responding. And she continued to accuse, and to falsely accuse Patrick Lumumba. No, no: she continued to lie to guarantee impunity to Rudy Guede, to distance suspicions from herself, to save herself."

At this point Amanda had not been able to speak with her lawyer.* To take her silence implicitly maintaining her accusation against Lumumba is wrong. In my opinion it is wrong to infer anything from a suspect's maintaining silence. If a jury is allowed to make legal assumptions about silence, then the right to remain silent has been severely diminished, almost gutted. MOO.
*as I have long maintained, she had no business speaking before a court without first consulting with a lawyer.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Curatolo appeared to be behind bars when interviewed. The Oggi editor then mentioned he was in prison, which Maresca responded was not true. Well, if that wasn't a prison, he has a wierd house...

Maresca is curiously well informed about Toto. It looked like some low security institution. If he's not in jail, then maybe some kind of mandatory therapy. That serial witness business turned out not so bad for Toto. He's place looks nice, not counting that barred door

No mention by Curt Knox of any hits to the head. He was very dignified, and spoke of his pride at how his daughter spoke up for herself during the hearings.

But Vespa did ask him about the Lumumba accusation?

 

[snook1]

I do believe that there will be some trickery. Perhaps it will involve the civil parties trying to get some backdoor evidence in.

That said, the prosecution has to lay their cards down first. And it doesn't seem that they can really deviate too much from what they said the first time around, otherwise they will get slammed when it's the defense turn. I say that trickery might involve the civil parties, mostly because it's difficult for the defense to really trash the Kerchers and Lumumba in the same way. After all, they're not the ones that screwed up the investigation.

Hopefully, Hellmann will be brave and his decision will be based on evidence, no matter what the prosecution and civil parties say.

 

[snook1]

This is all the prosecution has got left they have no credible evidence,I am pretty sure that Hellmann has by now being made aware of what his life will be like in the future if he allows the Perugian judicial system to be held up to international humiliation,I often wonder if he has daughters or grand daughters and if he worries about vengeance being taken against some members of his family by powerful people in Perugia

My prediction is that "Cometh the hour Cometh the man" Hellmann will look the prosecuters in the eyes and tell them and the world that Amanda Maria Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are innocent

I reallly do hope your prediction will come true.

 

[Poppy1016]

Wow. What has changed that is causing all of this doom and gloom from those supporting Ak & RS ?
I hope it is just pre-acquittal jitters.

 

[Katody Matrass]

What gloom? I'm prancing with joy!

Actually I agree with Rose, Hellmann stated upfront about the reasonable doubt that remains in the case. Subsequent inquiries only added to that. This means acquittal for lack of evidence. Interesting to me is what will happen to the calunia conviction.

 

[Diocletus]

From the translation quoted by RoseMontague above:

He [Pacelli] concludes: "... on November 8th she availed herself of the faculty of not responding. And she continued to accuse, and to falsely accuse Patrick Lumumba. No, no: she continued to lie to guarantee impunity to Rudy Guede, to distance suspicions from herself, to save herself."

At this point Amanda had not been able to speak with her lawyer.* To take her silence implicitly maintaining her accusation against Lumumba is wrong. In my opinion it is wrong to infer anything from a suspect's maintaining silence. If a jury is allowed to make legal assumptions about silence, then the right to remain silent has been severely diminished, almost gutted. MOO.
*as I have long maintained, she had no business speaking before a court without first consulting with a lawyer.

True. But, that's why they're involving the civil party to launch their attack. The right to remain silent is really a criminal law concept and wouldn't protect her against civil charges. So, the strategy is to have the civil party make all sorts of accusations against Knox that the prosecution wouldn't be able to make, and hope that this prejudices the jury against Knox with respect to the criminal charges. In effect, there is no right to remain silent in this case.

This is exactly why most jurisdictions don't combine civil and criminal proceedings. There are different standards of proof, different rules of evidence, and a tremendous risk of prejudice when the two sides are merged.

What the prosecution is doing here is procuring a private party to violate Knox's civil rights, because the prosecution knows that they can't do it themselves.

 

[snook1]

Wow. What has changed that is causing all of this doom and gloom from those supporting Ak & RS ?
I hope it is just pre-acquittal jitters.

I, personally, still believe in their innocence. It's just that I'm afraid it wont get fixed this time. Even though the've got no case left, Mignini and Commodi will push it to the extreme, the civil parties will be right behind them.

The defense teams will have to do a really great job. There's no other way, they will have to be fierce and convincing. Not that it's needed, beacuse there is a doubt if they're innocent (there's no such thing) but beacuse Hellmann, in order to make a "free them" decision in a town like this, will have to get a TOP Notch performance from them. And I'm afrad something still might go wrong.

 

[Mary_H]

One thing for sure--the defense will be able to knock the ball out of the park on the forensics. Not only can they show the cops and forensics people to be totally incompetent, but if the defense wants to, it can show them to be liars as well. They can totally gut the prosecution case on the forensics.

I expect, though, that the prosecution is well-aware that they are dead in the water on any forensics issue (as proved by their recent request for additional testing), and they will therefore shift the focus of their case to non-forensic issues. This means, I think, that the predominant thrust of their argument will be on the defendants' own statements. That's why you see the interview with Pacelli--he and his colunnia charge, and the evidence that it brings with it, are suddenly the crux of the whole prosecution case.

I wish the defendants had an expert on false confessions to testify. Lacking that, they have to rely on an ability to put the jury in the shoes of Knox and hope that the jury will understand that the accusation was false and coerced. The key question for the defense to get the jury to focus on is: how did the cops get her to say what she said--is there a viable reason aside from guilt? If the jury is already suspicious of the cops--which they may very well be if the forensics can be used to prove the cops to be liars--then the jury may very well believe that something untoward happened behind the interrogation room doors. It's offensive, really, that they have to defend against this when she was denied her right to counsel, but the reality is that they will have to unless Lumumba can be gotten rid of.

I would consider having Boungiorno be responsible for the (easy) job of totally destroying the cops' credibility on the forensics issue. She should go after them like an attack dog, charging them with every lie and deceit on the record. Then Knox's lawyers will have to focus on the interrogation issue, adopting a different tone with the jury. If the jury considers the interrogation, already believing the cops to be liars (or at least hopelessly biased), then they may understand what happened.

The question is whether the defense lawyers WILL knock the ball out of the park, or go after the prosecution like attack dogs. While there was plenty of bickering in the courtroom in the first trial, I didn't see a high value placed on the kind of logical arguments American (and I presume British) lawyers are trained in. For example, the quote Halides1 just provided (from an earlier post by someone else):

He [Pacelli] concludes: "...And she continued to accuse, and to falsely accuse Patrick Lumumba. No, no: she continued to lie to guarantee impunity to Rudy Guede, to distance suspicions from herself, to save herself."

WE all know that the argument that Amanda tried to protect Rudy can be knocked down with questions like, "Then why didn't she flush the toilet?" and "Why did they supposedly clean up their own DNA but not Rudy's?" but the defense lawyers don't seem inclined to employ those kinds of blunt challenges (judging from what we have seen, anyway).

LondonJohn did a good job of describing the problems resulting from "a combination of the unwieldy transition from inquisitorial to adversarial justice, plus quite possibly the post-fascism insularity of the Italian judiciary.the Italian system is trying to adapt from inquisitorial to adversarial."

It would be nice to see the defense attorneys exhibit a stronger thirst for blood this time.

 

[Grinder]

That is because I had confidence that well informed readers are well aware that TV networks and stations routinely use resources other than their own to produce shows.
The fact that yours is the only such request for rebuttal supports my view.

To expand for you, this extensively employed use of resources that are conveniently available on site rather than expend money to send their own full crews again, is a pretty self obvious, cost efficient, widely used way to do business.

That self evident fact IMHO made any reply from me not only superfluous, but rather demeaning to all those so well informed.

Pilot and Stint7 (you read here)

As I have pointed out twice, your read on Marriott having his influence in part because he was a CBS anchor is erroneous. I've linked to his bio that proves he was a reporter for a local affiliate.

Yet you refuse to graciously say you were wrong. This issue is of low importance except for the fact that it is an excellent example of how false arguments are perpetuated.

If you would like the link one more time, please request. May the truth be found.

 

[Fine]

One thing for sure--the defense will be able to knock the ball out of the park on the forensics. Not only can they show the cops and forensics people to be totally incompetent, but if the defense wants to, it can show them to be liars as well. They can totally gut the prosecution case on the forensics.

I expect, though, that the prosecution is well-aware that they are dead in the water on any forensics issue (as proved by their recent request for additional testing), and they will therefore shift the focus of their case to non-forensic issues. This means, I think, that the predominant thrust of their argument will be on the defendants' own statements. That's why you see the interview with Pacelli--he and his colunnia charge, and the evidence that it brings with it, are suddenly the crux of the whole prosecution case.

I wish the defendants had an expert on false confessions to testify. Lacking that, they have to rely on an ability to put the jury in the shoes of Knox and hope that the jury will understand that the accusation was false and coerced. The key question for the defense to get the jury to focus on is: how did the cops get her to say what she said--is there a viable reason aside from guilt? If the jury is already suspicious of the cops--which they may very well be if the forensics can be used to prove the cops to be liars--then the jury may very well believe that something untoward happened behind the interrogation room doors. It's offensive, really, that they have to defend against this when she was denied her right to counsel, but the reality is that they will have to unless Lumumba can be gotten rid of.

I would consider having Boungiorno be responsible for the (easy) job of totally destroying the cops' credibility on the forensics issue. She should go after them like an attack dog, charging them with every lie and deceit on the record. Then Knox's lawyers will have to focus on the interrogation issue, adopting a different tone with the jury. If the jury considers the interrogation, already believing the cops to be liars (or at least hopelessly biased), then they may understand what happened.

___________________

Diocletus,

Speaking of suspect activity and bias by the cops....ever wonder why the cops released Amanda's two Spontaneous Statements (her "Confession") of November 6th within 24 hours of her arrest, but her Memorandum she wrote the same day---in which she accused the cops of coercion and striking her---was not released until two weeks after her arrest? See HERE and HERE and HERE. And the first English language report is HERE. Hmmm. Do you suppose that Ficarra had inadvertently "misplaced" Amanda's hand-written Memorandum for two weeks?

///

 

[LondonJohn]

As the appeal's end is getting closer, I feel less and less confident. I'm really afraid of how the prosecution will do anything and everything just to make sure Amanda and Raffaele will be convicted, again.

I'm afraid Hellmann will be afraid to overturn the verdicts, simply beacuse he might not want to turn his back on his pals.

Hellmann does not move in the same circles as the other judges and prosecutors involved in this case. Hellmann's usual job is in the Court of Work. He would have no professional contact whatsoever with any of the other judges or any of the criminal prosecuting magistrates. And it's unlikely that he would have much social contact with them either.

I truly think that Hellmann will treat this appeal trial with proper disinterested professionalism. Remember that he's already apparently rebuked prosecutor Comodi quite severely in the courtroom, and he publicly stated (quite correctly) at the start of the appeal trial that the only thing established up to that point in his mind was that Meredith was dead.

Anyone viewing a proper interpretation of the available evidence/testimony in this case can only come to one reasonable conclusion , in my opinion: that there's quite clearly insufficient evidence to find Knox or Sollecito guilty of murder, and that in fact there's virtually nothing to even indicate that they had anything to do with the crime. I feel very confident that this is the same conclusion that will be reached by Hellmann, Zanetti and the six popular judges. Don't worry.

 

[RWVBWL]

That's too funny Fine!
I bet Ficara forgot where she put that Memorandum in the garage, hahaha...

I wanted to put in my 2 cents about a coupla posts today, so here it is:

Quoting oneself in third person to attack a member here is probably not sufficient to circumvent the membership rules.

Then maybe you should send out this red letter call to action 'argument' again.

Attack the argument not the arguer

It had absolutely no effect at all last time you played it except to prove that your pseudo moderating arguments are baseless and fruitless.

But... hey....ya' never know......

Hi everyone,
We've had some good debate and arguments about this tragic, brutal murder case. I agree with PilotPadron, it was a personal attack. As hard as it sometimes is, let us try and attack the argument, not the arguer. Let's keep it kinda friendly, heck that guilter or innocentisti might change his or her point of view. Heck, I used to believe in guilt too, as I am sure many others here have too...


With that said, please allow me to comment on a quote that RoseMontague posted earlier today:

Interesting quote from Patrick's lawyer, translation from a poster at PMF:
Some very hard words from Carlo Pacelli, Lumumba's counsel.

He begins:

"I will explain to the Appeal Court of the Assizes that Knox studded the whole of her route with nonsense, lies. A mixture of falsehood and truth from a consummate actress. She claimed for example to have stayed in Perugia to help the police. Which does not correspond with the truth. On the day of November 3rd 2007, a little more than 24 hours from the discovery of Mez's body, talking with her Aunt Dorothy, who lives in Germany, she was listened into and in response to her relation's invitation to go to her in Germany, the student replied: 'They have told me that I cannot go away.' Therefore she had not stayed of her own will, but because of a precise request by the investigators."The lawyer completes his reasoning: "The day of the 4th she was already feeling [the police] breathing down her neck, she was becoming aware of being under suspicion seeing that she said: 'They are treating me like a criminal.'<snip>

So let me get this straight.
Amanda Knox did not run away because the cops told her not to?

Isn't Amanda the gal who supposedly participated in a very personal, brutal, bloody murder, one where she supposedly is the person who stabbed Meredith, the 1 who felt that knife penetrate the skin of the neck of her friend, that same friend with whom she had eaten lunch with in the kitchen the day before, and shared wine with while out on the town the evening before that?

Didn't Amanda attend a Jesuit school in her days of youth?
Surely she must have read that passage "Thou shalt not kill".
Jeez, I've even read that passage! No matter how stoned, drunk or f'ed up a person gets, a person without any prior history of violent tendencies can remember "Thou shalt not kill".

If Amanda Knox,
however stoned she was, did not obey that commandment and did murder Meredith Kercher, why would she obey and listen to what some cop says a few days later when they tell her that she can not leave?

Wasn't Amanda still gettin' high on THC after Meredith's murder?
Bein' an old guy that has comfortably gotten high on THC off+on for many years, I would have been sooo nervously paranoid about dealing with cops while buzzed on THC. Especially if I was guilty of any participation in a murder. Heck, I'd be nervous talkin' to the cops even without bein' high on THC.

That she was becoming aware of being under suspicion seeing that she said: 'They are treating me like a criminal." and that she did not flee the country for the safety of the U.S.A., nor lawyer up as her 2 Italian housemates did, helped re-inforce my opinion a long time ago that Amanda did not shove that knife into her friend Meredith's neck...

See ya,
RW

 

[Diocletus]

___________________

Diocletus,

Speaking of suspect activity by the cops....ever wonder why the cops released Amanda's two Spontaneous Statements (her "Confession") of November 6th within 24 hours of her arrest, but her Memorandum she wrote the same day---in which she accused the cops of coercion and striking her---was not released until two weeks after her arrest? See HERE and HERE and HERE. And the first English language report is HERE. Hmmm. Do you suppose that Ficarra had inadvertently "misplaced" Amanda's hand-written Memorandum for two weeks?

///

That's very interesting. I was not aware of that. Gave them plenty of time to shred the tapes, didn't it?

Ironic, isn't it, given that the only statement that's actually admissible is the memo., and they other two have been excluded because they violated her right to counsel. So, they immediately publicly release the illegal statements, and withold the statement that says that they hit her.