Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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bolint said:
Clearly Hellmann will finish this appeal now, but the rejection will be one of the basis for the appeal to the Supremes.
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I don't think that excuses Costagliola's apparent stupidity, Bolint. The prosecutors got their rejection---if that's what they want---at the last hearing when the same silly request was made.

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andreavogt Andrea Vogt
#amandaknox appeal. Mignini on the clasp: Contamination is possible. So is an earthquake. But contamination with what? How? Where? When?

Numerous contenders for the why, how, when of contamination have been proved by the independent experts.
It is the prosecutor's job to show guidelines and protocols to safeguard against contamination were followed, and then they can argue that the idea of contamination is unreasonable.
It is not the defence's job to show exactly when, how, when exactly, contamination took place, merely to show that normal guidelines and protocols to prevent contamination were not followed. Actually, the independent experts showed numerous instances of times that the actions of ILE raised the chances of contamination. Take your pick!
Does Mignini's incompetence and misunderstanding of the law know no bounds?
 
BLNadeau Barbie Latza Nadeau
Mignini:Meredith's jacket found in the cloths hamper was actually id'd as part of evidence early on, contradicting media reports.#amandaknox


Yes we all know this. The "crack" police scene of crime team found Meredith's blood-soaked Adidas jacket lying on the floor near her body, they "ID"d it....... then they threw it into Meredith's laundry hamper, where it lay for another six weeks!

Quite how Mignini thinks this makes the police look any better than if the police hadn't noticed the jacket until the December re-inspection is wholly baffling to me. Unbelievable...

By the way, I think it's quite telling that Costagliola, who's nominally the lead prosecutor in this appeal trial, appears to have limited himself to "introducing" the prosecution's closing argument, and now appears to have passed the meat of the argument onto Mignini (who shouldn't even be a part of the prosecution team). In any normal trial, the lead prosecutor would conduct the bulk of the closing argument.

And what's all this about Sfarzo being physically restrained and hauled out of the courtroom? If this happened, was it for any justifiable reason? Did Sfarzo, for instance, threaten or even assault police officers or anyone else in the court? And if he didn't, then what possible justification could there be for his forcible removal from the court (if indeed this happened)?
 
bri1 said:
andreavogt Andrea Vogt
#amandaknox appeal. Mignini on the clasp: Contamination is possible. So is an earthquake. But contamination with what? How? Where? When?

Numerous contenders for the why, how, when of contamination have been proved by the independent experts.
It is the prosecutor's job to show guidelines and protocols to safeguard against contamination were followed, and then they can argue that the idea of contamination is unreasonable.
It is not the defence's job to show exactly when, how, when exactly, contamination took place, merely to show that normal guidelines and protocols to prevent contamination were not followed. Actually, the independent experts showed numerous instances of times that the actions of ILE raised the chances of contamination. Take your pick!
Does Mignini's incompetence and misunderstanding of the law know no bounds?
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And of course Vogt is either to unintelligent or too over-invested to realise this for herself. Or she's a combination of the two.
 
LondonJohn said:
Don't confuse prosecutors' blatant appeals to emotion with the way that Hellmann and the court are looking at the case. In fat, I'd argue that the fact that prosecutors made such an appeal is indicative of the fact that they don't have sufficient evidential basis for their arguments.

CNN's Chance has already tweeted to just this effect, and he's absolutely correct. Nobody should be making references to the suffering of Meredith's family or even the brutality of Meredith's death as part of their arguments for the guilt of Knox and Sollecito. The two issues should be totally decoupled from one another if one is to make a fair, objective assessment as to whether Knox/Sollecito are guilty or not guilty. And the fact remains: based on all the evidence (or lack thereof) they should be - and, in my opinion, will be - acquitted by Hellmann's court.
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Yeah, it's just I know that if I were a juror I'd be laughing in his stupid face right now, and the fact that there's been no reports of this worries me :)

I agree that a radical decoupling is necessary. But the fact that the guilters are so willing to make the association between 'justice for meredith' and solace for the Kerchers, with AK and RS's guilt (and a guilty verdict), makes it clear that many people are unable to or unwilling to reflect honestly about this (false) association, makes me worry that there are jurors like this.
 
misteratunta said:
Apparently Mignini has cracked out the autopsy photos.

Completely unnecessary.
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I think he has the right to do this, particularly if he's trying to argue that the wounds are consistent with particular elements of the prosecution theory (multiple assailants, multiple knives, restraint, etc). But the defence will more than adequately be able to refute anything he says in regard to autopsy photos: they indicate that it's actually more likely that Meredith was attacked with a single narrow-bladed knife, and that there was very little physical restraint of her before the stabbings.

As I said earlier: this is the prosecution's final roll of the dice in arguing for guilt. Don't expect anything other than a bombastic, hyperbole-laden whirlwind from Mignini: we all know this man's form in this area. In front of an impartial, rational judge and court, however, it won't count for very much. The prosecution can announce "case closed" as loudly as it likes - the bare truth is that the prosecution do not have a sufficient case for guilt, and the defence teams will more than adequately show that next week. Knox and Sollecito are going to be acquitted, in my opinion.
 
bri1 said:
Yeah, it's just I know that if I were a juror I'd be laughing in his stupid face right now, and the fact that there's been no reports of this worries me :)

I agree that a radical decoupling is necessary. But the fact that the guilters are so willing to make the association between 'justice for meredith' and solace for the Kerchers, with AK and RS's guilt (and a guilty verdict), makes it clear that many people are unable to or unwilling to reflect honestly about this (false) association, makes me worry that there are jurors like this.
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Whisper it quietly, but the whole concept of "popular judges" (i.e. lay persons who serve as six of the 8-person judicial panel) is fundamentally flawed. It's perfectly obvious with any knowledge of human psychology and interaction with authority figures that whatever the two professional judges decide is almost certain to be followed by the 6 lay judges (or at least by the clear majority of them). Not only that, but if any of the lay judges do get falsely influenced by such appeals to emotion, the fact that the judges are in the deliberation room will soon dispel such factors from forming part of the reasoning.

But the key point is that the two judges almost certainly hold definitive sway over the whole judicial panel. I've tried before (without success) to find any information about the breakdown of verdicts in Italian criminal trials: specifically, how many are 8-0 verdicts, how many are 7-1 or 6-2, how many are 4-4 with the presiding judge exercising the casting vote, and in how many the presiding judge and second judge vote different ways. I very strongly suspect that a) the overwhelming majority of verdicts are 8-0 or 7-1, and b) the two professional judges almost always vote the same way.
 
LondonJohn said:
BLNadeau Barbie Latza Nadeau
Mignini:Meredith's jacket found in the cloths hamper was actually id'd as part of evidence early on, contradicting media reports.#amandaknox


Yes we all know this. The "crack" police scene of crime team found Meredith's blood-soaked Adidas jacket lying on the floor near her body, they "ID"d it....... then they threw it into Meredith's laundry hamper, where it lay for another six weeks!

Quite how Mignini thinks this makes the police look any better than if the police hadn't noticed the jacket until the December re-inspection is wholly baffling to me. Unbelievable...
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John, you're right, this is very strange.
It would be better in a way for complete incompetence to reign- we didn't see the jacket.
This kind of behaviour is what leads some pro-innocence supporters to suspect something more vindictive than incompetence. There seems to be a fair amount of evidence that the police were ignoring 'exculpatory' evidence (e.g. the Harry Potter book and Amanda's sweater on her bed). So when they are ignoring pieces of evidence such as Meredith's jacket or the pillowcase stain, the possibility that they might have been further evidence of Rudy's role (and therefore exculpatory to AK and RS) naturally arises.
With the jacket in particular, the prosecution always seemed puzzled that Rudy alone could restrain Meredith, without help to hold her down / secure her wrists. This puzzlement could've been solved, if the jacket showed evidence that Rudy grabbed the back of the jacket, and Meredith tries to get away but ends up with her wrists trapped and with Rudy using it to physically control her during the attack.
 
Maybe the jurors are smarter than people think and are waiting until they have heard all the closing arguments listened to any guidance provided by the professional judges then start their deliberation maybe that is naive and lay judges are mindless automatons as some seem to conclude.
 
LondonJohn said:
Whisper it quietly, but the whole concept of "popular judges" (i.e. lay persons who serve as six of the 8-person judicial panel) is fundamentally flawed. It's perfectly obvious with any knowledge of human psychology and interaction with authority figures that whatever the two professional judges decide is almost certain to be followed by the 6 lay judges (or at least by the clear majority of them). Not only that, but if any of the lay judges do get falsely influenced by such appeals to emotion, the fact that the judges are in the deliberation room will soon dispel such factors from forming part of the reasoning.

But the key point is that the two judges almost certainly hold definitive sway over the whole judicial panel. I've tried before (without success) to find any information about the breakdown of verdicts in Italian criminal trials: specifically, how many are 8-0 verdicts, how many are 7-1 or 6-2, how many are 4-4 with the presiding judge exercising the casting vote, and in how many the presiding judge and second judge vote different ways. I very strongly suspect that a) the overwhelming majority of verdicts are 8-0 or 7-1, and b) the two professional judges almost always vote the same way.
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I hope that you're right! I hope that the 'professional' judges can think clearly enough about this case, and that this clarity carries through into the lay judges...
 
LondonJohn said:
And of course Vogt is either to unintelligent or too over-invested to realise this for herself. Or she's a combination of the two.
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Of course Vogt is. What bugs me is that it seems like a point of law to me (and maybe I'm wrong), and the fact that Mignini is presenting this legal / burden of proof argument, when he's an officer of the court, is egregious and will be parroted by mental midgets such as Vogt.
 
andreavogt Andrea Vogt
by BLNadeau
#amandaknox prosecutor Giuliano Mignini to jury: every one of us has a dark side.

I think we saw quite enough of Mignini's dark side in his fantasies of what went on that night. It's partly Mignini's dark side that explains how these two came to be accused- his tendency to see conspiracy, moral corruption, satanic ritual everywhere he looks and the obsession that needs to see this darkness 'reflected' back at him by others.
 
BLNadeau Barbie Latza Nadeau
Mignini cites supreme court's on #rudyguede that he acted together with others, including #amandaknox even tho supr ct. did NOT name Knox.

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Barbie's mistaken. The Supreme Court MOTIVATION REPORT explaining the conviction of Rudy did mention Amanda Knox. Indeed, that erudite judicial document managed the spell her last name in several different ways. As I recall she was called "Knox," "Xnok," and "Knocks."

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Fine said:
________________

I don't think that excuses Costagliola's apparent stupidity, Bolint. The prosecutors got their rejection---if that's what they want---at the last hearing when the same silly request was made.

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Does this request by the prosecution accomplish anything other than reemphasizing for the jury that the prosecution's forensics evidence is sooooo bad that they need just one more chance to get it right. Pretty please.

Somebody might want to remind this idiot that the prosecution has the burden of proof. And what he's saying is that they can't satisfy it on the existing record.
 
Barbie's mistaken. The Supreme Court MOTIVATION REPORT explaining the conviction of Rudy did mention Amanda Knox. Indeed, that erudite judicial document managed the spell her last name in several different ways. As I recall she was called "Knox," "Xnok," and "Knocks."
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I think what the supreme court meant was that meredith was killed by Amanda on the Xbox. They were playing call of duty. The supreme court was confused because the next day, rudy came in and really killed Meredith after playing call of doody.
 
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bri1 said:
andreavogt Andrea Vogt
by BLNadeau
#amandaknox prosecutor Giuliano Mignini to jury: every one of us has a dark side.

I think we saw quite enough of Mignini's dark side in his fantasies of what went on that night. It's partly Mignini's dark side that explains how these two came to be accused- his tendency to see conspiracy, moral corruption, satanic ritual everywhere he looks and the obsession that needs to see this darkness 'reflected' back at him by others.
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If this was accurately translated by Clouseau, then it's hard to avoid the suspicion that Mignini is making some sort of subtle allusion to his own foibles - presumably with the intention of "humanising" his (numerous) shortcomings and having a stab at personal and professional redemption.

Anyhow, I hear the siren call of two very dull Friday afternoon meetings. So I'll be away for much of the rest of the day's proceedings. I look forward to catching up later on, and to joining the discussion of the day's events.
 
Tide of change

Ere Bri1
What I see at the moment, is the prosecution are running on fresh air. the main fact is that they had nothing to start with, and they have nothing to finish with.
The lay judges are of very high education, sort of thing like LJ or your own education, their input will be the most inportent when Judge Hellman comes to his final view.
at the moment what the prosecution are doing, is trying to change the river Avon to the river Seven
;)
 
capealadin said:
By th way, Grinder, It has nothing to to do * With sticking with Michael.* I am a member of PMF. Michael started PMF, is PMF, is highly knowledgeable about this case, and therefore I am part of the original site. Clear, cut and dried.

Btw, Loyalty is part of whom I am. Something wrong with that ??????????
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Loyalty is one thing; a warped, cult mentality is another thing entirely.

Michael/Fulcanelli himself is one of the most unaccomplished and warped individuals that I have ever encountered. There is good reason that LondonJohn refers to posters on both PMFs as idiots. As organizations, these particular fish are rotten from the head/s down.

It is a great blessing indeed -- for the causes of justice and sanity, for starters -- that soon the likes of the Michaels, Ganongs, etc., will be rendered completely otiose in this case.
 
LondonJohn said:
BLNadeau Barbie Latza Nadeau
Mignini:Meredith's jacket found in the cloths hamper was actually id'd as part of evidence early on, contradicting media reports.#amandaknox
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Oh, so they were just "storing" it in the bottom of the hamper. LOL. Everybody knows that they should have stuffed it in the freezer.

What a bunch of clowns.
 
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