Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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Another point about Novelli's comments. In essence what he is saying is that Meredith's DNA did not show up on other samples tested after this gap that would tend to indicate something like machine or lab contamination. He is comparing apples and oranges on this one. <Dr Steffi only cranked up the knob on this one sample, if she had done the same with these others (including ones that showed the presence of some DNA under normal sensitivity), who knows if Meredith's DNA would show up or not? If she had not cranked up the knob on this sample, it would have (and should have) been reported as no DNA found to test.
 
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Giuseppe Novelli: "Il contaminante va dimostrato, dove nasce e dove è. Il gancetto contaminato dalla polvere? Più probabile che cada un meteorite e butti giù questo tribunale." ha sostenuto."
("The bra contaminated? More likely a meteorite strikes the courthouse.")

____________________

Novelli has confused a meteorite with a meteor.

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bri1 said:
Here's an interesting paper on prosecutorial misconduct in relation to expert testimony:
http://law2.fordham.edu/publications/articles/500flspub10058.pdf


Novelli's testimony contradicts a fundamental tenet of forensics investigation, and veers into a legal, rather than scientific point.
Whereas when forensics investigators take all reasonable steps (as indicated by all forensics collections guidelines) to prevent cross-contamination, then the burden is on the defense, if they want to argue contamination, to prove the specifics of the contamination. However, if the defense can show that such reasonable steps were not taken, then the burden falls to the prosecution and forensics investigators to show why contamination could not have taken place (the burden in this scenario is not on the defense even to prove that contamination did actually take place, let alone state when, where or how).
Novelli knows this. He should be subject to disciplinary action through an ethics committee. I'd quite like to write to his University's ethics committee.
Does anyone know what university he works at?
Click to expand...

Result of quick googling:
http://www.sensibilia.it/Novelli.html

I initially thought this guy is simply a crook without morals or integrity, but looking at his credentials it's clear he is also completely clueless when it comes to forensics.
 
Novelli and lightning

Dr. Novelli is at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. I don't think his comparison of the odds of contamination to the odds of lightning striking the court house is a good one. I may be able to comment more later.
 
Fine said:
Giuseppe Novelli: "Il contaminante va dimostrato, dove nasce e dove è. Il gancetto contaminato dalla polvere? Più probabile che cada un meteorite e butti giù questo tribunale." ha sostenuto."
("The bra contaminated? More likely a meteorite strikes the courthouse.")

____________________

Novelli has confused a meteorite with a meteor.

///
Click to expand...

Actually meteor is an atmospheric phenomenon, and meteorite is the solid piece of meteoroid that survives atmosphere entry and impacts the ground.
 
halides1 said:
Dr. Novelli is at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. I don't think his comparison of the odds of contamination to the odds of lightning striking the court house is a good one. I may be able to comment more later.
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Thanks, Hallides.
It's clear from his positions that Novelli is a big time academic. He seems to be on the Ethics Committee for the research clinic attached to his University, but I don't read Italian too well, so this is something I plan on looking at further with my sister, who is fluent.
Providing misleading expert testimony looks like it is a fairly endemic problem. It's bad enough when defense expert testimony seems to be bought, but when it's prosecution testimony it's even more egregious
 
Katody Matrass said:
Result of quick googling:
http://www.sensibilia.it/Novelli.html

I initially thought this guy is simply a crook without morals or integrity, but looking at his credentials it's clear he is also completely clueless when it comes to forensics.
Click to expand...

Yeah, all the 'ivory tower' / never done forensics collection / wedding reception nonsense levelled against C & V seems to be at least equally applicable to this dude.

Is everyone in agreement that his statements can be interpreted as an attempt to undermine a fundamental principle of forensics investigation?

Presumably, according to Novelli, it doesn't matter if you wear gloves or footcoverings, doesn't matter what you store evidence in, we should just rip out any section of any textbook or handbook that deals with prevention of cross contamination. Even if that happened, the burden of proof would still be with the accused to prove that contamination occurred (a practically impossible task).

There are so many burdens of proof being turned on their heads in this case, and the idea that any judge allows this without correcting the prosecution is very worrying to me.
 
I'm a medical doctor and I know that the ethics committee or GMC would come down very hard on anyone making unfounded and misleading statements. There must be something similar for academic doctors, it is a complete misuse of their expertise.

I still think the easiest way for the DNA to be transferred to the bra strap might have been Raffaele giving Meredith a double cheeked italian kiss as they left earlier that day. She then touches her face where he has left some saliva and then adjusts her bra strap. It's definitely a possibility.

Although from reading the DNA reports, it is not even clear that his DNA was there at all
 
Grinder said:
Dave, Rudy didn't plead guilty.

They were charged with a number of crimes including staging. They were also charged with theft.

From Wiki:They were indicted in October 2008 by Judge Micheli and charged with murder, sexual assault, simulating a crime (burglary), carrying a knife and theft of 300 euros, two credit cards and two mobile phones
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Thank you. :)

I don't understand your comment on the conviction for staging well enough, so let me construct a table for what Amanda Knox faced after the judge indicted, and finally when the original trial concluded.

Charged|convicted
murder|yes or no
sexual assault|yes or no
Simulating burglary|yes or no
carrying knife| yes or no
Theft of ... |yes or no

While I don't see something I recognize as obstruction of justice, perhaps the "staging" issue is close enough to relate to something like
"accessory" to a crime be it before the fact, after the fact,
or however it is handled in Italian law.

Was it yes to all in the table, or only some?

Your post #6644 suggests to me "yes to all." Is there anything I am missing?
 
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Professor Giuseppe Novelli (PhD) is Dean of the Medical School, at the Tor Vergata University of Rome, Italy and Head of the Human Genetics Research Unit at The Tor Vergata University of Rome (Italy). He is Adjunct Prof. at the Div. of Cardiology, University of Arkansas, Little Rock, (USA).

Not only an academic but at a football university, you know, like Boise State.

To some extent I agree with him that there should be some reasonable path for contamination, but I also think that other factors should be considered as well. For example with the bra clasp, since no DNA was found on the other part of the bra and that fragments of more people was found on the clasp that needs to be explained clearly and convincingly.

With the knife, since it tested negative for blood and didn't fit the bloody outline at the scene nor did it fit many, if not all, of the wounds it also needs a better narrative than contamination needs to proven.

This is the guy that Harry Machine repeatedly quoted. Novelli was brought in as a "prosecution independent expert" IIRC yet Harry forgets the prosecution part of it.

If anybody or anything associated with this case should be compared or associated with Goebbels, it would be HarryMachine and TJMK.
 
Grinder said:


To some extent I agree with him that there should be some reasonable path for contamination, but I also think that other factors should be considered as well. .
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I get what you're saying Grinder, that DNA evidence and the possibility of cross contamination has to be considered within the context of other evidence.

But, are there ever going to be forensics investigations of crime scenes where there are no reasonable paths of contamination?
I would argue that you always have to have investigators moving around in a crime scene, and these will always be reasonable paths for cross-contamination, unless reasonable preventative measures are put in place....
 
Darth Rotor said:
Thank you. :)

I don't understand your comment on the conviction for staging well enough, so let me construct a table for what Amanda Knox faced after the judge indicted, and finally when the original trial concluded.

Charged|convicted
murder|yes or no
sexual assault|yes or no
Simulating burglary|yes or no
carrying knife| yes or no
Theft of ... |yes or no

While I don't see something I recognize as obstruction of justice, perhaps the "staging" issue is close enough to relate to something like
"accessory" to a crime be it before the fact, after the fact,
or however it is handled in Italian law.

Was it yes to all in the table, or only some?
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She was convicted of all of the above but not all of theft charges. She was not convicted of the money and credit card thefts only the cell phones.

I don't think she was charged with obstruction except that the simulating a burglary is, as you say, very similar. So by staging they were trying to cover up a crime. It seems an odd charge when they were convicted of much more serious crimes.

It seems a possible out for the court to keep the simulated burglary and false accusation (not on your table) but find her not guilty of the murder. Time served and the Italians wouldn't have to pay her a fortune.

May I ask what you are getting at?
 
Some to All. A blatant error in arguing this case

Edited by kmortis: 
Removed previously moderated content and response to same


Another example of previously erroneously employed some to all:
David Marriott was never a CBS Anchor.
He was only an Emmy Award winning CBS Reporter.
Therefore Marriott has no contacts within CBS that he might use to have an easy opening to provide his spin and Media Briefing Sheets.
The tools that Marriott knows save a Producer any and all Independent research for a quickie and easy pro Knox "special".

And again the key point.
Since the opposition poster allegedly was incorrect about Marriott's ( petty, pedantic,molehill) title.....everything the guilter ever said about Marriott's glaringly obvious influence on CBS and US media the US media is also incorrect.
The some to all continues with suggestions that therefore:
1) Everything that this guilter poster says about the case is wrong
2) Then also everything "all these people" say about anything is wrong
Huh ? ? ?

Not too much of factual based skeptical arguing....eh ???

If you need to satisfy an apparent urge for 'research'.
May I suggest this:
http://home.comcast.net/~erozycki/Errors.html

Note the first paragraph.
*All 4* or the "Common errors in Logic and Rhetoric Structure" are exactly the way you have argued above against guilters.
This using, your Reporters and Porterhouses molehills as somehow justifying some to all.

BTW:
The rather uncomplimentary and unnecessarily snarky closing you employ is another example of the some to all stupidity I seek to eliminate.
Your "These people are - oh never mind" indeed may have much wider and much closer to home associations than you intend and again erroneously infer.
 
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bri1 said:
I get what you're saying Grinder, that DNA evidence and the possibility of cross contamination has to be considered within the context of other evidence.

But, are there ever going to be forensics investigations of crime scenes where there are no reasonable paths of contamination?
I would argue that you always have to have investigators moving around in a crime scene, and these will always be reasonable paths for cross-contamination, unless reasonable preventative measures are put in place....
Click to expand...

If the knife was a penknife as it was originally described in leaked stories, if it fit the wounds, and if tested positive for blood, then even how it was handled I would have more belief in the results. I don't think that protocol should be violated and when proper procedure is not followed I believe that the DNA needs to be excluded.

I was just saying that I understood and accepted the idea that some path for the contamination should be evident. However, proper procedure must be followed or the science becomes chaotic.

I would say that Rudy's DNA had almost no chance of contamination. They had tested much of the evidence before they had arrested Rudy and they didn't have his DNA in the lab. If they had handled this evidence improperly, and they probably did, it would be very hard to claim contamination since he had never been in the cottage upstairs and they hadn't run his DNA in the lab before the evidence.

So yes there would be many cases where contamination would be nearly impossible even with bad collection and lab conditions.
 
AmyStrange said:
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Thank you LJ,

I stand corrected. I change my calculation to 10 to 1 in favor of not guilty,

Dave
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There are two separate issues here. The first is whether or not the evidence shows that AK and RS are guilty and the second is whether or not the court will find them guilty.

The evidence shows that they are 100% innocent or, at the very least, NOT guilty as charged.

However, the way the court will vote is beyond my ability to predict. If the jury had to be unanimous, they they will be found innocent with 100% certainty. However, Italy does not require a unanimous verdict, so the verdict requires a knowledge of all the jurists.

Since Hellmen seems to be on the side of innocence, I would think that a verdict of innocence is a distinct probability. I have never seen a person that believes in the innocence of Amanda and Raffaele change their minds. It is also the tendency of the people to follow the authority figure, which in this case is Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellman. Therefore, it seems highly probable that she will be found innocent.

The law sometimes floats in space by itself without any connection to the real world, just like the floating mountains in Avatar. If somehow the prosecution attaches the case to one of those floating mountains (laws) the defense could encounter more problems. However, I haven't seen the prosecution argue points of law, so I think we are safe there.

I'll have to rely on the opinions of those that have personally seen the trial for an estimate of whether or not they will be soon free.
 
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JREF2010 said:
I've never seen a picture of this. The Tow Truck driver said he saw a dark colored car in the driveway to the cottage. Maybe the person running away was the driver? A lookout for Rudys Burglary?

There was also a employee that parked in the parking lot at midnight or so and saw nothing, but they interviewed him for some reason.

That dark car the Tow Truck driver saw is really mysterious.

CCTV never saw it I assume? Didnt drive away or pull out and trip the camera?

Rudy has all the answers but it seems the prosecution was more interested in just getting him to support their theory than finding the truth.
Maresca is quoted on TJMK as saying Rudy is credible. Maresca is sickening imo, I guess I had too many expectations for him to be neutral and unbiased.
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Hi JREF2010,
If I find the photo again, I'll post a link to it, I think that Piktor, the Photoshop wizard, created it. Though it's just a blended photo, when you look at it, you also realize that Meredith is lying dead inside her bedroom, so the presence of this car has a sinister possibility. Photo's, and video's really help you understand what you read about, they can be very powerfull tools to use.

With that said,
I wonder if the prosecution will somehow include in their arguments, once again "a video dramatization of the murder, complete with sexy avatars of Amanda, Meredith, Raffaele, and Rudy - the women with big breasts and tiny waists a la Lara croft, the men with broad shoulders and bulging crotches. It was a bizzare film that superimposed these animated figures over real crime scene photos." Reading from 'Angel Face', Barbie Nadeau continues, "But the video did prove effective. Rather than listening to defense experts hypothesize with mannequins and diagrams, jurors saw an exact enactment of what the proecution thought had happened. It was compelling."

I surely hope that the defense is ready for this possibility and can somehow combat this powerful video visualization, if it comes into play in court this time around...

RW
 
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Bizarro world

Imagine if the police had waited for the fornensics evidence to be analyzed before jumping to conclusions.
  • Can there be any doubt that Rudy would have been charged with break and enter, rape and murder?
  • Can you imagine Rudy claiming he did not break in the Filomena's window because it was difficult to do and the prosecution agreeing with him?
  • Can you imagine Rudy saying the bloody footprint on the bathmat was not his and the prosecution bringing in an expert to agree with him?
  • Can you imagine the prosecution refusing to test the alleged semen stain on the pillow case?
  • Can you imagine the prosecution looking for and finding a couple of molecules of Meredith's alleged DNA on a kitchen knife in someone else's kitchen?
  • Can you imagine the prosecution reopening the trashed crime scene 1-1/2 months later to find more evidence.
  • Or if Curatolo gave Rudy an alibi can you imagine Mignini describing Curatolo as 'Credibile credibilissimo, absolute'?
  • Can you imagine the prosecution reading Rudy's excuses in court and nodding in agreement?
 
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