Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Kaosium]

Murder aside for a second.

i'm interested to know what others think the punishment should be for lying to police during a murder investigation?

we know for a fact AK & RS did this. Thoughts?

Outside the night at the Questura what do you think they 'lied' about? As for that night, the police are responsible for the results of the information they obtain as a result of their interrogations. If they wish to maintain they were misled by the 'lies' of the accused, then they can cough up those tapes and come up with explanations for why they were afoul of the law when they obtained those statements.

We know for a fact the cops lied about the interrogation, their own stories don't match, nor does the calunnia charge with twelve police eligible square with the stories told in court by Ficarra, Lugarini, Napoleoni and Domino. Not just in details, but in major contentions as to the nature of their being summoned, the number of police present, and the character of the interrogation itself.

Nothing about what Raffaele told them makes any sense unless he was simply mistaken about what night the murder was. He may well have been encouraged in this belief. Withdrawing his own alibi is not the mark of someone lying to protect themselves! Amanda placing her own self at the crime scene 'accusing' Patrick makes as little sense, as does the very assumption that those statements amount to an actual accusation and not a recreation of possible events the interlocutor herself is unsure of.

There's a difference between relating false information and lying to police. Raffaele and Amanda both signed statements that contained false information, but both also withdrew them the instant they could. This in and of itself suggests coercion, and thus they themselves weren't responsible for their contents, and had the cops followed the law they never would have existed. Both statements worked to the disadvantage of the subjects, and to the benefit of police, being as they both got arrested for murder as a result, which in the case of police resulted in medals. Thus the idea that they misled police to their own advantage, or even that they tried to mislead police to hide their guilt--about anything--is specious at best.

 

[JREF2010]

implicating Lumumba. Then sitting in jail knowing full well Lumumba was innocent and not saying anything. It wasn't AK that got him out it was his alibi.

I'd give her another 20 years just for that

she claims she told her lawyers , once she was allowed lawyers....

the police bumbled, maybe rushed in too quick on Patrick too?

If I told the police you were a murderer, hopefully they would do a little homework before barging in and arresting you, maybe get a couple confirmation pieces of evidence? you think?

as far as punishment she is being punished , charges applied, and court was setup for this Lumumba thing? So I dont get your concern, you seem to imply she got away with it.....she didnt ...she has another trial going on.

EDIT: Scratch that, the Calunnia is the Maresca &Perugia Polcie trial...I get confused, and dont really care. The Murder case is the only one that will keep anyone in prison.

 

[yeti101]

If in fact Amanda was nowhere near the cottage when Meredith was murdered, how did she know "full well Lumumba was innocent"?

Rolfe.

jeez , ok fingering someone she didnt know had anything to do with it.

 

[js202]

ah yes the "false memories" "implanted memories" & "visions"

i'd give them 20 years just for the lies.

What rank stupidity. On the basis of what legal code anywhere in the world, aside from North Korea and Iran? And, of course, your own febrile imagination...

 

[lionking]

What rank stupidity. On the basis of what legal code anywhere in the world, aside from North Korea and Iran? And, of course, your own febrile imagination...

It was an opinion. Yeti said that was what he/she would give them, not any justice system. And, heaven forbid, we've never seen hyperbolic opinions about what should happen to prosecutors and police involved.

 

[Kestrel]

Because the police is convinced that the truthful story is in fact just a lie. And the method to break the accused is to give them the feeling that if they continue to tell this story (wich incidentally is the truth) everything will be horrible for them ("you will be thrown for thirty years into prison, never see your parents again", on other occasions; threats with death penalty or coming into a horrible prison, insinuating to the possibly of being raped there, stuff like that) the accused gets the impression that there is only one way; to confess. And that's exactly the mental state they want him in, the problem is only; it works with innocents just as well as with guilty ones.

In a situation like this it is not easy to tell the truth because the police is doing everything in their power to manipulate you into thinking that your future will be horrible if you continue to maintain your innocence, if you confess though, they can help you …

Other times people just want to get out of the terrible situation of being screamed at and accused for hours and simply don't realize in what sort of torment they are shifting themselves into that way …

Scientific experiments have proved that extracting a false confession from an innocent person isn't all that hard. It's done by wearing down the subject and feeding them false information so they question their own memory of what happened.

 

[js202]

I know you believe this, but Amanda may indeed by responsible to some extent or other.

Meredith is the real victim.

Meredith is the *greater* victim. And, based on any rational assessment of the evidence, Amanda Knox is innocent.

Therefore Amanda Knox is also a victim.

This canard of "maybe she's innocent, maybe she's not," will presumably be the new meme for many in post-acquittal days. In fact, all non-biased international experts have come down on the side of innocence. FBI man John Douglas -- who essentially invented criminal profiling -- considers the fact that Knox was even tried in this case a laughable and inexplicable injustice.

No amount of clouding of the water by anonymous, inexpert sources on the internet changes this. Of course, such clouding could contribute to added difficulties for Amanda Knox in her post-acquittal rehabilitation back into society. Which I'm sure will make certain sick, self-loathing guilters sleep better at night.

 

[smkovalinksy]

From Umbria, Knox arriving in court today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZzieiMxgzM

 

[js202]

It was an opinion. Yeti said that was what he/she would give them, not any justice system. And, heaven forbid, we've never seen hyperbolic opinions about what should happen to prosecutors and police involved.

It was an utterly stupid opinion, coming from someone who obviously wrongly believes in guilt -- just cuz -- and therefore would like to substitute for the murder an equivalent sentence for the "lies."

, indeed.

 

[Kestrel]

jeez , ok fingering someone she didnt know had anything to do with it.

The police questions regarding the text messages between Patrick and Amanda would have made it quite clear that he was a suspect.

 

[yeti101]

It was an utterly stupid opinion, coming from someone who obviously wrongly believes in guilt -- just cuz -- and therefore would like to substitute for the murder an equivalent sentence for the "lies."

, indeed.

oh i'm sorry i didnt realise you were there. You dont know **** you just think you do.

 

[JREF2010]

The police questions regarding the text messages between Patrick and Amanda would have made it quite clear that he was a suspect.

and the text was in the correct time-frame they were aware of, they knew by then Meredith was killed post 9pm per Sophie.

So a few texts shortly before would seem a logical concern, in the police's interest.

 

[js202]

oh i'm sorry i didnt realise you were there. You dont know **** you just think you do.

And, pray tell us, anonymous, inexpert poster, just what does John Douglas know?

 

[JREF2010]

Anyone guessing why they moved the verdict to Monday?

In respect for the judges? Maybe due to the media onslaught extra guards are needed, not readily available on a Saturday?

If it was a 10minute slamdunk, already known verdict....I dont see a reason to postpone.

why? other than the media blitz causing issues.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

go back to square 1

Murder aside for a second.

i'm interested to know what others think the punishment should be for lying to police during a murder investigation?

we know for a fact AK & RS did this. Thoughts?

yeti101,

My thought is that you should check your premises.
EDT
When one lies under oath, it is called perjury. I do not see why we need to criminalize lying while not under oath. However, the police have certain statutory obligations during an investigation, and if they fail to live up to those, I think they should be held accountable. No one is above the law.

 

[Kaosium]

implicating Lumumba. Then sitting in jail knowing full well Lumumba was innocent and not saying anything. It wasn't AK that got him out it was his alibi.

I'd give her another 20 years just for that

You're making an unsupportable assumption: that Amanda could know that Patrick was innocent. Of course she couldn't, she wasn't there, and once she knew for certain again she wasn't there, she obviously couldn't know who was there when Meredith was murdered.

You're certainly right about the other thing though, it's the police who arrest suspects and release them, not foreign exchange students. They're the ones who arrested Patrick, they're the ones who thought Patrick was guilty.

Amanda didn't--she didn't know--but she did know the police thought so.

What you have to ask yourself is regardless of what you believe about how the interrogation was conducted and what happened to Amanda, why didn't the cops reconsider when they received that note? If Amanda was all they had on Patrick, and hours later is writing things like 'Who is the REAL murder [sic]? This is particularly important because I don't feel I can be used as condemning 'testimone' in this instance' and 'I want to make very clear that these events seem more unreal to me that what I said before, that I stayed at Raffaele's house' what justification could they possibly have to continue to hold Patrick as a suspect for murder, let alone go ahead with a press conference where they say 'case closed' and that Amanda 'buckled and gave a version of events we knew to be correct?'

Yeti, if the cops can lie during interrogations, they can lie about the interrogation. That's what they did in this case, as Patrick in jail benefits Amanda and Raffaele not a whit, it's something that will be (virtually) inevitably exposed as untrue thus someone who knew it was untrue wouldn't even attempt. An interesting sidelight of the whole interrogation/note comparison is how the idea that Patrick's bar was closed snuck into to the 1:45 statement ("...telling me that that evening the pub would remain closed because there were no people, therefore I didn’t have to go to work") whereas that disappears from the second statement and is corrected in Amanda's note ("He told me in this message that it wasn't necessary for me to come into work for the evening because there was no one at my work.") yet police would go out an obtain a 'witness' statement the next day (bottom post--Matteini Report pages 11-12) that the bar was closed "
The last confirmation of the closure of the locale before said time is found in the declarations of a regular customer, one Vulcano Gerado Pasquale, the which interviewed at sommarie informazioni [page 12] on the date 7 November 2007, referred to the fact that, on the night of the 1st November, he noticed, around 19.00, that the locale was closed, as well having noticed said circumstance much later on his return from the pizzeria."

So, reading that, who do you suppose believed Patrick wasn't working that night, the police who drafted that statement in a language Amanda barely read and who'd run out to obtain a 'witness' statement to that effect, or Amanda who puts it correctly in her note? Who do you think believed that Patrick was responsible for Meredith's murder, the police who would arrest him, charge him with the murder, and hold him for two weeks, or Amanda who clearly isn't sure of it in the statements themselves, which she expounds upon voluminously in her note?

 

[Grinder]

Murder aside for a second.

i'm interested to know what others think the punishment should be for lying to police during a murder investigation?

we know for a fact AK & RS did this. Thoughts?

If lying means giving inaccurate information, then I would not punish it at all.

If the liar is trying to cover for themselves or another then there should be punishment related to the underlying crime. Lying about a parking violation shouldn't be punished as severely as lying in a murder case.

In this case, excluding the interrogation night, I don't see where anyone lied. Many people gave inaccurate information. Filomena said Meredith's door was never locked. I doubt that was accurate. The English girls gave different times for the dinner, one or more were not telling the truth.

The only person I think lied was Quintavalle. I just can't buy that he remembered a year later thing that didn't match up with police interviews only days after the crime. Curatolo is clearly not tell the truth but in his case someone may have convinced him that he saw what he saw or he could be lying. Nara is somewhat like Curatolo.

Now, I'm not including the ILE in this. It seems many of them have not been accurate. If Stefanoni knowing lied about the tests for blood, she should get at least 16 years.

 

[lionking]

yeti101,

My thought is that you should check your premises.

Nothing wrong with the premise. They lied. There have been no end of rationalisations for their lies, but lies they were.

 

[DarkStar2011]

Anyone guessing why they moved the verdict to Monday?

In respect for the judges? Maybe due to the media onslaught extra guards are needed, not readily available on a Saturday?

If it was a 10minute slamdunk, already known verdict....I dont see a reason to postpone.

why? other than the media blitz causing issues.

The breaking story from the Mirror (sorry, I can't post links yet) concludes with the suggestion that the Kerchers wouldn't be able to be there until Monday. If this is the case (and I don't see how it is, since I thought they were there already), it would strongly suggest that the verdict will be a reaffirmation of the conviction, since it would make sense that they'd want the Kerchers there for that, but less that they'd reschedule just so they could be there for an acquittal.

 

[Wildhorses]

Anyone guessing why they moved the verdict to Monday?

In respect for the judges? Maybe due to the media onslaught extra guards are needed, not readily available on a Saturday?

If it was a 10minute slamdunk, already known verdict....I dont see a reason to postpone.

why? other than the media blitz causing issues.

I suppose they had their reasons. Seems cruel though.

It's bugging me that it may have been a concession to the prosecution.

Poor Knox. We are watching torture.