Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Onofarar]

I thought that's what you said. That seems convoluted, but logical. Someone over on PMF was implying, I thought, that if the Supreme Court found fault with the Hellman judgement, that this would automatically and irrevocably reinstate the Massei verdict. Which is nuts.

Rolfe.

Wishful thinking is their stock in trade over at PMF (or coin of the realm if you prefer that analogy).

 

[JREF2010]

2020 - Vargas show left at saying this is the end of Migninnis career if he loses, so a appeal to the SC is guaranteed.

Once again the trend of Rudy almost being non-existent in the case makes it all seem so dysfunctional.

Rudy rapes, murders, and steals and leaves her breathing, he says. Cleans up and goes dancing.
Maresca calls him credible.
Mignnini doesnt ask for increased prison time.
Supreme Court even gives him imaginary accomplices, and allows a reduced sentence to stand.
Rudy is now working on a college degree, for free no doubt.

and somehow, in Perugia, they spit on the younger Knox girl?

 

[theRealBob]

As usual I've just walked in and am probably posting off topic

There were prior comments on the lamp.

I am not 100% certain about this but I believe that whoever used it did so by conecting it to a hallway plug.

Only a person who isn't living in the flat would find this method of plugging it in expedient.

Many people say it's the cops which is quite likely (and in doing so would fit in with their typical behaviour like saying there were no fingerprints of Amanda in her own room, of rubbing it in.

I said before that I think it's likely to be Rudy, and most probably as Meredith lay wounded and dying when our merciful gentleman burglar was tending her wounds and probably started feeling horny as well.

If it's plugged in in the hallway it is certainly done so by someone who doesn't live in the flat. It's guaranteed to be a person (or cop) who feels unfamiliar and uncomfortable enough inside the flat to not bother searching in Meredith's room for a plug. It's definitely not Meredith, and definitely not Amanda annd is certain to be an off the cuff act by a stranger to the environment.

 

[bri1]

2020 - Vargas show left at saying this is the end of Migninnis career if he loses, so a appeal to the SC is guaranteed.

Once again the trend of Rudy almost being non-existent in the case makes it all seem so dysfunctional.

Rudy rapes, murders, and steals and leaves her breathing, he says. Cleans up and goes dancing.
Maresca calls him credible.
Mignnini doesnt ask for increased prison time.
Supreme Court even gives him imaginary accomplices, and allows a reduced sentence to stand.
Rudy is now working on a college degree, for free no doubt.

and somehow, in Perugia, they spit on the younger Knox girl?

I agree with your point.
Talking of Guede being 'absent' from this case, it's been very informative reading comments from random people on the mainstream media's stories on this case recently.

There seems to be a disproportionate number of people who haven't followed this case in the way we have, who don't even know of his existence. I've seen a lot of comments along the lines of 'if they didn't do it, who did?'

It's not that surprising- many articles about this case only mention him right at the end 'Ivorian drifter Rudy Guede has also been convicted'.

Yet another factor which counts against guilter fantasy 'PR Supertanker' having swayed the public.

 

[theRealBob]

I hate to say it but just because we're certainly right here in our knowledge of the correct outcome of the case, that is no reason to agree with ourselves that the verdict is guranteed.

Mignini's comments that he can legally seek to have the additional DNA results annulled and promote the more genuine trial of the two as improper is really disconcerting.

I wouldn't have mentioned the private jet either...

 

[bolint]

Why is the prosecution allowed to talk about how Amanda would get the death penalty in the United States? What does that have to do with evidence adduced at trial.

It looks like she said that in the break, too.

“ Non è una paura ma un dato di fatto - dice a proposito il magistrato nel corso di una pausa del processo d’appello. "Tra Italia e Usa non c'è trattato di estradizione ma, a proseguito la Comodi “in Usa c’è anche la pena di morte”.

 

[bri1]

I have said for some time that Comodi is the more devious prosecutor - most of the sneaky and underhanded stuff has been her doing - the phantom noon phone call, the faked documents, etc.

Of course there is an extradition treaty between Italy and the USA. The problem (and the prosecutors know this full well) they have to have sufficient evidence to have an extradition request honored.

Apparently, this lie was not told in open court, but in a break and only to journalists (?!).

I think all those involved in prosecution are as sneaky and underhanded as each other.
When you're that stupid, I'd imagine you have to spend a lot of time sneaking your way out of jams that you've gotten yourself into.

 

[bolint]

The sentence is not about the document.
It's obviously about the disgraceful demonstration of force from the first day of final arguments.

What do you mean by that?
Ghirga referred to exactly what in this quote:

Frank:
"Knox’s lawyer Luciano Ghirga declared himself “surprised, to use an euphemism”, that the President of the Court of Appeals showed up to support the prosecution!"

 

[LondonJohn]

Unlikely.

If this had been an overweight 40 something guy, it would be a non-story. Exactly the same as the Casey Anthony thing and the girl in Aruba.

Its just today's society, that's all. Nothing callous about that remark at all. If you can't handle accepting what you already know deep down, I'm sorry. But its the truth. If she weren't a hot 20-something, we'd never know about this.

Never.

Two words: Barry George.

Google his name if you're not familiar. Knox's appearance may have influenced the volume of media coverage, but to suggest that it has necessarily influenced those arguing that she (and Sollecito - remember him?) should be acquitted is offensive and quite wrong in the vast majority of instances.

 

[bolint]

Wasn't Rudy's fast track trial closed to public and media, therefore we have no real information on it other than the Micheli report? If so the Kercher's may not have been allowed in either.

No, it was not closed. It was relatively short.

 

[bolint]

Not on the first degree.

Frank said that.

 

[LondonJohn]

Let’s deal with what has happened. Amanda didn’t come home before Meredith. Amanda has not been brutally murdered and has not lay in her grave for the past 4 years, I am not being emotive I believe this are facts that even you can agree with?

The overall impression I get from those who support Amanda (poor Raffaele doesn’t seems to get a look in), is some kind of strange need to put Meredith and her family down, whilst elevating Amanda to one stage short of beautification.

I still await your enlightenment.

What are you talking about? Your attempted argument is totally devoid of logic, and is utterly irrelevant when trying to assess the guilt, non-guilt or innocence of Knox and Sollecito. And if you think that most people here spend all their time opining on Knox and ignoring Sollecito, then I'm afraid it's you who is guilty of selective vision. Oh, and I think you meant to write "beatification".

 

[DarkStar2011]

P.S. And I agree that he should pay their way to Italy for the reading of the verdict and yes they should also be allowed to speak on their daughter's behalf, but that is just my opinion.

To that, I would say not only "no," but "Hell, no!"

In the U.S., they allow the family members of the victim to speak, but only during the sentencing phase after guilt has already been decided. Not before.

Think about this: In Italy, as in the U.S., the standard for conviction on a murder charge is "proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." If there's reasonable doubt of an accused's guilt, the task of the jury to acquit is clear. Now, if you have a mother and/or father of the victim, already convinced of the accused's guilt, speak before deliberations to give a tearful account of the pain they suffered and a plea not to make it worse by letting their child's killer(s) go free, you've changed the whole dynamic of the delibration. Instead of the prosecution having to show "proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," you're essentially requiring the defense to show "proof of innocence beyond a reasonable doubt" -- because the jury members will be thinking that "if there's any doubt whatsoever that the accused may not be innocent, I can't possibly add to the pain of the family by letting someone who might be guilty go free."

Letting the family of the victim address the court before a verdict of guilt or non-guilt is reached is an unbelievable perversion of the criminal judicial process -- far worse, IMHO, than anything the prosecution has done so far in the case. I'll go further and say that, if Hellmann has any control in the matter, and allows such an event to proceed, it will tell me with 100% certainty that he's already decided to convict.

 

[lionking]

Er, this is Italy. It is allowed because it is allowed.

 

[LondonJohn]

I have to give credit where credit is due. After nearly 4 years of doing absolutely nothing to preserve the memory of Meredith Kercher or attempting to make any real effort to support Meredith's family, Perugia Murder File has now decided to take up a collection for the Kerchers.

PMF has always claimed that their mission is to preserve the memory of Meredith Kercher. If I was going to set up a web site dedicated to a murder victim I would most likely look for ways to keep the victim's memory alive such as setting up a college fund or starting a charity to help victims of violence. To this day, PMF has done absolutely nothing of the sort. There is a section on their website titled “Projects for Meredith” that is nearly empty. The only thing there is the translation of Massei. Up until now, not one member in their group could think of anything they could do to honor the person they claimed to gather for. Why? The answer to that question is clear, they don't really gather for Meredith Kercher, they gather to hate on Amanda Knox. Their actions over the past 4 years are proof of that.

Well, at least they are doing something now. It will not change who they really are but at least some good will come out of their too little too late attempt to mask their true intentions.

I hope PMF didn't finally act just because I called them on it a little while back in a post to their loyal carrier Pigeon Pilot.

Just one other thing. Does PMF honestly believe that Marriott is powerful enough to order all those journalists to Perugia? Ganong's latest blog certainly suggests it. Is there any logic in that? Just curious.

I'm afraid that this whole "raise money to get the Kerchers to Perugia" business smacks once again of conspicuous compassion. Call me cynical, but I read this as nothing more than an overt attempt to demonstrate how "kind hearted" and generous the "family" of members of that board are, as well as an attempt by those very people to make them feel good about themselves. Quite apart from the sheer practical impossibility of fulfilling such a quest (it was first proposed at around midnight UK time last night, and the Kerchers will need to get a flight early Monday morning at the latest, and a way would have to be found to collect and aggregate money from all those people, and get it across to the Kerchers by tomorrow at the very latest), it's an empty gesture that also manages to patronise the Kerchers.

I feel sorry if the Kerchers have been inconvenienced financially by the burden of having to meet their travel and subsistence costs. But isn't it strange that the "kind-hearted family" on that forum only decided to try to help out at the absolute 11th hour? And besides, without wishing to labour the point, there are plenty of ways to fly from London to either Perugia or Rome for less that £50 return if flights are booked over two weeks in advance. And a budget hotel in Perugia will not be very pricey. I agree that it is unfair and distasteful that the Kerchers may be forced to take the budget option while the Knox family is being wined and dined by all and sundry. But the raw truth is that if this is all about whether the Kerchers are actually able to be in Perugia for key moments in the judicial process, then I would argue that it's entirely possile for them to be there at relatively low cost. I reiterate that i feel very sorry indeed for the Kerchers and their predicament, but at the same time I can clearly see that there is a massive ulterior motive behind the last-minute conspicuous compassion being shouted from the rooftops by a certain group of maladjusted individuals.

 

[LondonJohn]

Do you believe that Amanda parents would rather swap places with the Kercher family, because the way you post you make Meredith and Amanda’s current (unfortunate) positions appear to be more or less the same?

If it were one of my daughters I would rather her be alive than a saint!

Your argument is as irrelevant to the issue as me asking you if you would like to swap positions with someone in the Darfur refugee camp. You are making a meaningless comparison for purely emotional effect. Can't you see that?

 

[LondonJohn]

http://perugiashock.com/

a new article from Frank Sfarzo

Another well-reasoned article. I'd forgotten to point out the other day just how ludicrous one particular part (one of many, of course) of Mignini's "argument" was in relation to the break-in. A key plank of the prosecution argument for staging is that the exterior shutters were found closed in the following morning (although of course no photographic evidence exists of this). The idiot prosecutors believe this is some sort of evidence that they were never opened at all on the night of the murder. It doesn't seem to have occurred to them that any logical intruder not only might have closed the shutters behind him after entry, but that in fact any intruder almost certainly would have closed the shutters in behind him after entry. After all, isn't it utterly obvious that someone who has just broken into a house by breaking a window would want to conceal evidence of his mode of entry while he was inside burgling the house? Think of the alternative: if the exterior shutters were left open, a passer-by would be able to see the broken window, and consequently might very well raise the alarm.

 

[Antony]

Yes, pretty much the whole point.

It was a matter of pure chance which of these two very similar students was the murder victim. It was Meredith's appalling luck that she was the one to return to the empty flat while Rudy was lurking. Another evening, or slightly different circumstances, and it could have been Amanda.

And if it had been, it could have been Meredith who returned to find the locked door and the broken window, and said or did a couple of things the Keystone Cops found suspicious.

This is a point I've made a couple of times.

The way it is, it's Meredith who is the pure perfect saint, and Amanda who is the witch and she-devil.

But it's pure chance it wasn't the other way about, and in that case, there's no reason the characterisations wouldn't have played the other way too. Because the girls were actually very similar. Neither saints nor demons, just students. Smoking pot and drinking beer and sleeping with their boyfriends.

If you're the murder victim, you're a saint. If you're the unfortunate who is wrongly accused, you're obsessed with sex, drugs and alcohol. All on the same behaviour set.

Not quite. We have the factor of Meredith's friends reporting her irritation at Knox's alleged household habits. In the reverse situation, no doubt this would be used against her as evidence of her pettiness and disloyalty.

I also think that Meredith's family would have been massacred by the treatment meted out by the Mignini support group, and the pretence of a 3-way murder might have been much easier to sustain. We know much less about Giacomo Silenzi than we do about Raffaele, as well, so it's hard to guess how he would have fared in Raff's position. Amanda and Raff are fortunate to have families with the character and resources to support them the way they have.

 

[LondonJohn]

This is why I have concerns about "expert" testimony/ All too often these people will say anything for money. They are just like the whores selling their wares on the street corner. Worse actually because at least the street whores make no secret of what they are doing.

And this raises an interesting issue. Enlightened members of the judiciary now accept that there is motivation on both sides of the argument (prosecution and defence) to stretch or warp the truth in an attempt to win the case. Therefore, equal scepticism should greet the arguments coming from both sides. However, I suspect that in countries such as Italy, which have a tradition of inquisitorial justice, there is still a prevalent belief that the prosecution has no reason or motivation to do anything other than seek the truth. I therefore believe that particularly among the more reactionary members of the judiciary in Italy, there is still a tendency to believe that if there is a dispute between the prosecution and defence (including disputes between both sides' expert witnesses), the prosecution are more likely to be being scrupulous and truthful.

I think that this thinking played a significant part in the Massei trial. There are numerous instances in that trial where Massei chose to believe the prosecution view over the opposing defence view. And in virtually every case where this happened, Massei appears to have no underlying rationale for coming to such a conclusion. I can only suppose therefore that Massei was predisposed to have a natural inclination towards the prosecution side, as he probably felt that there was little reason for prosecutors to do anything other than tell the unvarnished truth.

 

[Katody Matrass]

What do you mean by that?
Ghirga referred to exactly what in this quote:

"Knox’s lawyer Luciano Ghirga declared himself “surprised, to use an euphemism”, that the President of the Court of Appeals showed up to support the prosecution!"

I thought you were following the final arguments.