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Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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bri1 said:
Don't mean to pile on, here, but couldn't help addressing this.

Nobody here believes that justice should be administered via internet blogs. They merely think that public scrutiny is important to the process, and that factual guilt or innocence can be ascertained by anyone willing to research enough.

The appeal court will determine the verdict of guilty or not guilty, but the fact of this verdict does not determine the factual guilt or innocence.

Of course, not everyone is interested in finding out factual guilt or innocence (or able to commit the time to research this properly), and that's fine, and it's absolutely correct that these people should not speculate as to factual guilt or innocence. However, in blindly accepting the court's judgement, these people are likely to (occaisionally) endorse court decisions which have not been arrived at safely or fairly.
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Well for me it’s not the case of blindly accepting anything more the fact that a sovereign western democracy has the right to administer justice according to its own laws. I did a bit of light research on Troy Davis, I am still stunned that he was executed, I am sure there were many Americans who did not blindly accept the judicial process but a it made no difference.
 
bri1 said:
It's my understanding that Giacomo had a very good alibi (hundreds of miles away, with lots of people).
I think Rolfe was mentioning this 'drug dealer' element to show that Meredith, like Amanda, was not squeaky clean (although still relatively normal for someone her age in her habits, as Amanda was).
The fact of the matter is that Giacomo had about 5 plants, and if he did 'deal' it was only very small quantities and to friends. Plus, it's fairly normal for stoners to 'deal' in this way, because marijuana is difficult to get hold of consistently, and they tend to be generous folks!
The fact of this difficulty in getting hold of weed, makes any 'rival dealer' story inherently implausible- there's more than enough custom for those involved in this trade, at this level, no need for turf disagreements. (Higher levels, where more is at stake, is a slightly different kettle of fish).
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Gosh no hyperbole, the way some have posted you’d think Giacomo was a drug lord or a soldier in a Camorra family.
 
bri1 said:
Now theft, on the other hand, is a real possibility. The fact is that if people (especially peripheral people like Guede was in their 'group') know you grow / keep weed in your house, then you're open to the possibility that someone might try and steal it....
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If Guede was interested in a couple of cheap portable TV's, a boom box, or a hot plate, that is about all of any value that can be seen in the police video of that apartment. I doubt he could be into collecting dirty clothes from various floors, chairs, and beds and taking them to be cleaned. As far as these 5 little pot plants, was he going to carry around the pots in the streets of Perugia or was he just going to pull the plants up and stuff them into a bag? He had been in that apartment and he knew there was nothing worth stealing, in my opinion. Now upstairs there are 2 foreign girls that could afford to go to school in another country, maybe he saw this as a better opportunity for things of value, including cash.

A few weeks ago I had asked for an approximate value on these and the estimates I got (mostly by PM) ranged from <€100 to >€3000. LOL.
 

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CoulsdonUK said:
Well for me it’s not the case of blindly accepting anything more the fact that a sovereign western democracy has the right to administer justice according to its own laws. I did a bit of light research on Troy Davis, I am still stunned that he was executed, I am sure there were many Americans who did not blindly accept the judicial process but a it made no difference.
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Yes, they do have the right to do this. That's what sovereignity means.
But none of us are trying to undermine the sovereignity of Italy by forcing (with violence or any other coercive means) them to let AK and RS go. As citizens of our own sovereign democracies, we have no interest in doing so.

However,
a) It is not clear in the case even that Italian law was followed both in the investigation or in the first trial.
b) I, for one, would like the Italian people to reflect on their laws (e.g. allowing victims this kind of role), see that they are not the most clear reflection or expression of certain principles of justice, and work to get them changed, through democratic means.
 
What is talked about most

Originally Posted by Dougm
What's amazing is the percentage of their time in court that the prosecution and civil attorneys spend talking about anything except the evidence in the trial.

Onofarar said:
They would have nothing to talk about otherwise.:jaw-dropp
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Kinda like what would happen here if Moderators again revised policy and stated that bashing PMF, TJMK, their Administrators and the people who post there is off topic;)
 
bri1 said:
Wow, that's an interesting perspective. What makes you think they're not a good idea?
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Simply because extradtion has many problems even without treaties. For example extraditing to third country or extraditing political opponents.
Further automation increases those problems.
For example now some sons of Gaddafi. They are requested through Interpol. I think Interpol should not be used for these puposes, it is an abuse that corrupts the Interpol idea itself.

If a country wants to extradit someone that can be done without any treaties.
 
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Coulsdon, I wanted to add that the protests over Troy Davis's execution, by those who didn't just accept the verdict / sentence, although they made no difference to the 'sentence', might have had and might still have, more subtle positive effects.
For example, their actions highlighted the case in a public way, and might cause some people (who might one day be in a position of influence in these matters) to change their minds about capital punishment. They might have given some hope to Troy's loved ones that the world contains people who are interested in real justice. They might make judges more wary of handing down death sentences, or made governors more likely to intervene in similar situations in the future.
You might view this as overly optimistic, but in a democracy, standing up for truth and justice in public can never be completely useless.
 
CoulsdonUK said:
Gosh no hyperbole, the way some have posted you’d think Giacomo was a drug lord or a soldier in a Camorra family.
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10:1 the Mail would have put it something akin to 'a burgeoning drug operation.' :p

Amanda's 'vibrator' made the news again, not that it's damning in any regard, but it's sometimes forgotten it wasn't even a real vibrator. It was a gag-gift keychain item, blown up like Giacomo's pet plants into a 'burgeoning sex-toy apparatus.'
 
bolint said:
Simply because extradtion has many problems without treaties. For example extraditing to third country or extraditing political opponents.
Further automation increases those problems.
For example now some sons of Gaddafi. They are requested through Interpol. I think Interpol should not be used for these puposes, it is an abuse that corrupts the Interpol idea itself.

If a country wants to extradit someone that can be done without any treaties.
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Interesting. I get your point that treaties make it more difficult to take consider cases on an individual basis, because it's the only way to rule out abuses of the extradition system.
However, I still think it's useful for countries to agree broad parameters for the issue in advance.
 
Nina B has written an article for Time.com called Why There Will Always Be Three Amanda Knoxes or sometimes listed as Three Countries, Three Different Portrayals.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2095586,00.html

I don't entirely agree for the generalizations here as there are posters from all three countries that I have run into that go against the norm. Same with the media and the blogs/discussion forums. An interesting comment on Patrick, however.
 
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CoulsdonUK said:
LondonJohn

I am not trying to assess whether Raffaele and Amanda are guilty or as you put it non-guilty, I am weird in the since I think that is up to the appeal court to determine, whilst others appear to believe justice should administered via internet blogs. Yes you are correct I did mean beatification, thank you for pointing that out.
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S***.

I meant beatification too.

And I have a feeling that I didn't mean to say 'the lives of two innocent young lives' as well.

and also 'some are dumb' etc too...

Oh well, it still makes more sense than anything Mignini ever says.
I think it's truer to say that the people here are seriously offended by the slander and dangerous innuendo the prosecution slings Amanda's way (as in the entirety of their closing address) than we are proposing to beatify her...

People have commented on more non-descript people who are falsely imprisoned and barely noticed, but looking at it another way, Amanda attracts a ridiculous amount of insanely directed character assassination that doesn't match her personality type, than blind and emotiionally inspired support from us.

And that false mud slinging she doesn't deserve impinges far, far too heavily upon a silly Italian media and more importantly any result in the case.
 
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Rhea said:
I agree completely apart from the last bit, I don't think Hellman should allow this, but if he does it doesn't necessarily mean he is going to convict.

I personally am pretty conviced that Hellmann has already made his mind up into the other direction. If he is allowing this to happen it wouldn't change my perception that he is going to acquit …
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Not the greatest quote but it's about letting the Kerchers look sad in court about the innocent bystanders getting included in Rudy's crime.
I don't think it's a certainty to convict. It could be considered as a polite consideration of their request.

And there's those cameras in the victims faces...

And his humiliation of Mignini's superwitness...

And he's the one that requested the independent experts dna analysis that finally proved the very obvious fact that Steff cooked the results

And immediately refusing to believe the lie that Commodi told about the negative controls being lodged

and.........it just goes on and on.

There's a lot of comment by bystanders that it's a case where it's hard to decide what went on. The truth is that in this particular, easy to read crime, you just know, and there's the filp side of the coin where there are a lot of uninformed people who don't know, and a few with severe psychological difficulties that will permanently prevent them understanding it. The case is very simple and transparent by this stage of the proceedings.

And Hellman knows...

While others just hate n' hate n' hate n' hate...
 
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