Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Ammonitida]

And yet the defense doesn't seem particularly interested in pursuing this point:

Haven't you read the relevant section of the appeal summary that I linked to? The defense closing arguments and rebuttals seen this week are not the entirety of their case. The appeal documents go into greater detail. Besides, the stomach contents argument is not really needed anymore since Rudy, the only man who was present at the cottage during Meredith's murder, has the TOD at around 9:30PM. I think the actual killer (Rudy) is more reliable as a source for the TOD than those prosecutors whose only evidence for a later TOD are a series of suspicious phone calls made on Meredith's phone that they believe were accidentally made when she was playing with it.

 

[JREF2010]

I still think the defense has been pretty bad during this case. Are they restricted in their time heavily to make their case?

I've seen posts of this before, from some leaning to guilt, but still not decided fully...

the only response seen, from the defense lawyers, was that its better if the police/prosecutor find this information and clues, not the defense.

the prosecution in Italy is supposed to gather all the evidence supporting either side. of course Mignnini failed miserably in doing this.

Similar to the court appointing their own experts when the defense and prosecution disagree on the knife, Stefanoni seems to be of the same failure as Migninni, she had tunnel vision of guilt.
Also on the clasp, she only chose peaks that aligned to Raffaele and excluded other peaks, some even higher RFU than the ones she cherry picked.. A truly neutral unbiased professional wouldnt ignore stronger peaks.

But thats why the defense data would not be as powerful, better they use the police own investigation data (video of forensic example) or the Judges appointed experts.(C&V )...or even the cell log info that shows positive for the earlier ToD was data from the police.

The police computer experts were either retards or rats. I've not made my mind up on that yet.

 

[JREF2010]

Interesting, the prison chaplain is for acquittal...

Here's a guy whose been around a lot of prisoners, and has the option to be silent or speak. What would be his motive to support Amandas innocence?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-st...-of-meredith-kercher-killing-115875-23460206/

 

[lionking]

A prison chaplain's opinion now counts? Do I detect a sense of desperation from AK supporters?

 

[LondonJohn]

Ah what better way to kick off a lazy Sunday than to watch Wales spank Fiji

So..... regarding ToD: Maori (for Sollecito) went into pretty much the exact argument made here on JREF, in a high level of detail. I posted about it on the day it happened:

In fact, it appears that Maori is making essentially the exact argument that we have been making here on ToD (according to transcripts of the televised court proceedings):

1) Meredith's meal started between 6.00 and 6.30pm;

2) Her entire meal was still within her stomach at autopsy - with recognisable semi-digested elements of the pizza and apple crumble;

3) Therefore these two facts, coupled with knowledge of human digestive transit times, mean that Meredith had to have died between 8.30pm and 9.30pm;

4) Since we know Meredith was alive at 9.00pm, she must have died between 9.00pm and 9.30pm;

5) This is corroborated by one person who was proven to have been there: Rudy Guede. And at this point Maori played the court the excerpt of Guede's Skype call where Guede refers to the loud "scream of death" occurring at "around 9.20-9.30"

6) Known activity on Sollecito's computer shows he can't have been at the cottage before 9.30pm, and therefore he - and by extension Knox - can be shown to have had nothing to do with Meredith's murder.

So perhaps some of the idiots might want to rethink all the "Google-de-gook" "library-card" insults, and they also might want to eat their ill-chosen words about defence lawyers not bringing up ToD or using any argument similar to that worked through here on JREF. This ToD argument is robust and logical, and it's one of the more significant factors that will contribute to the inevitable acquittals of Knox and Sollecito.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=7617927#post7617927

It appears that between the original appeal submissions lodged with the court last year and the prominence given to the issue in closing arguments, the defence teams clearly understand the validity and relevance of the ToD argument. And that's hardly surprising, because it's a very strong and robust argument that goes a long way to - at the very least - showing reasonable doubt. But even more than that, it tends to suggest that at least Sollecito (and very probably also Knox) could not have participated in Meredith's murder. It's just a shame that some people either can't understand the science, or they refuse to accept it.

What else? Well, Barbie Clouseau is evidently now in full-on fence-sitting mode. I suspect that she knows deep in her heart that her reportage on this case has been woeful, inadequate, and improperly slanted. I wonder if she and Vogt had dreams of this case launching their journalistic careers? If so, it's time to pack up those dreams and prepare for a life of trying to sell the odd travel, culture or occasional politics story to third-rate publications.

Oh, and Barbie manages not only to get an important fact wrong in her latest missive, but also to contradict herself from an earlier article! Here's what she erroneously writes about Knox's erstwhile cellmate in her latest piece:

Her Moldavian jailmate, known as the “black widow,” had her own murder conviction overturned on the second level, only to find herself reconvicted of the crime by the high court. At this stage, literally anything could happen.

This is wrong. The truth is as follows: the woman in question, Angela Biriukova, was acquitted in the first trial, after which she went to Ukraine. But prosecutors pursued her appeal trial, at which she was found guilty in absentia. The Supreme Court then affirmed the verdict of the appeal trial, and convicted and sentenced her. In other words, Biriukova was not acquitted in the appeal trial ("second level" in Clouseau's language) but then convicted by the Supreme Court. And Clouseau herself wrote about this issue 10 months ago, and managed to get the facts right:

In the meantime, the Seattle native’s lawyers say she is anxious to get back to court. She has reportedly been getting to know a new cellmate, Moldovian native Angela Biriukova, herself a celebrity criminal in Italy. Dubbed the Black Widow by the Italian press, Biriukova was tried for murdering her wealthy older husband by stabbing him 16 times. Her DNA was found on a cigarette butt near the corpse, but nowhere else at the murder scene. Unlike Knox, however, Biriukova was acquitted during her first trial. Knox might take comfort in what happened next: The prosecutors appealed and Biriukova’s acquittal was reversed—after being set free, she was convicted during the appellate process.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/11/18/amanda-knoxs-appeal-could-she-go-free.html

So, somewhat incredibly, Clouseau manages to write two different versions in two different articles - one of which is accurate and the other of which is inaccurate. Is there no start to this woman's talents....?

Lastly, could someone please tell our favourite "criminal defence solicitor" that I don't use multiple identities, I don't post on twitter, I don't have any twitter accounts, and I certainly have no appetite to get involved in an astonishingly infantile spat with someone who ought to know far, far better. So stop with the false accusations, eh, Paddy? ROFLMAO.

 

[bolint]

Let's see your best critical thinking . Why did he falsely claim something so easily verifiable?

Conclusions come later. First let us establish the facts.

This is simply not true

Then it is a mere formality for you to give a proof for a single time when the computer was provably used by someone between 21:26 and 24:00.

Show it!
Specifically.
Only one.
(This is a better bargain than Lot had: "I will not destroy it for one's sake." )

 

[LondonJohn]

A prison chaplain's opinion now counts? Do I detect a sense of desperation from AK supporters?

Who are these "AK supporters"? And where's this "sense of desperation"?

By the way, here are two questions that I'd be interested to hear your view on. I'm sure you'll be very quick to tell me that you'll "answer whatever questions you damn well like", and that is of course the case. But nonetheless, if you feel like actually engaging in decent debate on the subject, here goes:

1) Do you think that Knox's/Sollecito's guilt has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt (i.e. do you think they should be found guilty in Hellmann's court)?

2) If your answer to the above question is "no", then do you think that Knox/Sollecito probably participated in the murder, but that there is insufficient evidence to find them guilty in a court of law?

 

[DarkStar2011]

From my academic days, of the study of philosophical jurisprudence, one of the most inspiring essays I have ever read concerning court verdicts. I predict that Judge Hellman is a man of "the judgement intuitive", and will guide the rest accordingly:

Before one gets too much into the notion of "hunches" as a basis for correct judgments, recall that Mignini's conclusion that this was not a simple burglary-gone-bad murder but actually a Satanic sex orgy and human sacrifice timed to blaspheme All Saints Day was very likely based on a "hunch" of his own.

Personally, I'd be a lot more reassured if I thought that Hellmann was not one to follow "the judgment intuitive," but decided a case logically from the facts.

 

[DarkStar2011]

I'm not surprised. She is emotionally invested in this case, losing all credibility and objectivity as a journalist. It's fine when you write a book, but then do NOT pretend to be an unbiased journalist giving fair reports of the case. After "Angel Face", and continued bashing of Amanda and her family, what does she expect?

Actually, if points of Italian law are as they were clarified here over the past few days, she shows herself oddly ignorant on at least two points:

1) She claims that Knox's cellmate had her murder conviction reversed on appeal but reinstated by the Supreme Court. As was mentioned before, the Supreme Court cannot "reinstate" a verdict -- they can only invalidate the previous verdict and send the case back to the lower chamber for retrial.

2) She also claims that Hellmann's court can either rule "guilty," "not guilty," or "insufficient evidence." This is a reference to the old Italian law whereby a court could issue a "not proven" verdict that would free, but stop short of exonerating, the defendant(s). However, that option hasn't been allowed since the recodification of Italian law a number of years ago -- now, the only options on a given charge are "guilty" or "not guilty."

 

[JREF2010]

Haven't you read the relevant section of the appeal summary that I linked to? The defense closing arguments and rebuttals seen this week are not the entirety of their case. The appeal documents go into greater detail. Besides, the stomach contents argument is not really needed anymore since Rudy, the only man who was present at the cottage during Meredith's murder, has the TOD at around 9:30PM. I think the actual killer (Rudy) is more reliable as a source for the TOD than those prosecutors whose only evidence for a later TOD are a series of suspicious phone calls made on Meredith's phone that they believe were accidentally made when she was playing with it.

The mistake in this "playing with the cell phone" theory is the cell tower data doesnt support it, instead it supports the earlier ToD...

>
Meredith made five calls from her cottage/apartment on the day she was murdered and none of the calls came from cell tower 300064.
The night Meredith was murdered she got a text message at 10:13pm. It connected using cell tower 300064.
The experts took measurements outside the cottage and confirmed outside the cottage was an active area for cell tower 300064

>
"MEREDITH CELL DATA, Nov 1,2007"
14:31:43 (2:31PM)"MK,UK phone, Nov 1"GPRSTower25621Piazza Lupattelli Inside Cottage=Via della Pergola 7
15:01:58 (3:01PM)"MK,UK phone, Nov 1"G-Tower 25621 Piazza Lupattelli Inside Cottage=Via della Pergola 7
15:48:56 (3:48PM)"MK,UK phone, Nov 1"G-Tower 25621 Piazza Lupattelli Inside Cottage=Via della Pergola 7
15:55:03 (3:55PM)"MK,UK phone, Nov 1"G-Tower 25621 Piazza Lupattelli Inside Cottage=Via della Pergola 7
15:55:57 (3:55PM)"MK,UK phone, Nov 1"G-Tower 25621 Piazza Lupattelli Inside Cottage=Via della Pergola 7

20:56:00 (8:56PM)"MK,UK phone, Nov 1" No data(Phone memory only, no data on Wind Co. print out)"
21:58:00 (9:58PM)"MK, UK phone, Nov 1""No data (Phone memory only, no data on Wind Co.)"
22:00:00 (10:00PM)"MK,UK phone, Nov 1">"UK Bank,ABBEY""No data(Phone memory only, no data on Wind Co.)

22:13:19 (10:13PM)"MK,UK phone, Nov 1" <"GPRS,TEXT MESSAGE"9G-Tower30064 Outside Cottage=Strada Vicinale Ponte
Rio Monte la Guardia Park S. Angelo near garden where phones were found

"MEREDITH, Nov 2"
0:10:31 12:10 AM"MK, UK phone, Nov 2"A "25622, Piazza Luppatelli" Road opposite to PergoIa 7.
11:50 AM POLICE have Vodafone

 

[lionking]

1) Do you think that Knox's/Sollecito's guilt has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt (i.e. do you think they should be found guilty in Hellmann's court)?

2) If your answer to the above question is "no", then do you think that Knox/Sollecito probably participated in the murder, but that there is insufficient evidence to find them guilty in a court of law?

I've said on a number of occasions, I'm not convinced one way or the other. I am, however, amused at the passionate, zealous certainty of many on this thread.

I believe that the court will get to the right decision, having access to all available evidence.

 

[Wildhorses]

Interesting, the prison chaplain is for acquittal...

Here's a guy whose been around a lot of prisoners, and has the option to be silent or speak. What would be his motive to support Amandas innocence?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-st...-of-meredith-kercher-killing-115875-23460206/

I'm glad he spoke up.

A Perugia Shock commenter whose name I've forgotten used to post about how the chaplain was trying to turn AK into a martyr. For that reason, I noted Burleigh's description of the chaplain. She said he often has coffee with Mignini in the morning and has resolutely refused to voice an opinion on AK's guilt or innocence.

Seems he's given one now: "I truly believe that she is innocent of this terrible murder and should be cleared."

Too bad he didn't convince Mignini.

 

[Dan O.]

Is Lionkink accusing the Mirror of being an Amanda Knox supporter?

 

[bolint]

At the same time I'm thinking that it's quite difficult to prove that Raffaele was actually the one sitting at the computer.

Yes it is, but I don't dispute that. If someone was using the computer I accept that it was him (or even her).

So between 9:26PM and 10:20PM (when calls were made from Meredith's cell, which both the defence and the prosecution now agree was made by the killer)

I'm not at all sure that the prosecution has this view.

We do however have other factors which come into play, that being that Raffaele wasn't very close to the murder scene and would've had to drive there. We also have a time of death, based on the autopsy, which fits into a time frame estimated to be between 9PM and 10PM.

Other factors come later.
The status of each evidence (i.e. relevance and credibility) should be clearly discovered and determined before merging them into a master deduction.

 

[lionking]

Is Lionkink accusing the Mirror of being an Amanda Knox supporter?

Did I say that? The Mirror is a rag. I'm amazed that anyone is quoting it at all

 

[LondonJohn]

Actually, if points of Italian law are as they were clarified here over the past few days, she shows herself oddly ignorant on at least two points:

1) She claims that Knox's cellmate had her murder conviction reversed on appeal but reinstated by the Supreme Court. As was mentioned before, the Supreme Court cannot "reinstate" a verdict -- they can only invalidate the previous verdict and send the case back to the lower chamber for retrial.

2) She also claims that Hellmann's court can either rule "guilty," "not guilty," or "insufficient evidence." This is a reference to the old Italian law whereby a court could issue a "not proven" verdict that would free, but stop short of exonerating, the defendant(s). However, that option hasn't been allowed since the recodification of Italian law a number of years -- now, the only options on a given charge are "guilty" or "not guilty."

Ah yes, I didn't notice that second mistake! It's frankly amazing that a so-called journalist who was been reporting on this case for almost four years, who has had been present in the various courtrooms, who has had access to major players in the proceedings (most notably an improper closeness to her sources among the police and prosecutors), and who actually lives in Italy, should be making such fundamental errors.

Mind you, she is writing pieces for an online journal that virtually nobody reads, and which is odds-on to go bust within a year or two. So I guess that fact-checking and trustworthiness are not high up on her list of requisite qualities: I'm guessing that she's rather more concerned about where her next paycheck might come from. And with risible reporting like this, she has every justification for her concern.

 

[DarkStar2011]

Do you think if the clasp had been collected on the first day and it had had no several profiles on it, then Bongiorno would say "OK, we have lost, let's go home."?

I'm not sure what "it had had no several profiles on it" is supposed to mean, but I think you're asking what the defense would have been had the bra clasp been found on the first day, handled so that there was no possibility of contamination, and proceeded to test with only Sollecito's and Kercher's DNA on it.

I can only reply "that's an unanswerable question based on a hypothetical assumption of new evidence that is very different from the facts in this case."

It would be a little like my asking "if it turned out that there were security cameras throughout the house, and recordings from the cameras clearly showed Guede breaking in through Filomena's room, being surprised by Kercher and murdering her, with it being equally clear that there was no one else there but Guede and Kercher, would Mignini have then said 'oh, well, I guess I was wrong with my theory -- better release that American and her boyfriend right away'?" In both cases, scenarios are being predicated which are simply not part of the facts of the case, so have no bearing on it.

 

[LondonJohn]

I've said on a number of occasions, I'm not convinced one way or the other. I am, however, amused at the passionate, zealous certainty of many on this thread.

I believe that the court will get to the right decision, having access to all available evidence.

What do you mean when you say you're "not convinced one way or the other"? Would that not be at the very least a pretty good working definition of reasonable doubt?

 

[moodstream]

A prison chaplain's opinion now counts? Do I detect a sense of desperation from AK supporters?

I might be inclined to agree with you if you could point to testimonials from persons who know or have known Amanda Knox, and having known her conclude that she is capable or likely to have violently and for no reason attacked and killed Ms. Kercher.

I cannot think of a single one.

On the other hand, the prison chaplain, who has no reason beyond his experience with Ms Knox to say so, says “I hope the truth comes out – and I truly believe that she is innocent of this terrible murder and should be cleared. He seems quite complimentary towards Ms. Knox.

Oh yes, and the president of the Italy-USA Foundation, a member of the Parliament and a lawmaker, Rocco Girlanda, he wrote an entire book to support her innocence! Oh I know, he 'fell in love' with Ms Knox and lost his objectivity. Do you actually expect an unbiased observer to conclude that Mr Girlanda would be unable to understand if Knox were unbalanced or not after so many visits.

I believe an Italian prisoner in the same prison also wrote a book describing Ms Knox very favorably.

That's three very positive character references from people with no reason to express anything other than their honest opinions. Two of those come from highly credible sources, a priest and a member of parliament.

No one, and I do mean no one, who has known Knox as a person longer than say an overnight interrogation comes to the conclusion that she is capable of murder.

Yet, your side insists she killed because of her character. Yipes!

 

[lionking]

Character evidence means nothing, I'm afraid. There have been many murderers of otherwise impeccable character.