Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[LondonJohn]

Incidentally, the reason why so many media outlets are running with the "million dollar PR campaign" stuff is because it has been said in open court by Mignini on Friday. It's manna to the media because a) it's sensationalist, and b) they (the media) can quote it with abandon because it's now attributable to a "trusted source" (figuratively, not literally, of course).

It will be interesting to see whether Ghirga takes the trouble in his rebuttal to set the record straight on this issue. As far as I can tell, not only is there no evidence that anywhere near this amount has been spent (or promised) on any PR/comms campaign, but there's also no rationale whatsoever for spending this amount of money in this way. If I'm correct in that assessment, then I hope that Mignini gets properly called to account for his deplorable use of the "million-dollar" claim. I guess we can add it to the growing list of disciplinary and legal issues that Mignini may have to encounter once this whole sorry saga finally comes to an end.

 

[Dan O.]

The simple fact is that Italy has run out of money so they have to resort to building their case from discussions in Internet forums. I didn't see you lambasting the defense for cutting and pasting their arguments from here.

 

[Katody Matrass]

The simple fact is that Italy has run out of money so they have to resort to building their case from discussions in Internet forums. I didn't see you lambasting the defense for cutting and pasting their arguments from here.

 

[LondonJohn]

What he said

A small thought about the timing of the verdicts tomorrow: If the verdict has essentially already been agreed among the judicial panel (which is what I believe), then the delay from Saturday to Monday was probably due to one of two factors (or both): to allow time for members of Meredith's family to get to Perugia, and to accommodate the media (particularly the US media).

I wonder therefore whether the verdict will be announced such that it can be covered live on the US breakfast (morning) shows (Today, Good Morning America, etc)? After all, the NBC has Today show anchor Matt Lauer in Perugia, and the other networks also have prominent representation. I therefore think it's a distinct possibility that we are looking at a verdict at around 1pm-3pm Italy time (12pm-2pm UK time, 7am-9am EST). Just a thought......

 

[bolint]

Since you refused to source your claim I had to go digging for myself.

I did not realise that you missed Raffaele's claims. I thought of the computer findings.
So let's see Raffaele's claims.
You say:

The statement which I suspect you are basing your claim on being:
http://www.corriere.it/cronache/07_novembre_07/meredith_verbali_sarzanini.shtml

I navigated to the computer for another two hours after the call from my father and I stopped only when Amanda came back, presumably to the 1.​

This is from a news account of an interrogation of a witness being treated as a suspect. The statement has not been admitted by the court. There is no verification that this is actually the suspects statements (where are those recordings again?) And as we have already seen with Amanda's, it is quite likely the product of what the police already believed to be true. You have not supported that this statement was actually what Raffaele was saying.

Straight from the horse's mouth (Raffaele's jail diary):

I remember that I surfed the Internet for a while, I may have watched a film and then you called me at home or you sent me a goodnight SMS at least.

In the original Italian:

"Mi ricordo che ho navigato in internet per un po’, forse ho visto un film e poi che tu mi hai chiamato a casa o che comunque mi hai mandato un messaggio di buonanotte. "

So Raffaele clearly and inequivocably, and in his own writing, claims that he was browsing the internet. There were no yelling policemen around and he wrote it fully on his own.

And, the time frame of this statement only partially falls within your shifted goalposts (perhaps you shouldn't have moved them so far).

As you see in the diary he places the browsing before his father's call, that is right in the period discussed.

(It will be a next topic to come how could he relate this browsing time to that non-existent call or to the SMS which he received only next morning )

Now, if your original claim: "They would have been arrested anyway based on the false alibi, etc." is claiming that ILE would arrest someone based only on their own fabrications in what that call an interrogation, then I would have to agree with you. In fact, this appears to be what they did since they were already in the process of arresting Raffaele when they started interrogating Amanda.

And still you called it a lie and assumed me a tool of the prosecutor.

But you warned me, too, not to run away so I also ask you not to run away from clarifying the computer evidence in as much detail as possible.

 

[Keeper]

If the verdict has essentially already been agreed among the judicial panel (which is what I believe),

Maybe a dumb question but can you explain what you mean by 'judicial panel'?
I have seen references to both the Judge and jury making the final decision. The Prosecution's recent attempts at layering on emotion in their arguments would suggest they think they can sway a jury using this tactic. So who makes the actual decision, Judge or jury (or could it be, as happens in the UK, a jury decision heavily directed by the Judge)?

 

[bolint]

Maybe a dumb question but can you explain what you mean by 'judicial panel'?
I have seen references to both the Judge and jury making the final decision. The Prosecution's recent attempts at layering on emotion in their arguments would suggest they think they can sway a jury using this tactic. So who makes the actual decision, Judge or jury (or could it be, as happens in the UK, a jury decision heavily directed by the Judge)?

Actually this is not a jury.
It is 8 judges, two of them professional judges and 6 are "popular judges" selected much like a jury, but having almost the same rights as the professional judges during the trial. They can ask the witnesses, they can view the documents, etc.
In the end they all decide the case with majority, each of the eight having one vote.

 

[Keeper]

Actually this is not a jury.
It is 8 judges, two of them professional judges and 6 are "popular judges" selected much like a jury, but having almost the same rights as the professional judges during the trial. They can ask the witnesses, they can view the documents, etc.
In the end they all decide the case with majority, each of the eight having one vote.

Thanks, that's very interesting. I imagine the purpose is to balance the principle of 'good men and true' with professional legal expertise.

 

[Katody Matrass]

First let us establish the facts.

Sure, but why not just agree on all of your assumptions and see what follows from them.

You claim that Raffaele deliberately lied about his web browsing during the night. Yet it something easily verifiable both by his net provider logs and his browser history.
What sense do you make from it? How does it add up with the fact that he gave his keys to the cops to go retrieve his computer and check his browser history?

(There are of course more such discrepancies in his version that you claim to be deliberate lies. There is the father's phone call, and the "going out" contradicted by Popovic)

So, what about those "lies"? What do you think was the plan?

Conclusions come later.

Or, in your case, never

 

[DarkStar2011]

Actually this is not a jury.
It is 8 judges, two of them professional judges and 6 are "popular judges" selected much like a jury, but having almost the same rights as the professional judges during the trial. They can ask the witnesses, they can view the documents, etc.
In the end they all decide the case with majority, each of the eight having one vote.

Not quite. The lead judge (Hellmann, in this case) counts for two votes -- so there's no chance of a deadlocked jury.

 

[smkovalinksy]

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.

You are correct; Mignini did indeed use "the judgment intuitive", and then made the evidence fit.

And yes, logic and reason ought to be the rule in court. I think I am hoping that he and the others have the intuition to counter Mignini's original one. Perhaps it was my own sense of "the judgment intuitive" when I began to sense the 2 defendants had been railroaded. In any case, I believe the author was speaking of that process whereby one's logical judgments snap into place. It is a larger reason, unconscious but still logical, which is at work.

 

[js202]

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

Not really. I'd argue something more closely akin to hope against hope that a hideous injustice will be overturned tomorrow.

After all, this chaplain is probably aware that the "vicious, convicted sex murderer" Knox is referred to within the walls of Capanne as "Bambi." Apparently, even after four years, her diabolical ruse is still squarely in place, misleading priests and hardened criminals alike...

On the other hand, one can detect more than a smidgeon of the cynical gadfly in your "argumentation." How's that working out for you?

 

[lionking]

Not really. I'd argue something more closely akin to hope against hope that a hideous injustice will be overturned tomorrow.

After all, this chaplain is probably aware that the "vicious, convicted sex murderer" Knox is referred to within the walls of Capanne as "Bambi." Apparently, even after four years, her diabolical ruse is still squarely in place, misleading priests and hardened criminals alike...

On the other hand, one can detect more than a smidgeon of the cynical gadfly in your "argumentation." How's that working out for you?

Being a gadfly, cynical and annoying is not against the MA. How's that working for you?

 

[Keeper]

Not quite. The lead judge (Hellmann, in this case) counts for two votes -- so there's no chance of a deadlocked jury.

And do they announce the breakdown of the voting? I imagine it would cause some conversation if the 3 'professional' votes were on the different side of the argument from the 6 lay ones.

Wonder how this relationship works in practice? Would be fascinating to be a (Italian) fly on the wall.

 

[js202]

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

Criminal profiler John Douglas would disagree with you, I'm afraid. Of course "character" is only one element of his assessments of psychological backgrounds, but certainly what most laypersons describe as this plays into his battery.

As the inventor of criminal profiling, Douglas perceives that Knox's background and character -- along with the lack of any physical evidence -- prove her innocent. He thinks a decent court would not even have taken her to trial. Don't know about you, but I'll take his opinion over the virtual sanatarium of loons on PMF and TJMK.

 

[smkovalinksy]

Being a gadfly, cynical and annoying is not against the MA. How's that working for you?

I hope you are not self-deluded enough to think you are coming off as a Socratic gadfly, because you are not.

 

[js202]

Being a gadfly, cynical and annoying is not against the MA. How's that working for you?

Predictably, that doesn't answer my question. But thanks for playing.

Perhaps taking the mantle of the cynical gadfly in the midst of the last 24 hours of a highly serious case -- with stakes of life, death, etc. -- is a dubious pose. In other words, perhaps it would be valuable to hear your scepticism about various posters arguments, as opposed to your perceptions of their emotional states, which may be dangerously close to being "against the MA."

 

[Antony]

Criminal profiler John Douglas would disagree with you, I'm afraid. Of course "character" is only one element of his assessments of psychological backgrounds, but certainly what most laypersons describe as this plays into his battery.

As the inventor of criminal profiling, Douglas perceives that Knox's background and character -- along with the lack of any physical evidence -- prove her innocent. He thinks a decent court would not even have taken her to trial. Don't know about you, but I'll take his opinion over the virtual sanatarium of loons on PMF and TJMK.

Added to that, it's the prosecution side (and their blogger supporters) who have gone to extraordinary lengths to blacken the characters of the 2 defendants (Amanda in particular), to the exclusion of genuine evidence. So they are obviously counting on the idea that a case based on character alone has some validity.

The irony is that it is LionKing who is criticising the defence for focussing on Amanda's verifiable good character, when he has never once discussed anything that could be described as genuine evidence. Needless to say, the defence has the forensic evidence on their side as well.

 

[lionking]

Criminal profiler John Douglas would disagree with you, I'm afraid. Of course "character" is only one element of his assessments of psychological backgrounds, but certainly what most laypersons describe as this plays into his battery.

As the inventor of criminal profiling, Douglas perceives that Knox's background and character -- along with the lack of any physical evidence -- prove her innocent. He thinks a decent court would not even have taken her to trial. Don't know about you, but I'll take his opinion over the virtual sanatarium of loons on PMF and TJMK.

Tell me, when did John Douglas testify?

 

[smkovalinksy]

Tell me, when did John Douglas testify?

He didn't need to.