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Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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Do you actually know anything about internalised false confessions, and have you read Knox's statements? I suspect the answer is no to one or both, because anyone familiar with the relevant material can immediately see that Knox's statement bears several hallmarks of an internalised false statement and was produced under conditions known to elicit internalised false statements.

I know one thing about elicited false confessions.... they're never recorded! .

A few selected lines in AK's words from the gifted written statement;

1) In regards to this "confession" that I made last night, I want to make clear that I'm very doubtful of the verity of my statements....
2) I was also hit in the head when I didn't remember a fact correctly (she is writing this to the police, so its a bit pointless lying to them as they will know if they hit her or not)
3).... after many hours of confusion that my mind came up with these answers
4) In my mind I saw Patrik in flashes of blurred images....
5) butI've said this many times so as to make myself clear: these things seem unreal to me, like a dream, and I am unsure if they are real things
6) I am unsure about the truth
7) And I stand by my statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place in my home with Patrik, but 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.
8) I'm very confused at this time
9) I know I didn't kill Meredith
10) This is particularly important because I don't feel I can be used as condemning testimone
11) Please don't yell at me because it only makes me more confused, which doesn't help anyone
12) All I know is that I didn't kill Meredith

Whilst all these quotes do tell a tale, no.7 is worth reading again - statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place

This shows she did not make a deliberate false accusation. She was hypothesising with help from her interrogators.
 
I'm not talking about the Lumumba slander case, or any sort of legal concepts here. If you don't feel that Knox was "responsible" for her actions, fine.

I understand why she did what she did, I don't envy her, but I think she has to bear some of the moral responsibility for what she said about Lumumba. And the note she sent the police the next day suggests she felt the same way.

-Mike

I wouldn't ever hold someone responsible in any way for statements made in the circumstances that Amanda made the statements of 5-6 November. I have read of too many other miscarriages of justice resulting from coercive "interrogations" for that.

Amanda's "false accusation" was about the second detail of this story that I heard about (the first was that she and Raff had been at the scene when the crime was discovered). It told me this wasn't just a mistake - it was a stitch-up.
 
Okay, this is getting ridiculous.

I'm not trying to dispute Knox's innocence, or the inhumane methods that the Italian police used during her interrogation. I don't know how you guys magically know that the police planted a false memory in Knox's mind, and she wasn't just accusing Lumumba so they'd let her get the **** out of there. I already said that by accusing Lumumba, Knox plainly demonstrated that she didn't have any knowledge of Guede, because there was no one else she could conceivably think of blaming.

That's why reading this AELE link would have been especially helpful. You'll note that they detail each type of coerced confession, how to identify them, and how to avoid them. You'll also find they broke every rule in the book. They could have produced a false statement from any of the coercion categories, but the really interesting thing is that Amanda Knox wrote that note to them with no expectation anyone else would ever see it, and it seeming probable she wanted to somehow improve her position and explain things, which clearly shows evidence of false memory syndrome.

This is a contemporaneous account of her state of mind shortly after the statements, and to many people it makes her look like a lunatic, so why'd she write it that way? If she actually knew enough to falsely produce the symptoms in the note, how'd she succumb to it? If she was that familiar with police procedure and interrogation tactics how on earth could she fail to know that the only thing she should have said when they started in on her is 'get me a lawyer?'


All I'm trying to do is point out that she didn't confess to anything. And I'm sure there's a pretty, blue-eyed reason why people here seem to have a problem admitting that.

That's the problem. It's also the most obvious of four of the reasons I chose this sig. It might seem the most likely possibility, but is there another way for you to find out? Granted, dropping a forty-page paper in someone's lap can be seen as merely an annoying tactic, but that's not the reason I'm doing it. If you read that and know anything about the basic facts about the case you'll see that they broke basically every rule in the book--especially the one they reiterate at least three times:

Page 427 said:
While this concept has been addressed frequently in this text, it is worth repeating again--at no time should an investigator attempt to persuade a suspect he is guilty of committing a crime he claims he doesn't remember committing. It is one thing to express high confidence in a suspect's guilt (which will not cause an innocent person to confess), but it's quite another to make statements designed to convince a suspect, who claims to have no recollection of committing the crime, that he must be guilty of the offense.

Absent these criteria, a defendant's claim of a coerced internalized confession should be viewed with extreme skepticism by the court. However, the ultimate test of the trustworthiness of any confession will be the degree and kind of corroboration included within the confession itself.
(emphasis mine)

One last thing to keep in mind: Let's say you're right, we're all entranced by those those pretty blue eyes...however how could that inherently mean we're wrong? Why do law enforcement sites offer literature that reiterate repeatedly that the one thing they should never do is try to convince a person who claims they don't remember doing something that they did it? Why does it say the three crucial factors are: it has to be something the subject could imagine themselves doing, there must be something to account for memory loss, and that they had to lay the groundwork for it to be possible?

If you think on it, all three were present not peripherally but definitely. Remember the statements she signed don't have anything to do with her hacking away at anyone, she's just cowering in the kitchen, something one might expect a college girl 5'3" 120 lbs or so could have been doing in the event of extreme violence in the house by an older and larger man. The explanation for memory loss is covered nicely by their instance that she'd 'repressed memories' of the murder due to emotional trauma, which is woosville itself, but Amanda is a language student, not a psych student, and they show that crap on TV enough and it's a common misconception amongst many people that it's 'established science.' It's not at all, it's very similar to what we're talking about--implanting false memories actually--a way that has lead to numerous false accusations, my guess would be more than have been known to claim an internalized false confession, perhaps even by a wide margin.

The last one is they have to lay the groundwork, and then demand the subject must remember they did it. That's copiously covered as well, being as they not only told her they had 'hard evidence' of being at the scene, but that her new boyfriend, who'd seemed so nice and kind, had told police that she went out that night and even told police she'd asked him to lie for her (not what he said incidentally you can see it in that Mirror link with the Felice quote) what on earth is she supposed to think? Why would the cops lie to her? Why would Raffaele lie about her? She's just a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed college student that loves Italy, she has no reason to distrust authorities, and it would probably make no sense to her that they would tell her these things if they weren't true, make those threats and treat her like vermin if they didn't have a good reason, right?

You can see her trying to work it out in the note. She might look like a lunatic or a really bad liar at first glance, but consider her position: she has definite reinforcement encouraging her to believe she was there and 'repressed' her memory, she's imagined another scenario,and she's dead tired, stressed and confused by all the shouting in a language she doesn't speak more than the basics of at this point. Looks like she's also kinda scared by that and the hitting part--which they don't do on TV and might have been quite intimidating for a girl surrounded by 5-10 cops and completely at their mercy--and doesn't really know what to think. If the cops have hard evidence then her real memory must be wrong, but that just doesn't seem to feel right to her.

The crime here was not Amanda signing those two statements about what could have happened, but the police taking them as absolute accusations (at least for the purpose of arresting Patrick then they trashed it basically and Mignini just made stuff up out of whole cloth for Matteini) and arresting anyone over trash like that when the person they've browbeaten into submission isn't sure of it.

I think they should be punished for it, whether you care or not that means more than Amanda's flashing blue eyes, it means the Bad Guys get theirs. That's how the movie should end! :)
 
Some interesting arguements...

-

going on here concerning matters of semantics and other technicalities and perspectives, but the bottom line is Amanda is now home with us here in Seattle and she ain't goin' back to Perugia. No way. No how.

Hopefully Raffaele is relaxing back home with his family and loved ones also.

That's the bottom line here and nothing else really matters right now except that.

Nothing.

But please, don't let me interrupt what y'all were discussing. I personally find it fascinating,

Dave
 
Associated Press has this out -

In his first public comments since Knox and her Italian co-defendant, Raffaele Sollecito, were acquitted Monday night, Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmann stressed on state TV that the acquittals "resulted from the truth that was created in the trial."

"But the real truth could be different," Hellmann added. "They could also be responsible but the proof isn't there," the judge said in his first public comments on the verdict. Under the Italian judicial system, the presiding judge, another judge and six civilians make up the jury.

"So, maybe they know, too, but as far as we (the jury) go, they didn't," he added.

...

Asked who knew the truth about the slaying, Pratillo Hellmann referred to a third defendant, Rudy Guede, who was convicted of Kercher's murder in a separate trial and is serving a 16-year sentence in Italy.

"Certainly Rudy Guede" knows. "I won't say he's the only one to know," the judge added.
 
I know one thing about elicited false confessions.... they're never recorded! .

A few selected lines in AK's words from the gifted written statement;

1) In regards to this "confession" that I made last night, I want to make clear that I'm very doubtful of the verity of my statements....
2) I was also hit in the head when I didn't remember a fact correctly (she is writing this to the police, so its a bit pointless lying to them as they will know if they hit her or not)
3).... after many hours of confusion that my mind came up with these answers
4) In my mind I saw Patrik in flashes of blurred images....
5) butI've said this many times so as to make myself clear: these things seem unreal to me, like a dream, and I am unsure if they are real things
6) I am unsure about the truth
7) And I stand by my statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place in my home with Patrik, but 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.
8) I'm very confused at this time
9) I know I didn't kill Meredith
10) This is particularly important because I don't feel I can be used as condemning testimone
11) Please don't yell at me because it only makes me more confused, which doesn't help anyone
12) All I know is that I didn't kill Meredith

Whilst all these quotes do tell a tale, no.7 is worth reading again - statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place

This shows she did not make a deliberate false accusation. She was hypothesising with help from her interrogators.




Now, naming an innocent party in an attempt to get yourself out of trouble is certainly a dreadful act, one for which got Knox three years in jail. However, if I had discovered the body of my murdered flatmate, then been badgered for hours by hostile police insisting they could prove I had been there, and wanting to know who was this Lumumba whom I'd texted "See you later" – well, I'm not certain I would have resisted the temptation to confirm what they wished to hear, then retract it hours later. Yet the world is full of people, it seems, who are convinced of their own ability to be scrupulously honest under all circumstances, and who condemn others for not being so.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/05/amanda-knox-making-of-she-devil?newsfeed=true
 
I know one thing about elicited false confessions.... they're never recorded! .

A few selected lines in AK's words from the gifted written statement;

1) In regards to this "confession" that I made last night, I want to make clear that I'm very doubtful of the verity of my statements....
2) I was also hit in the head when I didn't remember a fact correctly (she is writing this to the police, so its a bit pointless lying to them as they will know if they hit her or not)
3).... after many hours of confusion that my mind came up with these answers
4) In my mind I saw Patrik in flashes of blurred images....
5) butI've said this many times so as to make myself clear: these things seem unreal to me, like a dream, and I am unsure if they are real things
6) I am unsure about the truth
7) And I stand by my statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place in my home with Patrik, but 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.
8) I'm very confused at this time
9) I know I didn't kill Meredith
10) This is particularly important because I don't feel I can be used as condemning testimone
11) Please don't yell at me because it only makes me more confused, which doesn't help anyone
12) All I know is that I didn't kill Meredith

Whilst all these quotes do tell a tale, no.7 is worth reading again - statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place

This shows she did not make a deliberate false accusation. She was hypothesising with help from her interrogators.

Good point on number 2. Clearly those racist and misogynistic Perugia cops did physically abuse her. The other statements make it clear that she was suffering from an "internalized false confession" as someone else here put it. Her implanted, false "memories" of being with Patrick that night are conflicting with her real ones which placed her at Raff's house. That's why she didn't recant 100%. At the time, she still believed that there could be some truth in those interrogation-induced false memories. Her interrogation must have been brutal for false memories like this to stick. No wonder there was no recording of that interrogation.
 
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I know one thing about elicited false confessions.... they're never recorded! ...

Knox's wasn't (or, if it was, it has mysteriously vanished).

However (point of order) false confessions are often recorded.

Couple of quick examples:

-Ryan Ferguson's accuser's almost certainly false confession was recorded (there's a thread on JREF somewhere about that case)

-What is absolutely confirmed as a false confession to the Stork double murder was recorded. It's a sordid affair. In order to try and get the false confession to stick, the police planted evidence against the confessor.
 

Thanks for that link, what a great article. About time.

...Happily, a motive now appears to have emerged. Knox, some people seem to want to believe, killed her flatmate, and inveigled two other men into helping her out, in order that she would be arrested, convicted, spend four years in prison, become a cause célèbre, be released on appeal, and, as the Daily Mail so charmingly put it, start "a new life as a professional martyr to injustice". Why not? The woman is capable of anything, after all. Or so the entire planet has been told.

There are many deeply troubling facets to this case. But an important one, surely, is the degree to which it exposes so many humans as only too happy to believe lurid and destructive slurs served up by a tabloid media culture that they all know – or should know – exists to make money from peddling damaging sensation, the more outrageous the better.

That same debauched editorial process will deliver the much-resented payday to Knox. The sum she receives will be a fraction of what will have been "earned" by others from building her up as a she-devil in the first place, and turning her into a scandalous household name. Yet, somehow, even though it is the media who are providing the filthy cash, while simultaneously stoking the outrage about it so that more people will consume the new stories they are desperate to run, this all just proves – in some foolish minds – that Knox herself has a terrible character, and is clearly someone who will stop at nothing.
[...]
The people most appallingly served by this long and terrible farrago – and it is by no means over yet – have been the grieving Kercher family. They have been served up this tripe by the Italian criminal justice system, and by the world's media. They believed in the guilt of Sollecito and Knox, painful as that belief was. Now, as they say, they are "back to square one". A lot of people share blame for the mental torture this family have been through. Amanda Knox is not one of them.
 
The 'Vast PR machine' was the 'Friends of Amanda' site.

That site provided all the answers right from the start.

That site got the answers from the lawyers and quality investigators.

Then came all the heavy hitters that contributed their time for free.

Then there were the authors of all the books summarizing, digesting the information, and communicating it in an interesting manner.

Then there was CNN and other media, especially in Seattle.

Then along came this site which knew more and more until the posters knew everything - even the future. The future was correctly predicted and agreed upon.

Some say that agreement that strong actually creates the future. Hellman in court said that the truth presented in court was that Amanda and Raffaele were innocent. That was the agreement.

At first I was afraid to bring up some issues fearing that they would expose a weakness in the case. They never did. That process repeated again and again made me 100% sure that Amanda was not guilty as charged.

That guilters could only call us names and misquote what we said only weakened their argument - if they ever had any.
 
Associated Press has this out -

In his first public comments since Knox and her Italian co-defendant, Raffaele Sollecito, were acquitted Monday night, Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmann stressed on state TV that the acquittals "resulted from the truth that was created in the trial."

"But the real truth could be different," Hellmann added. "They could also be responsible but the proof isn't there," the judge said in his first public comments on the verdict. Under the Italian judicial system, the presiding judge, another judge and six civilians make up the jury.

"So, maybe they know, too, but as far as we (the jury) go, they didn't," he added.

...

Asked who knew the truth about the slaying, Pratillo Hellmann referred to a third defendant, Rudy Guede, who was convicted of Kercher's murder in a separate trial and is serving a 16-year sentence in Italy.

"Certainly Rudy Guede" knows. "I won't say he's the only one to know," the judge added.

In part it sounds like they acquitted them because they believed that Raff and Amanda were innocent 100%, but they leave some interpretation for reasonable doubt there as well.
 
Associated Press has this out -

Asked who knew the truth about the slaying, Pratillo Hellmann referred to a third defendant, Rudy Guede, who was convicted of Kercher's murder in a separate trial and is serving a 16-year sentence in Italy.

"Certainly Rudy Guede" knows. "I won't say he's the only one to know," the judge added.[/I]

This makes me believe that the court is going to say that third parties other than Knox/Sollecito could have participated in the murder with Rudy. Perhaps the third parties are as described by the convicts, or perhaps others.

What an easy way to take care of this whole "the Supreme Court said . . . " business.
 
Carlo Dalla Vedova in Porta a Porta (around 42 min)
http://www.rai.tv/dl/RaiTV/programmi/media/ContentItem-4eb31be0-b058-48f9-b272-2416c155440d.html#p=0


He says:


So even he is unsure, but expects "formula piena" (530.1)

Thank you, Bolint. :)

I dunno, we'll find out eventually anyway, and if it's the second paragraph then it will be Italy's shame, not Amanda and Raffaele's.

What do you think of (either) calunnia charge going to the ECHR? Incidentally, has anyone heard anything about Patrick's suit against ILE of 500k Euros?
 
Knox's wasn't (or, if it was, it has mysteriously vanished).

However (point of order) false confessions are often recorded.

Couple of quick examples:

-Ryan Ferguson's accuser's almost certainly false confession was recorded (there's a thread on JREF somewhere about that case)

-What is absolutely confirmed as a false confession to the Stork double murder was recorded. It's a sordid affair. In order to try and get the false confession to stick, the police planted evidence against the confessor.


Ryan's case is still going on. Here is the thread.
 
No, the timeline is the following:

Knox made oral statements during the questioning, at the presence of Anna Donnino, accusing Patrick Lumumba. In the first part of the interrogation she denied all police suspicions/allegations that she was lying and covering somebody.
At what time did Knox first start denying police allegations? Because she was obviously a "suspect" at that point.
Then she was told that Sollecito had withdrawn from her alibi.
Again, at what time? I was under the impression that it was quite early in the interrogation, again showing undeniably she was already a suspect.
When she was aksed about the sms message, and understood the police got focused because of its Italian wording, that they thought she was lying about it and thought she had met with someone that night (the unknown recipient of the msg), Knox suddenly accused Lumumba.
What time did the police first look at the text message? You seem to have a nearly 3 hour gap in your timeline here.

Also, what time did Donninio suggest to Knox that she was repressing her memory of what happened?

Knox has said she was hit in the back of the head for not answering questions "correctly", at what time would that have taken place about? Nadeau and people like Fiona tend to think the word "hit" is too strong but that Knox probably was "cuffed" or slapped, are you so sure Knox wasn't?
Crying, covering her ears wth her hands, saying "he's bad"
When did she start crying? When was she screaming so loud Giobbi heard it in another room?
and said they went home together, they wanted to have fun, he wanted her and asaulted her in her room.
Did she say that first, or just start agreeing with the police after she had a visibly obvious mental breakdown and was sobbing and crying?

Keep in mind, we are talking about hours of interrogation so what do you think the police were saying to Knox during that time? It obviously wasn't just, "tell us what really happened!" over and over. Don't you think it was the police who first suggested that Knox would have had a male accomplice? It is perfectly logical they would do that, but what exactly do you think they said to her? At what time did that start?

The police stopped the questioning due to self-incriminating statement, as the qustioning shifted her status to that of a a formal suspect. She signed the minutes of this questioning at 01:45
Where are the "minutes" of this questioning at? I have never seen such a thing and would really like to read it. It should answer all the questions I just asked you. I have read the 1:45 signed statement by Knox but that obviously wasn't the "minutes of the questioning". I was under the impression there was no such thing available but it would help answer a lot of questions. Even better would be a recording of the interrogation . . .do you believe Mignini is being honest when he says they didn't record the interrogation due budget problems?
 
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No, the timeline is the following:

Knox made oral statements during the questioning, at the presence of Anna Donnino, accusing Patrick Lumumba. In the first part of the interrogation she denied all police suspicions/allegations that she was lying and covering somebody. Then she was told that Sollecito had withdrawn from her alibi. When she was aksed about the sms message, and understood the police got focused because of its Italian wording, that they thought she was lying about it and thought she had met with someone that night (the unknown recipient of the msg), Knox suddenly accused Lumumba. Crying, covering her ears wth her hands, saying "he's bad" and said they went home together, they wanted to have fun, he wanted her and asaulted her in her room. The police stopped the questioning due to self-incriminating statement, as the qustioning shifted her status to that of a a formal suspect. She signed the minutes of this questioning at 01:45

Then she was given a chamomille tee.

At a time that we can roughly place about 3:00 (very approx.) Mignini came and told her about her status of formal suspect, told her about her rights, and told her that he would not interrogate her but if she wanted to provide them with information so to arrest Lumumba, she could make further statements.

Amanda released an oral statement that was not recorded but verbalized at the presence of the magistrate, the interpreter Anna Donnino and other officers. The statement was finished at 5:54 am and Amanda signed it.

Later in the morning, at about 8:00, Amanda asked for paper and a pen, she wrote herself a two pages memoriale which she gave to Rifa Ficarra saying "it's a gift". She later claimed she wrote this hand written note by her decision, voluntarily, and she gave it voluntarily to the police.

Two days later, on nov 8., Amanda appeared before GIP Claudia Matteini. Because the hand written statement was partly retracting and contradicting the previous statement, while still producing evidence against Patrick Lumumba and also against Raffaele Sollecito, she was asked if she wanted to answer questions by the judge. She decided not to answer. She also decided to not release further spontaneous statements to clarify the previous ones.

Amanda did not make any further statement - nor written nor oral - to clarify anything about her false accusation of Patrick Lumumba, she kept her silence for about 20 days until Guede was arrested.

Amanda was interrogated again on Dec 18., this time by the Public Minister. In this occasion, when she was asked questions about her false accusation of Lumumba, she burst in tears and was unable to answer, and pleaded her right not to answer.

You left out the interpreter persuading her she was traumatized and forgot going to the cottage that night, a fact backed by Amanda's recounting of the interpreter's personal story of being traumatized after breaking her leg. Guilters always ignore this part. I wonder why.

And how does it take nearly three hours for Amanda to make a second statement if it was just her wanting to repeat what she had said before? A statement that was rather short and only changed to benefit LE's theory of the crime?
 
This makes me believe that the court is going to say that third parties other than Knox/Sollecito could have participated in the murder with Rudy. Perhaps the third parties are as described by the convicts, or perhaps others.

What an easy way to take care of this whole "the Supreme Court said . . . " business.

Hellman ruled that the "simulated" break-in didn't happen, so is he entertaining the possibility that more than one burglar could have committed this crime? I don't buy such a scenario. Just what evidence is there that more than one attacker could have been involved? What is Hellman thinking of? It can't be the luminol prints because at least one is likely to be Amanda's and she has been found innocent. So that's out. It's either the ambiguous bathmat print or the jury bought the prosecution's contention that more than one attacker had to be involved based on the lack of defensive wounds.
 
Ammonitida;7645960[B said:
]Hellman ruled that the "simulated" break-in didn't happen, so is he entertaining the possibility that more than one burglar could have committed this crime? [/B]I don't buy such a scenario. Just what evidence is there that more than one attacker could have been involved? What is Hellman thinking of? It can't be the luminol prints because at least one is likely to be Amanda's and she has been found innocent. So that's out. It's either the ambiguous bathmat print or the jury bought the prosecution's contention that more than one attacker had to be involved based on the lack of defensive wounds.
To me, that he ruled the simulated break-in did not occur, points to one burglar, Guede. I imagine he will touch on this possibility in his motivation report, regardless of that other high court ruling about more than one attacker.

It seems the Kerchers are starting to be open to this possibility as well, excluding Knox and Sollecito, and asking about "the others" - the others being very illogical at this point, as a theory. They may have distanced themselves from Maresca, because, as Malkmus has said, they see he was less than honest with them regarding the evidence against the defendants.
 
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