Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[CDHost]

True. Normal people also don't falsely accuse their former employers of killing somebody. Oops, seems Knox isn't all that normal...

Normal people lie all the time under high degree of pressure. To pick an American analogy we got lots of Iraqi detainees to lie about their ties to Al-Qaeda when there were no such ties. And those were men, often twice Amanda Knox's age, many of whom had been on the other end of an interrogation many times.

 

[Katody Matrass]

not just reasonable doubt

the word is not "insinuate", but "report". This is what Hellmann says:


"...
In shockingly frank interviews broadcast on TG1 yesterday evening, and in the Italian press this morning, Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellman said Rudy Guede, the Ivory Coast immigrant found guilty in a separate trial of taking part in Meredith's murder, "knows the truth and it's possible the defendants [Knox and Sollecito] do as well".

The 69-year-old judge went on: "They may be responsible. But there's no proof."

The Corriere della Sera quoted Hellmann as saying that the verdict handed down on Monday was "the result of the truth that was created in the proceedings. But the real truth can be different". .....


Note Hellmann does not say "there is no evidence", says "there is no proof"

Personally, I think "no evidence" is a more faithful translation of what he said.

ma non ci sono le prove​

It's also important to see it in context. He says that it's sure Guede knows. Hypothetically, maybe others know too, but the truth formed in the court comes from the evidence and there is no evidence of AK and RS responsibility.

The whole article from Corriere is quite interesting.

Hellmann is speaking about anti-Americanism and media campaign fuelling mob's anger about the verdict.
He also calls Massei's verdict "illogical and inadequate".

About Kerchers he says:

"I understand their anguish. But a conviction not supported by evidence would not have done justice, or returned their daughter to them."


ETA:

Apparently Hellmann cut the speculation definitely:

Nel nostro caso non abbiamo richiamato il secondo comma dell'articolo 530 del Codice​

So it's clear that the acquittal was not merely for reasonable doubt.

 

[Verklagekasper]

Amanda wasn't a liar; she was a person forced to make a statement when confused and frightened.

Wow, really? You mean that the police actually interrogated her instead of doing small talk while she felt relaxed and happy? I'm in shock.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

a thorough review of the data

However, here we come to the most important development, what happens is that, not exactly that Stefanoni or the police refuses or denies to provide them with the data files (as Halkides claims); what happens instead is that it is the court who decides that the scientific police must not provide the remaining documentation, including the raw data files, do the defences. It is thus the court who decides that further analysis and discussion on this remaining data would not be useful to the trial.

After the reading of the C&V report, by the way, it is clear that in fact the above court assessment was correct, since the raw data play no role in C&V’s conclusions (C&V report would and conclusions would have been identical if based on the existing documentation instead of the raw data).

Machiavelli,

It was never my intention to imply that Stefanoni (apart from the rest of law enforcement) withheld the data. If it were the court's decision, it changes very little. A competent review of the DNA forensics must include several items including the electronic data files, something that I have documented here many times. If Massei saw it differently, then he was mistaken.

 

[Grinder]

The reasoning about the SC ruling, I don't understand what you mean: the SC decision is a necessary step in order to use the Rudy verdict. But the Cassazione cannot modify the scenario; they could have rejected Rudy's appeal sentence and could have ordered a new trial, but not modify the conclusions. In this aspect, they could only repeat what the lowr court said, or in alternative reject the verdict. But not change the scenario for Rudy's conviction. Their acceptance of the verdict means that the lower court had worked properly in the evidence assessment, and thus the scenario they worked out is accepted.

Mach - is it normal to try separately as in this case?

In the fast track trial are the defendants limited in their ability to defend themselves, as in not having experts to counter the prosecution's forensic presentation for example?

Since the Cassazione doesn't test the evidence and only looks at procedure what could they do except validate the lower courts' theory of the crime?

Were they also reading the Massei report and the defense appeal documents from Raffaele and Amanda's case?

 

[Verklagekasper]

To pick an American analogy we got lots of Iraqi detainees to lie about their ties to Al-Qaeda when there were no such ties.

So your investigation skills suck. Looks like you shouldn't try to lecture other countries' police.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

a big difference

Wow, really? You mean that the police actually interrogated her instead of doing small talk while she felt relaxed and happy? I'm in shock.

Verklagekasper,

Justinian2 is correct. If the police wanted the truth, they would not have scheduled an interview at night (not coincidentally, as Matteini said, on the night before Edda Mellas arrived in Perugia); they would not have cuffed Ms. Knox; the "translator" would not have implied that Ms. Knox was so traumatized that she did not remember the events; they would not have lied about having hard evidence that placed her at the cottage that night, and so forth. There is a difference between interrogating someone with an interest in obtaining the truth versus interrogating them until they produce the "truth" that one wishes to hear.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

no lecture

So your investigation skills suck. Looks like you shouldn't try to lecture other countries' police.

Verklagekasper,

I don't want to lecture to them. I just want to point out that when they lied about the bleach receipts, the Harry Potter book, the clothing, and the CCTV footage, they lost most of their credibility. I also want to point out that when they did not collect key evidence for six weeks, then collect it with techniques that a first-semester forensics student would laugh at, they lost the rest of what little credibility remained.

 

[CDHost]

So your investigation skills suck. Looks like you shouldn't try to lecture other countries' police.

Those were precisely the results the US intelligence officers were looking for. They were trying to create false intelligence. In the same way that when using the same techniques the Italian police got a false confession.

And that's the point. Those techniques result in garbage. People conducting an investigation whose goal it is to learn the truth don't use the.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

bad interrogations happen all the time

Normal people lie all the time under high degree of pressure. To pick an American analogy we got lots of Iraqi detainees to lie about their ties to Al-Qaeda when there were no such ties. And those were men, often twice Amanda Knox's age, many of whom had been on the other end of an interrogation many times.

CDHost,

Good to see you again. Also, the Norfolk Four were Navy men, yet they gave false confessions/accusations under duress.

 

[Grinder]

Well, I think he's (Curatolo) far more reliable than Amanda Knox. He never changed his version. And was never disproven. Anyway, I'm not his judge.

Actually IIRC he was interviewed by the police in the week following and didn't report to them what he eventually testified to in court. He only came forward at the behest of a local reporter.

He changed the times he had seen them within his in-court testimony.

Amanda would be accused of lying if she had done what Curatolo did.

 

[Verklagekasper]

I'm sorry that Ms. Knox wasn't offered a comfy chair during her interrogation and that she was interrogated while she was "confused and frightened".
Btw I suggest that you instantly set all your convicted criminals free. After all, they all were interrogated while not being all that happy and confident either. Oh, I forgot that your new interrogation standards only apply to Americans in foreign countries, my bad.

 

[Diocletus]

you write down another false testimony bringing further false evidence against innocent people

Um, well, technically the cops wrote down (typed out) the false story. They just "persuaded" Knox to sign it . . . in clear violation of her right to counsel. Then they brought a criminal charge against her based on the illegal interrogation . . . and convicted her and sentenced her to three years in jail to pay for the cops' violation of her rights. LOL. What other country does something like this? If the Supreme Court won't do something about this, I hope she takes it to the European Court of Human Rights so they can set Italy straight. This is third world stuff.

 

[Verklagekasper]

Those were precisely the results the US intelligence officers were looking for. They were trying to create false intelligence. In the same way that when using the same techniques the Italian police got a false confession.

Do you have any proof that Amanda Knox had been tortured by waterboarding and sleep deprivation? Because that's what your claim implies.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

no recordings exist (the dog ate them)

I'm sorry that Ms. Knox wasn't offered a comfy chair during her interrogation and that she was interrogated while she was "confused and frightened".
Btw I suggest that you instantly set all your convicted criminals free. After all, they all were interrogated while not being all that happy and confident either. Oh, I forgot that your new interrogation standards only apply to Americans in foreign countries, my bad.

Verklagekasper,

Some of Ms. Knox's supporters have a verifiable track record of speaking out against coercive interrogations; therefore, any implicit charges of inconsistency do not hold up to scrutiny, IMO. Without a recording of the interrogation, the conditions of Ms. Knox's and Mr. Sollecito's interrogations will always be their word against Italian law enforcement's word. It is the statements themselves that make Ms. Knox's version more credible to me. They are about what one would expect from a coercive interrogation.

 

[Matthew Best]

There will be plenty to say after the verdict, imo.

No kidding!

(Apologies for the lateness of this reply, I've been catching up on the last two or three weeks' posts after my holiday in Turkey where I didn't have internet access. Still haven't reached the verdict yet - can't wait to find out what happens!)

 

[Diocletus]

I'm sorry that Ms. Knox wasn't offered a comfy chair during her interrogation and that she was interrogated while she was "confused and frightened".
Btw I suggest that you instantly set all your convicted criminals free. After all, they all were interrogated while not being all that happy and confident either. Oh, I forgot that your new interrogation standards only apply to Americans in foreign countries, my bad.

Verklageskasper: Are you in Germany? Your name kind of sounds like it. ANyway, if you are, then you are lucky because your government protects you from interrogations of this sort:

Section 136a of the German Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP) excludes any confessions obtained by ill-treatment, induced fatigue, physical interference, administration of drugs, torment, deception or hypnosis. The police are prohibited from using such methods and the court will exclude any confession made in an interrogation that uses such techniques, even if the confession itself was voluntary.

ETA: They also exclude confessions derived from interrogations in which the accused's right to counsel was violated.

Probably most other western nations provide similar protections. Apparently Italy does not.

 

[CDHost]

CDHost,

Good to see you again. Also, the Norfolk Four were Navy men, yet they gave false confessions/accusations under duress.

Thanks. This week was too good to miss! Wonderful to see good triumph once is a while. You deserve more credit than I, and I'd like to think your hard work has paid off in saving two lives from destruction.

And yep great examples and there is such a wealth of great examples. But the one that works the best is Inbau, Reid et. al's standard handbook on interrogation technique given to most police officers, military intelligence, corporate security investigators....

That book has all kinds of check backs regarding avoiding false confession because they happen so frequently. As an aside virtually all of signs are contradicted by Knox's statement.

1. The person is supposed to be passive and in a defeated but not completely disengaged state of mind. Not aggitated.
2. The account should have a consistent level of detail. So long discussions of a shower for example would be a very bad sign.
3. You want an epilogue, tieing the confession to normal events. False confessions rarely contain a "what came after" story line while true ones do.
4. Varying flow of time or time gaps.
5. Implied actions, especially key actions.
6. You want to avoid statements with lots of qualifying phrases indicating the person is mentally not identifying with the statements

The only thing that is present in the November 5th account that is desirable is descriptions of emotion. And interestingly enough, in Amanda's statement those all are about sexual behaviors. This would lead any fair analysis to conclude the one place she is possibly telling the truth about is when she is describing sex. So if she were being charged with fornication, this would be an iffy statement to make use of. For the other activities totally worthless.

 

[Kaosium]

True. Normal people also don't falsely accuse their former employers of killing somebody. Oops, seems Knox isn't all that normal...

Are you certain that normal people don't sometimes make false accusations? What evidence would you care to present to support that contention?

Incidentally, would you care to show me where Amanda accused Patrick of the murder?

 

[Verklagekasper]

Verklageskasper: Are you in Germany? Your name kind of sounds like it. ANyway, if you are, then you are lucky because your government protects you from interrogations of this sort:
...
Probably most other western nations provide similar protections. Apparently Italy does not.

Thank you. And I found this:

Transcript of Amanda Knox's handwritten statement to police on the evening of November 6, the day she was arrested.

The part about "flashbacks" and not knowing for sure if she was at the house that night is best. Probably most other western nations would consider Knox to be crazy or a liar. Apparently America does not.