Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[LondonJohn]

Another one for the "you couldn't make it up" file. Here's Ganong on .org:

Meanwhile, the twitter hags Candace hangs out with criticize the Kerchers in the most disgusting language, then PMF, because Meredith has no headstone. Lots of crude talk about sending them money. I since I know all of you depraved apes read here, let me just say that the Kerchers do not want YOUR money. Spare them at least this one indignity. THEY DO NOT WANT YOUR MONEY.

Need I remind anyone of the "conspicuous compassion" not only supported but initiated by Ganong, in a patronising and transparently self-serving display of ostentatious "kind-heartedness", whose objective was for .org posters to club together to pay for air fares for the Kerchers? Why do I get the feeling that when Ganong contacted a "representative" of the Kercher family to give them the good news (that a bunch of random webmongs with whom the Kerchers had no connection had decided to take pity on them and give them money), she was met with a rather firm rebuttal? Could that be the explanation for this new rant? THE KERCHERS DO NOT WANT YOUR MONEY EITHER, PEGGY. AND NOR DO THEY WANT YOUR PHONEY AND CONDESCENDING PITY.

 

[Mary_H]

Another one for the "you couldn't make it up" file. Here's Ganong on .org:

Need I remind anyone of the "conspicuous compassion" not only supported but initiated by Ganong, in a patronising and transparently self-serving display of ostentatious "kind-heartedness", whose objective was for .org posters to club together to pay for air fares for the Kerchers? Why do I get the feeling that when Ganong contacted a "representative" of the Kercher family to give them the good news (that a bunch of random webmongs with whom the Kerchers had no connection had decided to take pity on them and give them money), she was met with a rather firm rebuttal? Could that be the explanation for this new rant? THE KERCHERS DO NOT WANT YOUR MONEY EITHER, PEGGY. AND NOR DO THEY WANT YOUR PHONEY AND CONDESCENDING PITY.

On the other hand, the Kerchers could be thinking, "Hey, wait a minute -- WE'LL be the ones to decide whose money we accept!"

BTW, do we still get to be depraved apes even if we don't offer any money?

 

[Mary_H]

Well south of it, to be exact. Do you remember Almost Live's Folk Songs of South King County, or Green Riverdance?

I also lived in Everett for many years.

I do remember. But of course, I did not agree with them.

 

[charlatan]

Have fun with this one:

At Cassation level the prosecution is likely to have at least five advantages.

1) A confusing Hellman sentence report seems likely which won’t be able to dispose of the Massei and Micheli reports because Hellman did not look at all issues

2) Cassation’s existing ruling on Rudy Guede which points to three perps, and Cassation’s general tendency to side with trial courts against first-appeal courts.

3) The likelihood that only the prosecution will file issues for consideration by Cassation and not the defenses and so the prosecution will dominate all proceedings.

4) Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito and entourages seem unlikely to be there in person for the Cassation hearings or a retrial, and emotive factors would be less in play.

5) The Italian media and Italian public opinion and increasingly UK and US opinion seem to be taking the position that the Hellman appeal decision was unsatisfactory.

ETA: The acquittal sure is looking ominous for the defense.

 

[smkovalinksy]

Have fun with this one:



ETA: The acquittal sure is looking ominous for the defense.

TJMK simply cannot accept that this case is over.

Neither Knox nor Sollecito will ever spend another day in jail.

Hellman's motivation report will likely be so meticulous and robust, that the Supreme Court will not accept the prosecutorial request for appeal.

The case is over.

Those of us who have grasped this would have made a powerful statement, had we stopped talking the day of the verdict. The silence would have been deafening to those spinning their wheels on the other side.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

more misstatements from ILE

Sorry, if I had noticed your request for police lies, I would already have submitted these earlier posts:
SNIP
(These are from over a year ago. There probably have been a lot more uncovered since then, for example, in Conti & Vecchioti.)

Mary_H and Machiavelli,

There was a claim that Amanda disposed of the clothes she wore on the night of the murder, when they were in her room, right where she said that they were (Fisher, Injustice in Perugia, p. 220). There was an officer's claim that he never set foot in Meredith's room. There was report that the washing machine was at the end of its cycle when police arrived. There was Stefanoni's claim that the knife profile yielded hundreds of picograms of DNA. IIRC, she also claimed to have performed real-time PCR when she had not. Bruce Fisher wrote (p. 232), "The prosecution lied when they stated that Amanda and Raffaele repeatedly lied." (bolding in original)

 

[theRealBob]

You have to feel sorry for the Kerchers being lead, and laboring along Mignini's 'very personal silly story' blind alleys

But it might be best to not tell everyone there had to be three attackers, when even a one-sided liar like Massei said in his biased No-Motive Report that the experts, including the police ones said that the wounds evidence showed no particular inclination to there being more than one attacker

Back to a real topic..

I'm not bright enough to attach this file from my computer.

Here is the missing interview with John Douglas that appeared then disappeared from the web because it was supposedly to dangerous to publish in Italy. I'm worried about posting it because I can imagine that it could possibly be, like anything else on earth, also incredibly dangerous to the Defence. But is there a Defence ? I thought they had escaped this prosecution witch hunt by now.

Anyway, here's the forgotten, lost, burned at the stake, interview.....




Unarresting the Arrested:FBI Profiler John Douglas on the case against Amanda Knox & Raffaele Sollecito

This article was originally supposed to be published for Il Messaggero. It was given to me as an assignment, after the editor and legal expert of the newspaper saw the Maxim interview with famed FBI profiler, John Douglas, in the January 2011 issue.

When the article was turned in, albeit shortened, my editor told me – “this article is too dangerous to print in Italy”.

So, for your reading pleasure, the article too dangerous for Italy.

There are two kinds of hunters: the hunter that waits and the hunter that tracks. The difference of two is the complexity of their hunting techniques though both aim for the same thing; bagging the prey.

Hunters who wait prefer to lure their prey into range. This is usually the preferred method of serial killers. They watch, and wait for the chance to pounce. Hunters who track their prey, involves a more detailed approach; knowing the specific differences, patterns and behaviors of the hunted, and calculate their next moves. John Douglas is of the latter. However, he pursues a different kind of animal: serial killers. He is the investigator and legendary criminal profiler known as “The Mind Hunter”.

Edited by Gaspode: 

Edited for compliance with Rule 4. Link.

Please don't copy large sections of text from a copyrighted source. As a guideline, quote a paragraph or two and provide a link to the original.

 

[Katody Matrass]

another paperback

I see John Follain is hoping to make big bucks with his book about poor Meredith's murder.

Or will he listen to his fellow journalist John Kercher's desperate pleas to not capitalise on his daughter's horrible fate?

I think if he's not just a greedy jerk and has a heart he should donate all the earnings from his upcoming little book.

Of course the best thing to do would be to just not release it at all, but I doubt he is classy enough.

 

[LondonJohn]

Have fun with this one:

ETA: The acquittal sure is looking ominous for the defense.

This is wrong on virtually every level imaginable! It pains me to go through it point by point, but here goes:

1) A confusing Hellman sentence report seems likely which won’t be able to dispose of the Massei and Micheli reports because Hellman did not look at all issues

The Hellmann motivations report will not be "confusing". It will state that the evidence placed before that court was not only insufficient to prove the guilt of Knox and Sollecito in the murder, but that there actually was no evidence that tended to demonstrate their guilt. The report will justify the Lumumba slander guilty verdict by saying that it's undisputed that Knox accused Lumumba, that she must have known that he was working in his bar that night (and therefore she knew he couldn't have been involved in the murder), and that there's no evidence that she didn't have the mens rea for the criminal accusation. I believe that Hellmann's conclusion on the Lumumba slander charge is worthy of challenge at the Supreme Court, but that's not to say that his report will be "confusing" in how it explains his court's findings.

2) Cassation’s existing ruling on Rudy Guede which points to three perps, and Cassation’s general tendency to side with trial courts against first-appeal courts.

This is just utter nonsense. The Supreme Court rules on whether the lower courts applied the law and criminal codes correctly, and whether the verdicts were correctly reached in law. And it's completely wrong to suggest that if there is a difference between first trial and appeal trial verdict, the Supreme Court "tends to side" with the first court's verdict.

3) The likelihood that only the prosecution will file issues for consideration by Cassation and not the defenses and so the prosecution will dominate all proceedings

Nonsense. For one thing, Knox's defence team will be appealing to the Supreme Court on the Lumumba slander verdict. And for another thing, what difference to the outcome is possibly related to who is "dominating the proceedings"? That's just a stupid thing to assert.

4) Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito and entourages seem unlikely to be there in person for the Cassation hearings or a retrial, and emotive factors would be less in play.

Whoever wrote this knows absolutely nothing about how the Supreme Court works. Not only will Knox and Sollecito not be there for the Supreme Court hearing, but neither will lawyers for any party. The Supreme Court will hear the appeal entirely in camera - that is to say, in private, with no verbal arguments or interactions. The appeals will be in the form of written submissions.

5) The Italian media and Italian public opinion and increasingly UK and US opinion seem to be taking the position that the Hellman appeal decision was unsatisfactory.

Not only is this sheer wishful thinking, but it's also entirely irrelevant to the potential outcome of any Supreme Court appeal.


In short, the individual who wrote this tripe is not only ignorant of many of the key facts underpinning the subject of the post, but (s)he is also clearly hopelessly over-invested in a visceral desire to see Knox and Sollecito found guilty of the murder - even when all the actual evidence points to a different conclusion.

 

[Justinian2]

This is wrong on virtually every level imaginable! It pains me to go through it point by point, but here goes:

The Hellmann motivations report will not be "confusing". It will state that the evidence placed before that court was not only insufficient to prove the guilt of Knox and Sollecito in the murder, but that there actually was no evidence that tended to demonstrate their guilt. The report will justify the Lumumba slander guilty verdict by saying that it's undisputed that Knox accused Lumumba, that she must have known that he was working in his bar that night (and therefore she knew he couldn't have been involved in the murder), and that there's no evidence that she didn't have the mens rea for the criminal accusation. I believe that Hellmann's conclusion on the Lumumba slander charge is worthy of challenge at the Supreme Court, but that's not to say that his report will be "confusing" in how it explains his court's findings.

[...]

Libel is the publication of materials that are defamitory.

Therefore, the responsibility for any 'libel' or calunnia belongs with the police and the press as much as with Amanda. It is the responsibility of the police - the responsibility that government is paying them to do - to investigate and search for facts. Their job isn't to publish rumor.

However, if the police forced the statement from Amanda, then the responsibility for the libel and calunnia belongs entirely with the police.

No police = no culunnia.

The validation of this culunnia charge by the Italian government is insane, ignorant and stupid.

 

[Diocletus]

I have no proof on this, I concede that maybe they hit her.
This does not mmake her become innocent, and does not justify the repeated accusation of innocents for weeks.

Machiavelli: Given your positions on this case, I really find this to be a fascinating statement by you.

Let's imagine that you are the judge. Knox is charged with calunnia. The cops say the didn't hit her and the 1:45 and 5:45 statements were voluntary even though they are demonstrably false. On the other hand, Knox has written and testified that they did hit her. Looking at this evidence, you conclude that maybe the cops did hit her (which, BTW, means that you also believe that maybe the cops are lying). There are two scenarios:

1. If you believe that prosecution bears the burden of proving the voluntariness of Knox's statements, it seems to me that there is no way you can convict her. Nobody could believe that the prosecution can show that a statement ellicited in the context of hitting is beyond a reasonable doubt voluntary. Therefore, under this scenarios, since you believe that she might have been hit, you must have reasonable doubt as to the voluntariness of the statement.

2. If you believe that coercion is an affirmative defense that Knox bears the burden of proving by a predominance of the evidence or by clear and convincing evidence, or whatever standard you might choose, then Knox has to demonstrate by sufficient proof (i) that she was hit, and (ii) that the hitting made her make a false statement. Maybe under this approach you can stretch a little and say that even though you think that Knox might have been hit, she has still not demonstrated by sufficient proof that she actually was hit, and even if she was, that the accusation was caused by the hitting.

I think that the only way Hellmann's calunnia conviction makes any sense is if he imposes a burden of proof on Knox that she cannot possibly meet because the cops destroyed the tapes. This, of course, would prevent her from making a definitive showing of hitting.

Is that the way you think it should work: since Knox doesn't have the tapes, we have to believe that the statement was voluntary even though we agree that she might have been hit?

Is this a proper way to handle the entire situation? Require a person who was in police custody and colorably alleges mistreatment to prove the involuntariness of her statement, as opposed to requiring the police to prove voluntariness? If I were living in Italy, I would be very concerned about the answer to this question.

PS: The alleged "repeated accusation of innocents for weeks" don't matter because the calunnia conviction isn't based on any such alleged subsequent "accusations," at least according to Massei. Maybe this is relevant to damages, but not criminal liability for calunnia.

 

[Grinder]

I do remember. But of course, I did not agree with them.

RE: Almost Live - How about the cap head bit? Don't have time to read everything so if it was covered so sorry.

Guppy is now on channel 21.

 

[Grinder]

The second link goes to a report covering steps that should be taken in a "drought or long-range disruption" of the water supply, to be declared by the Mayor of Seattle, something that has happened exactly zero times to date. And, yes, I can imagine a state of emergency (like the hurricane Rose mentioned, or a severe earthquake) where the government might call on people to conserve water by not flushing. For that matter, my parents did the same when stranded without power or water pressure for a solid week during the "Great New England Blizzard of 1978," but that doesn't mean that they did the same in normal circumstances. Nor do, I would guess, more than the smallest handful of Seattle enviro-fanatics.

I don't know why this is such a big deal to you but you are wrong. Most recently we had drought conditions in 2001 which cost Heidi Wills her city council job as well as Zarker losing his Seattle City Light director's job.

In 2000 and 2001, the city-owned power company raised rates dramatically and borrowed heavily to deal with the California energy crisis and a local drought. The utility relies almost entirely on hydropower

I believe it was 1979 that we had 79 straight days without rain and water conservation measures were taken. Since our water is also a major source of power we also conserve electricity to conserve water reservoirs.

Don't water the lawn, shower together, turn off unneeded lights, turn up cooling temps, flush less often etc.

Anyway, I only brought this up as a possible explanation to the alleged complaints about Amanda's bathroom habits and mentioned that around Seattle we have employed the "Yellow mellow..." approach. We have and even if you aren't aware of it, it is true. Btw, people that don't flush every pee as norm do often when guests are over in order not to offend a waster

 

[smkovalinksy]

I find the following, posted on PMF, to be highly unlikely:

Knox and Sollectio being acquitted has nothing to do with any desire to "mock the victim's grave":

Really far-fetched, sensationalistic, and lurid:

It looks like Daniel Sandford of the BBC saw it too:

Quote:
Daniel Sandford #meredithkercher family complaining that some #amandaknox supporters are mocking her grave on Twitter
Il y a 7 heures via Twitter for BlackBerry®



We won't post the tweets here. We hope that FOA founders and leaders will put a stop to this.

 

[Steft50]

I don't know why this is such a big deal to you but you are wrong. Most recently we had drought conditions in 2001 which cost Heidi Wills her city council job as well as Zarker losing his Seattle City Light director's job.

In 2000 and 2001, the city-owned power company raised rates dramatically and borrowed heavily to deal with the California energy crisis and a local drought. The utility relies almost entirely on hydropower

I believe it was 1979 that we had 79 straight days without rain and water conservation measures were taken. Since our water is also a major source of power we also conserve electricity to conserve water reservoirs.

Don't water the lawn, shower together, turn off unneeded lights, turn up cooling temps, flush less often etc.

Anyway, I only brought this up as a possible explanation to the alleged complaints about Amanda's bathroom habits and mentioned that around Seattle we have employed the "Yellow mellow..." approach. We have and even if you aren't aware of it, it is true. Btw, people that don't flush every pee as norm do often when guests are over in order not to offend a waster

Perhaps another take on this thing about Amanda not being clean in the bathroom. This is going to sound strange, but what type of toilet did the apartment have? I ask because the 9 years we spent in Germany we had toilets that had little ledges instead of water bowls and when I first moved there it took a while to get used to having to look to be sure all waste was flushed from the ledge.

Just a thought

 

[DarkStar2011]

I don't know why this is such a big deal to you but you are wrong. Most recently we had drought conditions in 2001 which cost Heidi Wills her city council job as well as Zarker losing his Seattle City Light director's job.

...which was several years before the document cited (and which proposed the "flush less often") was even written.

Maybe your acquaintances follow the "leave urine in the bowl" policy, but it is anything but commonplace. I'd bet that, if you were to take a poll of Seattle residents, the number who follow that practice would be well under 5%...and at least 60% of respondents would be appalled by the idea.

And it's a big deal to me because a) it's not even close to true for the general populace, and b) I don't want people to come away with any more negative -- and false -- stereotypes about the Seattle area. ("Oh, that's the place where people are such eco-nutcases, they don't even flush after they piss.") It's B.S., and I think people should realize it.

 

[Kaosium]

I find the following, posted on PMF, to be highly unlikely:

Knox and Sollectio being acquitted has nothing to do with any desire to "mock the victim's grave":

Really far-fetched, sensationalistic, and lurid:

I can't recall where it came from, but there was a note somewhere that Meredith's grave didn't have a tombstone, this might be be how it originated. I have no idea what might have been said on Twitter, I only used it to follow Barbie and clicked around from there. I don't think that's where I saw that bit, but I suppose it could have been.

 

[moodstream]

Decide for yourself how legal Amanda's interrogation was, and how honest Machiavelli is being:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Code_of_Criminal_Procedure :

That's a much better explanation for why the interrogations are not recorded than 'budget issues'. I wonder if any interrogations in Italy meet that standard?

 

[smkovalinksy]

I can't recall where it came from, but there was a note somewhere that Meredith's grave didn't have a tombstone, this might be be how it originated. I have no idea what might have been said on Twitter, I only used it to follow Barbie and clicked around from there. I don't think that's where I saw that bit, but I suppose it could have been.

Possibly. Notwithstanding, I find it difficult to believe that any but the most peculiar and depraved "Knox-supporters" would behoove themselves to mock Kercher's grave in any way, shape, or form whatever.

 

[Diocletus]

John Kercher Book?

Is this new, or perhaps I just missed that John Kercher appears to be shopping a book:

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/agent-ben-mason-hired-father-meredith-kercher.html

Kind of strange, but then again, why not.