Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Kaosium]

Glad to see a common sense ruling from the court, thanks for quoting that ruling on the change of venue. This case is falling apart. I wonder how long the prosecution will cling to their crazy theories. For Frank, the truth has been emerging almost a year now, for others they are just now beginning to see something is not right about this case, yet from what I have seen the majority of Italians still think they are guilty.

I'd be willing to bet even if she is totally exonerated some will still feel 'justified' in hating her and thinking she's guilty. They'll find something to twist in order to maintain that belief, just as others have elsewhere as LJ recently noted. Even if they allow that she is innocent, some will think she still had some punishment coming, she didn't play the role others assigned to her, thus indicative to them of 'bad character.' She must admit her failings and beg forgiveness, for they never will, they have the genius of the crowd.

 

[Machiavelli]

Of course I used it figuratively. The point is, you were facing them with antagonistic intentions and the beating was a goal itself, not a means to get any kind of confession and jail you for life.
Thus, your personal anecdote is in no way contradictory to the fact that Amanda's false confession was forced. Neither does it allow you to dismiss the scientifically proven reality of internalised (and other) false confessions.

In fact, it only shows that Italian cops are no more immune to misconduct and using unlawful methods and brutality then any other police force. This, in connection with the mystifying lack of any recording of the interrogation strongly indicates that Amanda's version of the events - extreme pressure, stress, exhaustion, cops yelling and hitting her on the head, others telling her that she has traumatically induced amnesia etc. - is the truth.

But the lack of recording is absolutely normal. This is no surprise.

My position is that I have no positive bias towards police, and I just see in this case there is no possible claim about the police that could exhonerate Amanda. Moreover there is no claim of misconduct at all, and there is no serious possibility to consider any significant misconduct or corruption or conspiracy - in this particular case - and specifically there is no misconduct nor event (claimed by Knox, or speculated) that could cause nor justify Amanda's behaviour. Only her guilt can explain Amanda's behaviour.

ps: that time I had no antagonistic intents towards the police, untill they went after me.

 

[RoseMontague]

Ok.
And I said that topic has not to do with the case.
I didn't say that you are ugly because you mentioned it, but since you addressed the concept, which itself may be valid, to avoid any confusion let's put in clear that has not to do with the case.

Sorry, I missed exactly when you called me ugly. Could be a false non-memory however.

If you had been paying attention you would know I am not one of the ones that subscribe to the false memory theory. I do agree with the concept and I also feel that the Social Construction of Reality is a valid concept, which is why I mentioned it and linked to the wiki entry, after you said it wasn't.

 

[LondonJohn]

The British fortnightly magazine Private Eye (I'm a subscriber, and in my opinion it's the world's pre-eminent investigative and satirical publication) has some stuff on the Knox/Sollecito trial in its latest issue (as well as an allusion to "Foxy Knoxy" on the cover, in relation to a UK politician named Liam Fox who's in a little...uhmmm....local difficulty at the moment). Private Eye hasn't followed the case in any real depth, as it falls outside the magazine's normal ambit. But it included a post-acquittal observation as follows:

With the overturning of the convictions of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, several newspapers have finally turned their focus on public prosecutor Giuliano Mignini and his bizarre obsession with Satanic cults and orgies.

As reported in Eye 1225, way back in December 2008 before the first trial of Knox and Sollecito, Mignini "has a history of believing in Satanic cult conspiracies and has been criticised for this "delirium" by a judge in another notorious murder case known as the Monster of Florence."

Despite being under investigation over his behaviour related to that case, he was left in charge of the prosecution in the Meredith Kercher murder. He was later convicted for abuse of office.

Private Eye is an extremely influential publication in the UK, and it is pretty much required reading among politicians, members of judiciary and other establishment figures. It has an outstanding reputation for journalistic integrity and impartiality.

The Eye also makes reference to the embarrassing balls-up made by the Mail in its "wrong push of the button" fiasco seconds after Hellmann started announcing the verdict (also noting that the BBC and Sky News made similar mistakes on their on-screen graphics). It writes that Nick Pisa had threatened to sue the Mail for loss of earnings and damage to his reputation since his byline appeared over the "Knox guilty of murder" story. But it seems that he has been "persuaded" not to sue in return for an apology from the Mail (which apparently included an explicit explanation that Pisa was in no way involved in the story or the mess-up over its publication), and the promise of further freelance work from the Mail. Good to see money triumph over integrity eh, Nick?!

Incidentally, the Eye wryly observes that the Mail mess-up was cited at a Society of Editors meeting (a regular forum where the editors of all the UK national newspapers meet to talk shop and discuss wider non-partisan press issues such as regulation) as an example of how newspapers are perceived as "making things up". It notes that an investigation into the fiasco is ongoing.

 

[Matthew Best]

Only her guilt can explain Amanda's behaviour.

Unfortunately for this theory, it's already been demonstrated in court that she is not guilty. So you'll have to think again.

 

[Fine]

She makes the claim in her hand written statement of 6 November 2007. Makes the same claim in her spontaneous statement in the first trial March 2009, and later repeats it under questioning by Mignini in court.

_________________________

Rose,

Amanda also makes the claim in her appearance before Judge Micheli in October 2008. Notice also that in this testimony she says---in effect--- the cops just made up her SPONTANEOUS DECLARATIONS ...


Amanda: "So, what ended up happening was the fact that I had been pressured so much, and I was-- I was hit in the back of the head by one of the police officers and-- Who said she was trying to make me-- help me remember the truth.
I was terrified, because I didn't know-- I-- I didn't know what to do anymore.

And so what ended up happening was they said they-- they went-- take me to jail, and I'm - and because of all this SMS, because-- because of all this confusion, they kept saying, "You sent this thing to Patrick. We know that you left the house. We know." I just said his name. It wasn't because I was trying to say anything. I just said it because they were…

After that - at a certain point, I asked if I should have had a lawyer. And they said that it would have been worse for me.

So they asked me to make declarations about what I remembered, but I told that I didn't remember anything like this."

///

 

[Machiavelli]

Well, what you don't say here is that the police mistreated you during a custodial interrogation.

Any chance they made tapes of your remarks to them (and their remarks to you)?

Anyway, all this shows is that Amanda Knox responded differently than you did to pressure and stress. Any chance you were doing cartwheels in the police station? On the other hand, too bad that Knox didn't know that she could get out of the situation by simply insulting the cops (I'll bet we'd have those tapes, though).

Also, now we understand why you believe the police hit Knox.

No, you seem to not understand.
I believe it is possible that the police hit Knox in the 01.45 intrrogation, only because Knox claims this in an early statement.

I cannot believe she was coerced by Mignini in the 05:54 statement, nor that she was interrogated nor hit on the 05:54 statement, nor coerced in the redaction of the written note. Because she never claims this.
I don't believe she lied out of fear and threat, because she did not claim this and overall she was not consistent with such a claim (she claimed a false memory in court).
I do not believe she was "forced" to remain silent before a judge and for weeks and failed to answer simple questions on the december interrogation because of pressure and/or inability to give a clear statement. It was her choice to not release a clear statement to clarify her position and Patrick's. Hence her responsability.

 

[Machiavelli]

Unfortunately for this theory, it's already been demonstrated in court that she is not guilty. So you'll have to think again.

Demonstrated?
Wait at least for the motivation report. And maybe for the final verdict(s).
And, anyway by now we can see she has been convicted for calunnia, a malicious lying.

 

[Matthew Best]

Demonstrated?
Wait at least for the motivation report.

What, do you think it's somehow going to say she's guilty? You think they acquitted her by accident?

And maybe for the final verdict(s).

Nothing about the murder verdict is going to change.

 

[RoseMontague]

_________________________

Rose,

Amanda also makes the claim in her appearance before Judge Micheli in October 2008. Notice also that in this testimony she says---in effect--- the cops just made up her SPONTANEOUS DECLARATIONS ...


Amanda: "So, what ended up happening was the fact that I had been pressured so much, and I was-- I was hit in the back of the head by one of the police officers and-- Who said she was trying to make me-- help me remember the truth.
I was terrified, because I didn't know-- I-- I didn't know what to do anymore.

And so what ended up happening was they said they-- they went-- take me to jail, and I'm - and because of all this SMS, because-- because of all this confusion, they kept saying, "You sent this thing to Patrick. We know that you left the house. We know." I just said his name. It wasn't because I was trying to say anything. I just said it because they were…

After that - at a certain point, I asked if I should have had a lawyer. And they said that it would have been worse for me.

So they asked me to make declarations about what I remembered, but I told that I didn't remember anything like this."

///

Thanks Fine. Machiavelli was wrong about this as well.

 

[Justinian2]

I had been questioned by the police. Much tougher police, actual mobsters, real criminals, those who beat and tortured and sent hundreds to hospital the 2001 G8 in Genova. I was also beaten by cops and subjet to a series of illegal acts (actually I was also shot after in the street).
Not only I told them only the plain truth and nothing else, I also told them a series of things about their mothers and sisters.
Years later several of those police officers were convicted for these events. I was not.

But that's personal stuff. The notion of "extreme duress" is riciculous if referred to Amanda Knox. Anyway the point is totally different: I immediately claimed in detail what happened. I never refused to talk to a judge. Amanda's later behaviour is totally different. She is keeping her position about her false testimony.

Your statement is that you could hold out against severe torture lasting hours telling the whole truth all the time while insulting their mothers and sisters. (Is it possible the insults of their mothers and sisters made them internalize a laugh?)

John Douglas, one of the most famous and experienced of the FBI profilers said this about holding up to the interrogation:

KE: What about Amanda’s confessions during the interrogations?

JD: To be interrogated from 10 pm until 6 am in the morning? These are not sophisticated young people – it would not take a dozen interrogators to break them. I know the tricks, I know what they do in there; I’ve done it. No one could hold up. I couldn’t hold up - especially over 5 days.

I'm impressed by your credentials to hold up to torture. I couldn't even always hold up to my former mother-in-law's hostile, nagging and reverse-truth remarks. I couldn't even hold up for five minutes sometimes when tired and in a bad mood. She knew how to get me angry fast by criticizing those things about which I was proud.

You're a much better man that Douglas and I to be incapable of telling someone what they want to hear (whether truthful or not) while under extreme duress.

 

[Machiavelli]

Sorry, I missed exactly when you called me ugly. Could be a false non-memory however.

If you had been paying attention you would know I am not one of the ones that subscribe to the false memory theory. I do agree with the concept and I also feel that the Social Construction of Reality is a valid concept, which is why I mentioned it and linked to the wiki entry, after you said it wasn't.

I never said it wasn't "valid". I never mentioned the concept at all.
I said that I disagreed with CDhost when he explained he thought that phenomenon about Amanda's memory could be described related to the concepts of "constructed" and "social"; I disagrees as he implied that basic cognitive functions may depend on these concepts or social relations; and in fact I re-phrased my view on the point using the term "perception" of reality and avoiding the use of terms "social" and "construction" as I believe the do not belong to the topic. I purposely did not pick the exact CDhost's word for this reason, to avoid a mix with the topic of socially constructred reality. You picked back CDhost's wording instead.

 

[LondonJohn]

No, you seem to not understand.
I believe it is possible that the police hit Knox in the 01.45 intrrogation, only because Knox claims this in an early statement.

I cannot believe she was coerced by Mignini in the 05:54 statement, nor that she was interrogated nor hit on the 05:54 statement, nor coerced in the redaction of the written note. Because she never claims this.
I don't believe she lied out of fear and threat, because she did not claim this and overall she was not consistent with such a claim (she claimed a false memory in court).
I do not believe she was "forced" to remain silent before a judge and for weeks and failed to answer simple questions on the december interrogation because of pressure and/or inability to give a clear statement. It was her choice to not release a clear statement to clarify her position and Patrick's. Hence her responsability.

Knox explicitly referred many times in court testimony to the coercive methods of the police in the interrogation of the 5th/6th November. She explicitly claimed that the police told her to "remember" things "correctly", and that they told her that she had suffered traumatic amnesia. The interpreter herself (Anna Donnino) corroborated this in court testimony when she admitted that she had grossly abused her position by giving her own anecdote to Knox (concerning her (Donnino's) alleged traumatic amnesia when she broke her leg): this tends to prove that the police were coercing Knox to believe that she had undergone traumatic amnesia regarding events on the night o November 1st.


And I can only guess that you neither work in the law nor know much at all about the law. If you did, you would know already that if your client has been persuaded by police to give a certain version of events (in this case, Knox's statements that she took Lumumba to the cottage and cowered in the kitchen while he killed Meredith), you would not advise your client to go into an arraignment courtroom and change that story. Do you not realise that such an action would have no possible upside for the client? At best, the client is exposed as confused and susceptible to changing his/her story; at worst, the client is presented as a ruthless liar who is now trying to change his/her story because he/she realises that the original story is highly incriminating. I am frankly rather surprised that you cannot figure this out for yourself. Your talk of "clarification" is hopelessly naive and simplistic - I can only think you haven't thought it through properly.

In short, Knox's best strategy from 6th November onwards was to remain totally silent, and to let her lawyers argue her case. That is correct regardless of whether or not Knox was factually culpable of the crimes. Maybe you should ask a defence lawyer (not someone merely posing as a defence lawyer though....) - they might be able to tell you in more detail how and why you are so wrong.

 

[LondonJohn]

I never said it wasn't "valid". I never mentioned the concept at all.
I said that I disagreed with CDhost when he explained he thought that phenomenon about Amanda's memory could be described related to the concepts of "constructed" and "social"; I disagrees as he implied that basic cognitive functions may depend on these concepts or social relations; and in fact I re-phrased my view on the point using the term "perception" of reality and avoiding the use of terms "social" and "construction" as I believe the do not belong to the topic. I purposely did not pick the exact CDhost's word for this reason, to avoid a mix with the topic of socially constructred reality. You picked back CDhost's wording instead.

Do you believe that a person's memory is always an inviolable and factually-correct record of events? Do you believe that people can invariably trust their own memories as 100% accurate, whether concerning events of a year previous or a day previous?

If so, I've got news for you........

 

[Machiavelli]

Your statement is that you could hold out against severe torture lasting hours telling the whole truth all the time while insulting their mothers and sisters. (Is it possible the insults of their mothers and sisters made them internalize a laugh?)


..

But that was not severe torture. That was just harrassing. There were also forms of torture but that was in another barrack compound.
And you understood: my point is not standing torture. My point is what you claim.
A person under harassment doesn't develop false memories. May well lie when under threat, but immediately after the phisical threat is over tells the truth and claims having been mistreated, reporting all factual details.

 

[RoseMontague]

I never said it wasn't "valid". I never mentioned the concept at all.
I said that I disagreed with CDhost when he explained he thought that phenomenon about Amanda's memory could be described related to the concepts of "constructed" and "social"; I disagrees as he implied that basic cognitive functions may depend on these concepts or social relations; and in fact I re-phrased my view on the point using the term "perception" of reality and avoiding the use of terms "social" and "construction" as I believe the do not belong to the topic. I purposely did not pick the exact CDhost's word for this reason, to avoid a mix with the topic of socially constructred reality. You picked back CDhost's wording instead.

Many thanks for confirming the validity of the concept. I am going to agree with CDHost on this one. I am not an ugly person.

 

[RoseMontague]

But that was not severe torture. That was just harrassing. There were also forms of torture but that was in another barrack compound.
And you understood: my point is not standing torture. My point is what you claim.
A person under harassment doesn't develop false memories. May well lie when under threat, but immediately after the phisical threat is over tells the truth and claims having been mistreated, reporting all factual details.

Comparing your situation with that of Amanda is a big problem. You knew the cops were bad, were prepared to be defiant and unyielding. Amanda trusted the cops, was trying to be helpful, and was betrayed, tricked, hit, denied a lawyer, and railroaded by a bunch of thugs.

 

[Matthew Best]

A person under harassment doesn't develop false memories.

And you base this assertion on what, exactly?

 

[RoseMontague]

Knox explicitly referred many times in court testimony to the coercive methods of the police in the interrogation of the 5th/6th November. She explicitly claimed that the police told her to "remember" things "correctly", and that they told her that she had suffered traumatic amnesia. The interpreter herself (Anna Donnino) corroborated this in court testimony when she admitted that she had grossly abused her position by giving her own anecdote to Knox (concerning her (Donnino's) alleged traumatic amnesia when she broke her leg): this tends to prove that the police were coercing Knox to believe that she had undergone traumatic amnesia regarding events on the night o November 1st.


And I can only guess that you neither work in the law nor know much at all about the law. If you did, you would know already that if your client has been persuaded by police to give a certain version of events (in this case, Knox's statements that she took Lumumba to the cottage and cowered in the kitchen while he killed Meredith), you would not advise your client to go into an arraignment courtroom and change that story. Do you not realise that such an action would have no possible upside for the client? At best, the client is exposed as confused and susceptible to changing his/her story; at worst, the client is presented as a ruthless liar who is now trying to change his/her story because he/she realises that the original story is highly incriminating. I am frankly rather surprised that you cannot figure this out for yourself. Your talk of "clarification" is hopelessly naive and simplistic - I can only think you haven't thought it through properly.

In short, Knox's best strategy from 6th November onwards was to remain totally silent, and to let her lawyers argue her case. That is correct regardless of whether or not Knox was factually culpable of the crimes. Maybe you should ask a defence lawyer (not someone merely posing as a defence lawyer though....) - they might be able to tell you in more detail how and why you are so wrong.

I agree LJ, she got stuck with the story, fortunately she had made it so vague and unbelievable that nobody with two brain cells would have taken that as evidence against another person.

 

[Diocletus]

But that was not severe torture. That was just harrassing. There were also forms of torture but that was in another barrack compound.
And you understood: my point is not standing torture. My point is what you claim.
A person under harassment doesn't develop false memories. May well lie when under threat, but immediately after the phisical threat is over tells the truth and claims having been mistreated, reporting all factual details.

So, you agree (i) that Knox might have been hit, and (ii) that this hitting might have coerced her to say something untrue (i.e., "lie when under threat").

Your problem is just that if she was illegally forced to say something untrue, then afterwards she should have stated that she was coerced and that her statement was therefore untrue.

So, a question: When do we have a crime of calunnia? Is it right when the coerced, untrue statement is made? Or is it sometime after that, i.e., after some period of time has passed and the person has failed to allege coercion and retract the statement? What is the act that completes the calunnia?