Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[snook1]

As I understand, Machiavelli believes in Amanda's guilt beacuse she falsely accused Lumumba. It's not about a verdict anymore. Is it?

I believe, without a doubt, that The Supreme Court will uphold the not guilty verdicts. I'm having doubts about the Lumumba conviction, for various reasons.

However, I'm amazed whenever I hear or read people that are convinced beyond everything that she *killed* Meredith. I just can't find a logical explanation for this.

I've seen people claiming she maybe was there during or after the crime was committed. The first one is, in my opinion, impossible. If she was there during the murder, then she would not accuse Lumumba. Crystal clear.

I remember people saying also that there is a possibility that she and Raffaele found the body but for some reasons they did not act the way they should. Some suggested that maybe they were high or drunk and afraid to call the police right away and maybe they did touch things and perform a cleanup in the hall just to make sure there are no signs of their presence.

This is highly impossible, mostly due to the fact that I don't believe that people who knew each other for 8 days would lie for 4 years infront of the judge and the prosecution (not to mention their families and friends).

For me the case is not that complicated.
Amanda and Raffaele found themselves in the center of media attention after the body of Meredith was discovered. They, maybe, liked all the attention, the questions. They were, after all, the ones who called the police and alarmed other people that something's wrong.

Then, things started to become ugly for them. No lawyers, no Italian, cartwheels (or whatever she did that night), bad reputation and pressure from the police - it all played part in Amanda's false accusation and Raffaele's changed story.

Still, there's nothing that ties the two to the murder and never was and as I've said it - I'm amazed how people who have knowledge about the case - can claim they are guilty, incl Mignini. One, not recorded, questionable interrogation isn't enough to send people to jail for 20 something years.

 

[Grinder]

There is a lot of others issues actually in Amanda's memory recollection beyond this.



And still, the issues in her statements go beyond this. Because we have to deal with logical aspects of the case, such as by coincidence how convenient it is, for a suspect, to have no memory or to have two "flexible" memories that could work in both ways. Observe how her memory about Patrick being innocent becomes progressively stronger over the days as the evidence of his alibi becomes stronger (you may compare newspaper article of the time). Note how her hand written note contains accustions against Raffaele which are purposely written: If she actually thought ha had only "fish blood" on his hands, she would not write about it into a paper to be given to the police who are investigating Raffaele for murder; if you are not sure about your memory and think it is nothing just fish blood, you don't create the danger of casting further suspicion on an innocent; while in the same Amanda's writings, several allusions are made to that Sollecito had placed some evidence against her. This kind of "memory problem" is, by coincidence, identical to the memory problems expressed in the blackmailing and threatening by a mobster of an associate suspect, in mafia investigations.

It would seem that when convenient you use newspaper accounts not just court documents. These were the same papers that reported the bleach receipts and the other false evidences leaked by someone.

 

[Rolfe]

Some people at work started talking about the case the other day, all the usual woefully ignorant guilter memes (from the 3 or 4 news stories they've read about the case, and I explained that I'd followed the case in great detail, and tried to explain a little bit of why they were wrong, but got no indication that they thought it was even possible that they were wrong.

Take heart, I suspect you were dealing with a minority who had been taking more notice than usual of newspaper stories.

I've had the opposite experience. When I've expressed my satisfaction that Knox and Sollecito were released, saying that they were clearly innocents who had been railroaded, my acquaintances have listened. Initially with surprise, perhaps, but as they realised I knew a lot of detail about the case, they cottoned on.

I wish I could have filmed the change in one friend's expression within less than a minute. When I remarked that I was pleased to see them going home, she at first looked puzzled. The puzzled expression continued while I said that it was the railroad job from hell, but when I said, "For goodness sake, they got the guy who did it, he's convicted and in the jail," her face changed to absolute amazement. She knew nothing at all about Rudy Guede. When I related that Knox and Sollecito had been brought in before any of the forensic results were available, on the grounds that a bunch of middle-aged Italian men thought the reactions of a 20-year-old American girl were inappropriate, and that Knox had given an incriminating statement in the police station after an all-nighter, which she later retracted, my friend's expression changed to one of knowing understanding. Classic penny-drop.

It's only going to get better from now on. Press interest will wane fairly quickly - in fact I think it's petering out already. This will allow the motivations report to hit the news with more or less a clean slate. Newspapers looking for an angle will find it in the exoneration of Knox and Sollecito, and the compelling tale of two innocent bystanders sucked into a bizarre fantasy woven around an ordinary burglary-turned-rape-and-murder. That will be the new angle that will sell the papers. I would be very surprised indeed if there's anything in the report to fuel the "they did it but the proof wasn't strong enough" story.

That angle will be reinforced when the Supreme Court ruling upholds the acquittals, and the only people left doubting innocence will be a handful of bitter, small-minded people who are way too invested in this case. Further publications are also likely to tell the same story, and Amanda's own book could be very compelling if well edited. This time next year, most people will have forgotten who she is, and if they remember, it will be as "that girl who was banged up for years by the Italians on a completely trumped-up story".

That ignores the slander conviction of course, but I don't think that even registers with most people who are only reading press reports. If it does, I think it's likely to be regarded as a technical conviction for something she said under duress, and the "time served" sentence imposed mainly to head off a massive claim for wrongful imprisonment.

Rolfe.

 

[Mary_H]

Muddying the waters, that's all

The point is self-evident.
It rests on the very definition of cognitive function disturbs and memory. A memory problem, and a problem involving experience of reality on the other side, are two different kinds of issues.
The memory about an acquaitence murderer entering your house with you and raping and murdering someone in the other room, you being present and hearing a scream so loud that you need to cover your ears, this is defined as a bizarre experience. Extremely unusual experience and intrinsically unlikely.
The experience is contradictory itself with a normal personality that works on non-contradictory perceptions of reality: if someone rapes someone else in your house, you just don't remein in the kitchen with your ears covered to deny the event while you imagine what happens, you would run out and be in the Piazza after thirty seconds, call the police immediately, you would not "forget" about this experience and not mistake it for a night at your boyfriend's house. Both consistency of self perception and consistency of reality structure are severely damaged in this memory.
There is a lot of others issues actually in Amanda's memory recollection beyond this.

It is anyway absolutely self evident that if you take medical counsuel and you explain about this issue to the specialist (I had this memory by I think it is false; or I had this experience and then I forgot it) the doctor would not consider yours as a memory problem. It is a "bizarre hallucination". This symptom may belong to a pattern of paranoid schyzophrenia if cronical; otherwise would be related to an episode involving drugs or severe chemical alteration of brain, anyway even if epsodic would be always classified an acute disease, an acute cognitive symptom involving basic functions, not as a memory problem.

Every mental experience involves a chemical alteration of the brain. The field of brain science is too complex for you to be able to describe with any certainty the difference between a memory experience and what you believe to be a hallucinatory experience. Everything you have written above is merely your opinion, it is not based on science, or even philosophy.

Another aspect to point out is how Knox happens to "know" later on, that her memory was false. There is a severe inconsistency also on this, both on a logical line and for what concerns coroboration by clinical literature.
Knox's acknowledgement "the truth is I don't know what is the truth" makes all her subswequent statements unreliable, including a possible alibi. And it is not clear how "I don't know what is the truth" - if that is a true statement - becomes she "knows" and realizes what is the truth and becomes able to distinguish it. How it happens the lack of information "I don't know what is the truth" changes into "I know what is the truth": starting from the logical basis of a failure about her basic functions and doubt on basic perceptions, how it happens that her own memory turnes into a certainity about her perceptions as time passes. This is just against logic and against clinical observations.

And still, the issues in her statements go beyond this. Because we have to deal with logical aspects of the case, such as by coincidence how convenient it is, for a suspect, to have no memory or to have two "flexible" memories that could work in both ways. Observe how her memory about Patrick being innocent becomes progressively stronger over the days as the evidence of his alibi becomes stronger (you may compare newspaper article of the time). Note how her hand written note contains accustions against Raffaele which are purposely written: If she actually thought ha had only "fish blood" on his hands, she would not write about it into a paper to be given to the police who are investigating Raffaele for murder; if you are not sure about your memory and think it is nothing just fish blood, you don't create the danger of casting further suspicion on an innocent; while in the same Amanda's writings, several allusions are made to that Sollecito had placed some evidence against her. This kind of "memory problem" is, by coincidence, identical to the memory problems expressed in the blackmailing and threatening by a mobster of an associate suspect, in mafia investigations.
Note also that her court testimony about the moment in which she first recalled "memories" of Patrick, is flatly contradictory to previous recollections: she recalls the episode of the sms message and rising of false memory in two different stories, two incompatible narratives (actually three if you count all testimonies before judges and magistrates).
And the list may go on. And besides this, there is also the problem that we don't have only one lie by Amanda: we have a previous account of facts as a witness, which is false.

No, we don't. We have no records of what Amanda said before her arrest, apart from her e-mail to Seattle. The signed statements of the morning of the 6th were written by the police and cannot be verified as representing what Amanda actually said. There is no way anyone can claim with any validity that Amanda's accounts in the first five days varied or did not match.

And we don't have a false witness report by only one person, we also have the other suspect who is lying, has completely changed his alibi and recollection of facts; we have thus other false testimonies and a huge number of inconsistencies and falsehoods from both suspects before and after this episodes of "false memory".

All the responses Amanda and Raffaele gave the police during their interrogations were speculative and tentative. They were confused because the police confused them. Amanda and Raffaele insisted on nothing until after they realized they had been coerced.

You are not qualified to pass judgment on the way they acted, because you don't understand them, and you are not omniscient. I am from the same culture Amanda is from, and everything she did makes perfect sense to me as the actions of an innocent person whose intentions were exclusively to cooperate with the police.

 

[Mary_H]

If you like to "classify" me, you could place me together in a group with at least to other posters: Clander and Popper. Our view of all aspects of the case and the kind of our interest in it seems to me very simlar to their.

Our similarity goest together with the fact we three are Italians who have some knowledge of the law. We seem not very interested about Amanda's personal life, sex or personal morality, sufferings or feelings and family nor in Seattle-centered issues like Marriott or Ted Simons etc. I think a difference, in my view and of other Italians and maybe other Europeans, is that not I am just limited to different view and judgement about Knox; I have also a totally different view about the context (starting from Mignini's "abuse of office", knowledge about police work, etc) and about the principles of reasoning to be applied in every step on a judicial process (about how to prove things, about witnesses, for example), and we all don't follow the media, we don't know anything about CNN, we never heard things like a "satanic" murder, or bleach recepts used as evidence, and we can read the actual documents directly.

That is interesting to know; thanks. It helps us understand "where you're coming from," as the saying goes.

I was responding to snook's post when I talked about classifying you, and you certainly are unique in this thread. I am more than happy, though, to put you in a group with Clander and Popper. I have absolutely no familiarity with anything they have written, but if you say you have a lot in common with them, I believe you.

 

[Machiavelli]

It would seem that when convenient you use newspaper accounts not just court documents. These were the same papers that reported the bleach receipts and the other false evidences leaked by someone.

When makes sense, not when "convenient"; and I have no convenience in a specific theroy whatsoever.
Italian newspaper report how evidence against Patrick becomes weak since nov 9. On nov 9 already most people were very skeptical about Patrick's implication, journalists didn't believe in his guilt. The evidence collected between nov 13. and nov 19. gradually pictures an entirely different scenario. On nov. 18 Mignini sends a written communication to Matteini to informin her that evidence against Lumumba is no longer serious.
Without needing to give any special credit to news reports, we can assume as likely that Amanda's defence had the same kind of reports about evidence on Lumumba becoming weaker since nov 9., and Knox was informed about that wind change.

 

[Machiavelli]

No, it isn't.

What you're saying is that nobody who isn't psychotic can possibly have a false memory of witnessing a murder. Thus anybody who has falsely confessed to murder is, according to you, psychotic. ...

No. What I said is what I said (not what you re-prhase).
I have not limited a situation on a definition about how somebody is.
And I have not spoken about anybody falsely confessing a murder.

However, whenever there is somebody falsely confessing a murder, mostly there are reasons to how they come to be persuaded or to confess, reasons which are grounded in their conditions and context about the event and which are logically consistent, and there is a consistent claim logically describing these specific reasons and context; and moreover usually there isn't a different, totally obvious and logical explanation behind the corner.

 

[Antony]

I can write only a quick answer now: yes. Based on the evidence that I can see now, not only I would vote to find them guilty beyond reasonable doubt, but I also am quite confident - in a purely virtual bet - that, had I been sitting in a court among the lay judges, I think I would have had good chances to succeed in convincing some other or another few judges in the panel. I think that if I were sitting in the panel, the number of "guilty" votes would have likely increased by more than one unit.

I read your posts as those of someone desperately trying to convince himself.

 

[LondonJohn]

Greetings all!

Just popping in to say hi. I've been busy over the past week or so, and in addition I have very little motivation to post here at the moment: for me, the case is either over (for the murder charges) or in limbo until the Hellmann Report and Supreme Court appeal (for the Lumumba slander charge). I'll post more when the Hellmann report comes out, but for the time being I don't see much point in discussing something I am certain about. That's why I have no interest in participating on the homeopathy or bigfoot threads: I have no interest in engaging with people whom I am certain are wrong.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who still thinks that Knox and/or Sollecito should be convicted for the murder of Meredith Kercher are either ignorant, deluded through over-investment, or just plain stupid. Or a combination of the above. But then there are still people who believe that homeopathy has a positive physiological effect on humans, or that the US Government planned and executed the 9/11 attacks, so there's just no accounting for people sometimes. I suspect that the majority of the more vehement pro-guilt commentators will never concede that they were absolutely wrong about the most central factor in this case: they quite clearly have far too much invested in their prior beliefs, and many of them are demonstrably maladjusted individuals with a bizarre need for group acceptance, power or a platform. Many of them, in addition, seemingly have an unhealthy desire to feel better about themselves by vindictively delighting in the suffering of others. I have no time or empathy for such sad, misguided, delusional individuals.

I think it's worth saying that there were always two parts to the debate on this case: the first part was the only measurable element: should Knox and Sollecito be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the murder of Meredith Kercher. For a long time now, I have felt that there is only one reasonable, rational answer to that question: no. But the second question is whether Knox and/or Sollecito are factually innocent of the murder. I still think that by far the most likely answer to this question is yes, but as I've been writing for a long time, this is a question to which only Knox, Sollecito and Guede know the answer. Interestingly, Hellmann made exactly the same point - and it was misinterpreted by many, particularly those with a pro-guilt bent. But it was not - and cannot be - the function of Hellmann's court to pronounce innocence. Absent an unimpeachable alibi, no court can ever pronounce innocence. However, Hellmann's court has clearly come as close to doing so as it is possible to do. In the court's view, there was no evidence pointing to the guilt of Knox or Sollecito. I believe that Hellmann's motivations report will be a scathing criticism of the case, and will particularly question the judgement of Massei's court.

Anyway, for now I have no real interest in participating, but I'll continue to read, and I'll post if I see something I'd like to comment upon. In the meanwhile, I'll continue to follow the excellent debate here, and I'll continue to shake my head in amazement and despair at the nasty mixture of vindictive bile, pathetic rationalisation and sheer misanthropy being doled out on .org and .net. Let's just hope that nobody there writes anything that's legally actionable, eh.....?

 

[LondonJohn]

I read your posts as those of someone desperately trying to convince himself.

Yup.

Quick "yes or no" question for Machiavelli:

Is it your current belief that Knox and Sollecito participated in the murder of Meredith Kercher, and that they were unjustly acquitted by the Hellmann appeal court on those charges?

 

[RoseMontague]

The point is self-evident.

(snip)

It is anyway absolutely self evident

(snip)

Yes, I have no doubt that this is evident to yourself. If you are trying to make it evident to others, you have not succeeded. The actual science and literature that I have read indicates that creating false memories is relatively easy and some of the techniques are similar to those used by the cops with Amanda. False memories in normal, rational, logical people are not unusual.

The process of imagining something and recalling something are not very different from a cognitive standpoint.

 

[RoseMontague]

LJ

Good to see you posting, I had wondered if you were on a vacation. Any input on your part, even if occasional, is appreciated.

 

[Rolfe]

I've often wondered if the fact that Amanda was studying creative writing is relevant. The creative process is a mystery to me in this respect. I know people who write fiction, and they don't do it the way I imagine it would be done. Planning is far less than I would assume, and it's common to hear them say not just that they don't know what happens next, but that they're waiting to find out what happens next.

I was discussing the case with a friend who is a published short story author, and in the course of the conversation I remarked that asking a creative writing student to imagine what might have happened probably wasn't the best move. She laughed nervously and nodded vigorously. I wonder if a particular type of imagination, one that has been trained to invent fiction by "seeing what happens next", might be particularly susceptible to acquiring false memories in this way.

Rolfe.

 

[snook1]

LJ

Good to see you posting, I had wondered if you were on a vacation. Any input on your part, even if occasional, is appreciated.

Indeed.

 

[Antony]

I don't know, could just be someone just dying to join in the great discussion over there. You go to all that trouble to register and then you get the message attached (edited).

Any suggestions as to what to include in an e-mail request for a PMF login id? Maybe along these lines:

Dear Peggy,

I have been following the Meredith Kercher murder case since the first verdict was announced, and quickly formed the view that the accusations against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito could not be supported by any facts. I am happy to say that my judgement on the case has been almost entirely vindicated by the recent court decision, presided over by Judge Hellmann.

Where I disagree with Hellmann, however, is that the alleged "accusation" leading to the wrongful arrest of Patrick Lumumba could in any way be attributed to Amanda. Not only did it supposedly occur in circumstances known to produce coerced false statements, but there exists no documentation (admissible in a court of law) or video/audio recording that shows that it was even made. It seems that the guilty verdict against Amanda, on the count of making a false accusation, rests solely on the word of the Perugia police, whose other statements and actions give considerable reason to doubt their truthfulness.

I feel I have much to contribute to the discussion on your forum, and therefore ask you to set me up with a login id for PMF.​

 

[Rolfe]

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Yes, I have no doubt that this is evident to yourself. If you are trying to make it evident to others, you have not succeeded. The actual science and literature that I have read indicates that creating false memories is relatively easy and some of the techniques are similar to those used by the cops with Amanda. False memories in normal, rational, logical people are not unusual.

The process of imagining something and recalling something are not very different from a cognitive standpoint.

I take the view that if I personally find something self-evident, but that feeling is not shared by a substantial number of other people, then it is up to me to re-evaluate my position. I may not change it, but I clearly need to articulate my reasons for holding it with clarity rather than simply assuming others will see it as I do.

And then of course that process can bite me on the tail, as it brings me to the realisation that something I thought self-evident was in fact not the case at all. It happens, but only if you are prepared to re-evaluate, as I said.

Rolfe.

 

[RoseMontague]

Any suggestions as to what to include in an e-mail request for a PMF login id? Maybe along these lines:

Dear Peggy,

I have been following the Meredith Kercher murder case since the first verdict was announced, and quickly formed the view that the accusations against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito could not be supported by any facts. I am happy to say that my judgement on the case has been almost entirely vindicated by the recent court decision, presided over by Judge Hellmann.

Where I disagree with Hellmann, however, is that the alleged "accusation" leading to the wrongful arrest of Patrick Lumumba could in any way be attributed to Amanda. Not only did it supposedly occur in circumstances known to produce coerced false statements, but there exists no documentation (admissible in a court of law) or video/audio recording that shows that it was even made. It seems that the guilty verdict against Amanda, on the count of making a false accusation, rests solely on the word of the Perugia police, whose other statements and actions give considerable reason to doubt their truthfulness.

I feel I have much to contribute to the discussion on your forum, and therefore ask you to set me up with a login id for PMF.​

How about this one.

Dear Spectacled Sidewinder,
I would love to join your team and become part of the side only interested in true justice, meaning I think I might be that Bruce Fisher's 5th cousin thrice removed and will be happy to say all kinds of terribly horrible things about him.

 

[Antony]

How about this one.

Dear Spectacled Sidewinder,
I would love to join your team and become part of the side only interested in true justice, meaning I think I might be that Bruce Fisher's 5th cousin thrice removed and will be happy to say all kinds of terribly horrible things about him.

I think your letter trumps mine, to be honest.

 

[CDHost]

If you like to "classify" me, you could place me together in a group with at least to other posters: Clander and Popper. Our view of all aspects of the case and the kind of our interest in it seems to me very simlar to their.

Our similarity goest together with the fact we three are Italians who have some knowledge of the law. .... I think a difference, in my view and of other Italians and maybe other Europeans, is that not I am just limited to different view and judgement about Knox; I have also a totally different view about the context (starting from Mignini's "abuse of office", knowledge about police work, etc) and about the principles of reasoning to be applied in every step on a judicial process (about how to prove things, about witnesses, for example), and we all don't follow the media ...

I agree with you that there are essentially 3 issues that are intermixing that make this confusing.

1. Specific objections to what was done to Amanda Knox, i.e. violations of Italian law.
2. General objections to Italian criminal procedures. I.E. things that would have been handled substantially differently in the United States.
3. Differences in attitudes towards evidence. Things that would have been evaluated differently in the United States.

I also agree that Police misconduct is a much bigger deal over here than over here (meeting 2 and 3 on the above list). Police misconduct is grounds for acquittal in the USA. That's why (to pick the OJ Simpson case, a case Italians seem to cite all the time) Mark Fuhrman perjuring himself about using the term "******", the general assumption in the US is that if a cop is willing to perjure himself about something he can't be trusted on anything. It seems like most of the quilters believe this only applies to defendants.

On the other hand I do also think there may be something hypocritical here. Italians frequently complain about people in American prisons being innocent. To pick a famous one, Mumia Abu-Jamal is mentioned by Italian resolutions and the European parliament. Yet he refused to testify on his own behalf, there is substantial evidence of his guilt, yet Italians in institutional ways have agitated for decades for his release.

I understand that the EU has been tough with Italy on the torture issue, but that is over things like non-refoulement not direct torture. Italy has consistently maintained that statements made under duress are worthless. This isn't just something Americans believe it is something that Italy, at least publicly claims to believe.

So I do agree that this case isn't all about (1). There are plenty of (2) and (3) issues as well. That being said though, I appreciate you standing here in a forum where you are up against a large crowd.

Edited by jhunter1163: 

Edited for Rule 10.