Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[LondonJohn]

Turrini doesn't say they have been acquitted by the 530.1. There are five different formulas for acquittal, but the only two of these pretaining the case are both specified by the 530.1. There is no formula specified by 530.2; the latter is a condition that should be specified itself, next to the formula.
I would be interested in reading the motivation, because only the motivations will make clear what is the rationale behind the decision of acquittal.

The acquittals for charges A, B, C, D and E were on 530.1 grounds: for A, B, C and D because there was no evidence pointing towards the guilt of the accused, and for E because the crime was not committed by anyone.

You'll figure it out when you read the Hellmann motivations report (or maybe you're too personally over-invested in a guilt position to see the wood for the trees, I don't know).

(PS A little research into 530.2 acquittals where the verdict contained the phrase "per non avere commesso il fatto" reveals that they appear to exclusively concern political malfeasance, terrorist actions or mafia-related crimes. I find it very reasonable to conclude therefore that the inclusion of the phrase in a 530.2 verdict for such crimes is nothing more than a product of judicial-political expediency. But if you can find any non-political, non-terrorist, non-Mafia acquittals where "per non avere commesso il fatto" married with a 530.2 acquittal, I'd be interested to see them.....)

 

[LondonJohn]

.....




It’s very simple. This how it works: I see evidence they are guilty. From the evidence that I can see, myself, I conclude, beyond doubt, that the defendants are implicated in the murder.
This is reality to me. I cannot believe someone over the reality that I happen to see, to discover and experience myself.
The same conclusion of guilt is reached by many other people, not only the previous judges and not only the folks of which those on PMF are examples, but in Italy thousands, or maybe millions have a convincement similar to mine. Among my friends (and relatives), people whom I know, I found not one of them thinking the defendants are innocent. And there was a thousand people shouting “vergogna” outside the court house in Perugia. This is not something the people do normally in Perugia nor in other cities. Albeit millions of “guilters” are ignorant about the details about the evidence, after my observation of the case and after building a detailed knowledge of the evidence, in which I was starting from a neutral position, my conclusion is that these crowds are correct: indeed there is evidence beyond reasonable doubt.

<MASSIVE SNIP>

But it’s impossible for me to convey my view of reality and evidence – or better, it is not worth for me to do it on a forum like this one. The meaning of my writing on this forum can only be to give my testimony, the evidence, that a “guilter” convincement, a belief about Justice, is well alive and vital, self-confident and totally determined. I think, I have a position on what is Justice for Meredith and what is about the truth in this case, and because of the nature of my convincement, and also because it is shared by many and by the Kerchers, I feel my duty towards Meredith, justice and truth is to declare it, in the face of your point of view. This is just something I felt like a task in these days, I think it was a duty to claim it (as I was called provoked by people like LJ and their attitude which included the use of my nickname as a reference to spread falsehoods), really more like a duty than an interest; while I am not really that interested in demonstrating things to you on the forum.

Take a trip over to one of the 9/11 conspiracy threads on the JREF forum, and see the conspiracy theorists making very similar, inordinately lengthy, somewhat pompous, impassioned credo statements of what they believe and why they believe it. It still doesn't make them anything other than misguided, misinformed, ignorant and possibly mentally deficient idiots, though.

But fortunately this forum is a democracy where everyone is entitled to express his/her point of view, no matter how ridiculous, unsupportable, illogical or plain stupid it might be. And thankfully you're perfectly entitled to express your views here (although it doesn't make them credible or right). Unlike some other forums I can think of......

 

[Antony]

Interesting videos. A bit like being at a Lazio Roma match, no? Those videos do not paint an endearing picture of Perugia. It's your typical lynch-mob mentality - something which Italians seem to be very good at these days considering also the Sarah Scazzi case and the arrest of Cosima. I doubt many of those people have a real grasp of the details of this case. What matters is that Judge Hellmann, Zanetti, and the 6 jurors, did know the details of the case. Not something to be proud of, Perugia, although I did notice that at least half of the people there were looking on in bemusement at all the shouts of "Vergogna".

It looked to me like it was just a smallish group of people immediately surrounding the person doing the filming, and perhaps some isolated individuals elsewhere in the crowd. So likely an organised "protest" of a minority, filmed by one of the organisers so as to post on YouTube.

 

[Diocletus]

So Machiavelli proposes that:

1. The police and prosecution compile an "investigation file".

2. In this file, they can put whatever they want, even though it might not be admissible at trial or even relevant to the guilt or innocence of the defendant.

3. They can also exclude from the file whatever they say is not relevant, e.g., electronic data files.

4. The police and prosecution are not responsible for what is (or is not) in this file, even though they have compete discretion over it.

5. The file is semi-public, such that a large number of people can access it.

6. The police and prosecution are not responsible for access of the file by others.

7. People who access the file can select and send file materials to the press and the prosecution has no responsibility to stop this.

8. The jury is allowed to read press reports that may include leaked materials, even though such materials might not be relevant or admissible in the proceeding and were leaked from the file for the very reason that they are prejudicial.

9. This process can go on for a long time because trials in Italy take forever.

10. If a criminal defendant is convicted because of irrelevant and prejudicial information leaked from the investigation file to the press to the jury, or because exculpatory information was excluded from the investigation file, then that's the fault of the defendant.

11. We're not allowed to criticize Italy's so-called justice system because we're outsiders.

La dolce vita.

 

[Dan O.]

Here is an excerpt from a letter sent by Judge Michael Heavey on August 12, 2008 to the L’On Nicolo Mancini (PMF translation). The information about the diary may have been obtained from the investigation file.

Thanks Mary. This is the kind of details that help get to the bottom of what really happened. I had noticed the press reporting the existence of the diary pages from right after they were seized but the sordid details didn't come out until much later.

 

[LondonJohn]

The crowd was about 1000 people. They didn't look less, but they probably they were not more than that, or not much more, because in that section of that street they won't fit in larger numbers.
They were mostly students, who walked down there from Corso Vannucci as they heard about the incoming verdict. But there was also a number of adults. There was a man with a loudspeaker (it's is not me) who later also spoke to the camera of Umbria 24.
If you listen to the videos, especially the third, you can hear a lot of people's comments. They are very esplicit, and they are all guilters. You can hear many of them are voices of students girls. You see and identify quite a number of people in these videos.

http://youtu.be/HFIZPzWL2gs

http://youtu.be/OknqPGJwNZE

http://youtu.be/hOItZM_kJJ0

I'm wondering why you found it necessary to point out that you were not the man with the megaphone. Did you make a special trip to Perugia in order to be part of the baying mob outside the courthouse? Were you one of the aggressive men leading the rabble, or were you standing at the sidelines?

Interesting how some people choose to spend their evenings. You should have invited crime tourist SA over to share in the evening's "entertainment".

 

[davefoc]

Why on earth does it make a difference what the Italian press chose to publish? Does that make it somehow OK that the police leaked the bathroom photo to the press (which was not only unethical and possibly unlawful in any case, but it was also clearly intended that the photo would be misinterpreted - as indeed it was in the Daily Mail and other newspapers)? Can you not see that Mignini and the police might have thought it useful to fight a propaganda war in the UK and US media, not just in the Italian media? Or do you have the blinkers firmly attached?

What do we know for sure about all this?
1. Were crime scene photos leaked to the press meaning that photos were provided to the press through an unidentified source?
2. Did Mignini do anything to suggest that he thought the release of the photos was improper such as initiating an investigation to determine how the photos were leaked?
3. Were the misleading photos leaked with the intent to mislead?
4. Is there any indication that the prosecution intended to use the photos at trial without explaining that the source of most of the red stains was a chemical applied by the investigators and not blood?
5. Did any Italian authority make clear the real nature of the photos before the real nature of the photos was explained by a non-Italian law enforcement source?

Since it seems like these kind of things relate to facts that are objectively either true or not true is it possible that Machiavelli and LJ can reach an agreement on the validity of the facts about the release of the photos outside of this issue of the purpose and significance of the publication and release of the photos?

 

[Dan O.]

If Knox reveals any more detail about what happened then I may revise my opinion, but at the moment I don't see any reference even to medical personnel being involved in any of this. She does say that a blood sample was actually collected from her, but I imagine that might be in order to carry out drug testing. She doesn't say she was asked or even told it would be tested for HIV. And as I said, so far the whole HIV thing doesn't seem to have involved any doctors at all.

She does provide some more details in her trial testimony. Apparently there were three tests over two weeks. It's a little confusing because she says the first and last were negative and only the middle one was a maybe. Why would there even be a second test if the first was negative?

 

[LondonJohn]

Rolfe,

When I asked several U.S. physicians about this issue some time ago, one told me that the rules governing the release of information such as the preliminary test might be different in Italy from what they are in the U.S. (or England). Is that a possibility?

I think it's pretty much blanket best-practice to wait for the result of the second test. This is particularly the case when the subject of the tests is in a general low-risk group, since if the first (ELISA) test comes back positive, it's statistically more likely to be a false positive than a true positive. And the reason for this is as follows: firstly, there is a very, very small possibility of a person in a low-risk group actually having HIV; and secondly, the ELISA test is deliberately tuned so as to err on the side of false positives rather than false negatives.

The upshot of all this is that labs usually need only conduct the first (ELISA) test on the sample. If this test comes back negative, then the extremeley low false-negative rate means that the subject almost certainly is not HIV+, and no further testing is needed. However, if the ELISA test comes back positive, the second (Western Blot) test must be performed. This test has a very low false positive rate: therefore if you get an ELISA positive and a Western Blot positive, the subject is almost certainly HIV positive; but if you get an ELISA positive but a Western Blot negative, the person is very likely HIV negative (although a second complete test is usually carried out on another sample for confirmation).

I therefore find it extremely hard to believe the whole issue behind Knox's HIV test, and the apparent "communication" of her possible HIV+ status. Given that Knox was in a low risk group, the standard of ELISA test available in 2007 should only statistically give a false positive in around 0.4% of instances. We are therefore supposed to believe that Knox unluckily fell into this 0.4% (since we know that any positive must have by definition been a false positive, since Knox was not actually HIV+). And even if Knox was so desperately unlucky as to receive a false positive ELISA test, ethics dictate that the Western Blot test should have been conducted in order to minimise the possibility of an ELISA false positive.

The only conceivable instances when someone should be informed of an ELISA positive are when the person is not only in an inherently high-risk group, but also risks infecting others. Therefore, it's not uncommon to see female (or male) sex workers, promiscuous gay men, or people who share needles for intravenous drug administration, being informed of an ELISA positive. But the important additional point to note in such cases is that the high-risk status of those individuals also makes it far more statistically likely that an ELISA positive is a true positive (i.e. that if there's an ELISA positive, it's statistically highly likely* that the subject is actually HIV+). So there's not only a practical reason to inform such people of an ELISA positive (as a protection measure for others), but there's also a statistically valid reason for doing so.


* Data suggest that for someone in a low-risk group, the chances of an ELISA positive being a true positive are around 35-45%, whereas for someone in a high-risk group the chances of an ELISA positive being a true positive are around 75-85%.

 

[LondonJohn]

May I suggest taking a look at Rudy Guede? You know who I am talking about right? Let me fill you in on some truth; Rudy Guede is the guy that killed Meredith. Guede is the actual forgotten one in this tragedy.

I may be wrong, but I have the feeling that Hellmann's report will explicitly point out that it was entirely possible for Guede to have committed the murder by himself. To me, it beggars belief that some still cannot comprehend how an athletic man with a large knife and a threatening demeanour can manoeuvre a fairly slight young woman into a submissive, passive position without the need for any significant physical restraint.

I think that most people who can't understand this are guilty of ex-post-facto rationalisation: they know that the crime ended in Meredith's brutal murder, so they irrationally believe that Meredith must have had that end point in mind as the situation escalated. And if you make that logical error, then of course it's easy to make the leap to asking "why wouldn't Meredith have fought for her life?".

But that's not how these sorts of crimes usually evolve. Of course, if Meredith had strong reason to believe right at the start of a confrontation with Guede that she was going to die at his hand, she would have probably fought back fairly early on. But it's almost certain that Meredith either had no inkling that things might end that way, or that she preferred to believe that they weren't going to end that way. If she was confronted by an athletic man with a large knife who told her to shut up and do what he told her, it's entirely logical to presume that this is exactly what Meredith did. It's not usually wise to do otherwise, especially in an empty house on a quiet road. I suspect that Meredith thought that Guede either wanted to rob her, take her keys and escape, or even that he intended some sort of sexual assault. But as horrible as those possibilities are (especially the second one), both of them are undoubtedly preferable to instigating a struggle that might end in your murder.

I think that under such circumstances, it's completely possible for Guede to have manoeuvred Meredith onto a position on the floor with his hand holding the knife at her throat, with virtually no need whatsoever for physical restraint, pinning down or any other physical injury. And after Guede had got her into such a position, the first signs of struggle from Meredith were met with an immediate use of the knife on her throat - again obviating the need for any sort of physical struggle between the pair.

A poigant example of exactly what I'm talking about is provided by the reactions of the various passenger rosters of the aircraft hijacked on 9/11. The passengers on the first three hijacked flights knew their aircraft had been hijacked, but assumed that these were conventional hijackings that would involve the aircraft being ordered to fly to a destination and for some sort of negotiation to ensue. Since the hijackers told the passengers that they had bombs and guns, the logical thing for the passengers to do was to comply fully with the hijackers' demands to remain passively in their seats. And this is what they did do, right up to the point where their aircraft were flown into buildings.

By contrast, although the passengers on United 93 were in a similar position, with similar hijacker threats and demands, there was a crucial difference: the time delay for this fourth hijacking meant that passengers were informed via phone calls to relatives/friends on the ground that the hijackings were all seemingly linked and that the planes were being used as missiles to fly into buildings. Therefore, the United 93 passengers knew that there was a very high likelihood that they would die if they just passively remained in their seats - something that the passengers on the other three flights never realised. And because of this knowledge, the United 93 passengers made a logical decision to try to storm the cockpit, since there was now only a potential upside in such a move (whereas for passengers of the other three aircraft, such a move would have been illogical given its possible ramifications).

 

[Dan O.]

What do we know for sure about all this?
1. Were crime scene photos leaked to the press meaning that photos were provided to the press through an unidentified source?

An interesting thing about the bloody bathroom photo is that it is not the same image as the one in the case file. I had the opportunity to do a detailed comparison between the two photos and though they are quite similar, they are definately different shots. In the crime scene video of Dec 18 part 2 at time index 00:49:10, the official photographer is seen taking the photo of the pink bathroom from the door. The image printed in the papers was taken from about the same distance but from a significantly lower elevation.

 

[smkovalinksy]

Machiavelli, care to comment on this article? It seems to say that Knox and Sollecito was acquitted in accordance with 530.1 on murder, sexual assault and robbery, but in accordance with 530.2 on the count of staging the crime scene.

Is that correctly understood? What do you think of the analysis by Mr Turrini? Could he be right?

He also talks about five degrees (formulas) within 530.

http://translate.google.com/transla...24&bih=630&tbs=qdr:d,lr:lang_1it&prmd=imvnsol

Excellent piece, all of it; this part is most telling:

"Or the opposite can also happen: the accused is acquitted "because the facts did not" (the first formula, the more favorable), but the mass media, convinced of his guilt, blame him with a loud voice coming even slander. And this, incidentally, is exactly what is going on for over two weeks to Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox".

 

[snook1]

I may be wrong, but I have the feeling that Hellmann's report will explicitly point out that it was entirely possible for Guede to have committed the murder by himself.

I will be surprised to see Hellmann's report without mentioning this fact.
This case was always about Guede. To this day I can't believe that people bought this crappy story about AK, RS and Guede committing the murder together and actually convicted them all for this crime.

 

[smkovalinksy]

I may be wrong, but I have the feeling that Hellmann's report will explicitly point out that it was entirely possible for Guede to have committed the murder by himself. To me, it beggars belief that some still cannot comprehend how an athletic man with a large knife and a threatening demeanour can manoeuvre a fairly slight young woman into a submissive, passive position without the need for any significant physical restraint.

No, you are not wrong. Hellman ruled explicitly that the crimes of murder and theft had not been committed by Knox and Sollecito - Guede as sole agent is inferred. Moreover, he ruled that the crime of simulation had not occurred, implying that the break-in was real: Guede again by inference.
Facta sunt potentiora verbis.

 

[Mary_H]

That is a different issue. As I explained in another post.
The book by Sarzanini was damaging as a publication since the diary was taken off the trial file. But it is a damage, not a crime, and it is made by the press not by the police or prosecution. Its damage is not due to prejudice in her trial: it is due to violation of copiright and (maybe) of privacy. But Sarzanini was not accused of producing negative prejudice against Knox.
This does not affect the issue of Knox's responsibility in writing potentilally prejudicial material. The violation of copyright and privacy related to personal documents is committed only by the press that publishes the material (the damage does not consist in having the material or showing it to someone, but just in publishing it).
But the fact that the material may have a prejudicial effect, this is a different issue and this is only responsability of Knox, not of the journalist nor anyone else. Sarzanini is not responsible of that part of the damage.

Why, in your opinion, was Amanda's personal diary published in Italy, before her case went to trial?

 

[Dan O.]

There is little evidence available to make sense of Rudy having an accomplice in this crime. While it is possible that more than one burglar entered the cottage through the broken window, where is the accomplice while Rudy is taking a dump?

They may not be able to extend Rudy's sentence for the murder. But his direct accusation of Amanda and Raffaele in his letter written spontaneously by his own hand and read aloud in court should be good for another 6 years added to his prison time. Can we make that 6 years for each? That's what I would call True Justice.

 

[Chris C]

The prosecution never leaked pictures to the British tabloids. That idea is ludicrous. The press simply got the pictures from the investigation files, via one of the 100+ possible ways, most likely through employees from attorneys' firmas or police officers or clerks, as it always happens in Italy.

If the press got the information from the investigation file then why was the dna results and tmb tests hidden from the defense. Shouldn't that have been in the investigation file also? Why would they put everything in the diary in the investigation file and leave out other important information? What does knox testing positive in jail for hiv have anything to do with the investigation?

 

[Chris C]

Note I am not commenting on the act of giving Knox false HIV results above. That by itself sounds like it might have been a criminal act by the prison authorities, however even that isn't quite a proven fact. It is at least conceivable that a false positive did actually occur and a retest was done that had a negative result. Without a formal investigation of this the truth isn't knowable. The fact that nobody seems to have initiated one and that actual details of what went on here haven't been revealed suggests that something nefarious probably went on to me.

They did a retest?

 

[Dougm]

They did a retest?

If they didn't, wouldn't she still thnk she might have HIV? The retest is how she knew it was OK. This is the first time I have ever heard there were 3 tests, not sure if that is right, or not.

 

[davefoc]

I may be wrong, but I have the feeling that Hellmann's report will explicitly point out that it was entirely possible for Guede to have committed the murder by himself. To me, it beggars belief that some still cannot comprehend how an athletic man with a large knife and a threatening demeanour can manoeuvre a fairly slight young woman into a submissive, passive position without the need for any significant physical restraint.

I think that most people who can't understand this are guilty of ex-post-facto rationalisation: they know that the crime ended in Meredith's brutal murder, so they irrationally believe that Meredith must have had that end point in mind as the situation escalated. And if you make that logical error, then of course it's easy to make the leap to asking "why wouldn't Meredith have fought for her life?".

...

This crops up periodically in this discussion. I have limited knowledge about this sort of thing so I have hesitated to comment. However, I was on the wrestling team in high school and based on my experience with that I am sure overwhelming physical strength and size is an insurmountable advantage in a fight.

The notion that an athletic man that is substantially larger than a woman can not easily overwhelm that woman in a physical confrontation is just false. Perhaps some people get their ideas about this kind of thing from movie fantasyland fight scenes. The reality of those fights is that if the "fight" was done for real the men getting pummeled by the winsome heroine would quickly overwhelm the heroine. Now give the man a knife besides his overwhelming size and strength advantage and the result would be obvious and quick.

All of the other things that LondonJack said also ring true to me about this. But it was reported earlier in this thread that there were some cuts on Kercher that could be interpreted as defensive wounds. Did I misunderstand those comments?