Hi, Machiavelli. I composed a fairly lengthy response to this post of yours the other night but while previewing it for typos and such, the power went out due to a nearby lightning strike and I lost the entire thing as a result. So, I'll respond again now.
This was a post where I declared the grounds of my views on the case, and I made some comment on how I see the two sides in general.
This was in response to me expressing the view that there was no compelling evidence in support of a finding that Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito were guilty of murdering Ms. Kercher. Your response seems to be nothing more than the expression of a fervent belief without pointing out or pointing to any compelling evidence in support of that belief.
It’s correct: my post was a response to others who were blaming me of having second reasons, being rationalizing, prejudicial, close to Mignini, victim of misinformation, or motivated by personal dislikes and irrational grounds.
In addition, it is not particularly helpful or useful to say that you believe that they are "implicated" in the murder without setting out what you believe their roles to have been.
This is a very serious point, this one really exists as a problem in the accusation theory. This will play an essential part in the reasons for their acquittal.
I can’t define their exact physical roles; only consider a group of alternative variants/scenarios. However, the lack of definition of their precise roles, in my opinion is not sufficient for opting for a reasonable doubt on their guilt, on the existing set of evidence.
This would not be the first case in which a defendant is sentenced while their precise role is not entirely defined.
I'm afraid I'm not clear on what this appeal to the logical fallacy known as "
argumentum ad populum"
I don’t mean to bring an argumentum ad populum as evidence of their guilt.
However it is certainly worth to consider the public disapproval for the verdict and an interesting aspect to question, as this suggests that there might be a perception of facts behind it.
Please set out - in point form would be fine - what you view as "evidence beyond reasonable doubt".
I have summed up this in a post recently, and I did it so many times in a summary point form.
1. I can see physical evidence of staging of the break in (complex point, requires an elaboration)
2. Multiple attackers Autopsy report and analysis of murder scene implies more than one attacker (another complex point; I wrote on PMF recently about this one)
3. Series of lies told by Amanda Knox before her last interrogation (between nov 2. and 4.): Knox’s account of facts is riddled with lies and inconsistencies, it is entirely fictional and unacceptable (this is another complex point to unfold)
4. Amanda’s false confession in a spontaneous statement and her hand written note; her subsequent refusal to correct it and failure to give a consistent version and to explain the reasons for the false confession. Her inconsistence in describing circumstances of how her false confession occurred. Anna Donnino’s witness report.
5. Raffaele Sollecito’s changing of alibi and his various lies and his final failure to provide a version of fact. In addition to this, another series of proven lies by Amanda Knox on their alibi.
6. Antonio Curatolo and Quintavalle as eye witness as further corroboration of their lying.
7. Nara Capezzali and Antonella Monacchia’s credible witness reports, about a time of death and dynamic compatible with their guilt.
8. A series of luminol footprints with very peculiar features, showing they performed an operation of cleaning the scene; this area of evidence is based on the distribution and features of the footprints, and on the lack of alternative explanations related to normal activities (complex evidence, requires long elaboration)
9. Bloody footprint on the bathmat only compatible with Sollecito and not with Rudy Guede (requires a visual elaboration) also contains the logical implication given by the lack of explanation for the isolation of the print, the absence of a trail of footprints or other footprints (further evidence of cleanup) and lack of plausible explanation for it if attributed to Rudy Guede; moreover, its analogy relation with the luminol footprints, and the its obvious being out of place opposed to the movements showed by Rudy’s shoeprints (person wearing shoes, walking out in a straight dierection).
10. Amanda Knox’s blood in the small bathroom, and the claim it was not there the night before, without any plausible/likely alternative explanation.
11. evidence of cleanup on the bathroom floor and on the bathroom door, determined by the spattered bathmat (with stains on the edge and incomplete footprint) on top of a clean floor, and track L9 showing a cleaning of the bathroom door
12. double-DNA luminol stains in Filomena’s room (analogical relation with point 8)
13. Sollecito’s DNA on the bra clasp, unaffected in my opinion by the arguments in Vecchiotti’s report
14. Meredith and Knox’s DNA on the knife; also in this case Vecchiotti’s arguments are totallu unconvincing
In all this system of evidence, one important point has to be made.
There is an aspect playing a further role which his a logical evidence, what is called argumentum a contrariis; which is the argument that consists in the weakness or lack of alternative explanations. The systematic weakness of alternative explanations or the complete lack thereof creates a proof itself, it plays a role in determining the weight of each area of evidence.
If you have to assume the defendants are innocent, you have to take in account the lack of an alternative “innocent” substance and explanation for the luminol footprints (that includes a scenario for how the footprints were produced); a lack of plausible explanation for the bloody bathmat print: you should assume that Rudy Guede had his shoed on but despite this he got a foot soaked with blood; that takes off his shoe(s) and gets a foot soaked with blood but despite this does not leave trails of footprints anywhere on the floor; that his foot gets so soaked to splash half the bathmat with droplets and stain also on edges, but no drop falls on the floor; then you have to assume that the analogy between the isolated bloody footprint and the isolated luminol footprints on the floor is a coincidence; then you have to assume that Amanda left blood drops in the bathroom but managed to not know it and not notice it, and moreover that she remembers wrongly as she says the bloodstain on the faucet was not there the night before (the lack of any likely explanation for Knox’s blood drops in the bathroom); then you have a lack of likely explanation for Guede’s DNA in the bathroom; the lack of explanation for the cleaning of the floor as implied by track L9 and bathmat stains; and you have a systematic weakness of alternatives to explain the points that shoe the staging (such as no soil/grass traces in the room, no activity of searching for values) and so on…..
Finally, I just note that “compelling evidence” sounds to me a redundant term, it’s strange for me the adding of adjectives after the word “evidence”. First, before putting adjectives, you have to acknowledge there is evidence. If there is evidence, the assessment on its quality, on if and how compelling it is, comes after.
When the evidence is such that someone with access to the photographs did, in fact, leak pictures of the bathroom streaked with pink so that it could dishonestly be portrayed as blood in the "house of horrors", it is not at all illogical to suspect that it may have been done at the behest of the police or prosecution, since they were the source and the guardians of the photographs. This is particularly so when it is apparent that from the outset of this case, the police and prosecution set in motion a campaign of character assassination in the media, apparently in an attempt to bolster their incredibly weak case….
Now, the above comment of yours deserves a little attention because it shows, in a nutcase, the structure of your thought and why I see as utter irrational. The circular nature of it, its absence of argumentation, here is expressed in a use of a conclusive judgement on the police or prosecution, that you had preventively gave, as an argument itself in order to reach/bolster the conclusive judgement on a topic that itself is part of the conclusive judgement.
In your thought, it is most explicit to you that “it is apparent that from the outset of this case, the police and prosecution set in motion a campaign of character assassination in the media”.
So you start from a basic assumption, that works as an axiom, that there is something apparent that is
pre-existent to the reasoning, and will determine the conclusion independently from the topic of the reasoning itself (the topic is the leak of a picture to the press).
Your theory, what you believe, is that is that the police or prosecution leaked a picture to the British press that is a dissemination of
false information functional to violate defendant’s rights to a fair trial.
You bring in, as an argument to bolster your theory, the idea that it is already apparent, already proven, in your eyes, that the prosecution has “set in motion a campaign of character assassination”. There is also an pre-emptive assumption by you that the case is “incredibly weak”.
In fact, what happens is you are admitting that all your theory about the leak of pink bathroom pictures to the press in order to influence Perugian judges, in fact rests on your pre-existing assumptions, which allow you to re-interpret fats along them, and not on arguments.
The allegation of setting in motion a defamation campaign to influence judges, which is what should be demonstrated or bolstered by argument demonstrating a leak of the pink bathroom picture aimed to produce prejudice, is the pre-existing assumption used to interpret the leak of the picture. So why do you blame the prosecution of leaking a picture to produce prejudice without any consistent argument? Because you already think that the prosecution operates on character assassination by spreading false information to the press. The points of your theory are in fact bolstered by your overall interpretation.
In a degree this use of systematic bias – interpreting single pieces along its consistence with a picture - is rational, as long as there are other many pieces that are supported independently.
This is the theory of systems: you believe other element are related to the same explanation, because you alreay see other systematic evidence.
But this is rational only in a certain degree: you have to actually have these systematic pieces of evidence tha make a system. You chose that one has a specific explanation based on the existence of the system, but you cannot do the same for all of them, you need specific reasons to believe each one has one explanation instead of another. The majority of the pieces must be bolstered by their own arguments independently from eahc other.
What does, actually, support your pre-existing idea that the prosecution did engage in a character assassination to influence local judges? How many of your points have their independent argument to support them?
And, after all, is the theoy of leak of pictures-only-published-in British tabloids *actually* consistent with this theory?
I remark that whenever you see a mere possibility that there *could* be an activity of character assassination by the procura, you will always believe this will be the explanation, and you will rulle out obvious likely alternatives, because you
already believe it.
Moreover you already believe that the case was "incredibly weak"; you admit thus yours is a rationalization because is just a collection of
possible confirmations to what you already believe. However, you seem to miss some inconsistencies, for example the little detail that a Perugian preliminary judge would have the authentic photos and would immediately realize if he/she has been exposed to a prejudicial campaign based on false information on tabloids; and if he/she realizes this, this may easily have a counter-productive effect, a boomerang, the opposite of what expected, if the judge is honest. If the judge is dishonest, on the other hand, he/she would be already oriented to deliver a biased judgement and so thus a dissemination of false information on the media would be totally unnecessary for the purpose, and thus not prejudicial; it would be still useless, only provocative and counter-productive to the procura.
To me, there is no evidence that there has ever been a campaign of character assassination by the procura. Not only there is no evidence, it makes no sense. It is utterly illogical.
It seems to me also that what you address as “character assassination” is just authentic investigation work, authentic material such as Knox’s diaries, her own writings, or the actual process of discovery during the investigation such as the finding of a Harry Potter’s book. There is nothing that seems to me more damning than the release of Amanda’s own words, such as her hand written note.
Moreover, the claim of character assassination campaign by the procure, to me is also inconsistent on another aspect: if the basic claim is that a trial might be prejudicial because there is a negative publicity on the defendant, on this logic, the positive publicity about the defendant on the appeal trial should be considered equally prejudicial to the outcome of the verdict.
Your apparent lack of knowledge about wrongful convictions does not mean that those with such knowledge shouldn't point out that this particular case has very nearly all of the classic hallmarks of wrongful convictions. Police forces all over the world have been known to give out all sorts of false information in an effort to get suspects to say things that they want to hear. This would hardly be the first time, and Italy is certainly not immune to "noble cause corruption" - in fact, this very case is a pretty good demonstration that it does, indeed, exist in Perugia, just like it does in myriad other jurisdictions and countries, my own included.
I have to reject allegations of “lack of knowledge”. This whole argument anyway, besides condescending, is set in totally general and totalizing terms: “those with such knowledge” apparently have seen “hallmarks” or wrongful convictions.
The truth is wrongful convictions do occur. But also guilty people do lie and make false accusations. Everything in general terms happens, and the opposite of everything too.
Wrongful convictions exist. Some are avoidable, some are not. (it is not always possible for a judge to determine that evidence is bogus). The truth is, the outlook of a wrongful conviction and that of a right conviction are essentially similar. On rough terms, wrongful convictions are just similar to rightful convictions and a conclusion based on general terms as spotting “classic hallmarks” is just mystifying. A ton of the same and other “classic hallmarks” can be related to rightful convictions as well; the “hallmarks” that you think are things that exists in myriad of similar events and do note make an argument. I think you can understand your argument about “Police forces in the world” is no argument, that no argument based on asserting the existence and frequency of wrongful convictions is an argument that can have any effect.
Theoretically there could be many other cases, in Canada New Zeland Italy France or anywhere else, which appear similar to the Knox Sollecito trial and which lead to a wrongful convictions. This won’t mean at all that this one is a wrongful conviction. By a general overview rightful and wrongful convictions are intrinsically similar, they can share huge number of hallmarks and features if these are listed just as points with no in depth analysis about relations and implications of all pieces of evidence, and if a wrongful convictions occurs on case X province A, it is just no argument to imply that the same occurs in case Y in province B. Each case requires its own demonstration process.
I am sceptical on all those who start with claim of a generic “knowledge of wrong convictions” especially if those who claim “knowledge” apparently don’t know basics such as the law and the system in which they are making observations, not the trial acts, or anything about the people involved in the trial, nor about the context and cultural/social praxis; and don’t even have correct information and don’t’ even understand the language in which legal discussion takes place. How these people could claim “knowledge” is a mystery.
What I would consider “arguments” instead, they would be like those showing how contamination on the bra clasp may have occurred; or to bring a consistent explanation for why the bloody footprint matches Sollecito and not Guede, why and how the “break in” and the assault produced these physical evidence, things like these. This is the only process by which the evidence could be countered.
That is not to say definitively that, in this particular case, it was the police who set up and disseminated the false HIV+ bit (it could have been at the behest of the prosecutors or others, after all), but I think that if you are honest with yourself, you have to admit that it would fit with the character assassination that the police and prosecution set into motion very early on in this case, so it's certainly a reasonable question to ask and a reasonable position to consider in the absence of any rebuttal or denial or evidence to the contrary.
This position is not reasonable at all, and demanding a rebuttal for this false allegation would be just foolish (btw this false allegation is only heard in the US, never been in the media in Italy).
It’s a good thing, however, that we can see how, also on a second point, your only argument is your pre-existing belief that there was an unlawful, voluntary character assassination in the media by the procura.
You seem – by the way - to not realize that your conspiracy theory, by which a doctor in takes part in a criminal plan by giving to the patient a false HIV test result, is just absurd and nonsense.
Never mind anyway if you don’t notice that: your admission that your conclusion is based on a pre existing belief is nonetheless remarkable.
If you want to look close to your theory, you may consider that, first of all there is no evidence the “police” (who?) may have involved a doctor in a criminal plan, but there is no answer to for what rational reason, why a setting up of a plan to deliver a false HIV test could ever make sense: what is the criminal aim; how can they predict that Knox will write down an explanation about her being positive to HIV in a personal diary and make a list of partners with a description of her sexual life in the same page. This is something that nobody can reasonably expect: how many people would write about her sexual experiences in a notebook together with all this information?
The sheer facts are that she decided, voluntarily, to write such kind of information including about her positive HIV test in a diary, where she explains and contextualizes things about her sexual story. No doctor could have asked to do so – and if did so, then why this extremely unusual detailed request went unnoticed in her diary – and could ask to do so while being expected the request to be fulfilled. Even if any of us were requested to do such things by a doctor, who would actually comply and write down this stuff? We would never write down such a diary page unless we decide to and feel like to write down exactly that and exactly in our diary.
Despite this obvious reality, you address a conspiracy and “character assassination” as the cause, and you do not address Knox’s personal taste and writing style in her exercising creative writing.
Anyway, as I was saying, the important point to note is that you are repeating, on a second point, the use of the same argument that your interpretation of fact is based on your pre-existing belief that the procura was engaged in a character assassination in the media. Because of this belief, also this event which is obviously (easilly) explained by Amanda’s taste and responsibility as creative writer, becomes an effect of character assassination: since you already believe there was a character assassination.
This makes by now yet two points where you explain that your conclusion is due to this pre-existing belief, and not on arguments intrinsic to the point itself. These are two points in the system of events that you call “characters assassination”, among the set of points on which your idea that there was a character assassination is based. The two points mentioned by now are based both just on a pre-existing assumption.
I note also that, because of your pre-existing idea, you have also completely abandoned the principle that there is a presumption of innocence on police officers and doctors that you may suspect of criminal conspiracy. Also you seem to abandon the common sense principle that conspiracy theories are irrational if brought in without specific elements and specific logical scenarios.
I'm not following you here. Haven't you previously said that no conviction or acquittal is considered 'final' in Italy until it is decided by the Supremes? If that is so, how is it that Ms. Knox ought to have paid damages to Mr. Lumumba prior to a final finding on the matter by the Supremes?
Well, first of all, let’s remind that actually, Knox and Sollecito should have paid damages in the first trial: there is in fact is the concept of “provisional” damage pay.
Civilian effects of sentences and criminal legal status are not always aligned. Civilian damages sometimes must be paid immediately, not when the sentence becomes definitive. In this case the judge decided there was a provisional part of damage award that had to be paid immediately in the first trial. About the damages to be paid to Lumumba, I don’t know what was the provisional ruling. But bear in mind that the Supreme Court would never reverse the calunnia charge nor cancel the damages to be paid: the may, at best, order a new trial. But this only if the defence recurs against the Hellmann’s verdict. We don’t know if, by now, the defence is willing to challenge the verdict by the Supreme Court. They did not express this intent. If they do not make this next legal move, they will have to pay the money within three months.
It seems as though you are saying that one should treat the 2nd trial by the Pratillo Hellmann court as "final" as it relates to Ms. Knox's conviction for calunnia while simultaneously saying that one should not treat the 2nd trial by the Pratillo Hellmann court as "final" as it relates to the acquittals of Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito on the far more serious charges of murder, sexual assault, etc. This strikes me as contradictory on your part. Can you please try to reconcile this apparent discrepancy for my benefit?
There is absolutely no contradiction. I think I have expressed everything clearly in previous posts.
I make here two points (three with the one already explained).
1 - the conviction part of the verdict expresses that the court concluded that some facts are proven and established. Thus a conviction expresses proven and certain facts that occurred beyond reasonable doubt. Instead an acquittal part of the verdict may well express the conclusion that there is no evidence (not enough or contradictory evidence) something occurred, and thus express uncertainty in point of facts; something that might well have occurred but is unproven, to the court. Things that are found to be certain are those who are established to be certain beyond reasonable doubt. For what we know, the innocence of Amanda is not among those things established as certain, if we give credit to Hellmann’s words.
So you are wrong in seeing a distinction, attributed to me or by the law, between final not final: the distinction is between certain and uncertain. To me the difference is between facts proven and not proven, not between final and not final. The court deems certain and proven that Knox voluntary committed a certain crime, a felony which is a malicious lie. It does not conclude that Knox did not murder for certain: it seems they may well conclude the proof of this is insufficient.
2 - logical arguments expressed in Hellmann’s verdict, there is an independent issue about the evidence, which is something that we can assess ourselves, independently from what Hellmann’s court thinks. I consider Knox guilty because of the evidence, of my own assessment of the evidence, not because of the verdict, not because of what judges think. I can see plenty of the evidence myself.
3 - for the civil damages, as said there is this concept of provisional obligation in civil law: the civil effects may require to be enforced immediately even if the verdict is not definitive.
I pause here by now. The post would be too long. You can consider this was a first part of an answer, the answer to the first half of your post.
About witches and quotes, there may be interesting things to say.