Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[raz0rama]

The point is, that now there are four documents, two in Amanda's hand. Only one says something non-confusing. However, even in the Nov 7 note, she said she did not lie when she accused Lumumba. She says the reason why she should not be regarded as lying was because she was stressed. "But now I know that I can't know who the murderer is, because I remember that I didn't go home."

To the courts, this is a muddle that Knox is being held accountable for - two notes in her hand, and it is anything but something that (to a third party) rests the matter. On what basis would a court accept this as a "progression"?

In my view, this is what Hellmann will say in his motivation report. It is anything but clear. In theory, it can be seen by the court as no different than Guede "progressing" into a statement that RS and SK were there.

It is the job of the courts to weigh what is presented to discern the truth and facts as best as can be determined.

For her to be convictable of slander, the court must establish that she had the intent to cause harm. There is no indication from the timeline and statements that she made that at any time she attempted to do anything other than be as honest and forthright as she could, given the information she had at the time. Thus when she made the statement that she stood by her statements, she was indicating that at the time she made them, she believed them, hence there was no intent to cause harm. This is clearly evident in her stating that she did not believe they could be used as "condemning testimone" because she was unsure of herself. No intent even in the first hand written statement.

I'm dismissing the two she signed since they were not penned by her and it is entirely possible she did not know exactly what it was she signed or how valid the translation of her responses was in the statements. These were obtained under duress anyways, so she should not be held responsible for their content even if she did understand exactly what they said. They even indicate that she was confused at the time, confirming what she later stated about the interrogation.

We're left with just the two statements, on the 6th and 7th. What we know of the 6th would not be sufficient to uphold a charge of slander because she states that she has confused images of something that she does not feel is real, and that she does not believe they are strong enough for the police to act on. Any objective judge should be able to see that, so the statement is very clear: she is not sure of anything when she wrote it and does not want anyone to act on anything she may have said. I don't see how anyone could interpret that as a malicious act intended to defame a person that she knows is innocent. Remember, the only way she could have known for sure Patrick was innocent at the time was if she was actually present at the crime scene, or with Patrick at another location.

She makes this very clear in her second written statement, where she states she cannot know who the murderer was because she remembers that she was not at the crime scene. This is unequivocal revocation of any supposed accusation that Patrick committed the crime. Furthermore she makes it clear that at the time she made the previous statements, she was not lying since she believed what she said at the time. A person can state an untruth without lying if the person believes the untruth to be true. The act of lying requires the intention to deceive. Without the intention to deceive there is no lie, just as without the intention to cause harm there is no slander.

If a confused and inconsistent spoon fed statement made under duress, that is subsequently retracted, is a convictable slander... well lets just say I disagree with that premise in the strongest terms.

 

[Antony]

No staged break-in, no magical selective clean-up, no bleach, and Meredith died soon after nine o'clock. These are simple facts, and must be taken into account in any theory of what happened. Even if you really, really can't stand Amanda Knox.

Rolfe.

And no "lies" from Amanda, either - unless you count her signature on 2 statements typed for her in Italian, by police who had (at minimum) been shouting at her and threatening her for hours.

 

[davefoc]

Exactly what statements were admissible against Knox for what charges?

My understanding is that with regard to Knox there were several charges tried simultaneously:
Criminal
1. Murder Charge
2. Slander Charge
3. Staging a break-in charge
Civil
4. Wrongful death lawsuit by Kerchers
5. Slander Charge by Lumumba (Was this lawsuit about slander or unjustified imprisonment caused by false testimony or both?)

OK, so for which of these trials were the police statements admissible? Were the two statements written by Knox admissible for all the charges? I think I read in Massei that her lawyers argued that at least one of them shouldn't have been but I think the court didn't accept that line of reasoning.

Was the calumnia charge based on the Knox police statements with the idea that even if the statements weren't admissible they still represented a crime and she could be found guilty of something that transpired during an inadmissible statement to the police?

When Machiavelli is arguing that Knox lied and presumably that this is evidence against her with regard to the murder is he saying that the statements that were ruled inadmissible at least for the murder charge still stand as evidence against her and should have been considered by the court anyway? Or that he considers them in his judgment of her guilt and to him it doesn't matter that they were inadmissible? Maybe I'm missing something here. The cornerstone of Machiavelli's Knox is guilty view is that she lied. But the only source of even an arguably significant lie by Knox is her police statements which weren't admissible in the criminal (at least the murder portion of the criminal case) case against her.

 

[RoseMontague]

This lawyer strike is interesting. It seems criminal defense lawyers are saying the system is not fair to the defendants or to the defense lawyers. Perhaps one of our Italian speakers can give us a summary.

 

[Katody Matrass]

I agree, sounding like a backseat driver, but a better mockup of someone climbing in , using a young male in NIke Tennis shoes, going all the way into Filomenas room would have been more powerful.

For the rationally thinking it was more then enough. Thankfully, judges of the appeal court were thinking rationally.

I don't think there was any reconstruction you could do to convince the witchhunt mob of the first trial. Those people were ready to twist any facts.

An example - Do you remember the famous nail in the wall, that according to Massei and the guilters was a proof that the climb was impossible? The nail is intact, it would fall off if Rudy climbed there, bla bla etc?

Do you know that the climbing actually pulled himself up by grabbing that nail? The nail withstood, intact. It was on a video shown in court. Massei ignored it and wrote the nonsense instead.

 

[RoseMontague]

Ot. Latest news about the murder of Sarah Scazzi.
The preliminary judge decided Sabrina and Cosima are dangerous and will remain in jail:

http://www.tgcom.mediaset.it

Incredible. They would be hard pressed to find two less dangerous people in Italy, imo.

Will this now go back to the SC? Do you still think they are guilty?

 

[Katody Matrass]

Ot. Latest news about the murder of Sarah Scazzi.
The preliminary judge decided Sabrina and Cosima are dangerous and will remain in jail:

http://www.tgcom.mediaset.it

So, do they weigh more than a duck?

 

[geebee2]

So Amanda says it *could* have been Patrik.
Why? Because it was suggested to her by the police.
So she agreed to this possibility after being put under a lot of stress, which caused her to doubt her memory ( a period when she would have been asleep ).
This is a ridiculous basis for a prosecution.
I hope she takes it the the European court of human rights and is awarded substantial compensation ( at least 7 figures ).

 

[LondonJohn]

Rolfe, I brought this up a while back with, I think, halides1 being the only poster to react, but the Massei reports has Meredith with a .43g/l alcohol IIRC at the time of death (page 112 pdf) as reported by Lalli.

If in fact she didn't drink with the friends on the movie date that would mean she had been unbelievably drunk the night before or she drank after arriving home. Of course, it could be that the girls lied or didn't notice her drinking or she could have had drink before going to their flat.

My question is: How would that have affected her digestion?

I've written about this issue before here. The short answer is that the evidence strongly suggests that Meredith's alcohol intake pattern had little or no effect upon her gastric motility (i.e. the rate of passage of food matter throught the stomach and beyond) on the evening of November 1st. Here's the long answer:

To recap, if Meredith had a blood alcohol level of 0.43g/l at autopsy, this indicates her blood alcohol level at the time of death (the liver stops metabolising alcohol at death, so the blood alcohol level remains essentially constant post mortem).

So this implies that Meredith's blood alcohol level was 0.43g/l at around 9pm (and yes, she was almost certainly killed between 9pm and 9.30pm). This level is consistent with the consumption of one unit of alcohol (a single small glass of wine or beer) within around 30 minutes of the test. However, it's also of course consistent with residual blood alcohol from a heavier alcoholic intake at an earlier time.

Now, in this regard we have two other data references to consider. The tests on Meredith's gastric contents revealed a zero blood alcohol level. This means that it's very likely that Meredith consumed no alcohol at all at around the same time as her final meal (the pizza and apple crumble that she ate at her friends' house). This is also consistent with the friends' testimony that no alcohol was drunk that evening. Therefore, there are only two likely possibilities: 1) Meredith got extremely drunk the previous evening, and the 0.43g/l was residual blood alcohol from that binge event; or 2) Meredith got drunk the previous evening, but had a "hair of the dog" drink at around lunchtime on the 1st, before she left for her friends' house. With regard to the former scenario, a 0.43g/l level at 9pm would imply a level consistent with the consumption of over 25 alcohol units by 4am the previous night (given normal blood alcohol dissipation rates over time). This is a very high level of alcohol consumption - especially for a relatively slight woman such as Meredith - but it's well within the bounds of possibility. The latter scenario means that Meredith could have consumed, say, 15 units the previous evening and "topped it up" with a further, say, two units at lunchtime on the 1st.

Either way, it's well-established (I believe) that Meredith consumed a very large amount of alcohol on the night before her death (I wonder how often Mother Teresa went out and got steaming drunk.....?). And either way, the main drinking event would have occurred long enough before Meredith started her last meal to have had little or no effect upon her gastric motility. Research shows that motility is affected (slowed) by two things: significant alcohol intake at the same time as the meal (meaning that alcohol is present in the stomach at the same time as food awaiting stomach processing), and very high levels of blood alcohol at the time of food ingestion.

Since neither of these two situations was present when Meredith started her final meal at around 6-6.30pm on the 1st, it's fair to suppose that Meredith's gastric motility was essentially unimpaired by that time. And since Meredith also had no known gastrointestinal issues (certainly she had never mentioned such issues to anyone or sought medical advice), it's fair to suggest that Meredith's last meal was processed by her stomach/intestines in a relatively "normal" fashion. And from that, it's fair to conclude that Meredith must have died before 10pm, and very likely before 9.30pm.

 

[RoseMontague]

Another person beaten by Italian cops dead:

http://translate.google.com/transla...4QFjAC&usg=AFQjCNHJNqoobdoPCKA-NxX6tUAqOj2fuA

Also Stefano Cucchi, Gabriele Sandri, e Federico Aldrovandi. How many have to die before something is done?

 

[LondonJohn]

I've located the best version of the Nov 7 memorandum I can find. It is from direct examination from Lumumba's lawyer at trial. Perhaps someone else has a more full copy of the memorandum in question:

"CP Carlo Pacelli (Lumumbas' lawyer): On the 7th you wrote "I didn't lie when I said the murderer might be Patrick." Why did you write that in your memorandum of the 7th?

AK: Honestly, I thought, like the police had told me -- the police had told me they had already found the guilty person. And they had suggested Patrick so much that I thought maybe it really was him. But apart from that, in that memorandum that I wrote in prison, the important thing for me was to tell what I knew, and what I knew was where I was on that evening.

CP: Patrick was in prison because of YOU! You didn't even say it to the PM on the 8th."

However, a fuller text of the memorandum of the 7th, says more fully:

(Pacelli?) : "All right, now let's talk about your memorial from the 7th, still written in total autonomy, without anyone around you. You wrote: "I didn't lie when I said that I thought the murderer might have been Patrick. At that moment I was very stressed and I thought that maybe it was really Patrick." Then you add "But now I know that I can't know who the murderer is, because I remember that I didn't go home.""

And the full quote is the key here. To me, it's abundantly clear that Knox was explicitly stating that she could have no personal knowledge of the identity of the murderer. This, in every way, is a recantation of her previous statements.

But at this point, I think it's vitally important to remember one thing: Knox had almost certainly been led to believe by the police that Lumumba was indeed the murderer. Therefore she was unwilling and unable to make an assertion along the lines of "Patrick did not kill Meredith", since as far as she was aware that that time the police had solid evidence showing that Lumumba was indeed the killer. All that she could accurately say was that the police should no longer include her statements as additional evidence against Lumumba.

In effect, Knox was undergoing a certain cognitive dissonance at around this time (5th-10th November). She had been convinced by the police that Lumumba had killed Meredith, and she truly believed this to be the case (she naively believed the police when they said they had solid evidence showing that Lumumba was the culprit). Yet she now found herself in the position of "helping" Lumumba's defence by recanting her statements from 1.45am and 5.45am on the 6th, in which she'd added to what she believed was the growing body of evidence against Lumumba. She needed to make it clear that in fact she hadn't met with Lumumba that evening and gone with him to the cottage, but rather she was now certain that she was at Sollecito's apartment all night. Yet she clearly didn't want to suggest that Lumumba wasn't the culprit, because she believed at this point that he was the culprit. I think that the two subsequent Knox statements from later on the 6th and the 7th clearly demonstrate this progression, and I believe that they clearly comprise retractions of Knox's previous written statements.

All of this makes me highly confident that Knox has a strong case to appeal the Lumumba slander charge: everything taken as a whole indicates that a) Knox did not have the requisite mens rea for the crime, and b) she retracted and corrected the statements at the earliest reasonable opportunity (in a way that is also wholly consistent with the lack of mens rea in the original act).

 

[Rolfe]

But at this point, I think it's vitally important to remember one thing: Knox had almost certainly been led to believe by the police that Lumumba was indeed the murderer. Therefore she was unwilling and unable to make an assertion along the lines of "Patrick did not kill Meredith", since as far as she was aware that that time the police had solid evidence showing that Lumumba was indeed the killer.

Yet she clearly didn't want to suggest that Lumumba wasn't the culprit, because she believed at this point that he was the culprit.

I think that's a very important general point was regards witness evidence. How often does a witness present themselves as much more sure than they in fact are, due to a desire not to damage the police case against someone they have been led to believe is known to be guilty?

This was an important consideration in the Lockerbie trial also. Much has been made recently of the fact that the Gauci brothers were paid $3 million for Tony Gauci having given very tentative evidence saying Megrahi "resembled" the man who had bought clothes from him ten years previously. I feel that's a red herring, because it makes it appear that the identification was sound, and is merely tainted by the US DoJ having been careless enough to bribe the witness with eye-watering quantities of cash. In fact it's blindlingly obvious that by 1999 Tony Gauci had no useful memory of a man he saw once for maybe 20 minutes one rainy evening in 1988. What stopped him from saying so, honestly, was in my opinion not so much the prospect of the cash, but the fact that the police had convinced him they needed his evidence to convict this "bad man".

A witness who doesn't have useful or reliable information should of course say so clearly. But how often does subtle police pressure come to bear? We know this is the guy, but he might walk if you can't identify him. How many people would have the courage to go into court and say, sorry I don't know whether this was the man or not, under these circumstances?

Rolfe.

 

[RoseMontague]

The Italian version of Wikipedia is very misleading on this case.

http://translate.google.com/transla...8QFjAC&usg=AFQjCNH8nhaucNn9uM3yLl2oHt_McbM_yg

ETA direct link it.wiki article

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omicidio_di_Meredith_Kercher

 

[pilot padron]

Oh dear

I guess it would be hilarious were they not so serious. I think they seriously believe that the body language is proof positive that he knows she is guilty as sin. Malkmus, please tell me why this is funny?

In other words....Lets play Dr Phil (again) and try to spin this to show innocence (again)

 

[pilot padron]

Thanks for the bolding

We're going to have a dandy debate on the meaning of the word "fully".

On Nov 6 in her own hand she writes, "I also know that the fact that I can't fully recall the events that I claim took place at Raffaele's home during the time that Meredith was murdered is incriminating. And I stand by my statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place in my home with Patrik, but I want to make very clear that these events seem more unreal to me that what I said before, that I stayed at Raffaele's house."

I would not call that "fully" withdrawing anything. If anything it adds to the confusion.

I repeat, though, this is not entirely of her making. The police bear responsibility, as does her marijuana use on the night of Nov 1.

I'll give her points for honesty, she adds in the Nov 6 handwritten note something that actually describes the situation as it existed then, "I'm very confused at this time. My head is full of contrasting ideas and I know I can be frustrating to work with for this reason. But I also want to tell the truth as best I can. Everything I have said in regards to my involvement in Meredith's death, even though it is contrasting, are the best truth that I have been able to think."

Especially that last line you emphasize for me further with underlining:
"Everything I have said in regards to my involvement in Meredith's death, even though it is contrasting, are the best truth that I have been able to think."

IMHO, it is just priceless. It says soooooo much.

Right up there with Clark Gables's Gone With the Wind line: "Frankly my dear, I do not give a damn"
Or Humphrey Bogart's Casablanca line: "Play it again Sam"

Maybe Patrick Lumumba also was thinking along those lines when he said this about Amanda:
1) "She is the best actress in the world"
2) "She has no soul"

 

[Chris_Halkides]

unarmed suspects

Another person beaten by Italian cops dead:

http://translate.google.com/transla...4QFjAC&usg=AFQjCNHJNqoobdoPCKA-NxX6tUAqOj2fuA

Also Stefano Cucchi, Gabriele Sandri, e Federico Aldrovandi. How many have to die before something is done?

RoseMontague,

Aldrovandi was not alleged to have any weapon, to the best of my knowledge. I doubt the others had weapons, either. If a police force cannot or will not take unarmed suspects into custody without harming them, something is terribly wrong. Amnesty International probably is on the right track to note the lack of an accountability mechanism.

 

[HumanityBlues]

In other words....Lets play Dr Phil (again) and try to spin this to show innocence (again)

Good one Pilot. You really nailed it.

 

[HumanityBlues]

Especially that last line you emphasize for me further with underlining:
"Everything I have said in regards to my involvement in Meredith's death, even though it is contrasting, are the best truth that I have been able to think."

IMHO, it is just priceless. It says soooooo much.

Right up there with Clark Gables's Gone With the Wind line: "Frankly my dear, I do not give a damn"
Or Humphrey Bogart's Casablanca line: "Play it again Sam"

Maybe Patrick Lumumba also was thinking along those lines when he said this about Amanda:
1) "She is the best actress in the world"
2) "She has no soul"

A fine assessment Pilot. You really help add clarity as well with your helpful underlining. Much appreciated.

And the Casa Blanca reference? Priceless. You are a peach Pilot. A real peach.

 

[RoseMontague]

Especially that last line you emphasize for me further with underlining:
"Everything I have said in regards to my involvement in Meredith's death, even though it is contrasting, are the best truth that I have been able to think."

IMHO, it is just priceless. It says soooooo much.

Right up there with Clark Gables's Gone With the Wind line: "Frankly my dear, I do not give a damn"
Or Humphrey Bogart's Casablanca line: "Play it again Sam"

Maybe Patrick Lumumba also was thinking along those lines when he said this about Amanda:
1) "She is the best actress in the world"
2) "She has no soul"

I think he was simply thinking about money.

BTW, what do you think of that dark, deep claw mark? Bear or Mountain Lion would be my guess.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

The beginning of a beautiful friendship

Or Humphrey Bogart's Casablanca line: "Play it again Sam"

pilot padron,

Bogart did not say, "Play it again Sam." IIRC Ingrid Bergman said, "Play it Sam." Perhaps there are other aspects of this case you should also reconsider as time goes by.