First and foremost, AK should have lawyered up. Sometimes people criticize the other flatmates for so doing seeing "lawyering up" as a sign of something sinister lurking in the weeds.
Truth is, AK should have lawyered up. The issue is not how I would have worded it - I fully concede that if I had been there enduring what AK endured I would have made the same mistakes: except that I would have lawyered up.
Amanda stated in testimony that she requested a lawyer during questioning and was denied. Machiavelli has told us that under the Italian system she was not entitled to a lawyer until after she was officially a suspect, which according to him did not happen until they pressured her into making the statements she would later retract.
Being a vulnerable 20-year old from a foreign country is, excuse me for saying it, not an excuse as much as that is true.
Excuse me for saying this, but
innocence is and always should be an excuse. There is no excuse for the law enforcement behaving as indicated. I agree that it would have been wiser for her to be wiser, but she wasn't and she was treated wrongly. Law exists to protect those who cannot protect themselves from the aggression of others, and to correct the balance when those boundaries are passed. Amanda deserved better from those whose job it was to protect and serve justice. You deserve better. I deserve better. Even a hardened criminal deserves better.
A lawyer would not have allowed AK to write this: "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 agree. However she was not afforded a lawyer at that point, even though when she wrote that statement she was already being detained against her will and had been for several hours. Her request for a lawyer didn't magically disappear between when she asked for one and when she wrote the statement. The fact that she supposedly was in some legal grey area according to Machiavelli does not change this. Even if she had been guilty, there is no excuse for being held against ones will and subjected to the techniques she described being subjected to in the quasi-suspect but not entitled to lawyer legal position. I tend to subscribe to the idea that this is in fact not the way the legal system is intended to function, but I will grant to Mach due to his much closer knowledge of how Italy does things, that this is the way it is done, even if it is a broken system.
In 20/20 hindsight both you and I know what's going on here, but at the time this is equivocating and unclear.
This is not in fact equivocating. Equivocating is intentionally trading on the ambiguity of a word or concept that has two meanings, such as confusing public interest in a trial with the trial being in the public interest. It is unclear superficially, and should be treated as such. The realization that she has two contrasting views, one of which seems more real to her is clearly expressed, and she states as well that she does not believe she can be used to condemn anyone, further underscoring her confused state of mind. The inability to articulate something due to inexperience is not the same as intentionally misleading or trying to cover up a discrepancy. This is all that's needed to see that she did not lie, and did not slander.
Even Amanda gives them ammunition to distrust her words: 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." (Underlining is done by me for emphasis, not part of the original.)
Amanda is saying everything, not just the one thing that innocenters say is the reality (only knowable in 20/20 hindsight).
Amanda is really saying nothing of value here, except that she is trying her best to do what she believes is right. She is saying "I know what I said is contrasting, but it is the best I can do at being honest now." She recognizes that her statements have no consistency at that point, but is still adhering to a principle of honesty. This is a quality that one should be praised for, not convicted for.
So how would I have worded it? Knowing what I know now with my own 20/20 hindsight I would have clammed up and not said a thing. Her explanations in the Nov 6th and 7th missives only confused matters all the more.
This is a case of damned if you do damned if you don't and I really don't think any one of us knows exactly what we would have done in her shoes. From what I have been able to glean, she is obsessive about writing her way through difficult situations. There is nothing criminal about this, even if it leads to a bunch of rubbish and confusing statements. Being human, she did not have the luxury of 20/20 hindsight until afterwards, so her attempts to clarify are a reasonable and honest way of approaching the situation she was in.
She needed a lawyer to guide her through this.
Agreed 100%. She was however denied one when she asked. Hiring one before this all went down is a coulda shoulda woulda hindsight kinda thing.
It's the reason why I say she's convictable but not sentencable. I bow to others who know Italian law better than I (I know nothing about Italian law!), but if it were my court and my rules, I'd convict her to make a statement, but not sentence her because of all the stuff that garden variety innocenters bring to this debate.
Huh? There is no such thing as a conviction without a sentence. That's like saying a bank account without a balance. If something is criminally convictable, a crime has to have taken place, perpetrated by the the one convicted. Having the sentence suspended or made light does not change that a conviction by itself is a sentence. It does not make a statement to say "you're guilty, but I'm gonna let you go." Especially when she is in a situation that she bears no responsibility for. Lets look at all the points where this could have stopped short of a conviction:
0. If Amanda had lawyered up and fled the country. However, by and large, only those who believe they should fear law enforcement flee. Thus Amanda, having no culpability would have no valid reason to lawyer up and leave. Saying she should have done that is tacitly admitting that the law enforcement is failing at its primary duty to protect the innocent and serve justice.
1. If Investigators relied on actual evidence before making judgments in regards to her complicity in the matter. Had they not believed they had the ability to discern guilt from socially awkward behavior, they would not have focused on her in the first place.
2. If Investigators waited for actual evidence to be analyzed before deciding to try to break the alibi's of the two. Had they done this they would have fingered Guede rather than Patrick in the interogation, and most likely Amanda would not have been able to generate flashes of seeing him. Even if she had, they would have had actual evidence, not confused dreamlike statements with which to hold him, and there would be no reason for them to focus back on her.
3. If Investigators had decided to check for alibi's for Patrick before arresting him, and held the statements Amanda made to the police in her attempts to help solve the crime in check until they could be verified. Patrick would have suffered no damages, and there would have been no cause for conviction.
There are 4 points at which the train could have been stopped. One requires a world-wise Amanda to take actions that while prudent, are not required for her to be innocent and blameless. Three require Law Enforcement to do their job. I don't see how you can argue that any of this leads to the view that Amanda should face conviction for her statements.
Suppose it is against the law to yell fire in a crowded theatre with the intent to cause mischief. Someone tells you that they have seen fire, and ask you to raise the alarm. You're not sure whether you smell smoke, but they tell you maybe you just don't remember what smoke smells like, that that smell you're pretty sure is popcorn is too burned to be popcorn. You start imagining and pretty soon you can smell it, you're not 100% sure that it's from fire, but you're worried if you don't raise the alarm, people will die. The person who tells you they saw the fire is someone whom you've been raised to trust on that issue due to their being a fire marshal. So you say, "I think I may smell smoke, so its possible that there is a fire" to the person next to you. Gotcha! You're now convictable for the crime of yelling fire in a crowded theatre! Where's the justice in that? And to support that conviction, we have you stating, "I didn't lie when I said I thought it was possible that there was a fire. But now I know that I can't have known whether or not there was a fire, because I remember that I really smelled only popcorn instead." See, you're a liar! You stated that you didn't lie when you confused the popcorn smell with smoke, so you're a liar! You must therefore be guilty of the malicious crime of yelling fire in a crowded theatre. (We'll drop the arson charges because we've determined that there was no arson.)
I agree that AK is a victim of her own innocence. I can't remember who wrote it, but innocent people mistakenly believe that their innocence is a shield. That reasonable people will somehow be able to intuit it. Amanda was naively trying to be helpful and it backfired in the worst way imaginable.
It's not guilty people who need lawyers, it's the innocent ones.
But the law is the law is the law, and needs to be administered evenly - naivety is not an excuse.
Naivety is not a crime either. Nor should one be held in anyway accountable for officers of the law exploiting one's naivety and honesty to further their own careers, and abusing one's trust in them, inflicting harm to others in one's name.
Furthermore, law without interpretation is meaningless. Law is not concrete. There are specific principles, but law itself is constantly changing due to different interpretations of different judges. It is not unreasonable to argue that the application of a law should be tempered by an understanding of the intent behind the law, and the appropriateness and justifiability of applying it to the situation. In this case, it is reasonable to argue that Amanda was not the cause of the accusation against Patrick, because she did not suggest it. Furthermore, the language of the statements that were admissible in court on the criminal proceedings made it clear that Amanda was not sure whether or not and to what degree Patrick was involved, thus was not actually stating that he had committed the crime. The other two statements, not being written in her hand, and not being written in her native fluent tongue at the time, cannot be accurately ascribed to her, and since they were ruled inadmissible by the supreme court due to being improperly obtained, should not have been considered in the criminal slander case. They were brought into the evidence by a technicality because the civil damages case was tried concurrently with the criminal case. Amanda therefore was not convictable for slander due to the fact that the statements that were admissible for the criminal portion of the trial/appeal did not clearly state that she knew with any degree of certainty that Patrick was the killer, furthermore, they clearly stated the opposite.
By this reasoning, which Hellmann did not choose to pursue, there was no criminal defamation. Patrick should instead have gone after the police for defamation for their actions in addition to wrongful imprisonment, and abuse of office charges should be levied against whoever kept his establishment closed for long enough to cause him financial hardship after his release.
Remember, murder is not murder if there was not intent to kill. It is manslaughter at best if the intent is lacking. Slander is not slander if there is no intent behind it. Especially if she is not the originator of the statement, but was instead pressured by law enforcement to come up with a meaningless and confusing dream that might have indicated someone was the murderer, but seams less real than what that person originally stated and still believes, that she has no clue.
Now that I've argued why she's not convictable, I'll attempt to construct the reasoning for the conviction: Amanda has served 4 years, but rather than admit that justice is flawed in Italy, it would be better to establish that she partially deserved the 4 years. After all, it has been intimated, and given my knowledge of human nature, I have no reason to doubt, that there is a level of pride and camaraderie between judges, and therefore a bone needed to be tossed. So to back this up in his motivations, my guess is that Hellmann will follow the following reasoning.
1. While Amanda did make the first two statments under duress, and they are not admissible, they are admissible in as much as she refers to them in her second two (voluntary) statements. Thus we are left with Patrick may have killed Meridith. Italy does not seem to have the same concept as the US regarding the need to discard evidence that has been gathered through illegal means to discourage police from using illegal means - thus the fruit of the illegal interrogation (the attempts made by Amanda naively to clarify what would not have been necessary to clarify had the first interrogation been conducted legally) are accepted as grounds for the slanderous statement.
2. Hellmann will not follow the line of reasoning that Amanda was retracting in her second statement when she said she could not have known who was the murderer - instead he will focus on her statement that she was not lying when she said he might be involved. This will confirm that Amanda was at the time implicating Patrick.
3. Hellmann will not note in his motivations that police should have adequately checked Patrick's alibi prior to arresting him given the flimsiness of the statements used.
4. Instead, he will note Amanda's statements of guilt in other testimony/overheard conversations/letters/wherever (forgot exactly where this came in) where she expresses feeling bad that Patrick was being held on account of her. This will establish that to feel guilt for an action, one must feel responsible, and if she feels responsible, she must have known that her statements would result in this outcome.
5. Thus, she made statements that damaged the good reputation of a good man knowing that those statements might lead to a loss of reputation, without regard for that loss of reputation. Those statements turned out to be false, thus she was responsible and accepted guilt for the result of the statements. 3 years.
Legally, both points of view are reasonably robust interpretations of law given the evidence that is considered, and where the inspiration for each turn is taken. However, I believe that the scenario I outlined that I think Hellmann will follow to uphold this conviction misses the spirit of what law is intended to accomplish, and that the responsibility for Patrick's problems lies with the Perugian law enforcement and not with Amanda. Thus justice and law requires that she not be convicted or sentenced for this.
<---first emoticon use on this board fyi.
