Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Moss]

The cynic might note that this seems less a discussion of the case as a beatification project for Santa Amanda of Seattle. Let's just say it tickles me funny that Amanda does get the "naive innocent" spin while days before there seemed to an impetus to not make the victim out as anything other than a flesh and blood human, noting among other things that her boyfriend was a pot dealer. I think we should extend the same courtesy, if it is indeed one, to Amanda Knox and not fall into the trap of "either innocent or whore".
It still irks me that people declare that "obviously" the police must have suggested Patrick to her. I still see the distinct possibility that she may have offered him herself to get out of the interrogation. People have been known to do stupid things under pressure. Why she would be the exception to that I do not know.
That does not imply that she was complicit in the murder. I see no evidence for that anymore.

 

[bookworm]

"knowingly provide false information" means you know the information you provide is false. It's true that if she was not there she couldn't possibly know who was, but that doesn't mean she can't tell the police who was there, knowing that it's false information because she really doesn't know..

In that case, though, I wouldn't agree that she's still knowingly providing false information, I would say that's more like "not knowingly true." She's telling them something that she doesn't KNOW to be true not something that she KNOWS to be untrue.

 

[Grinder]

The cynic might note that this seems less a discussion of the case as a beatification project for Santa Amanda of Seattle. Let's just say it tickles me funny that Amanda does get the "naive innocent" spin while days before there seemed to an impetus to not make the victim out as anything other than a flesh and blood human, noting among other things that her boyfriend was a pot dealer. I think we should extend the same courtesy, if it is indeed one, to Amanda Knox and not fall into the trap of "either innocent or whore".
It still irks me that people declare that "obviously" the police must have suggested Patrick to her. I still see the distinct possibility that she may have offered him herself to get out of the interrogation. People have been known to do stupid things under pressure. Why she would be the exception to that I do not know.
That does not imply that she was complicit in the murder. I see no evidence for that anymore.

Innocent and naive is not the same as saintly and perfect which is how Meredith description has evolved into.

Well for me it's obviously because the police declared the next day that they questioned her until she buckled and told us what we knew to be correct.

Since it wasn't correct the only way to believe that the police didn't suggest Patrick is that she just happened to tell what they believed to be what had happened.

If that wasn't enough when you read the "accusation" that resulted in police cars careening through Perugia to arrest Patrick, it is difficult to believe that statement was enough for the arrest unless they had ii in their minds before she spoke.

 

[Moss]

I honestly fail to see the distinction you try to make here in practice. Trying to dismantle one icon of the case while building the next is... funny.
Witchcraft trials. There is always the possibility that the person tries to anticipate what the interrogator wants to hear.
The same goes for the official police spin on that story: "we knew all along that it was this way!" is pretty easy to say after the fact and does not have to relate in any way things were before.
If she had accused anyone else, someone the police may have not expected to crop up, do you think there would have been a difference in what happened after that accusation?

 

[Grinder]

FACTS:
1) Wasn't it an innocence poster that just said recently that discussing this case was so terribly.......stressfulthat they were going to discuss it less?

Misdirection

2) Frank Sfarzo immediately deletes any and all comments he does not like.
He has done this from day one and still does.

That's just a lie.

3) Sfarzo decided to moderate his blog for many, many more reasons than what you state in your usual bash PMF chorus.

Never said anything about P** but no he moderated because of hostile posts by gnats.

4) Frank Sfarzo has altered several practices of his since he was shut down.

Huh??

5) The persistent, tireless efforts of FOAKers caused editors who pleaded for a small measure of objectivity at Wikipedia to finally retire in disgust.
As a result, everything there, from the title on down, now is heavily pro Knox

Well, she's been found innocent.

6) As pointed out probably thousands of times here and elsewhere, unsavory stalking and messages to workplace are not only from the PMF side.
Most acknowledge that both sides have some actions to be ashamed of.

There is no question that the PG sites took great pleasure in outing people and organizing email campaigns to people's employers. Much later IIP or FOA revealed the names of a couple of P** poser, but I don't recall any requests for mass emails to their employers.

But again again your well worn, bash only PMF chorus plays well to your echo chamber here today.
Such refrains always gets some simpleton applause from the HUGE majority.

If the shoe fits wear it.

 

[LondonJohn]

I personally tend to think that since she was acquitted of the murder that would logically say that she was not there. Therefore, how could she know who WAS there? What follows that is how could she have "knowingly" provided false information if she didn't know who was there? However, she could still "provide false information" without knowing who was there. I don't understand how Machiavelli doesn't understand this.......

No: Machiavelli does in fact have a point in this particular instance. One doesn't need to have firm knowledge about who committed a crime in order to make a criminally (in Italian law) slanderous accusation against another regarding the crime.

For example, let's suppose that Mr A lived in Perugia at the time of the murder, and that he had a grudge against his neighbour, Mr B. Suppose that neither Mr A nor Mr B had any involvement in Meredith's murder. But suppose that Mr A was fuelled by his grudge to walk into a police station on the 3rd November and tell the duty officer that Mr B was the murderer. Once it was (hopefully, but you never can tell in Perugia it seems) established that Mr B had nothing to do with the murder, Mr A could - and probably would - be charged with calunnia.

This, in many ways, is the situation that Knox currently finds herself in. Just because she's been acquitted of the murder - even if she has been acquitted on grounds of innocence rather than reasonable doubt - this doesn't mean that she can't have knowingly made a false accusation against Lumumba. In other words, the law treats ignorance of the real perpetrator as equivalent to knowledge of the real perpetrator when it comes to making false accusations. Indeed, there need not even have been a real crime at all. Imagine if tomorrow Mr A walked into a Perugia police station and told the duty officer that he had just seen Mr B punch his wife hard in the face (which would be a criminal act of common assault or worse in most jurisdictions). If the police investigated and found that Mrs B had no marks on her face or any other part of her body that were consistent with punching or other forms of assault, then Mr A could similarly be charged with calunnia.

So - in contrast with the views of many (including, ironically, Machiavelli himself) who assert that the acquittal on the murder charge is incompatible with the Lumumba slander guilty verdict, these two position are actually entirely mutually supportable. Here's why: suppose - probably correctly - that Knox had nothing to do with the murder, and also that she had no accurate knowledge of who the real perpetrator was by the night of November 5th 2007. It's possible that the police were putting under a lot of pressure, and that Knox felt that the police were turning their attention increasingly towards a suspicion of her. So it's entirely possible, that under such circumstances, Knox might have spontaneously decided to "get the police off her back" by making a spurious accusation against Lumumba - when she had no idea whether or not Lumumba was involved. In such a scenario, Knox's accusation of Lumumba would absolutely definitely be a criminal act of slander under Italian law.

However, while I've outlined above the circumstances whereby Knox could factually have committed a criminal slander, I must stress very strongly that I don't believe that this is what actually occurred. I don't think that Knox committed a criminal act as defined in Italian law when she made the accusation against Lumumba: I think she was unlawfully coerced by the police into making the accusation, and that she effectively retracted the accusation within a reasonable period (given that she was under arrest and in police/prison custody from the moment of the first accusation). I don't think that the court can prove the requisite mens rea for the crime. And I also believe that there was a major judicial error when the first trial judge (Massei) ruled that the calunnia charge could be tried concurrent with the murder charge. I think that if Knox appeals the calunnia verdict, she will very possibly get a retrial on this charge, and that she may then very possibly get an acquittal in the retrial.

 

[Antony]

The cynic might note that this seems less a discussion of the case as a beatification project for Santa Amanda of Seattle. Let's just say it tickles me funny that Amanda does get the "naive innocent" spin while days before there seemed to an impetus to not make the victim out as anything other than a flesh and blood human, noting among other things that her boyfriend was a pot dealer. I think we should extend the same courtesy, if it is indeed one, to Amanda Knox and not fall into the trap of "either innocent or whore".
It still irks me that people declare that "obviously" the police must have suggested Patrick to her. I still see the distinct possibility that she may have offered him herself to get out of the interrogation. People have been known to do stupid things under pressure. Why she would be the exception to that I do not know.
That does not imply that she was complicit in the murder. I see no evidence for that anymore.

There are several reasons for believing that the police fed the idea of the murderer being Patrick to Amanda:

1. the fact that the interrogation went on all night;
2. the legally-required recording tape of the interrogation was either not made, or was destroyed or has been withheld by the police;
3. the next day, police chief Arturo de Felice went on record: "she buckled and gave a version of the facts we knew to be correct";
4. the implausible police accounts of the interrogation.

Most importantly, these are the kind of circumstances where the police have the power to make their victim say whatever they choose. Police do not organise this kind of "interrogation" in the course of an evidence-driven investigation.

 

[Osterwelle]

It still irks me that people declare that "obviously" the police must have suggested Patrick to her. I still see the distinct possibility that she may have offered him herself to get out of the interrogation.

This is of course a possibility, but I think it's very unlikely for the following reasons:

a) If she had accused him to get out of the interrogation she just could've told so later instead of writing about weired imaginations and stuff which causes even more confusion. Her lawyers would certainly have told her so.

b) Patrick was one of the least suitable candidates. He works in his bar until
late and Amanda knew that very well, so why accuse him and not anybody else or - even better - a fake person they won't find anyway. Anything would've made more sense than naming the only person (except Raffaele) from whom she must've suspected to have an alibi.

c) Her SMS to Patrick was in her mobile and (according to her testimony) found by the police. The theory that this SMS and the confusion with the "See you later" expression caused the police to "go for" Patrick is imho the most likely explanation for him to be involved at all.

It would be interesting to know if the police did confirm that they found the SMS before Amanda named Patrick somewhere in the trial. Does anybody know?

-
Osterwelle

 

[Malkmus]

There are several reasons for believing that the police fed the idea of the murderer being Patrick to Amanda:

1. the fact that the interrogation went on all night;
2. the legally-required recording tape of the interrogation was either not made, or was destroyed or has been withheld by the police;
3. the next day, police chief Arturo de Felice went on record: "she buckled and gave a version of the facts we knew to be correct";
4. the implausible police accounts of the interrogation.

Most importantly, these are the kind of circumstances where the police have the power to make their victim say whatever they choose. Police do not organise this kind of "interrogation" in the course of an evidence-driven investigation.

There reason Patrick was brought into the equation seems pretty clear. Both the prosecution and Amanda admit that he first came up during the "Who did you send this text to?" part of the interrogation. The only disagreement seems to be over who physically spoke his name first. Mignini seems to think that because Amanda said his name first that it absolves the police from being responsible for his false arrest.

 

[LondonJohn]

The cynic might note that this seems less a discussion of the case as a beatification project for Santa Amanda of Seattle. Let's just say it tickles me funny that Amanda does get the "naive innocent" spin while days before there seemed to an impetus to not make the victim out as anything other than a flesh and blood human, noting among other things that her boyfriend was a pot dealer. I think we should extend the same courtesy, if it is indeed one, to Amanda Knox and not fall into the trap of "either innocent or whore".
It still irks me that people declare that "obviously" the police must have suggested Patrick to her. I still see the distinct possibility that she may have offered him herself to get out of the interrogation. People have been known to do stupid things under pressure. Why she would be the exception to that I do not know.
That does not imply that she was complicit in the murder. I see no evidence for that anymore.

In short, there are two major pieces of evidence that point objectively towards the police being not only the ones who brought Lumumba into the picture during the interrogation, but also the ones who had the supposition that Lumumba was the real murderer.

The first is that the police had checked Knox's mobile phone and found the infamous text message from her to Lumumba on the night of the murder. The police - as per their own testimony - came to the firm (but incorrect) conclusion that the text message indicated that Knox had made plans to meet up with Lumumba on the night of the murder, and from that they concluded that Lumumba had to have been involved in the murder.

The second is the equally-infamous remark made by Perugia police chief Arturo de Felice in the triumphalist "case closed" police press conference the following morning, 6th November. De Felice stated that:

"Initially the American (Knox) gave a version of events we knew was not correct. She buckled and made an admission of facts we knew were correct and from that we were able to bring them in. They all participated but had different roles."

There can only be two ways to interpret this statement: a) De Felice is lying or embellishing the facts - not a great trait for the Chief of Police; or b) the police "knew" that Lumumba, Knox and Sollecito were the culprits before Knox made her "confession/accusation". If it's the latter (and I have little doubt that it's the latter), then how extraordinarily coincidental would it have been for Knox to name Lumumba totally of her own free will "out of a clear blue sky"?

When you add to these two inarguable pieces of evidence the fact that Knox herself has always asserted that the police essentially coerced her into naming Lumumba (although I would of course realise that this is potentially unreliable and self-serving), I think any reasonable person would have to conclude that the strong likelihood is something along the following lines: the police leaped on the text message; they confronted Knox about it; they told her that this "confirmed" their theory that she'd met with Lumumba that night and gone with him to the cottage; that they "knew" that Lumumba was the killer; that Knox probably couldn't remember this "truth" because she had some form of traumatic amnesia*; that all of this, plus probably some mild physical assault, drove Knox to "buckle" (De Felice's charming description) and essentially confirm the story that the police had already put to her.


* which itself is supported by the court testimony of the police interpreter, who stated that she had (improperly) helped to convince Knox of the phenomenon of traumatic amnesia by telling her (Knox) that she (the interpreter) had suffered this phenomenon when she had broken her leg some years earlier.

 

[LondonJohn]

Stilicho on trainwreck.org:

The Boise State Hampikian is a paid stooge who has sullied the reputation of the Idado Innocence Project by linking it to the Meredith Kercher case and Rafay/Burns. It was after vigorous complaints to BSU administration, Idaho news outlets, and the main Innocence Project that the Idaho version dropped these two cases from its web site

The front page of the Idaho Innocence Project website, as of today (17th November):

Amanda Knox: As part our its International Innocence program, the Idaho Innocence Project has assisted Amanda Knox on DNA analysis in her defense and appeal.

http://innocenceproject.boisestate.edu/

Looks like those "vigorous complaints to BSU administration, Idaho news outlets, and the main Innocence Project" were ineffectual, and that they were nothing more than the strange, bitter, vindictive, obsessive acts of a small had core of disturbed individuals, eh Stilicho.......?

 

[Malkmus]

Stilicho on trainwreck.org:



The front page of the Idaho Innocence Project website, as of today (17th November):



http://innocenceproject.boisestate.edu/

Looks like those "vigorous complaints to BSU administration, Idaho news outlets, and the main Innocence Project" were ineffectual, and that they were nothing more than the strange, bitter, vindictive, obsessive acts of a small had core of disturbed individuals, eh Stilicho.......?

It even says "Idaho Innocence Projects helps free Amanda Knox", right there.

I'd love to know what the "vigorous complaints" were actually complaining about.

 

[bookworm]

The cynic might note that this seems less a discussion of the case as a beatification project for Santa Amanda of Seattle. Let's just say it tickles me funny that Amanda does get the "naive innocent" spin while days before there seemed to an impetus to not make the victim out as anything other than a flesh and blood human, noting among other things that her boyfriend was a pot dealer. I think we should extend the same courtesy, if it is indeed one, to Amanda Knox and not fall into the trap of "either innocent or whore".
It still irks me that people declare that "obviously" the police must have suggested Patrick to her. I still see the distinct possibility that she may have offered him herself to get out of the interrogation. People have been known to do stupid things under pressure. Why she would be the exception to that I do not know.
That does not imply that she was complicit in the murder. I see no evidence for that anymore.

I agree with you Moss, I think alot of people, including myself, are afraid to just let go because there is still so much hate and vilification going on out there. I realize that this is here and that is there but I think people just still feel a need to defend Amanda and Raffaele from all the nasty stuff and lies that is still being spread about them.

I have visited PMF and TJMK myself and there is definitely no room for discussion there so people still want to find a place to present both sides of the story for anyone who is still looking for answers. Unfortunately, for the people who are tired of it, it looks like this is one of the places to do it. I myself, just found this forum and I haven't seen any real interaction anywhere between the pro-innocence and pro-guilt people. I was really hoping to find that here because I am still interested in finding out why people can still think they are guilty.

I suppose though, that after 4 years, there is not much real discussion to be had. Hence the glorification of Amanda, here and elsewhere, and also from what I've seen, the glorification of Meredith, elsewhere - I haven't been here long enough to know if that happens here at all. To be fair though, Meredith has been made out to be a Saint for quite a long time now and that is not true either.

 

[bookworm]

No: Machiavelli does in fact have a point in this particular instance. One doesn't need to have firm knowledge about who committed a crime in order to make a criminally (in Italian law) slanderous accusation against another regarding the crime.

For example, let's suppose that Mr A lived in Perugia at the time of the murder, and that he had a grudge against his neighbour, Mr B. Suppose that neither Mr A nor Mr B had any involvement in Meredith's murder. But suppose that Mr A was fuelled by his grudge to walk into a police station on the 3rd November and tell the duty officer that Mr B was the murderer. Once it was (hopefully, but you never can tell in Perugia it seems) established that Mr B had nothing to do with the murder, Mr A could - and probably would - be charged with calunnia.

This, in many ways, is the situation that Knox currently finds herself in. Just because she's been acquitted of the murder - even if she has been acquitted on grounds of innocence rather than reasonable doubt - this doesn't mean that she can't have knowingly made a false accusation against Lumumba. In other words, the law treats ignorance of the real perpetrator as equivalent to knowledge of the real perpetrator when it comes to making false accusations. Indeed, there need not even have been a real crime at all. Imagine if tomorrow Mr A walked into a Perugia police station and told the duty officer that he had just seen Mr B punch his wife hard in the face (which would be a criminal act of common assault or worse in most jurisdictions). If the police investigated and found that Mrs B had no marks on her face or any other part of her body that were consistent with punching or other forms of assault, then Mr A could similarly be charged with calunnia.

So - in contrast with the views of many (including, ironically, Machiavelli himself) who assert that the acquittal on the murder charge is incompatible with the Lumumba slander guilty verdict, these two position are actually entirely mutually supportable. Here's why: suppose - probably correctly - that Knox had nothing to do with the murder, and also that she had no accurate knowledge of who the real perpetrator was by the night of November 5th 2007. It's possible that the police were putting under a lot of pressure, and that Knox felt that the police were turning their attention increasingly towards a suspicion of her. So it's entirely possible, that under such circumstances, Knox might have spontaneously decided to "get the police off her back" by making a spurious accusation against Lumumba - when she had no idea whether or not Lumumba was involved. In such a scenario, Knox's accusation of Lumumba would absolutely definitely be a criminal act of slander under Italian law.

However, while I've outlined above the circumstances whereby Knox could factually have committed a criminal slander, I must stress very strongly that I don't believe that this is what actually occurred. I don't think that Knox committed a criminal act as defined in Italian law when she made the accusation against Lumumba: I think she was unlawfully coerced by the police into making the accusation, and that she effectively retracted the accusation within a reasonable period (given that she was under arrest and in police/prison custody from the moment of the first accusation). I don't think that the court can prove the requisite mens rea for the crime. And I also believe that there was a major judicial error when the first trial judge (Massei) ruled that the calunnia charge could be tried concurrent with the murder charge. I think that if Knox appeals the calunnia verdict, she will very possibly get a retrial on this charge, and that she may then very possibly get an acquittal in the retrial.

I understand everything you've just said and I absolutely agree also. I didn't realize that the law was a little different on the matter from the US. What it boils down to is the matter of malice and intention. I think if there were to be a new trial and the circumstances were to come out they would find Amanda innocent because IMO there was no malice or intention to harm Lumumba.

 

[Rolfe]

I suppose though, that after 4 years, there is not much real discussion to be had. Hence the glorification of Amanda, here and elsewhere, and also from what I've seen, the glorification of Meredith, elsewhere - I haven't been here long enough to know if that happens here at all. To be fair though, Meredith has been made out to be a Saint for quite a long time now and that is not true either.

Someone called Amanda a gormless git, and that seemed to me to get pretty close to it.

Fortunately for Amanda, she gets to grow up and learn better and become a mature adult. But the sad fact that Meredith didn't get to do that doesn't make her a saint.

Rolfe.

 

[Matthew Best]

Stilicho on trainwreck.org:

I hope that the poster called "Stilicho" who posts on trainwreck.org is not related to the member called Stilicho we have here. Of course there's no way of knowing whether he/she is or isn't. However, it appears that the Stilicho who posts on trainwreck.org is either lying or stupid.

Why else would he/she post something that is so obviously incorrect?

 

[bookworm]

Stilicho on trainwreck.org:



The front page of the Idaho Innocence Project website, as of today (17th November):



Looks like those "vigorous complaints to BSU administration, Idaho news outlets, and the main Innocence Project" were ineffectual, and that they were nothing more than the strange, bitter, vindictive, obsessive acts of a small had core of disturbed individuals, eh Stilicho.......?

This is a perfect example of what I just posted to Moss! Why do these people feel the need for the outright lies? It's so hypocritical the way they are on Amanda like flies on **** saying she lies and they are lying through their teeth left and right! This is exactly why pro-innocence people feel the need to keep hanging on and defending them.

Edited by jhunter1163: 

Edited for Rule 10. Do not attempt to bypass the autocensor.

 

[bookworm]

Someone called Amanda a gormless git, and that seemed to me to get pretty close to it.

Fortunately for Amanda, she gets to grow up and learn better and become a mature adult. But the sad fact that Meredith didn't get to do that doesn't make her a saint.

Rolfe.

It's terribly sad that Meredith's life was taken from her so horribly. I'm still hoping that the pro-guilt side will give up on the Amanda-bashing and start trying to honestly and truly look at the real evidence so Meredith's family can accept what really happened here and move on. The ultimate ending, of course, would be for the Perugia prosecutions tactics to be laid bare for all to see.

 

[Dougm]

Doug I must respectfully disagree. I never agreed with it when the FOA pushed it from the beginning or when anybody said it for the last four years.

Although I have been leaning towards innocence most of those four years, sometimes more sometimes less, the idea that it couldn't happen because the dynamics of the murder weren't fully understood doesn't make sense.

Perhaps it is the simple lone wolf but that never really has felt complete to me. I've said here lately that I always wondered about Kokomani being there, being hooked in with Albanian dealers, Rudy being involved in at least some crime etc.

But I could imagine the kids somehow being crazy enough for 15 minute to kill with no motive. I don't think so, but possible and not the end all for proving innocence.

I would add that the early FOA pitch which included your theory is what ignited some of the PG intensity.

IMO

Not to say that you are not entitled to that opinion, because you certainly are. I think you are misinterpreting my post just a bit.

I never said that AK and RS killing Meredith is impossible, simply because of the type of people they are. I don't know them personally. What I said was that the scenario, given all the facts we know about their past habits, the actual situation, and the facts as we know them, is extraordinarily unlikely.

The type of people they are is not proof they did not do it, the lack of evidence is. And given how unlikely the various theories are to have happened, there needs to be real evidence in order for us to believe that such an unlikely scenario occured.

Although a motive is not absolutely necessary if we had hard proof, in the absence of such proof, the question of "why in the world would they have done this?" is a valid one.

 

[LondonJohn]

It even says "Idaho Innocence Projects helps free Amanda Knox", right there.

I'd love to know what the "vigorous complaints" were actually complaining about.

IIRC, the "vigorous complaints" were mainly around the area of the declared geographical remit of the Idaho Innocence Project. I guess that the over-invested idiots couldn't get their heads round the fact that even state Innocence Project groups can - and do - make contributions to national and international cases.

Oh, and I also recall that a certain management accountant got particularly worked up about the tax-exempt issues related to all this. I guess that's the kind of righteous anger that can easily well up when your day job is as stupendously boring and uninspiring as that. Wonder how that "Knox will only be of interest for a fortnight after her release" assertion is going?