Continuation Part 4: Discussion of the Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito case

[Fine]

Does anybody have Inspector Volturno's testimony in English?

Is there a picture of the male footprint in the hallway, not the bathmat?

_________________________

Grinder,

See Foto #3 in the report called Rindaldi2, HERE.

Note. The photograph depicts two blobs of something-or-other. Doctor Rinaldi identified the blob on the right side as Raffaele's right footprint. The blob on the left side was never identified. (So Amanda must have doctored it in some way.)

///

 

[Bill Williams]

_________________________

Grinder,

See Foto #3 in the report called Rindaldi2, HERE.

Note. The photograph depicts two blobs of something-or-other. Doctor Rinaldi identified the blob on the right side as Raffaele's right footprint. The blob on the left side was never identified. (So Amanda must have doctored it in some way.)

///

I do not understand the statement, "So Amanda must have doctored it in some way"? This sounds to me like pure surmise, based on some underlying assumption that I am missing. How could Knox have "doctored" anything if she was not at the crime scene?

Unless you are saying that somehow this got "blobbed" as a result of the bathmat shuffle? And if Amanda had wilfully "doctored" one, why not the other? That would beg for explanation, too.

 

[Grinder]

Bill he was being sarcastic because a group you don't want me to kid you as being one of would say something like that.

I'm not a member over there, is there any other place that photo is located?

I do not understand the statement, "So Amanda must have doctored it in some way"? This sounds to me like pure surmise, based on some underlying assumption that I am missing. How could Knox have "doctored" anything if she was not at the crime scene?

Unless you are saying that somehow this got "blobbed" as a result of the bathmat shuffle? And if Amanda had wilfully "doctored" one, why not the other? That would beg for explanation, too.

 

[Diocletus]

And here I thought that SA pays no heed to this board. But then, go figure, I learn that he has a complete working knowledge of my posts here. And apparently he doesn't like them. Oh well, at least I was right. And I didn't have to put together spreadsheets or pay Curatalo 20 Euro. I just practiced a little skepticism and critical thinking in a friendly and lively way. Try it.

 

[Kaosium]

My word - we're in disagreement and so far there has not been too much of a bun fight. Imagine if this is the way it had been all along?


I'd lost track of the specific of why I thought this way - to be far it was not my idea, but it sure seems right when I first read it. I was reading some stuff on the 'net about the calunnia section of Italian law (Section 368 I believe) and was trying to get my non-Italian head around a law halfway between "libel" and "holding someone's honour in disrepute." I got side tracked into having to come to grips with the fact that there is no crime scene clean - and with no crime scene clean, then Knox and Sollecito simply could not have been present in the cottage at the critical time.

Here's some materials germane to the discussion. This is the (google) translated Articles 368 and 369 of the Italian Criminal Code, quote below for convenience. Here's a post I wrote a while back where I collected the bit from Massei as well as explanations from Machiavelli and Broken_English at IIP, another Italian non-lawyer who has some familiarity with their legal system. Here's a google-translated explanation of this part of the Italian Penal code.

Here is the 'gift' note, and below I will quote Mignini reading the requisite parts of the 'memorial' of the Seventh in court, which Halides1 sourced to the end of the #3 audio tape at PMF.net, though as you can see it came up at other points in her testimony as well.

"GM: I see. All right. I take note of what you're saying. Now, let's talk about your memorandum 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 was Patrick. At that moment I was very stressed and I really did think that it was 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.' Can you explain these concept to me?"

Art 368. Calunnia. Slander.

Anyone with a complaint, complaint, demand or request, even if anonymously or under a false name, direct judicial authority or other authority that has the obligation to report, blames someone of a crime which he knows is innocent, that simulates against him, the traces of a crime, is punished with imprisonment from two to six years.

The penalty is increased if s'incolpa someone of a crime by which the law prescribes a penalty of imprisonment exceed a maximum of ten years, or another more serious penalty.

The imprisonment is from four to twelve years if the act results in a prison sentence exceeding five years, is from six to twenty years if the act results in a life sentence.



Art. 369. Art 369. Autocalunnia. Autocalunnia.

Whoever, in a statement to any of the authorities mentioned in the preceding article, even if done with written anonymously or under a false name, or by confession before the courts, blames himself that he knows is not a crime occurred, or an offense committed by others, shall be punished with imprisonment from one to three years.

So I think Hellmann upheld the calunnia conviction for a reason different than Massei originally convicted. Not that I am an expert in Italian law, or the way judges interpret it - but it seems that Hellmann will be saying, "the finding of "did not do it" to the murder charge," and the finding of "crime did not exist or take place" with the so-called staging of the break-in, still Knox was not in a position of knowing or not knowing about Lumumba's (then) alleged involvement. There this is a finding of misleading the investigation by not saying unambiguously, "I could I possible know?"

Frankly I don't think the calunnia charge has much to do with anything outside the people in Perugia, as represented by the lay jurors, not being willing to accuse the police of wrongdoing on the interrogation. Also I suspect it might be the result of Perugian Patrick Lumumba's own 'PR campaign' where given the opportunity he went on Italian TV and going by accounts by Katie Crouch, Michael Winterbottom¹, and of course the infamous 'soulless' Daily Mail article took the opportunity to regale his listeners with his tale of woe, blaming it all on Amanda Knox who he's spent four years now trying to convince everyone he meets (including Winterbottom though unfortunately I could not find the original article from Oct of '10 when he repeated what Patrick told him like a true believer) is worthless scum who must have murdered Meredith. He lies too, I guess serene in the knowledge that everyone around him figures him a victim of Amanda Knox he can say whatever he wants without censure.

Let us just take a look at what he says to the press, the most recent I could find is this where he makes these curious statements:

Mr Lumumba said: 'One thing I could never understand is that Amanda has always said she was given a rough time by the police. But I was named as the one who killed Meredith, the black third-world African, and they never gave me any problems.

'I do find that very strange, and I also find it amazing that she has never actually said sorry to me - when we were questioned she didn't even tell the police that I had nothing to do with it.'

That's not what he said about the police at the time:

At 6.30am on Tuesday, November 6, the bell to his fourth-floor flat in the town buzzed insistently and a woman's voice outside demanded he opened the door. He had barely had time to do so when the woman, assisted by, Patrick estimates, 15 to 20 others, barged their way in.

"They were wearing normal clothes and carrying guns," he says. "I thought it must be some sort of armed gang about to kill me. I was terrified.

"They hit me over the head and yelled 'dirty black'. Then they put handcuffs on me and shoved me out of the door, as Aleksandra pulled Davide away, screaming."

He was greeted outside by a convoy of seven police cars, sirens blazing, and driven to Perugia's police station, where he was subjected to a ten-hour interrogation.

"I was questioned by five men and women, some of whom punched and kicked me," he claims. "They forced me on my knees against the wall and said I should be in America where I would be given the electric chair for my crime. All they kept saying was, 'You did it, you did it.'

Now he was paid 70k Euros for that piece, and it is the Daily Mail which didn't exactly distinguish itself with its accuracy in this case, and of course he didn't mention any of the nastiness in court when he testified and described it like this:

"They said 'Police! Police! Open the door.' They were agitated," recalled Lumumba. "They took me in front of my son, handcuffed me and wouldn't tell me anything, they just said 'You know what you did.' I was not beaten, but it was a hard situation."

Lumumba said that he was later stripped of his clothes at a certain point and left nude facing a wall in police headquarters. The window was open, he said, and it was cold.

He reiterates that here to Nick Pisa after the appeal verdict, as I originally posted above, pretending the police in Perugia 'never gave him any problems:'

Mr Lumumba said: 'One thing I could never understand is that Amanda has always said she was given a rough time by the police. But I was named as the one who killed Meredith, the black third-world African, and they never gave me any problems.

He was interrogated all day without a lawyer or the camera's rolling (as far as anyone knows...) and they refused to believe anything he said and instead went out on the Seventh to find a 'witness' that his bar was closed. Being as he was dragged out of his home we have to assume he was a 'suspect' and thus they completely disregarded his rights under Italian law. He was reported to have sued ILE for 500k Euros in the ECHR for this treatment, though I've not heard anything about the suit in about a year. I'd say they gave him some 'problems!'

Also, much more recently in the Katie Crouch Slate piece linked above he says again that he's the nephew of Patrice Lumumba despite the fact when arrested that family in Congo issued a statement saying he wasn't. That's minor though, what's important to the case is this:

Lumumba (whose uncle, he told me, was the real Patrice Lumumba, the great Congolese political leader slaughtered by the Belgians) wasn't sure exactly what I was doing asking him these questions. I wasn't either. But he didn't really care. What he wanted, like many wronged people, was for someone to listen to his story.

And what a story it was. Because of Knox's accusations, he was ripped away from his young son in the middle of the night, interrogated, beaten, and held in solitary confinement for 14 days. His business remained closed for four months, even after his name was cleared. And he definitely thought Knox and Sollecito were guilty.

Here he tells the original story, the one most 'compatible' with the Polizia did Stato's 'methods' when dealing with Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.

He also keeps telling people Amanda never apologized, when she did so first a mere month after her arrest, before the Court of Freedom if I recall correctly. Here this is mentioned at the time, though it abuses shorthand somewhat to put it as she 'made it all up' despite that she said something to the effect of she 'imagined' it as per her note, but I can't find another reference to the exact quote, I cannot find my copy of "Murder in Italy" which usually sits on my desk so this will have to do:

Four weeks after the murder, Amanda and her lawyer appeared before a judge ostensibly to ask for release from prison. But the big news that day was Amanda's startling confession before the court about Lumumba. She'd made it all up, she said. He hadn't been in the house the night Meredith was murdered. She apologized for her false accusation.

However, apparently Patrick wasn't at that court function, just having been released a week or so earlier, so I guess that wasn't good enough for him, as Broken English at the IIP site would say he'd go on TV after the trial and before the Appeal and appear on Italian TV demanding an apology from Amanda, so at the outset of the appeal he got it:

“Patrick? I don’t see you. But I’m sorry. I’m sorry because I didn’t mean to do wrong to do you. I was very naïve and not courageous at all; I should have been able to withstand the pressures that caused me to do harm to you. I didn’t mean to contribute to what you have suffered. You know what it means to have unjust accusations imposed on your skin. You didn’t deserve what you experienced and I hope you will be able to find peace.”

My thing is that Knox was involved in doing Lumumba harm, as she as much said to her mother by the 10th. That's the way I look at it. My other reasons are upthread. I recognize I am in the minority with this view. And no, I do not work for Hellmann - some think I'm still employed by Marriott, and it would be unethical to double dip.

Heh on the latter.

What I have posted above has little to do with the legal case, but it does have something to do with the moral case. As you note she tells her mother she feels badly that she might have hurt Patrick Lumumba, I maintain that's because she's a nice person and liked Patrick and knows that he's said that arrest must have ruined his life.

On the other hand, Patrick feels perfectly justified in smearing Amanda every chance he gets, lying in court in hopes of 'discrediting' her story, taking money from the tabloids to expound upon her flaws real and imagined he 'discovered' from seeing her a couple times a week for at most two months. He did about all he could to ensure Amanda spent as much of the rest of her life in jail that an Italian Court can offer, hiring a lawyer who said in court:

One side of Knox is "angelic, good, compassionate and in some ways even saintly," Pacelli said. The other side is "Lucifer-like, demonic, satanic, diabolic" and "longs to live out borderline extreme behavior," he said, the BBC reports.

He hired a man to say trash like this in court when her effective life was on the line, and even if acquitted her reputation as well. He says it to the papers, he lies to make her sound badly given the opportunity knowing she can't speak for herself being under a gag-order from the Italian Courts, so he has free reign. He didn't fire her, she wanted her hours cut so she wouldn't have to walk around at night after the murder. He didn't think any of this before the arrest, as per the second statement he sought her out to find out if she would talk to the papers.

I call memoranums #3 and #4 waffling, making "I stand by my statements...." assertions, which are actually the only clear, unambiguous assertions. I wouldn't say she was "making it quite clear how unsure she was", she was just expressing confusion. However in writing she made a plain declarative statement, "I stand by....", that was perhaps the only clear thing about the note. Certainly, taken as a whole it's just a confusing way of putting it.

I think she cleared up what she meant by 'I stand by my statements' in the note of November 7th, she actually thought at that point Patrick was guilty, but eventually realized it wasn't true. I will disagree with you that she didn't make it perfectly clear she was unsure, in fact I think we ought to read the rest of her statement that starts "I stand by my statement..." along with the rest of the her tributes to confusion and lack of clarity, which incidentally includes her writing that she wants to make clear that she's doubtful of the verity of her statements:

"...what happened is as confusing to me as it is to everyone else."

"In my mind there are things I remember and things that are confused"

"However, I admit that this period of time is rather strange because I am not quite sure."

"These things I am not sure about"
"In regards to this "confession" that I made last night,I want to make clear that I'm very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion."

"However, it was under this pressure and after many hours of confusion that my mind came up with these answers."

"But I've said this many times so as to make myself clear: these things seem unreal to me, like a dream, and I am unsure if they are real things that happened or are just dreams my head has made to try to answer the questions in my head and the questions I am being asked."

"But the truth is, I am unsure about the truth and here's why:"

"...but if this is true, it means I am very confused and my dreams must be real."

"I know I didn't kill Meredith. That's all I know for sure."

"In these flashbacks that I'm having, I see Patrik as the murderer, but the way the truth feels in my mind, there is no way for me to have known because I don't remember FOR SURE if I was at my house that night"

"If so, what does this say about my memory? Is it reliable?"

"Who is the REAL murder [sic]? This is particularly important because I don't feel I can be used as condemning testimone"
Please don't yell at me because it only makes me more confused
(All emphasis and highlighting mine except 'REAL' and 'FOR SURE' retained)

Now here comes what it appears you see as a clear, unambiguous assertion. I think in the context of the confusion highlighted above and her qualification that the sentence ends with, along with the use of 'could' in the offending sentence fragment, she's making it perfectly clear she is unsure:

"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."

(emphasis mine)

My 'statement analysis' skills, which have nothing to do with techniques developed in Sweden in the Sixties to get children to talk about sexual abuse, suggest to me that the only thing she's clear and unambiguous about is how unsure she is about what she signed regarding Patrick.

I have no clue whatsoever. The answer to this should come from someone familiar and with long experience with the way the criminal and calunnia trails intermix. I am the first to say that the process sounds unwieldy, but then they never asked my opinion when the Italian Penal Code was put together.

I call it 'byzantine.'

My guess is that Massei convicted because he thought Knox was involved in the murder, and accused Lumumba to throw police off the trail, and that Hellmann upheld the conviction for a differing reason. Not that she lied, but that when she was free and clear to make the statement, "Look, how could I possibly know?", she only seemed to be confusedly saying, "I imagined I could have been there, but it also seems more likely that I was at Raffaele's the whole time, but in any event I stand by the assertion I made last night."

To me, that is not lying. It is obviously trying to put the "truth" together, but it also had the effect of NOT drawing fire away from Lumumba, therefore, Hellmann will say, it's calunnia. Memorandum #3 and #4 make her an unwilling co-conspirator with the police in ruining Lumumba.

That's the way I see it. I think that's what Hellmann will say.

What makes you think if they didn't believe her note on the Sixth that she wasn't sure and somewhat dubious, her absolute withdrawal of her statement on the seventh, to go along with all the witnesses his lawyer is bringing forth, including the Swiss professional, that they'd have believed her? What could she have said on the Seventh, which is the day after his arrest, that would have convinced them to release Patrick? Especially if she's not admitting to the murder itself, why would they have believed her when they wouldn't believe anything else?

What do you think happened to her anyway? I suspect I know, as it is a known phenomena. Here's a law enforcement link to some material on false confessions, and if you haven't already you ought to read it. It details the various kinds of false confessions, and includes information for how law enforcement can avoid false confessions, being as good lawmen don't want to put away innocent people, but they might not realize just how power and authority can distort someone's perception or willpower if its used improperly. If you read through that whole ~40 pages you'll note they broke every rule in the book, including the one they make pains to repeat as it's so important:

While this concept has been addressed frequently in this text, it is worth repeating again--at no time should an investigator attempt to persuade a suspect he is guilty of committing a crime he claims he doesn't remember committing. It is one thing to express high confidence in a suspect's guilt (which will not cause an innocent person to confess), but it's quite another to make statements designed to convince a suspect, who claims to have no recollection of committing the crime, that he must be guilty of the offense.

Absent these criteria, a defendant's claim of a coerced internalized confession should be viewed with extreme skepticism by the court. However, the ultimate test of the trustworthiness of any confession will be the degree and kind of corroboration included within the confession itself.

(emphasis mine)

Amanda was suffering from 'False Memories' in my opinion, which you'll note in that paper they recognize as a legitimate problem. As it's an older paper they refer to an Internalized False Confession as still a hypothesis, but with cases like the Norfolk Four it's not so much a 'hypothesis' anymore. What they did was set the stage perfectly to get her to believe she must have been there the night of the murder, and for a while they got her to believe it.

Does that seem unbelievable? Consider her position: she's just a college girl barely out of her teens and the police are telling her they have 'hard evidence' she was at the scene of the crime at the time Meredith was murdered. They tell her that Raffaele has 'dropped' her alibi so her 'story' of being with Raffaele must be untrue. They have just confronted her with the fact they know she was stoned, and have hammered home how 'suspicious' they are of the fact she can't recall in detail the exact sequence of events and timeline of what she was doing on a night she was smoking hash, watching movies and snuggling with Raffaele. The translator is telling her about repressing memories from trauma. So, as long as she believes the police, who she naively has no reason to disbelieve, she must have been there, and when she 'imagines' what might have happened she creates mental images.

Except they don't quite seem real, but they have to be, right? She has no clue the police are going to arrest her, she thinks she's 'helping' them, and trying to do the best she can. As the law enforcement link above suggests, they did everything to ensure the conditions were ripe for her to falsely think she must have seen something she hadn't. The Statements have her doing what most could imagine a college girl would be doing in the middle of extreme violence in the house, covering her ears away from the event--she doesn't even 'see' anything, all she has to do is imagine being terrified.

They set the stage with hammering her for not telling them she was using hash the night of the murder, as per Monica Napoleoni's testimony, which they might use, along with the fact her memory of the timeline that night is not exact, to suggest she may have forgotten it due to drug use, which doesn't actually happen with hash, but Amanda doesn't necessarily know that FOR SURE P) at the time. She has the suggestion she might have 'repressed' the memory, and after denying it for hours and hours, as she'd told them all the rest of the week what she was doing, doubt might well creep in: the police say they have proof she was at the scene at the time of the murder, and they have the weight of authority behind their words, so eventually she comes to believe she must have been there, nothing else makes sense. As she's tired, traumatized and eventually befuddled, she's not thinking straight, the cops keep yelling...and then they start hitting. She's become motivated to remember, and the images she summoned become 'real.'

It doesn't go away at once, in fact with an Internalized False Confession they can last far longer than the one day she couldn't figure it out, one of the Norfolk Four still believes he's guilty last I heard, even though he and the others have been cleared. Angry insistent policemen that won't let up can really do some psychological damage to a person in those circumstances.

At any rate, from the moral perspective I think Patrick Lumumba's reprehensible behavior, spending four years lying about Amanda and his numerous attempts to get money from the deal and help to see to it she's locked away for life and if not smeared to perdition, has exhausted any sympathy he might have had coming at one point. He might say his two whole weeks in jail 'ruined his life' but considering Amanda and Raffaele have endured a hundred times that a piece, and he did his best to help them stay there, I'd say his moral position at this point is just about bankrupt and he deserves punishment not payment.

From a legal position I don't think just cherry-picking that statement out of that morass of confusion and saying it's a 'clear and unambiguous' statement, with qualifiers riddling the sentence itself, not only the body of the note, qualifies as much 'proof' that she 'confirmed' her first two statements that were also rather ambiguous. I also think her completely retracting them the next day as she recovered from their meddling with her memories while still locked in solitary suggests even more so that she tried her best to give them 'the best truth I can think.'

It does appear she feels badly about what happened to Patrick, but I don't think that's any admission of guilt, but merely that Amanda is actually a nice person who liked Patrick and feels badly that he was hurt by the police. She suggests she was too weak and too naive and could have been stronger in her apology, which might also be what Hellmann will use in his Motivations, but I think that's a credit to her, not an admission. You can see in her note how she tries to empathize with people and understand their position, the the police who've yelled at her, threatened her, hit her and then arrested her and locked her in a room all by herself, yet she still tries to understand the pressure their under. She wonders why Raffaele might say she left and 'lie' and say she told him to lie (which he didn't--cops were 'exaggerating') and she figures he must just be scared like she is.

There's a poster called 'RashamonFan' who usually lurks but posted and PMed me recently that caused me to think of something going over Sharon Feinstein's blog, and this description of Amanda from her friends and the one given by Vittoria reminds me of how perceptions can differ:

"Generous, kind, genuine, optimistic, bubbly. Pretty much all the good words that you can find in a dictionary, she was."

That's a pretty common description from those that know her, and those who actually know her didn't think she had anything to do with it, in part as I read elsewhere as they knew the description of her from ILE that was going through the tabloid rounds thanks to people like Patrick and others who didn't know her but pretended they did. However, if you look at what they say, the examples they give, they generally fit the description above, but they take something different from it. When she's generous, like with the warder, it's being 'manipulative.' This Angela Antonelli appears to think Amanda thought her a friend just because she said nice things to her and gave her a 'present,' one of which was just translating the words to "Let it Be."

It might just be that Amanda is nice to people, so much so that when they think her a murderess it must seem sick and twisted. When she's bubbly it 'must' be just because she's a cold-blooded psychopath who doesn't empathize with Meredith. Being optimistic, in Vittoria's case annoying the hell out of her by thinking she'd be freed, it comes off as arrogant to the ones who are really guilty and think she must be too. The 'actress' comes into play as even Pacelli, Mignini and Maresca, the most vociferous of her contemners, must admit it's hard to think of what is seen in court and what others who actually know her say about her as a cold-blooded, manipulative demoness, so the rest of the time she must be acting, right?

Some people just absolutely believe what the authorities say, and if they say Amanda is a viscous murderess, she must be one cold-blooded manipulative witch-kin if she's being friendly and nice much of the time. Even Vittoria who by her own admission tormented Amanda frequently and at great length admits Amanda wished her luck when she got out of prison, even though Vittoria had herself recently removed from that cell as she couldn't leave her alone.

I remember going through this once thinking there must be some middle ground here, that her supporters weren't saying anything bad for obvious reasons, that there must be some truth to the ones who thought her 'cold, distant, manipulative, an actress etc, until I realized that people don't change that much just going overseas. Their behavior might for various reasons, but their personality doesn't. Not to the point where it's the complete opposite, not over any extended period of time for those not suffering from a disorder. Then I realized how clever the construction of 'Foxy Knoxy' was: no matter what she did, she would fit the description in one sense of the word. Then when you go through what they're talking about one can see the 'Rashamon' effect on Amanda. Those that think her guilty use the words they heard from the papers as they seemed to fit, as if she murdered someone then her acting friendly, bubbly and nice would make her about as cold-blooded as one can be, wouldn't it?

I still find it telling that the tabloids sent their spawn all the way to Seattle to wave around fistfuls of dollars to dig up dirt on Amanda and basically came up empty, the ones who did agree to even talk to them gave them generally glowing reports. I dunno about you, Bill, but many might fear what kind of things might be printed in the paper about most people if the tabloids came to their hometown offering thousands for juicy tidbits, one can find a reason to trash anyone, I recall reading a rather nasty piece on Mother Theresa from Hitchens or Corn once.

Sometimes it's the things that aren't found that have been looked for with effort that are most telling. They didn't find examples of old boyfriends or girls outraged at her behavior, as you may recall her 'frequentations' were a major concern of the Matteini Court and the tabloids, yet there's no broken-hearted boyfriends or girls who had their boyfriend 'stolen' or 'rented' from them? There's no violence in her history at all? There's no list of dislikes, or hatreds, or much of anything negative coming from her? Where's the anger in this girl?

Then I realized that if someone sees Amanda as guilty of murder, and at one point due to the lies emanating from the police and prosecution just about everyone did, then to some she must be 'acting' much of the time and really a cold-blooded, manipulative, heartless piece of work, a demoness hiding inside an otherwise perfectly nice girl.

There is no 'satanic demoness' lurking in Amanda Knox, they smeared this girl to the four corners of the world, they went through everything she did, or wrote, and believed inherently all the hangers-on who barely knew her that condemned her for the lamest reasons after she'd been accused of being a psychopathic murderess and all around bad-time girl, a grade-A whack-a-mole with a heart of darkness. They emptied her underwear drawer and then condemned her for getting some and what might have been overheard by someone who didn't speak English when she was talking to Raffaele in English. They put unconscionable pressure on her to confess to what she hadn't done, and tapped her phones and couldn't find anything juicy. To condemn Amanda Knox they had to take it out of context or interview those who thought her guilty and despised or hated her to get some pretty ridiculous reasons to dislike her. She kissed her boyfriend and cuddled, she got a noise-violation ticket, she didn't go over and comfort hardened criminals lashing out at the world in rage, she snapped at a vapid comment when distressed, she wiggled her hips, broke down in tears unexpectedly and went out for pizza after the murder. Some seem to think that pointing out how stupid and untrue most the things said about her is making her into some kind of saint, like even Pacelli has to admit she comes across sometimes, but she's not really that either. She's just the same nice, friendly, bubbly honor student that went to Perugia, a little quirky, maybe offbeat, but in the end, just a girl.






¹

When British director Michael Winterbottom stopped in a bar while researching a film on the Kercher case, Patrick Lumumba, who was arrested and released in connection with the murder, happened to be DJ-ing.

 

[Dougm]

If your intent is to have me say what it is I would say, then I would say that the only clear statement in memoradums #3 and #4 are the clarity with which they say, "I stand by my statements made last night...." At its most basic level of parseing a sentence and interpreting it, that is a sentence meant to be clear, and which I also judge to be clear.

For me, and you will disagree I am sure, the subsequent statement of confusion itself is not clear - it is an unclear statement of confusion which does nothing on the face of it to NEGATE the only clear sentence in the memorandum. I am not sure if you are one of them, but criticism leveled my way has included the assumption that an unclear confusion-statement should NEGATE and render (as it it had not been written) the only clear part of the note.

So you are saying that she was confused when she said she was confused and not sure, but was not confused in the same statement when she said she was "standing by" her previous? I think that is facinating, and I don't see it that way at all.

I give you credit for telling us straight out why you think she should have been convicted on the calunnia charge, no matter if anyone else agrees or not. The guilter community (of which I do not consider you a part) should give that a shot more often.

My response would simply be that at the time of her making the statement she is either confused, or not confused. I don't think state of mind changes word to word or sentence to sentence, so if she is unclear and the facts of the statement seem unreal to her, saying she "stands by" the statement of the night before, "but" is unclear means she is unclear about all of it. I see your argument as cherry picking the statement.

Thanks for the post!

 

[Katody Matrass]

Bill he was being sarcastic because a group you don't want me to kid you as being one of would say something like that.

I'm not a member over there, is there any other place that photo is located?

Bruce's site, membership not required:

http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/PDF-Files.html

 

[Dan O.]

Yet traces of blood/water were visible in the bidet, but not found in the shower...?

This is easily explained if the cleanup is in the shower and perhaps impossible to produce otherwise. Halfway through the cleanup, Rudy steps out of the shower and reaches across the sink to grab the soap. A drop of watery blood falls from his hand into the sink. A similar action causes the drip into the bidet. Rudy retreats back to the shower and finishes rinsing the blood off himself then uses the shower sprayer to clean the sides and basin of the shower stall.

Now it's your turn. How does a drip of watery blood fall into an otherwise blood free sink and bidet without using the shower for the cleanup?

 

[Bill Williams]

Edited by Darat: 

Moderated thread.

What I have posted above has little to do with the legal case, but it does have something to do with the moral case. As you note she tells her mother she feels badly that she might have hurt Patrick Lumumba, I maintain that's because she's a nice person and liked Patrick and knows that he's said that arrest must have ruined his life.

On the other hand, Patrick feels perfectly justified in smearing Amanda every chance he gets, lying in court in hopes of 'discrediting' her story, taking money from the tabloids to expound upon her flaws real and imagined he 'discovered' from seeing her a couple times a week for at most two months. He did about all he could to ensure Amanda spent as much of the rest of her life in jail that an Italian Court can offer, hiring a lawyer who said in court:

The "moral case" is not what's at issue here. The legal case is. See below about the appropriateness of holding Lumumba to account for future actions which would not have taken place if the whole "let's get Lumumba" charade hadn't been initated - by police, corroborated by Knox. I also assume that if Knox had not confusedly corroborated it, they STILL would have gone after Lumumba. Again, it is not the police's actions or Lumumba's future actions which are the topic of this thread. Sheesh.

What makes you think if they didn't believe her note on the Sixth that she wasn't sure and somewhat dubious, her absolute withdrawl of her statement on the seventh, to go along with all the witnesses his lawyer is bringing forth, including the Swiss professional, that they'd have believed her? What could she have said on the Seventh, which is the day after his arrest, that would have convinced them to release Patrick? Especially if she's not admitting to the murder itself, why would they have believed her when they wouldn't believe anything else?

It is actually irrelevant what the police thought of Knox's notes. All Knox did, at best, was corroborate their wacky take on Lumumba. This thread is not about the police's potential criminal liability, it is about Knox's. One day I'll write at length about what I think is the police's criminal liability. That's a different subject.

What do you think happened to her anyway? I suspect I know, as it is a known phenomena. Here's a law enforcement link to some material on false confessions, and if you haven't already you ought to read it. It details the various kinds of false confessions, and includes information for how law enforcement can avoid false confessions, being as good lawmen don't want to put away innocent people, but they might not realize just how power and authority can distort someone's perception or willpower if its used improperly. If you read through that whole ~40 pages you'll note they broke every rule in the book, including the one they make pains to repeat as it's so important:

Does that seem unbelievable? Consider her position:

Thank you for reminding me.... for the millionth time! I know her position. I've already said 999,999 times that this information, for me, is applicable at sentencing. You, if I can be so bold to say, are arguing with someone else, not me.

At any rate, from the moral perspective I think Patrick Lumumba's reprehensible behavior, spending four years lying about Amanda and his numerous attempts to get money from the deal and help to see to it she's locked away for life and if not smeared to perdition, has exhausted any sympathy he might have had coming at one point.

However, Lumumba's future potentially criminal behaviour had nothing to do with either the police inexplicably taking one of his text-messages to Knox out of context, and using a badly translated idiom, as well as Knox's waffling in those notes, which put him in the original distress. His behaviour since has, agreed, been less than stellar. What's THAT got to go with the facts of the original calunnia? Other than you want to yell at Lumumba the way guilters feel justified in yelling at Knox? My old granny said, two wrongs don't make a right.

There is no 'satanic demoness' lurking in Amanda Knox, they smeared this girl to the four corners of the world, they went through everything she did, or wrote, and believed inherently all the hangers-on who barely knew her that condemned her for the lamest reasons after she'd been accused of being a psychopathic murderess and all around bad-time girl, a grade-A whack-a-mole with a heart of darkness. They emptied her underwear drawer and then condemned her for getting some and what might have been overheard by someone who didn't speak English when she was talking to Raffaele in English. They put unconscionable pressure on her to confess to what she hadn't done, and tapped her phones and couldn't find anything juicy. To condemn Amanda Knox they had to take it out of context or interview those who thought her guilty and despised or hated her to get some pretty ridiculous reasons to dislike her. She kissed her boyfriend and cuddled, she got a noise-violation ticket, she didn't go over and comfort hardened criminals lashing out at the world in rage, she snapped at a vapid comment when distressed, she wiggled her hips, broke down in tears unexpectedly and went out for pizza after the murder. Some seem to think that pointing out how stupid and untrue most the things said about her is making her into some kind of saint, like even Pacelli has to admit she comes across sometimes, but she's not really that either. She's just the same nice, friendly, bubbly honor student that went to Perugia, a little quirky, maybe offbeat, but in the end, just a girl.

Agreed.

Again, what does this have to do with the calunnia charge and conviction, other than an innocentatii venting his spleen over the whole, unjust mess?

You're barking at the wrong mailman on that part.

I believe wholely that Knox was honest through it all - the one remark made about her as being a liar is the most inexplicable one of all.

I read the following on the PMF site, which has an "In their own words" section. One of the prosecutors, Manuela Comodi, was commenting on why the prosecution did not call Knox to testify:

Manuela Comodi, the deputy prosecutor, said that the prosecution had not called either Ms Knox or Mr Sollecito as witnesses “because there is no point. Every time they were questioned during the pre-trial investigation they lied or tried to derail the inquiry.

“If they have nothing to add and just repeat the same version of events, questioning them in court would be a waste of time. The facts will come from others.”

Read that three times. "They just repeat the same version of events."

In other words, where is Knox the liar in this? Where is Knox-the-always-changer-of-her-alibi in this?

I'm with you man. Besides, I have to be. The Marriott people monitor these posts and I've already blown my Christmas bonus, and don't want my plave at the Valentine's office party put in danger. (Marriott gives out the best chocolates.)

This schtick of mine gets me in trouble at the water cooler during coffee breaks at Marriott's firm. But given that the massive PR campaign has convinced Kaosium to write what he does, at length, we don't really need to worry.

Or is that you, Stan, up on the 4th floor with a funky alias?

 

[Bill Williams]

Barbara Walters said on David Letterman's program this evening, commenting on her 10 most fascinating people of 2011:

"We don't do criminals."

Which is why she did not include Bernie Madoff.

But she is including Amanda Knox. "This is a good news story. She is free. The day after the murder, her mother told her to leave Italy. If she'd done that, no one would ever have heard of Amanda Knox. They certainly would never in a million years arrested her. She stayed, naively, thinking she could help the police."

The 90 minute special on the 10 most fascinating people (with an American bias) is on ABC television, Wednesday Dec 14. Two of the ten are only profiled, not interviewed - Amanda Knox is one of the two profiled.

 

[Bill Williams]

Kaosium - this is your quote which you say ceoms from Knox. It summarizes the case against her with regards to calunnia fairly nicely. It has the added benefit of showing moral awareness and culpability and contrition. Does this make Knox better than anyone else as guilters say pro-Lnox supportprs are guilty of? No. It makes her decent. Culpable on the calunnia matter, but decent nonetheless.

“Patrick? I don’t see you. But I’m sorry. I’m sorry because I didn’t mean to do wrong to do you. I was very naïve and not courageous at all; I should have been able to withstand the pressures that caused me to do harm to you. I didn’t mean to contribute to what you have suffered. You know what it means to have unjust accusations imposed on your skin. You didn’t deserve what you experienced and I hope you will be able to find peace.”

Edited by Darat: 

Moderated thread.

All I am doing is calling her decent.

 

[katy_did]

This is easily explained if the cleanup is in the shower and perhaps impossible to produce otherwise. Halfway through the cleanup, Rudy steps out of the shower and reaches across the sink to grab the soap. A drop of watery blood falls from his hand into the sink. A similar action causes the drip into the bidet. Rudy retreats back to the shower and finishes rinsing the blood off himself then uses the shower sprayer to clean the sides and basin of the shower stall.

Now it's your turn. How does a drip of watery blood fall into an otherwise blood free sink and bidet without using the shower for the cleanup?

The drips of watery blood could have just been left post-washing, from traces of blood left on Rudy's hand/foot. Most of it would have been rinsed away by the water. We know he had watery traces of blood on his hand/foot after washing, both from the marks on the bathmat and those on the wall/door.

I think he could have used the shower, but I don't see any really compelling evidence that he couldn't have used the sink/bidet instead. If he was only washing his hands/foot and/or a small portion of his clothing, it might have been easier, quicker and less messy to 'spot clean' just those areas, rather than risk getting his clothing soaked in the shower. Maybe he even tried to use the sink to start with for his foot/jeans and overbalanced, hence leaving the footprint, before deciding using the bidet would be easier. And given the circumstances, I doubt he would've been too squeamish about using it!

Like I said though, I think it's possible he used the shower, but can't see any reason to rule out the sink/bidet either - I'd probably put slightly more likelihood on the latter, because of the blood traces there.

 

[Kaosium]

Gawd, I should have split that long post into about three, the latter two not really addressed to Bill. Just things I've been thinking about recently that spilled out when I had a chance to post, being busier these days and not having as much reason to check regularly with less frequent updates.

 

[HumanityBlues]

And here I thought that SA pays no heed to this board. But then, go figure, I learn that he has a complete working knowledge of my posts here. And apparently he doesn't like them. Oh well, at least I was right. And I didn't have to put together spreadsheets or pay Curatalo 20 Euro. I just practiced a little skepticism and critical thinking in a friendly and lively way. Try it.

Curatolo spent the 20 euro on heroin. I can't stress this enough.

 

[Diocletus]

Curatolo spent the 20 euro on heroin. I can't stress this enough.

No doubt about it. Everyone who has spent time in a city knows that with a guy like Curatalo, if you give him cash, he buys a fix. If you want him to eat, then buy him a sandwich.

 

[Dan O.]

Edited by Darat: 

Moderated thread.

...

I'm with you man. Besides, I have to be. The Marriott people monitor these posts and I've already blown my Christmas bonus, and don't want my plave at the Valentine's office party put in danger. (Marriott gives out the best chocolates.)

This schtick of mine gets me in trouble at the water cooler during coffee breaks at Marriott's firm. But given that the massive PR campaign has convinced Kaosium to write what he does, at length, we don't really need to worry.

Or is that you, Stan, up on the 4th floor with a funky alias?

Have you figured out who the new executive is? They said they were bringing someone on board who could directly control the message.

 

[Grinder]

Kaosium is there a Cliff's Notes version?

Bill, the fact that years later Amanda is able to apologize to Patrick for not being strong enough to withstand the organized pressures of a team of police interrogators shouldn't be used as proof she is guilty of the crime of callunia.

The acts of the police should give Amanda a free pass on callunia. She was convinced that she was telling the truth about Patrick by the lies of the police.

What are the police guilty of for lying to her and Raffaele? PGP just say that police always lie and that we want them to do so in order to get the crooks. Perhaps occasionally it is necessary, but that shouldn't absolve them of bad outcomes.

After reading the law one more time, I'm more convinced that she wasn't technically guilty and more me even more importantly she is not morally guilty given what the police did.

Katody Matrass - thanks for the patience. I appreciate the link.

 

[Katody Matrass]

The drips of watery blood could have just been left post-washing, from traces of blood left on Rudy's hand/foot. Most of it would have been rinsed away by the water. We know he had watery traces of blood on his hand/foot after washing, both from the marks on the bathmat and those on the wall/door.

Not that it matters a lot, but I just took another look at the photos. The droplets of diluted blood appear to have fallen on a dry surface. Dan O. is a good observer

 

[Kaosium]

Edited by Darat: 

Moderated thread.

The "moral case" is not what's at issue here. The legal case is. See below about the appropriateness of holding Lumumba to account for future actions which would not have taken place if the whole "let's get Lumumba" charade hadn't been initated - by police, corroborated by Knox. I also assume that if Knox had not confusedly corroborated it, they STILL would have gone after Lumumba. Again, it is not the police's actions or Lumumba's future actions which are the topic of this thread. Sheesh.

I wonder. What I mean is I don't necessarily think the calunnia verdict is grounded well in Italian Law, being as they have to prove a mens rea beyond a reasonable person's doubt. As I recall from a recent discussion that's one of the grounds the Court of Cassation can strike down the verdict. She had to know Patrick was innocent and intended to blame him for the murder. What I'm wondering is if the materials available can prove that Amanda both intended to blame Patrick and whether she knew he was innocent.

If not, then I suspect what might have at least influenced the decision somewhat was the fact Patrick was a Perugian who made a big display of how devastating that two whole weeks in jail was to him and how Amanda Knox was to blame. Also the fact they'd have to basically admit that their police force screwed up and blamed Amanda and lied through their teeth about it probably impacted on their decision as well.

Now, here's one where we can both be 'right.' Hellmann has to come up with a Motivations, and he'll have to use evidence to support his contention. You may very well hit upon the argument he'll use, however it may be like Massei's Motivations and will be on shaky legal and logical grounds. The ones who think her guilty and know enough about this appeared astonished at the fact she could be found innocent of the murder but culpable for the calunnia. Machiavelli appeared at one point to suggest a possible outcome of sending them both back for a new trial, as they were intrinsically linked together.

I don't know if that's the case or not, I liked LJ's scenario better, but it does suggest to me there might be difficulty proving the calunnia charge, one of the nice things about the Italian legal system is the Motivations Report requirement where it all has to be put together and explained. Here's the thing: if Amanda is guilty of murder, it's far easier to come up with a guilty mind, which they're going to have to prove. Other scenarios are certainly possible but are they provable beyond the doubt of a reasonable person?

It is actually irrelevant what the police thought of Knox's notes. All Knox did, at best, was corroborate their wacky take on Lumumba. This thread is not about the police's potential criminal liability, it is about Knox's. One day I'll write at length about what I think is the police's criminal liability. That's a different subject.

I'll look forward to it.

However if Amanda is convicted of calunnia all the way through, it may never come up. I wonder if the ECHR would be interested in hearing a case on it? I read that France initiated reforms due to a case like this being taken to Strasbourg.

Thank you for reminding me.... for the millionth time! I know her position. I've already said 999,999 times that this information, for me, is applicable at sentencing. You, if I can be so bold to say, are arguing with someone else, not me.

Busted!

Yes, I was kinda, you got me to thinking about some things and it all came out, some of it tout la monde.

However, Lumumba's future potentially criminal behaviour had nothing to do with either the police inexplicably taking one of his text-messages to Knox out of context, and using a badly translated idiom, as well as Knox's waffling in those notes, which put him in the original distress. His behaviour since has, agreed, been less than stellar. What's THAT got to go with the facts of the original calunnia? Other than you want to yell at Lumumba the way guilters feel justified in yelling at Knox? My old granny said, two wrongs don't make a right.

Not quite, I challenged both the legal and moral case, the latter of which is seldom seen so I figured I'd put it together rather than just rely on discouraging words about his conduct since. My suspicion is the moral case is what swayed that jury, plus it offered a nice diplomatic way out of having to cut the local Polizia di Stato off at the knees.

Agreed.

Again, what does this have to do with the calunnia charge and conviction, other than an innocentatii venting his spleen over the whole, unjust mess?

Well, maybe a little of that too.

Reading through all of it the first time around I was fully prepared to give Patrick Lumumba some latitude, that was until almost exactly a year ago when Amanda made that apology and Patrick refused to accept it, though he claimed he 'forgave her' long ago. She was so monstrous in his eyes she was incapable of contrition. He also promised to be at every court session of the appeal, making me wonder if he intended to stare her down as was suggested about Monica Napoleoni's frequent unscheduled appearances observing the court the first time around.

That made me curious and I went to looking through his 'contributions' to this issue, which made me wonder even more. Why does he blame Amanda? Why is he so adamant about her everlasting guilt? I think there's a number of possible reasons, though I think the most probable being his treatment in police hands who may have taunted him with Amanda's 'confession' much like they put pressure on her with the false positive HIV test, the release of her diary, the 'clear cut' CCTV video, and according to the defense lawyers, the knife from Raffaele's drawer. I do think other scenarios are possible though, his behavior seems curiously over-the-top regarding Amanda's total responsibility in something the police did.

You're barking at the wrong mailman on that part.

I believe wholely that Knox was honest through it all - the one remark made about her as being a liar is the most inexplicable one of all.

I read the following on the PMF site, which has an "In their own words" section. One of the prosecutors, Manuela Comodi, was commenting on why the prosecution did not call Knox to testify:



Read that three times. "They just repeat the same version of events."

In other words, where is Knox the liar in this? Where is Knox-the-always-changer-of-her-alibi in this?

I'm with you man. Besides, I have to be. The Marriott people monitor these posts and I've already blown my Christmas bonus, and don't want my plave at the Valentine's office party put in danger. (Marriott gives out the best chocolates.)

This schtick of mine gets me in trouble at the water cooler during coffee breaks at Marriott's firm. But given that the massive PR campaign has convinced Kaosium to write what he does, at length, we don't really need to worry.

Or is that you, Stan, up on the 4th floor with a funky alias?

I'm striking for Fire Control Officer on the mighty Supertanker, I have to make grade! Up or out!

Seriously though, I've noticed myself my posts are getting longer and are less coherent. In part that's to stimulate discussion and 'catch up' someone who might be interested, which means I include multiple links--which I hate having to do--but do it because I figure I ought to. It may be pointless at this juncture though.

 

[Kaosium]

Kaosium - this is your quote which you say comes from Knox. It summarizes the case against her with regards to calunnia fairly nicely. It has the added benefit of showing moral awareness and culpability and contrition. Does this make Knox better than anyone else as guilters say pro-Knox supporters are guilty of? No. It makes her decent. Culpable on the calunnia matter, but decent nonetheless.

Do you see an admission or a confession in this? I see sorrow, noting that he was hurt and she feels bad and that she harmed him, but I also see her saying she didn't mean to, and isn't that the requirement that has to be met at least on some level? She also suggests coercion by including 'withstand the pressures.'

I dunno, I find this the best candidate so far, but does it meet the requirement simply because she feels bad that he was hurt and knows she contributed?

Here's the thing: would it be a crime if you were to sign a statement suggesting you thought--but weren't sure--I had been the person you saw leaving the scene of a murder? You might find out later I was innocent and felt bad if I was convicted in part on your mistaken testimony, but would you be culpable for three years in prison for it?

"I confusedly remember..." or the second one which is even less straightforward doesn't exactly suggest high confidence in what she's 'witnessing,' and of course at this stage she's officially a 'witness' for the first statement at the very least.

“Patrick? I don’t see you. But I’m sorry. I’m sorry because I didn’t mean to do wrong to do you. I was very naïve and not courageous at all; I should have been able to withstand the pressures that caused me to do harm to you. I didn’t mean to contribute to what you have suffered. You know what it means to have unjust accusations imposed on your skin. You didn’t deserve what you experienced and I hope you will be able to find peace.”