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

[anglolawyer]

You know, you may be onto something there. I myself had wondered if it were not time for the case to simply be lost, as it were, in the whirligig of time. But what about Mignini's fierce determination, with set jaw and flashing eyes, as he vowed that "we shall see which trial is upheld, the first or the second.".....

I have colours to nail to masts too. First, Mignini is a busted flush and what he says or thinks probably counts for little by now. Second, I agree with LJ about no prosecution appeal but think AK will appeal the callunia conviction. I certainly hope she does. Round about now, or soon, that young lady is going to be getting pretty angry with the games people played with her life.

Interesting to speculate on the possible grounds of appeal. If it's points of law only (including points of procedural irregularity) what has the prosecution got to complain about? That the court-appointed experts came down on the wrong side on DNA? Well, tough.

Amanda's problem is that she may need to take points not previously raised on callunia (duress and/or entrapment) and the appeals system may not permit this.

 

[smkovalinksy]

Sorry but that's far too much detailed information. Furthermore one doesn't call them off-the-record sources only sources. It's not that they can't be revealed, it's that you, as grand pooh-bah, will not reveal them. You also must mention that they have been right in the past and be careful not to give specifics.

Here is a good example of what you must aspire to: This is not the kind of information I would share before the fact, however. In light of what various sources told me at various times, I was not surprised by the acquittal.
- from SB

Note that no information is communicated and that she is an insider of the highest level although because she didn't share we didn't know that she knew that Hellmann knew that he was going to acquit even before Hellmann knew because her sources were better than his sources.

You need to buckle down and get it right.

Exactly. But I wonder why this would in fact not be information she would share before the fact, considering that her group would surely have been interested in knowing that the acquittals were a done deal. Plus the fact that the sources had loose lips, and did not hold back from giving her this information.

And now that there is a chance to give the "salivating" media what they supposedly want ( a prime story about subterfuge involving 2 senators and an ambassador and one Italian appellate judge) somehow the sources cannot be revealed, as the media "will only shrug". This is all very strange....

 

[smkovalinksy]

Yes, choose your friends wisely. I have often thought the Kerchers would receive a lot more true compassion and empathy at the IIP site than they will ever receive at the lynch mob sites.

Until Italy assigns a dispassionate investigation team to review this case without the blinkers that blinded Mignini and the Migninions the Kerchers will always be left wondering what really happened. And that will make it very difficult for them to let it go.

I, too, believe that the Kerchers might be better served by IIP than by PGs who are nursing a grudge of their own making and for their own reasons.

But as for the highlighted part: Isn't this what was supposed to occur with Hellmann and the independent experts? This is why it is so disappointing to see the "nothing has changed" attitude of the PGs, their accusations of conspiracy, incompetence, and corruption, none of which help the Kerchers resolve their grief.

 

[Bill Williams]

Yes, choose your friends wisely. I have often thought the Kerchers would receive a lot more true compassion and empathy at the IIP site than they will ever receive at the lynch mob sites.

There are a couple of old sayings in my line of work... one of them is "choose your friends wisely, they are the ones you'll be stuck with who'll often give you false comfort and prolong the agony."

Another is, "choose your enemies wisely, they are who you will become."

And, no, I am not in the fortune cookie business....

The first "old saying" as a corollary: if you see someone coming towards you offering help....................... run!!!!

 

[LondonJohn]

I have colours to nail to masts too. First, Mignini is a busted flush and what he says or thinks probably counts for little by now. Second, I agree with LJ about no prosecution appeal but think AK will appeal the callunia conviction. I certainly hope she does. Round about now, or soon, that young lady is going to be getting pretty angry with the games people played with her life.

Interesting to speculate on the possible grounds of appeal. If it's points of law only (including points of procedural irregularity) what has the prosecution got to complain about? That the court-appointed experts came down on the wrong side on DNA? Well, tough.

Amanda's problem is that she may need to take points not previously raised on callunia (duress and/or entrapment) and the appeals system may not permit this.

Don't get me wrong: on purely ideological grounds, I strongly hope Knox appeals the Lumumba slander charge. I think that she has excellent grounds for appeal on two major findings of law: the issue of mens rea, and the initial (and wholly-incorrect) ruling from Massei that the slander charge should be considered in continuance with the murder (and associated) charges, and thus should be tried concurrently.

My belief is that if Knox were to appeal on these grounds to the Supreme Court, she would stand a good chance of success, and would likely gain a retrial on the Lumumba slander charge alone. And if that were to happen, I think she'd stand a very good chance of winning an acquittal at an appeal-level retrial, since the charge would be shorn of all the circus and bias of being attached to the murder charge, and since Knox's defence team would be able to concentrate exclusively on defeating this charge alone (I get the very strong impression - supported by contemporaneous media reports - that Knox's defence team was putting almost all of its time and effort into defeating the murder charges in the Hellmann trial).

So I would very much like Knox to fight the Lumumba slander verdict, because a) I think it's an incorrect verdict on an assessment of the evidence, and b) I think Knox would stand a high chance of winning a retrial then winning an acquittal in the retrial. My prediction, however, is based on the supposition that - all this notwithstanding - Knox very possibly wants to put the whole sorry saga behind her, and that not challenging the Lumumba slander conviction is a small price to pay for the ability to move on and not have to sit in a Perugia courtroom ever again.

Incidentally, I agree that from what we know, there are simply no grounds for a prosecution appeal on any points of law. That's one of the reasons why I think that wiser and more detached senior prosecutors may decide to withdraw from the arena at this point. But a small part of me thinks that Mignini/Comodi might be able to impose their will to badger the attorney general into lodging an appeal.

Regrettably, I also predict that the statute of limitations may kick in with a re-filing of charges against Mignini in the correct jurisdiction. I say "regrettably" not out of any blind vindictiveness against the man, but because I think it's just and proper that he should be called to account for his behaviour, and that accusations of criminal behaviour should be properly tested in a court of law. Clearly, the Florentine courts believed there was sufficient evidence to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt: it's not therefore unreasonable to want to see the charges tested again.

 

[katy_did]

After all, a successful Supreme Court appeal would mean a retrial at appeal court level on this charge, and that would very probably require a return by Knox to Perugia. I think therefore that Knox will let that charge lie, and will sacrifice the indignity of a criminal conviction in Italy in favour of getting on with her life.

The bolded part isn't quite right: the Supreme Court also has the option of quashing the conviction without retrial, as happened for instance in this case (it is called the "quashing Court", after all!). I think it would depend on the grounds for overturning it: if they decided the slander charges should have been tried separately, then a retrial would make sense; but if, let's say, they decided what happened didn't meet the legal definition of slander, then they can simply acquit. This can't happen for a conviction, as Kaosium pointed out some time back, but they do have the power to do this for an acquittal. Also, if the case was retried, Amanda wouldn't need to go back to Perugia; her lawyers could handle it without her being there.

I agree with those hoping she does appeal it: it seems as if Hellmann has deliberately done everything to make an overturning of the conviction at next level quite likely, and I think it would be an injustice to let even that conviction stand.

 

[smkovalinksy]

I have colours to nail to masts too. First, Mignini is a busted flush and what he says or thinks probably counts for little by now. Second, I agree with LJ about no prosecution appeal but think AK will appeal the callunia conviction. I certainly hope she does. Round about now, or soon, that young lady is going to be getting pretty angry with the games people played with her life.

Interesting to speculate on the possible grounds of appeal. If it's points of law only (including points of procedural irregularity) what has the prosecution got to complain about? That the court-appointed experts came down on the wrong side on DNA? Well, tough.

Amanda's problem is that she may need to take points not previously raised on callunia (duress and/or entrapment) and the appeals system may not permit this.

I agree Amanda should appeal the calumnia charge, because of the context in which it occurred, but I like LJ can also see her wanting to just cut her losses, and stay out of the news, and leave Perugia behind her....

So if Hellmann's report was issued on Dec. 16, is this a literal 45 days to appeal his ruling: No days off for weekends and holidays such as Christmas and New Year? I had read on TJMK that they had until Feb 15 to file in Rome, but this may have been on the assumption that Hellman would not release his report as early as he did.

I had also had the intuition that all parties might be done with the case, and skip the court of cassation, so I am anxious to see if this will actually be the case. I imagine PMF and TJMK sites will write a long and heartfelt letter, begging the prosecution to forge on, signed by all members and even the Kerchers. So just how feasible is it, LJ and AL, that the prosecution will not file? I would love this to be the case, but cannot imagine it will actually be so, with so many chomping at the bit.

 

[smkovalinksy]

Addendum to my question:

I see LJ more or less answered it in his post above, RE Mignini/Comodi badgering the attorney general to file the appeal.

 

[smkovalinksy]

There are a couple of old sayings in my line of work... one of them is "choose your friends wisely, they are the ones you'll be stuck with who'll often give you false comfort and prolong the agony."

Another is, "choose your enemies wisely, they are who you will become."

And, no, I am not in the fortune cookie business....

The first "old saying" as a corollary: if you see someone coming towards you offering help....................... run!!!!

You have that right. Took me a lifetime to learn this, but you certainly do have that right.

 

[smkovalinksy]

It is just this sort of continued speculation on yonder sites, destructive as it is futile, which makes me hope the prosecution does not file an appeal at all; I think it is important that this kind of stirred-up overthinking would no longer have a goal:

Personally. I think there is a strong possibility of a double incident at the cottage which might explain a lot. In the first incident there is an argument and a fight. Amanda, Raffaele and Rudy are there. Amanda gets punched on the nose. Meredith gets locked into her room and her phones are taken. With Rudy now tied into the situation all three return later, once human traffic on the road outside has died down, to sort that situation. Meredith is killed, sometime after 11.30 pm. The stress caused to Meredith by the earlier incident has retarded her digestion which explains why an earlier time of death based on that is not reliable.

Of course, whilst locked into her room, and without her phones, she might have done a lot of shouting and banging on her door, but would anyone have heard her? And perhaps she thought that was pointless, if not indeed unnecessary.

Does this fit with what else we know?

 

[anglolawyer]

Don't get me wrong: on purely ideological grounds, I strongly hope Knox appeals the Lumumba slander charge. I think that she has excellent grounds for appeal on two major findings of law: the issue of mens rea, and the initial (and wholly-incorrect) ruling from Massei that the slander charge should be considered in continuance with the murder (and associated) charges, and thus should be tried concurrently.

My belief is that if Knox were to appeal on these grounds to the Supreme Court, she would stand a good chance of success, and would likely gain a retrial on the Lumumba slander charge alone. And if that were to happen, I think she'd stand a very good chance of winning an acquittal at an appeal-level retrial, since the charge would be shorn of all the circus and bias of being attached to the murder charge, and since Knox's defence team would be able to concentrate exclusively on defeating this charge alone (I get the very strong impression - supported by contemporaneous media reports - that Knox's defence team was putting almost all of its time and effort into defeating the murder charges in the Hellmann trial).
So I would very much like Knox to fight the Lumumba slander verdict, because a) I think it's an incorrect verdict on an assessment of the evidence, and b) I think Knox would stand a high chance of winning a retrial then winning an acquittal in the retrial. My prediction, however, is based on the supposition that - all this notwithstanding - Knox very possibly wants to put the whole sorry saga behind her, and that not challenging the Lumumba slander conviction is a small price to pay for the ability to move on and not have to sit in a Perugia courtroom ever again.

Incidentally, I agree that from what we know, there are simply no grounds for a prosecution appeal on any points of law. That's one of the reasons why I think that wiser and more detached senior prosecutors may decide to withdraw from the arena at this point. But a small part of me thinks that Mignini/Comodi might be able to impose their will to badger the attorney general into lodging an appeal.

Regrettably, I also predict that the statute of limitations may kick in with a re-filing of charges against Mignini in the correct jurisdiction. I say "regrettably" not out of any blind vindictiveness against the man, but because I think it's just and proper that he should be called to account for his behaviour, and that accusations of criminal behaviour should be properly tested in a court of law. Clearly, the Florentine courts believed there was sufficient evidence to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt: it's not therefore unreasonable to want to see the charges tested again.

Maybe it was not just a question of prioritising the murder charge (easy to see why they would) but also a perception that hardballing the slander might not play too well with judges, jury and, has to be said, media. Once irrevocably free of the other charges she could lay into the hyper-sensitive police properly.

 

[Kaosium]

Maybe it was not just a question of prioritising the murder charge (easy to see why they would) but also a perception that hardballing the slander might not play too well with judges, jury and, has to be said, media. Once irrevocably free of the other charges she could lay into the hyper-sensitive police properly.

There's also the police calunnia suits against Amanda and her parents for which the civil part is being handled by our old friend Maresca. That ought to play into the decision of whether to appeal the Lumumba calunnia charge. If they give in on that they might foul themselves for all three.

 

[LondonJohn]

There's also the police calunnia suits against Amanda and her parents for which the civil part is being handled by our old friend Maresca. That ought to play into the decision of whether to appeal the Lumumba calunnia charge. If they give in on that they might foul themselves for all three.

True. It's actually a fascinating situation, which might qualify for game theory analysis. All sides have things to win and things to lose, depending on certain strategies and actions.

Here's what I think might happen:

1) Knox will not appeal the Lumumba charge

2) Prosecutors will continue to pursue the police criminal slander charges against Knox and her parents (I don't think they have any option under the law here, incidentally).

3) A judge will direct an acquittal on the police criminal slander charges, because a combination of lack of recorded evidence coupled with a "she said / they said" situation over the allegations, means that the criminal charge can never be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

4) The police (represented by our old friend "slick" Maresca) will continue to pursue a civil case. I suspect they might win this case, and will be awarded costs and minimal damages, none of which they will ever collect.

 

[anglolawyer]

This deserves wider circulation. It is my favourite guilter, Hugo, on PMF trying to reconcile inconvenient times and dates given by prosecution witnesses to key events. I am beginning to wonder whether he is brilliantly subverting the PMF forum by introducing increasingly insane posts to undermine the whole guilter position. See if you can detect any irony in this post (especially the second paragraph):

'That's the thing, though. The memory does trick you. And it's not that they 'saw no one', but that they didn't notice anyone in particular (in a place and at a time when many were people were coming and going - as Catnip has pointed out, this is just when people on a night out would have been heading back to the car park and driving off), or not that they could recall when questioned weeks, or it may have been months, later.

Where were you last Thursday night between 10.30 and 11.15? What did you do exactly, what did you see, what did you hear? If you've a vague idea you were at home watching TV, you'd probably still have to dig last week's papers out of the recycling bin to check what was on. If we're talking about 1 November 2007 and you were sitting in a broken-down car with your partner and friends, waiting for the tow-truck guy, what you mainly remember is probably the conversation. You might have the odd flash of what was playing on the car radio or CD player. You've no idea at all if somebody wandered out of a gate across the road and headed up the steps to Piazza Grimana. What's to notice? One of the women in the broken-down car said she never even noticed the house at 7 Pergola. Doesn't mean the house never existed.

The thing about those witness statements is that nobody heard the scream. That, you'd notice, wouldn't you? But it may have been more audible to people in the apartments higher up, away from the immediate noise of the road. People who were alone and weren't speaking to anyone. And the 'amphitheatre' acoustics of that quarter of Perugia may have come into play as well. Inaudible lower down, striking higher up. We don't know. It seems likely the scream did not occur during that hour - but even so, it may have done.'

 

[LondonJohn]

A short note of clarification on the people in the broken-down car opposite the cottage on the night of the murder:

1) Known, verifiable timings strongly indicate that the car broke down at around 10.30pm, that one of its occupants called the breakdown service at around 10.45pm (call witnessed by Formica, and the car occupants testified that they spent 10 minutes or so trying to fix the problem themselves before deciding to call for assistance), that the breakdown truck driver was not notified until around 11pm, that it took him some 15-20 minutes to reach the location of the breakdown, and that it took another 10-15 minutes to attach the car to the truck. Therefore, the car - and its occupants - were almost certainly situated opposite the cottage between 10.30pm and at least 11.30pm (and more likely 11.35-11.40pm).

2) The road in question - Viale Sant'Antonio (the road running past the cottage) - is a reasonably minor and quiet road connecting the north of Perugia to the small satellite village of Monteluce.

3) On the night in question - 1st November 2007 - it is likely that the road would have been particularly quiet and untravelled. That day was a religious public holiday in Italy - All Saints Day - on the evening of which it is still usual for families to gather for reflective meals to commemorate those family members (obviously, usually the most elderly) who have died, and to exchange small gifts. It absolutely certainly is not an evening for partying of any kind, and nor is it even an evening for people to go out for dinner or to bars.

4) Therefore, it is extremely likely that the occupants of the broken-down car spent the vast majority of the time they were there - between around 10.30pm and 11.30-11.40pm waiting in a quiet car on the side of a very quiet, semi-lit road opposite the cottage. It thus seems extremely reasonable to suggest that if there had been noise or light within the cottage during that period, or if anyone had come or gone from the cottage during that period, at least one of the three occupants of the car would have noticed.

 

[smkovalinksy]

This deserves wider circulation. It is my favourite guilter, Hugo, on PMF trying to reconcile inconvenient times and dates given by prosecution witnesses to key events. I am beginning to wonder whether he is brilliantly subverting the PMF forum by introducing increasingly insane posts to undermine the whole guilter position. See if you can detect any irony in this post (especially the second paragraph):

'That's the thing, though. The memory does trick you. And it's not that they 'saw no one', but that they didn't notice anyone in particular (in a place and at a time when many were people were coming and going - as Catnip has pointed out, this is just when people on a night out would have been heading back to the car park and driving off), or not that they could recall when questioned weeks, or it may have been months, later.

Where were you last Thursday night between 10.30 and 11.15? What did you do exactly, what did you see, what did you hear? If you've a vague idea you were at home watching TV, you'd probably still have to dig last week's papers out of the recycling bin to check what was on. If we're talking about 1 November 2007 and you were sitting in a broken-down car with your partner and friends, waiting for the tow-truck guy, what you mainly remember is probably the conversation. You might have the odd flash of what was playing on the car radio or CD player. You've no idea at all if somebody wandered out of a gate across the road and headed up the steps to Piazza Grimana. What's to notice? One of the women in the broken-down car said she never even noticed the house at 7 Pergola. Doesn't mean the house never existed.

The thing about those witness statements is that nobody heard the scream. That, you'd notice, wouldn't you? But it may have been more audible to people in the apartments higher up, away from the immediate noise of the road. People who were alone and weren't speaking to anyone. And the 'amphitheatre' acoustics of that quarter of Perugia may have come into play as well. Inaudible lower down, striking higher up. We don't know. It seems likely the scream did not occur during that hour - but even so, it may have done.'

As seductive as your theory of Hugo's deliberate subversion is, I think this is just the last stages of the PGs casting about, and as the wisdom of antiquity tells us, "the words of those who have lost their standpoint grow increasingly disordered. "

In my post upthread, I quoted another PMF discussion, in which they are surmising that Knox and Sollecito must have locked Meredith in her room as a prank, and left her without her cellphones, which explains why she was still dressed and unable to phone back her Mom. (countering of Hellmann's earlier TOD.) Then, somehow, they decided to let her out, and attack and knife her with Guede. Talk about violating Occam's razor! It makes me dizzy just to try and fit such a scenario in with the data.

 

[Grinder]

If the road was well traveled by both cars and people, as well as the car park being busy; one must wonder why no one heard Meredith scream the most horrific one heard in a lifetime. The more one thinks about it, the less likely it is that she screamed loudly at all.

It never ceases to amaze me that the "trainee witnesses" continue to be given any credibility by the PGP. All of the scream witnesses came forward long after the scream was made public. All the "trainee witnesses" came forward long after all that they testified to was public. Normal people like the car occupants and the tow truck driver that were interviewed saw and heard nothing.

If the road and car park were quiet, the more reason the breakdown crew should have heard something.

It is clear that the struggle happened well before the car broke down and that's why they didn't notice anything.

 

[Grinder]

The calunnia charge didn't need to be challenged at the appeal level because as has been said for quite some time, Massei should have separated it from the murder and other charges. This is a technical legal violation and appropriately comes before the Corte Suprema di Cassazione.

 

[Fine]

The calunnia charge didn't need to be challenged at the appeal level because as has been said for quite some time, Massei should have separated it from the murder and other charges. This is a technical legal violation and appropriately comes before the Corte Suprema di Cassazione.

_________________

Grinder,

If it's a legal violation why didn't Judge Hellmann correct the violation? Did her attorneys ever raise this question of separating the calunnia charge from the other charges?

Did you know that during the trial of Sabrina ---for murdering Sarah Scazzi, to begin in a couple days---Sabrina will also be defending herself---during the same trial--- against a charge of calunnia?

///

 

[Bill Williams]

Someone should tell Andrea Vogt, Nick Pisa and Barbie Nadeau that they have more at stake here than selling slutty stories.

Everyone knows the two names Bernstein and Woodward. Some called them "Woodstein", but they use the names in journalism school as shorthand for the most successful and meaningful acts of investigative journalism ever. In fact, if you do not know what I'm typing about right now, you were probably dead in the 1970s.

What is at stake here for Pisa, Vogt and Nadeau? As journalism schools, and criminal sociologists, and sociologists of the blogosphere start writing about, "What the hell went wrong in Perugia in 2007?", my bet is that those names......

Pisa, Vogt, and Nadeau

..... will become shorthand for the yellow journalism of the pre-phone-hacking scandal period for tabloids.

Pisa, Vogt, and Nadeau, are you listening?

I appeal to you to listen beyond the "good job" said to you by your editors for keeping the story of sex and murder alive in the glory days of the Knox-myth. No doubt you will read this and say, "what a nutter, he knows absolutely nothing about journalism, or the story that I reported on."

Probably true. But this is not about me, it is about you. Forget a klutz like me and think about yourselves for a second.

When journalism schools use "Bernstein and Woodward" as shorthand for investigative reporting at its finest, do you REALLY want your career-legacy to be the names attached to yellow-journalism?

I can still hear Nadeau - "the bar is higher than in my day for tolerance of sexual experimentation," which is her way of saying, "I think Knox is a sexual deviant, with a dormant-evil side waiting for Perugia to set it free."

Really, Barbie?

But that's getting into it. Please do not listen to the people who support you and take your side.

Listen to those who are warning you that your names very well COULD enter the cultural lexicon for what I am claiming, in the way that post-Nov 2007 Knox's name entered the cultural lexicon, in the manner in which you printed it. You only have to read your own copy to see what I mean.

No wonder you fear the innocence-PR-supertanker. It turns out, they were right!

But rather than hide behind a conspiracy theory that this PR-supertanker somehow got to Hellmann-Zanetti, if I were you, I'd be thinking about how your name is going to play in history. How your names are going to play when Journalism Schools teach journalism and the perils waiting for the up and comers.

Hell, Pisa in 2012 can't even get it right whether Sollecito is now engaged or not!?!!! Do you not triple-source your claims? Or do you cut and paste from a blog somewhere?

Just what do you want your career-legacy to be? Knox never in a million years wanted to be a household name, and if this goes the way I think it's going after sober second-thought and a proper verdict on appeal....

Pisa, Vogt, and Nadeau

..... could very well be the next set of names, like Bernstein and Woodward in a positive sense, which become household names for those up and comers wanting to avoid mistakes in journalism. You helped create the firestorm that almost sunk Knox with the myth you helped create - and the tidal wave could very well consume you now that she is cleared.

Rupert Murdoch pretty well has had his legacy ruined.

Do you even care about yours? If not, disregard everything I've typed. I'm just a dope with a keyboard. Your next paycheque is all that really matters.