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

[anglolawyer]

Not sure.

Anglolawyer did come up with a very conservative estimate of about 422 working days just for listening to the wiretaps - I think he missed off handovers, team briefs, equipment downtime, admin, tracking accounts for change of numbers, breaks, double checking equipment data, lead in and lead out on recordings, so the true working days could be about 50 days more.

He put that cost at a little bit above entry level police wages, which another poster pointed out would be unlikely, as the work may have been done by specialists.

Transcribing and translation may not be possible to work out, as you may not want to transcribe unrelated calls. Translation would definetly be needed on all Kercher family and Knox family calls, as well as all calls from Knox friends, otherwise you wouldn't know what was worth transcribing.

If we assume only 20% max was in English, you still need a translator for 80 working days of work, but you'd need to retain them for much more as you'd ideally want them to be available to translate calls asap, rather then working in bulk sessions. Add in much more if they're on a minimum hours commision.

Even if we assume only 10% of all calls were worth transcribing, you're still talking about 630 days of work, minimum, before the calls are even in a remotely digestible form for the purposes of team strategy and team briefs. Presenting calls in team briefs has an incalculable cost as they may have been presented as a digest, or the agent responsible may have had to attend the bulk of the brief. Add in several hours a month for 48ish months if so.

Add in all the time wasted listening to call digests and multiply by all the officers who had their time wasted listening to the call digests.

700+ days of work wasted at entry level professional wages and above, and nothing to show for it other than to take down a Carabineiri member (Rafs sister) as collateral damage, with all the costs her case against her employers has/will cost.

And I forgot to include the cost of 'losing' exculpatory calls, which will have entailed the involvement of high level crooks staff.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

What is being requested by many defense teams in the current past and present is the raw or underlying data which comprises the reports given by the prosecution to the defense. This was not always done (maybe never) in the past, it wasn't part of the finished report (though this is what was used to construct the report). I don't think it was law, or even mandatory, to turn over the raw data in the past. I imagine it was thought it wouldn't make sense or might be misinterpreted. And perhaps there were privacy concerns. So now this material is being given to the defense and it is not as orderly as the written report and it is still being worked through what to ask for and what to give.

Yes, you're correct about this as a general trend. Over the past decade, investigators and defense lawyers have uncovered rampant problems with DNA evidence submitted by police labs, ranging from inadvertent contamination to outright fraud. In cases where lawyers have a client who they really believe may be innocent, they have become more aggressive about requesting supporting data so they can evaluate the quality of the lab work.

Chris Halkides posted a link to an excellent summary of the situation:

http://www.nacdl.org/Champion.aspx?id=1537&terms=tarnish+on+the+'gold+standard'

In the Kercher case, there is no doubt that Stefanoni stonewalled the defense on crucial documentation. In June 2010, I was present at a meeting in Rome where Greg Hampikian explained to Carlo dalla Vedova what was missing and why it was needed. This information never was given to the defense. Some of it was eventually given to C&V, and their findings make clear why Stefanoni was reluctant to hand it over.

 

[Grinder]

I've continued to review the very early days' reporting on the case. They reported that Meredith knew her attacker, that she had sex with him, that he used a pen or jackknife and that she had made a date with someone on Halloween night for the night of the murder. One early story had a caption describing Meredith as a party girl.

The early reports did not state that the robbery was staged but did say that perhaps more than one person was involved.

To Bill's theory that the media influenced the police in their investigation, I found it more likely that the Kercher's influenced the reporting by the tabs and the investigation by the police. This was not done to hurt the investigation and absolutely wasn't targeted at anybody.

In the second or third day of reporting, which included the sex party, having sex with her murderer etc. Mr Kercher stated that his daughter would never be involved in such behavior, which seemed to refer to her partying and having sex. The reporting seemed to change and the police made statements about Meredith having done nothing wrong. The date idea dropped out and didn't reappear until Rudy said he had made one.

Because a certain element loves to take out of context and exaggerate, I will clearly say that I in no way blame Meredith. I do blame the tabs and the police if their investigation was impacted by their closing their eyes to possibilities in order to not offend Mr. Kercher.

Here's an early Mirror story that has the picture caption "Fun party girl ... Meredith, 21" the story also has a very interesting picture of Stefanoni in her CSI outfit standing next to a policeman in street clothes, perhaps one more bit of evidence of the poor forensic work.

 

[anglolawyer]

This appears to be a link to the image on your computer, not to one on the Internet.

Yeah sorry. Htf do I get it on here? Let's try this:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24513&stc=1&d=1328022627

 

[Dougm]

The reason she's guilty is that she knows that she doesn't know if Lumumba is guilty or not, therefore she's falsely accusing him of a crime she shouldn't have accused him for. Hence Calunnia.

As I understand it: What's missing is not the factual circumstances of the crime of accusing an innocent man, but in all probability the intent of falsely accusing him, since she's seen as innocent by the court and have no malignant reason for the accusation. But according to Hellmann she had intent after all, since she likely wanted to put a stop to the interrogation at any price and that is the reason she accused Lumumba. She ultimately did so by her free choice, even though Hellmann acknowledges there was police pressure, which could explain why she did it.

Because the law of Calunnia can produce this sort of results, i.e that an innocent person can be helped by the police to accuse innocent people and thereby make themselves guilty of Calunnia, a horribly unjust outcome however formally right, this outdated law should be abolished. And that doesn't become less true, even if one happen to believe in the guilt of Knox and Sollecito in this particular case.

That makes sense, and even though the law seems to say explicitly that she needed to know he did not do what she is saying, the interpretation you made above could be made by reasonable, or semi-reasonable, people. I don't think that is how they should rule, but I can see how they could.

My issue with the Lumumba "accusation", which I have sometimes not gotten people to agree with me on, is that it is not an accusation at all. If I say, for example, that I am confused, not sure, but I have visions of something happening, that is not the same, in my mind, to saying something happened, and I saw it. She said that she has visions of it, but is confused as to what the truth is. That to me is not an accusation, that is something to be investigated, and evidence applied, to see if what she is saying has any validity. The cops never had any evidence of Lumumba being involved, and almost none of Knox being involved (although they thought they did for awhile). I see her statements as very different than if she had said "I saw him go into the house", or even "He seems like a guy that would do it". Those I can see might be Calunnia, but not what she said. Especially under the circumstances under which she said it.

 

[Bill Williams]

However, I disagree that the reason Patrick's name was raised was just the text message. I believe that the police lead her to believe that Patrick was involved and that they had evidence he was there, that they had evidence she was there, and that they had the text message showing them arranging to be there. Thus even knowing that she wasn't involved, with the police telling her that they knew that Patrick was there and that they had proof of it, then indeed Amanda had no way to be positive that Patrick was truely innocent.

It comes down to who introduced Patrick to the story and what they said about him. If it was Amanda and even under extreme pressure she blamed Patrick because they wanted a name and his was handy, then Hellmann is exactly right in his judgement. If it was the police that raised his name and told Amanda that they had hard evidence he was there just as they had that she was there, then she should be found innocent. Unfortunately only evidence of the first case was introduced into court, and the only evidence of the second is via reading between the lines of what witnesses have said and speculation based on what Amanda wrote in her "Gift", and that isn't enough in court.

I need to see the evidence you have that the police suspected Lumumba prior to Knox's Nov 5/6 interrogation. That I have this need does not mean you are under an obligation to provide it, but I am writing about this on another site, and have the contrary belief.

I believe Knox caught them off guard in the first interrogation, the one leading to the 1:45 am memorandum. In the classic vein of, "don't ask a question unless you know the answer," the cops at the first interrogation that night actually stumbled upon the alleged involvement of Lumumba in Kercher's death. They had no foreknowledge or prior "evidence".

That Knox further in her compelled-imaginings put herself at the scene, threw the cops for a real loop. I take them at face value that up until 1:45 am, they thought they were interviewing someone only with facts of the case, not a suspect.

To this day, that meme survives: Knox knows something about that night she's not telling. I think that is bollocks.

That the 1:45 am memorandum was needed to implicate Lumumba, but was useless in implicating Knox required Mignini's interrogation, leading to the 5:45 am memorandum, is the very problem the police now had to face.

That Mignini needed to "repair" the alleged "spontaneity" of the first confession, which was not spontaneous at all, by claiming "only to be a notary" at the second interrogation - is destroyed by the need for four hours in the second session. The fix was worse than the pickle the 1:45 am thing presented them with. And the fix was just as illegal, and Mignini knew it.

Four hours? To get a "do over" of a supposedly "spontaneous declaration" of earlier in the morning? Really? Does anyone believe Mignini to be merely taking dictation? Mignini is a liar.

As AngloLawyer has done - compare the two memoranduyms side by side on the points raised, and you'll see how Mignini has to repair the spontaneity.

As one who has recently recanted - ie. I once supported Hellmann on calunnia and now I do not - it is this lack of spontaneity on Knox's part which means this is not calunnia, even under Italy's wacky calunnia law.

But can you point to the evidence which suggests that the police were eyeing Lumumba prior to seeing Knox's text message?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

transparency vs. trampling

Yes, you're correct about this as a general trend. Over the past decade, investigators and defense lawyers have uncovered rampant problems with DNA evidence submitted by police labs, ranging from inadvertent contamination to outright fraud. In cases where lawyers have a client who they really believe may be innocent, they have become more aggressive about requesting supporting data so they can evaluate the quality of the lab work.

Chris Halkides posted a link to an excellent summary of the situation:

http://www.nacdl.org/Champion.aspx?id=1537&terms=tarnish+on+the+'gold+standard'

In the Kercher case, there is no doubt that Stefanoni stonewalled the defense on crucial documentation. In June 2010, I was present at a meeting in Rome where Greg Hampikian explained to Carlo dalla Vedova what was missing and why it was needed. This information never was given to the defense. Some of it was eventually given to C&V, and their findings make clear why Stefanoni was reluctant to hand it over.

Charlie and christianahannah,

It cannot be overstated how important it is for the defense to have access to everything, including the electronic data files. It has never ceased to amaze me that Massei let the prosecution trample the rights of the defense in this way. On 20 May 2011 the AFP wrote:

Knox lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova said “The experts asked the forensic police to hand over information essential to their report on the DNA. They still haven't received it and will therefore request a 40 days extension.” He added, “It's not the first time we've asked for the police to hand over this information,” He also said, “But they need the raw data they have asked for from the police to do so. We first asked for it in 2009 and it's still not been handed over.”
[endquote]

 

[christianahannah]

Charlie and christianahannah,

It cannot be overstated how important it is for the defense to have access to everything, including the electronic data files. It has never ceased to amaze me that Massei let the prosecution trample the rights of the defense in this way. On 20 May 2011 the AFP wrote:

Knox lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova said “The experts asked the forensic police to hand over information essential to their report on the DNA. They still haven't received it and will therefore request a 40 days extension.” He added, “It's not the first time we've asked for the police to hand over this information,” He also said, “But they need the raw data they have asked for from the police to do so. We first asked for it in 2009 and it's still not been handed over.”
[endquote]

But some raw data was handed over to the defense end of July 2009 (this along with the test results from June 2008).

Do you know if the defense had submitted a checklist in 2009 as to what raw data they wanted and what was missing from that checklist?

As I have stated prior, I believe the defense is entitled to everything - I am not sure that in the past the defense or the prosecution knew what everything was or how to present the raw data in a coherent document (speaking in general).

For Charlie:

As far as Stefanoni I would have to compare her testimony given in 2011 with her testimony given in 2009 to see if there are major discrepancies. Added to this is the last sentence above I have posted to halides1. Your meeting with Dalla Vedova seems to imply the defense wasn't sure what to ask for in 2009.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

relevant versus irrelevant information

Norah Rudin and Keith Inman wrote an article in 2011 to clarify the concept of “sequential unmasking,” a method to reduce investigator bias in situation such as the analysis of DNA mixtures. Dicussing what information is domain-relevant versus domain-irrelevant they wrote,

“Obvious examples with which we believe most people would agree, are things like: the physical evidence examiner doesn’t need to know that the suspect has a rap sheet 12 miles long, or that he has confessed to the crime, or that eyewitness reports place him at the scene. Yet this type of information is regularly included in sensational fashion on requests for evidence examination. A generalization of such a request is to name the suspect as the factual perpetrator of the crime, and to please find the suspect’s DNA on the swab from the victim because he is a flight risk and DNA results are required to arrest and charge. You’ve all seen specific variations of this transmittal.”

 

[Dan O.]

But can you point to the evidence which suggests that the police were eyeing Lumumba prior to seeing Knox's text message?

We know that the police had enough interest in Amanda to request her phone records the early evening of November 2nd. And we know that those phone records show that Amanda exchanged text messages shortly before the time when Meredith was known to have been murdered. And there is no other activity on Amanda's phone till about Noon the following day. Unless the police are total idiots, they are going to want to put a name on the other end of that SMS exchange.

 

[RoseMontague]

From Frank's latest post:

“I was in a room together with the prosecutor Mignini”. –Giobbi adds– We were watching the interrogation, so to study her reactions”.

Wow, just wow. What happened to the tapes?

 

[PhantomWolf]

I need to see the evidence you have that the police suspected Lumumba prior to Knox's Nov 5/6 interrogation. That I have this need does not mean you are under an obligation to provide it, but I am writing about this on another site, and have the contrary belief.

This is why I say that Hellmann couldn't go by it because the evidence is scarce to none without the tape, or one of the police being willing to break ranks and tell the truth of what happened that night. The things that make me think that the Police had already hit on Patrick are the following:

1) The claim from the police that they had a series of events that they knew to be true, and then Amanada broke down and confirmed them. If this is correct, they must have already known about Patrick before Amanda implicated him.

2) That the police raised the location of Patrick's phone near the cottage in his interrogation. I don't believe that they could have discovered this between Amanda's overnight "confession" and Patrick's interrogation. This had to have been known beforehand.

3) They had footage of a black man heading to the house shortly before the figure they believed was Amanda, they knew that Amanda was employed by a black man.

4) Amanda being scared of Patrick. Why would she have been scared of him? She saw him on the 5th and talked happily with him. What changed between then and early on the 6th? Why would her own imaginings and use of him to get out from under the police pressure have made her scared of him? It wouldn't. I believe she was scared because the Police convinced her that Patrick was there and involved in the murder.

5) Amanda wrote about "What evidence do the police have on Patrick?" in her gift. What would make her think they had evidence on him, unless they told her that they did?

These thing make me quite sure that the police knew that Amanda had recieved a text and sent one back to Patrick that night, they may have even known the contents. They knew that Patrick's phone had registered near the cottage at about the right time, and they knew that Patrick and Amanda had meet up the day of the interogation. They were already suspicious of Amanda (based on pizza eating and hip wiggles) and now they had their black man from the Camera Footage (it was actually Rudy) to go with the figure they believed was Amanda. So a scenerio formed. Patrick and Amanda arranged to meet, they meet at the house, Amanda let Patrick in, they killed Meredith.

All they had to do was get Raffelle to stop supporting Amanda's alibi, then confront her with the text message saying she'd meet up with Patrick along with the camera footage evidence of them being at the house and she'd crack. Call in the 12 cops, the PM, and then break them to confirm the facts were what they already believed.

 

[anglolawyer]

I posted this comparison of the 1.45 and 5.45 memorandums at IIP today:


OK, this is my second 'spontaneous statement' comparison, this time using komponisto's translations, and adopting the same format as yesterday, with my own (somewhat expanded) comments interspersed in red. Any quoted text is lifted directly from the translation; otherwise, it is my paraphrase and all emphasis is mine. As I said yesterday, the two statements are glaringly different and, I think, tell quite a story:

1.45
Statement made by AK 'regarding the death of Meredith Susanna Cara KERCHER, and following statements made previously, declares as follows:'
5.45
AK 'regarding the death of Meredith Susanna Cara KERCHER, declares as follows'
The earlier statement is a reiteration of something already said. The second is itself the statement (or declaration)

1.45
'In addition to what has already been reported via the preceding statements rendered here at this Office'
5.45
'I wish to spontaneously report what happened because this case has deeply disturbed me and I am very afraid of Patrick'
The earlier version refers to 'preceding statements'. It is 'additional' to them. What were they? The later statement purports itself to be a spontaneous report. Plainly, no one would ordinarily so describe their own 'spontaneous' statement as such - they would just make it. The word is there because Mignini wishes to build an admissibility argument around it. He has Amanda explain why she wants to make a spontaneous statement - because she is deeply disturbed and afraid of Patrick, so naturally she wants to get things off her chest 'spontaneously'.

1.45
Patrick is one of a number of persons who have 'frequented (if occasionally)' the apartment.
5.45
No corresponding statement.
The reference to occasional frequenting has gone. Patrick had never been to the apartment, a fact which it must be assumed the police had discovered between 1.45 and 5.45. By 5.45, Patrick has changed from an occasional frequenter, presumably therefore a friend, to someone who is feared.

1.45
AK provides MK's 'cellular phone information'
5.45
No reference to 'cellular phone information'
The information is not contained within the 1.45 memorandum itself so, again, there must be a body of other information provided by Amanda, begging the question: on what principle is information being included within the earlier memorandum? And what might the cellular phone information be that the police did not already know?

1.45
Describes employment with Patrick 'a citizen of colur' and describes and provides him and his contact details, including his telephone number.
5.45
Now his address and telephone numbers are missing and there is no physical description of him either save to say he is 'African'.
The inclusion of the address and description in the later statement would deprive it of its 'spontaneous' quality. People who are getting things off their chest do not churn out 12-digit telephone numbers. If it is right that Mignini was watching proceedings from another room when the 1.45 statement was taken, we can see the 5.45 version as a lawyer's attempt to get it re-written with some particular goal in mind. Admissibility is a good candidate, being just the kind of thing the police do not firmly grasp.

1.45
AK receives text from Patrick at about 8.30 p.m. - no need to come to work, no customers.
5.45
'I met him on the evening of the first of November, after having sent him a message replying to his, with the words 'see you' ['ci vediamo', lit. "we'll see each other"]'
In the later statement, the nature of Patrick's message has gone (and with it the context of the exchange).

1.45
'I responded to the message by telling him that we would see each other at once; I then left the house, telling my boyfriend that I had to go to work.'
What a stupid lie for the police to insert - 'at once'. My explanation for this is that they are just too thick to do a proper frame up. Note Amanda's lie to Raffaele and the absence of any explanation for this impulsive reaction to Patrick. The statement makes no sense, which is why Mignini needs to fix it.
5.45
'I met him on the evening of the first of November, after having sent him a message replying to his, with the words 'see you' ['ci vediamo', lit. "we'll see each other"]. We met immediately afterward around 9:00 pm'
There! That's much better! Note the lie to Raffaele has now gone and the 'immediacy' has moved from within the text message (because it's not there!) to the narrative itself. They must have decided by now to frame Raffaele too by 5.45.

1.45
'In view of the fact that during the afternoon I had smoked a joint, I felt confused, since I do not frequently make use of mind-altering substances, nor of heavier substances.'
Ambiguous. Is she saying she infrequently uses 'heavier substances' or that she never does so?
5.45
No reference to the use of drugs.

1.45
'I met Patrik immediately afterward, at the basketball court on Piazza Grimana'
Fine. This can be in both statements.

1.45
They went straight to the apartment. 'I do not recall whether Meredith was there or arrived afterward. I struggle to remember those moments.'
A useful lapse of memory as the statement cannot be falsified should either scenario be provable.
5.45
'I do not recall exactly whether my friend Meredith was already home or if she arrived later'.
Note that the struggling to remember has gone. We don't want her to appear to be too stoned. Note also 'my friend', the meaning of which presently eludes me.

1.45
'but Patrik had sex with Meredith, with whom he was infatuated, but I do not recall whether Meredith had been threatened beforehand. I recall confusedly that he killed her.'
5.45
'Patrik and Meredith went off to Meredith's room, while it seems to me that I stayed in the kitchen. I cannot recall how much time they stayed together in the room but can only say that at a certain point I heard Meredith screaming and I, frightened, covered my ears. Then I don't remember anything anymore, I am very confused in my head. I do not recall whether Meredith was screaming and if [I? she?](*) also heard thuds [tonfi] because I was involved, but I was imagining what could have happened.'
There's a lot here.

In the first statement, not recalling whether Meredith was first threatened may be in the first version because the police did not know whether to make Amanda say Meredith was raped, the medical evidence being inconclusive. She knows they had sex (how? - see below) and that Patrick killed Meredith.

In the second statement she does not know, because she could not see, whether they had sex as she was in the kitchen and they were in the bedroom. She heard screaming but, in the next sentence cannot remember any screaming(?). Also there are thuds, presumably in place of the overt allegation of killing which featured in the first statement. Could it be that Amanda had collected herself to a small degree by 5.45 and could no longer be brought to say Patrick killed Meredith? Why else these mysterious 'thuds'? And now we have the words 'because I was involved' which the dozy police had forgotten to insert into the first one. This is as close as they could get her to confessing to murder.

I note from komponisto's footnote to his translation that it is not clear from the Italian who heard the thuds but I cannot see how Amanda could make a statement about what someone else heard so I assume the intended meaning is that Amanda heard the thuds.

1.45
'The Office records that the statement was interrupted and that Amanda KNOX was placed at the disposition of the Judicial Authority for further proceedings.'
It would be nice to know the precise legal significance of this, if any. This is the end of the 1.45 statement.

5.45
She says she met Patrick 'this morning'.
Silly girl. Must have been yesterday morning as this morning she was in the hands of the police. An obvious and revealing lie, clearly.
He wanted to know about the police investigation and whether she wanted to meet with journalists.
'not sure whether Raffaele was present that evening'
What!? Oh, come on! How could she not know that? I infer the police knew Patrick was involved but were not so sure about Raffaele, so they played it both ways.
She recalls waking up in Raffaele's bed in the morning, returning to the apartment where she found the door open. Then 'When I woke up, the morning of November 2, I was in bed with my boyfriend'.
Why is this repeated?
'It is recorded that KNOX repeatedly brings her hands to her head and shakes the latter.'
I have read somewhere that Mignini saw this as a sign of freemasonry
'Read[,] confirmed and signed [sottoscritto] at the time and place indicated above.'
No getting out of it then.


Back in black and white, what does all this say about time of death? We have Amanda and Patrick arriving at the apartment shortly after 9 and a time of death at 11.30? wtf were they doing in the course of two and half hours? Why is Amanda hanging around in the kitchen all that time? These 'confessions' are so amateurish it's unbelievable. They suggest to me a rush job. They know she and Patrick were involved and they just need a confession to top out the case before they spook her into fleeing back to the States and in order to go in front of Matteini to get a year's detention.

 

[christianahannah]

From Frank's latest post:



Wow, just wow. What happened to the tapes?

From reading the legal code (and confusing it is entirely) I don't know that the tapes (if they exist) could be shown by either side during the main trial because of the status conveyed upon Amanda during and after her questioning. Along the same line as the 1:45 and 5:45 statements (though one or both of the statements was able to be used in Patrick's civil suit).

If the tapes exist I wonder if they could be admitted into evidence to bolster her claim of being hit (among other things) during her calunnia trial (now that she has been acquitted of murder in the appeal trail)? Just as one or both of the statements was allowed to be introduced against in Patrick's civil suit (but could not be used in the main trial).

I would at least if I were Amanda's attorney, inquire about these tapes and question the five officers who will be testifying on March 30 during Amanda's parents' trial .

 

[Bill Williams]

1.45
'In addition to what has already been reported via the preceding statements rendered here at this Office'
5.45
'I wish to spontaneously report what happened because this case has deeply disturbed me and I am very afraid of Patrick'
The earlier version refers to 'preceding statements'. It is 'additional' to them. What were they? The later statement purports itself to be a spontaneous report. Plainly, no one would ordinarily so describe their own 'spontaneous' statement as such - they would just make it. The word is there because Mignini wishes to build an admissibility argument around it. He has Amanda explain why she wants to make a spontaneous statement - because she is deeply disturbed and afraid of Patrick, so naturally she wants to get things off her chest 'spontaneously'.

This alone is the smoking gun of why it is Mignini lying here, not Knox.

Compare and contrast this with Mignini's CNN interview, graciously offered in English by Peter Quennell and Peggy Ganong. Many thanks need to go to them for providing this....

Mignini, legal-tight-rope-walker that he is, specifically states in the CNN interview:

At that point I remember that… they made me notice that Amanda, because she wanted to go on talking, I remember she had, like a need to. So I told her: “you can make statements to me; I will not ask questions, since if you make a spontaneous statement and I collect it, I will collect your statement as if I were in fact a notary”. She then repeated [her story] to the interpreter, who was Mrs. Donnino, I remember there was a police woman officer who wrote the statement down [verbalizzava], I did not ask questions. She basically repeated what she had told the police and she signed the statement. Basically I didn’t ask Amanda questions. Not before, since the police asked them and I was not there, and not after, since she made spontaneous statements. Had I been asking her questions, a defense attorney should have been there. This is the procedure.

Why "basically"? If this was a pro-innocence translation, I would suspect that this word is inserted to undercut Mignini's claim of passivity here. But since it is Ganong's word.... hmmmmmmmmm.

Still, the use of the word "spontaneously" is not a word a perp would use, esp. given that this is a do-over of the first interrogation. Unless one was "encouraged" to use it, and the agnda of such encouragment is to manipulate the legality of the thing.

Most assuredly a perp would not "manipulate" the legality in such a sophistocated way, in a way that works against them.

Mignini is a liar.

 

[Bill Williams]

We know that the police had enough interest in Amanda to request her phone records the early evening of November 2nd. And we know that those phone records show that Amanda exchanged text messages shortly before the time when Meredith was known to have been murdered. And there is no other activity on Amanda's phone till about Noon the following day. Unless the police are total idiots, they are going to want to put a name on the other end of that SMS exchange.

However, I think this is my point. The reason Knox is under suspicion as of Nov. 2 is because Profazio said the break-in looked staged. If the break in had, in fact, been staged, then the investigative line is to follow the key holders. I will bet that they also put Filomena Romanelli under identical surveillance, only Romanelli had a lawyer saying to her, "For God's sake, don't use your phone."

I will also bet that everyone in Knox's list of numbers had at least one visit by the cops, "And where were you on the night of Nov 1? Have you every had a key loaned to you, that you may have given to someone else?" This is not rocket science, it is gumshoe stuff.

If your scenario is correct, the cops would have had plenty of time to decipher what an American would have meant by "see you later." Me, I actually do not think the cops were stupid, I think Mignini set out to actually frame Knox, but probably not until 1:45 am on Nov 6.

Otherwise what you're saying is that it is Mignini who is stupid, which I do not believe. Mignini would never have allowed the 1:45 am memorandum to contain the mistranslation of the SMS text message, because it would have been so obviously counter-productive to a case manufactured against Knox.

Mignini's involvement after 1:45 am was clearly, as AngloLawyer has demonstrated, an attempt to fix the mistakes made with the 1:45 am memorandum, the contents of which, in my mind, caught the cops completely unaware.

What is known is that the cops thought Knox knew something - either was willfully withholding or was genuinely forgetting, but they believed she knew something or was (even unintentionally) protecting someone.

That belief endures to this day.

Knox was then used mistakenly as the police's Rorschach onto whom they projected their frustration about not being able to solve the most high-profile case of their careers. I believe Knox completely blew them out of the water with her imaginings - one of which placed her at the scene. I don't think in a month of Mondays they were prepared for the implications of that.

Therefore, Mignini had to rush in to repair things. The lie planted by Mignini is telling - ie. the "fear of Lumumba" meme was born. Mignini was in damage control to rescue an investigation.......

.... and will one day do jail time for this. (Even though I disagree with a lot of it, read Frank Sfarzo's latest in Perugia Schock.)

I was not asking for "we know the police showed enough interest in Lumumba....," I was asking for some hard proof that the police suspected Lumumba prior to Nov 5/6, apart from everyone else who was along the "follow the key" investigative tree.

Lumumba did not stand out until some non-English speaking interrogators didn't know what to make of, "see you later."

 

[Bill Williams]

Anglo Lawyer - it is telling in your compare and contrast of 1:45 vs. 5:45 am Memorandums, that the things Knox is supposedly fuzzy about, are actually what the cops were fuzzy about at that period of time.

And Mignini has the gile to claim he's only taking dictation and "Basically asking no questions." Basically? He's directing this like a maestro.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

ask for and ye shall not receive

But some raw data was handed over to the defense end of July 2009 (this along with the test results from June 2008).

Do you know if the defense had submitted a checklist in 2009 as to what raw data they wanted and what was missing from that checklist?

As I have stated prior, I believe the defense is entitled to everything - I am not sure that in the past the defense or the prosecution knew what everything was or how to present the raw data in a coherent document (speaking in general).

For Charlie:

As far as Stefanoni I would have to compare her testimony given in 2011 with her testimony given in 2009 to see if there are major discrepancies. Added to this is the last sentence above I have posted to halides1. Your meeting with Dalla Vedova seems to imply the defense wasn't sure what to ask for in 2009.

christianahannah,

Bob Graham wrote, "Chris Mellas, Knox's step-father who is currently in Perugia, said yesterday: "Our lawyers asked for everything, every file and record relating to the forensic testing. We were given some of the stuff, like what was on Meredith's shoes or a juice glass but not the full reports on the knife used or the bra-clasp."

I corresponded with Dan Krane and Jason Gilder about the lack of file release. Both in the open letter of 19 November 2009 and in conversations with me, they were very clear that they asked for the electronic data files and did not get them. Separately in articles in 2010 that appeared in Irish publications, Greg Hampikian mentioned that he had a hard time getting the standard operating protocols.

 

[anglolawyer]

We know that the police had enough interest in Amanda to request her phone records the early evening of November 2nd. And we know that those phone records show that Amanda exchanged text messages shortly before the time when Meredith was known to have been murdered. And there is no other activity on Amanda's phone till about Noon the following day. Unless the police are total idiots, they are going to want to put a name on the other end of that SMS exchange.

To me, it is a clear as day that Lumumba was in their sights no later than the time they had joined not less than two of these three dots:
1 a black man was involved (why the cops seemed to have this idea I have no idea but I keep reading everywhere that they did - but as Frank asks, if they found a hair, where is it?)
2 Lumumba met Amanda on the morning of 05/11/2007 and was presumably seen by the cops doing so
3 Lumumba received the 'see you later' text.

As all the cops needed to arrest the poor sap was:

4 Amanda placing him at the scene in her 'confessions' of 06/11/2007

to consider their case cast iron.

I believe the police, operating on hunches that seem ridiculous to us, were sure of Lumumba's involvement before Amanda fingered him. I think the doubters out there have a problem comprehending how stupid the police can be. So far as I'm concerned, the possibilities are bottomless.

Anyhow, compare the memorandums' treatment of Lumumba, whom the cops are clearly out to nail, and Raffaele, in whom their interest had not warmed up to anything like the same extent as at beginning of play on the evening of the 5th. They can't even make their minds up whether to make Amanda say he was there, but there is no comparable doubt with Lumumba.

 

[Bill Williams]

The things that make me think that the Police had already hit on Patrick are the following:

1) The claim from the police that they had a series of events that they knew to be true, and then Amanada broke down and confirmed them. If this is correct, they must have already known about Patrick before Amanda implicated him.

With all due respect, PhantomWolf, all you are describing is one of the many investigative possibilities along an investigative tree, which the police would have been stupid not to follow.

If what you are saying is that they didn't follow any other investigative line, then you really DO think they're stupid. I don't.

The point I am making is that there were other, equally likely ("likely" as of 10 pm Nov 5) investigative possibilities that the police would simply have been incompetent if not following as well.

Are you accusing them of being incompetent? I am not.

Sure they had suspicions about everyone one-degree-of-separation from Amanda's front door key. That would include Lumumba.

The point is - where did Lumumba rank in that suspicion as of 10 am, Nov 5th? My feeling is very low, and I still have not seen actual evidence to suggest otherwise.

That Knox responded the way she did with her imaginings early the next morning becomes for the police the equivalent of.....

.... a gambler at a dice table yelling, "C'mon eleven, c'mon eleven, c'mon eleven," and gets the beautiful blonde next to him to blow on the dice. He then rolls it and, eureka!, it's an eleven! He turns to the beautiful girl and says, "I told you it would be an eleven!"

With all due respect, your scenario, while probably one of the investigative lines assigned to someone, was simply one of the lesser ones.

Of course they told Amanda they had evidence against Lumumba. They'd also told Amanda that Raffaele was no longer supporting her "alibi". Both statements were bollocks - shots in the dark hoping that it could shake something out of Knox. Then they stumble on the SMS text - or they may even have had it up their sleeve.... really doesn't matter.

Point is, they thought she was withholding something - a sentiment that continues to this day with the likes of Barbie Nadeau..... even if you don't think she participated in the murder, there are still people stuck where the police were stuck back on Nov 5th.

They probably thought Romanelli was withholding a lot of stuff, too. First on that list was, "Why'd you trespass into a crime scene to steal your own computer? Are you not a lawyer?" I bet she clammed up about that one on lawyer's advice.

I think it can be stated this way - police suspected that EITHER Romanelli OR Knox were withholding something, because that was the investigative line (then) that seemed to be going somewhere. If they could only find out "what", maybe a slap on the back of the head would help. They certainly would not have slapped Romanelli with her lawyer there.

The other investigative line (Meredith met someone the night before who she'd asked back on the 1st) was going nowhere. At least nowhere until Guede entered the picture.

(Please note - I think that investigative line goes nowhere, too.)

The point being that the cops could not beat the presumed-knowledge out of Romanelli, she had lawyered up - appropriately so. If she hadn't she could have been lumped in with Knox and Sollecito and Lumumba. That's a chilling thought, but at least the tabloids would have had TWO women forcing sex on a third woman! That would have guaranteed triple the newsstand sales.

That they went after Knox the way they did pre-1:45 am was not based on anything other than, "Gee.... we'd better roll an 11, or we're going home and Perugia will explode."

The proof of this - whether Mignini and Giobbi were watching at the time is immaterial - the proof is their reaction to Knox imagining herself at the scene. They'd NEVER in a million years imagined that!, but now they had to deal with it - They had to get PM Mignini in to get a lawyerly draft of another memorandum to fix the mess that the first memorandum presented them with.

And Mignini had to make the new one look "spontaneous". So Mignini lies about "only being a notary."

With all respect, all you're doing is describing one investigative line out of many in that pre-Nov 6 period. The cops would simply have been incompetent NOT to suspect everyone within arm's reach of Knox's front door key.

Their incompetence actually comes at the point where they should have realized that the complete implausibility of Knox's imaginings, actually proved that neither Knox nor Lumumba could have been involved. They should have waited until the "party the night before" investigative line itself suddenly heated up again when Rudy was found.

But back on the 6th, that Mignini then set out to frame Knox with this, is the real story here. They were hoping to roll an 11, and boy did they EVER roll an 11. Mignini had to engineer a new memorandum to show, "See I told you I'd roll an 11."

That people to this day think that "Knox knows something she's not revealing" is further proof how wrong the police got things, when the "something" turned out to be:

1) Lumumba
2) her at the scene

People are redoing what the police got wrong. At best, what Knox could be withholding is that she'd given Guede the key. At best. But then again, why would Rudy then need to break in through Filomena's window? Ergo, Knox could have given the key to one of 1000 people, but it wasn't Rudy she gave it to.

Why is this hard to fathom?