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

[Katody Matrass]

In the news:

Amanda Knox shops a memoir

An auction for her memoir about her long ordeal following the murder of her roommate in 2007 started Friday, according to an industry source. Ms. Knox visited publishers several weeks ago with her agent, Washington, D.C., power lawyer Robert Barnett.

The 24-year-old Seattle native impressed editors as being bright and articulate

 

[RoseMontague]

Germantes is quoting an article that appears to say criminal judges at the first level, when they are promoted to the appeal level cannot then preside of criminal appeals:

"Two other new judges are expected to debate after the departure of Rosaria Monaco (Rome), Cecilia Bellucci (Ancona) and the upcoming departure of President Giancarlo Massei (Court of Appeal). The place as president will be advertised in the coming weeks. Although Perugia is no longer as attractive at it once was. The magistrate who will win the competition, will stay for two or three years and then will request a transfer. However, among the new judges should be Giuseppe Noviello, committed as pm in the investigation of waste in Campania and that has prompted a shift from judicial investigating. Transfer to the Court of Appeal judges Battistacci, Matteini, Ricciarelli and Massei produce a lethal effect on incompatibility. The judges in question, including hearings and GIP-GUP, have been involved in conducting many criminal trials. Once they arrive in the Court of Appeal, criminal trials can not be treated by the judges themselves. According to a first estimate, it is about 80 percent of criminal cases. The transfer of these judges also paralyzes the field of collegiate debate. According to the colleges should be two tables, but it is difficult to establish one without the application of the judges of the Civil court. Almost a year, finally, has passed since the retirement of the chief judge Giovanni Villani. The position is vacant. Four out of district judges have applied, but two working in Perugia: Aldo Criscuolo and the acting president of the Assize Court of Appeal of the trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmann. After the summer, Judge Giovanni Galati will take possession of the office of public prosecutor at the Court of Appeals. These movements and news, however, leave the criminal field greatly underpowered compared to the needs of justice of the Court of Appeals."

Ahhh. Could the criticism that Hellmann was a civil judge prior to his promotion to the appeal court be an unfair criticism? Perhaps somewone that can read this in Italian can confirm the Google translation.

http://rassegna.crumbria.it/FastPre...898&Sel_Argomento=0000000000000000&ricerca=no

 

[smkovalinksy]

*Tears* I was so hoping LJ would be right about no appeal being filed....

12 Feb 2012, Perugia - A matter of days if not hours. The attorney general of Perugia is to deposit the appeal to the Supreme Court for judgment of acquittal against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito. In recent weeks, the judges have proceeded with the drafting of the instance where the attorney general asked to overturn the verdict of acquittal issued by the Appellate Court of Assizes of Perugia.

http://perugia.ogginotizie.it/11619...ura-sta-per-presentare-ricorso-in-cassazione/

 

[anglolawyer]

*Tears* I was so hoping LJ would be right about no appeal being filed....

http://perugia.ogginotizie.it/11619...ura-sta-per-presentare-ricorso-in-cassazione/

They don't like the licking they got from Hellmann. The grounds of appeal will make interesting reading. Any bets?

 

[Dan O.]

"She told me to call 121 (the Italian emergency number) but in the meantime the postal police arrived." from the PMF translation.

If PMF claims they translated that then they are a bunch of liers. The proper source of that quote is the Telegraph (Nov 7, 2007).

I accept that statement for what it is. This is from what the police wrote while interrogating Raffaele on Novenber 5th when he went to the police station stoned. The police got him to say what they wanted to believe. How many times they had to rehearse the statement before they got what they wanted we will probably never know. But we know that what they got is not factually correct because it is contradicted by other solid evidence.

 

[katy_did]

"She told me to call 121 (the Italian emergency number) but in the meantime the postal police arrived." from the PMF translation.

Halides, IIRC there's a bit missing from that quote: it should say "She told me to call 112, which I did, but in the meantime the postal police arrived". Thoughtful and Bolint pointed out the missing phrase when this was discussed on PMF; here's a link to one of Bolint's posts on the subject. The full phrase comes from the official statement I think, rather than the newspaper excerpts.

 

[Grinder]

If PMF claims they translated that then they are a bunch of liers. The proper source of that quote is the Telegraph (Nov 7, 2007).

I accept that statement for what it is. This is from what the police wrote while interrogating Raffaele on Novenber 5th when he went to the police station stoned. The police got him to say what they wanted to believe. How many times they had to rehearse the statement before they got what they wanted we will probably never know. But we know that what they got is not factually correct because it is contradicted by other solid evidence.

Has anyone actually seen what the police recorded?

From the Nov. 7, 2007 article: The following are extracts from police interviews with Amanda Knox and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, in the murder case of Meredith Kercher, as printed in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera

They are interviewed by the police into the AM hours of Nov. 6th, an Italian paper runs a story and by the 7th it's in an British paper - lot's of discretion those PLE showed, no?

My questions is whether or not the transcript was public or if these were just leaks from memory?

All of this should really bother PGP, particularly that if the police were able to get Raffaele to say a provable untruth that hurt him what does that say about all the other things they had him saying. They would probably say that this was just a particularly clever misdirection by him. He knew that the call would be proven to have been made before the PP arrived and therefore the entire interrogation would be brought to question.

 

[katy_did]

I agree that the "always/even" issue is likely one of translation, but I recently realised from Massei that Luca Altieri (who seems one of the most reliable witnesses) stated that Raffaele did the translation, so I think it's more likely that Raffaele mis-understood Amanda's English.

That's assuming Amanda was talking to the group entirely in English, rather than poor Italian or a mixture of English/Italian which Raffaele then interpreted for the others (going from the reported conversations between the two of them, it sounds like the latter was usual). It's always been a ridiculous pro-guilt point, of course, partly because of the numerous possibilities for miscommunication, and also because it makes no sense that she would've wanted to stop the door being broken down. Here's a bit on the topic from Amanda's trial testimony:

AK: I never said it was always locked. It's just that they didn't understand. I just wanted to explain that it was not always open. [...]

And when I said to Filomena "It's not true that it's never locked," I only wanted to explain the truth of the situation. Because someone was saying "No, no, it's never locked," and that wasn't true. I wanted to explain that.

 

[Grinder]

Halides, IIRC there's a bit missing from that quote: it should say "She told me to call 112, which I did, but in the meantime the postal police arrived". Thoughtful and Bolint pointed out the missing phrase when this was discussed on PMF; here's a link to one of Bolint's posts on the subject. The full phrase comes from the official statement I think, rather than the newspaper excerpts.

Katy perhaps you could go to the La Stampa story they are translating. I don't believe that the transcript has ever been released and this was just a leak but I'm not an Italian reader.

Thanks for the link - good to read SB going on about their telephone records proving the PP arrived before the call.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

the missing words in Raffaele's statement

Halides, IIRC there's a bit missing from that quote: it should say "She told me to call 112, which I did, but in the meantime the postal police arrived". Thoughtful and Bolint pointed out the missing phrase when this was discussed on PMF; here's a link to one of Bolint's posts on the subject. The full phrase comes from the official statement I think, rather than the newspaper excerpts.

katy_did,

I am inclined to say that the quote is ambiguous with respect to the exact timing of the arrival of the PP versus the call to the Carabinieri. Do you have any thoughts on this?

 

[komponisto]

Germantes is quoting an article that appears to say criminal judges at the first level, when they are promoted to the appeal level cannot then preside of criminal appeals:



Ahhh. Could the criticism that Hellmann was a civil judge prior to his promotion to the appeal court be an unfair criticism? Perhaps somewone that can read this in Italian can confirm the Google translation.

http://rassegna.crumbria.it/FastPre...898&Sel_Argomento=0000000000000000&ricerca=no

Here is the relevant passage:

I giudici in questione, tra dibattimento e gip-gup, si sono occupati di moltissimi fascicoli penali. Una volta che questi arriveranno in Corte d'appello non potranno essere trattati dagli stessi giudici. Secondo un prima stima si parla dell'80 per cento dei procedimenti penali.

The judges in question, between trial and GIP/GUP [phases], have dealt with a very large number of criminal cases. [But] once these reach the Corte d'Appello [Court of Appeal), they cannot be handled by the same judges. According to an initial estimate this would be 80 percent of criminal proceedings.

In other words, the Google translation is misleading. What the text actually means is simply that e.g. Massei can't be a second-level judge on a case that he already presided over as a first-level judge -- which is a problem, since he apparently was the first-level judge for many of the cases currently reaching the second level.

Basically, Perugia doesn't have enough judges to make sure that appeals get heard by people previously uninvolved. Nothing to do with criminal vs. civil.

(In fact I believe this is why Hellmann ended up on this case in the first place, despite being mainly a civil judge: they ran out of criminal judges! But the criticism of Hellmann is still misplaced: he is perfectly qualified to judge a criminal case, he just hadn't been doing it much lately. And my understanding is that civil law is considered more prestigious and intellectually demanding than criminal law anyway; which I must say is rather consistent with the impression I get from comparing Hellmann's report to Massei's.)

 

[katy_did]

Germantes is quoting an article that appears to say criminal judges at the first level, when they are promoted to the appeal level cannot then preside of criminal appeals:



Ahhh. Could the criticism that Hellmann was a civil judge prior to his promotion to the appeal court be an unfair criticism? Perhaps somewone that can read this in Italian can confirm the Google translation.

http://rassegna.crumbria.it/FastPre...898&Sel_Argomento=0000000000000000&ricerca=no

No, I think it's saying that the judges who are being promoted dealt with many criminal cases at trial and pre-trial level, and that when these cases arrive in appeal, they can't be dealt with by the same judges who've dealt with them previously. So the fact so many judges are moving to appeal level will make it difficult to find 'compatible' judges for those particular cases at appeal (perhaps they could settle for 'not incompatible' ones?).

(I can see why you thought it said what you suggest, though: it's not that these judges can't deal with criminal cases in general, but rather with these specific criminal cases. Here's a non-google version).

The judges in question, taking into account first trial and pre-trial [stages], have dealt with very many criminal cases. Once these [cases] arrive at the appeal court, they cannot be dealt with by the same judges.

 

[katy_did]

katy_did,

I am inclined to say that the quote is ambiguous with respect to the exact timing of the arrival of the PP versus the call to the Carabinieri. Do you have any thoughts on this?

I agree, it's ambiguous at best: in fact, the only two things Raffaele can be saying here are either that the postal police arrived in the interval between the phone call to his sister and the call to the Carabinieri (which from recollection was about 60 seconds!) or that they arrived after the call to the Carabinieri but before the latter had a chance to get there. The second option seems a lot more likely!

 

[katy_did]

Katy perhaps you could go to the La Stampa story they are translating. I don't believe that the transcript has ever been released and this was just a leak but I'm not an Italian reader.

Thanks for the link - good to read SB going on about their telephone records proving the PP arrived before the call.

Sorry yes, so far as I know the statement has only been published in newspapers rather than officially released. I assumed it was accurate but I guess we can't know that for certain (as the inaccurate quote from the Telegraph shows!).

 

[RoseMontague]

Here is the relevant passage:



In other words, the Google translation is misleading. What the text actually means is simply that e.g. Massei can't be a second-level judge on a case that he already presided over as a first-level judge -- which is a problem, since he apparently was the first-level judge for many of the cases currently reaching the second level.

Basically, Perugia doesn't have enough judges to make sure that appeals get heard by people previously uninvolved. Nothing to do with criminal vs. civil.

(In fact I believe this is why Hellmann ended up on this case in the first place, despite being mainly a civil judge: they ran out of criminal judges! But the criticism of Hellmann is still misplaced: he is perfectly qualified to judge a criminal case, he just hadn't been doing it much lately. And my understanding is that civil law is considered more prestigious and intellectually demanding than criminal law anyway; which I must say is rather consistent with the impression I get from comparing Hellmann's report to Massei's.)

Thanks both to you and Katy_did for the translation. That makes more sense.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

the missing phrase

Halides, IIRC there's a bit missing from that quote: it should say "She told me to call 112, which I did, but in the meantime the postal police arrived". Thoughtful and Bolint pointed out the missing phrase when this was discussed on PMF; here's a link to one of Bolint's posts on the subject. The full phrase comes from the official statement I think, rather than the newspaper excerpts.

Many thanks. This makes more sense.

 

[Grinder]

I agree, it's ambiguous at best: in fact, the only two things Raffaele can be saying here are either that the postal police arrived in the interval between the phone call to his sister and the call to the Carabinieri (which from recollection was about 60 seconds!) or that they arrived after the call to the Carabinieri but before the latter had a chance to get there. The second option seems a lot more likely!

If he actually said the PP arrived before he made the call to the Carabinieri, it would only prove how totally confused he was or how diabolical. Just imagine how clever he would have to be to lie about the call being after the PP arrived, when that looks bad, then would be disproved by time stamps and call logs. Brilliant!

I think this is one of the few things that the PGP have dropped as evidence of guilt. Not even TM uses the call to the Carabinieri as a talking point, IIRC.

 

[Bill Williams]

If he actually said the PP arrived before he made the call to the Carabinieri, it would only prove how totally confused he was or how diabolical. Just imagine how clever he would have to be to lie about the call being after the PP arrived, when that looks bad, then would be disproved by time stamps and call logs. Brilliant!

I think this is one of the few things that the PGP have dropped as evidence of guilt. Not even TM uses the call to the Carabinieri as a talking point, IIRC.

I'm not sure where the Massei-Crisitani stands on this issue, but it raises an issue...

Does ANYONE agree with the Massei-Cristiani anymore?

Few Innocentatii do. And when you follow PGP on other boards, it seems they do not either.

Chief among the PGP doubt about Massei-Cristiani is that following the Hellmann-Zanetti report, they repoened ToD issues. Also, since Massei-Cristiani says this was basically "a crime of opportunity", all other motives that PGP entertain, is a de facto debunking of the conviction's report.

Most of what I've read shows how much NO ONE really believes the Massei-Cristiani conclusions anymore.

Which leads me to ask? Was there ANYTHING at the first trial that ANYONE thinks is valid? PGP and Inncentatii seem to agree - NO!

 

[bookworm]

I think this is a much bigger point than many seem to think, but as it's not 'forced' it's hard to make out. But if they were really guilty their entire universe changes. Now, Curatolo and Kokomani become justices of the peace whose evidence is unimpeachable, Stefanoni is not to be fooled, the police themselves are fully justified in driving them off to jail, car horns blaring like football fans returning from a cup final.

Their separate legal teams begin to devise damage-limiting, cut-throat strategies, the scope for which is great ('she made me do it/ she did it and we cleaned up/I was never there but I cleaned up/she left at 9 and returned while I slept' are just four of Raffaele's which might have encountered favourable winds).

Their calculations revolve solely around getting out of jail, a rotten place to be, or getting out of jail sooner than later. They have plenty of time for these calculations and loyalty plays no part in them at all. As they are murderers, they think nothing of mere lies. Any story which cannot be falsified will do. Again, compare and contrast Rudy, whose defence strategy was spectacularly successful - considering what he did.

And if they are guilty, they get out of jail, count their blessings and shut their mouths. They take a slander conviction gratefully and do not rock the boat. They don't appeal it and risk anything else coming out. They don't write books. They just shut up and disappear.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Italian media report that Galati's appeal is in. He fully endorses first level verdict

I thought that they will choose Valentine's Day.