Continuation Part 5: Discussion of the Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito case

[Mary_H]

That was my impression, too. Very sad. I feel that there is a great lack in our (U.S.) educational system in terms of instilling in young people an understanding of the most effective ways to deal with issues of such gravity. Any children of mine will be taught early on how to stand up for themselves and to never underestimate the seriousness of encounters with elements of justice, foreign or domestic.

Most people never find themselves in circumstances where it matters much, but when they do, things sure can go wrong. Especially when you have madmen at the helm of the legal system.

There's the rub, D.R. Despite our best intentions, few of us are ever prepared for the absurd, the outlandish, the unpredictable or the insane, by the very definitions of the words. Italy has a legal system that requires not only that suspects be provided with lawyers but also that suspects cannot waive the right to counsel. PLE broke laws; it's as simple as that.

New approach for American parents whose children are off for the Grand Tour: "Now, kids, remember you're going to EUROPE. Watch out for legal systems operated by liars and kidnappers!"

 

[GWCarver]

Any way you look at it, the Italian people are trapped in this horrible system with seemingly no way out.

 

[Matthew Best]

The Kerchers are, officially, not despicable.

Anyone who asserts otherwise will have their posts consigned to "AAH".

You have been notified.

I would have thought that the existence of post #305 in this very thread would be evidence that your contention is incorrect.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9163041&postcount=305

 

[acbytesla]

Any way you look at it, the Italian people are trapped in this horrible system with seemingly no way out.

That's why I fear for Raffaele. I don't think the Italians will ever get Amanda back. There are far too many of her supporters in the US...but Raffaele is an Italian....and things are crazy there. So I fear he is in real danger of losing his freedom. I've read that he could actually escaped to Switzerland and even Germany. They both have extradition treaties with Italy..but this kind of thing has happened before and Italy was told to go pound sand before...even with their own citizens.

 

[acbytesla]

A lawyer consulted on, say, 02 Nov might have:

1 taken a full statement from her nailing down her recollections and focusing very particularly on her account of the morning of 02 Nov
2 sensed the direction enquiries were taking
3 protected her from oppresive and exhausting questioning and unlawful activity
4 prevented her from icriminating herself, Raffaele or Patrick
5 perhaps, monitored the police investigation and suggested promising lines of enquiry.

Exactly, He/She could have told his client not to speak to the police without him and he/she could have advised his client to stay quiet is necessary, even be a pipeline between her and the police. Certainly could have kept her out of that interrogation room or at least made sure that they would have NO CHANCE to coerce a false statement out of her.

 

[Bill Williams]

Some of the guilters have read Massei and have taken issue with the motivation's report from Early 2010 - which explained the Dec 2009 conviction.

I am grateful to the guilters I have read to expland on the list I have circulated since about Nov 2102 - which is now a list of 7 things found as factual by the Massei court which tend to undercut the prosecution case.

Massei found as factual:

1) neither Knox nor Sollecito had a motive for this horrible crime.
2) neither Knox nor Sollecito had a psychopathology about them, meaning that they were normal people
3) There is no forensic evidence of Amanda Knox's found in the murder room
4) There was no bad relationship between Meredith and Amanda. In short, Massei completely disbelieved the theory of the prosecution (relating to motive) that Mignini intended, by calling the British friends to testify.
5) There is no mixed blood of Knox/Kercher at all in the cottage.​

To these five points one can now add, thanks to postings of guilters I have seen, but have checked with Massei's report:

6) There is no prior relationship between Knox and Rudy Guede, other than a single meeting in the company of others
7) Raffaele called the Carabinieri before the postal police arrived.​

I need to go all The Machine on you and get this on cut and paste.

So far I have never read anything to contradict these 7 points as found factual by Judge Massei, yes, the convicting judge. All the guilters do is assert that Massei is wrong, without saying why.

 

[Kaosium]

As it is clearly written in the Massei excerpt you cited the Stardust file was in the shared P2P folder, so any outer download modifies its access timestamp. That's a much more plausible explanation than some police Catwoman entering his room and changing the timestamp.

I wasn't thinking of any 'catwoman' but misremembered something (he started talking about it in the context of bringing it up in the interrogation and then mentioned the early morning hours) from Raffaele's book in which he detailed how he was taken to his home on the Sixth to get the computer, and they later asked for his password as they couldn't get their software to work with a Mac. My assumption was they'd been checking his alibi and had inadvertently overwritten the data as Massei described. I am no expert with (civilian) computer systems and the last time I used a Mac was 1992, which undoubtedly puts me in the 'marginal lifeform category' to Apple enthusiasts!

However I've tried to follow what Dan-O (in particular) and others such as CD-Host and just now what AcbyTesla has had to say about what happened with the computers and if I understand it correctly incompetence might well be a valid explanation of what happened with the other three computers, and with the Encase software the prosecution was more along the lines of lying by omission: pretending that any activity not registered by the Encase software didn't exist, or somehow didn't 'count.' This doesn't surprise me in the context of refusing to turn over the requisite data files for the DNA work and not providing the results of the negative blood tests which if I recall was what Comodi was quoted as saying about (something to the effect of) 'we didn't need them to make our case' which is certainly true but the defense sure did and concealing data like that is a big no-no most places.

However despite that activity not registered by the Encase software wasn't helpful to the prosecution so they tried to minimize it, the fact that there is evidence of activity on that computer attributable to the presence of humans due to the activation (or not) of the keyboard light and screensaver does exist in the real world and is not extinguished because it wasn't helpful to the prosecution! As I recall Mignini protested the Appeal addendum under the legal grounds that it was filed too late (~October of '10 is when it was announced to my recollection) thus that was the grounds on which it was disallowed. That won't be the case in any future trial, which is what I was winking about when I noted that it may well come up again.

OK Amélie.
Let's see what Amanda says about it.

:
Sometime between 4 P.M. and 5 P.M., we left to go to his place. We wanted a quiet, cozy night in. As we walked along, I was telling Raffaele that Amélie was my all-time favorite movie.“Really?” he asked. “I’ve never seen it.”“Oh my God,” I said, unbelieving. “You have to see it right this second! You’ll love it!”

Not long after we got back to Raffaele’s, his doorbell rang. (... Popovic visit cut ...)
As soon as she left, we downloaded the movie on his computer and sat on his bed to watch it.

You see the problem?

Yes and no. I'm guessing you're thinking there's conflicting data there, she remembered it wrong? It was more along the lines of Popovic first calling, then showing up at the door later during Amelie, and you think that's a 'problem?' Or that Raffaele had actually downloaded the movie a few days before?


Well, it is a problem, but here's what you're missing: it's not actually a problem with Amanda (or Raffaele) they're demonstrating signs of 'normal memory syndrome' in that people do not remember with exactness events that occurred in the past, especially with the passage of time. That sort of 'evidence' is something that could have been 'collected' on any number of innocent people in the area after the murder, the fact that it doesn't matter in the slightest when Amelie was downloaded or if Amanda and Raffaele recall perfectly when Joanna called or came over (especially now) ought to be a big clue that there was certainly nothing to be gained by lying about it.

Let me put it this way: You have probably taken a number of tests in your life for school. In almost every case you were exposed the material in class, (perhaps repeatedly) and had been encouraged to study it, and may even have done so, for hours in preparation for the exam. You didn't get a perfect score on every test, did you? Even if you did, you must realize the typical person doesn't have the ability to recall with perfection what they were supposed to, even the ones who spent hours pouring over the material the night before. They experienced it, they may have even tried to memorize it with great industry in the recent past, but they just couldn't remember it right. So is the vast majority of the human population lying or stupid when they don't get a test perfect?

If you take any two college students who spent an evening smoking hash, watching movies and snuggling odds are high very few of them could give a perfect account of the exact sequence of events and what exactly happened, that hardly means they're all 'lying,' and a prosecution advancing such inanities ought to be taken quite skeptically.

(I'll answer the rest of your post tomorrow)

Fair enough.

 

[anglolawyer]

If you take any two college students who spent an evening smoking hash, watching movies and snuggling odds are high very few of them could give a perfect account of the exact sequence of events and what exactly happened, that hardly means they're all 'lying,' and a prosecution advancing such inanities ought to be taken quite skeptically.

This is undoubtedly true. Before the examination of Amanda that Mignini conducted in December, at her request, she was advised by her lawyers not to think she had to know the answers to every question, that 'I don't know' or 'I don't remember' are perfectly acceptable answers.

I have tried to drill this simple advice into the heads of many clients, not always with success. The trouble is sometimes the client does not trust the system to get at the truth unless his answers drive it there. Amanda and Raffaele have been driven to attain impossible precision by unreasonable expectations not only of an ignorant and insatiable public but also by the lawyers, who should know better. Just read her trial transcript.

Raffaele's story about pricking Meredith with the knife is the product of this kind of pressure.

 

[Rolfe]

Or is this an implanted false memory caused by everyone telling Amanda that she did call her mom?

I don't think it's necessarily even as concrete as that. Our memories are fluid. Every time we remember something, take it out and look at it and put it away again, we put away a slightly different memory from the one we took out.

If we have objective records to refer to, or other participants to cross-check with, or if the memory is a very strong one, it may remain accurate for many decades. However a weak or uncertain memory may become both stronger and less accurate with time as we try to remember something we actually don't remember.

Amanda has been forced to keep taking these memories out and look at them for four or five years. For the early part of the time in question she was relaxed and not paying a lot of attention. For the latter part, she was under extreme stress. Neither are conducive to the retention of strong, reliable memories. I'd be astounded if what she thinks she remembers now was anywhere near accurate in detail compared to what actually happened.

Rolfe.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I don't think it's necessarily even as concrete as that. Our memories are fluid. Every time we remember something, take it out and look at it and put it away again, we put away a slightly different memory from the one we took out.

If we have objective records to refer to, or other participants to cross-check with, or if the memory is a very strong one, it may remain accurate for many decades. However a weak or uncertain memory may become both stronger and less accurate with time as we try to remember something we actually don't remember.

Amanda has been forced to keep taking these memories out and look at them for four or five years. For the early part of the time in question she was relaxed and not paying a lot of attention. For the latter part, she was under extreme stress. Neither are conducive to the retention of strong, reliable memories. I'd be astounded if what she thinks she remembers now was anywhere near accurate in detail compared to what actually happened.

Rolfe.

I'm going to try to find out about this, but I suspect there may be a gap in the phone records. The original phone records I have are sloppy, and I would not be surprised if something is missing, like maybe the page I have starts at noon.

 

[Dan O.]

The original phone records that we have had access to started just after midnight on Nov. 1st. These were appended to the defense presentation proving the time on the CCTV camera from the car park. You can find a copy on the Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito pages of the wiki.

The data is transcribed to a table in a post here.

The prosecution makes reference to phone records going back a month or more but I have not seen that data.

 

[anglolawyer]

I don't think it's necessarily even as concrete as that. Our memories are fluid. Every time we remember something, take it out and look at it and put it away again, we put away a slightly different memory from the one we took out.

If we have objective records to refer to, or other participants to cross-check with, or if the memory is a very strong one, it may remain accurate for many decades. However a weak or uncertain memory may become both stronger and less accurate with time as we try to remember something we actually don't remember.

Amanda has been forced to keep taking these memories out and look at them for four or five years. For the early part of the time in question she was relaxed and not paying a lot of attention. For the latter part, she was under extreme stress. Neither are conducive to the retention of strong, reliable memories. I'd be astounded if what she thinks she remembers now was anywhere near accurate in detail compared to what actually happened.

Rolfe.

I am adopting this in support of the deleted text theory. Thanks Rolfe.

 

[Bill Williams]

Amelie was downloaded or if Amanda and Raffaele recall perfectly when Joanna called or came over (especially now) ought to be a big clue that there was certainly nothing to be gained by lying about it.

Ok - everyone, listen up.

The only group of people in the world who insist upon perfect memory, and will get you to repeat it and repeat it and repeat it, and will stress you out and expose you to sleep deprivation to induce variations of memory are.....

..... the police at interrogation. And they actually couldn't care about your memory to begin with.

This "catching one out on inconsistencies" has only one purpose, and that purpose is not to catch one out on inconsistencies.

It is to get you to confess. Nothing more, nothing less.

Those who continue, 5 1/2 years after the fact, to go over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over these inconsistencies have as their goal, too, to get them to confess or, "tell us what they've been withholding," like John Follain's latest - where Follain says that Knox still is not forthcoming with what she remembers of that night - (even after she writes a flippin' book about it!)

They want her to confess. Nothing more, nothing less. I goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on until what happens is as the Regina (Saskatchewan) kid said when he said, "All I know is for hours on end I said 'No, I had nothing to do with it.' Next thing you know I'm sitting here going 'Sure, why not. I did it.' More or less it's like they kill your spirit or something," he said.

Those who want to understand what went on accept inconsistencies for all the reasons mentioned in this thread. Those who want her to confess look for little peck around the edges excuses to call her a liar.

BTW - calling Knox a liar at investigation is NOT because they believe her a liar. It's to put pressure on her to eventually get her to confess. The cops at interrogation actually could not care less if she's a liar or not, they want her to confess. Let me say it again, interrogation is about confession, nothing more, nothing less. Catching her in an actual bona fide lie (her drug use) is a bonus! But it is a bonus only as a lever. Another way to pile on the stress... to always refer back to.

With all due respect Kaosium - you're missing the point.

 

[acbytesla]

I don't think it's necessarily even as concrete as that. Our memories are fluid. Every time we remember something, take it out and look at it and put it away again, we put away a slightly different memory from the one we took out.

If we have objective records to refer to, or other participants to cross-check with, or if the memory is a very strong one, it may remain accurate for many decades. However a weak or uncertain memory may become both stronger and less accurate with time as we try to remember something we actually don't remember.

Amanda has been forced to keep taking these memories out and look at them for four or five years. For the early part of the time in question she was relaxed and not paying a lot of attention. For the latter part, she was under extreme stress. Neither are conducive to the retention of strong, reliable memories. I'd be astounded if what she thinks she remembers now was anywhere near accurate in detail compared to what actually happened.

Rolfe.

This absolutely nails it. This is kind of the problem with eyewitnesses and group think. Very few people have eidetic memories. Most people remember the gist of what may have happened but you really can't expect people to remember precise times and the order of events days later or even minutes later. Memories can be enforced for example by repeating them over and over again in your mind or repeating them out loud. But what if you made a mistake and then started repeated something over and over again that is wrong? You've just created a false memory and people do it all the time.

Just as the in the social experiment where it shows how bad eyewitnesses are in crime scenes...so is our own recollection of our own memories.

For example, what did you do all day yesterday? From morning to night. What did you do every minute of the day? How about 2 days ago? A week? Would you get it all in the right order? Now add getting stoned before you went to bed. It is a fact that marijuana effects memories and cognitive functions. Can you really expect to remember everything in it's order? Now imagine that you discussed it with someone who was with you part of the day? What if they remembered it differently? Would you stick to your own memory? Or would you say... no they must be right and start adopting that as your memory?

This is the kind of stuff that prosecutors and guilters try and make a huge deal about, but it's not.

In a question and answer with an attorney or a cop/bobby...it is much better to say "I don't recall", because far too many people judging see your mistaken testimony as untruthfulness.

 

[anglolawyer]

This absolutely nails it. This is kind of the problem with eyewitnesses and group think. Very few people have eidetic memories. Most people remember the gist of what may have happened but you really can't expect people to remember precise times and the order of events days later or even minutes later. Memories can be enforced for example by repeating them over and over again in your mind or repeating them out loud. But what if you made a mistake and then started repeated something over and over again that is wrong? You've just created a false memory and people do it all the time.

Just as the in the social experiment where it shows how bad eyewitnesses are in crime scenes...so is our own recollection of our own memories.

For example, what did you do all day yesterday? From morning to night. What did you do every minute of the day? How about 2 days ago? A week? Would you get it all in the right order? Now add getting stoned before you went to bed. It is a fact that marijuana effects memories and cognitive functions. Can you really expect to remember everything in it's order? Now imagine that you discussed it with someone who was with you part of the day? What if they remembered it differently? Would you stick to your own memory? Or would you say... no they must be right and start adopting that as your memory?

This is the kind of stuff that prosecutors and guilters try and make a huge deal about, but it's not.

In a question and answer with an attorney or a cop/bobby...it is much better to say "I don't recall", because far too many people judging see your mistaken testimony as untruthfulness.

You can take 'I don't recall' too far. It's best to be innocent and say what you remember.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

So she possibly made a mistake about the actual time she phoned her mom, no big deal, Toto made a mistake about the buses as well, he saw them so often, not a big deal either, our memory just doesn't work like that, when we all become cyborg it will be different.

 

[acbytesla]

You can take 'I don't recall' too far. It's best to be innocent and say what you remember.

True..but it's far better to say "I don't know, or I don't recall" than fake it...or try and force it. On one hand a prosecutor would say your hiding something or it's not believable that you couldn't recall...but they would also jump on any inconsistency....even if it is innocent.

 

[acbytesla]

So she possibly made a mistake about the actual time she phoned her mom, no big deal, Toto made a mistake about the buses as well, he saw them so often, not a big deal either, our memory just doesn't work like that, when we all become cyborg it will be different.

Exactly...but Toto...was a homeless heroin addict....do you really take his testimony about what he remembers? Especially when he remembers it 6 months or a year later? I'd bet money that if it wasn't for Amanda's picture being published every day in the papers there is NO WAY that Toto would be able to ID her. So is his memory real? Or is it a false memory that his mind created?

Also, don't you find it the least bit suspicious that Toto has been used as a witness in 3 murder trials which Mignini has been involved? How many murder trials have you been a witness to?

Even if you decide that there is nothing nefarious going on with his testimony that I am thoroughly convinced that there is... Too big of coincidence...you can't help but find that his testimony is not credible by the lifestyle of that old bum. The mental health problems among the homeless is significant and when you add in the fact that Toto regularly uses Heroin and Toto testified that he took Heroin that evening.

Have you ever taken morphine or Oxycontin? I was prescribed Oxycontin for pain a few years back. Oxycontin, which is basically a synthetic version of opiate drug like morphine and heroin. It kicked my ass. I made a fool out of myself while using it. My friends later made fun of me because of the things I said and did while under it's influence. I sort of remember what happened...but when I discussed it later with my friends..they described a very different encounter.

I really can't imagine anyone thinking of Curatolo as credible.

 

[Katody Matrass]

So she possibly made a mistake about the actual time she phoned her mom, no big deal, Toto made a mistake about the buses as well, he saw them so often, not a big deal either, our memory just doesn't work like that, when we all become cyborg it will be different.

The difference is Toto made his mistakes testifying in the courtroom.
When she testified she said truthfully she does not remember.

Writing a book she reconstructed the events from all the sources, including her own trial questioning, when Comodi insisted there was a call at 12.00 and Massei authoritatively said to Amanda that it is true. It's unfortunate that Comodi and Massei managed to persuade her with their falsehood.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

no comparison

So she possibly made a mistake about the actual time she phoned her mom, no big deal, Toto made a mistake about the buses as well, he saw them so often, not a big deal either, our memory just doesn't work like that, when we all become cyborg it will be different.

There is more that is problematic in Curatolo's testimony than just the buses. Moreover, the comparison just doesn't work for me. The supposed lies people keep finding in Amanda's or Raffaele's statements are not things a guilty person would lie about to shore up an alibi.