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

[Kevin_Lowe]

That's all you need to believe. If you believe that, you know they didn't do it

There, I corrected your mistake for you. I hope that OK with you.

Knowledge is simply justified, true belief and in this case belief in those data points is amply justified.

As far as the time of death goes, you can consult the scientific literature, or you can consult the Massei report, or you can consult Rolfe who testifies about exactly this sort of thing in court professionally. All will agree that the state of Meredith's duodenum and bowel shows that it is overwhelmingly likely she died before 21:30.

(The Massei/Christiani report included some carefully weasel-worded "logic" which argued that since if the pathologist had totally botched the autopsy by not tying off the bowel then maybe the digestive evidence could be wrong, therefore it was safe to totally ignore it. The problem was, the Massei court had access to the autopsy video which I am told very clearly shows the bowel being tied off properly, so they knew that it was not in fact possible for the autopsy evidence to be wrong. This to my mind is the most clear-cut example of outright misconduct in the Massei/Christiani report).

As for their computer alibi, computers don't lie or misremember or get threatened with calunnia charges. If the computer says they opened a Naruto file at 21:26, that is what happened, and I trust that far more than I trust second-hand or third-hand reports of Amanda laughing at a pizza or whatever else passes as evidence for guilt in pro-guilt echo chambers these days.

What rational reason to you have to contest these data points?

"But it destroys the pet theory I have laboured on for so long!" is not a rational reason, by the way. Competent rationalists and good scientists will throw any theory under the bus the very second the evidence no longer supports it. The fact that it's your theory means that if you want to practice intellectual honesty, you should be tougher on it than everyone else, not make up special exceptions to reality to keep it alive.

 

[DrTesla]

Hmmmm. Most erudiate and informative. You've taken to this "forensic DNA analysis" like a duck to water. And this in a matter of days.

A certain Greg Hampikian of Boise State University might want to pick your brains, you have insights he would find invaluable.

isn't Greg associated with the Innocence Project, which seeks to use DNA evidence to spring innocent people from jail decades after their conviction? I don't think he believes DNA just degrades on it's own in just 6 days time if he is using DNA evidence that is decades old.

the point of the article I linked was any contamination from the bra clasp would have been removed in 6 days time in a forensics lab with active testing and protocols in place to eliminate contamination, as C and V themselves, against their own wishes, were forced to admit.

I do not claim to be a DNA expert but I at least understand the point that somebody is trying to make regarding DNA. this guy never implied the DNA simply degraded over time..that wasn't the point of talking about the 6 day gap b/t testing the bra clasp and testing the knife.

 

[Supernaut]

During his interrogation Raffaele said he remembered that before they went out (and would later part at the square) Amanda had gone out shopping on the 31st. That's two times on the 31st that involve leaving his apartment, since he'd not told them that before they got all excited and started in on how he was now contradicting himself and that's when everything went downhill for poor Raffaele and Amanda.

Yes, I was asking rhetorically.

The cops also got to him to say he might have been asleep at some time after 9 PM on the 1st of Nov, and that hence that he "couldn't know for sure" if Amanda had stayed in his flat all evening.

This, I believe, is the jist of what they were hoping he would say in court, and in doing so save himself while consigning Amanda to life in jail.

He refused.

 

[Kaosium]

lol, the point of the 6 day gap between testing is that other things were tested in the meantime and given the cleanup protocols and procedures of the lab, which would have been gone through numerous times in 6 days time, any contamination would have been removed by the time the knife was tested. the 6 day gap has nothing to do with the possibility of the DNA degrading, nobody has argued that. you are either constructing a real dumb straw man here or you misunderstand the point which I think was clear to most people of scientific expertise.

When you quote from the 'soundbites for simpletons site,' I tend to assume the lowest common denominator argument is being made!

Incidentally can you show me the six day gap? Have fun with that, people are going through the SALs trying to find it, it may be they just lied again--or they were referring to something else entirely and it got mixed up. And where did you ever get the impression that lab's standards were up to snuff for LCN/LT DNA? Or for that matter even all that qualified for regular DNA work?

I also want to point out that Knox's DNA on the Double DNA Knife was found to be at a point consistent with stabbing a victim than with using the knife in a kitchen or table for cooking and eating purposes. the DNA was found much more to the end of the knife as you would expect a hand to grasp a knife to slit the throat of your roommate for being so conceited and full of herself.

LOL! No, they just made that up. That's silly, think about it.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

On the topic of Stefanoni's various stories about how contamination could not possibly have taken place in her lab, I simply do not understand the reasoning process pro-guilt posters use where Stefanoni's word is taken as proof of Stefanoni's honesty.

If you take for granted that she is as honest as the day is long, then the mere fact she says contamination is impossible proves that contamination is impossible.

However if the question at issue is whether she is an incompetent lab technician who repeatedly got caught in serious errors, omissions and/or lies, you can't just assume that she is as honest as the day is long. That's the matter under debate, so you can't just end the debate by assuming that she is honest. That's referred to in the trade as "begging the question", or assuming what you ought to be trying to prove.

Stefanoni got caught with her pants down, and the "no samples were run for six days" story was something she came up with after the fact to try to retroactively save a highly suspect result. Taking for granted that it's true and accurate seems more like wishful thinking than reason.

Perhaps more importantly, contamination happens in the best labs every now and again, which is why the best labs keep a log of all contamination events, and it's simply not always possible to figure out exactly how it happened. Stefanoni does not keep such logs, and the idea that she can absolutely rule out all forms of deliberate or accidental contamination with such simplistic reasoning doesn't pass scrutiny by relevant experts.

Plus, as other have already pointed out more than once, given that the people Stefanoni's results put in the frame could not possibly have been there at the time the murder happened, ruling out accidental contamination leaves very little room for anything but deliberate misconduct. I don't think the pro-guilt side are well advised to go there.

 

[Supernaut]

Worth reminding everybody that there is no record or transcript of any kind of a single word that the cops put in the mouths of Amanda and Raffaele on 05-06/11/2007.

The cops claim Raffaele admitted he might have slept that evening (of the murder), they claim Amanda "accused" Lumumba of killing Meredith, etc' etc'.

 

[Kaosium]

Yes, I was asking rhetorically.

I was just answering as I was unsure whether that information would be looked up or realized unless I did.

The cops also got to him to say he might have been asleep at some time after 9 PM on the 1st of Nov, and that hence that he "couldn't know for sure" if Amanda had stayed in his flat all evening.

I don't think some people realize any alibi can be broken this way:

'You didn't tell us she went out shopping on the 31st!'

'You forgot? What else are you forgetting?'

'You were stoned? No wonder you can't remember anything! How can you tell us you're sure she didn't go out if you were stoned? Thirty years is a long time in jail for chicken meat like you! Have you seen what some of those pretty little rich boys look like when the Big Guys are done with them? It's not funny, I tell you--I've seen it!'

'Now tell us the truth, you can't be sure of anything, can you?'

This, I believe, is the jist of what they were hoping he would say in court, and in doing so save himself while consigning Amanda to life in jail.

He refused.

"Honor Bound."

 

[Sonia]

one gets the strong sense that the Silent Majority, the lurkers on this form who never or rarely comment, have started to turn on Knox and Raffe, and justice is on the horizon. we must stay the course.

Your sensors are surely malfunctioning then, Doctor. Your logic is as shaky as your grasp of the facts.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Your sensors are surely malfunctioning then, Doctor. Your logic is as shaky as your grasp of the facts.

Careful Sonia, that's probably verging on a personal attack which is forbidden in these forums.

You can critique his ideas freely, but not his personal qualities.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

As far as the time of death goes, you can consult the scientific literature, or you can consult the Massei report, or you can consult Rolfe who testifies about exactly this sort of thing in court professionally. All will agree that the state of Meredith's duodenum and bowel shows that it is overwhelmingly likely she died before 21:30..

Rolfe......

(The Massei/Christiani report included some carefully weasel-worded "logic" which argued that since if the pathologist had totally botched the autopsy by not tying off the bowel then maybe the digestive evidence could be wrong, therefore it was safe to totally ignore it. The problem was, the Massei court had access to the autopsy video which I am told very clearly shows the bowel being tied off properly, so they knew that it was not in fact possible for the autopsy evidence to be wrong. This to my mind is the most clear-cut example of outright misconduct in the Massei/Christiani report)..

Why didn't the defense mention this when they appealed?

(As for their computer alibi, computers don't lie or misremember or get threatened with calunnia charges. If the computer says they opened a Naruto file at 21:26, that is what happened, and I trust that far more than I trust second-hand or third-hand reports of Amanda laughing at a pizza or whatever else passes as evidence for guilt in pro-guilt echo chambers these days..

And what kind of computer do these guys have that can tell that? Your telling me it knew, (I'm calling the computer an it), that both Amanda and Raff were at his apartment during this time, that is amazing to say the least.

(What rational reason to you have to contest these data points?.

First, the attack started likely shortly after Meredith got home, no one, and I mean no one other than the actual murderer or murderers know how long it lasted, they may not even know this, I suspect she died around 9:30 maybe near 10:00.

("But it destroys the pet theory I have laboured on for so long!" is not a rational reason, by the way. Competent rationalists and good scientists will throw any theory under the bus the very second the evidence no longer supports it. The fact that it's your theory means that if you want to practice intellectual honesty, you should be tougher on it than everyone else, not make up special exceptions to reality to keep it alive.

Mine is no pet theory, I've looked at every aspect of this crime and looked at every possible outcome, I tend to lean between the most likely, as in that footprint going out of Meredith door that no one seems to have a logical answer for other than Rudi did not lock that door. I an fully confident that if the truth is ever know, many on this board will be giving silent praise my way.....

 

[Grinder]

Why isn't it possible that Rudi left the print and returned to the room and then locked the door?

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Why isn't it possible that Rudi left the print and returned to the room and then locked the door?

Really......

 

[Grinder]

Really......

so you have no idea

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

so you have no idea

Oh, I have a very good idea, I just see no reason to play this game any further with you, I don't feel your being honest any more.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

not every test consumes the entire sample

Assuming someone were to try this, would it even be necessary to plant? Couldn't she just write up a report saying thats what she found? How would anyone know the difference?

I'm not saying she did, I'm just curious how one would go about planting something so small that very few people could even verify, especially if the process of identifying the DNA destroys the sample and doesn't leave anything for other people to retest.

I'm probably way off since I'm again venturing into the DNA stuff I'm not very educated on.

People would at least expect to see an electropherogram with peaks on it. Some tests consume all of a given forensic sample, whereas others do not. BTW, the American Bar Association has model rules to cover this situation also.

 

[Kaosium]

I find it interesting that her defenders deny things that Knox herself never denied. In fact, if we accept that the police wrote it then she's a liar when she said she wrote it.

Wait, wait...Italian.

They are referring to different statements/notes. Amanda signed two statements at 1:45 AM and 5:45 AM on November 6th, the results of the overnight interrogation. Obviously she didn't write those, police typed them up, and she shouldn't have signed them and a lawyer wouldn't have let her.

After being being arrested and sleeping she wrote the (handwritten) note of the 6th which she gave to Rita Ficarra as they were about to take her to the jail in triumph, at the point she wrote it she did not realize Patrick had already been arrested. That she definitely wrote, as she did again on the seventh and two more to her lawyers on the ninth, all of them saying she did not think the statements she'd signed actually happened with increasing confidence.

 

[Dan O.]

Why isn't it possible that Rudi left the print and returned to the room and then locked the door?

Because if he did that there would be prints leading back to the room. Even if the tracks weren't visible to the naked eye they would show up under luminol. At least that is the argument that has been made.

And what's this that we find when we actually take a close look at these footprints... Print H is outside of the sequence leading to the door and facing back to the bedroom. And in at least one of the luminol prints there are a set of concentric circles just like the shoe prints but it is very dim and almost not visible. And then there is the extra pair of prints G and J that have the same stride but totally different character.

The claim that the bloody footprints lead from Meredith's room and straight out the door has been demolished by the evidence.

 

[yimyammer]

People would at least expect to see an electropherogram with peaks on it. Some tests consume all of a given forensic sample, whereas others do not. BTW, the American Bar Association has model rules to cover this situation also.

thx for the reply

i assume its difficult to impossible to fake an electropherogram? Could a person create an electropherogram by using Rafs DNA by itself and then claim it was the unknown sample being tested?

If it is impossible to fake an electropherogram, then i guess that would mean the only way to deliberately contaminate a sample is to add a specimen of Raf to the sample being tested which I assume she had access to?

If they didn't have access to surplus DNA of Raf that could be used to create a false match, then am I to assume that only leaves contamination as an innocent reason why his DNA would be found on anything (I'm asking this in a general sense to understand the risks, etc without consideration of the debate over what was found on the strap was Rafs or not).

I'm not claiming any of the above happened, I'm merely trying to understand the various innocent reasons why the lab results would have pointed to Rafs DNA

 

[Chris_Halkides]

primary vs. secondary transfer

I just found this link. Dr. Spence's article quotes a number of well-known DNA forensic scientists, including Roland Oorshot and Allan Jamieson. "A single drop of saliva, expelled during a cough or a sneeze, will contain approximately 500,000 salivary epithelial cells. Forensic Biologists can attest to the fact that 500 to 10,000 nanograms of DNA are routinely recovered durng collection of a single oral swab. Once again, recall that ONLY ONE NANOGRAM is optimal for generating a complete DNA profile. This mass of DNA can be readily extracted from as few as 200 cells. This tiny number of cells could sit-nearly invisible-upon the very tip of a toothpick." Dr. Spence also quotes an article coauthored by Professor Jamieson, "In other words, we did not know enough to make any sensible scientific judgements as to how DNA came to be on an item."

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Meredith's DNA would be expected on her clasp

i assume its difficult to impossible to fake an electropherogram? Could a person create an electropherogram by using Rafs DNA by itself and then claim it was the unknown sample being tested?

For the sake of argument, let's say the FP wished to fake a result. In general, I can see that there might be multiple ways to generate false data. I think that it would have been a little odd (but not impossible) not to find Meredith's DNA on her clasp. Therefore, if I were going to fake the result, I would take an item of Raffaele's and smear it onto the clasp.