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

[DrTesla]

Yes, you are correct here, my mistake for posting quickly. I said force when I should have said acceleration, which is identical regardless of whether the rock is large or small. The thrower would have to impart that exact same vertical component if the two rocks are travelling horizontally at the same speed, a larger rock isn't going to fall faster than a small one.

However even though a small rock can go faster and so not need as much upwards trajectory, to get a rock 5m in 1 sec and at the same level as it was thrown, you only need to throw it at 7m/s and 45°. That is nowhere near impossible, and the throw in question was not 5m, it's about 2 perhaps 3 at the most so a throw of just 4m/s would get it there with no issues.

The larger rock is going to fall downward faster in less time than the small one. It's greater weight is a force dragging it down much more forcefully than the lesser weight of a smaller, lighter rock. That was the basis for my skepticism that he could throw this 10 lb rock in a perfect horizontal line across a distance of 8-10 feet from the parking lot area to the window. We are not talking about a baseball here. I think for him to get it that distance he's almost going to have to kind of hurl it out there which will make his accuracy in hitting the window at all a dicey proposition. In baseball, pitchers will often make what is known as wild pitch when they are trying to throw the ball hard. It makes sense that if you are trying to hurl a 10 lb rock over a distance of 8-10 feet maybe your accuracy is going to be off and you effectively throw a wild pitch. You are going to sacrifice some control when you go for speed, and again you are going to have to propel this large rock out of your hand at a fast speed to ensure it has enough juice by the time it hits the window to shatter the glass. My vision for this pitch is that is going to be well below the strike zone of the window even if this guy throws it as hard as he can b/c gravity is going to have dropped the rock at least 2.5 feet vertically as it moves across a span of 8-10 feet by my calculations. I don't know how tall this window is but maybe we can examine that to see what the height is of his "strike zone" and how much he can afford the ball to drop in the vertical and still hit the window.

Does anybody know if Rudy was a good baseball player, and if so was he a pitcher? It's my understanding he was more into basketball?

 

[Kaosium]

I really have no idea, I'll admit I know about as much about DNA as anyone else who just reads stuff from sites like this, sure I could Google it and become experts on it like so many here have but instead I just listen to what everyone has to say on it and make up my own mind. I do not believe for a second that Stefanoni is anything close to what the PIP say she is either....

Those who don't or didn't do a little learning in this course of this discussion are handicapped in discovering what actually happened in this case and through ignorance are accepting unlikelihoods if not utter nonsense as 'facts.'

That example I gave of Mignini with the used toilet paper is very much what the 'bloody footprints,' and the 'mixed blood' amount to. Forensic sophistry, and it ought to undermine the confidence anyone has in the kind of 'evidence' the prosecution presented. Willful ignorance of the subjects necessary to evaluate that mean they will never be able to uncover the truth of what happened that night, or won't 'remember remember the fifth of November' as that's when this whole tragic case went pear shaped and became a tragedy that that consumed three families, not just one.

As for the DNA I didn't take anyone's word for it, I went and found out what the promoters of LT/LCN DNA had to say about it, and I found their position was not really that different from what the detractors of it (being used in court I mean) had to say. There's standards that have to be upheld, there are dangers, and the single most important one to this case is those traces of Raffaele or Meredith (on the knife) do not inherently mean they touched it, and considering the nature of the finds that's actually the least likely scenario.

That's what I was getting at with asking why you suppose the FBI requires their laboratory to identify the biological substance, otherwise there's no analysis. That's the kind of DNA analysis you're thinking of when you make the automatic assumption that because Raffaele's Y-haplotype was found on the bra clasp that inherently means he touched it. When they have a substance such as blood saliva or semen and they identify that, they can be pretty damn sure it came from the person they profile in most cases and it was them who left it there. It's pretty unlikely those things just get transferred around most of the time.

That's not the case with LCN/LT DNA, this is another leap forward that breaks that assumption. It's also far more prone to getting results 'identifying' someone from contamination, which is much easier to avoid when they set their machine to not even identify and label peaks below 150 RFUs like the Identifiler manual suggests (they aim for peaks of 1-2k RFUs) or 100 like Stefanoni did for most of her DNA work, 50 is the lowest scientifically accepted level in the field. You don't even (really) see it so it's much less likely to get a reading from trace DNA that transferred somehow or was the product of contamination.

At first when I went reading through this and followed up on some of this stuff and saw how blatantly dishonest some of the contentions being made by the prosecution were I wondered 'why didn't they just frame them? and for some time thought this was just a big mistake, until I finally realized they didn't have to because they could just pull crap like this out of their asses and people would believe them. They wouldn't do the work, the ones in court would drift off when the defense consultants started using the big complicated words and just assume they were earning a paycheck through coming up with improbabilities. That wasn't the case, that's what the prosecution was doing, and it's even easier for them to get away with it.

Stefanoni's are not as rare as you might think, there's been a number of them caught here if you've followed many of (mainly) Halides1's or Charlie Wilkes' posts and links.

Try this for a reality check. Ask your doctor what they would think if they heard a healthy young woman had her entire meal still in her stomach and haven't even begun to enter the intestines (through the duodenum) more than five hours later. Everything still in the stomach.

 

[Kaosium]

Maybe she was delusional enough to think that the police were so racist that they would think he was guilty on her accusation alone, and the fact she referred to Patrick at the "African boy", a grown man of nearly 40, seems to indicate that she thinks they have a racist attitude toward blacks. .

That's not what it actually says, and she didn't even write that, it was typed up for her by a policewoman anyway, the highlights of the first part of the interrogation.

That wording is what you get if you put the original Italian through google translate, which is an...imperfect...tool as everyone who's followed this case for any length of time has found to their dismay. I linked a photo of the original Italian document, look to where 'Patrik' is bolded and underlined about a third of the way into it. It describes him as un cittadino di colore, 'a citizen of color.' Here's a human translated copy of the 1:45 statement.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

throwing stones at glass

p. 52 of the Massei report describes the glass as rather thin, using Pasquali and Romanelli as the sources of this information. The rest of the Massei report's discussion on this question is risible.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

The larger rock is going to fall downward faster in less time than the small one.

The year 1600 is on the phone. This guy called Galileo says you fail at physics.

 

[anglolawyer]

Sherlock

It may lead to headaches but it is nevertheless necessary to have a go at understanding the sciency stuff to at least some basic level before forming an opinion based on it. You cannot reasonably dismiss what you perceive to be the PIP position on Stefanoni (IMO there is more than one such) without attempting to grasp the issues.

I confess I am some way off on the clasp because I see that as a problem of interpretation of mixed profiles, which I would need to have explained to me v e r y s l o w l y but the knife is not impossible to get to the required level. When you do you're left with either an extremely unlucky case of contamination or fraud. No one on either side seems to be seriously suggesting her work bears scrutiny. Oh, and suppression of data which is continuing. There's that too.

 

[PhantomWolf]

The larger rock is going to fall downward faster in less time than the small one. It's greater weight is a force dragging it down much more forcefully than the lesser weight of a smaller, lighter rock.

No it would not, all objects fall at exactly the same rate (subject to air resistance which would not overly effect a rock.) Galileo proved this by dropping two lead balls of weights of differing weight off the leaning Tower of Pisa and showing that they hit the ground at the same time. It was further proven using a feather and a hammer in the vacuum of the moon during the Apollo 15 mission. It is also shown on a regular basis using two tubes which have a vacuum in them along with a feather in one and a ball of lead in the other which are used to demonstrate the principle in the Natural Museum of History in Washington D.C. and likely other places about the world.

That was the basis for my skepticism that he could throw this 10 lb rock in a perfect horizontal line across a distance of 8-10 feet from the parking lot area to the window.

No one throws any object in a perfectly straight line. As soon as the object leaves the person's hand it goes into a ballistic orbit, though one that tends to intersect with the ground. To get an object to hit a target at the same level as you are several metres away, you have to place a vertical component to the force vector meaning that you lob the object, just like you have to do with a basketball.

again you are going to have to propel this large rock out of your hand at a fast speed to ensure it has enough juice by the time it hits the window to shatter the glass.

You didn't answer this last time I pointed out your error on this one. Newton's First Law of Motion declares that an object in motion remains in that motion unless a force is enacted on it. What horizontal force is being applied to the rock to slow its horizontal velocity down once it has left the thrower's hand?

Does anybody know if Rudy was a good baseball player, and if so was he a pitcher? It's my understanding he was more into basketball?

Hmm, so you mean he was good at lobbing objects and hitting small targets with them, especially ones above his head height?

 

[MDDVS]

MDDVS,

thanks for your query.

Momentum is a function of velocity. That is to say, if the impact velocity is increased, then so is the impact momentum.

Nobody is saying the rock cannot be thrown. We are only considering if by the time the rock reaches the window if it moving at such a speed, and momentum, to apply the force to break the window.

Glass can withstand some level of shear force being applied to it. I do not know the thickness of the glass but if a heavier rock is barely moving by the time it reaches the glass then we cannot just assume the glass would be shattered.

I've already detailed that we must assume that the theoretical intruder was able to throw the 10 lb rockl upwards of 100 mph from from the raised parking lot such that it the rock moved from point a to point b in a direct line and crashed through the window.
Can a man throw a 10 lb rock upwards of 100 mph so that it still moving at a fast clip when it impacts the window glass at some 8 to 10 feet away?

I do not know the answer to this question but I suspect the defense will need to conduct some tests. I would suggest having the tall guy throw the ball, the tall guy being the one who also conducted the experiment to see if he could climb and up and through the window. I have little doubt that he is capable of throwing a 10 lb rock upwards of 100 mph, and if he can do this, he should have success in breaking the window, and then we must conclude that the theoretical intruder did break in, despite no evidence he did, and set Knox and Raffe free.

lol

 

[NancyS]

I am glad there are some new folk contributing here. The obviousness of their innocence is.... well, obvious, and the themes that people have to dream up to continue to claim guilt is astonding - mainly because no one who assumes guilt puts together a coherent theory of the crime which involves the two. That's the bottom line.

Thanks

My interest in the case came from knowing that both myself and any of my friends could have been portrayed by the media in a similar way to Amanda - and that being a sexually active woman is in no way related to a predisposition to violence and murder. I think the media/prosecutions could have portrayed Meredith in a similar way if their situations had been reversed.

I had no idea whether or not they were innocent or guilty when I first read about the case - however, I did find it crazy that people were using the examples of Amanda kissing her boyfriend, buying underwear, performing cartwheels and owning a vibrator as indications of her guilt. This seemed bizarre to me, although when I read a bit further there didn't seem to be any other conclusive evidence linking them to the crime.

There is no one way to act at times of extreme stress and upset - my husband and I were on holiday when my father-in-law died. We went out that night and ate pizza, got very drunk on red wine, did lots of laughing and crying and then came home and had sex. You often need that human closeness at times of stress/grief and that is completely normal.

I also never really bought into the argument that she must be guilty if she named an innocent man - as this seems to be one of the main indicators that she is innocent and had no idea who had killed Meredith. If she really had been involved, it would have been so easy for her to blame everything on Rudy.

If you then take into consideration the lack of DNA evidence at the scene and the time of death, you can be fairly certain they are innocent.

It seems crazy that people are arguing tiny points of peripheral evidence to try and prove they must be involved. No crime scence is going to be able to reproduce a high definition playback of the exact crime - and there will always be unusual findings due to people acting in odd ways due to stress, or only parts of evidence being found, recorded or leaving a trace.

Nobody can ever really be 100% certain of what exactly happened that night - however, I find it quite morally repugnant that people are arguing that they should be convicted on such shoddy evidence.

 

[anglolawyer]

Are we seriously discussing whether it was possible to lob that rock through that window? I once saw a football 'fan' chuck half a brick through a coach window (toughened glass) right through the coach and then out through the opposite window smashing that one too! Let's get real.

ETA can we have a mechanical engineer's computation of the vectors involved in Amanda carrying that enormous knife in her bag because, by my calculations, the combined weight mass of both are sure to have gouged a trench visible from outer space.

 

[Briars]

Agreed. Briars has never once pointed out the venom aimed elsewhere. As much as I agree with Briars about the inappropriateness of name calling the Kerchers, I would respectfully suggest that Briars' own reputation would improve if he/she extended the "moral imperative" to all.

I don't care in the least what you consider my reputation to be here. Speak up those of you on line when despicable posts are flying against the Kerchers. Its not justifiable to say I don't agree, but then again things are said against Amanda..

 

[anglolawyer]

I don't care in the least what you consider my reputation to be here. Speak up those of you on line when despicable posts are flying against the Kerchers. Its not justifiable to say I don't agree, but then again things are said against Amanda..

As I assume it was me you were referring to as 'the lawyer' concerning silence on Supernaut's post, I have asked myself whether I am subject to any obligation to come out and formally condemn those writings of others of which I disapprove. I decided that I am not. I also decided that you are not in a position of a moral authority over me or anyone else.

 

[MDDVS]

Are we seriously discussing whether it was possible to lob that rock through that window? I once saw a football 'fan' chuck half a brick through a coach window (toughened glass) right through the coach and then out through the opposite window smashing that one too! Let's get real.

I don't think this is a serious discussion. That guy drtesla is either really ignorant or triying to wind us up. I mean, he appears to lack an understanding of very basic physics (thinks gravity acceleration is proportional to the mass, seems to ignore newton's laws of motion as well), yet he pretends he's a mechanical engineer. Other than that, you're right, it's just an innane discussion, there's nothing special about a rock going through a glass window.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

that which may or may not be despicable

I don't care in the least what you consider my reputation to be here. Speak up those of you on line when despicable posts are flying against the Kerchers. Its not justifiable to say I don't agree, but then again things are said against Amanda..

Do you feel the things said about Amanda here recently (see for example Mary_H's compilation of a few of them; I seem to recall "sex addict" and misstating the name of Ms. Knox's book as well) are justified.

 

[MDDVS]

I don't care in the least what you consider my reputation to be here. Speak up those of you on line when despicable posts are flying against the Kerchers. Its not justifiable to say I don't agree, but then again things are said against Amanda..

I find this faux moralism a bit irritating. Are the Kercher's supposed to be saints above reproach? The fact that a tragedy happened to their daugther means they are capable of doing no wrong? As it turns out, it seems they are capable of worng doing. They are ACTIVELY colaborating in efforts to imprison two innocent people. Isn't that evil?

Some people want to forgive them a bit because they are being "deceived" by the prossection and their own "lawyer" (why would they need one in the first place?), but I find that patronising. They are adults and can make their own mind. They said they REFUSE to read Amanda's book. How is that consistent with their claims of wanting to find the truth. Doesn't the fact that Amanda and Raffaelle were found inocent in the appeal give them some pause? The fact that so many people think they are inocent? The fact that wrongful convictions are known to happen?

I personally wouldn't go so far as to imply that they are doing it for monetary reasons, but still their actions are censurable.

 

[Grinder]

At 200 mph there'd not be much of an arc! (Gad, is this what it takes for you and me to get along?)

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth .

 

[Dan O.]

[IMGL]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=597&pictureid=7845[/IMGl]

So no reason to close them while away.

Opening and closing the outer shutters requires opening the window to the cold. This is so convenient that modern architects have switched to using fake shutters bolted to the outside wall and using curtains on the inside to control the light and privacy. Filomena had a lace curtain she could pull over that window if she wanted light and privacy.

The outer shutter on her bathroom window was not closed.

 

[yimyammer]

Certainly a case can be made that Mignini is nuts...crazy as a loon. Why I hear he is now filing charges to try and stop RS and AK books from being something....I hear he filed charges against a TV show too just for reviewing Amandas book. These sub-cases filed by Mignini are like cats...up to three is possibly normal...more than that makes you a nut...a certified loon. Doing so at the expense of the country is a corrupt action and harassment of citizens who must spend fortunes to leave the grips of Migninis mad mad world..

Still think Zero would have been perfect to play the criminal abuser of office and power.

I'm from the US and you rarely hear about libel and slander cases, I dont think the laws are as tight here as they are overseas and specifically in Europe/Great Britain.

Can anyone from Europe/Great Britain explain why its so much more strict over there?

Seems odd from my perspective as I don't see any big downside to people not being able to sue over every careless word here in the US.

The fact that people like Mignini can file suit incessantly over every perceived slight, is really troubling to me. It quashes peoples willingness to speak out and creates an unspoken censorship because it doesn't matter if you're innocent, you still get dragged into court and have to spend time and money to defend yourself. And when you're up against a professional like Mignini with the added powers of his role in ILE, one would be at a distinct disadvantage even if you had the time and resources to try and fight him.

I just get the vibe these strict libel/slander laws create a level of censorship that may be more damaging than whatever protections are derived from them.

What do the Euro's & Brits say about these laws? Do you think they're onerous? Is the US too lax?

 

[yimyammer]

I heard there are rumblings about a potential book by Rudy Guede, anyone from Italy, etc heard about this?

sounds highly unlikely IMO

 

[anglolawyer]

I'm from the US and you rarely hear about libel and slander cases, I dont think the laws are as tight here as they are overseas and specifically in Europe/Great Britain.

Can anyone from Europe/Great Britain explain why its so much more strict over there? Seems odd from my perspective as I don't see any big downside to people not being able to sue over every careless word here in the US.

The fact that people like Mignini can file suit incessantly over every perceived slight, is really troubling to me. It quashes peoples willingness to speak out and creates an unspoken censorship because it doesn't matter if you're innocent, you still get dragged into court and have to spend time and money to defend yourself. And when you're up against a professional like Mignini with the added powers of his role in ILE, one would be at a distinct disadvantage even if you had the time and resources to try and fight him.

I just get the vibe these strict libel/slander laws create a level of censorship that may be more damaging than whatever protections are derived from them.

What do the Euro's & Brits say about these laws? Do you think they're onerous? Is the US too lax?

Me. Me. Me. I can.

There are two main reasons why we Brits have excessively restrictive and complicated defamation laws. Number 1, we don't have a constitution which enshrines a right of free speech. Number 2, we have allowed the laws to be made by judges. I could write a book on why this is not a good idea but, basically, if you want to turn an area of law into a total freaking mess then hand it to a bunch of English judges and leave them to get on with it for a couple of hundred years.

Italy, I wouldn't know.