You know me, CoulsdonUK, ever on the lookout for Satan himself.
The thing I am looking for is what the press is reporting as, "The Hellmann court should not have dismissed the sex-game gone wrong theory so quickly," or something to that effect.
Where my conspiratorial little mind goes, you know me.... I was about to argue with you that the Milan prosecutor now has the Monster of Florence case on his desk wondering what to do with it.....
But consider these details and where Mr. Diablo himself might reside. Mr. Mignini actually brought four, count 'em, four motives/theories of this crime to the prosecution.
1) The ritualistic killing associated with Hallowe'en, sometimes misreferred to as the Satanic cult theory by my side of things. Acc. to no less than Barbie Nadeau, it took prosecutor Maneula Comodi to threaten her own resignation if Mignini took that to trial.
2) The now preferred sex-game gone wrong theory, which provided the motive for Knox with malice aforethought to bring the knife from Raffaele's.
3) The tension/jealousy between MK and AK theory, which also provided the motive for Knox with malice aforethought to bring the knife from Raffaele's.
4) The "they just did it for no reason" theory, which matched what Massei was later to say about how the knife was brought, with no malice aforethought, Massei said that she habitually and innocently carried the knife for personal protection. But for Mignini, this (now) nihilistic & essentially motiveless crime was why he argued for life in prison and all that solitary time.
You see, my own bias in this is that the SC has not done the new Florence prosecutor any favours. It's now simply a matter of record that Mr. Mignini in prosecuting this up in the hills of Perugia had a revolving door of motives and theories behind this horrid crime.
My bias is that Mr. Mignini himself saw the need to shift
from the sex-game gone wrong theory,
to the jealousy/hatred between Meredith & Amanda theory because.....
...... at least there was the potential for evidence for the latter. Mignini could put the British friends as well as Filomena on the stand to grill them as to the civil unrest that brewed below the surface in the cottage prior to the murder.
In short, there simply was no evidence of a sex-game gone wrong at all. None. Zero. Zilch, Nada, Niente. And if you think I am making this up, I would invite you to come up with a reason why Mr. Mignini himself swapped motives/theories twice from the sex-game one he went into court with?
And what happened with Filomena and Sophie and the rest? Under oath they basically said that the tensions were over a racing stripe in the European style toilet. That the marijuana use in the cottage was evenly distributed enough to get even Filomena to say under oath, "Yes, I have sinned," in that department. And yes, they said some nasty things about Knox appearing cold after the murder and not returning hugs and not crying at the proper times and all that.
Yet, even Massei concluded in his motivations report about this, "Meredith and Amanda were at war theory, and Amanda wanted to humiliate or teach Meredith a lesson," theory was bunk. He said that the two had a normal, perhaps good relationship with obvious and normal tensions which result from sharing a living space. (Then again the PLE had destroyed Knox's computer which perhaps had e-mails and pictures to back this normalcy up, but I think I promised you I would not get too conspiratorial!)
So, Mr. Mignini reading the tea leaves makes that the new "motive" was now, that Amanda killed for no reason at all. The worst reason imaginable. After sex-games are dropped for lack of evidence, and after the tensions-between-the-two are dropped for, well, lack of evidence...... it must have been a killing for no reason at all. (Which, essentially, agrees with what everyone on my side has been saying since the beginning - Knox and Sollecito actually had no reason to kill!)
With these details provided courtesy of Mr. Diablo.... can the new prosecutor be thrilled that the SC has pretty much directed the prosecutor to lead with this as the operative theory of the crime: that Meredith was killed in a sex-game gone wrong? Even Mr. Mignini had to travel two degrees of separation from that one!
I for one never ridiculed Galati's appeal document. I said it was written as if he were taking a side, as lawyers do (even though he's a judge, he acted as if a lawyer for a client). What would you have expected Judge Galati to write? Something critical of the client for whom he's writing the appeal document? It's what I would want my own lawyer to write even if I were lying through my teeth! It's what he's paid to do, and I draw no negative connotations from it.
What I do suspect, though, is that the SC motivations report is going to make the new Florence prosecutor's job impossible. There was a reason why Mignini had to abandon the theory the SC says is now prime.... does this mean that the new prosecutor cannot abandon it? I do not know the answer to that question.
I'm wondering if the new prosecutor has the option of simply dropping the charges and now not taking the case to trial? Can an Italian lawyer explain if this is possible?
I mean, the SC has tied one hand behind the new prosecutor's back. Then again, I would say that wouldn't I with the biases I hold?
Whatever the reasons why the "sex-game gone wrong theory" was abandoned - and remember it was abandoned at Massei's trial, not Hellmann's(!) a new prosecutor is going to have to present it, as if there is any evidence to support it.
Maybe he/she too will simply have to abandon it, and get Filomena and Sophie back on the stand to testify to how a racing stripe in a toilet and a joke vibrator, or a non returned hug, leads to a horrible massacre.
You see, the problem IS in the details is it no?