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

[Bill Williams]

Guede was convicted with other assailants being involved He didn't scale the wall he entered through the front door by way of someone with a key.That narrows the possibilities and points the guilt where the evidence leads. Hellman messed up and ignored the group attack ruling. I doubt Bongiorno will try to dig up possible new defendants to fill the empty shoes like she tried before.

Prove it.

It is positively irrational - not to mention loony - to subscribe to either a "group attack" "theory," or to a staged break-in in this case. The actual evidence makes a mockery of either claim. You have bought a bill of goods from a bumbling rustic with more influence than neurons.

Briars is correct that this was what Rudy was convicted of.

But at the fast track trialm both prosecution and defence argued the same thing, and Raffaele and Amanda were not represented at that trial. So what you're arguing here is that a trial in which someone is not represented can essentially convict them.

Both prosecution and defence at Rudy's trial had interest in arguing the same outcome - that Rudy did not do this alone, that Rudy did not scale that wall. So it's hardly a surprise that the outcome of Rudy's trial concluded that!

The real scandal is that the highest court in the country has so far (at least as far as the news is concerned) seemed to have ruled that Rudy's trial conclusions take precedence over both the Massei and Hellman courts.

If the ISC is now demanding that the defence at the new Florence trial be in a position of proving both that multiple attackers is a false idea, and proving that Amanda and Raffaele are not those extra attackers....

..... then such a reversal of the burden of proof will be the most unjust part of this - all with the permission of the highest court in the land.

Do you want to travel to such a place?

 

[Antony]

Can a national Supreme court act "illegally"? They are the one who rule what is legal and illegal! There's constant reference here to a court above national courts located in the European Union.... will they really interfere? That would be more a political act than a legal one.

It's a good question. However, they above all others have to follow their own laws - they can't make things up as they go along, which is what they appear to have done here.

 

[RandyN]

I see the many different size hands thing comes from the ISC. Does anybody have this evidence from any of the trials? Because Im thinking they are just making stuff up now. But even if not then they are certainly violating their mandate. Why did Italy bother with the appeal trial? The smarter jury and two professional judges came to a conclusion based on the facts of the case. What law says they must consider every ridiculous non fact presented by Mignini? Isnt that deciding on facts rather than examining if court procedures were followed?

The whole Guede thing is beyond the pale...Separate trials with no evidence that involves AK or RS in either one. But somehow the SC has facts that prove Guede didnt act alone? I hope the SC shares these facts that prove this conclusion BARD. If they are going with the 40 wounds thing....I think anyone with a computer and the interents can find cases ahemmmm Jodi Arias..a tiny little girl who killed a much larger and stronger man and she caused hundreds of wounds...but somehow the weak Italians need more than one to cause 40 wounds? Sounds like made up BS. Sounds like someone trying to cover up for someone else to me.

I love the smell of corrupt cronyism in the morning.

 

[Antony]

multiple shortcomings, contradictory events and manifest lack of logical reasoning

What's outrageous about the SC ruling is that they claim that "facts" were ignored by the appeal court, but then lead not with facts, but with prosecution speculation about the "sex game gone wrong" - speculation that was never even brought to either of the lower courts.

Then there is the accusation "multiple shortcomings, contradictory events and manifest lack of logical reasoning" quoted in the news reports. Can anyone say whether this is supported with specific points, or is it just guilter-style sloganising?

 

[NancyS]

The point where Dianne asks Amanda if she did it or if she was there is frozen on video for all to see and read whether guilt or deception is present.

And again it comes down to "I can see it in her eyes"

I went to Broadmoor (high security psychiatric hospital) as a medical student - I met a couple of inpatients who had done the most horrible things, however, they were both incredibly pleasant and seemed incredibly normal. It left me with the lasting impression that you really can't tell - and trying to determine whether someone is guilty by studying their every move, glance, utterance and even photo is just nonsense. Amanda is probably most guilty of having pale eyes and heavy eyebrows. I keep thinking that a good eyebrow shape and a few highlights to soften her look might do more to convince people of her innocence than any of the evidence, which really does illustrate the nonsense of what she has to deal with

 

[anglolawyer]

It appears to be in the recent ISC ruling:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...-they-overturned-amanda-knox-s-acquittal.html

The high court adamantly dismissed the defense theory that Guede acted alone. In their reasoning, they pointed to the fact that Kercher suffered more than 40 knife wounds and lesions to her body, including handprint bruises from what appeared to be different-sized hands and tiny knife pricks on her palms, as if she were protecting herself from a taunting knife. ​

But for some reason doesn't appear in Massei. Is the ISC evaluating evedence? If they are going beyond ruling on procedures as allowed in the italian legal system, this would be a much clearer violation of double jeporty for a US citizen.

The distinction between questions of law (the SC's province, as I understand it) and fact can be challenging sometimes but I am pretty sure a court charged with addressing questions of law is not entitled to make up new facts. So this is either a mistranslation or something I have missed in the course of reading a dozen books, armfuls of motivations and transcripts and many thousands of posts.

If there really is evidence of different sized hands making bruises that would completely alter my understanding of what happened. I do not believe this new fact, however, and I hope it really is in the SC motivation because, as I said already, the worse the reasoning in that document the better the chances are that a higher tribunal will toss the whole case in the trash.

 

[anglolawyer]

I see the many different size hands thing comes from the ISC. Does anybody have this evidence from any of the trials? Because Im thinking they are just making stuff up now. But even if not then they are certainly violating their mandate. Why did Italy bother with the appeal trial? The smarter jury and two professional judges came to a conclusion based on the facts of the case. What law says they must consider every ridiculous non fact presented by Mignini? Isnt that deciding on facts rather than examining if court procedures were followed?

The whole Guede thing is beyond the pale...Separate trials with no evidence that involves AK or RS in either one. But somehow the SC has facts that prove Guede didnt act alone? I hope the SC shares these facts that prove this conclusion BARD. If they are going with the 40 wounds thing....I think anyone with a computer and the interents can find cases ahemmmm Jodi Arias..a tiny little girl who killed a much larger and stronger man and she caused hundreds of wounds...but somehow the weak Italians need more than one to cause 40 wounds? Sounds like made up BS. Sounds like someone trying to cover up for someone else to me.

I love the smell of corrupt cronyism in the morning.

But Jodi shot him in the face first, which kind of altered the odds a bit. A better comparator, sans knife however, is Vincent Tabak who single handedly inflicted the exact same number of injuries on Joanne Yeates in Bristol as Meredith is said to have sustained. Of course, she may not have been an orange belt karate expert so the comparison breaks down there too (not).

 

[Antony]

I do not believe this new fact, however, and I hope it really is in the SC motivation because, as I said already, the worse the reasoning in that document the better the chances are that a higher tribunal will toss the whole case in the trash.

I think it's already clear that the SC is bringing in "facts" that weren't in the original trials. As for a higher tribunal, does that mean the ECHR or is there a route within Italy for the ruling to be overturned?

 

[anglolawyer]

I think it's already clear that the SC is bringing in "facts" that weren't in the original trials. As for a higher tribunal, does that mean the ECHR or is there a route within Italy for the ruling to be overturned?

Well, there is nothing higher than Cassazione in Italy and infringements of human rights (right to a fair trial, right to liberty) are justiciable in the ECHR, which is a higher court than Cassazione.

 

[Antony]

The evidence according to the SC supports more than one assailant. Early analysis indicates that Hellman made a very poor judgement.

But the SC isn't there to evaluate the evidence! Their mandate is to approve the procedure and the application of law only.

The defendants have much to answer to, and we will hear more no doubt. There has to be some motive, mine are suggestions any motive for taking Meredith's life was nonsensical and pathetic.

This just doesn't make any sense. The defendants do not have to "answer" to anything, based on speculation by the prosecution. There is still no proof of any kind that they were in any way involved. Can you not grasp this?

My personal opinion of something being off with the defendants has only increased after their interviews and further changing stories.

Please be specific about your accusation of "further changing stories". Amanda and Raff were at his flat for the whole of the night when the murder was committed, and that has been their story from the beginning until now. The coerced statements of 5-6 November do not count, because they were not freely made.

The point where Dianne asks Amanda if she did it or if she was there is frozen on video for all to see and read whether guilt or deception is present.

If you mean the interview with Diane (not "Dianne") Sawyer, I have just viewed this on YouTube and what I see is a straightforward "no" to both questions and the follow-up asking if there was anything she hadn't told police, exactly what would be expected from an innocent person. What is your point?

The rest of the interview shows a young woman traumatised by the loss of her friend and the experience of being wrongly accused and imprisoned for 4 years. It's a mystery to me why you should claim to see anything different.

 

[RoseMontague]

And again it comes down to "I can see it in her eyes"

I went to Broadmoor (high security psychiatric hospital) as a medical student - I met a couple of inpatients who had done the most horrible things, however, they were both incredibly pleasant and seemed incredibly normal. It left me with the lasting impression that you really can't tell - and trying to determine whether someone is guilty by studying their every move, glance, utterance and even photo is just nonsense. Amanda is probably most guilty of having pale eyes and heavy eyebrows. I keep thinking that a good eyebrow shape and a few highlights to soften her look might do more to convince people of her innocence than any of the evidence, which really does illustrate the nonsense of what she has to deal with

Yes.

There was so much emphasis on the clothes that Amanda and Raffaele wore to the hearings as well. In a way it was amusing and I made many comments on their fashion choices at the time. But in many ways it is just sad that clothes and makeup can make such a difference in how people perceive the question of guilt or innocence.

Halkides and I also made note of the editorial nature of photo selection in many articles. You could usually tell by the picture if it was PG or PI before you even read the article.

 

[Dan O.]

Really really? A murder has occurred in the home. A window is broken out and you don't think any police could have anticipated the importance of that scene? Really? Really?

At the time that Filomena was in her room moving things around the body had not yet been discovered. All they had was a broken window and not even signs of theft. Why were the postal police even hanging around? Once Filomena showed up and identified her phone wasn't their job over? Perhaps it was the locked door. Is it a crime in Italy to lock ones bedroom door and thus deterring the investigative power of the police?

 

[Grinder]

Let's see. There is no evidence that Amanda or Raf ever entered Meredith's room but they must somehow prove they weren't part of something called a sex game. No evidence they ever entered the room, oops with the exception of the clasp which has its issues.

OTOH, we need proof that Rudi either locked Meredith's door with his left foot in an awkward position or we prove he reentered the room because otherwise, even though the kids left nothing, it is clear that they came and staged the scene and locked the door.

Raf was accused up-thread of moving F's laptop yet there is no evidence that he ever entered her room. Since there is no evidence of Rudi in her room either at least that analysis is equal. Except the blood found on the window that supposedly was never tested.

I remain intrigued as to how the prosecutor can prove a sex game occurred and explain why only evidence of two playing can be found. Further it is baffling as what happens if the prosecutor tries and fails to convince the court or throws up his hands and says it can't be done. (For Bill - from the Book of Grinder an advance look at this quote from the Florentine prosecutor: "What are those old fogies smoking in Rome? How in the **** am I supposed to prove that?" )

So what happens when a verdict comes from the appeals court, either guilty or innocent, that doesn't include the sex game or multiple attackers?

If the SC's orders are what they now appear to be, I agree with Dan that the double jeopardy or some other legal violation may come into play for extradition. Perhaps Anglo and Matt could weigh in on whether the actions of the SC in including the results of Rudi's fast track trial would violate some general principal of US/UK law, if not Italian law.
This may have been commented on already but would be worth repeating.

At this point, I wonder if AK is considering putting up a smaller defense and saving resources for extradition hearing or a villa in Brazil. Will the defense be allowed to make a defense or will the byzantine rules prevent it?

How will the calumnia evidence be admitted to this round since that is finished? Could that be the reason the defense didn't fight it hard?

 

[Diocletus]

But Jodi shot him in the face first, which kind of altered the odds a bit. A better comparator, sans knife however, is Vincent Tabak who single handedly inflicted the exact same number of injuries on Joanne Yeates in Bristol as Meredith is said to have sustained. Of course, she may not have been an orange belt karate expert so the comparison breaks down there too (not).

Try googling Brittany Norwood and the Lululemon murder in Maryland. Girl on girl murder. 331 injuries to the decedent.

Guede could have easily murdered Kercher with his bare hands. Could have dispatched her effortlessly with the knife. Problem was that he was trying to rape her, so he wasn't so focused on doing away with her right away--that's the only reason there was even a struggle of any kind.

 

[Grinder]

On reading the summary of the SC it appears that they totally hand wave away the fact that he was a self-admitted junkie.

And this about Quintavalle - What's more serious is that the Hellmann court completely misrepresents how this information came to light and based its assessment on this misrepresented circumstance rather than the fact itself. The Hellmann courts bases its assessment on the fact that Quintavalle, who came forward after a year at the urging of a journalist, used all this time to convince himself of the accuracy of his perceptions and identification of Knox as the young woman he had seen that morning waiting for his store to open, who anyway, Hellmann argues, he saw at an angle and from far away. In so doing Hellmann ignores the clarity with which Quintavalle was able to describe the woman, seen from the front and only 70 - 80 cm away: clear blue eyes, pale skin, a tired expression. Not only that, but the judges had to clarify that the photos in the newspapers did not show Knox's eye color, which he was certain of upon seeing her in person in the courtroom.
It took him a year to be certain that he had seen Amanda at a distance of 2 feet? Can someone find a newspaper account in Italian that describes her eye color and send it to the defense?

 

[anglolawyer]

Let's see. There is no evidence that Amanda or Raf ever entered Meredith's room but they must somehow prove they weren't part of something called a sex game. No evidence they ever entered the room, oops with the exception of the clasp which has its issues.

OTOH, we need proof that Rudi either locked Meredith's door with his left foot in an awkward position or we prove he reentered the room because otherwise, even though the kids left nothing, it is clear that they came and staged the scene and locked the door.

Raf was accused up-thread of moving F's laptop yet there is no evidence that he ever entered her room. Since there is no evidence of Rudi in her room either at least that analysis is equal. Except the blood found on the window that supposedly was never tested.

I remain intrigued as to how the prosecutor can prove a sex game occurred and explain why only evidence of two playing can be found. Further it is baffling as what happens if the prosecutor tries and fails to convince the court or throws up his hands and says it can't be done. (For Bill - from the Book of Grinder an advance look at this quote from the Florentine prosecutor: "What are those old fogies smoking in Rome? How in the **** am I supposed to prove that?" )

So what happens when a verdict comes from the appeals court, either guilty or innocent, that doesn't include the sex game or multiple attackers?

If the SC's orders are what they now appear to be, I agree with Dan that the double jeopardy or some other legal violation may come into play for extradition. Perhaps Anglo and Matt could weigh in on whether the actions of the SC in including the results of Rudi's fast track trial would violate some general principal of US/UK law, if not Italian law.This may have been commented on already but would be worth repeating.

At this point, I wonder if AK is considering putting up a smaller defense and saving resources for extradition hearing or a villa in Brazil. Will the defense be allowed to make a defense or will the byzantine rules prevent it?

How will the calumnia evidence be admitted to this round since that is finished? Could that be the reason the defense didn't fight it hard?

OK - audi alterem partem (hear the other side) is as fundamental as it gets. This principle goes to the root of the fairness of any trial and if the SC has made binding stipulations as to particular facts as found in proceedings to which A & R were not party then, great! The worse the better.

 

[anglolawyer]

On reading the summary of the SC it appears that they totally hand wave away the fact that he was a self-admitted junkie.

And this about Quintavalle - What's more serious is that the Hellmann court completely misrepresents how this information came to light and based its assessment on this misrepresented circumstance rather than the fact itself. The Hellmann courts bases its assessment on the fact that Quintavalle, who came forward after a year at the urging of a journalist, used all this time to convince himself of the accuracy of his perceptions and identification of Knox as the young woman he had seen that morning waiting for his store to open, who anyway, Hellmann argues, he saw at an angle and from far away. In so doing Hellmann ignores the clarity with which Quintavalle was able to describe the woman, seen from the front and only 70 - 80 cm away: clear blue eyes, pale skin, a tired expression. Not only that, but the judges had to clarify that the photos in the newspapers did not show Knox's eye color, which he was certain of upon seeing her in person in the courtroom.
It took him a year to be certain that he had seen Amanda at a distance of 2 feet? Can someone find a newspaper account in Italian that describes her eye color and send it to the defense?

ID witnesses can be clear but still wrong. This is well known outside Italy. This is a sad echo of Galati's fatuous reference to Toto's 'extraordinary accuracy' (except when folks want to amend his evidence because it's too accurate). By the way, no one ever seems to mention that Toto may have seen someone else that night and mistaken them for A & R. If only his evidence could be corroborated somehow. Shame that, except with osmotic reasoning, IT CAN'T. He was not mistaken and nor was Quint. They were both lying.

Quintavalle is interesting because he supplied evidence to feed a made up story. Down the bunny hole things happen in reverse. The cops let it be known, untruthfully, they found bleach receipts then lo and behold! along comes Quintavalle a year later to re-heat the myth. Same with this weird bra clasp story and the witness (Vulpano or Vulcano Pasquale) who popped up just in time to prove Lumumba's bar was shut when it wasn't. Funny that!

 

[Bill Williams]

Let's see. There is no evidence that Amanda or Raf ever entered Meredith's room but they must somehow prove they weren't part of something called a sex game. No evidence they ever entered the room, oops with the exception of the clasp which has its issues.

OTOH, we need proof that Rudi either locked Meredith's door with his left foot in an awkward position or we prove he reentered the room because otherwise, even though the kids left nothing, it is clear that they came and staged the scene and locked the door.

Raf was accused up-thread of moving F's laptop yet there is no evidence that he ever entered her room. Since there is no evidence of Rudi in her room either at least that analysis is equal. Except the blood found on the window that supposedly was never tested.

I remain intrigued as to how the prosecutor can prove a sex game occurred and explain why only evidence of two playing can be found. Further it is baffling as what happens if the prosecutor tries and fails to convince the court or throws up his hands and says it can't be done. (For Bill - from the Book of Grinder an advance look at this quote from the Florentine prosecutor: "What are those old fogies smoking in Rome? How in the **** am I supposed to prove that?" )
So what happens when a verdict comes from the appeals court, either guilty or innocent, that doesn't include the sex game or multiple attackers?

If the SC's orders are what they now appear to be, I agree with Dan that the double jeopardy or some other legal violation may come into play for extradition. Perhaps Anglo and Matt could weigh in on whether the actions of the SC in including the results of Rudi's fast track trial would violate some general principal of US/UK law, if not Italian law.
This may have been commented on already but would be worth repeating.

At this point, I wonder if AK is considering putting up a smaller defense and saving resources for extradition hearing or a villa in Brazil. Will the defense be allowed to make a defense or will the byzantine rules prevent it?

How will the calumnia evidence be admitted to this round since that is finished? Could that be the reason the defense didn't fight it hard?

If you give me a minute, I'll find you a reference for that quote-to-be.

I apologize for drifting from your post, Grinder.... it's just that I am still trying to figure out Briars' rhetorical strategy here.

NancyS give an opinion on why it is perhaps correct to refer to someone like Curatolo as a junkie, although she would rather call him substance dependent. She lists the other substances that junkies.... er, substance dependent people regularly take to self-medicate.

And whereas Curatolo is already showing signs at testimony he cannot differentiate between Oct 31 and Nov 1, Briars insists that Curatolo is to be seen as a unimpeachable witness... well, not perfect, but someone who a court should listen to, to put two people away for 30 years.

How does Briars handle all this rhetorically? Does he cite counter examples of how being substance dependent doesn't necessarily render cognitive functions, shall we say, "limited'? Especially when two persons' liberty is on the line?

No. Briars DOES de facto concede that the reputation of Mr. Mignini is on the line here, if not eventually his own legal liberty.

Why? Briars immediately sniffs out that by even bringing someone like Curatolo into court is an criticism of Mr. Mignini's efforts to pervert justice here.

Let's put it this way. Just take the three files marked, "The case against Rudy, "The case against Raffaele," and "The case against Amanda," and open and read the case against Rudy first. Of course this file has all the mock up and pictures and expert opinion about Rudy's breaking-in to the cottage through Filomena's window, except, opps, it's not there. Where's all the pictures and forensic descriptions of glass-shatter-patterns in that file? None.

All there is is one sticky note which says, "Rudy's obvious break-in puts multiple attacker scenario in danger, so divert attention from it at all costs." There's another sticky note, "Emphasize Filomena testifying that the room had been ransacked," but also emphasize nothing had been taken. These two bald statements when taken alone enables Mignini also to suggest that it was a staging of a break in, rather than something Rudy might have done, still without taking anything (I mean, he could have noted where everything was for future reference, a future interrupted by Meredith's unfortunate return to the cottage.)

But, once finished with that file a logical person would think, "Well, here's the case right here." Rudy did it.

Open the other two files. Disputed Y-Haplotype pointing to Raffaele and perhaps 100s of others. That's it. Nothing suggesting that Amanda was even in Meredith's room. Amanda's "biological material" mixed in with Meredith's blood, but the file also suggests that the mixing happened on the test-swab only because the S.P. police's own video elicits laugher in the court when played showing how it was collected. Besides, why is it strange to find ANY biological material of a person who lived there and used the very bathroom the victim did?

You think you have problem with me "inventing" scenarios.... You're now Judge Massei and you have to somehow integrate these three files. If you cannot, then Briars instincts are right... this begins to look like a frame-up with a colleague of Massei's reputation (and perhaps liberty) in the balance. I do note that Briars implies that Mignini is being criticized here.... (Hypothetical thought Massei had!: "I like Mignini, we drink wine together after hours, but he never should have gone all Satanic on us with the Narducci thing. I often warned him that this kind of reasoning would come back to bite him. I'll be damned if I'm the one who is going to bite him.")

So Massei invents more than dialogue... he invents a reasoning (not that the climb in Filomena's window was undoable but) which says that a unique series of happenstances needs to have been there for the shutters to be openable to begin with, and that Rudy would not have stood on that grate on the window below three times.....

..... and then yell, "O look, squirrel!" just to see if you can get that bit of reasoning past your audience.

An Massei then invents more stuff... Amanda all of a sudden needs to have an innocent reason to be carrying that kitchen knife around - for protection? Yes, that's it - for protection! Let's face it, thinks Massei, this sex-depravity stuff Mignini is trying to sell is too much even for me. She's a normal 20 something, no history of violence really, and Mignini really did go round the bend with his Satanic rituals and sex-games gone wrong, and c'mon folks - a racing stripe on a toilet hardly triggers WWII - and Massei had to sit through Mignini bringing all those friends back from Britain to say, under oath, that they didn't like Amanda Knox - but other than that, what the heck does this have to do with a murder!!?!?

I'm drifting from your post Grinder with apologies.... but after all this, Leila's ficitional "reasonable person" goes back to Rudy's file and writes "guilty" on it and then if they care for Mr. Mignini's reputation at all, you take Raff's and Amanda's file and hide them somewhere, tell Amanda to go back to Seattle and behave herself, and tell Raffaele to get rid of those Harry Potter glasses, but go back to Southern Italy and stay there....

What does Briars' do? Briars reads NancyS's piece and comes up with a theory of his own, one at odds with even Massei's rendering of things. Rather than having to deal with Massei's contention that Amanda and Raff are normal kids who, in Massei's words, "made a choice for evil", Briars has to somehow both defend Curatolo and someone make that knife appear sinister from the time it was (allegedly) removed from Raffaele's drawer. This is how Briars puts it:

Three dysfunctional young people combined their angst into one fatal attack. Jealousy , sexual motive, childhood pain. and the thrill of finally getting to act out a knife fantasy was motive enough.

But it's not sufficient just to deny what even Massei found as factual - that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are psychologically norm, have no psychopathology in them - Briars also has to deal with what NancyS wrote about Curatolo who IS psychopathological in the sense that he's substance dependent on the real hard stuff.

Briars' own version of "Oh look, squirrel!", is to de facto admit that if this is all true about Mignini, calling someone like Curatolo to be his star witness, it kind of makes Mignini look less like he's prosecuting a case, but (perhaps illegally) trying to manufacture a case - all to keep two of the three files on the table, where only one would have given the Kerchers the much needed justice they deserve.

The "oh look, squirrel," is, "What about that blogger?!"

Please note, no one has even mentioned "that blogger" for a while. Whereas the malfeasance claimed against Mignini is stored in Mignini's own (bizarre) use of Curatolo as a star witness ("Heroine doesn't cloud the memory!), Briars needs something, anything to divert attention FROM NancyS's thing.

"That blogger was arrested you know." That blogger also had his website shut down after judicial action by Mignini was initiated. Yet another action of a potentially criminal-prosecutor to be explained .... along with his use of Curatolo as a super-witness.

Sorry for hijacking your thread, Grinder. I kept quotes to a minimum just to avoid even more topic drift.

But it is interesting to me how the rhetorical styles can be compared. Briars' rhetorical style when commenting on NancyS, is to write, "Yea, but what about that blogger!?"

What about him? Is Briars diversion an admission that looking too closely at Curatolo will actually expose Mignini for his potentially criminally tactics at trial to justify three files on the prosecutors' table, rather than just one which would have given Kercher's the justice they deserve without victimizing others?

Makes me go hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

 

[JREF2010]

And again it comes down to "I can see it in her eyes"

I went to Broadmoor (high security psychiatric hospital) as a medical student - I met a couple of inpatients who had done the most horrible things, however, they were both incredibly pleasant and seemed incredibly normal. It left me with the lasting impression that you really can't tell - and trying to determine whether someone is guilty by studying their every move, glance, utterance and even photo is just nonsense. Amanda is probably most guilty of having pale eyes and heavy eyebrows. I keep thinking that a good eyebrow shape and a few highlights to soften her look might do more to convince people of her innocence than any of the evidence, which really does illustrate the nonsense of what she has to deal with

sad and pathetic statement that rings truly...
even more so with this bunch of Haters and Edgardo Giobbi "gut instinct" cops...

 

[Bill Williams]

Quintavalle is interesting because he supplied evidence to feed a made up story. Down the bunny hole things happen in reverse. The cops let it be known, untruthfully, they found bleach receipts then lo and behold! along comes Quintavalle a year later to re-heat the myth. Same with this weird bra clasp story and the witness (Vulpano or Vulcano Pasquale) who popped up just in time to prove Lumumba's bar was shut when it wasn't. Funny that!

And what does Massei do with the issue of bleach at the cottage anyway?

First there's the allegation of a clean-up at a cottage. The kind of clean necessitated cleaning by bleach - and we'll put aside briefly that it was a clean which to the molecular level id'ed two of three alleged perps.....

The cops claim to have a bleach receipt. At the local store, at least initally, Quintaville says, "I've never seen the lady."

The whole bleach thing is dropped by cops. So why even direct the cops to go search the hardware stores any more? Yet even with this, as you say, Quintaville resurfaces a year later..... well, you get the drift.

And even in early 2010 when Massei releases his report for why he convicted, here's what he says about the bleach!

- the smell of bleach was at Raffaele's apartment as reported by Armando Finzi, Chiacchiera, Passeri, Ranauro, Camarda, Rossi and Sisani. Even though Raffaele says it was Chiacchiera who found the knife, Massei finds as factual that Finzi discovered it. By instinct alone.

- but at the cottage, the issue of bleach is different. Massei, in fact, to keep it straight that none of what luminol found there was a result of bleach, "Furthermore, no one entering the house had declared that they had noticed any smell of bleach, unlike what, on the contrary, had occurred with reference to Raffaele Sollecito's house."​

So Massei is in a logical pickle. Bleach must not have been used at the cottage, or else there is cause to suggest that the latent footprints had been made from stepping in bleach rather than blood. (Forget for a minute that luminol by itself does not reveal blood.)

But then Massei also needs to posit a clean-up this time in the short space between Meredith's bedroom and the bathmat footprint, because if he doesn't, he's at a loss to explain how a lone footprint appears on the bathmat somewhat removed from Mereidth's room.

In my view, the narrative surrounding the bleach is filled with improbablities, not the least of which is Quintaville at first not seeing Knox, then a year later remembering seeing her.... where even Massei brushes all this nonsense aside by writing that perhaps more bleach needed to be purchased, because after all Quintaville say Amanda in his store.... but that "extra Bleach" wasn't used at the cottage, because if it was it would have interfered with distinguishing between bleach and blood....

Somewhere, Mr. Occam has to intercede here.