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

[acbytesla]

My understanding is that the vaginal swab was positive for Rudy's Y DNA, but not sperm. As I understand, Stefanoni supposed that the DNA came from Rudy's skin cells.

So that's a no... Would there necessarily be any other evidence that could prove intercourse? Bruising etc?? None was noticed? or is that too difficult to ascertain by the coroner??

 

[Diocletus]

So that's a no... Would there necessarily be any other evidence that could prove intercourse? Bruising etc?? None was noticed? or is that too difficult to ascertain by the coroner??

My understanding is that the coroner thought that there was sexual activity but a lack of associated trauma, and therefore there was an initial conjecture that the sexual activity was voluntary. I'm not sure of details, though.

In a related note, I did find this:

In February 1996, the Italian Parliament finally amended the fascist-era rape law. After six decades of stagnation, the latter two punctuated with urging by Italian feminists, Parliament reclassified rape as a crime against personal integrity, rather than as a crime against public morality.(163) The new law raises the minimum sentence for the commission of acts of sexual violence from three years to five, although the maximum sentence remains the same, at ten years. The law also eradicates the distinction between penetration and other sexual acts, ordering the same punishment for all acts of "sexual violence."(164)

The law also includes a list of aggravating circumstances that increase the penalty to imprisonment for a term of six to twelve years.(165) It calls for automatic prosecution by the state on complaint by the victim, a complaint that is irrevocable. The victim has six months in which to make the complaint.(166) The law also includes a provision criminalizing group rape.(168)

This really makes me wonder. For example, was Rudy charged with aggravated sexual violence (because he used a weapon), thus increasing his potential penalty to 12 years? Why hasn't the "group rape" law been invoked?

It seems to me that the prosecutors made decisions on the charges leveled against Guede, which could have had an effect on his ultimate punishment and thus his interest in not undercutting the prosecutors' case against Knox and Sollecito.

Also, if Knox and Sollecito engaged in group sexual violence, as the perverts love to allege, then why were they not charged with this crime? It's a mandatory charge. Isn't it unethical for the prosecutor to fail to charge a mandatory crime, and then accuse someone of having committed that crime in order to establish a "motive" for a separate crime? But, then again, it appears that the mandate to charge follows a victim compliant, which hardly seems to have been available under the circumstances.

 

[codyjuneau]

Cody honestly I don't understand your point. The article is pointing out that when drinking the BAC will go up after a drink even while decreasing the BAC that was already in the system.

.
The article said "It’s important to remember that BAC can continue to rise for a period of time after the last drink is consumed.".

This indicates to me, that one cannot use the time of the last drink to start calculating the BAC decline. Rather one should wait the 'period of time', whatever amount that is, after the last drink, before starting the calculation.

He said it is important to remember, so I assume it is of some significance.
.

 

[acbytesla]

My understanding is that the coroner thought that there was sexual activity but a lack of associated trauma, and therefore there was an initial conjecture that the sexual activity was voluntary. I'm not sure of details, though.

In a related note, I did find this:



This really makes me wonder. For example, was Rudy charged with aggravated sexual violence (because he used a weapon), thus increasing his potential penalty to 12 years? Why hasn't the "group rape" law been invoked?

It seems to me that the prosecutors made decisions on the charges leveled against Guede, which could have had an effect on his ultimate punishment and thus his interest in not undercutting the prosecutors' case against Knox and Sollecito.

Also, if Knox and Sollecito engaged in group sexual violence, as the perverts love to allege, then why were they not charged with this crime? It's a mandatory charge. Isn't it unethical for the prosecutor to fail to charge a mandatory crime, and then accuse someone of having committed that crime in order to establish a "motive" for a separate crime? But, then again, it appears that the mandate to charge follows a victim compliant, which hardly seems to have been available under the circumstances.

That is interesting. I think to a certain degree, charging any of them with the group sexual violence is problematic if the goal is to get a conviction.

In one way, I like to see Machiavelli's take on this, but his explanations of the Italian legal system tends to make me roll my eyes with incredulity. On the one hand it seems like many of these laws require prosecution but in fact there actually is a lot of discretion for prosecutors. For example, charging Amanda's parents for callunia when they were only repeating the words of Amanda and not charging journalists who said the same thing.

 

[snook1]

Am I correct to think that we could get an update on the knife's status as early as tomorrow afternoon/evening? Nencini said that if it turns out that the DNA trace on the knife cannot be checked, then they should inform the court about it right away.

 

[Dan O.]

.
Do we know Meredith had her pants on when she was attacked, or is it just surmised?

Same for her shoes?

ETA: Never mind, I see katy_did already asked.
ETA: Well, sorta.
ETA: Never mind the never mind. The question is on again.
.

I would have said this too as it would help explain the shift to a sexual attack. But the blood on the pants indicate that they were removed by somebody with bloody hands. The shoes are not as conclusive and could have come off before or after the assault.

With both, it would have been useful to have high resolution photos of all sides to help determine how events unfolded but with the budget constraints this just cannot be done.

 

[davefoc]

...

In Vecchiotti's opinion, none of the DNA profiles on the bra clasp matched Sollecito's. Somehow, that part of Vecchiotti's testimony failed to make it into the media coverage of the trial.

Thanks RWVBWL. I have remained skeptical of the accidental contamination theory. Presumably there would have been DNA from many individuals throughout Kercher's bedroom and the apartment. How is it that Sollecito came to be the second largest contributor to DNA on the clasp after the clasp was contaminated from a mixture of DNA lying around for which he must have been a tiny contributor. Several different scenarios were suggested above that might be possible explanations, but my uninformed gut feel was that they were unlikely to be an explanation for the alleged existence of Sollecito's DNA on the hook.

I tried to confirm that the C & V report supported what Vechiotti was reported to have said above.

I read through the section about the bra clasp in the on-line English version of the C & V report here:http://knoxdnareport.wordpress.com/

Unfortunately the diagrams were very difficult if not impossible to read. But it sounds like they didn't find any DNA on either the clasp or the knife for testing.

Taking note that no DNA suitable for further laboratory investigations (amplification, electrophoresis) was present either on the swabs [tamponature] (A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I) taken from Exhibit 36 (knife) or on those (L-M) taken from Exhibit 165B (hooks of the bra), the experts verbally informed the consultants of the parties that they would proceed to a detailed examination of the Technical Report drawn up by the Scientific Police, as according to the task formulated during the assignment hearing.

According to the report they did analyze the genetic testing done by Stefazoni. It sounds like this might be the relevant section of the report:

On the other hand, it is not possible to comprehend the criteria adopted in the assessment of the positive quantification result for sample B and the negative result for sample C, given that the same result, “too low”, was obtained for both samples: that is, a value which must be considered not only below the sensitivity threshold of the Fluorimeter indicated by the manual (DNA concentrations equal to 0.2 ng/μl), but below 0.08 ng/μl, a value which the Fluorimeter detected for sample A.
Nor is it comprehensible, considering the negative results on sample B, what Dr. Stefanoni reported during the GUP questioning (page 178) where she stated that the DNA in sample B, quantified with Real Time PCR (it is recalled that such quantification as confirmed during the hearing was never carried out or, at least, no documentation was provided to support this claim), was “in the order of some hundreds of picograms”, a value which does not appear in any of the documents provided to us (SAL, Fluorimeter report, Real Time report, RTIGF).

Sample B seems to be the clasp. I wasn't sure what sample C was.

It sounds to to me that the C & V report is saying that the DNA concentration was too low to do reliable testing with based on information from the Stefazoni report and some information that the C & V report authors inferred. I remain a bit confused though because I thought I understood Kaosium above to say that there was sufficient DNA to obtain reliable results from and the results were probably accurate although he believed accidental or intentional contamination was the probable explanation of why Sollecito DNA was found on the clasp.

 

[Grinder]

.
The article said "It’s important to remember that BAC can continue to rise for a period of time after the last drink is consumed.".

This indicates to me, that one cannot use the time of the last drink to start calculating the BAC decline. Rather one should wait the 'period of time', whatever amount that is, after the last drink, before starting the calculation.

He said it is important to remember, so I assume it is of some significance.
.

Btw, thanks for taking the time to read the link. I think they emphacize that because the main audience is drinking drivers. They are pointing out that the last drink will continue to raise BAC for a period of time.

In Meredith's case we have no idea how drunk she was. We know she came home around 5 am and we assume she had stopped drinking some time before that. The best information is that she had the equivalent of one drink in her when she died.

All the literature I can find says that alcohol is processed at a steady rate of .015 per hour for everyone

If she had been at a .225 it would take 15 hours to go to very near zero which would make it 8 pm. .225 is beyond the ability to walk.

 

[acbytesla]

Thanks RWVBWL. I have remained skeptical of the accidental contamination theory. Presumably there would have been DNA from many individuals throughout Kercher's bedroom and the apartment. How is it that Sollecito came to be the second largest contributor to DNA on the clasp after the clasp was contaminated from a mixture of DNA lying around for which he must have been a tiny contributor. Several different scenarios were suggested above that might be possible explanations, but my uninformed gut feel was that they were unlikely to be an explanation for the alleged existence of Sollecito's DNA on the hook.

I tried to confirm that the C & V report supported what Vechiotti was reported to have said above.

With all due respect dave, does it really matter that Raffale may be the second largest contributor in a mixture when the sample is small? Isn't it possible, even probable at these infinitesimal quantities to be the result of chance and a random result of multiple contributors over a large area? I'm not an expert in this field by any means but when we are talking about say a 100 picograms which is 100 trillionth of a gram. Isn't random events likely to cause a result like this??

 

[Machiavelli]

Machiavelli, early last summer you told me this:


That was part of a much longer post that I replied to trying to clarify it and didn't get a response. I got the impression you were saying he proposed it was some sort of non-Masonic, non-Satanic but still a rite of some sort that they improvised for the Halloween/All Saint's Day/Day of the Dead/whatever holiday. There's plenty of support out there for something Mignini proposed that was ritualistic. I quoted even John Kercher, who has no reason to misrepresent Mignini, has spoken to him, and who's also a journalist and included it as one of the reasons he thinks Amanda Knox is guilty.

What caused you to change your mind from him saying it was a 'home-made rite' to now saying there was no 'ritualistic' element at all? You are welcome to change your mind, I'm just curious as to why.

What made me "change my mind" was that I made a search and found no corroboration. I had this Italian newspaper that reported the words "rito sessuale casalingo". But then I read the transcripts and I've found no "rite" (except the word in Micheli's report). In fact I realized that the only source that was reporting about a "rito sessuale casalingo" was a jouralist from La Repubblica, who maintains his report is indirect, since he is only reporting this second-hand from another press source.

So, I point out the existence of this source but I can't say such scenario or word was ever part of the trial. Now, because I have no "rito" in the prosecution's arguments, and also given that juge Micheli himself points out that Mignini "dropped" all these themes in his replies after his closing arguments, the possibilities left are that the word "rito" originates from Maresca or Pacelli, or that it was just a mistake from the press source.

 

[RoseMontague]

Maybe answer some recent questions about certain letters...

http://translate.google.com/transla...as_qdr=all&biw=1024&bih=601&tbs=ctr:countryIT

 

[davefoc]

With all due respect dave, does it really matter that Raffale may be the second largest contributor in a mixture when the sample is small? Isn't it possible, even probable at these infinitesimal quantities to be the result of chance and a random result of multiple contributors over a large area? I'm not an expert in this field by any means but when we are talking about say a 100 picograms which is 100 trillionth of a gram. Isn't random events likely to cause a result like this??

No respect necessary, I don't hold myself out as an expert and my level of knowledge about this subject is probably on the low side for anybody participating in this thread. But please feel free to respect me if you must.

I am getting confounding information here. On one hand I think I have understood that there was plenty of DNA for a reliable test and on the other hand the C & V report suggests otherwise. Your theory seems to fall some place in the middle. There was enough DNA for a reliable test, but the amount was so small that a few bits of RS DNA could have been lying around and happened to attach to the clasp. Maybe but my gut feel is that there was thousands of times more DNA from non RS people than from RS and the likelihood is very very small that a random bit of RS DNA happened to attach to the clasp while the contribution from everybody else except Kercher was tiny or undetectable.

If my reading of the C & V report was correct (and I'm not sure that this is the case) it sounds like the most likely explanation for the alleged RS DNA on the clasp result was that the test was not reliable. The people that did the testing for the C & V report could not identify any cells on the clasp and found so little DNA that they didn't do the DNA testing on the clasp at all. Things are not quite lining up here to make a completely consistent story and I'm not sure where the problem lies although my lack of understanding of the relevant facts might very well be the cause.

 

[RoseMontague]

(Corriere della Sera - In the insert of the Corriere Fiorentino 1 October 2013 page 6)

 

[Diocletus]

No respect necessary, I don't hold myself out as an expert and my level of knowledge about this subject is probably on the low side for anybody participating in this thread. But please feel free to respect me if you must.

I am getting confounding information here. On one hand I think I have understood that there was plenty of DNA for a reliable test and on the other hand the C & V report suggests otherwise. Your theory seems to fall some place in the middle. There was enough DNA for a reliable test, but the amount was so small that a few bits of RS DNA could have been lying around and happened to attach to the clasp. Maybe but my gut feel is that there was thousands of times more DNA from non RS people than from RS and the likelihood is very very small that a random bit of RS DNA happened to attach to the clasp while the contribution from everybody else except Kercher was tiny or undetectable.

If my reading of the C & V report was correct (and I'm not sure that this is the case) it sounds like the most likely explanation for the alleged RS DNA on the clasp result was that the test was not reliable. The people that did the testing for the C & V report could not identify any cells on the clasp and found so little DNA that they didn't do the DNA testing on the clasp at all. Things are not quite lining up here to make a completely consistent story and I'm not sure where the problem lies although my lack of understanding of the relevant facts might very well be the cause.

I believe that you quoted the discussion of 36b, not 165b.

 

[acbytesla]

No respect necessary, I don't hold myself out as an expert and my level of knowledge about this subject is probably on the low side for anybody participating in this thread. But please feel free to respect me if you must.

I am getting confounding information here. On one hand I think I have understood that there was plenty of DNA for a reliable test and on the other hand the C & V report suggests otherwise. Your theory seems to fall some place in the middle. There was enough DNA for a reliable test, but the amount was so small that a few bits of RS DNA could have been lying around and happened to attach to the clasp. Maybe but my gut feel is that there was thousands of times more DNA from non RS people than from RS and the likelihood is very very small that a random bit of RS DNA happened to attach to the clasp while the contribution from everybody else except Kercher was tiny or undetectable.

If my reading of the C & V report was correct (and I'm not sure that this is the case) it sounds like the most likely explanation for the alleged RS DNA on the clasp result was that the test was not reliable. The people that did the testing for the C & V report could not identify any cells on the clasp and found so little DNA that they didn't do the DNA testing on the clasp at all. Things are not quite lining up here to make a completely consistent story and I'm not sure where the problem lies although my lack of understanding of the relevant facts might very well be the cause.

You may very well be right. But the contamination can occur throughout the process. Statistical oddities do happen. If you see the collection process, you see that the bra clasp is not in the location it was 46 days earlier. You see it being handled by multiple techs with dirty gloves. In addition, Vechiotti looked at the e-gram and said she wouldn't have matched that profile to Raffaele at all.

I have always thought the bra clasp was the most problematic piece of evidence for the defense so I understand your focus on it. I look at all the other evidence in this case and the total keystone cop bungling and I have to write it up to a mistake of some kind.

Lastly, I think I would be remiss not to point out Stefanoni's behavior in this trial I'm sure the guilters will dismiss it but I think it has to be considered. A lot of law and order types never believe in police or proprietorial misconduct. It may be rare, but it definitely DOES happen. Lab techs in the US have done many of the same things that Stef has done and some have even gone to jail for it. It seems irrational, I know.
Consider the following, Stef ignored orders from judges to turn over evidence to the defense and they let him get away with it. In the US Stef would have went to jail for contempt for so batantly failing even refusing to obey their orders. She obfuscated the fact that the luminol prints tested negative for blood right up until it was pointed out in the trial. Lastly consider, the fact that NO ONE can re test the bra clasp because of the crazy way she stored it. Stef conveniently has made it so no one can effectively verify her work.

 

[Mary_H]

Back in the middle of the last century young people would start out with clothes on and sometimes people even put their hands inside the clothes of others.<snip>

Thanks, I was unaware of that. Let's go back to my original question. Thanks to you, I get that even finger penetration qualifies as rape. Is there evidence of actual penis penetration? I can't imagine having intercourse with dying bleeding human being, it literally makes me want to vomit, but I do know that some serial killers absolutely had intercourse with their victims post mortem.

In my opinion, Rudy thought he had subdued Meredith, not killed her. He was excited by the violence and planned to have intercourse with her, but ejaculated before he was able to get that far. People do use their hands to facilitate the process of penetration.

(I unfortunately took a class at school taught by Bob Keppel and the whole class was about serial killers and their psychology. Keppel was great, but the class gave me the heebie jeebies for years.

I took that class, too! The most interesting thing I learned in it was that serial killers are not interesting people at all.

 

[Bill Williams]

What made me "change my mind" was that I made a search and found no corroboration. I had this Italian newspaper that reported the words "rito sessuale casalingo". But then I read the transcripts and I've found no "rite" (except the word in Micheli's report). In fact I realized that the only source that was reporting about a "rito sessuale casalingo" was a jouralist from La Repubblica, who maintains his report is indirect, since he is only reporting this second-hand from another press source.

So, I point out the existence of this source but I can't say such scenario or word was ever part of the trial. Now, because I have no "rito" in the prosecution's arguments, and also given that juge Micheli himself points out that Mignini "dropped" all these themes in his replies after his closing arguments, the possibilities left are that the word "rito" originates from Maresca or Pacelli, or that it was just a mistake from the press source.

So, Machiavelli, is THIS the strategy from here on in.... everyone EXCEPT Mignini gets a small share of the blame?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Charlie, you won't win any friends or gain any credibility by trying to represent this as a left-wing/right-wing confrontation. "Left" and "right" in this context are in any case labels, and your apparent understanding of them seems incongruous to me, at least. Far from the Italian judiciary being "a force against right-wing thuggery", it looks to me to be a classic manifestation of the right-wing authoritarian establishment.

It certainly is authoritarian. I wouldn't say it is right-wing. In the US, "authoritarian" is nearly synonymous with "right-wing," because the hard left simply has no power base in the US. That is not necessarily true in Italy. Machiavelli (and the judiciary) are opposed to the rightist elements of the Italian gov't. Machiavelli has opinions about US foreign policy in common with left-wingers, and the "honorary president" of the Italian Supreme Court is a truther, which is the province of the far left.

I'm not trying to win friends or influence people at this late date. I'm trying to understand where Machiavelli is coming from. Italy has experienced a dictatorship within living memory. It is not politically stable in the way the US is. Machiavelli has at various times explained his reasons for supporting the judiciary, and they sort of make sense in general terms, given the truly dangerous political undercurrents of Italian society. But his need to defend the magistrates on every particular, no matter what the facts, is the sign of a political fanatic. That is honestly what I think he is, based on his comments and his sources of information. I don't think he is a paid shill for Mignini or anything of the sort.

 

[acbytesla]

In my opinion, Rudy thought he had subdued Meredith, not killed her. He was excited by the violence and planned to have intercourse with her, but ejaculated before he was able to get that far. People do use their hands to facilitate the process of penetration.



I took that class, too! The most interesting thing I learned in it was that serial killers are not interesting people at all.

You didn't find Ted Bundy interesting? A creep for sure, but I thought he was interesting.

 

[Machiavelli]

I was initially going to disagree, then I realised - this is exactly the way Mach has argued it.

Mach argued that people with sleep deprivation seek sleep (which is not true in many cases - there's even a name for people who are sleep deprived and who avoid sleep) and that , because Knox chose not to sleep, she therefore cannot have been sleep deprived.

Saying that Knox had any choice in her sleep is to deny the stress of the previous days - we know that several friends of Meredith had extremely disturbed sleep because of it, with one even having to receive treatment a year later. Knox 'chose' not to sleep in the same way that I'm currently 'choosing' not to be able to breathe properly. Following Mach's logic, my chest infection and asthma have nothing to do with it.

Mach has argued that Knox chose not to sleep and that Knox had the foresight to choose not to be affected by her choice - even though sleep deprivation often arises precisely because the person doesn't get enough sleep, whether through choice or illness.

Plenty of students 'choose' not to sleep much at weekends, yet no-one would sensibly deny that they are sleeped deprived when they crawl in for monday morning lectures.

Knox 'choosing' not to sleep is the cause of, not proof negative, of any sleep deprivation.

The Mach's really need to make sure one knows what the other has typed, or she really needs to keep her story straight.

There is no "story", there are reasonings and they are straight, the only problem is that you need to read them all. Without to cutting bits away. You decided to not believe the first very obvious argument concerning the choice to not sleep, for some reason people decided to not "see" Knox's behavior. I did not carry the discussion further from the viewpoint of that particular argument because you don't see it, that point to me was over. Then I argued quite on other reasons why speaking about sleep deprivation would be groundless; but because of your selective reading, those arguments magically "disappear".