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

[Grinder]

Quoting Flipp on IIP:


Edit-
Sergio Casagrande ‏@essecia 2m
BREAKING #MeredithKercher The new expert on the knife that would kill Meredith confirms traces of DNA linked to #Amanda Knox

Well I guess that settles it. Amanda's DNA is on a knife from the kitchen she was using for the last few days before being arrested and that knife doesn't match anything about the murder.

I suppose she needs to prove how her DNA got on that knife, right Novelli?

 

[MDDVS]

I had already noted that your comments about Italian democracy are specious.
The US was behind Italy as for freedom expression in years around 2007.

Not specious at all, only matters of fact. It's you who make the specious comparison, you have to go and cherry pick a year that makes Italy look a bit better. However, even in 2007 Italy ranks as the worst in western europe. In fact Italy consistently ranks in the bottom places in all the western world. This is not an oddity but is related with the defamation laws you seem to like so much.

It just irks me that you try to parade Italy as a paragon of justice and Democracy when it's quite obvious that it has significant problems in many areas, as seen in the ECHR data, in the freedom of the press index, in the freedom in world index, and others.

Why is this important? Because you seem to base your arguments on the assumption that the intitutions work perfectly, the courts in particular. Now you were also giving Italian newspapers as an example of good journalism, for which you had to compare 2 italian broadsheets with 2 ****** tabloids.

 

[Grinder]

Stefanoni had nothing to do with the starch. This starch was discovered on the knife blade by C & V. Not sure if it was even marked with id marker. A enlarged photo of the actual starch grain was produced. I think the relevance was to show that the police and prosecutors contention that the knife was chosen because it was shiny and clean and plus RS apartment smelled of bleach and so Finsi put 2 and 3 together and got 10.

Yes that's how I remember it but Candace just reported In the last trial, a speck the police claimed was the victim’s DNA turned out to be starch. Independent experts won’t test the knife this time; the judge handed that task off to the carabinieri ris.

I directed the question to Bill W who has been carrying on about Vogt's poor reporting.

Bill since CD's footnotes are available to you personally, why not get the one on the DNA being starch.

RW - I have never seen a basketball player make the athletic move of the rock climber. I don't doubt that it is possible that Rudi could make it, but I don't think it would have been as easy as it looked on the recreation.

Look at how the lawyer climbed the window grate. I think Rudi as an untrained climber would have done it more like the lawyer climbed. As I've said before I don't think the shutters were closed that night. I do think Rudy tossed the rock. I think it more likely that he talked Meredith into letting him in and that she didn't notice the little hole in the window.

The lawyers' office was similar but they had a balcony that the burglar pulled himself up on before breaking in the window which IIRC was more of French doors.

There is very little if any corroboration of the neighbor cat and fire story. I certainly would have liked the defense to have pursued this. Although not at the heart of the case, had they shown he had done what Nina claimed he had it would have been a powerful story.

 

[Diocletus]

I had already noted that your comments about Italian democracy are specious.
The US was behind Italy as for freedom expression in years around 2007.

Hm. Is there an index for suckiness of the press? What good is a free press if it sucks?

 

[Dan O.]

Hey Grinder,
I thought that we had already agreed that you too believe that ol' Rudy did indeed climb up+break into the lawyers office,
which was on the 2nd floor if I recall correctly. Right?
Hmmm, B+E on the 2nd floor of a building,
esh, the dude musta been a natural at coilin'+springin', in my surfer opinion!


Why don'tcha think that Guede-o woulda done the same at Miss Kercher's flat?
Because he knew the dudes downstairs, like Massei wrote?

Do you remember that the lawyer dude was shown making this climb without coiling and jumping? The rule in climbing is to always maintain three points of contact. Two feet separated part way up the grate on the lower window and a hand holding the upper edge of the window opening makes a stable three point contact so one hand is free to reach for the ledge of the upper window.

Can he reach the ledge? Find yourself a meter stick and mark off the distance on a wall. Even better, if you have a video projector, project the cottage wall on a flat surface and see what you can reach.

These are measurements I recorded from my earlier calculations. I don't remember why there is a ? After the first number. Perhaps somebody should repeat the calculations to verify these results. Or, mail the current resident a meter tape and ask him to measure the wall.

Hight of sill above top bar = 1.51? Meters.
Hight above top of lower casement - 1.15 Meters.
​

 

[Chris_Halkides]

peak heights in an electropherogram

It seems like there are various perhaps overlapping concepts when the appropriateness of a sample for testing is being discussed.

The absolute mass
Based on what I understood from the C & V report the mass is determined by multiplying the mass concentration with the total mass of material analyzed.

The mass concentration
As I recall this is measured in micrograms per microliter.

RFU
I looked this up on Wikipedia. It seems like a way of determining how much DNA is in the sample by using molecules that glow under ultraviolet light when they are attached to the DNA to be tested. The more glowing the more DNA. It seems like the RFU measurement is closely related to the mass concentration that was mentioned in the C & V report but I haven't seen a way to convert between the measurements if it is even possible.

I am sure that some of the above isn't correct. I was hoping that somebody might correct what I have said and perhaps expand on it a bit.

One multiplies the value of the concentration (mass/volume) times the volume to obtain the mass of a sample. RFU is how one expresses the height of a peak in an electropherogram. RFU stands for relative fluorescence units. It is proportional to the amount of DNA that gives rise to a particular peak. There is no surefire way to look at the RFU values in two different electropherograms and to say, for example, that egram A has more DNA than egram B. There are too many variables, such as the number of PCR cycles and the presence or absence of inhibitors. The fluorescence is in the visible light region of the spectrum, IIRC.

 

[Machiavelli]

Not specious at all, only matters of fact. It's you who make the specious comparison, you have to go and cherry pick a year that makes Italy look a bit better. However, even in 2007 Italy ranks as the worst in western europe. In fact Italy consistently ranks in the bottom places in all the western world. This is not an oddity but is related with the defamation laws you seem to like so much.

It just irks me that you try to parade Italy as a paragon of justice and Democracy when it's quite obvious that it has significant problems in many areas, as seen in the ECHR data, in the freedom of the press index, in the freedom in world index, and others.

Why is this important? Because you seem to base your arguments on the assumption that the intitutions work perfectly, the courts in particular. Now you were also giving Italian newspapers as an example of good journalism, for which you had to compare 2 italian broadsheets with 2 ****** tabloids.

No no, perfection has nothing to do with it.
The opposite is true: the innocentista view of Diocletus (and yours, on other aspects) is based on an extreme paradigm, in which NO source of any kind should be trusted just because it is Italian.

Italy ranked 34th in Freedom of Press index in 2007, while the US ranked 47th. But does this have implications on whether a suspect is innocent or guilty? Obviusly not. The argument is specious.
Moreover, did you read the Italy dossier? Do you know exactly what problems Italy has about press freedom? The whole argument is obviously a pretext. There is no implication whatsoever.
Your argument was specious also on the viewpoint of human rights violations: you listed data about human rights violations - above all excessive lenght of trials - found by the ECHR since 1959. You justified this kind of data choice bringing *your* convincement that "cultures evolve very slowly" and that a few generations is not enough to change kind of cultural flawes od a system, this is why you considered your count "fair". But the very idea that human rights and institutional issues depend on some "culture" instead being just a matter of current statistical data, or that cultures and civilizations as well as political systems have does not change over short time, is itself to be considered a racist idea. Not to speak about the fact that you attempt to derive from this the belief that Knox was subjected to a coercion and that the judiciary are corrupt, just independently from the data of the specific case.

 

[Diocletus]

No no, perfection has nothing to do with it.
The opposite is true: the innocentista view of Diocletus (and yours, on other aspects) is based on an extreme paradigm, in which NO source of any kind should be trusted just because it is Italian.

I really wish you would try to get things right.

Last time I checked, Conti and Vecchiotti are Italian, and no one has ever successfully challenged their substantive points. That's why you have had to resort to collateral and defamatory attacks against their character.

Of course, we do have abundant evidence of either incompetent or lying Italians. But that's not because they're Italian; it's because they are bad at their job or deceitful people.

 

[Machiavelli]

(...)
How can I acknowledge that the scenario is totally different when you all but admit the Micheli chastised Mignini for advancing it?

You need to get your story straight.... I do not know why you wish to embarrass yourself over this

.

Again you repeat this twisting and falsifying?
I already pointed out that Micheli did not claim Mignini advanced any ritualistic-murder scenario.
Even Micheli akcnolwedges and does not contradict the fact that ONLY ONE scenario was proposed, and it was that of a "little sex-party" among drugged students?
Which is not a ritual muder scenario.
Is that clear?

Micheli only pointed to themes that were attached (as a decoration) and they were about possible ("not unrealistic") themes that the sex-party could have had, that is: considering possible cultural influences that might have inlfuenced the three personalities concurring to forming the idea of a sex-party that night.

This is the themes that Micheli is talking about.

So my "story" IS straight - it is in fact not a story, it's nothing but the factual content of the prosecution's argument and Micheli's comment.

Is it clear enough? Or you intend to twist it again?

(btw lying at the cost of embarassing yourself again and again)

 

[Bill Williams]

No no, perfection has nothing to do with it.
The opposite is true: the innocentista view of Diocletus (and yours, on other aspects) is based on an extreme paradigm, in which NO source of any kind should be trusted just because it is Italian.

Again, Machiavelli, this is just embarrassing. You are better than this.

Hellmann and Zanetti are Italian. Raffaele is Italian. Frank Sfarzo is Italian. Oggi is Italian.

You are engaged in one side of a war internal to Italy. You have said as much youself.

 

[Machiavelli]

I really wish you would try to get things right.

Last time I checked, Conti and Vecchiotti are Italian, and no one has ever successfully challenged their substantive points. That's why you have had to resort to collateral and defamatory attacks against their character.
(...)

Maybe you were somewhere else when Conti and Vecchiotti's "points" were debunked by Comodi, Stefanoni, Novelli, by posters, by the Supreme Court, by science and common sense.

The reputation of Vecchiotti and Conti and their qualifications is related factual information that anyone can verify, to know a bit about the characthers and decide whether and how to "trust" them, or not.

 

[Bill Williams]

.

Again you repeat this twisting and falsifying?
I already pointed out that Micheli did not claim Mignini advanced any ritualistic-murder scenario.
Even Micheli akcnolwedges and does not contradict the fact that ONLY ONE scenario was proposed, and it was that of a "little sex-party" among drugged students?
Which is not a ritual muder scenario.
Is that clear?

It is not clear because of YOUR post. You also say you have transcripts.... transcripts which you refuse to make public.

Who is twisting and falsifying?

You posted this up thread....

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.

 

[Diocletus]

.
Micheli only pointed to themes that were attached (as a decoration) and they were about possible ("not unrealistic") themes that the sex-party could have had, that is: considering possible cultural influences that might have inlfuenced the three personalities concurring to forming the idea of a sex-party that night.

Oh, I see. So it was just a sex party with a Halloween theme, like they were just bobbing for apples and then got the idea that they should stab someone in the neck and rape her.

You're right, Machiavelli, that changes everything.

 

[RoseMontague]

.

Again you repeat this twisting and falsifying?
I already pointed out that Micheli did not claim Mignini advanced any ritualistic-murder scenario.
Even Micheli akcnolwedges and does not contradict the fact that ONLY ONE scenario was proposed, and it was that of a "little sex-party" among drugged students?
Which is not a ritual muder scenario.
Is that clear?

Micheli only pointed to themes that were attached (as a decoration) and they were about possible ("not unrealistic") themes that the sex-party could have had, that is: considering possible cultural influences that might have inlfuenced the three personalities concurring to forming the idea of a sex-party that night.

This is the themes that Micheli is talking about.

So my "story" IS straight - it is in fact not a story, it's nothing but the factual content of the prosecution's argument and Micheli's comment.

Is it clear enough? Or you intend to twist it again?

(btw lying at the cost of embarassing yourself again and again)

Too Funny. Whatever was this ritually culturally influenced day of the dead sex party Halloween drugged orgy thing, I guess Micheli had enough sense to see it as pretty much insane ranting on the part of Migi. Which is the point of the whole debate on Migi's fantasies, go figure.

 

[Machiavelli]

Again, Machiavelli, this is just embarrassing. You are better than this.

Hellmann and Zanetti are Italian. Raffaele is Italian. Frank Sfarzo is Italian. Oggi is Italian.

You are engaged in one side of a war internal to Italy. You have said as much youself.

You are attempting to turn a racist reasoning into a circular reasoning.
You are saying, the good and "trusted" sources are no longer the ones that are not Italian, and the bad sources are not bad just because they are Italian; now you are subbesing, the good ones are the ones who suggest innocence and the bad - corrut- not-to-betrusted - ones, are the ones who suggest guilt.
The reasoning from racist becomes circular.

Anyway, it seems you still believe The Daily Mirror and anglophone sources suggesting the prosecution proposed a satanic scenario, you believe your own idea tha Mignini must have leaked a "bloody bathroom" picture to a British tabloid. While you don't believe the trial transcripts that prove the opposite, nor the obvious fact that theorieas about the prosecution "using British tabloids are wild and foolish conspiracy theories by any rational mind.

 

[Kaosium]

Kaosium you are overtly shifting the goalpost. In order to propose a ritualistic murder scenario, you do need to propose it in court. What is not put forward in court, is not part of the trial.
Your understanding (that he "dropped" it) is based on your decision to assume that possible British tabloid reports are "truthful" (maybe you assume "there must be something true"). There is actually a simple answer: the English speaking reports about it are reporting false information. (maybe they were deceived by Spezi, Carlizzi or whoever? who knows).
No Italian souece reported Mignini putting forward a ritualistic scenario. And above all, the court documentation demonstrates that in fact he put forward a different scenario, definitely a non-ritualistic scenario.

Now, because it is obvious that the informationreported by tabloids has no basis, that there is instead proof of the contrary in trial transcripts, now you shift your hypothesys about what Mignini "entertained" (maybe in your next post you will specified that he dreamt of it). You should maybe start considering all those many non-tabloid and non-anglophone sources (me included, and Mignini himself included) who did NOT report about any ritual-murder scenario, and instead they just reported about something else, something totally different scenario, such as a drug-fueled sex-party that went out of control.

Heh, I got a reminder of just how 'misleading' some of the coverage was from that Daily Mail article I posted on the Grey's Anatomy preview where someone, perhaps the reporter or someone at the Mail, must have typed that 'message' out (with that version of the translation) and photographed it. The story itself noted the text in question had been erased, and of course in Italy it would have been in Italian.

However there's a lot of support out there for Mignini suggesting a ritualistic component to the murder, something that morphs into his suggestion that the manga comic had pictures not unlike the murder room. Do you know what he actually proposed before Matteini at the outset of the case against Raffaele and Amanda? We know how it came out, they took the line Raffaele had written on his blog a year ago or so (mis-dating it which made it seem more recent) about him wanting to try 'extreme experiences' or however they put it, and the comic book showed up there too, didn't it?

However what did Mignini originally propose? Was that the Halloween/All Saint's Day/Day of Dead sect-like ritual orgy murder whatever and Matteini slapped him down and went with 'bored of the same old evening' (with his first real girlfriend who liked to cuddle--please!) and them trying this 'extreme experience' inspired by hash and comics?

John Kercher remembered, and he had information coming in from his paid representative and Mignini himself who he spoke with during this time. At any rate, no matter what exactly he said to the court--or the court decided on despite what he theorized--just having proposed such a thing in the earshot of people ought to make them wonder, and reveals something about his thinking and 'hypothesizing' process. Even the version from Matteini which survived in the fashion I posted through Massei does that. He took those disparate elements of a line from a blog and a comic book and wildly theorized some sordid and fantastic scenario that sent the tabloids into a tizzy and the only real 'evidence' he had were two statements made under duress and without a lawyer from a (supposedly) un-taped interrogation session in the middle of the night that weren't even incriminating regarding either actually participating in the murder.

He takes Raffaele conflating the days at their instance so that Amanda goes to Le Chic and a 'witness' statement that doesn't have any details of the time, the crime, and glosses over important elements like who was there for sure, how the window got broken and even how she got home and nothing from Patrick to imagine this wild drug-fueled orgy with both participating enthusiastically, holding Meredith down and so forth, that he just made up without even the comics for inspiration.

 

[Machiavelli]

It is not clear because of YOUR post. You also say you have transcripts.... transcripts which you refuse to make public.

Who is twisting and falsifying?

You.

You posted this up thread...

.

Yes, and I explained that "themes" does NOT mean ritual-murder scenario.

The word "themes" does NOT change the fact that the scenario proposed is only a sex-party (sex-game) among drugged students that went out of control. Not a ritualistic-murder.

 

[Diocletus]

Maybe you were somewhere else when Conti and Vecchiotti's "points" were debunked by Comodi, Stefanoni, Novelli, by posters, by the Supreme Court, by science and common sense.

I guess I was, because as far as I know, none of these people have made any effective criticisms of specific points in the C&V report. The closest would be Novelli, who thinks that not following proper procedures is a-ok, and even when that happens, the defense should still have a video of the contamination landing on the evidence. Both suggestions are inane, and really, contrary to any kind of rational law.

The reputation of Vecchiotti and Conti and their qualifications is related factual information that anyone can verify, to know a bit about the characthers and decide whether and how to "trust" them, or not.

There you go again, resorting to character assassination instead of addressing the substantive points. That didn't take long.

 

[Machiavelli]

Heh, I got a reminder of just how 'misleading' some of the coverage was from that Daily Mail article I posted on the Grey's Anatomy preview where someone, perhaps the reporter or someone at the Mail, must have typed that 'message' out (with that version of the translation) and photographed it. The story itself noted the text in question had been erased, and of course in Italy it would have been in Italian.

However there's a lot of support out there for Mignini suggesting a ritualistic component to the murder, something that morphs into his suggestion that the manage comic had pictures not unlike the murder room. Do you know what he actually proposed before Matteini at the outset of the case against Raffaele and Amanda? We know how it came out, they took the line Raffaele had written on his blog a year ago or so (mis-dating it which made it seem more recent) about him wanting to try 'extreme experiences' or however they put it, and the comic book showed up there too, didn't it?

However what did Mignini originally propose? Was that the Halloween/All Saint's Day/Day of Dead sect-like ritual orgy murder whatever and Matteini slapped him down and went with 'bored of the same old evening' (with his first real girlfriend who liked to cuddle--please!) and them trying this 'extreme experience' inspired by hash and comics? (...)

Look at the British paper sources now. Look at the Italian press sources. Look at their dates.
Is there anything about a ritualistic scenario from the time of Matteini's hearing?

When was the first time that some press source spoke about prosecution alleging a "ritual" element?

 

[RoseMontague]

There you go again, resorting to character assassination instead of addressing the substantive points. That didn't take long.

Yep, yep. Anybody watching the evidence collection would come to the same conclusion. The possibility is high, certainly high enough for reasonable doubt.
Anybody seeing the state of Meredith's room 46 days later would also come to the same reasonable conclusion. It could have been The Three Stooges that pointed out what is obvious, the point is that it is simply obvious.