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

[Antony]

The reasons for which they came to that decision was precisely what was undone; it is because of their "logical reasons" they employed that they were annulled, not because of their conclusions, and now their logical argumentations can never be employed by another court again.

In other words, challenging Hellman's interpretation. What is the legal basis that allows the SC to do this?

 

[RandyN]

snip

What about Meredith's BAC you always luv to discuss? BN writes that the cops screwed up, the BAC was because Miss Kercher's body was stored improperly after death, another in what we now know of as a long list of Italian law enforcements goof-ups.
snip


Writing of goof-ups, gosh the ILE sure did many. What police officer, who sees a foot sticking out from under a blanket, does not approach and check the victim for a pulse?

And who, when 1st examining a decadent, does not take the corpses body temerature?






Who did Rudy date? Who did Rudy hang with? A dude who mighta shed that blonde hair that Barbie Nadeau wrote about that ILE apparently lost while in possesion of? The same 1 that PMF.net has a photo of? Did Kokomani have longish blonde hair?


Well we also know that the pathologist forgot to weigh the whole body. Something critical in TOD calculations. He guessed which in Italy seems good enough.

The police officer did check MK according to two witnesses. The real question is why he would decide to lie in court about that. Why lie about that which makes logical sense...concern if the victim was still alive and in need of assistance?

Not just take the body temperature but there are a whole host of examinations that help narrow TOD...rigor mortis, primary flaccidity, Livor mortis, etc...

I would love to see reports about RG friends. I am quite certain one or more of them know far more than they are revealing. RG hung with someone or several someones every day. His buds...they know about Rudy Guede...maybe not murderer RG but about important facts concerning RG...for example was there a relationship with the Kokomaniac? The "blonde" hair has been speculated as a light hair from MK own head. I am dark complected and also had light streaks in my dark hair...now they are grey streaks but they were blonde many moons ago. This hair went missing while in police custody along with blood and hair evidence from near the broken window in Filomenas room...hummm damn strange indeed.

 

[RWVBWL]

Of LMT and an old link...

Gee willikers. Loving your contributions to this site. Una pregunta por favor, what is "LMT's old blog"?

Greetings Moije2,
and welcome!

LMT was,
IIRC, a few people who dug deep into this trgaic murder case,
and who had developed a theory that Meredith's murderer was Left handed.

Hence Left handed Murder Theory, or LMT.
The blog, which has been gone for a few years now(*)
and which, IIRC detailed descriptions of the local drug dealings/drug busts and daily goin' ons in Perugia, Italy was an eye opener for me, as it reminded me much of Venice Beach, where I grew up...

I was once pretty sure that AK+RS helped murder Miss Kercher.
But things just did not add up wright, so I dug much deeper.
The LMT blog helped me see the real truth, as did Sfarzo's original Perugia Shock blog.
Esh, I too remember watchin' in disbelief the original verdict being handed down and am 1 who voted INNOCENT on The Old Perugia Shock. JREF here was then runnin' amok with the pro-guilt crowd, kinda gnarly...

Anyways,
years ago in debate I sometimes quoted passages from this LMT blog, for they too believed in Amanda and Raff's innocence, and so they created 1 of the best blogs going. Not just on the trial, but of the wounds that Miss Kercher suffered, and also the local area where Miss Kercher, and Amanda, lived. Not a great place to send your young, naive daughter off to school, in my humble opinion.

If I getta chance, I'll go thru some of my old posts for you newer JREF members, just to refresh the scene, so to say.


Speaking of, Mioje2
some of us old timers have wondered why, in this modern age,
Mignini and his professional crime solvers did not simply have and use audio cassete or hard drive recorders when interviewing suspects?

Esh, I, just a surfer who luvs doin' shark research observation here in Los Angeles,
(who also last week swam underwater behind a Great White Shark at a local beach here in L.A.)
often uses an audio recorder sometimes to capture the moment, so to say, ya know, record what my words were, not write hours or days later what I thought I had thought I said, ya know?

What a great tool to use for a researcher, or an investigator!

Why would a detective, investigator, or prosecutor NOT USE an audio recorder when interviewing a suspect or witness in 1 of the most recent, horrible murder in your city that you are sworn to protect?

Especially if some of the witnesses nor suspects did not even speak the same language very well, since they were foreign college students?

My friend Mary H posted this link years ago, and guess what, it still works!
Have a look, Moije2:
http://www.repubblica.it/2006/05/gallerie/cronaca/ragazza-perugia/2.html

What is Mignini holding?
Apparently Mignini is conversing or interviewing someone while using what looks like a portable audio recording device!

Can someone please remind me why Mignini did not use any audio recording devices when interviewing Amanda Knox on the night of Nov. 5 and the morning of Nov. 6th?

This being the same interrogation that Judge Claudia Matteini wrote of:
"Your family lives in the United States, so it would be extremely easy for you to leave the country," "The fact that you did not do so before you were arrested is totally irrelevant. We must remind you that your arrest was made very early, and was effected purposely before the arrival of your mother in order to avoid just such a possibility."

Judge Claudia Matteini - her words also confirm that the interrogation on Nov 5th was a planned event.

Surely Mignini must have had the batteries charged and a fresh cassette available or that hard drive wiped clean to then use in that apparent audio tape recording device (which is very similar to the Sony model that I use myself) for this important interview that was, how'd the Judge say it, oh yes, effected purposely before the arrival of your mother.
Hmmmm.

See ya, RW


(*)-Did Mignini get the LMT blog pulled also?

 

[Dan O.]

Can someone please remind me why Mignini did not use any audio recording devices when interviewing Amanda Knox on the night of Nov. 5 and the morning of Nov. 6th?

There is no need to pull out the hand held recorder when you've moved the subject into a room which is designed for interrogations complete with a control room. I wonder what they control in that control room? Could it be the audio and video recording instruments?

 

[acbytesla]

There is no need to pull out the hand held recorder when you've moved the subject into a room which is designed for interrogations complete with a control room. I wonder what they control in that control room? Could it be the audio and video recording instruments?

I'm curious about something Dan. Is that interrogation room wired for sound? for video? If that was a modern Interrogation room in a US Police Station. I would expect it to be. I've seen pictures of the Questura in Perugia and that seems to be a fairly modern building. If that same Police station was in the US, I am fairly confident that it would have been wired for sound and video.

But knowing that would be true for the US and given that it doesn't seem like any of these interrogations were recorded, I'd have to say I don't know.

So Dan, can you say unequivocally that the room was wired for these things and the Italians either didn't record them or they recorded them and ditched the recordings?

 

[Samson]

Then Bill's third, and last claim based on quotes from Massei:



Bill highlights the fact that the court belives that, once in the house, Rudy Guede took the initiative of a sexual approach on Meredith, meaning that he initiated the sexual harassment.

But:
1) Actually the court says "it is not possible to know"; so, it is not a firm point for the court. The other could equally fit their evidence and reasoning.
2) The crime we are talking about, known as the Kercher case, does not consist in Rudy's initiative of harrassing and bothering Meredith. This sexual is initiative is not the crime that was committed, it is not a muder and it is not yet even sexual violence. Rudy could not commit any sexual violence alone, in someone else's house.
The crime of sex game gone wrong and consequent murder, is what - in Massei's court mind - happened after this.
3) a personal, logical point, where I can see a contradiction in Massei's reasoning: Rudy did not need any encouragement to start a sexual harassment of Meredith, let's accept this consideration by Massei as reasonable; however, this creates a contradiction, because Rudy was in the house, and in Massei's narrative, Rudy is in the house because of Knox, because she picked him up and let him in; so if Sollecito and Knox were actually alone in one room and if they intended to remain alone, the presence of Rudy would become illogical. It would be logical that he would start to harass Meredith, but the reason why he has been taken there before that would be illogical.
We could assume he might have come to the house to sell drug, but this won't explain why Sollecito and Knox did't send him away or did not prevent him from being violent.
So, what I believe, is that Rudy was there for another purpose, which was not to harass Meredith, but it was not even to remain out of Knox's room while she was with Sollecito.
This is why I assume that the realistic purpose why Guede was in the house, was because he wanted to have sex with Knox, and Knox may have shared (or partly shared) the same intent too.
The presence of Sollecito could have been an unpredicted event that changed programs and behaviors (Knox might have attempted to avoid Sollecito that night, that would be alogical reason why she put off her phone), and contributed to create chaos.
Or, in alternative, Sollecito could have been called by Knox on purpose, for another reason.
But what I really think, is that what Knox had in mind - what she would have really liked to do that evening - was to make something in three with Meredith. I think she was revolving around this idea.

Unfortunately this hypothesis is inferior to Matteini, Micheli, Massei, or Galati. I can not reconcile this with anything remotely plausible. In fact you are obsessed with legal form, and in no way with statistical and behavioural probability. The most damning indictment of your thought processes is to reiterate the TJMK position that the Hellmann conclusion no longer exists, despite a lazy year of deliberations. If it works to say I think therefore I am, it also works to say I read the Hellmann report therefore it exists.

 

[toto]

Well, as for Guede, the issue of premeditation is relevant just as much as for the other two.
I think about Knox and Sollecito, exactly what you think about Guede: that their feelings are irrelevant in terms of proving their involvement.
The difference between me an you is that you think evidence against Knox and Sollecito is insufficient, this is why you think the prosecution should show some kind of animosity.
But I think the evidence is solid and beyond reasonable doubt, and also I think Massei assumed the same thing. On this basis, I don't want the prosecution to demonstrate any specific motive, plan, narrative or premeditation; it is indifferent to me if Knox and Sollecito had any animosity. The question of motives, psychological motivations, is something where I can see a dynamic suggested by the personalities, but such explanation is anyway irrelevant to me because I already see evidence beyond doubt of their involvement, and I don't need further elements.

Well for me, unless a motive is reasonable and plausible, I would want evidence first, then try and work out motive. No evidence, then a motiveless crime- which remains motiveless six years later - wouldn't impress me as a juror. And take away the bra clasp and the knife and the rest seems a brittle lattice work of conjecture that falls apart when you try to probe it.

 

[Mary_H]

<snip>If I getta chance, I'll go thru some of my old posts for you newer JREF members, just to refresh the scene, so to say.<snip>

Please do, RW. I still want to see all your posts compiled in a book some day.

 

[Samson]

Not necessarily, unless we are to think the Italian population are 100% polarised on the issue. There are likely to be a fair number of "don't knows" and "they didn't do it, but are involved somehow".

Where did the figure come from?

Luigi Babani, an Italian who posts on Ground Report etc, it is hard to assess with the language issues his true interest, probably just arrived randomly like many.

 

[Dan O.]

I'm curious about something Dan. Is that interrogation room wired for sound? for video? If that was a modern Interrogation room in a US Police Station. I would expect it to be. I've seen pictures of the Questura in Perugia and that seems to be a fairly modern building. If that same Police station was in the US, I am fairly confident that it would have been wired for sound and video.

But knowing that would be true for the US and given that it doesn't seem like any of these interrogations were recorded, I'd have to say I don't know.

So Dan, can you say unequivocally that the room was wired for these things and the Italians either didn't record them or they recorded them and ditched the recordings?

I have never been inside an Italian Questura and I have no intension of ever getting anywhere near such a place. So I'm not going to be providing any first hand knowledge to this question.

What we have learned though is that Italian law does require that these interrogations are recorded. There is reference to a control room that was occupied while Amanda and Raffaele were being interrogated. And then there is the bit about Amanda being questioned in the hall then moving into the interrogation room and having her repeat everything she just said.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Amanda and Raffaele's conversation

So Dan, can you say unequivocally that the room was wired for these things and the Italians either didn't record them or they recorded them and ditched the recordings?

The cops surreptitiously recorded a conversation between Amanda and Raffaele on or about 3 November, one that took place within the station. I don't recall which room it was, but it was about someone that Amanda knew from work, IIRC. So at least one room had the capability of making sound recordings.

 

[RoseMontague]

The problem is several small and sometimes big fishes foolishly relied on Frank Sfarzo.
Franks Sfarzo - a jobless blogger - was paid by Gogery Marriott to act as a "source" for Candace Dempsey, and later he became a factual point of reference for Bruce Fisher, IIP people and several non-Italian reporters who had no clue about what was going on in the courtroom.

Could you provide some sort of proof? I think there may well be some truth in it but how do you know?

It is just another Mach fantasy without any proof. I remember going back and forth with Mach about the raw data and quoting Frank's report from court where he said they asked for it and Mach insisted they did not. When we finally got the transcript of that hearing Frank was proved to be correct and Mach was proven to be wrong, yet again. On this Frank was more reliable than Mach. For either of these two, I would want to see whatever they say confirmed by reliable sources which on the raw data issue was confirmed by quotes provided to him from Halkides quoting the defense lawyer.

What we do know about Frank is that a couple of supporters have indicated they were helping Frank financially on a regular basis. Marriott is not in that group. Machiavelli is just making another claim, presenting it as fact, which should be just opinion. He is acting as an approximate reporter on this. It is just another thing that Mach will, in my opinion, be proven wrong on, yet again.

 

[RoseMontague]

Here is my opinion on the starch/DNA CD issue. DNA is not starch. Gino, in testimony, only spoke about the quantity of material in the sample not what material it was, if any. The reason for that is Stefanoni did not test to see what material it was. The only test she ran determined what it was not, and what it was not was blood. Gino indicated the quantity of the sample was less than 10 picograms or it could be nothing at all, meaning it could be some type of background noise. I would have to say the C&V came to the same conclusion, in my opinion. The only material they found on the blade was starch and the very LCN indication of DNA they showed could have been nothing at all.

The new testing with more sensitive equipment would seem to show that there was some human cells on the blade of the knife containing DNA, we will have to see the report to see how reliable that indication is. In any case, I think CD needs to correct any misunderstanding her wording has caused. Just my opinion.

 

[Machiavelli]

It is just another Mach fantasy without any proof. I remember going back and forth with Mach about the raw data and quoting Frank's report from court where he said they asked for it and Mach insisted they did not. When we finally got the transcript of that hearing Frank was proved to be correct and Mach was proven to be wrong, yet again. (...)

You mean I was proven to be correct.
And all the IIP crowd was proven to be wrong. That is what you mean.

 

[Machiavelli]

Well for me, unless a motive is reasonable and plausible, I would want evidence first, then try and work out motive. No evidence, then a motiveless crime- which remains motiveless six years later - wouldn't impress me as a juror. And take away the bra clasp and the knife and the rest seems a brittle lattice work of conjecture that falls apart when you try to probe it.

First, there is no reason to take away the knife and the bra clasp, and second, the rest of the evidence is the best possible solid set of circumstantial evidence, the best kind of evidence you can have in a trial and absolutely enough to convict.

 

[RoseMontague]

You mean I was proven to be correct.
And all the IIP crowd was proven to be wrong. That is what you mean.

No, that is not what I mean at all. You even ended up admitting you were "less wrong", LOL.

 

[Machiavelli]

I would like an answer to my question by what legal provision the SC acted as they did, on the basis of challenging Hellman's interpretation of the evidence. If not, what were the legal errors in the Hellman trial that led to the SC decision?

I recall that you made the question, but the answer is in the definition of the SC work, and it is self-evidence in the kind of points raised by Galati and ruled on by the SC: they rule on legitimacy of judgements.
There are several breaches of legal provisions in the Hellmann-Zanetti judgement, but the most obvious are the manifest inconsistencies of the reasoning and the inconsistence between evidence documentation and judgement rationale.
For example if they rule that Quintavalle or Capezzali is unreliable, contrarily to what the Massei court ruled, but they fail to provide any logical rationale for this or if they misreport the content of their testimony, the judgement is manifestly inconsistent.

 

[Diocletus]

I recall that you made the question, but the answer is in the definition of the SC work, and it is self-evidence in the kind of points raised by Galati and ruled on by the SC: they rule on legitimacy of judgements.
There are several breaches of legal provisions in the Hellmann-Zanetti judgement, but the most obvious are the manifest inconsistencies of the reasoning and the inconsistence between evidence documentation and judgement rationale.
For example if they rule that Quintavalle or Capezzali is unreliable, contrarily to what the Massei court ruled, but they fail to provide any logical rationale for this or if they misreport the content of their testimony, the judgement is manifestly inconsistent.

This is just more Italian double-speak BS.

The fact of the matter is that the supreme court didn't like the outcome of the Hellmann court, and so the supreme court second-guessed Hellmann's findings of fact. If the rule of law had been followed, the supreme court could not have done this. The fact that the supreme court did it, and what the supreme court said in doing it, has deprived the defendants of a fair trial.

 

[Machiavelli]

(...)
The prosecution case is that Amanda took the knife from Raffaele's with premeditation. It had to have been premeditation, otherwise there is no reason for Amanda to be innocently carrying that knife, as Massei eventually had to settle on. (Cf. she carried it for general protection.)

The prosecution tried to put forward that the sex-game gone wrong was premeditated, a plan which must have been hatched at Raffaele's, or again... why is the knife taken?

But Sollecito and Knox were sent to trial by judge Paolo Micheli, with the charge of non-premeditated murder. Do you remember this is the case, or not?
Did you read at the beginning:

Segnatamente, sub capo A, in concorso materiale con Rudi Guede è loro ascritto l'omicidio pluriaggravato di Meredith Kercher (reato p. e p. dagli artt. 110-575 cp), essendo contestata l'aggravante p. dall'art. 576, co.l nr.5 cp in quanto l'omicidio sarebbe stato commesso nel contesto della violenza sessuale subita dalla Kercher ascritta al capo C, reato, l'omicidio, ulteriormente aggravato dalla contestazione sub art. 61, nr.I e 5 cp dei futili motivi e della minorata difesa.

The charges associated to the crime are art. 576 § 5 and art 61 § 1 & 5.
Premeditation of violence would require instead a charge under art. 577.
There is no mention of art. 577.
Premeditation was just not part of the case as set by judge Micheli.
The art. 577 (premeditation) is in fact proposed by the public prosecution, but was not among the charges on which the preliminary judge sent the defendants to trial. And while it is in the public prosecution scenario, it does not belong to the scenario put forward by private prosecution (Maresca).

The best thing about this exchange, though, is that now (maybe for the first time) Machiavelli is agreeing that there was no premeditation.

The first time?
The problem with premediation is evidence. There is just not enough evidence to conclude that the sexual violence was premeditated, as for Massei.

 

[Diocletus]

First, there is no reason to take away the knife and the bra clasp, and second, the rest of the evidence is the best possible solid set of circumstantial evidence, the best kind of evidence you can have in a trial and absolutely enough to convict.

Italy is in an interesting place in regard to the DNA testing. It seems to me that most states fall into one of the following categories:

1. technologically advanced enough to have advanced forensics machinery, e.g., DNA equipment, and legally sophisticated to have a robust set of legal rules prescribing rules for the use of resulting evidence,

or

2. not technologically advanced enough to have the machinery, and so the legal rules don't matter and don't exist.

Italy falls between these two. They have the machines. But, the Italians have a very loose sense of the procedure and protocol that would be necessary to obtain a reliable result, and no effective legal structure concerning transparency, admissibility and value of this evidence. It's really a very bad situation from the standpoint of justice.