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

[LondonJohn]

I thought that most of the measurements of the footprint on the mat, like 30 of them matched up with Raff's foot, and there were big discrepancies b/t it and guede.

Hehehe. No. A certain pro-guilt commentator (who *ahem* claims to be a lawyer) did an Excel spreadsheet showing the measurements used by Rinaldi, and comparing them to Rinaldi's measurements of the Sollecito and Guede reference prints. He decided - as had Rinaldi - that the print matched Sollecito's with the now-fabled "millimetre-accuracy".

However...... closer examination reveals three rather important things: firstly, Rinaldi actually mismeasured a couple of key measurements on the bathmat print; secondly, it's very apparent that Rinaldi chose his measuring points on the reference prints very.... how shall we say... "carefully", so as to make it appear that one print (Sollecito's) "matched" the bathmat partial print, and the other (Guede's) did not; and thirdly, a crucial area of Rinaldi's "comparison" was the big toe, where Rinaldi quite clearly - and erroneously - counted a blood drip/spot on the mat adjoining the inside of the big toe as actually part of the big toe itself.

You can do it yourself if you actually pull up copies of all three prints and measure them yourself. I can't be bothered to do it for you again.

Here's the truth about the bathmat partial print: nothing scientifically can be said about this print for evidential purposes, other than that it has to have been made by a person with above-average male size feet (i.e. an above average male foot, or an extremely above-average female foot). Therefore, one can exclude the print having been made by - for example - Knox or Meredith. But one can include both Guede and Sollecito as potential sources of the print.

And here's the thing: it's IMPOSSIBLE to make a positive identification from the bathmat partial print, especially when comparing it with reference prints. It's clear to even an untrained eye that the bathmat print has an indistinct outline, and that - more importantly - it was deposited in saturated blood/water onto a thickly-tufted cotton-pile bathmat with a ridged pattern. It's also highly likely that the print was deposited in an uneven footfall (probably with most of the body weight distributed onto the ball of the foot). To compare this print with reference prints - made on a smooth, flat surface in very accurate print ink with an even standing footfall - is a ridiculous endeavour that has no scientific worth.

In short, it's impossible (and scientifically bankrupt) to even attempt to use the bathmat partial print for inclusive comparative analysis with reference prints. The most one can do is rule out all people who do not have above-average-male sized feet, and who do not have any very distinct abnormalities in their feet.

My personal opinion is that Rinaldi was given the bathmat print and a copy of the two reference prints, and told which one the police/prosecutor would like it to match (i.e. Sollecito's). I suspect therefore that Rinaldi compromised his scientific integrity by allowing confirmation bias to "fit" Sollecito's reference print to the bathmat print, when even the most cursory analysis shows how improper a match that was.

 

[Samson]

If he named them and they were acquitted, would that be calunnia?

Knox and Sollecito should promote this notion to keep him in jail, but they seem non vengeful. Machiavelli must be able to answer this question, on the face of it logic says yes it's definitely calunnia.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

empty duodenum

So Lalli saw proof around TOD, but imagined multi perpetrators, and Massei convicted on what was imagined, and ignored what was seen. What a disaster.

Some aspects of the stomach vs. duodenum content arguments are covered here. So many things point to an early TOD, that it is really a shame that PG commenters fuss over inconsequential things such as what Raffaele wrote about the knife in his diary.

 

[Grinder]

I thought that most of the measurements of the footprint on the mat, like 30 of them matched up with Raff's foot, and there were big discrepancies b/t it and guede.

Most people have recognized that the techniques used were flawed and no the print doesn't match. Not even the prosecution claim that it matches anyone. They claim it is compatible. Compatible isn't a high enough standard for admission as evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

Furthermore, the claim makes no sense when combined with the claim that Raf and Amanda cleaned the house of their evidence and took the time to stage the break-in etc. Do you believe that Raf forgot that he had washed off his foot and stepped on the mat with a still bloody foot? It is claimed that Amanda's story can't be believed because she couldn't possibly have not noticed the bloody footprint yet you must believe that they didn't notice it during their hours of clean up and staging.

They noticed the blood drops in the bathroom as evidenced by them pointing them out to the PP. Why didn't they clean those and throw the mat in the shower of the other bathroom or the washer or in a garbage can. Did the landlord have an inventory?

 

[LondonJohn]

http://truejustice.org/ee/images/perugia/frontpage102/10219.jpg

do you dispute these measurements?

Yes.

 

[Kaosium]

Knox and Sollecito should promote this notion to keep him in jail, but they seem non vengeful. Machiavelli must be able to answer this question, on the face of it logic says yes it's definitely calunnia.

As I recall the lawyers for Raffaele and Amanda asked for calunnia charges on Rudy (and perhaps others) at the end of the appeal trial. It doesn't sound like they were filed.

 

[LondonJohn]

Some aspects of the stomach vs. duodenum content arguments are covered here. So many things point to an early TOD, that it is really a shame that PG commenters fuss over inconsequential things such as what Raffaele wrote about the knife in his diary.

One of the crucial factors in ToD is that there was a broken-down car opposite the cottage for over an hour between 10.30pm and 11.35pm. The three occupants were certain that nobody had entered or left the cottage while they were there, and that the cottage itself remained totally quiet and dark throughout that time.

This is probably one of the main reasons why prosecutors (and the Massei court) chose to put the ToD at 11.40-ish. However, this is - and I do not say this lightly - 100% impossible as a ToD in the light of Meredith's stomach/duodenum contents at death.

But here's where the prosecution (and Massei) were caught in a conundrum: if not 11.40+, then the broken-down-car-witness testimony meant that the murder had to have been committed some time before around 10.15pm (to leave time for the perp(s) to clear up and flee the scene before teh car broke down at 10.30pm). And a ToD before 10.15pm would mess up other key aspects of their narrative - chiefly Curatolo and the "earwitnesses".

The truth is that Meredith DID die before 10.15pm. In fact, she almost certainly died well before 10pm, and probably around 9.20-9.30pm. Her killer - Guede - was long gone from the cottage by the time the car broke down at 10.30pm. They saw only a darkened, quiet cottage, inside which Meredith Kercher already lay dead.

 

[LondonJohn]

so did Knox/raff have their own expert measure the footprint and what did he come up with?

Have you read the Massei report or Sollecito's appeal submissions?

 

[moodstream]

These arguments, TOD, footprint, etc, all have one large weak point: they will be viewed by a panel of judges that will have to look through the prosecutions version to see what seems to reasonable objective analysis to be the truth, and their motivation and willingness to do so may not be very strong.

 

[Grinder]

Hehehe. No. A certain pro-guilt commentator (who *ahem* claims to be a lawyer) did an Excel spreadsheet showing the measurements used by Rinaldi, and comparing them to Rinaldi's measurements of the Sollecito and Guede reference prints. He decided - as had Rinaldi - that the print matched Sollecito's with the now-fabled "millimetre-accuracy".
However...... closer examination reveals three rather important things: firstly, Rinaldi actually mismeasured a couple of key measurements on the bathmat print; secondly, it's very apparent that Rinaldi chose his measuring points on the reference prints very.... how shall we say... "carefully", so as to make it appear that one print (Sollecito's) "matched" the bathmat partial print, and the other (Guede's) did not; and thirdly, a crucial area of Rinaldi's "comparison" was the big toe, where Rinaldi quite clearly - and erroneously - counted a blood drip/spot on the mat adjoining the inside of the big toe as actually part of the big toe itself.

You can do it yourself if you actually pull up copies of all three prints and measure them yourself. I can't be bothered to do it for you again.

Here's the truth about the bathmat partial print: nothing scientifically can be said about this print for evidential purposes, other than that it has to have been made by a person with above-average male size feet (i.e. an above average male foot, or an extremely above-average female foot). Therefore, one can exclude the print having been made by - for example - Knox or Meredith. But one can include both Guede and Sollecito as potential sources of the print.

And here's the thing: it's IMPOSSIBLE to make a positive identification from the bathmat partial print, especially when comparing it with reference prints. It's clear to even an untrained eye that the bathmat print has an indistinct outline, and that - more importantly - it was deposited in saturated blood/water onto a thickly-tufted cotton-pile bathmat with a ridged pattern. It's also highly likely that the print was deposited in an uneven footfall (probably with most of the body weight distributed onto the ball of the foot). To compare this print with reference prints - made on a smooth, flat surface in very accurate print ink with an even standing footfall - is a ridiculous endeavour that has no scientific worth.

In short, it's impossible (and scientifically bankrupt) to even attempt to use the bathmat partial print for inclusive comparative analysis with reference prints. The most one can do is rule out all people who do not have above-average-male sized feet, and who do not have any very distinct abnormalities in their feet.

My personal opinion is that Rinaldi was given the bathmat print and a copy of the two reference prints, and told which one the police/prosecutor would like it to match (i.e. Sollecito's). I suspect therefore that Rinaldi compromised his scientific integrity by allowing confirmation bias to "fit" Sollecito's reference print to the bathmat print, when even the most cursory analysis shows how improper a match that was.

I don't believe they claimed the print "matched" - from Massei

‚opinion of probable identity‛ with respect to Sollecito's right foot, having by a comparison of the footprint on the bathmat and the footprints taken from Knox and Guede at least excluded the footprint's belonging to either of the two co-accused.

and we see that it is based on being like his than Amanda's and Rudy's which I think is incorrect but they didn't even claim a match.

 

[LondonJohn]

I think there is enough evidence to hang Raffe, with the footprint and the dna on bra clasp.

Knox should have said raffe left by himself that night and then came back late. She tied herself to him. so if one goes down the other must too, it seems.

Well then, fortunately for Sollecito (and for justice), you're not a trier of fact in his case.....

 

[LondonJohn]

I don't believe they claimed the print "matched" - from Massei

‚opinion of probable identity‛ with respect to Sollecito's right foot, having by a comparison of the footprint on the bathmat and the footprints taken from Knox and Guede at least excluded the footprint's belonging to either of the two co-accused.

and we see that it is based on being like his than Amanda's and Rudy's which I think is incorrect but they didn't even claim a match.

I use the word "match" in a certain context. If you want to say that "opinion of probable identity" and "match" mean different things, then I defer to your judgement.....

 

[Chris_Halkides]

The Vinci report is there for all to see

so did Knox/raff have their own expert measure the footprint and what did he come up with?

The Vinci report is posted at Injustice Anywhere, and I have provided the link on several occasions. In it he does a thorough job of debunking Rinaldi's invalid claim that two parallel marks are compatible with Amanda's shoeprint. That alone should bring Rinaldi's work on the bathmat print into serious question.

 

[Planigale]

With regards to the 'negative controls requested or not' discussion. This just reinforces the view that the forensic science laboratory procedures are of poor quality and Machiaveli does not understand the practical nature of doing this stuff. When you run an analysis the run is your result; positive controls, negative controls and your ca libration curve if your analysis requires one. As I have said before, you can no more cut out a single result, from the run than it is valid to crop a photo and present it in evidence. You can show the whole phot and a close up of a scene of interest, but giving an isolated result is just disingenuous. It implies there is something you are trying to conceal, a slight of hand. As has been argued in certain circumstances even previous runs are relevant if there might be a hang over contamination. Specifically requesting the controls should not be necessary, they are part of the result. I cannot emphasise to much that you cannot interpret the results without the full set of data, this should be automatic. If there are not the control values the result is meaningless. If you ran a test and forgot the controls, or the results of the controls are outside acceptable limits you have no result. You might as well have used a Ouija board (apparently under Italian jurisprudence equally acceptable as evidence to the court).

As an aside; I think interacting with Goeffrey is pointless. It is like having discussions with believers in ID or HIV denialists. There will never be convincing scientific proof. At a fundamental level they know the truth and any supporting evidence is 'high quality' and any contradicting evidence will have a fundamental flaw.

 

[Samson]

One of the crucial factors in ToD is that there was a broken-down car opposite the cottage for over an hour between 10.30pm and 11.35pm. The three occupants were certain that nobody had entered or left the cottage while they were there, and that the cottage itself remained totally quiet and dark throughout that time.

This is probably one of the main reasons why prosecutors (and the Massei court) chose to put the ToD at 11.40-ish. However, this is - and I do not say this lightly - 100% impossible as a ToD in the light of Meredith's stomach/duodenum contents at death.

But here's where the prosecution (and Massei) were caught in a conundrum: if not 11.40+, then the broken-down-car-witness testimony meant that the murder had to have been committed some time before around 10.15pm (to leave time for the perp(s) to clear up and flee the scene before teh car broke down at 10.30pm). And a ToD before 10.15pm would mess up other key aspects of their narrative - chiefly Curatolo and the "earwitnesses".

The truth is that Meredith DID die before 10.15pm. In fact, she almost certainly died well before 10pm, and probably around 9.20-9.30pm. Her killer - Guede - was long gone from the cottage by the time the car broke down at 10.30pm. They saw only a darkened, quiet cottage, inside which Meredith Kercher already lay dead.

100% certainty is a weighty matter, so this one evidential item, if clear and unequivocal, condemns the inquisitorial process, which will usually work like any system, but fails here. I have held the belief since following this case that no jury of twelve would ever convict, this one point being such an epic fail for the prosecution.

 

[Grinder]

well maybe they didn't have time because those postal police showed up.

This is so tedious. They according to the PGP had all night and didn't sleep as one can definitively see from the photos the next day. According to the quilt scenario she went for bleach at 8 am. They weren't joined by the PP until after noon. They had called Filomena well before the PP arrived so they weren't surprised to have someone there. Do you think that when Filomena or friends arrived they would have said "oh let's wash this mat"?

Cleaning the entire hallway and the bathroom could be done in less than half an hour and that includes disposing of the mat which if they cleaned they would have seen.

i thought i read somewhere the mmat looked like it had been washed b/c the blood was faded. maybe they didn't think the police could match the footprint to raff, because the heel wasn't there. also by leaving the print, it makes it seem like there wasn't a cleanup, which is the conclusion they wanted you to make.
it was my understanding the washing machine was running when the postal police arrive.d

Now you just making clownish statements. The washing machine fairy-tale has long been dropped even by the likes of TM.

Very insightful point that while cleaning up after a murder during which they carefully leave Rudy's evidence, they just hand wave away a bloody footprint as of no value.

Stop it.

 

[acbytesla]

http://truejustice.org/ee/images/perugia/frontpage102/10219.jpg

do you dispute these measurements?

Obviously Geoffrey, a lot of people dispute the measurements. But I'm going to hand the question back to you. What is wrong WITH YOUR EYES??? Are you unwilling to look for yourself?

The answer to the question is not with Rinaldi and his measurements. The answer is there in front of you. Something that doesn't take a PhD to understand.

I stared at these prints for more time than I would like to admit. (After a while it starts to look like butterflies...only kidding)

Then I used Adobe Illustrator and created a vector drawing of the bathmat print then did the same to Rudy's and Raffaele's sample print. I then superimposed the prints on top of each other. The outline of the bath mat print more closely matches Rudy's sample print than Raffaele's, but the difference is very very small and could easily be attributed to the fact that the bathmat print is fuzzy, a partial print and could be uneven.

 

[Kaosium]

i don't thinking just looking at them and comparing is how you are supposed to do it. need to measure various parts of the foot and then compare.

I thought the foot measurements were entered into court record. Have you not seen that data? Or do you deny it is accurate?

I see LJ ninja'd me, he did that yesterday too on a question regarding the nature of circumstantial and direct evidence. I would be wise to be wary of LJ's Kung-Fu.

Now, look at those measurements recorded on the reference prints and the bathmat from the link I posted and see if you notice something.

Also, does that chart you posted from TJMK seem to accurately describe the relative compatibility of each reference print to the stain? Or does it look like some unscientific nonsense a kook palace would come up with?

One thing you should know: In Italy there's no Daubert or Frye standards for scientific evidence. The prosecutor can use whatever frauds and charlatans he likes to help 'prove' his case. In this instance the prosecution relied on a clown named Rinaldi, who made a gross error in one measurement that calls into question his competence and integrity.

Here's an article that explains just how it goes in Italian courts sometimes, in part because of the utter lack of scientific standards or oversight of their forensic labs. Clowns like Rinaldi can make a living in this environment testifying to nonsense as there's never any repercussions. Note that Charlie Wilkes might chime in with someone who did something similar with footprint evidence in American courts as well, I cannot recall the name offhand for sure. Robbins or something.

This isn't a science, so you'd do better to just look at them and see which one seems to 'match' better or if you'd convict either of them on the basis of that partial print on an uneven surface.

 

[Grinder]

I use the word "match" in a certain context. If you want to say that "opinion of probable identity" and "match" mean different things, then I defer to your judgement.....

I appreciate that and when combined with the fact that the statement specifically excluded the other suspects, makes it clear that they were looking only at the three suspects rather than anyone. They in no way claimed that the print was a match in the sense that a fingerprint or DNA matched someone.

This case was filled with compatibles which doesn't rise the level of reasonable doubt.

 

[Dan O.]

Don't you trust your own eyes??? You need someone to tell you how to think?

I wouldn't trust his eyes or anyone's that was already familiar with those prints including my own. One key aspect of that poll is that it was given to the general JREF population and not even mentioned in this thread until it was too late to vote. This gave the best insurance that the eyes comparing the prints were unbiased.