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

[Mary_H]

Mary with all due respect (this time I really mean it), I think you are over the top and beyond the pale on this.

It is entirely possible.

I am speaking about their request that people other than friends and family stay away from Meredith's grave, specifically.

And I am talking about any requests.

I would prefer that victim's family would stay away from the proceedings until a verdict is final.

Huh?

 

[LondonJohn]

That's not the point. The point is everyone assumes the Kerchers have a right to make requests, even when their requests are based on the presumption of guilt, as well as on disrespect for the defendants.

As far as I know, the defendants' families have not asked the Kerchers to stop saying mean things about their children, but they have just as much right to do so.

I don't agree with this. Like it or not, Knox and Sollecito are still on trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher. And, like it or not, it's eminently possible (probable, even) that the Kercher family were persuaded long ago of the guilt of Knox and Sollecito, and that this is a belief that they are either unwilling or unable to give up easily.

I think that the Kerchers should really be saying nothing at the moment, and letting the judicial process take its course. If they want to say things though, that's their prerogative. And if those things are unsympathetic or ever derogatory towards Knox and/or Sollecito, it's probably understandable in the circumstances.

However, if and when Knox and Sollecito are cleared of involvement in Meredith's murder, I would very much hope that the Kerchers will cease making any public statements about the two, other than saying that they respect the judicial process. To me, that will be when their "free pass" on public statements expires. Not a minute before. And I suspect that it may take a good deal longer than that for their private thoughts on Knox and Sollecito to shift from their apparent current positions.

 

[CoulsdonUK]

They did ask her, but she is under no obligation to respect their wishes. I am sure she will, though, because that's the way she is.

Dr. Sollecito, on the other hand, strikes me as the kind of person who is used to having a lot of power in his life, and who may put less store in other people's opinions of his behavior. He may be able to cause just the kind of discomfort that would be helpful in snapping some people out of their delusions.

How do you think the Kerchers would feel is they expressed a desire to come to Seattle, and Amanda's family asked them not to out of respect for what Amanda had been through?

You are still looking at this as if the Kerchers have more rights than the defendants' families -- that is, as if the defendants and their families had something to do with the Kerchers' loss. Keep in mind, their beliefs (and apparently yours) are not based on the evidence.

Mary_H

Don’t quiet see the parallel between visiting a city of half a million people vs visiting the grave of someone who was brutally murdered.

As ever I am happy for folks to read our posts and make up their own minds up. I think we should just leave the Kercher family and friends to deal with their loss as they wish to; privately.

 

[Mary_H]

I don't agree with this. Like it or not, Knox and Sollecito are still on trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher. And, like it or not, it's eminently possible (probable, even) that the Kercher family were persuaded long ago of the guilt of Knox and Sollecito, and that this is a belief that they are either unwilling or unable to give up easily.

I think that the Kerchers should really be saying nothing at the moment, and letting the judicial process take its course. If they want to say things though, that's their prerogative. And if those things are unsympathetic or ever derogatory towards Knox and/or Sollecito, it's probably understandable in the circumstances.

However, if and when Knox and Sollecito are cleared of involvement in Meredith's murder, I would very much hope that the Kerchers will cease making any public statements about the two, other than saying that they respect the judicial process. To me, that will be when their "free pass" on public statements expires. Not a minute before. And I suspect that it may take a good deal longer than that for their private thoughts on Knox and Sollecito to shift from their apparent current positions.

My point is that any time anyone holds even an infinitesimal inclination toward restricting Amanda and Raffaele's speech or behavior, they are lending validity -- and therefore respect -- to the prosecution's case.

 

[Mary_H]

<snip>I think we should just leave the Kercher family and friends to deal with their loss as they wish to; privately.

I agree. I hope they will remain silent about Amanda and Raffaele from now on.

 

[Bill Williams]

Mary_H

Don’t quiet see the parallel between visiting a city of half a million people vs visiting the grave of someone who was brutally murdered.

As ever I am happy for folks to read our posts and make up their own minds up. I think we should just leave the Kercher family and friends to deal with their loss as they wish to; privately.

For me, that's the key. Yet there are two people on this planet where the media is more than willing to stick a microphone in their face and squeeze a comment out of them. There are other issues where people on all sides wish the media was a bit more respectful of EVERYONE'S privacy.

Don't lose track of that. Amanda Knox was vilified for being a "media whore", when she was completely helpless confined and could not control at all the media firestorm swirling around her.... she'd smile at her family when entering court and some journalist would interpret that as smugness and disrespect to the victim.... every glance was micro-interpreted for four years - imagine being in that sort of media cage!....

On the other side, both Amanda and Raffaele have a need to get their story out there.... because their story really has not had a chance to be told until their release. Then the media starts poking around for side-stories to keep this media money-pit working....

The Kerchers have every right to make the request they've made, publicly or privately. They have every right to have that request respected.

Yet it's why I say it's tricky. The best world would have been if Raffaele had slipped in, paid his respects, and slipped out unnoticed - and everyone else had shut up about it. For me it would have been the "shutting up about it" which would have satisfied the Kercher request, really..... keeping the payment of respect a private matter, and outside of the media circus.

 

[Bill Williams]

My point is that any time anyone holds even an infinitesimal inclination toward restricting Amanda and Raffaele's speech or behavior, they are lending validity -- and therefore respect -- to the prosecution's case.

This is key. Indeed, it was the whole prosecution strategy to begin with. If the Kerchers wish respect for their wishes, they need to respect that both Amanda and Raffaele need to be able to speak fully and frankly to protect their liberty, and that this cannot be seen as disrespect to Meredith. Or else it is convicting the pair by silence-shaming them.

 

[Mary_H]

This is key. Indeed, it was the whole prosecution strategy to begin with. If the Kerchers wish respect for their wishes, they need to respect that both Amanda and Raffaele need to be able to speak fully and frankly to protect their liberty, and that this cannot be seen as disrespect to Meredith. Or else it is convicting the pair by silence-shaming them.

Excellent point.

I will soften my argument to say that for Dr. Sollecito to have shared that Raffaele had visited the grave was a bit "in-your-face," and may have been purposely disrespectful. However, I have not seen the show on which he said it, so I don't know the context.

 

[CoulsdonUK]

For me, that's the key. Yet there are two people on this planet where the media is more than willing to stick a microphone in their face and squeeze a comment out of them. There are other issues where people on all sides wish the media was a bit more respectful of EVERYONE'S privacy.

Don't lose track of that. Amanda Knox was vilified for being a "media whore", when she was completely helpless confined and could not control at all the media firestorm swirling around her.... she'd smile at her family when entering court and some journalist would interpret that as smugness and disrespect to the victim.... every glance was micro-interpreted for four years - imagine being in that sort of media cage!....

On the other side, both Amanda and Raffaele have a need to get their story out there.... because their story really has not had a chance to be told until their release. Then the media starts poking around for side-stories to keep this media money-pit working....

The Kerchers have every right to make the request they've made, publicly or privately. They have every right to have that request respected.

Yet it's why I say it's tricky. The best world would have been if Raffaele had slipped in, paid his respects, and slipped out unnoticed - and everyone else had shut up about it. For me it would have been the "shutting up about it" which would have satisfied the Kercher request, really..... keeping the payment of respect a private matter, and outside of the media circus.

Bill

Have the Kercher family said anything to the media since Mr Sollecito made Raffaele’s visit public?

 

[Bill Williams]

Bill

Have the Kercher family said anything to the media since Mr Sollecito made Raffaele’s visit public?

No, not that I'm aware of. But you have. What's your point? They have spoken after Amanda's comments.

 

[kwill]

Machiavelli has adressed this exact issue of how a court can allow in (questionable) evidence. If I understand Machiavelli correctly, the courts do not restrict evidence - everything is permitted to be introduced as evidence if it is brought in by the prosecutor. He is an investigatory official of the court and as such is regarded as normally being above reproach. His word/version is normally accepted as reliable, unless it is proven by the defense to be incorrect.

Now, getting access to the evidence to prove that something or some claim is unreliable is another matter. That depends on the will of the court. As we have seen, the court repeatedly refuses to give the defense access to the evidence it needs to show the prosecution is wrong or unreliable.

Thank you, that's helpful. There are benefits and drawbacks to every system, I guess, and this case seems to have highlighted the drawbacks of Italy's in pretty spectacular fashion.

If you have a prosecutor who is manifestly not above reproach and a court that does not ever allow the defense access to certain items presented as evidence . . . you can get a couple of students convicted of murder on the basis of nothing at all.

 

[Poppy1016]

My two cents regarding RS visiting Mk's grave are as follows. I think Both Raf and Amanda want very much to show the world they are innocent. However, I truly believe visiting the grave was respectful,and in a small way a bit of healing for him. I also believe this visit should have been kept private. If I do a good deed or donate to a charity, I am satisfied with keeping these things private. There was no need for Raf's father to make this public knowledge. Nothing positive could come from announcing this.

 

[Bill Williams]

My two cents regarding RS visiting Mk's grave are as follows. I think Both Raf and Amanda want very much to show the world they are innocent. However, I truly believe visiting the grave was respectful,and in a small way a bit of healing for him. I also believe this visit should have been kept private. If I do a good deed or donate to a charity, I am satisfied with keeping these things private. There was no need for Raf's father to make this public knowledge. Nothing positive could come from announcing this.

Agreed.

The only remaining issue is: did Raffaele's father "announce" it?

 

[Grinder]

Agreed.

The only remaining issue is: did Raffaele's father "announce" it?

Check with CD.

 

[codyjuneau]

.
This issue of what is appropriate behavior keeps coming up.

I would be interested to know people's views in a more generic, hypothetical context, not specific to this case.

- what is appropriate behavior for the family of the murdered person?
- what is appropriate behavior for the accused person?
- what is appropriate behavior for the family of the accused person?
.

 

[kwill]

.
This issue of what is appropriate behavior keeps coming up.

I would be interested to know people's views in a more generic, hypothetical context, not specific to this case.

- what is appropriate behavior for the family of the murdered person?
- what is appropriate behavior for the accused person?
- what is appropriate behavior for the family of the accused person?
.

I've been thinking of a related set of questions.

- what exactly are Amanda and Raffaele allowed to do while the Italian courts send the case for a decade or more through the necessary paces?

- can they marry, have children, travel, get jobs? Must they refuse to engage with public life, or is there a set of constraints that would be recognized as reasonable in these circumstances?

- would the rules be different if the case weren't so long and they weren't so young?

 

[acbytesla]

I am hoping - perhaps even expecting - that the defence lawyers will use tomorrow's appearance by the Carabinieri forensic scientists to question them on the wider issues of low-template contamination, and perhaps even get them to give an expert opinion on Stefanoni's work.

I think it's vital that both defence teams convince the court that the alleged Meredith DNA on the knife and the alleged Sollecito DNA on the bra clasp are both unreliable and inadmissible. It's obvious to anyone with a little scientific knowledge and an ounce of logic that Stefanoni's work was so egregiously sloppy and incompetent that contamination (or worse...) is a very real possibility. Indeed, in the case of Meredith's DNA on the knife, I think it's arguable that contamination is a probability, given the amount of Meredith's DNA that had been in and around the testing equipment in Stefanoni's laboratory, and her proven failures to follow low-template cleaning protocols.

In my view, if the defence teams cannot convince the courts on this crucial issue, convictions will follow. I think this also applies to a firm discrediting of the alleged Sollecito match to the bathmat partial print, to the discrediting of the "staged break-in" theory, and to a forceful demonstration that the evidence is wholly compatible with a sole assailant - Guede.

I'm not sure you can expect the Carabinieri forensic scientists to be overly critical of Stefanoni regardless of their personal opinions of her work. They very well may see Stefanoni as "one of them" and the defense lawyers as the enemy. My bet is that they will be inclined to "defend" someone in the same line of work. While I think the lawyers may be able to delve into the need for extreme safeguards when work with LCN DNA. But the one thing I do know for sure, is that you don't want to ask a question unless you know what the answer is going to be. Trying to attack Stefanoni this way is potentially very dangerous.

 

[acbytesla]

Dr. Karl Reich, who holds a degree in molecular biology from the University of California, Los Angeles and Harvard University, was prepared to testify that ... a negative TMB test strongly suggests that there is no blood in the area tested."

Do you comprehend the difference between "strongly suggests" and proves?
As I have been saying a negative TMB test does not prove there was no blood present.

OK, you're right. It doesn't prove that it wasn't blood, but then again, the Luminol doesn't prove that it is. Both tests are "presumptive". One test suggest it might be, the other test suggests that it isn't.

STILL SEEMS LIKE A TIE and the score is ZERO.

 

[Methos]

This is absolutely incorrect - the actual reason the shoe was not evidence of Sollecito's involvement in the murder is more basic than different shoe sizes THEY WERE DIFFERENT SHOE BRANDS! IIRC Raffelle wore Adidas while Rudy wore Nike (and the pair he was known to wear has never been seen since the day of the murder). Both shoes had soles with a pattern of concentric circles under the ball of the foot area of the sole. The Sollecito family went on Italian TV to point out the shoes worn by Raffealle had a DIFFERENT number of concentric circles in their pattern (7 vs 9 or 9 vs 7 AIR) and the spacing between the circles was different.

This one aspect of the case alone shows the complete incompetence of the Perugian Police Force and should have been a HUGE wakeup call to the media following the case about the hogwash they were being fed by their friends and sources in ILE.

Unfortunately this example is not an outlier. The case is marked by incompetence or worse on almost every point of relevant evidence and by most of the eye/ear witnesses.

Same brand (Nike), different model, Rudy Guede had Nike "Outbreak 2" (6 circles) identified by the box they came in found at his place, while Raffaele Sollecito had "Air Force One Low" shoes (11 circles).
The picture is from Prof. Vinci's presentation.

 

[davefoc]

Same brand (Nike), different model, Rudy Guede had Nike "Outbreak 2" (6 circles) identified by the box they came in found at his place, while Raffaele Sollecito had "Air Force One Low" shoes (11 circles).
The picture is from Prof. Vinci's presentation.

...

When you say Guede had Nike Outbreak 2 shoes, how is that known? Is it an assumption based on the idea that Guede was the perpetrator or was it proved that Guede had this kind of shoe?