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

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LondonJohn said:
I think it may be time to remind ourselves once more of Conti/Vecchiotti's damning verdict on 36B - and Stefanoni's disgustingly-incompetent testing of it (Komponisto's translation, p144, my highlighting/bolding):


Utterly damning. And entirely supported yesterday by the testimony of the Carabinieri experts.
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With all due respect LJ and Chris. This is not a simple case of honest contamination and/or incompetence. It is almost assuredly a case of arrogance and corruption.

Most of us including me discuss how Stefanoni's methods are incompetent and they surely lead to contamination. But Stefanoni proved herself to be far more than sloppy and stupid.

Consider the following errors and the timing.

1. Mis-identifying the shoe prints as belonging to Raffaele.
2. Identifying a sample of DNA on the cooking blade of the cooking knife as Meredith Kercher.
3. Identifying footprints as blood despite negative tests.
4. Missing controls.
5. The bra clasp and the 46 days.
6. The passing around of the bra clasp
7. Handling the bra clasp with dirty gloves.
8. Handling the bra clasp with no gloves
9. Ignoring controls and 10 straight "too low" results.
10. Missing EDFs.

Then we should consider that Stefanoni was promoted as a result of this case.

It makes you go hmmmmmm.
 
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acbytesla said:
With all due respect LJ and Chris. This is not a simple case of honest contamination and/or corruption. It is almost assuredly a case of arrogance and corruption.

Most of us including me discuss how Stefanoni's methods are incompetent and they surely lead to contamination. But Stefanoni proved herself to be far more than sloppy and stupid.

Consider the following errors and the timing.

1. Mis-identifying the shoe prints as belonging to Raffaele.
2. Identifying a sample of DNA on the cooking blade of the cooking knife as Meredith Kercher.
3. Identifying footprints as blood despite negative tests.
4. Missing controls.
5. The bra clasp and the 46 days.
6. The passing around of the bra clasp
7. Handling the bra clasp with dirty gloves.
8. Handling the bra clasp with no gloves
9. Ignoring controls and 10 straight "too low" results.
10. Missing EDFs.

Then we should consider that Stefanoni was promoted as a result of this case.

It makes you go hmmmmmm.
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http://vimeo.com/18666307
 
Andrea Vogt said:
But another key question is how much weight will be given to the knife at the end of the day? It is the murder weapon, but it is also just one of many pieces of forensic and circumstantial evidence being weighed by the court, which was given a broad Supreme Court mandate to look at the case wholly, not piecemeal.
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I might be going out on a limb here, but I think this is a subject of some debate. Bill has my permission to blow a gasket. :D
 
Grinder said:
you get very little. Frank was a big source for CD in that she was only in Perugia on a very limited basis, couldn't translate by herself and needed something for her blog.<snip>

Frank alleged that the police came to his place and harassed him for no reason at the behest of Mignini, if that turns out not be true but that it really involved his mother and sister then that brings his objectivity into play.
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It doesn't matter. Not everybody got their information from Frank and/or Candace. Even if they both turned out to be big fat liars, there's still plenty of court documents and eyewitness testimony to draw from. What would be changed by eliminating Frank and/or Candace from the case?
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
With any other reporter, I would assume a typo. With her, maybe not.
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I know, I read it over and thought she might have been trying to phrase it like a question. So instead of "It is the murder weapon". She may have been meaning to say, "Is it the murder weapon"?
But of course there was no question mark behind the phrase, so it is difficult to give her the benefit of the doubt that she just made a innocent mistake in her reporting, but that this turn of phrase was deliberate.
 
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Dan O. said:
You do realize that both Amanda and Raffaele started their writings on November 7th, a day beforer they would first meet their lawyers in court on the 8th.
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You are going to have to document Amanda's for me. Her writings to the cops can't really be called diary entries.

Raffaele's letter to his sister and dad, dated November 7th, says, "Perhaps tomorrow we will see, at least so said Tiziano, who I saw today and has defended me in front of the judge." He may have started the letter on the 7th, but he didn't finish it until after he had talked to Tiziano. His next diary entry isn't until the 11th.
 
Mary_H said:
It doesn't matter. Not everybody got their information from Frank and/or Candace. Even if they both turned out to be big fat liars, there's still plenty of court documents and eyewitness testimony to draw from. What would be changed by eliminating Frank and/or Candace from the case?
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Well when I thought that Mignini had sent in the storm-troopers to roust Frank that made an impression that was highly unfavorable, even more than before. If it wasn't true that does temper my opinion.

If they added nothing to the information base why are they such celebs here?
 
acbytesla said:
Mignini and Giobbi were so arrogant about what they saw was their innate ability to read others. It makes you wonder how many other innocent people they have arrested and put in jail?
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I read that in just one long case - the Monster of Florence case - Magnini had 20 people arrested and jailed - mostly friends and family of Dr. Narduci. Magnini suspected they were involved in Mignini's imagined double body swap (of Narduci's body). That is just one case on which Mignini has used his detective powers during his long and, can I say, distinguished career.
 
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Strozzi said:
I read that in just one long case - the Monster of Florence case - Magnini had 20 people arrested and jailed - mostly friends and family of Dr. Narduci. Magnini suspected they were involved in Mignini's imagined double body swap (of Narduci's body). That is just one case on which Mignini has used his detective powers during his long and, can I say, distinguished career.
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I know, and consider this. That case is still going on. Spezi and others have been under Mignini's prosecutorial cloud longer than Amanda and Raffaele.
 
RandyN said:
(...)
Their motivation calls 36I critical to the determination. I suppose tomorrow we will learn if they meant critical or meant critical unless it is not MK DNA.

(..)
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It means critical only if it's Meretith's DNA, not if it's something else; because the SC actually calls the 36-I trace critical in the Hellmann-Zanetti court's judgement.
The Supreme Court rules about their judgement about evidence, not about the evidence directly.
 
Strozzi said:
I read that in just one long case - the Monster of Florence case - Magnini had 20 people arrested and jailed - mostly friends and family of Dr. Narduci. Magnini suspected they were involved in Mignini's imagined double body swap (of Narduci's body). That is just one case on which Mignini has used his detective powers during his long and, can I say, distinguished career.
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These people are curently indicted again, this time they are send to trial by the Supreme Court (except some for those charges whose time limits have expired).

Spezi is among those that will stand a trial.
 
LondonJohn said:
As I've written quite a few times in the recent past, there is a primary reason why the proper 2-step TMB test has much higher specificity for blood than Luminol (i.e. it returns far fewer false positives than Luminol).

The reason is this: TMB and Luminol both react to oxidants that may be present in the substance being tested. TMB reacts by changing colour, and Luminol reacts by luminescing for a short time.

However, blood is not an oxidant.

(...)
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However, you wrote that blood "oxidizes" Luminol and that hydrogen peroxide is a "catalyzer"....
 
RoseMontague said:
The thing about the TMB tests is this. I have posted cites sfrom forensic manuals where they test a Luminol positive with another presumptive test. If that is negative, the assumption is it is not blood and nothing further is done. The reason for this is because of Luminols high sensitivity to a lot of things and they want to make sure it is blood it is reacting to. In Stefi's case, instead of making the assumption it was not blood, she made the assumption it was. This makes no sense to me.
(...)
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You should cite scientific literature, not forensic manuals.
Manuals are not science.
 
Grinder said:
you get very little. Frank was a big source for CD in that she was only in Perugia on a very limited basis, couldn't translate by herself and needed something for her blog.<snip>

Frank alleged that the police came to his place and harassed him for no reason at the behest of Mignini, if that turns out not be true but that it really involved his mother and sister then that brings his objectivity into play.
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Mary_H said:
It doesn't matter. Not everybody got their information from Frank and/or Candace. Even if they both turned out to be big fat liars, there's still plenty of court documents and eyewitness testimony to draw from. What would be changed by eliminating Frank and/or Candace from the case?
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This is the point isn't it, Mary_H.

Going on and on about Frank and Candace is one thing; but trying to use it to cast doubt on well known information is quite another. Grinder is allowed to have his personal difficulties with these two people - but the material they write about, in the main, is now basically unimpeachable.

For heaven's sake, even Andrea Vogt is being brought on side on issues we never thought she'd come on side with....
 
charlatan said:
I might be going out on a limb here, but I think this is a subject of some debate. Bill has my permission to blow a gasket. :D
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My hope is that Andrea is not eliminating it as the murder weapon on the basis of now accepting C&V, but then turning around and simply assuming it is the murder weapon, well... just because.

What is interesting is that Machiavelli is starting to post again, and all this goes uncommented upon.

My bet is that Machiavelli does not call Andrea an "approximate reporter", and he just does not deal with some issues again. Maybe Mach 2 can be more helpful....
 
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