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

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Charlie Wilkes said:
Certainly it's possible. I don't think it's a slam-dunk by any means. Police get a lot of luminol red herrings. I don't know how many of them are footprints.

ETA: My feeling has always been that if the footprints were residual blood, from the bathmat or anything, they would have seen this from the TMB, which is a whole lot better than Machiavelli claims or else they wouldn't bother with it. Also, Meredith's profile would have shown up on at least some of the DNA swabs. If it was really blood, it would have added a lot to their case. They would have taken pains to prove it was blood, which they could have done. Instead they brought it to court as "could be blood, you decide."
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If Amanda stepped on the now dried mat that had a stain from already diluted blood, the resultant prints would be very diluted perhaps below TMB's sensitivity.

As for them taking pains, I just fall back on how incompetent they are. From their perspective it was surely blood and they just couldn't believe they needed to prove it.
 
Wildhorses said:
I second the motion.
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That's fine with me too! I shall continue to refer to her occasionally as "not-a-real-doctor Stefanoni", and Machiavelli will not protest angrily and with petulant - and pathetic - threats of criminal charges. Deal? :D
 
RoseMontague said:
When I was looking around earlier I found this one. The interesting thing about this is it was just a few days before the murder and it was about evidence gathering and processing at the crime scene. No Dr in this one.

http://www.bed-and-breakfast.it/festval_scienza_2007/festival_scienza_incontri_conferenze.pdf
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That link stalls on the loading of the .pdf file for me :(

It goes without saying that I'd be rather interested in seeing what she had to say on recommended practice on this subject. Then we can do an interesting "what I said vs what I did" comparison :)
 
It looks like the Idaho Innocence Project is to lose is DoJ funding (its primary source of funding income) for next year:

http://www.ktvb.com/news/local/Idaho-Innocence-Project-loses-funding-230863251.html

It appears that the loss of funding was entirely due to a significant cutback in DoJ funding, owing in turn to widescale federal cutbacks in spending in the current economic climate.

Now, I think that in any reasonable person's mind, this news should be viewed with nothing but regret (notwithstanding the harsh reality that these sorts of cutbacks are the inevitable consequence of dramatic economic slowdown). Innocence Project groups play valuable roles in balancing the scales of justice, and should be supported and encouraged as such.

So, having said all that, I am more than a little disgusted (and not much elicits that emotion in me) at the jubilant - yes, jubilant - reactions of several pro-guilt commentators to the news. They are delighted because Greg Hampikian of the IIP has assisted in the Knox case. They have tried - incorrectly and unsuccessfully - to have Hampikian and the IIP censured for becoming active in the Knox defence. Having failed to hurt Hampikian or the IIP through those means, this news is the next best thing for them I suppose.

I know what these pro-guilt commentators' reactions say to me. To me, they speak volumes about the bitter, vindictive, misanthropic, narrow-minded, bullying nastiness of these people. Regardless of what they may think about Knox's guilt,and regardless of what they may think of Hampikian's participation in her defence, the sight of people jumping up and down with joy at the loss of funding of an Innocence Project group is sickening and astonishing. Shame on each and every one of them.
 
LondonJohn said:
That link stalls on the loading of the .pdf file for me :(

It goes without saying that I'd be rather interested in seeing what she had to say on recommended practice on this subject. Then we can do an interesting "what I said vs what I did" comparison :)
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Not much, it's more of an index of the events, I just thought the timing and subject was interesting.

il 27 ottobre, dalle 11:00 alle 12:30 e dalle 17 alle 18:30
Conferenza
Sulla scena del crimine. La verità nei geni
La ricerca delle tracce biologiche durante il sopralluogo
L'evento fa parte di Sulla scena del crimine
Alessandra Caglià, Maurizio De Boni, Patrizia Stefanoni
La conferenza fa parte di un ciclo di undici incontri in cui i maggiori esperti del Servizio Polizia Scientifica si alternano per
spiegare ogni giorno un aspetto diverso, ma sempre interessante, del mestiere di scienziato al servizio della giustizia e si muovono
su una scena del crimine creata ad hoc per illustrare al pubblico le varie branche della scienza applicata all’investigazione.
Magazzini del Cotone, modulo 7, piano terra
A cura della Polizia di Stato, Servizio Polizia Scientifica, Sezione SPS – DIV 3^ – Sezione di Genetica Forense, Gabinetto
Regionale Polizia Scientifica Liguria
Al di fuori dall'orario delle conferenze, è possibile a gruppi di 50 persone all'ora, di visitare il laboratorio e di porre alcune
domande agli esperti
Da 15 anni
Prenotazione: obbligatoria
Sponsor: ikea
Festival della Scienza
45 /
 
Grinder said:
If Amanda stepped on the now dried mat that had a stain from already diluted blood, the resultant prints would be very diluted perhaps below TMB's sensitivity.

As for them taking pains, I just fall back on how incompetent they are. From their perspective it was surely blood and they just couldn't believe they needed to prove it.
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I tend to agree with you. Is there any proof there was TMB testing?
 
RoseMontague said:
Yep, yep. I think some of those that pretend it makes sense are not being honest. Just my opinion.
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But..... IF Knox and Sollecito had indeed employed that knife in the murder, and had been considering whether or not to dispose of it*:

I don't think it would have been a dispute with the landlord over lost/missing inventory that they would have been concerned about.

I think they might have been concerned about being caught in a lie with the investigating authorities. The landlord would only have been important inasmuch as (s)he would have been able to confirm to the police that one particular knife should have been present in Sollecito's kitchen. Therefore, Sollecito would have know that he couldn't get away with disposing of the knife then just not mentioning it to the authorities at all. Likewise, if he opted to tell the authorities that this knife had indeed been part of his kitchen utensil collection (as per the inventory), but that he had accidentally lost or broken it, he would have to risk either the landlord or the cleaning lady telling the police that they had seen the knife only shortly before the murder.

Personally, therefore, I CAN see a rationale whereby a guilty Knox and Sollecito would have worried about disposing of that kitchen knife if they had used it in the murder, and that they might have concluded that the best (or least bad) option was to try and clean it as thoroughly as possible, then replace it in the drawer and bluff it out.

However, since there is now nothing whatsoever of value and validity linking that knife to the murder, this whole issue becomes irrelevant. As I said before, we might as well be debating why Mignini's wife might have had a specific paring knife in her knife drawer immediately after the murder date.


* Clearly I don't think they had anything to do with the murder, let alone bring that kitchen knife to it - I'm just setting up a hypothetical in order to run a "what if" analysis on it as a thought experiment.
 
Grinder said:
If Amanda stepped on the now dried mat that had a stain from already diluted blood, the resultant prints would be very diluted perhaps below TMB's sensitivity.

As for them taking pains, I just fall back on how incompetent they are. From their perspective it was surely blood and they just couldn't believe they needed to prove it.
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Hmmm.

Another possibility is that the TMB test was accurate, and JREF's premier Italian serologist is not all he is cracked up to be.

I hope I won't face criminal charges for suggesting that.
 
Bill Williams said:
Ok Machiavelli.... Andrea Vogt is now not an "approximate reporter", she's an "intrepid reporter". It revolves around the trade screts of Greg Hampikian....

see: http://blogs.orrick.com/trade-secrets-watch/2013/11/08/the-role-of-alleged-trade-secret-forensic-evidence-in-the-amanda-knox-murder-case/#.Un2Nh8-cJUE.twitter

For five points.... how does this impugn the work of the RIS Carabinieri.... or is it really simply going after ANYONE who starts off as objective, finds the facts and THEN supports the cause of innocence?



I take it you support Vogt on this, but are still now pretty miffed at her for supporting Conti & (that criminal) Vecchiotti....

.... which kind of makes it silly that she'd go after Greg Hampikian over a trade secrets issue....
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Interesting blog post. The author misses a fairly broad point, which is that Hampikian is not the only party to the information Vogt wants. She's asking for the private correspondence of Amanda's lawyer.

I suppose I might like to see Novelli's correspondence with the prosecution re the DNA evidence. Think I can have it? I'd even pay for a translation.
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
Interesting blog post. The author misses a fairly broad point, which is that Hampikian is not the only party to the information Vogt wants. She's asking for the private correspondence of Amanda's lawyer.

I suppose I might like to see Novelli's correspondence with the prosecution re the DNA evidence. Think I can have it? I'd even pay for a translation.
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Some clowns are trying to suggest that since they haven't seen "official accreditation" of Hampikian as an expert consultant to the Knox defence, he therefore CANNOT have been an expert consultant to the Knox defence - and therefore his work and correspondence are not covered by attorney-client privilege.

You couldn't make it up....

Hmm, let's see. I haven't seen (and nor can I possibly ever see - unless both parties volunteer its disclosure) Luis Suarez's contract to play professional football for Liverpool Football Club. So that must mean that he doesn't play football for Liverpool. But wait a minute - I've just seen TV highlights of Suarez scoring two goals for Liverpool just this afternoon against Fulham. I don't understand! :rolleyes:
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
Hmmm.

Another possibility is that the TMB test was accurate, and JREF's premier Italian serologist is not all he is cracked up to be.

I hope I won't face criminal charges for suggesting that.
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The test accurately showed that the substance had less than 1 part per 10,000 of blood, which neither proves nor disproves that it was blood.

TMB test is used after luminol because the luminol is used to find the residue. TMB if positive. makes it more likely that it is blood, then more tests. They clearly didn't prove it was blood and even more clearly whose blood.

LondonJohn said:
Vilkes.... your name vill ALSO go on ze list!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V3SqxUomwk

:D
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Figures we would get that sort of anti German stuff from a pom.
 
And the shocking reasoning skills continue to be put on show! A new argument is that if there was nothing to hide, BSU would have released the Hampikian-related material to Vogt. The implication from this is that since they didn't release the material, there IS something to hide.

Hmmm. Perhaps I should stand outside a confessional box in a Catholic church until someone goes in and comes out again, then I should go in myself and ask the priest behind the screen if he will tell me what the person who just visited him had told him.

And when the priest says that he absolutely will not divulge that information, I shall tell the priest that my rational conclusion is that either he or the other person (or both of them) must have something to hide - otherwise the priest should have had no problem telling me what was said.

Yeah, that makes sense..... :rolleyes:

Hideous, mindless bias and stupidity are a potent combination indeed.
 
Grinder said:
Figures we would get that sort of anti German stuff from a pom.
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Do you want YOUR name to go on the list too?!

Wait til I roll out the Fawlty Towers "The Germans" episode :D

PS: I think one would more accurately describe that sketch as "anti-Nazi" rather than "anti-German". I don't know many rational, decent people of any nationality who are not anti-Nazi. But I apologise for offending any pro-Nazi individuals nonetheless.......
 
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Grinder said:
The test accurately showed that the substance had less than 1 part per 10,000 of blood, which neither proves nor disproves that it was blood.
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Now for a question to solicit if you even have a clue of what you are talking about: What is the resulting dilution of a watery blood stain after it has dried for 6 weeks?
 
Was it bill Williams who recently brought up the "mystery" of how Guede left no bloody tracks between Meredith's room and the adjoining bathroom, but then managed to leave a diluted, bloody bare footprint in the latter?

Dear God!!

How many more times, stoopid?

Guede took his blood-splashed shoe off in Meredith's room BEFORE he went in to the bathroom.

GEEZUS!
 
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Supernaut said:
Was it bill Williams who recently brought up the "mystery" of how Guede left no bloody tracks between Meredith's room and the adjoining bathroom, but then managed to leave a diluted, bloody bare footprint in the latter?

Dear God!!

How many more times, stoopid?

Guede took his blood-splashed shoe off in Meredith's room BEFORE he went to the bathroom.

GEEZUS!.
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Oh, it's far worse than that! Massei actually used this exact rationale to conclude that there must therefore have been a clean-up of the floor between Meredith's doorway and the bathmat. When combined with his seeming belief that the bathmat print likely belonged to Sollecito, he therefore had Sollecito walking with a heavily-bloodied* foot sole from Meredith's room to the small bathroom, then Knox and Sollecito (because "logically" it can have been only them) cleaning up the intermediate floor, completely removing the intermediate prints in the process.

This is an Italian criminal court judge we're talking about here, remember. The utter paucity of good reasoning is a wonder to behold.


* Massei "reasoned" further that the foot must have been soaked in blood at the start of the journey, since it still had enough blood on it to leave the "final" print on the bathmat
 
LondonJohn said:
That malevolent weirdo "The Machine" has recently been directing people enthusiastically towards a blog article about the Vogt/BSU rejected FOI request re Hampikian, written by someone who's into trade secrets (this person seems to have some sort of crusade against trade secrets, so you can probably guess the slant that the blog piece is going to have...).

What "The Machine" fails to understand (the author of the blog piece does understand it, but then fails to contextualise it) is that Vogt's information request was refused on NUMEROUS grounds.
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Legal nuances aside, Vogt was essentially asking to trawl through Hampikian's inbox; I can't imagine any institution would simply rubber-stamp a request of this nature. No wonder she sat on this non-story for a year and a half.

And speaking of stories, Vogt keeps alluding to important assignments all around Italy but I see no evidence of bylines or talking-head appearances. If professional journalism is about doing half-assed research, posting a couple paragraphs on your personal blog and retweeting stuff I must be in line for a Pulitzer!

LondonJohn said:
I know what these pro-guilt commentators' reactions say to me. To me, they speak volumes about the bitter, vindictive, misanthropic, narrow-minded, bullying nastiness of these people. Regardless of what they may think about Knox's guilt,and regardless of what they may think of Hampikian's participation in her defence, the sight of people jumping up and down with joy at the loss of funding of an Innocence Project group is sickening and astonishing. Shame on each and every one of them.
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Given the demographics of the US prison population, it's also pretty tone-deaf. I thought PGP were the only true champions for the cause of innocent black men.
 
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