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

[Bill Williams]

I think that I have been keeping up with the reading, and I didn't see an answer to this question. I am still curious about it. Does anybody have more information about italian government payouts of cash awards for crime victims if they cannot be collected from guilty parties?

Thanks for keeping track of this.....

 

[Grinder]

Of course but, the argument goes beyond; the point is: who cares if Knox was a honor student?
And who cares if she was not a honor student?

In fact, I never said that I care about this. I only said - only in response to a claim - that in fact there is no evidence that Knox was even a honor student.
If she decided to live recklessly and for the day with no academic project, who cares? Nobody. Certanly not me. I have no moral judgement about it.
But a person who lives for the day and goers to night party where people high on drugs throw rocks at passing cars, is normally not a honor student. It's just an objective assessment, not a moral judgement.
A honor student usually is a person who earned a title requiring both performance and conduct, indicating a person with a life oriented and structured around an academic project.

Mach there is no evidence that rocks were thrown at cars. The neighbor that called the police said rocks were thrown at his house and at cars but nothing was seen by cops except rocks. I posted the police report and there is mention that rocks were seen lying around but no mention that a car was thrown at, much less that one was hit. We here, as you in Italy, love our cars. If someone damaged a car by throwing a rock at it, they would tell the police and file a report to make sure the damage is covered.

There was also no mention in any report that people were high on drugs. Amanda most certainly would have had to show her identification and she was underaged at the time and the police would have cited her for drinking had it been obvious.

Here you read it for yourself.

If you haven't already posted the link to proof of Amanda having the coke dealer's phone number in her phone, please do.

Are there any official records, court or otherwise, that mention this dealer and the phone connections?

Do you think Meredith was an honor student with her lifestyle?

 

[Kestrel]

Never show your cards. What if OJ had tried the glove on for the camera's a month before the verdict ? The element of surprise would have done wonders for Rafs defense.

At the time, the only evidence linking Raff to the murder was the shoe print. Take this away and Raff has a chance for immediate freedom. A much better option than sitting in jail for a year or so waiting for the trial.

 

[Matthew Best]

Never show your cards. What if OJ had tried the glove on for the camera's a month before the verdict ? The element of surprise would have done wonders for Rafs defense.

The problem is that if their phone calls were being monitored their cards were being read whether they wanted to show them or not.

 

[Diocletus]

We actually figured out that this as a bit of pro-innocence fanfic a while ago. Stefanoni made her trip to fabricate find new evidence well before the shoeprint debacle.
QUOTE]

Rafaelle describes in Honor Bound (paperback pp. 118-119) his family's search of stores in Perugia, the Bari area, and Rome to locate a shoe which matched the Nike Outbreak 2 shoebox the police discovered in Rude's closet. The search appears to have been in early December and went on for many days. Raffaele's father, his brother Giuseppe (Raffaele's uncle), and Raffael's sister Vanessa discussed the progress of their search in phone calls, and Raffaele in his book describes a comical phone exchange between Raffael's father and Giuseppe when Giuseppe found an Outbreak 2 in a sales rack in a store in Adelfia but did not purchase it because the size was 1/2 size smaller than Rudy's known size.

The police were listening to the phone conversations, knew that the family had finally located and purchased an Outbreak 2, and were discussing presenting it to TV news. That would destroy the only physical evidence the police claimed put Raffaele at the crime scene. With this development, Stefanoni returned to Perugia to collect the bra clasp (Dec. 18).

Raffaele's father wanted to release the shoe information to the media. Vanessa want to keep it quiet and release it only in the courtroom, as there was no telling what the police or prosecutor might do if they knew about the shoe discovery beforehand. But father won out, and arranged to present the Outbreak 2 on Italy's most popular TV news show. That took a while to arrange, as it involved the family's technical expert giving scientific explanations to Enrico Mentana, the news show host. The information debunking the police's shoeprint claim aired on TV on Jan 11 2008. The police or prosecution released Stefanoni's bra clasp DNA findings to the media the same day.

I never knew how the phone tapping played into this. Before I read this post, I thought that the bra clasp DNA was probably just bad luck. Now I think that there is a very substantial chance of evidence tampering.

 

[Diocletus]

The problem is that if their phone calls were being monitored their cards were being read whether they wanted to show them or not.

This concept that the police should be able to monitor the conversations of the people who are conducting an investigation on behalf of a criminal defendant is just absurd. No doubt, they were also listening in on conversations with counsel.

 

[Grinder]

To me it's not "bad", it's only compatible with a scenario of her involvement in a crime based on a contact/relation between her and Rudy Guede.

Mach is there a language issue or a cultural issue with the word "compatible"?

What does compatible mean to you?

The foot print on the mat was compatible with Raf. The bare foot prints were compatible with Amanda. It seems that most of all the circumstantial; evidence is only compatible at most, not a match.

I don't see that Amanda's real or even the most extreme alleged behavior in any way make her more likely than any other college student to commit a murder.

Do you really think she was more likely to murder than Meredith would have been?

 

[Bill Williams]

Of course but, the argument goes beyond; the point is: who cares if Knox was a honor student?
And who cares if she was not a honor student?

In fact, I never said that I care about this. I only said - only in response to a claim - that in fact there is no evidence that Knox was even a honor student.
If she decided to live recklessly and for the day with no academic project, who cares? Nobody. Certanly not me. I have no moral judgement about it.
But a person who lives for the day and goers to night party where people high on drugs throw rocks at passing cars, is normally not a honor student. It's just an objective assessment, not a moral judgement.
A honor student usually is a person who earned a title requiring both performance and conduct, indicating a person with a life oriented and structured around an academic project.

Machiavelli, this post demonstrates your dishonest, confirmation biased methodology.

You swing between the "literally true".... (Yes, in fact you literally did not utter any phrase saying that you "cared about this".... all the while waiting at the ready for someone to accuse you of implying that you cared - simply by raising the subject to begin with (!) in your vilification of Knox)

..... and innuendo.... ("No evidence" that Knox was an honor student, then implies that she was not one.....)

.... and outright invention of factoids.... ("to night party where people high on drugs throw rocks at passing cars")

This, if nothing else, exposes how you argue when faced with a claim which has "no evidence" associated with it.....

- when there is no evidence that Knox is an honor student, you assume she is not one; then retreat into saying you never really cared to begin with.

- when there is no evidence of rock throwing, you assume there was rock throwing because that is interpreting the evidence through your confirmation bias.​

You really need to stop posting. Why? Because you're doing a disservice to the person you are serving.

 

[Kestrel]

This concept that the police should be able to monitor the conversations of the people who are conducting an investigation on behalf of a criminal defendant is just absurd. No doubt, they were also listening in on conversations with counsel.

We know for a fact that the conversations between the defendants and their lawyers in were recorded. The only thing that doesn't get recorded in Perugia are interrogation sessions.

 

[acbytesla]

Whoa! You are painting with a pretty broad brush here, suggesting that any woman would be delighted to date any good-looking man who hit on her in a bar. There are lots of reasons that a woman might complain about being hit on in a bar that have absolutely nothing to do with the appearance of the person doing the hitting-on.

Boy, do I know that!!!!

 

[Strozzi]

Italian police monitored 39,952 phone calls to or from Sollicito family members over six months beginning Nov 2007. These included calls between the family and family lawyers and expert witnesses. It also included patient calls to Dr. Sollicito's office. (He is a real medical doctor, not a lab tech.)

You can see an article about the police monitoring of phones at http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57329774-504083/well-be-listening-amanda-knox-case-reveals-extent-of-italian-wiretapping/

Here are some earlier comments by Katody Matrass and others on JREF.

Interesting new article:
Crimesider - We'll be listening: Amanda Knox case reveals extent of Italian wiretapping

Quote:
Dr. Sollecito told Crimesider that the police also monitored his calls with his medical patients as well as calls he made to his lawyers. Although Italian law prohibits police wiretaps from violating personal privacy, Italian media report those prohibitions are rarely enforced. And police and prosecutors in Italy do not need to show probable cause that a crime has been committed in order to convince a judge to authorize a wiretap. So it is little wonder that Italy is one of Europe's leading eavesdropping nations.
Wiretapping lawyers? Wasn't the recent defence lawyers strike also about it?

39,952 conversations and messages recorded. That's how Mignini and his pack wasted money for nothing. And according to Mignini's lie they had no money to record the middle of the night, head-slapping interrogations. Right.

And some more evidence of misconduct:

Quote:
In September, Raffaele Sollecito's defense lawyers revealed Perugia police had "lost" 29 wiretapped phone calls, many between Amanda Knox and Sollecito. All the calls were made in the two days following
Meredith Kercher's murder. Perugia court-watcher Frank Sfarzo wonders if the 29 calls were "lost" as a result of an accident or something more sinister. Sfarzo wrote in his Perugia Shock blog, "Were they (Knox and
Sollecito) saying something that was proving that they didn't have anything to do with the crime?"

Mignini and the cops: "We did our best, we only lost 29 recordings, fried four hard drives, forgot to record the key interrogations (because of no money ), failed to test the key evidence, let other evidence rot and rust as to become untestable, and failed to secure the CCTV videos from all over the town. But it's all good because none of that would help us keep Knox in jail. To do that we had to lie a little about evidence that was not there, too. In fact, we had to lie a lot"

 

[andreajo]

Boy, do I know that!!!!

What, women were always complaining about you hitting on them despite your devastating good looks?

 

[Diocletus]

In September, Raffaele Sollecito's defense lawyers revealed Perugia police had "lost" 29 wiretapped phone calls, many between Amanda Knox and Sollecito. All the calls were made in the two days following
Meredith Kercher's murder. Perugia court-watcher Frank Sfarzo wonders if the 29 calls were "lost" as a result of an accident or something more sinister. Sfarzo wrote in his Perugia Shock blog, "Were they (Knox and
Sollecito) saying something that was proving that they didn't have anything to do with the crime?"

Well, I think that we all know that those calls wouldn't have been "lost" if they were helpful to the police.

 

[Dan O.]

I thought so also.

Many times in this thread there have been skillful, informed analytical posts about this case and this is one of them. It is a bit sad that these kind of posts without an organized attachment to some sort of document/encyclopedia and without the relevant references attached to them will never be available to the general population that is interested in this case.

You could do something about that. Add the information you think the public should see to the public wiki I linked to earlier.

 

[acbytesla]

In addition to the inexpensive side excursions, do they mention the possibility that you could get hands-on experience with the Italian justice and corrections systems?
Frankly, I'm surprised that UW students would want to attend this program, given the xenophobia that Perugians direct at Americans and UW students in particular.

No, that isn't part of the brochure. Neither is the 4 year prison immersion option.
University for Foreigners in Perugia has been part of the UW Study Abroad program for almost twenty years. The UW has actually sent lots of students there. That said, I'm not sure how many have gone there since Amanda.

There are I think, about 190 Study Abroad programs worldwide that the UW offers. The University for Foreigners in Perugia is one of four in Italy. The other three are in Syracuse, Milan and Lecce.

 

[Dan O.]

Never show your cards. What if OJ had tried the glove on for the camera's a month before the verdict ? The element of surprise would have done wonders for Rafs defense.

This is a public debate. We are showing all of our cards. And even when they aren't 100% positive for Amanda and Raffaele we still show our cards. Machiavelli on the other hand doesn't have any cards to show. He's apparently just here for comic relief. It's the sort of thing that Marriott would arrange to keep us going.

 

[acbytesla]

acbytesla,
Last minute change. The coven is still meeting tonight a 7, but we've changed the location. The coven is now meeting in conference room 16 at the Boeing plant. There is plenty of parking; the room is right across the hall from the broom closet. Wear black.

Mary is bringing her tarantula collection.

Strozzi

Which plant?? Everett? Renton?? Kent??? Auburn? I liked it better when it was at one of the hundred or so buildings at the Microsoft campus. Soon though Bezos will hold it in one of the two 70 story towers they are constructing in South Lake Union area. We can ride the SLUT to those meetings.


****FYI**** For those unaware and not living in Seattle. The SLUT is the South Lake Union Trolley.

 

[acbytesla]

What, women were always complaining about you hitting on them despite your devastating good looks?

Precisely!!!!

Unfortunately, they don't complain any more. I don't think they take me seriously. And that is a crying shame.

 

[Supernaut]

Mary, you are of course correct. I have confused you and Supernaut. It is Supernaut who definitively explained why Rudy left no shoe prints in the hall.

I am posting Supernaut's comment below.

"let's just get this straight;

there's nothing "mysterious" about the foot-print Guede left on the mat in the bathroom.

After he'd slaughtered Meredith, he sat on her bed, putting his knife down to his left (where it left the bloody imprint), took off his right shoe and then went into the (adjacent) bathroom to clean up.

He rinsed the shoe that he'd carried there, and his blood-soaked pant-leg under the shower, but didn't take enough time to get the water from the pant-leg to run clear, hence the foot-print.

In doing all this, he left no other tracks.

This, apparently, is such uniquely brilliant deduction that I seem to be the only one on the planet to have figgered it out.

(Shakes head)."

Thanks for bumping that, Strozzi.

It does seem kind of obvious, doesn't it? I don't really understand why this sequence of events doesn't immediately suggest itself to people.

One thing needs to be added - Guede dried his shoe and foot off with a clean towel before (presumably) putting the shoe back on (and probably blotted his pant leg).

It appears that he then took all three of the white towels in the bathroom into Meredith's room, and Amanda didn't notice they'd gone before she stepped into the shower the next morning.

 

[GreyFox]

At the time, the only evidence linking Raff to the murder was the shoe print. Take this away and Raff has a chance for immediate freedom. A much better option than sitting in jail for a year or so waiting for the trial.

I see. Good point.