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

[kwill]

Amanda and Raffaele are innocent. They're both innocent as grass. They were bystanders who came upon a crime scene.

I just needed to say that. I found the old thread from the night the Hellman court said so; you guys crashed the site, apparently. For the record, Grinder was the one who first said so here, officially, on Continuation #3, page 243, post #9707.

I'm in Seattle tonight, where it's been clear and cold for a couple of days and will probably stay that way into next week. We're grateful for sunshine in November; it's rare. Amanda Knox is probably across town working on her UW assignments, still trying to graduate, having lost some years, plus her innocence and her freedom and, to some unknowable extent, her future.

I don't know where Raffaele is, but I hope it's someplace welcoming and safe; that guy deserves nothing but safety and comfort for the rest of his days.

Those two are innocent as grass.

 

[Samson]

Amanda and Raffaele are innocent. They're both innocent as grass. They were bystanders who came upon a crime scene.

I just needed to say that. I found the old thread from the night the Hellman court said so; you guys crashed the site, apparently. For the record, Grinder was the one who first said so here, officially, on Continuation #3, page 243, post #9707.

I'm in Seattle tonight, where it's been clear and cold for a couple of days and will probably stay that way into next week. We're grateful for sunshine in November; it's rare. Amanda Knox is probably across town working on her UW assignments, still trying to graduate, having lost some years, plus her innocence and her freedom and, to some unknowable extent, her future.

I don't know where Raffaele is, but I hope it's someplace welcoming and safe; that guy deserves nothing but safety and comfort for the rest of his days.

Those two are innocent as grass.

You are definitely right, and much nearer to Amanda and Raffaele geographically than me, this is beyond tribal.

 

[RandyN]

This whole witch things says more to me about the Italian culture than Mignini.

Anybody have the arrest video for Sara Scazzis aunt? That will show you all you need to know about Italian "culture" I think the Neanderthals had more culture.

 

[davefoc]

...
I'm sure that Toto probably saw a couple arguing in the piazza about something. Well, I'm not really sure, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. I just don't think he has a clue what day it actually was. This guy doesn't have a job, or a family. Days and dates are irrelevant to him. Like most junkies, life is about getting from one fix to the next. Events and incidents just meld together for him.

...

Not that any more evidence was needed that Curatolo's testimony was suspect but the point of not knowing what day it was resonated with me. I'm not a homeless, drug addict but I often am unsure of what day it is. When I had a regular job with children in school, I had pretty much absolute knowledge of what day it was, but now I'm self employed and I don't have small children in school and the exact day isn't that much of an issue for me anymore and sometimes I just am not sure what day it is. I suspect, if I was a long time, homeless, drug addict I would usually be unaware of what day it is and testimony that required that I be aware of what day something happened on would be very unreliable.

 

[Mary_H]

No no, Knox can't be believed because what she says is inconsistent; not believable, and contradicted by witnesses and by findings.

<snip>Knox is instead a relevant point: she is inconsistent, not believable and she is contradicted by witnesses (such as Anna Donnino and Filomena) and by findings.
This is objective. It has nothing to do with Knox's morality or psychology. It is only the mind of the pro-Knox supporters that want to would like to make the credibility "depend" on her being called a "whore" or a "whitch".
Actually, it's you and your side who call Knox a whore (and Guede a pimp).

Knox is a liar because she is a liar, it's self-evident from her testimonies, oral and written, it does not depend on other judgements nor on any other inference about her personality.

Then why do you keep bringing inferences from her morality, psychology, personality and activities into your argument? Wouldn't it be more efficient simply to provide examples of the actual lies and inconsistencies? Have you ever done that?

You and Mignini and those of your ilk are hell-bent on believing Amanda is a liar, but your beliefs are based only on ethnocentrism. It is much less common for someone from Amanda's specific cultural milieu to lie than it is for, say, PLE or "witnesses" who have an interest in staying allied with the prosecution. Your low expectations and doubts about Amanda reflect your life experiences, not reality.

Amanda had no reason to learn to lie, that is, to become "a liar," when she was growing up. In fact, in her culture, many more rewards are derived from being honest than from being inconsistent, especially in ways that are as noticeable as you claim hers were. Until she went to Perugia, Amanda was very successful in a cultural milieu based on affection, warmth and service to others. That should be obvious from her willingness to stay in Perugia and work with the cops in the days following the murder.

 

[RandyN]

And you advance the part highlighted in yellow as a reason to hold Italy's courts in positive regard?

Anna Donnino has her own potential misconduct to deal with... she's the one by her own testimony said she acted as a mediator between Knox and the cops - since, acc. to Donnino, when she arrived at the interrogation things (to her reckoning) had badly deteriorated. Knox needed an interpretor that night, not someone trying to convince her that she'd had repressed memories.

That is Donnino's contribution to this mess.

You're the one who claims that Heroin does not impair judgement, and we're supposed to believe you when you call Knox a liar? (This isn't going to be one of those things, again, where you now claim you never said it? You're a slippery fish, Machiavelli.)

I just read in AK book "Waiting To Be Heard" that Graham did an interview with Mignini where Mignini admitted that Donnino acted more like a interrogator than an interpreter. Anyone know the interview she is talking about? Apparently Mignini also admits to using only what he wanted from the interrogation. Duh.

Donnino was an objective interpreter like Biondo was an objective checker of Stefanonis science. This is so corrupt and yet in Italy it is perfectly logical and there is no need for caution. LOL Idiots!

 

[RandyN]

Not that any more evidence was needed that Curatolo's testimony was suspect but the point of not knowing what day it was resonated with me. I'm not a homeless, drug addict but I often am unsure of what day it is. When I had a regular job with children in school, I had pretty much absolute knowledge of what day it was, but now I'm self employed and I don't have small children in school and the exact day isn't that much of an issue for me anymore and sometimes I just am not sure what day it is. I suspect, if I was a long time, homeless, drug addict I would usually be unaware of what day it is and testimony that required that I be aware of what day something happened on would be very unreliable.

Well yes I do this too but I think we would both be clearer about youth in costume and then the next day the white suits appearing. Toto OTOH is lying. And he goes to great lengths to explain his story which then proves that it is a lie. He didn't forget...he got caught up in a lie and could never retreat from it.

I have no doubt that Mignini coached Toto as best as he could in the first trial and yet Toto was not a great student and forget certain key parts...this then became his unchangeable story...tying Mignini hands somewhat. So for blowing it Mignini had him tossed into jail. At the appeal Toto said he still didn't understand exactly why he was in jail. I wonder if he glanced over at Mignini when he stated that?

 

[acbytesla]

Not that any more evidence was needed that Curatolo's testimony was suspect but the point of not knowing what day it was resonated with me. I'm not a homeless, drug addict but I often am unsure of what day it is. When I had a regular job with children in school, I had pretty much absolute knowledge of what day it was, but now I'm self employed and I don't have small children in school and the exact day isn't that much of an issue for me anymore and sometimes I just am not sure what day it is. I suspect, if I was a long time, homeless, drug addict I would usually be unaware of what day it is and testimony that required that I be aware of what day something happened on would be very unreliable.

Exactly, I'm the same way. I'm mistaken about this kind of thing all the time. I'm retired so days and dates mean little to me. My best friend is a Seattle Police Officer and I go crazy trying to remember his work schedule so I know when to call him at home. (The guy won't buy a cell phone) He works 4 days on two days off, so his weekends move forward one day each week.

I figure if I can't keep track of what day I talked to him last and I don't drink or take drugs, then I'm not betting that a 55 year old homeless junky can remember what day of the week he saw saw something happen in the Piazza.

 

[Matthew Best]

I'm with you bud, I'm not impressed by any of the eye and ear witnesses from either side

Neil DeGrasse Tyson says that if the justice system was being designed by scientists, eyewitness testimony would not be admissible.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Then why do you keep bringing inferences from her morality, psychology, personality and activities into your argument? Wouldn't it be more efficient simply to provide examples of the actual lies and inconsistencies? Have you ever done that?

You and Mignini and those of your ilk are hell-bent on believing Amanda is a liar, but your beliefs are based only on ethnocentrism. It is much less common for someone from Amanda's specific cultural milieu to lie than it is for, say, PLE or "witnesses" who have an interest in staying allied with the prosecution. Your low expectations and doubts about Amanda reflect your life experiences, not reality.

Amanda had no reason to learn to lie, that is, to become "a liar," when she was growing up. In fact, in her culture, many more rewards are derived from being honest than from being inconsistent, especially in ways that are as noticeable as you claim hers were. Until she went to Perugia, Amanda was very successful in a cultural milieu based on affection, warmth and service to others. That should be obvious from her willingness to stay in Perugia and work with the cops in the days following the murder.

It's interesting that Machiavelli supports the innocence claim of Chico Forti, who absolutely lied about a crucial fact when he was first questioned.

(Despite this, Machiavelli is almost certainly right in thinking Forti is innocent.)

 

[LondonJohn]

Neil DeGrasse Tyson says that if the justice system was being designed by scientists, eyewitness testimony would not be admissible.

I think eyewitness/earwitness testimony does have scientific relevance in the judicial process, and should be potentially admissible in any trial.

However..... I think that such witness testimony should rarely - if ever - be considered 100% accurate. Even when several different witnesses appear to independently corroborate each other, it's eminently possible that all of them are mistaken in the same way (often owing to the superimposition of cultural idioms or prejudices: "I saw the black guy in that melee stabbing the victim....").

Where there is only one witness to an alleged event, however, I believe that a significant discount should automatically be applied to any identification, even before that witness is cross-examined for reliability/credibility. Even seemingly "perfect" eyewitnesses can be either honestly mistaken or worse - even if they are adamant that they saw what they saw. There have been more than enough studies in this area to prove this phenomenon.

But I think it would be a mistake to completely disregard eyewitness/earwitness testimony. It has its proper place in helping determine guilt in a criminal trial. But I do think it should be more fully recognised that this sort of evidence is often far less reliable than most forms of physical evidence - even if the witness appears utterly credible, unimpeachable and adamant.

Of course, there's an important historical context to consider here. Until the late 19th century, there was rarely any reliable physical evidence that could prove guilt, and there was no such thing as forensic evidence. In that environment, witness evidence (and "confessions") were the main tools of justice. This meant that a) a large number of crimes went unsolved, and b) it's almost certain that a disproportionately high number of innocent people were wrongly convicted in those cases that were "solved".

The discovery and introduction of fingerprint typing marked an enormous paradigm shift in crime investigation, together with later advances in blood/semen typing. It's therefore often easy to forget the historic importance of witness testimony (and "confessions") - and it's perhaps a reason why judicial systems still probably tend to accord such evidence more weight than it deserves under an objective, scientific analysis. And, incidentally, it's the view of most modern jurisprudence experts that the inquisitorial justice system is a relic of the witness/confession-only era, and that it is now a significantly inferior system (compared with the adversarial system) in the modern age.

And I can't let this discussion pass without referring finally to Judge Massei's stunning words regarding the testimony of earwitness Nara Capezzali in the Knox/Sollecito trial. His words capture in one succinct sentence all that's wrong with a blind acceptance of witness testimony - and serves as a shocking indictment of Massei's (and his court's) improper reasoning on this matter:

If there had not been such a scream, and if Mrs. Capezzali had not actually heard it, then the Court can see no reason why she would have spoken about it

(Massei Report, Eng trans. p96)


Every time I read those words, I'm still shocked and astonished that they were written by a criminal judge. Truly incredible.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I think eyewitness/earwitness testimony does have scientific relevance in the judicial process, and should be potentially admissible in any trial.

However..... I think that such witness testimony should rarely - if ever - be considered 100% accurate. Even when several different witnesses appear to independently corroborate each other, it's eminently possible that all of them are mistaken in the same way (often owing to the superimposition of cultural idioms or prejudices: "I saw the black guy in that melee stabbing the victim....").

Sure. Dozens of reliable witnesses saw a missile shoot down TWA Flight 800. But that's not what happened.

 

[acbytesla]

I think eyewitness/earwitness testimony does have scientific relevance in the judicial process, and should be potentially admissible in any trial.

However..... I think that such witness testimony should rarely - if ever - be considered 100% accurate. Even when several different witnesses appear to independently corroborate each other, it's eminently possible that all of them are mistaken in the same way (often owing to the superimposition of cultural idioms or prejudices: "I saw the black guy in that melee stabbing the victim....").

Where there is only one witness to an alleged event, however, I believe that a significant discount should automatically be applied to any identification, even before that witness is cross-examined for reliability/credibility. Even seemingly "perfect" eyewitnesses can be either honestly mistaken or worse - even if they are adamant that they saw what they saw. There have been more than enough studies in this area to prove this phenomenon.

But I think it would be a mistake to completely disregard eyewitness/earwitness testimony. It has its proper place in helping determine guilt in a criminal trial. But I do think it should be more fully recognised that this sort of evidence is often far less reliable than most forms of physical evidence - even if the witness appears utterly credible, unimpeachable and adamant.

Of course, there's an important historical context to consider here. Until the late 19th century, there was rarely any reliable physical evidence that could prove guilt, and there was no such thing as forensic evidence. In that environment, witness evidence (and "confessions") were the main tools of justice. This meant that a) a large number of crimes went unsolved, and b) it's almost certain that a disproportionately high number of innocent people were wrongly convicted in those cases that were "solved".

The discovery and introduction of fingerprint typing marked an enormous paradigm shift in crime investigation, together with later advances in blood/semen typing. It's therefore often easy to forget the historic importance of witness testimony (and "confessions") - and it's perhaps a reason why judicial systems still probably tend to accord such evidence more weight than it deserves under an objective, scientific analysis. And, incidentally, it's the view of most modern jurisprudence experts that the inquisitorial justice system is a relic of the witness/confession-only era, and that it is now a significantly inferior system (compared with the adversarial system) in the modern age.

And I can't let this discussion pass without referring finally to Judge Massei's stunning words regarding the testimony of earwitness Nara Capezzali in the Knox/Sollecito trial. His words capture in one succinct sentence all that's wrong with a blind acceptance of witness testimony - and serves as a shocking indictment of Massei's (and his court's) improper reasoning on this matter:


(Massei Report, Eng trans. p96)


Every time I read those words, I'm still shocked and astonished that they were written by a criminal judge. Truly incredible.

I agree with all of this. I've been in classrooms where the professor performed some of the classic eyewitness experiments on the class such as having a man come into the classroom and steal the Professor's briefcase from next to the lectern. It is amazing just how bad even some of the smartest people are at this task. People got the wrong color of the person, the wrong color shirt. The professor put up a lineup of pictures and asked people to ID the person. About 15 percent got it right. A random number sampling may have been more correct. Throughout the semester, he repeated the experiment a couple of times although in slightly different ways and the results weren't any better. The professor also showed just how suggestible people are and it makes you think that most people are sheep.

One of the big problems in my book with Toto's testimony in particular is that the couple in the piazza is a non-event. There is no reason for Toto to have to remember who he saw and the events surrounding this event. Given that I really am not sure that I would have much faith if Toto was a bank examiner and he reported this the day after the murder. Add in the fact that Toto doesn't come forward for months and he is a junkie who admits taking heroin that night and I just shake my head.

 

[LondonJohn]

Sure. Dozens of reliable witnesses saw a missile shoot down TWA Flight 800. But that's not what happened.

Exactly, and a good example. They were culturally conditioned to think that a moving light source in the vicinity of an exploding aircraft must have been an incoming missile, rather than an ejected piece of the aircraft. And when you add in the tone of the immediate media reports ("Could this have been a terrorist act?" "What else could cause a 747 to explode and disintegrate in mid-air?", etc), you have the perfect recipe for people to convert what they actually saw into something completely different.

I suppose that another example is the Kennedy assassination. Several people were adamant that they had heard shots come from behind the fence on the infamous "grassy knoll", to the front right of the President's car. However, what those people almost certainly heard was the echo of Oswald's shots off the cast-concrete circular structure in Dealey Plaza (Zapruder was standing on a concrete plinth at one end of the structure).

What makes it even more interesting is that some of these eyewitnesses also claimed to have seen the smoke of a fired rifle from the area of the grassy knoll. This would appear to be nothing more than a classic case of the imagination "filling in the blanks": they heard (or thought they heard) a gunshot coming from the grassy knoll; they reasoned that if there was a gunshot coming from that vicinity aimed into the Plaza, there "must" have been some associated gunmoke; they made themselves believe that they also saw gunsmoke.

And while some of these witnesses were flaky and/or traumatised, some of them were what one might judge to be "sober, reliable, credible" witnesses. One of the greater ironies of the case is that a 14-year-old black boy actually did see Oswald aim and fire the last two shots (the ones that hit Kennedy): He immediately looked up at the 6th-floor window after hearing Oswald's first shot (which missed), and clearly saw Oswald aim and fire the other two rounds. In Dallas, in 1963, a 14-year-old black boy was not exactly what the authorities would consider a "good" witness...........

 

[LondonJohn]

One of the big problems in my book with Toto's testimony in particular is that the couple in the piazza is a non-event. There is no reason for Toto to have to remember who he saw and the events surrounding this event. Given that I really am not sure that I would have much faith if Toto was a bank examiner and he reported this the day after the murder. Add in the fact that Toto doesn't come forward for months and he is a junkie who admits taking heroin that night and I just shake my head.

Yes, this is a very important factor.

Imagine if I were to hear a bank's security alarm going off as I was walking past the bank, then I saw two men running out of the bank with a large holdall, get into a waiting car, and speed off. The bank's alarm would have conditioned me to think that something unusual and significant was happening, and upon seeing the two men running out of the bank with the holdall, I would almost certainly suspect them to be the robbers, and I would consequently try hard to focus upon noticing and remembering their identities. Likewise, when they got into the car and drove off, I'd almost certainly make a conscious careful effort to memorise the number plate.

On the other hand, what Curatolo claims he saw was - as you say - completely ordinary and unremarkable activity: Curatolo would have been totally unaware at that point that the murder had been committed (or was about to be committed), so for him this was just another ordinary evening on the streets. It's therefore doubly hard to believe that he, for some reason, remembered the unremarkable and unsuspicious* activity of two people that evening. Would he also have been able to "remember" the whereabouts, activities and identities of everybody else who might have been hanging around the piazza and its vicinity on that evening?


* Curatolo was able (with police assistance) to overlay an ex-post-facto layer of "suspicious behaviour" onto these two characters he claimed to have seen, but his testimony strongly suggests that if these two characters even existed as he claimed, there were certainly not acting in a way that would have drawn any reasonable person's attention/suspicion to them at all.

(Of course my own belief is that Curatolo either completely invented this sighting out of whole cloth, or that he somehow conflated and confused various other events - with police assistance - until he finally arrived at a "sighting" which suited the purposes of the police/PM)

 

[NancyS]

Memory is incredibly inexact - I regularly take medical histories and it never ceases to amaze me how the same story can be told in so many different ways. The patient and each family member will give different times and order of events - and this will often change with each time they have to repeat the story. Are all my patients and families liars? According to the prosecution and the people at PMF, they are definitely liars - but to any sane observer, they are just normal people that are unable to recall events in an exact way.

We're trained not to use leading questions as people can be incredibly suggestible - and something that you have 'suggested' can easily become a 'fact' in their mind, even though it didn't happen.

Thinking back to last night, I can just about remember (roughly) what time I ate - but if I try to think back to the night before, I really struggle to remember. Add in a bit of alcohol/cannabis to your evenings - and your memories of relatively calm and non-eventful evenings are going to be incredibly hazy. Yet people are still reading over every utterance of Raffaele and Amanda and trying to find tiny differences that show they must be lying.

It seems like the whole case is barely attempting to find evidence that they are guilty of the crime - they are just trying to find examples of possible 'lies', in order to create an impression that guilt is possible.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Exactly, and a good example. They were culturally conditioned to think that a moving light source in the vicinity of an exploding aircraft must have been an incoming missile, rather than an ejected piece of the aircraft. And when you add in the tone of the immediate media reports ("Could this have been a terrorist act?" "What else could cause a 747 to explode and disintegrate in mid-air?", etc), you have the perfect recipe for people to convert what they actually saw into something completely different.

I suppose that another example is the Kennedy assassination. Several people were adamant that they had heard shots come from behind the fence on the infamous "grassy knoll", to the front right of the President's car. However, what those people almost certainly heard was the echo of Oswald's shots off the cast-concrete circular structure in Dealey Plaza (Zapruder was standing on a concrete plinth at one end of the structure).

What makes it even more interesting is that some of these eyewitnesses also claimed to have seen the smoke of a fired rifle from the area of the grassy knoll. This would appear to be nothing more than a classic case of the imagination "filling in the blanks": they heard (or thought they heard) a gunshot coming from the grassy knoll; they reasoned that if there was a gunshot coming from that vicinity aimed into the Plaza, there "must" have been some associated gunmoke; they made themselves believe that they also saw gunsmoke.

And while some of these witnesses were flaky and/or traumatised, some of them were what one might judge to be "sober, reliable, credible" witnesses. One of the greater ironies of the case is that a 14-year-old black boy actually did see Oswald aim and fire the last two shots (the ones that hit Kennedy): He immediately looked up at the 6th-floor window after hearing Oswald's first shot (which missed), and clearly saw Oswald aim and fire the other two rounds. In Dallas, in 1963, a 14-year-old black boy was not exactly what the authorities would consider a "good" witness...........

This whole subject fascinates me, the social conditioning that influences how people perceive things. This is my favorite example, which I have mentioned before:

http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=5136

 

[acbytesla]

Delete

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Memory is incredibly inexact - I regularly take medical histories and it never ceases to amaze me how the same story can be told in so many different ways. The patient and each family member will give different times and order of events - and this will often change with each time they have to repeat the story. Are all my patients and families liars? According to the prosecution and the people at PMF, they are definitely liars - but to any sane observer, they are just normal people that are unable to recall events in an exact way.

We're trained not to use leading questions as people can be incredibly suggestible - and something that you have 'suggested' can easily become a 'fact' in their mind, even though it didn't happen.

Thinking back to last night, I can just about remember (roughly) what time I ate - but if I try to think back to the night before, I really struggle to remember. Add in a bit of alcohol/cannabis to your evenings - and your memories of relatively calm and non-eventful evenings are going to be incredibly hazy. Yet people are still reading over every utterance of Raffaele and Amanda and trying to find tiny differences that show they must be lying.

It seems like the whole case is barely attempting to find evidence that they are guilty of the crime - they are just trying to find examples of possible 'lies', in order to create an impression that guilt is possible.

If you go back to 2007, the cops put out a lot of bad information that made the case sound like a slam-dunk. I can see why people bought into it.

Then it all fell apart. The case that actually went to trial consisted of two highly doubtful DNA tests, flaky witness testimony, and some other forensic garbage that didn't really mean anything. Plus Amanda testified for two days and everything she said made perfect sense. That was the point (June 2009) where a lot of people wised up who hadn't been sure before.

But the PMF crowd will never wise up. Rather than admit they got suckered, they have wasted countless hours trying to convince themselves that worthless evidence is good evidence. In the back of their minds, they know it's not good evidence, so they try to improve on it by interpreting everything Amanda ever said or wrote as evidence of guilt. The tiniest error or inconsistency becomes a "lie" even if it has no relevance to anything.

 

[Rolfe]

Continuation Part Six: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

I read a story somewhere about a couple who encountered someone (or two people) running in slightly odd circumstances, and joked, if these were robbers running away from the crime, would we be able to describe them? Just for entertainment, they wrote down as exact a description of the people as they could.

Turned out that's exactly what had happened, and the meticulous, deliberate descriptions led the cops to the right people in very short order. I think that sort of occurrence must be pretty rare though.

For another identification horror show, see here. www.vetpath.co.uk/lockerbie/photoid.pdf

Rolfe.