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

[Mary_H]

I have a list of Amanda's lies.... can I post them instead of Machiavelli? It is a very, very short list. Guilters love to talk about them, but rarely try to list them... or claim that the 12:47 call home that Amanda cannot rememeber is a "lie", therefore stretching the daffy-nition a bit.

No! I don't want to give him any ideas.

 

[Machiavelli]

I have a list of Amanda's lies.... can I post them instead of Machiavelli? It is a very, very short list. Guilters love to talk about them, but rarely try to list them... or claim that the 12:47 call home that Amanda cannot rememeber is a "lie", therefore stretching the daffy-nition a bit.

You are right. I never tried to list them.

I did that on purpose. I didn't want to tell Amanda Knox and her supporters the points of evidence about this.

 

[NancyS]

And why would it matter to you, an unconnected citizen, about the fate of Knox-Sollecito or about the events of their trial?

This one is easy - access to a fair trial is one of the most basic and essential human rights - and this was definitely not a fair trial.

 

[Machiavelli]

This one is easy - access to a fair trial is one of the most basic and essential human rights - and this was definitely not a fair trial.

The other question is equally easy. Mignini is an anti-mafia prosecutor, a trusted member of the judiciary, and the enforcement of justice and its legitimacy is a most basic and essential need for a citizen.

 

[Bill Williams]

You are right. I never tried to list them.

I did that on purpose. I didn't want to tell Amanda Knox and her supporters the points of evidence about this.

Wow. You and Mary_H are now in cahoots!

Me, though, I don't think I am that important. I will list the lies... I just have to figure out how to use this mouse-thingy to open the folder they are in. You'll be disappointed, Machiavelli. All the lies you list are things like her saying, "I was at Raffaele's," which rather begs the question don't you think?

You keep going back and forth from this present "this is war" stance to the more patriarchal, "I'm going to teach them a lesson" stance you usually take.

 

[Machiavelli]

For about the 100th time, Mignini himself quoted the applicable law to Drew Griffin in the 2010 CNN interview. Mignini explained that when Knox "named" Lumumba, Mignini shut things down because of these reasons.... (underlining mine for emphasis....)

(...)
Incredibly, though, he continues with the interrogation, past 1:45 am with none of these guarantees intact.
(...)

There was no interrogation after 1:45.
And there was never a claim of such by the defence: this claim that you make here has never been part of the trial.

Amanda Knox released an oral spontaneous statement to Mignini, and two further written statements.
It is ascknowledged, now proven, that it was a statement not an interrogation; you'll never have evidence of the contrary, despite all revisited Knox-stories. They are late claims. Knox made her claims during the investigation, her defence made their claims. The witnesses gave their testimonies, Knox's acounts were inconsistent and she claimed nothing different than a statement for years, Anna Donnino's words are totally credible and has no misconduct to answer about.
The question is over.

 

[LondonJohn]

Some questions and points:
1. Have you read the defensive submission to the Supreme Court? You would need to have the text of it, in order to know what the Supreme Court was actually asked.
2. rather than a question, a point which may know this: the Supreme Court was petitioned by the defence, so the legal assumption is, all what the defence deemed could be risen in Knox's defence, was risen.
If you assume the Supreme Court did not consider any "suspect vs witness" issue seeing it as "unnecessary", you are implying that the defence saw it as as not useful, this assumption itself weakens the credibility of the argument and should lead you to doubt about it.
3. the statements were not ruled "inadmisssible"; this is not correct. Instead they were called "not usable for objections" in the murder case (it's not a ruling but an indication); they were however admitted into the case file.
4. the Supreme Court in eny avent could not look into the issue "suspect vs. witness" status, because this is the merit of a lower court's assessment; it's a matter of fact-fiding - moreover, related to a partial/subkective point of view about an evidenatiary picture - and the SC would not assess it directly.

The SC ruled that the statements could not be used against Knox (or anyone else) in the murder trial. Therefore, for the purposes of the murder charges, what happened on 5th/6th November in that interrogation room should have been immaterial, inadmissible and irrelevant. Therefore, in strictly judicial terms, it was automatically moot as to whether or not Knox was correctly categorised that night. In judicial terms related to the murder charges, it's as if Knox had no contact at all with the police until she actually WAS arrested later on the 6th.

She could not be relaesed on bail, this is impossible in Italy.
Police arrest would last 48h at maximum; prosecutor's decree of arrest would last another 48-72h. The investigating judge decree of arrest would last for a year, unless further findings.

Hmmm. I think you may be arguing semantics here. What could have happened to Knox (and anyone else, for that matter) is exactly tantamount to what we would call police bail. What could have happened is that Knox could have been arrested, detained and questioned, then allowed to leave while still remaining under formal arrest, while further investigations were made and further decisions on charging were made.

In fact, exactly this sort of thing happened to Costa Concordia captain Schettino: he was arrested the morning after the shipwreck incident, but was soon released while still under formal arrest. He actually remained under house arrest for a while, but this was overturned a few months later and he remained at liberty pending formal charges and his trial process.

I think the word "disingenuous" might be appropriate here.....

 

[acbytesla]

On Mignini, I would say that it's crucially important that public officials of this sort are fully held to account (fairly to account, of course). When someone assumes this sort of office, they assume certain responsibilities and obligations that are well above and beyond those required of private citizens.

If people in these sorts of public office are suspected of corruption or other malpractice, in my opinion it's critically important that these suspicions are fully and fairly investigated by a disinterested third party that has the power to impose extreme sanctions if necessary.

If Mignini did commit misconduct in the MoF trial process (and I don't know whether he did or not), then yes, I think he should be held accountable for that and punished severely. Not only would such action punish Mignini and prevent him from further malpractice, it would also clearly act as a deterrent to other public officials from committing malpractice themselves.

If Mignini didn't commit malpractice, then I would expect an investigation to show that. Mignini should have nothing whatsoever to fear from an investigation. He's innocent until proven guilty, remember........

I'm convinced he did. As much as I think it is a travesty what Mignini did in the Kercher case, I actually think the sheer number of people he persecuted in the MOF case makes that easily as horrible as what happened to Knox and Sollecito.

 

[LondonJohn]

The other question is equally easy. Mignini is an anti-mafia prosecutor, a trusted member of the judiciary, and the enforcement of justice and its legitimacy is a most basic and essential need for a citizen.

And people in Mignini's position must be held to an extremely high standard of probity, integrity and honesty.

Look, there are only two reasonable alternatives regarding this Mignini business:

1) There is reasonable cause to investigate Mignini for malpractice/abuse of office.

2) There is some sort of unjustified persecution of Mignini going on, involving trumped-up or entirely false accusations.


If 1), then the process should be allowed to be followed to its conclusion. If the process is poor and/or too lengthy, that's another matter, and one should look at changing the process.

If 2) then those suspected of persecuting Mignini should themselves be investigated accordingly, and brought to account if necessary.

So which is it? 1 or 2?

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

You are right. I never tried to list them.

I did that on purpose. I didn't want to tell Amanda Knox and her supporters the points of evidence about this.

Wait a minute here. Are you saying there are points of evidence not yet disclosed in, what are we up to now - 3 trials?

 

[NancyS]

The other question is equally easy. Mignini is an anti-mafia prosecutor, a trusted member of the judiciary, and the enforcement of justice and its legitimacy is a most basic and essential need for a citizen.

But if there is even a possibility that a member of the judiciary has acted in an unethical way, this needs to be thoroughly investigated.

 

[Bill Williams]

There was no interrogation after 1:45.
And there was never a claim of such by the defence: this claim that you make here has never been part of the trial.

Amanda Knox released an oral spontaneous statement to Mignini, and two further written statements.
It is ascknowledged, now proven, that it was a statement not an interrogation; you'll never have evidence of the contrary, despite all revisited Knox-stories. They are late claims. Knox made her claims during the investigation, her defence made their claims. The witnesses gave their testimonies, Knox's acounts were inconsistent and she claimed nothing different than a statement for years, Anna Donnino's words are totally credible and has no misconduct to answer about.
The question is over.

For anyone to believe this, one would have to believe that Knox herself wrote, uncoached, "I wish to make a spontaneous statement," when the spontaneity of the statement was the very legal point on which it turned.

It is simply ludicrous to claim that the interrogation didn't continue beyond 1:45 am. It's amazing you'd try to claim such.

 

[LondonJohn]

Wait a minute here. Are you saying there are points of evidence not yet disclosed in, what are we up to now - 3 trials?

And wait a double-minute here! Is Machiavelli seriously trying to suggest here that he knows (or has figured out) something that Knox's own defence lawyers don't know (or haven't figured out)?

And further, is he seriously suggesting that his "withholding" of this "sooper-sekrit" information is a pompous and deliberate attempt to hamper Knox's chances of a successful defence?

Wow. I didn't think I'd see anything approaching this level of bogus self-importance!

 

[Bill Williams]

Wait a minute here. Are you saying there are points of evidence not yet disclosed in, what are we up to now - 3 trials?

LOL! So much for full disclosure.... withholding evidence against someone is grounds for having the charge thrown out....

 

[Machiavelli]

Yeah, I agree. By contrast, it must have been really inexpensive to pay someone to listen to every one of the 30,000+ telephone intercepts that the police carried out on Sollecito/Knox and their friends/family. Not to mention the transcription of a significant proportion of those.

No comment required really. But do you not suppose that the police conducting what was possibly the highest-profile investigation of their entire careers might have taken every reasonable precaution to "defend themselves". Especially if they were sitting in a state-of-the-art police HQ, interviewing a woman who - even under the most police-friendly definition - was by far the most significant living person in the investigation. When nothing more than a gentle press of "record" and "play" would have been required to protect their position in case they were later accused of misconduct?
(...)

The problem is you seem attribute these things to the same power; maybe even to the same budget.
In fact, it's two independant powers.
The phone wiretappings are ordered by an investigating judge (GIP), it's the judiciary. Another branch of the state, nothing to do with ministers, administrations and government. The police does not have any influence on those decisions and did not take any initiative.

The recording inside a police HQ instead is a police matter. It's their territory; it's minister of interior, it's government. They take decisions on their technical activities, things like informants interrogations there take place as initiatives of police detectives.
The two powers simply operate differently, they are separate and don't follow the same criteria. They actually do not provide the same operational standard. Even their personnell does not have the same capabilities and competences.
Recording and budgets related to informants interrogations and all what has to do with informants interrogations depends on police initiative and decisions.

 

[Mary_H]

20’48’’ Then I, as I had in some way to, let’s say… this police interrogation had been suspended. At that point I remember that… they made me notice that Amanda, because she wanted to go on talking, I remember she had, like a need to. So I told her: “you can make statements to me; I will not ask questions, since if you make a spontaneous statement and I collect it, I will collect your statement as if I were in fact a notary”. She then repeated [her story] to the interpreter, who was Mrs. Donnino, I remember there was a police woman officer who wrote the statement down [verbalizzava], I did not ask questions. She basically repeated what she had told the police and she signed the statement. Basically I didn’t ask Amanda questions. Not before, since the police asked them and I was not there, and not after, since she made spontaneous statements. Had I been asking her questions, a defense attorney should have been there. This is the procedure. <snip>

This one always cracks me up. It reminds me of a sketch Paula Poundstone used to do, in which she catches her cats on the kitchen counter and they look at her guiltily, as if to say something like, "Why, yes, of course, we were just getting down, because, after all, wasn't it you who was saying just the other day that cats should never climb on the kitchen counter?"

 

[LondonJohn]

But if there is even a possibility that a member of the judiciary has acted in an unethical way, this needs to be thoroughly investigated.

Exactly. Machiavelli doesn't seem to understand or accept that different classes of people deserve to be held to different standards of behaviour and probity.

 

[Machiavelli]

But if there is even a possibility that a member of the judiciary has acted in an unethical way, this needs to be thoroughly investigated.

I agree.
If there is conduct which is illegal ("unethical" doesn't meany anything).

But the Knox-campaign has never been investigating any illegal conduct of the judiciary. They are instead attacking the legitimacy of a power which is acting legally, by runnung an extra-judicial tool known as macchina del fango, so basically they are a criminal and subversive force.

 

[acbytesla]

Exactly. Machiavelli doesn't seem to understand or accept that different classes of people deserve to be held to different standards of behaviour and probity.

No, in fact, he suggest the exact opposite. That different classes of people should not be required to face scrutiny.because they are above it and beyond reproach.

 

[LondonJohn]

This one always cracks me up. It reminds me of a sketch Paula Poundstone used to do, in which she catches her cats on the kitchen counter and they look at her guiltily, as if to say something like, "Why, yes, of course, we were just getting down, because, after all, wasn't it you who was saying just the other day that cats should never climb on the kitchen counter?"

Yeah I love it too (and it's also reminiscent of Massei's stellar reasoning about Capezzali).

"Yeah well, if I'd been asking her questions, a defence attorney would have had to have been present. A defence attorney wasn't present. Therefore that's proof that I wasn't asking her questions".



The Marx Brothers would have been proud of that self-serving mangling of logic.