And I might add that this was by some measure the highest-profile investigation in the recent history of the Perugia State Police. And that the interviews in question were being conducted in a new regional police HQ, which - beyond a shadow of a doubt - had the requisite recording equipment readily available. And that the interviews were being conducted at a time of night when it is vanishingly unlikely that there would have been any volume pressure on either officers, rooms or equipment.
As you, I and others have pointed out several times before, recordings of interviews serve to protect BOTH the police and the interviewee. If the police had only the most honourable intentions regarding that night's interviews, then logically they should have been clamouring to record them! After all, what would be the potential downside to the police of not doing so? It would have required minimal extra investment of time, manpower or money, and could serve to protect the police against any possible accusations of malpractice down the line.
So this raises a potentially-interesting point: is it possible to argue that the police might either have a) destroyed any tape of the interviews that might have existed, in order to destroy evidence of police malpractice (this has been argued before of course); or b) deliberately chosen not to record the interviews, in the prior knowledge that it would make life easier for the police not to have such recordings in evidence given the sorts of interviews they intended on conducting that night.....?
The trouble is that what is at stake here is only the admissibility of any statements produced. As it sits (Mignini's slipping the statments in anyway notwithstanding, because of the simultaneous calunnia) once arrested the fact of no recording or transcription places the ledger at 0 (zero), not into negative territory as innocenters would prefer.
Indeed it is possible to argue both a) and b) above. But it is an argument out of deliberate silence.
Still, once Lumumba had an iron clad alibi and was released, and once Rudy came on to the scene, the real headscratcher is why they continued with Knox and Sollecito. This has been asked many times. There was literally no evidence against Knox, and Raffaele's shoe-rings were disappearing!
To this day, the only real thing guilters can offer is that Knox is guilty because she "lied about Lumumba" a "lie" that is not provable, really, because of what you're talking about (re: mandatory taping on interrogations!) and that Raffaele is guilty because, well.... because Knox is guilty.
That's really the sum total of the case.
Vibio wants to argue that one can be convicted without leaving forensics at the scene. This begs a whole host of questions - namely, that one had better have an iron clad motive against the convicted, something that even Crini does not have - and Massei did not have. (One wonders if Vibio argues this way with and corrects Harry Rag/The Machine who argues mixed blood and an abundant amount of DNA found on the knife and on the clasp!)
Briars argues the meaning of "burglary" and whether or not this implies "theft".
Machiavelli argues that Guede was Knox's pimp, and that Knox could choose not to sleep and suffer no ill effects for the choice. Machiavelli is also not terribly sure if Jan 15, 2014, is Mignin's own abuse of office trial, or if it is only the preliminary.
It's hard to put all these guilter theories into a coherent whole - you wouldn't think it has been six years, and/or that the new prosecutor, Crini, is not arguing any of these things.
Crini is not arguing mixed blood, he's not arguind Knox had no sleep deprivation, he's not arguing motive, he IS arguing about pooh in the toile, he's not arguing that "burglary" is not necessarily "theft", and he's not arguing that lack of forensics means that they still could have done the thing.
Crini is arguing that the kitchen knife is a match for the bedsheet outline, something (if you can believe it) that Mignini himself was too embarrassed to argue.... arguing a two-knife theory instead!!!! You have to admit, it says something that Crini argues something that Mignini simply has too many scruples to try to get away with.
Even Machiavelli now is a convert to the single knife, the outline matches theory. (You wouldn't think it's been 6 years!)
