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

[Kevin_Lowe]

As for Racial bias, how many of us would have even noticed a news story of an Ivorian drifter\drug dealer had murdered a British student in Italy?

Haven't we had this conversation before?

Perugia depends on students for its income. Students are a very mobile population who can move on with little difficulty and who, if I may make so bold as to generalise, don't want to be raped and murdered in their own homes. There could well have been political pressure to attach the murder to a foreign student rather than a local - note also how Raffaele, the Italian, plays much less of a role in talk about the crime than Amanda, the American.

Otherwise Perugia might get a reputation as a place where local scumbags, who the police keep releasing despite them having been caught red-handed engaged in armed robbery, rape and murder young women. That would be bad for business.

Of course without mind-reading and time-travel capabilities we'll never know for sure who was thinking what. However this incredulity over the idea that Perugian police would not eat crow and admit they had the entire crime totally wrong just so they could make it all about the black career criminal they kept releasing seems rather contrived. I think you're trying too hard to make matters confusing for yourself.

 

[NancyS]

As another side issue, I observe a curious angle to the wish - the need - of various pro-guilt commentators to see Knox and Sollecito convicted and imprisoned for the Kercher murder.

In some high-profile criminal cases, the prior notoriety of the suspect(s) can prejudice people. For example, one might successfully argue that Saddam Hussein was given a flawed trial and was executed with indecent haste - but that might be offset by a prejudice against his previous behaviour when in office. Likewise, one might be inclined to pursue Al Megrahi for guilt over the Pan Am bombing even if one had doubts over the evidence presented at his trial, since he was an agent of a Libyan state that had undoubtedl done some deeply nasty and immoral things before the bombing.

But in the case of Knox and Sollecito, the Kercher case is all there is. None of the pro-guilt commentators can be basing their pursuit of Knox/Sollecito on anything other than the evidence (or lack of evidence) in this specific case, combined with what they think they know about the characters of the two suspects. In my view, many of them have decided to reinforce their positions by deciding that what they are fighting for is "justice for Meredith", and, behind this overarching truism, constructing the false equivalence that "justice for Meredith" is synonymous with "convictions for Knox and Sollecito".

Such a falsely-constructed psychological "comfort blanket" is fascinating to observe, especially when it's nurtured and reinforced in a blinkered, self-referencing environment. But furthermore - and much more insultingly - a significant subset of such "thinkers" (maybe even all of them) believe that pro-acquittal/pro-innocence commentators are actively anti "justice for Meredith". This false belief seems to mainly be founded on a bogus assumption that many (most?) pro-acquittal/pro-innocence commentators actually know or suspect Knox and Sollecito to have committed the murder, but choose (for some bizarre and unspecified reason) to commentate in favour of their acquittals/innocence nonetheless.

I tells ya, when this whole sorry charade is finally played out, there will be a fascinating - and educational - dissertation/research paper to be written on the online commentary on this case, with specific focus on the nature, structure and strategies of the pro-guilt community.

PS: I note with interest that one of the pro-guilt commentators recently pronounced herself to be "heartened" by the number of anti-Knox comments (many of them fairly vitriolic) under an online newspaper report. Truly a fascinating - and disturbed - group of individuals, gripped by groupthink, faulty reasoning, and a weird desire for badly-aimed retribution.....

This is an excellent post and I also find the pro-guilt position really hard to understand and can't think of another similar case

A fair trial is one of our most basic and important rights - and I can understand why people are interested and passionate about ensuring that they have a fair trial.
However, I just can't understand this on-line campaign to have them found guilty and convicted. The right to a fair trial is so vital that I would prefer to have ten guilty people go free, than have one innocent person convicted. And a fair trial is reliant on following rules and procedures - and if these aren't followed correctly then the evidence should not be accepted, even if this means a guilty person goes free

The one thing that is clear from the years of debating the evidence, is that there is more than reasonable doubt - and that much of the evidence was collected with blatant disregard for standards and procedures. The pro-guilt people seem to be not just arguing against Amanda and Raffaele - but also arguing against the right to a fair trial and seem to be against the police and prosecution having any professional or ethical standards

 

[LondonJohn]

This is an excellent post and I also find the pro-guilt position really hard to understand and can't think of another similar case

A fair trial is one of our most basic and important rights - and I can understand why people are interested and passionate about ensuring that they have a fair trial.
However, I just can't understand this on-line campaign to have them found guilty and convicted. The right to a fair trial is so vital that I would prefer to have ten guilty people go free, than have one innocent person convicted. And a fair trial is reliant on following rules and procedures - and if these aren't followed correctly then the evidence should not be accepted, even if this means a guilty person goes free

The one thing that is clear from the years of debating the evidence, is that there is more than reasonable doubt - and that much of the evidence was collected with blatant disregard for standards and procedures. The pro-guilt people seem to be not just arguing against Amanda and Raffaele - but also arguing against the right to a fair trial and seem to be against the police and prosecution having any professional or ethical standards

Yes. Much of the pro-guilt commentary seems to be predicated on a false syllogism: we "know" (somehow... intuitively?) that Knox and Sollecito were involved in the murder, therefore "justice for Meredith" can only be accomplished if Knox/Sollecito are convicted and punished accordingly."

I believe that most of those holding this illogical and back-to-front point of view are either ignorant of the facts, incapable of employing good reasoning skills, desperate to "belong" to a self-reinforcing community (in this case, the online pro-guilt community), damaged by a close association with a victim of violent crime, or mentally disturbed. Or a combination of any of the above.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

This is an excellent post and I also find the pro-guilt position really hard to understand and can't think of another similar case.

The Ramsey and McCann haters are just as bad.

 

[Bill Williams]

I think they mostly believe that the insiders, in particular the family, know she did it. They believe other supporters such as those at the Vashon party are just stupid dupes of Melloxes and Marriott.

They also believe commenters must be paid by Marriott.

Peggy, Pete and the few others that have gone public with real names seem to be interested in some sort of strange claim to fame. PQ seems obsessed with Meredith.

Their going after people they thought had supported any aspect of Amanda's or Raf's case is bizarre and creepy.

They seem so happy to see others' pain. Schadenfreude.com or net.

Peggy and other people from Seattle seem to think that their early public opposition to innocence somehow showed that Seattle could be run by these influential families. I also believe that some of these hateful women were and are jealous of the youth of Amanda and her potential to marry and have a family.

For the record, every time I received a cheque from Marriott, it bounced!

I suppose when the innocenters get going about the background or mental health of the haters guilters PGP folk, those folk think of the PIP who say it as just out of touch; or engaged in undue hyperbole.

It's one of the problems with this medium of communication.

I have said things I truly regret... but one of the reasons, early on, I was led to the views I hold was the completely over-the-top, bordering on stalkerish comments some guilters can manage.

Then again the money is good from Marriott, acc. to at least the face value of the cheques.

 

[LondonJohn]

The Ramsey and McCann haters are just as bad.

What makes those cases different though are that they are (as of right now) genuinely unsolved crimes, and that they are crimes against children committed while those children were sited in their parents' residence (or temporary residence) and under their parents' care (or supposed care).

Under those circumstances, I judge it as more understandable that there's a constituency that vehemently commentates in favour of the guilt of the respective parents. I believe such commentators to be ill-informed, badly-motivated, illogical and guilty of poor reasoning, but I find it much easier to understand how and why they exist.

In the case of Knox and Sollecito, we remove the emotive element of an utterly defenceless young child under her parents' roof and (supposedly) under her parents' case. And we also remove the "unsolved" element. In the Kercher case, there's no "gap" to fill regarding the culprit: Guede did it. And all the evidence is entirely consistent with Guede acting alone.

PS Some games tonight at Chicago and San Diego!

 

[Strozzi]

Yes. Much of the pro-guilt commentary seems to be predicated on a false syllogism: we "know" (somehow... intuitively?) that Knox and Sollecito were involved in the murder, therefore "justice for Meredith" can only be accomplished if Knox/Sollecito are convicted and punished accordingly."

I believe that most of those holding this illogical and back-to-front point of view are either ignorant of the facts, incapable of employing good reasoning skills, desperate to "belong" to a self-reinforcing community (in this case, the online pro-guilt community), damaged by a close association with a victim of violent crime, or mentally disturbed. Or a combination of any of the above.

I was surprised by a pro-guilt woman who knew, just knew, that Amanda was lying about having taken a shower at her flat on her first return home on the morning of Nov. 2. The pro-guilter claims she could tell by looking at photos taken several hours later of Amanda's hair that it had not been washed that morning. So, perhaps we should add another driver - peoples' believe in their exceptional ability - pseudo-scientific expertise - to tell true from false.

 

[LondonJohn]

For the record, every time I received a cheque from Marriott, it bounced!

I suppose when the innocenters get going about the background or mental health of the haters guilters PGP folk, those folk think of the PIP who say it as just out of touch; or engaged in undue hyperbole.

It's one of the problems with this medium of communication.

I have said things I truly regret... but one of the reasons, early on, I was led to the views I hold was the completely over-the-top, bordering on stalkerish comments some guilters can manage.

Then again the money is good from Marriott, acc. to at least the face value of the cheques.

I learned this bouncing-cheque lesson early on, and insisted on bank transfers. But even this is subject to what Marriott's accounts people term "trans-Atlantic money transfer issues outside our control", resulting in me having received no remuneration from the GM supertanker over the previous seven months, save for a paid subscription to "PR Week" and (somewhat bizarrely) a small cast-bronze model of Michelangelo's "David", which arrived by post.

There's a number of very good reasons why pro-guilt commentators on this case are rarely to be found in debate with pro-acquittal/pro-innocence commentators. And it's not difficult to discover those reasons. And it's not difficult to discover which "side" is more interested in having a reasonable, open and robust debate on the issues. Just sayin'........

 

[Bill Williams]

Yes. Much of the pro-guilt commentary seems to be predicated on a false syllogism: we "know" (somehow... intuitively?) that Knox and Sollecito were involved in the murder, therefore "justice for Meredith" can only be accomplished if Knox/Sollecito are convicted and punished accordingly."

I believe that most of those holding this illogical and back-to-front point of view are either ignorant of the facts, incapable of employing good reasoning skills, desperate to "belong" to a self-reinforcing community (in this case, the online pro-guilt community), damaged by a close association with a victim of violent crime, or mentally disturbed. Or a combination of any of the above.

I was surprised by a pro-guilt woman who knew, just knew, that Amanda was lying about having taken a shower at her flat on her first return home on the morning of Nov. 2. The pro-guilter claims she could tell by looking at photos taken several hours later of Amanda's hair that it had not been washed that morning. So, perhaps we should add another driver - peoples' believe in their exceptional ability - pseudo-scientific expertise - to tell true from false.

One if the moderators of one of the guilter sites chafes when she's accused of coming to a determination of guilt about Knox, simply by looking at a picture of her.

She is fully able to speak for herself, but what I read was this... that she'd seen pictures of Knox and Kercher, but not knowing got them mixed up. The one she'd assumed was the victim was Knox and she thought to herself, that's strange, she has the look of a killer to her.

The rest is history. My feeling is that John Douglas should burn all his profiling books, and the FBI should hire this woman with the ability to solve crime by the way someone looks in a one-off picture.

 

[Bill Williams]

I learned this bouncing-cheque lesson early on, and insisted on bank transfers. But even this is subject to what Marriott's accounts people term "trans-Atlantic money transfer issues outside our control", resulting in me having received no remuneration from the GM supertanker over the previous seven months, save for a paid subscription to "PR Week" and (somewhat bizarrely) a small cast-bronze model of Michelangelo's "David", which arrived by post.

There's a number of very good reasons why pro-guilt commentators on this case are rarely to be found in debate with pro-acquittal/pro-innocence commentators. And it's not difficult to discover those reasons. And it's not difficult to discover which "side" is more interested in having a reasonable, open and robust debate on the issues. Just sayin'........

I don't understand Twitter at all, and I'm now told that FaceBook is becoming a thing of the past as other, more tech-savvy services are coming up.....

But my take on the guilt sites, or Facebook threads which promote guilt, is that they almost universally ban anyone who doesn't toe the party line. I got banned from TJMK two years ago for misspelling "homocide", but also saying that the climb in through Filomena's window was not difficult... and this was before the Channel 5 documentary!

This practise of banning opposing points of view, almost universally vilifying those who are close to the families... accusing the families of covering up the fact that they know their loved ones are guilty...

But it's the banning all the while saying that they promote open debate. It is startling how these common practises emerge from people with that point of view.

And as for bank transfers from Marriott..... I initially insisted on those.... then the transfers had about 97% deducted for otherwise hidden service charges. Then I found out that Marriott owned the bank! That guy's a real weasel!

 

[RandyN]

As a slight side point, I think Guede knew exactly what he was doing when he invented the "black man found, black man guilty!" dialogue shouted at him by the fictional "other man" in the cottage. I think he was overtly bringing up a racist angle, in an attempt to force the authorities to bend over backwards to exclude racist thinking from their investigation - and possibly to even go out of their way to give him (Guede) additional benefit of the doubt in a "we're not racist! look!" reaction.

I think Guede knew full well how ethnic minorities were viewed and treated by the authorities in Perugia. I think he invented this phoney dialogue as a pre-emptive strike against these prevailing attitudes.

Sure he knew exactly what he was doing. Pity in Italy he didn't have a Jessie Jackson or an Al Sharpton to help trumpet the racial injustice that was about to go down.

There are different versions of the race card game.

Man, why you always picking on me...don't you understand my ancestors were slaves? But we just caught you selling crack to a teenager. Hey man... its hard out there to be a pimp.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

West Memphis murder case

The Ramsey and McCann haters are just as bad.

There are some who believe that Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin were responsible for the murders of three boys in West Memphis, and that conversation can get pretty heated. I have not followed it closely, however. There may be something in Law and Disorder about this phenomenon with respect to the WM3 case or the Ramsey case, but I cannot put my finger on it at the moment. Did I say what a good book Law and Disorder is?

 

[Strozzi]

And as for bank transfers from Marriott..... I initially insisted on those.... then the transfers had about 97% deducted for otherwise hidden service charges. Then I found out that Marriott owned the bank! That guy's a real weasel!

Bill, I had the same problem with the checks from Marriott. But then I had them pay me in Bitcoins and we haven't had a problem since. They send them to me via the dark web so the PGP won't be able to track my payments. But don't tell anybody.

 

[Mary_H]

Sure he knew exactly what he was doing. Pity in Italy he didn't have a Jessie Jackson or an Al Sharpton to help trumpet the racial injustice that was about to go down.

There are different versions of the race card game.

Man, why you always picking on me...don't you understand my ancestors were slaves? But we just caught you selling crack to a teenager. Hey man... its hard out there to be a pimp.

There goes Bill's screen shot.

 

[andreajo]

As another side issue, I observe a curious angle to the wish - the need - of various pro-guilt commentators to see Knox and Sollecito convicted and imprisoned for the Kercher murder.

In some high-profile criminal cases, the prior notoriety of the suspect(s) can prejudice people. For example, one might successfully argue that Saddam Hussein was given a flawed trial and was executed with indecent haste - but that might be offset by a prejudice against his previous behaviour when in office. Likewise, one might be inclined to pursue Al Megrahi for guilt over the Pan Am bombing even if one had doubts over the evidence presented at his trial, since he was an agent of a Libyan state that had undoubtedl done some deeply nasty and immoral things before the bombing.

But in the case of Knox and Sollecito, the Kercher case is all there is. None of the pro-guilt commentators can be basing their pursuit of Knox/Sollecito on anything other than the evidence (or lack of evidence) in this specific case, combined with what they think they know about the characters of the two suspects. In my view, many of them have decided to reinforce their positions by deciding that what they are fighting for is "justice for Meredith", and, behind this overarching truism, constructing the false equivalence that "justice for Meredith" is synonymous with "convictions for Knox and Sollecito".

Such a falsely-constructed psychological "comfort blanket" is fascinating to observe, especially when it's nurtured and reinforced in a blinkered, self-referencing environment. But furthermore - and much more insultingly - a significant subset of such "thinkers" (maybe even all of them) believe that pro-acquittal/pro-innocence commentators are actively anti "justice for Meredith". This false belief seems to mainly be founded on a bogus assumption that many (most?) pro-acquittal/pro-innocence commentators actually know or suspect Knox and Sollecito to have committed the murder, but choose (for some bizarre and unspecified reason) to commentate in favour of their acquittals/innocence nonetheless.

I tells ya, when this whole sorry charade is finally played out, there will be a fascinating - and educational - dissertation/research paper to be written on the online commentary on this case, with specific focus on the nature, structure and strategies of the pro-guilt community.

PS: I note with interest that one of the pro-guilt commentators recently pronounced herself to be "heartened" by the number of anti-Knox comments (many of them fairly vitriolic) under an online newspaper report. Truly a fascinating - and disturbed - group of individuals, gripped by groupthink, faulty reasoning, and a weird desire for badly-aimed retribution.....

Well said.

There seem to be people who take the 'guilt' of Knox/Ramsey/McCann as permission to be cruel, nasty, and vitriolic. They even attach a noble motive to the behavior - championing the cause of the victim. However, the sordid truth is that they find personal satisfaction in meanness and they've latched on to an excuse to do it in a way that is socially acceptable in a mostly anonymous online kind of way to a like-minded group of people. Once they get started, it's pretty hard to turn around and admit they were mistaken about guilt even in the face of clear evidence that someone else was responsible for the crime. I mean, how could somebody you hate so much be a victim of a miscarriage of justice?

I don't really get why this group is not angrier at Rudy. Maybe bullying somebody burdened with his disadvantages isn't as much fun? Maybe they don't want to be seen as racists?

 

[Antony]

The Ramsey and McCann haters are just as bad.

Just as bad, maybe - but they don't have this bizarre, organised, co-ordinated campaign that we see in the Knox case; at least not that I've seen.

 

[andreajo]

The Ramsey and McCann haters are just as bad.

Just as bad, maybe - but they don't have this bizarre, organised, co-ordinated campaign that we see in the Knox case; at least not that I've seen.

Reading 'Criminal Profiler Pat Brown' on the McCann case might give you the heebie jeebies.

 

[Antony]

Yes. Much of the pro-guilt commentary seems to be predicated on a false syllogism: we "know" (somehow... intuitively?) that Knox and Sollecito were involved in the murder, therefore "justice for Meredith" can only be accomplished if Knox/Sollecito are convicted and punished accordingly."

I believe that most of those holding this illogical and back-to-front point of view are either ignorant of the facts, incapable of employing good reasoning skills, desperate to "belong" to a self-reinforcing community (in this case, the online pro-guilt community), damaged by a close association with a victim of violent crime, or mentally disturbed. Or a combination of any of the above.

I think there's another factor at play, which is on display all too often in reactions to crime throughout history: far too many people see the role of justice not to establish facts, but to enforce punishment. If they see people escaping punishment merely because they weren't involved in the crime, then they feel cheated.

It's almost a truism that the greater the outrage over a crime then the more likely it is that the wrong people will be convicted.(*) I'm reminded of a common reaction following the 9/11 catastrophe, when liberal commentators started expressing disquiet over the holding of suspects without trial at Guantanamo Bay: "They don't deserve a trial, after what they've done!" Duh ...

(*) Having said that, one wonders how many miscarriages of justice never come to light simply because the case wasn't sufficiently high-profile.

 

[Antony]

Reading 'Criminal Profiler Pat Brown' on the McCann case might give you the heebie jeebies.

Well, not the heebie jeebies, but a deep sadness that anyone can be so twisted as to post things like that about a family that has suffered bereavement in such circumstances.

Given that they are officially innocent, isn't there some way that the McCanns can put a stop to such libellous innuendo? It doesn't bode well for Amanda and Raff, even when they are ultimately cleared of the baseless charges.

 

[Rolfe]

There will always be people who will claim they're sure the pair are guilty, even after a complete acquittal. These will be people on the internet, mostly on blog or newspaper comments, and Knox and Sollecito will have to get used to ignoring them. It's not fair, but that's the way it is.

Rolfe.