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

[acbytesla]

No offense Bolint. But I don't understand at all how you could come to the conclusion that Amanda was at the cottage, but wasn't involved in the murder and yet she kept her mouth shut for a guy that killed her roommate a guy she had barely knew, who didn't speak English. Or why that same guy would trust her to keep her mouth shut. And then why Raffaele would say for 6 years that Amanda never left the apartment.

None of your theory makes any sense at all. You have a conspiracy between 3 people and yet you say that one of them wasn't at the cottage and the other you have at the cottage but not involved?

Can't you see just how unbelievably absurd that is?

 

[davefoc]

Thanks for your response Davefoc! I am familiar with the numerated points you make though I am struggling to see how they have relevance to the post I made.

Let’s not kid ourselves, this case could have been over in March of last year if there hadn’t been so much to lose for the prosecution’s main players. The main argument from the prosecution regarding the DNA is that the contamination has to be proved, this argument is completely nuts of course because it’s impossible to see the exact point when an invisible entity was transferred to any given surface. This argument is important because it preserves the reputations of the likes of Steffanoni for instance.

If it is hypothesised that the DNA on the knife could have been transferred onto the surface by Amanda picking up Meredith’s DNA from the cottage by completely innocent means either by on her clothing or hands perhaps even days before Meredith was killed then it would rule out the contamination argument having to be proved since it wouldn’t exist and offer a resolution to the case. This would offer a fig-leaf for Steffanoni to creep out the back door with her reputation more or less intact.

Preservation of honor is a big thing in Italy where we don’t really have an emotional equivalent either in the US or GB without being subject to ridicule and deservedly so! (we're made of sterner stuff are we not)? The Hellman court offered the calumny as a fig-leaf but it obviously wasn’t enough, I just thought that the above compromise might have been enough to play their silly little game and let us all get on with our lives, that’s all!

Hoots!

Innocent transfer is, of course, a possibility. I listed the reasons why I thought that innocent transfer was probably not the explanation for the knife test results. One of the things, that I became aware of in the course of this thread, perhaps from Chris Halkides, is that when DNA is found without an identifiable body fluid source the result is much more difficult to interpret. If the DNA on the knife would have been found in a blood stain the test results would have had a much clearer evidential purpose for this case. The DNA on the knife was found without any material that could be used to identify the source. So as you suggest the DNA could have gotten there through innocent transfer. Nobody can know.

ETA: I reread your post. I think now that your point was that if the judge and jury had realized that innocent transfer was a possibility for the DNA test result they should have assumed an innocent transfer as the explanation.

This is a much different idea than that I responded to. Sorry. My thoughts on this question are more complicated and I am not sure anybody would have an interest in them. I would say that this trial has obviously never been run with the idea of excluding evidence that was of questionable value. This evidence would be much stronger than much of what has been allowed if the only explanations for the results were innocent transfer or that the knife was the murder weapon. Innocent transfer might have happened, but it seems unlikely. Knox got home, opened the drawer and a few Kercher skin cells settled on to the blade? Knox sheds thousands of her skin cells every day what are the chances that a few Kercher skin cells make there way on the knife instead of one of the millions of skin cells Knox sheds? Not to mention all the skin cells Sollecito is shedding and yet it is Kercher's DNA that is found?

 

[acbytesla]

I hope bolint answers you, because that's what I want to know too.

Earlier bolint suggested that it was absurd that she would go to the cottage in the morning, or maybe that she would take a shower and change there having arrived to find the front door ajar.

After all this time, it's hard to imagine the ordinary Seattle 20-yr-old who thinks she's about to go spend a couple of days with her new boyfriend. He has his own flat (with maid service!) and his own car -- very unusual degree of comfort and privacy in a college town. He's graduating in a couple of weeks. He's clearly fun in the sack.

But they've just known each other for a week or so, and though she's been spending nights at his flat, her things are all at hers. She's been going to her shared house to clean up and get things and eat and so on all week. She did it again on the morning after Meredith was killed.

Anything absurd so far? Anything about this scenario seem too ridiculous to be believed?

Not to me, in fact I'm surprised that Amanda raised the alarm at all. So what,the front door is ajar? So what that Amanda notices a couple of very tiny drops of blood. Or even poop in the toilet. Strange maybe, but so strange that you call the cops?

The problem in my mind is that all of these people are viewing this through hindsight. They all know that Meredith is dead behind that bedroom door. But why would Amanda even think that for a second? Meredith has other friends and Amanda knows this. If I'm Amanda, I would figure that my roomie just crashed at her British friends house or she got lucky. I'd have been on my way to Gubbio.

I still wonder if Amanda would have been suspected at all had she and Raffaele had taken off and Meredith's body was discovered days later?

 

[Antony]

Let me put it this way:
I think it is unlikely that the DNA got there during the course of the murder.

Agreed, because there would be no occasion for a participant in the murder to touch the bra hooks. Yet the PGP argument is apparently that this is the only possibility.

I think it is unlikely that the DNA got there through an innocent transfer prior to the murder.

That depends on how you quantify "unlikely". Certainly the innocent transfer routes are far more plausible than it being deposited during the course of the murder. This alone gives reasonable doubt.

I think it is unlikely that the DNA got there through contamination during the recovery and storage process.

Why unlikely? There is a publicly-available YouTube video showing the investigators handling the clasp by the metal hook, with visibly dirty gloves.

I think it is unlikely that the DNA got there through contamination during the testing process.
I think it is unlikely that an error was made during the testing or analysis process and the DNA that was tested didn't have the alleles found to be there.
I think it is unlikely that the DNA test results were accurate but the DNA was not Sollecito's
I think it is unlikely that Stefanoni intentionally falsified her results.

You haven't included the possibility that the item was deliberately planted, having been already smeared with Raff's DNA. Given that the investigators on the YouTube video act as though they have prior knowledge of its significance, before any testing is made, then I don't think that can be considered particularly unlikely, either.

 

[Dougm]

The other way around. I find her deceptive, because her story is absurd.



Oh, it could have been altered very easily if they had delivered waterproof and coherent versions of that night.

Not even in their books.

This is the type of thing that has always amazed me about this case. They deny everything in their books, but they do it in a way that is honest, because they want people to see the truth about who they really are. So Raffaele, for example, examines if there is any way Amanda could have slipped out without him knowing, even though he knows how unlikely that is from the get go. He does it just to show people he is honestly reviewing the possibilities and not blindly protecting some girl he slept with a few times.

This is why many people would prefer to be lied to, and why politicians do it all the time. Just say, unequivically, you didn't do it. No way, no how, we weren't anywhere near there, in fact, we were out in the country. That would still not satisfy people.

That is why we have to look at the evidence, instead of what he or she said on a given Thursday afternoon, on a blog, or in a book. They both said they didn't do it, over, and over, and over, yet for some, it will never be enough.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Let me put it this way:
I think it is unlikely that the DNA got there during the course of the murder.
I think it is unlikely that the DNA got there through an innocent transfer prior to the murder.
I think it is unlikely that the DNA got there through contamination during the recovery and storage process.
I think it is unlikely that the DNA got there through contamination during the testing process.

I think this (last possibility) is far and away the most likely explanation with the knife blade. This happens all the time in PCR labs, which is why the most common type of misconduct involves falsifying controls.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

peak heights

My understanding is that reported results were that the height of the peaks for Sollecito were considerably higher than that of the other males. This suggested to me that Sollecito is more likely to have touched the hook than the other males whose DNA on the hook is at low levels that might be explained away as noise, or some kind of contamination that didn't necessarily include Solecito DNA.

It is this line of thought that you are wary of? Presumably DNA results that report small contributions of DNA from other individuals aren't excluded per force. I am thinking of a situation where blood from a public space is analyzed. There might be a lot of DNA from other individuals in the sample, but the blood would be judged to have come from the individual whose DNA was judged to be at the highest concentration?

One problem is that blood is rich in DNA but so is saliva. Another problem (and the one I think is far more serious), is that there is no way to know how much biological matter one is sampling from a piece of evidence. This issue came up with respect to Garofano's interpretation of the mixed DNA samples. He suggested that the fact that Amanda's peaks were higher than Meredith's peaks was because Amanda's DNA came from blood. In response to a question of mine, Professor Dan Krane wrote, “Inferring tissue source from peak heights is just plain silly -- to the point of being absolutely outrageous. It hardly bears more comment than that, but if high peaks mean blood then what would you expect from semen which has a ten to one hundred fold higher concentration of DNA?” One might possibly defend Garofano against Krane's argument by saying that Garofano was talking about relative peak heights, whereas Krane may be talking about absolute peak height. But even if this were true, I don't think that one can get around the sampling size problem mentioned above. And Professor Krane is not the only one who finds fault with Garofano's argument.

Getting back to the clasp, some have argued in effect that the other male contributors' DNA is the result of some sort of contamination, perhaps from the environment, but Raffaele's is there because he handled it. If only DNA could be so obliging as to tell us where it came from in this way. One objection I have to the argument above is that Raffaele's autosomal profile is about 6-to-8 fold smaller than Meredith's. So why if Raffaele's peaks are there from primary transfer, then how to we account for the size differential with respect to Meredith's peaks?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

This is the type of thing that has always amazed me about this case. They deny everything in their books, but they do it in a way that is honest, because they want people to see the truth about who they really are. So Raffaele, for example, examines if there is any way Amanda could have slipped out without him knowing, even though he knows how unlikely that is from the get go. He does it just to show people he is honestly reviewing the possibilities and not blindly protecting some girl he slept with a few times.

This is why many people would prefer to be lied to, and why politicians do it all the time. Just say, unequivically, you didn't do it. No way, no how, we weren't anywhere near there, in fact, we were out in the country. That would still not satisfy people.

That is why we have to look at the evidence, instead of what he or she said on a given Thursday afternoon, on a blog, or in a book. They both said they didn't do it, over, and over, and over, yet for some, it will never be enough.

I had an interesting exchange with someone on Amanda's blog. I explained how it's possible to reconstruct what happened from the physical evidence at the crime scene and the nature of Meredith's injuries. She didn't dispute that. Instead she challenged the premise that a burglar would behave that way, noting that most burglars don't and Guede never had done anything similar before.

There's really no way to perturb the mind that subordinates fact to intuition. They believe what they believe, and it ain't gonna change.

 

[acbytesla]

This is the type of thing that has always amazed me about this case. They deny everything in their books, but they do it in a way that is honest, because they want people to see the truth about who they really are. So Raffaele, for example, examines if there is any way Amanda could have slipped out without him knowing, even though he knows how unlikely that is from the get go. He does it just to show people he is honestly reviewing the possibilities and not blindly protecting some girl he slept with a few times.

This is why many people would prefer to be lied to, and why politicians do it all the time. Just say, unequivically, you didn't do it. No way, no how, we weren't anywhere near there, in fact, we were out in the country. That would still not satisfy people.

That is why we have to look at the evidence, instead of what he or she said on a given Thursday afternoon, on a blog, or in a book. They both said they didn't do it, over, and over, and over, yet for some, it will never be enough.

I agree with your post entirely. As someone who spent an entire lifetime in sales, I know what you are talking about probably better than most. I sold high end IT equipment and I worked very hard at understanding exactly how my products fit into the landscape. The features, the shortcomings etc. etc. etc. Still, you would often be asked if your product could do this or that. And sometimes the answer would be unclear. Customers want a simple yes or no, when the answer was often not that simple, that there were conditions.

Believe me, they want you to be sure that your product solved all of their problems. I use to work with a very successful rep who pretty much told everyone what they wanted to hear. After all, most of the time the customer would often forget precisely what you told them to begin with. I just couldn't do that and I lost more than a few sales because in their minds the uncertainty frightened them.

I read both their books and found them to be very forthcoming. I can see how some of their uncertain statements might be seen by some as troubling. Me on the other hand, I saw their uncertainty as honest. Raffaele admits that he has no idea where Amanda was (while he was asleep). As if any of us knows what happens around us while we are sleeping?

I was troubled by Amanda confirming that she played a harmless prank on her college roommate. I just knew the crazies would be spinning it as a sign of her guilt. I saw it as someone honest to a fault.

I don't get Bolint. his/her theory doesnt' fit the evidence and is extremely illogical.

 

[davefoc]

Before answering let me just make note of the fact that Charlie Wilkes most likely explanation with regard to the source of the DNA on the knife was the same as mine. I am still reveling a bit in my new found sense of self ascribed credibility on this issue as a result.

...

Why unlikely? There is a publicly-available YouTube video showing the investigators handling the clasp by the metal hook, with visibly dirty gloves.

Because the amount of non-Sollecito DNA lying around was vastly greater than the amount of Sollecito DNA lying around so the possibility that Sollecito's DNA ended up on the bra hook by random unintentional contamination instead of somebody's DNA that had lived in the bedroom or visited the bedroom or had lived in the house strikes me as very unlikely.

You haven't included the possibility that the item was deliberately planted, having been already smeared with Raff's DNA. Given that the investigators on the YouTube video act as though they have prior knowledge of its significance, before any testing is made, then I don't think that can be considered particularly unlikely, either.

I meant the item I listed on contamination to include both intentional and unintentional contamination. If I'd been the guy in charge of wiping the piece of the bra with Sollecito DNA I would have fired me. Really, you wipe the DNA on the hook, but no place else? What an idiot. It could have happened but I think the Italian police would have picked somebody a little smarter for the job.

ETA: I completely agreed with everything else you posted that I didn't quote.

 

[davefoc]

...

There's really no way to perturb the mind that subordinates fact to intuition. They believe what they believe, and it ain't gonna change.

This strikes me as a very precise way of expressing this idea.

One thing to note, I think, is that people who often rely on intuition with little introspection about it may be the sane ones. Skeptics exaggerate the importance of truth, even if sometimes it's important to know, most of the time it isn't. I understand that from the perspective of AK and RS, this is one of those times where truth is important.

 

[Wildhorses]

This strikes me as a very precise way of expressing this idea.

One thing to note, I think, is that people who often rely on intuition with little introspection about it may be the sane ones. Skeptics exaggerate the importance of truth, even if sometimes it's important to know, most of the time it isn't. I understand that from the perspective of AK and RS, this is one of those times where truth is important.

What?

I must be reading wrong. You can't possibly mean what I read you as saying.

 

[davefoc]

What?

I must be reading wrong. You can't possibly mean what I read you as saying.

I meant it, (I'm guessing here as to what you think I meant), but that doesn't mean it isn't complete BS.

I have a theory that skeptics substitute a belief in the importance of truth for religious beliefs. For a good part of my life I was sort of a jerk when I thought I was right whether the issue mattered or not. Eventually, I came to see my belief that truth mattered as unfounded in most cases. I just believed it. Now, except for posting in this forum, I try to restrain my attempts to be a zealous idiot for truth.

 

[Strozzi]

The eventual retrieval of the bra-clasp shows it being handled by the hooks and at least one of the wearers having dirty gloves. If an eejit like me can get it, why can’t the Italian judiciary?/QUOTE]

TomG, not sure if you know who the person wearing dirty gloves is. That tech with the dirty gloves seen handling the bra clasp, placing it on the floor so it can be photographed there in an act of actual evidence fabrication, picking it up again with her dirty gloved fingers, and apparently rubbing her dirty gloves on it is none other than . . . drum roll, please . . . Dr. Patricia Stefanoni, the police forensic scientist responsible for collecting, preserving, analyzing, and documenting all DNA evidence in this case! Yep, the star scientist for the prosecution!

 

[RandyN]

Let me put it this way:
I think it is unlikely that the DNA got there during the course of the murder.
I think it is unlikely that the DNA got there through an innocent transfer prior to the murder.
I think it is unlikely that the DNA got there through contamination during the recovery and storage process.
I think it is unlikely that the DNA got there through contamination during the testing process.
I think it is unlikely that an error was made during the testing or analysis process and the DNA that was tested didn't have the alleles found to be there.
I think it is unlikely that the DNA test results were accurate but the DNA was not Sollecito's
I think it is unlikely that Stefanoni intentionally falsified her results.

If I made estimates for all the possibilities listed above and added them up the sum would be less than one. Yet the sum must be one unless there is some possibility that I haven't considered. Something appears to be wrong with my ideas about this but I'm not sure what it is.

ETA: I thought I'd order the list from most likely to least likely. Of course, since the probability estimates are based on my admittedly not well informed view of all this it isn't worth much.

DNA got there through contamination during the testing process.
DNA got there through contamination during the recovery and storage process.
Error was made during the testing or analysis process and the DNA that was tested didn't have the alleles found to be there.
Stefanoni intentionally falsified her results.
DNA got there through an innocent transfer prior to the murder.
DNA test results were accurate but the DNA was not Sollecito's
DNA got there during the course of the murder.

OK I can agree with most of your points here...except that

Lets take out RS and just deal with the other three men found on the bra clasp first OK? Lets do that and then we will come back to RS and if he is or is not found there.

So does that change anything about your ideas or the likelihood of the order of logical explainations?

What gives you the confidence about Stefanoni? Perhaps since no one has made a case or done much of an investigation of her besides C and V it may seem like she is competent but perhaps unlucky. Is that what you think?

Because I think there are a series of facts revealed over the years and mostly from statements Stefanoni made in or acted out in open court that indicate certainly incompetence but more likely corruption. I think she was forced to act on the orders of her boss Biondo but that hardly forgives that huge number of irregular and suspicious lab activities from her own hand and mouth that points to guilt of corrupt activity beyond a reasonable doubt. Why even the reason for the return to the crime scene on Dec 18th is never explained nor does the dopy defense seem to probe this seeming unusual and unnecessary return. Not that I recall anyway.

Stefanoni lies in court about quantification in the detention hearing. If she had told the truth that that sample 36b was tested for blood and found to be negative, tested as something not human, and was of a size too small to test then could that be important especially in the case against Knox?

At that point they contended they had RS dead nuts because of his shoe prints...they had nothing on Knox at all...unless you wish to consider something even the ISC refused to allow into court because it was illegally obtained. The non confession confession.

Stefanoni lies during the trial when she infers the luminol samples are from blood and yet fails to mention that the TMB testing was preformed and all tests showed a negative result. A real scientist does not play games with the facts like this...if she truly thought these prints were still from blood but only diluted then she is qualified and understands certainly all (there are many) the easy and available tests to confirm blood. This is not new science...it is simple and able to be proved to the highest degree of certainty. But she not only does not confirm but she even failed to reveal the truth about TMB testing. Sara Gino had to pick that out of the data. This is not the way honest scientists do things.

Nor do honest courts and prosecutors ignore the dangers of using severally conflict of interested consultants like Biondo who sat beside Mignini for most of the trial. This strikes me as especially odd. As a reminder Biondo is the manager of the lab that Stefanoni works for. And...

During the first trial the defense asked for a DNA review and received one...yes indeed Mr Biondo himself confirmed that Stefanoni's work was sound and up to standards and therefore safe. And Massei not only accepted that conclusion without batting an eye but then refused further requests for a more independent review. This alone is enough to prove that Italian courts and the police scientific labs are unsafe for making any conclusions except proof that someone needs some brush up on how to lie without coming off as complete idiots courses.

We could talk about Stefanonis refusal to turn over data asked for by the independent experts and required the judge to twice email her and order her to comply and it remains unclear if she ever fully complied. What is clear is that whatever the IE got, that they only received it a day before they were due to report their conclusions to the court...instead they had to go in front of the court and ask for a extension since they just got the data...or most of what they needed anyway. Later the IE were both thanked by a visit each from two car loads of Perugia goon squad...errr police officers...what could that be all about? That story is also found somewhere on Perugia Shock IIRC ( btw Did Randy get eaten by a shark)

A real court would have tossed Stefanoni and Comodi into jail for failing to comply, and twice attempting to introduce false or incorrect control data information into the case file. Who gets caught doing that and gets away with it? Fake documents found in the days case files and nothing??? Well questions and a break to find the real documents but when they failed guess what???They simply tried again later to introduce faked documents...faked? Harsh perhaps...incorrectly dated data with numbers that matched nothing and could not have come out of the machines which should produce such information easily and unaltered. That would be inside the EDF's that no one needs to see except for Stefanoni apparenty.

If the Italian Justice system allows itself to be ignored, lied to and tricked and after catching the actors red handed they then fail to take action to stop the mockery of the court then the court must be deemed a laughable joke only. Who can take anything they do seriously?

If you wish to take one small irregularity and give it a possible innocent mistake judgement call then fine...but the whole of the circumstantial evidence against the police and prosecutor seems undeniable. The decision in March of the ISC indicates something other than rational due process going on there.

I think Stefanoni looked at that result from the bra clasp and saw RS there because she was ordered to do that. How can we explain the other three men she ignored on there? She didn't find those guys BTW...the IE found those other guys. Hummmmmmmm not too tough actually.

 

[Strozzi]

Hey, if Tom is getting paid, where the hell is my check? Who do I call at Marriott, because the direct deposit thing isn't working.

acbytesla, Marriott asked the widow of a Nigerian general to forward it to you. She's been emailing you asking for your bank account but you have ignored her.

 

[Wildhorses]

I was pleased Snowden mentioned the book “Why People Believe Weird Things.” It’s an excellent book.

For those interested in this topic, I’d like to recommend another book: “Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts” by Tavris and Aronson.

Humans are funny: when evidence indicates they are wrong, most become MORE convinced they are right. We have a strong innate tendency to alter our perceptions of facts and people, rather than accept we got something wrong.

"Mistakes Were Made..." gives examples of this phenomenon and provides an overview of the abundant research on it. It includes a chapter on prosecutors who have refused to back down when DNA or other evidence proved they were wrong and a chapter on the Reid technique; but also shows how this tendency operates in daily life. Much will be old hat to people familiar with confirmation bias -- and some may be put off by the book's pop psychology air. But keep reading: it’s well researched and goes deeper than is apparent at a glance. IMO the citations, alone, are worth the price of the book.

I mention this in reference to Charlie’s comment that people don’t change their minds. They don’t. To be precise, research studies fairly consistently show that two-thirds of us don’t. Tavris and Aronson call this the most robust finding in the history of social psychology.

If it were up to me, books like this would be taught in high school. I think the tendency to stick with an opinion, despite contradictory evidence, comes naturally and had survival value on the savannah, but no longer serves us... especially in the courtroom.

 

[anglolawyer]

I meant it, (I'm guessing here as to what you think I meant), but that doesn't mean it isn't complete BS.

I have a theory that skeptics substitute a belief in the importance of truth for religious beliefs. For a good part of my life I was sort of a jerk when I thought I was right whether the issue mattered or not. Eventually, I came to see my belief that truth mattered as unfounded in most cases. I just believed it. Now, except for posting in this forum, I try to restrain my attempts to be a zealous idiot for truth.

Truth matters in a criminal trial.

 

[Wildhorses]

I meant it, (I'm guessing here as to what you think I meant), but that doesn't mean it isn't complete BS.

I have a theory that skeptics substitute a belief in the importance of truth for religious beliefs. For a good part of my life I was sort of a jerk when I thought I was right whether the issue mattered or not. Eventually, I came to see my belief that truth mattered as unfounded in most cases. I just believed it. Now, except for posting in this forum, I try to restrain my attempts to be a zealous idiot for truth.

I think you're talking about two different things. I have work I must finish, but I hope to get around to responding to your post later.

Until then, what's intuition got to do with it? I bet you've been reading Malcolm Gladwell.... who's okay, but he over-generalizes.

 

[anglolawyer]

I was pleased Snowden mentioned the book “Why People Believe Weird Things.” It’s an excellent book.

For those interested in this topic, I’d like to recommend another book: “Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts” by Tavris and Aronson.

Humans are funny: when evidence indicates they are wrong, most become MORE convinced they are right. We have a strong innate tendency to alter our perceptions of facts and people, rather than accept we got something wrong.

"Mistakes Were Made..." gives examples of this phenomenon and provides an overview of the abundant research on it. It includes a chapter on prosecutors who have refused to back down when DNA or other evidence proved they were wrong and a chapter on the Reid technique; but also shows how this tendency operates in daily life. Much will be old hat to people familiar with confirmation bias -- and some may be put off by the book's pop psychology air. But keep reading: it’s well researched and goes deeper than is apparent at a glance. IMO the citations, alone, are worth the price of the book.

I mention this in reference to Charlie’s comment that people don’t change their minds. They don’t. To be precise, research studies fairly consistently show that two-thirds of us don’t. Tavris and Aronson call this the most robust finding in the history of social psychology.

If it were up to me, books like this would be taught in high school. I think the tendency to stick with an opinion, despite contradictory evidence, comes naturally and had survival value on the savannah, but no longer serves us... especially in the courtroom.

Well, until the last four words of your post I was going to say something about the court room being a place where this human failing is stress-tested to destruction (on account of your ideas being opposed by a similarly-resourced opponent and submitted to a binding dispute resolution procedure, usually with a significant down-side to being wrong) but that assumes a properly-functioning legal process which, as has been observed on this thread already, we do not have in the case under review.