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

[RandyN]

Bill

You are really into this PIP\PGP bubble; it’s almost like you believe it has its very own gravitational field warping space time and reality for everyone outside the bubble.

Its space Jim, but not as we know it!

So in your bubble; the haters\PGP are somehow responsible for Guede’s lenient sentence and the fact he’ll be released far too soon?

"All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing"

Don't hear many "poor Rudys" from the pro facts side of the case.

 

[kwill]

Forza Amanda and Raffaele.

I second that, and extend it to their families and friends.

In Seattle tonight it's drizzly after an unbelievable long, beautiful week of late January sunny blue days. Everywhere there are green and blue reminders that one of our sports teams has made it to the final show. And lots of people here are in disbelief that Amanda Knox -- normal as laundry soap -- is somehow still on trial for Rudy Guede's crime.

I predict that Amanda will become a respected writer and defender of victims of injustice. I predict that Raffaele will become a man universally honored for his courage and steadfast honesty. I predict that we'll be proud of the Seahawks, who have spent the entire season staying in every single game until the final seconds, and winning almost all of them.

 

[Dan O.]

I think he means to point out that everyone was apparently running around with tiny pocket cameras. I saw that on the video too...also the video reminded me at just how much trouble they all seem to have with those pesky masks.

No worries since "DNA cant fly"...was that Comodi or Stefanoni? Aaaaachooooooooo!!!

Only those two had pocket cameras. Fabio Palmieri (AKA Mountains) had the real Nikon D80 or D50 camera and Raffaele Montagna captured the video.

 

[Poppy1016]

Is the verdict definitely going to be handed down tomorrow? If so, I wonder what time it will be announced.

 

[Kaosium]

I agree with Mary's comment that Rudy could be in danger (from the police or their handymen). Rudy could do a lot of harm to the PLE if he tells what he did that night and how the police and prosecutor roped in innocent people. Suppose his lawyer told him to play along and not rock the boat and he discusses that. If I were a journalist like the apprentice who befriended Curatolo, Quintavall and Nara, I would be salivating at the chance to befriend Rudy with a concealed recorder turned on.

What would make Rudy talk? Liquor could loosen his tongue. Drugs. Money. Even just a good friend willing to listen.

I doubt that is a concern. Mario Alessi and two other inmates incarcerated with Guede testified in the appeals trial that Guede told them Amanda and Raffaele had nothing to do with it. Whether that happened or not, Rudy ought to be on his guard that it could happen again. If the (latest) appeals court finds Amanda and Raffaele guilty again, Rudy is in the enviable position of being able to claim he had little to do with the murder as per Mignini's theory of 'poor, poor Rudy' being scapegoated by the diabolical duo of Raffaele and Amanda.

Perhaps Crini will also muse sympathetically how Rudy failing to flush the toilet caused Amanda and Raffaele to murder the justifiably outraged Meredith and how difficult that will be for Rudy to live with!

"Poor, poor Rudy!"

 

[Strozzi]

There was actual laughter in the courtroom when the forensic goofballs bra clasp video played.

I guess Massei saw no problem with that.

This verdict is based off humans who I have serious questions about their ability to know this case. How could these people understand C&V without hearing them explain the results?

Im sure a lot of courtrooms are like this, with untrained people listening to DNA science presentations and not understand 5% of whats being said.
Then they go to a room and make a verdict on someones life? Anyone see anything wrong with this?

Ive never followed a case like this for so long, and its all seeming pretty sloppy and ignorant (in an innocent way)...its just the current system Italy has today. As good as it gets, I guess?

I of course agree that jurists may not comprehend scientific evidence and that that poses a grave threat to justice. I earlier advocated that whenever the defense refers to luminol they need to say each and every time that it is a "presumptive test for bleach, fruit juice, soil. fertilizer, feces, makeup, blood, rust, iron, et al", so that dumb jurists remember and internalize that luminol reacts to many common materials, not just to blood.

I once observed a judge and attorneys questioning potential jurors for a trial. A lady was being interviewed and she explained that among her various activiites she was developing a cure for cancer. Asked where she was working on a cure, she said at her kitchen sink. An attorney immediately used a presumptive challenge to disqualify her from the jury "on the grounds that she may lack the ability to understand scientific evidence."

 

[Kaosium]

So in your bubble; the haters\PGP are somehow responsible for Guede’s lenient sentence and the fact he’ll be released far too soon?

Those who failed to criticize Mignini's prosecution of this case are intrinsically wedded to the lenient sentence Rudy received. That is, of course, because if Mignini had prosecuted Rudy honestly and with the same vigor and ingenuity he employed against Raffaele and Amanda, Rudy would have had to face a stringent investigation into his doings regarding breaking into the school and stealing their knives and having been caught with the stolen laptop, cellphones and the woman's gold watch. It just so happened his neighbor whose house caught on fire unexpectedly was missing a woman's gold watch. That's just what came to the surface from a little poking around, imagine if a real investigation had been done with the resources at the disposal of the police. It was Mignini (or Comodi's) responsibility to investigate those crimes, they chose instead to blow them off.

How can those who've shown support for and even given rhetorical cover to Mignini's nutty inclusion of Raffaele and Amanda--which absolves Rudy of most of the blame for the crime---be anything but complicit in his walking the streets soon?

 

[RandyN]

What Charlie said.

This all started with my claim that John Douglas's credentials were impeccable. (High falooting language, I know....)

The Guy Paul Morin case was, first and foremost, bungled because of what can be called outright police/prosecutorial fraud. Perhaps it would be better for Douglas-critics to point out where Douglas participated in fraud.

Profiling is like anything else, as Charlie suggested, it does not replace investigation. It seems one of the bits of chicanery that the Morin investigators played is calling in Douglas when they already had narrowed their sights... were themselves engaging in investigative myopia that tends to be the hallmark of wrongful prosecutions.

And like anything profiling has its limits. I'd read about the Steven Truscott case in Canada in the 1950s, where teenager Truscott was convicted mainly on the, then, not-well-understood science of stomach contents analysis. The issue back then seemed to be that lay-juries regarded science as voodoo, and as accurate "just because it was science." Lay juries would be prone to even ignore the caveats the scientists themselves would bring because of something similar to the CSI-effect.

So... what does any of this have to do with John Douglas and Douglas Preston writing a book about "The Forgotten Killer", about Rudy Guede in the horrible Meredith Kercher murder in 2007?

Let me put it this way - on the one side there is John Douglas.... proclaiming Sollecito's and Knox's innocence. On the other side there is an essentially anonymous Wiki by a man named Edward McCall.

Last night I spent the same amount of energy going through the bona fides of Mr. McCall, his educational background, his law enforcement training, his experience in the field, his claim about access to original transcripts.... as others have (apparently) done in ascertaining what to make of this "impeccable credentials" claim about John Douglas. It was a short investigation!

Did you know that no less that respected journalist Andrea Vogt cites this anonymous-Wiki as the key to understanding this horrible murder?

I, for one, would love to be able to expose this Wiki as drawn from and assembled by people with "impeccable credentials", but you know what? No one knows who they are! John Douglas et al. puts himself out there... here's my work, go to it. Criticize it. Peer review it. Tear it apart in some equally anonymous JREF discussion group. Make my day.

Strangely, this willingness to be reviewed settles many troubled hearts in discerning what's what in horrible murders.

Edward McCall? Even the JREF mods cannot invoke rules in censoring criticism of him because, no one knows who he is! If he's a poster here on JREF, no one knows which he is. At least Crini is willing to put his name to asinine theories of pooh in toilets leading Meredith to become such a bitch about cleanliness, that it leads to her roommates rising up against her. (Note: Crini's theory is a completely unfair, and venomous attack, essentially, on Meredith's character! Of course Meredith did not do that. And she's the victim here!) But Crini is putting it out there to be reviewed....

..... which is the question CoulsdonUK says is the one which interests him. What will Judge Nencini put his own name to in the forthcoming motivations report? Will Nencini buy into this character assassination of Meredith? Or will Nencini write about, as directed by the ISC, that Meredith was at least initally a willing participant in a sex game until it went wrong?

If Nencini convicts tomorrow, maybe the good judge will be hoping that no one will read his motivation for doing so.

Well we know one is Vogt. Another is her less precise... English as a second language... husband, and who else is closely related to her in this field? (don't birds of a feather usually.....) Well, one person could certainly be Paul Russell who is her partner. He is also a documentary producer with early experience on the Broadway stage... he was fired early on by a Brit TV channel for failing to present anything other than a one sided script on this case... as if directly from the mind of Mignini...lets see Oh and he co-authored the PGP book Darkness Descending.

Then again it could just be a pen name for brMull who has dropped off the radar likely at the advice of his treating physician. You are correct that they remain hidden... but not hard to figure out really...there are a limited number of whack a moles in that PGP game.

 

[anglolawyer]

I of course agree that jurists may not comprehend scientific evidence and that that poses a grave threat to justice. I earlier advocated that whenever the defense refers to luminol they need to say each and every time that it is a "presumptive test for bleach, fruit juice, soil. fertilizer, feces, makeup, blood, rust, iron, et al", so that dumb jurists remember and internalize that luminol reacts to many common materials, not just to blood.

I once observed a judge and attorneys questioning potential jurors for a trial. A lady was being interviewed and she explained that among her various activiites she was developing a cure for cancer. Asked where she was working on a cure, she said at her kitchen sink. An attorney immediately used a presumptive challenge to disqualify her from the jury "on the grounds that she may lack the ability to understand scientific evidence."

Nyki Kish was convicted by means of an 'irresistible inference' drawn by the trial judge to explain the presence of her and the victim's blood on a knife. There was no scientific evidence. He just made it up. In our case, the ISC lost the plot on contamination. Maybe we should go back to tossing witches in the river to see if they float.

 

[RandyN]

Coulsdon in an earlier post suggested that the "devil was in the details". Something I treated as a bit of a punch line. Not that I disagree per se. There is truth to his statement even though I believe any guilty verdict will lead to a farcical motivation.

I can't say that I've been a fan of any of the judges including Hellmann and not just because Hellmann convicted Amanda of the charge of Calunnia. Each of the trials short circuited the process. Hellmann and the other judges disappointed me in the fact that they "allowed" the prosecution to play games. They should have told Stefanoni that if she didn't turn over the EDF files and other documentation that he would be held in contempt of court and incarcerated as well as pay a fine.

This is how you restore faith into a bankrupt system. You make people accountable for their actions. You demand that "theories" be based on evidence and you demand that the evidence be presented in court. I guaranty that Stefanoni would have turned over the files if she was put in jail.

Well sure...the whole thing about the Italian judicial system is that they allow themselves to be foolish or at least appear illegitimate and therefore a joke because of all the foolishness they simply allow to happen or ignore that which occurs in the public court.

At the end of the day every judge in this case including Hellmann had to "wink" certain critical shortcomings away in order to come to the conclusions they ended up with.

Hellmann winked away the finding (which he certainly appears to agree with) that Knox was illegally interrogated and yet he ignored those facts when he then flipped and claimed she should have known better...while also winking away the no real interrupter, no lawyer provided and no way possible for her to know that Lumumba was innocent. Lumumba could still be guilty since his alibi is not perfect enough to completely rule him out. So with no way to know he was innocent it follows that there is no way to commit that crime only in Italy called Calunnia...lingus. (sp?)

Remember, it was always the police who brought Lumumba into the case. Knox did not! The police certainly slandered Lumumba along with violating several other of his rights. A half baked investigation and rush to arrest and then no further investigation of him to back up their arrest...did they seal his house? Examine his clothes? Question his wife? CSI his home? Those answers all appear to be no. And that makes this case and this charge particularly stinky. Hellmann is the stinker of this one. Trying to save Italian faces and keep the Justice system coffers flush...and look at the thanks he got.

These are not mental giants by any stretch. I'm guessing that the ECOHR sees the crap from Italy every day. I wonder how similar appeals have worked out there? Sure Italy has the most violations...but does that even matter? Obviously not to the Italians.

It may be love...so says the ISC! Not a joke? Come on.

 

[Bill Williams]

Is the verdict definitely going to be handed down tomorrow? If so, I wonder what time it will be announced.

Past imperfect. Future tense.

 

[Bill Williams]

Nyki Kish was convicted by means of an 'irresistible inference' drawn by the trial judge to explain the presence of her and the victim's blood on a knife. There was no scientific evidence. He just made it up. In our case, the ISC lost the plot on contamination. Maybe we should go back to tossing witches in the river to see if they float.

He also said that whoever it was who brought the knife to the other side of the streetcar, could be convicted simply by that act. Of course his simplified scenario had it being Kish... in his reasoning, to the exclusion of all others.

 

[RandyN]

Originally Posted by JREF2010 View Post
There was actual laughter in the courtroom when the forensic goofballs bra clasp video played. I guess Massei saw no problem with that. This verdict is based off humans who I have serious questions about their ability to know this case. How could these people understand C&V without hearing them explain the results?

Im sure a lot of courtrooms are like this, with untrained people listening to DNA science presentations and not understand 5% of whats being said.
Then they go to a room and make a verdict on someones life? Anyone see anything wrong with this?

Ive never followed a case like this for so long, and its all seeming pretty sloppy and ignorant (in an innocent way)...its just the current system Italy has today. As good as it gets, I guess?

I of course agree that jurists may not comprehend scientific evidence and that that poses a grave threat to justice. I earlier advocated that whenever the defense refers to luminol they need to say each and every time that it is a "presumptive test for bleach, fruit juice, soil. fertilizer, feces, makeup, blood, rust, iron, et al", so that dumb jurists remember and internalize that luminol reacts to many common materials, not just to blood.

I once observed a judge and attorneys questioning potential jurors for a trial. A lady was being interviewed and she explained that among her various activiites she was developing a cure for cancer. Asked where she was working on a cure, she said at her kitchen sink. An attorney immediately used a presumptive challenge to disqualify her from the jury "on the grounds that she may lack the ability to understand scientific evidence."


The laughter was during the appeal trial (Hellmann) when the IE were presenting their conclusions about Biondo/Stefanonis work.

They may have laughed during the first trial (Massei) but I don't recall reading or hearing that back then.

The luminol evidence in this case should have been attacked as first unproven and then second as meaningless since blobs in a hallway where hundreds of booty (dust mop) clad police roamed into the bloody room and then back out and down the hall and then outside to the patio and wherever they wanted apparently are the likely cause...but wait they were not blood...hummmm

It was never evidence of anything ....except that Stefanonis failure to reveal TMB testing completely indicates some amount of effort to deceive on her part. Deceive who? The court. A repeating pattern with her if they actually look.

 

[Strozzi]

I doubt that is a concern. Mario Alessi and two other inmates incarcerated with Guede testified in the appeals trial that Guede told them Amanda and Raffaele had nothing to do with it. Whether that happened or not, Rudy ought to be on his guard that it could happen again. . .

They didn't get a full story from Rudy, recorded in high fidelity. We're not looking for testimony to stand up in an Italian court, but rather a recorded conversation for the media exposure that will shed light on the case, on Rudy acting alone, and on how the PLE roped in two innocent people.

Here's my lead in:
"Rudy, here, have another. I remember seeing you play basketball some years ago. You were good. You could dunk, couldn't you? Like the best of them. How did you learn to do that? Tell me about it . . . This is good stuff. Let me fill your glass. So was it the coach who taught you? I heard he is a good coach. Quite a guy! Who else on the team could go up so high? . . . "

 

[Kaosium]

I second that, and extend it to their families and friends.

In Seattle tonight it's drizzly after an unbelievable long, beautiful week of late January sunny blue days. Everywhere there are green and blue reminders that one of our sports teams has made it to the final show. And lots of people here are in disbelief that Amanda Knox -- normal as laundry soap -- is somehow still on trial for Rudy Guede's crime.

I predict that Amanda will become a respected writer and defender of victims of injustice. I predict that Raffaele will become a man universally honored for his courage and steadfast honesty. I predict that we'll be proud of the Seahawks, who have spent the entire season staying in every single game until the final seconds, and winning almost all of them.

As for my prediction regarding the verdict...well....I just wish I had the faith in the Italian justice system that Tesla and LJ have. This judge seems surprised at the basic facts of the case (the Naruto file for instance) which have been discussed on these boards for more than three years now. There's little hope that panel of lay jurors is aware of just how dubious every prosecution contention is, especially since Cassation chimed in effectively legitimizing 'evidence' they never heard and taking only the prosecution's interpretation of it. It's cringeworthy to see clowns like Curatolo taken seriously, or at least just the part of his testimony the prosecution would prefer and not the part where he would effectively 'alibi' them for all times of the murder up to nearly 12...or when the 'disco buses' that didn't run that night took off.

All things considered...I want to puke.

Regarding the other event, the one most care much more about: Good luck to you all, I'll be rooting for Russell Wilson and the Seahawks as well. It was fun watching him play for the UW and nice to see him prosper in the NFL, perhaps you've enjoyed that as well.

I recall his first big comeback victory for the Seahawks intimately, it was against the Packers in the last of the 'replacement' referees game the year the zebras struck. Some say the...odd...ending to that game contributed to the NFL finally settling that strike. I was torn as I thought the call an abomination but it didn't hurt much to lose an early season game and I wanted Wilson to do well in the NFL. Big Ten QBs and those not 6' often have a tough time of it and I root especially for those players, like Drew Brees, who in one memorable game against the Badgers played his heart out and threw some ungodly number of passes keeping Purdue in the game and never quitting.

 

[Kaosium]

They didn't get a full story from Rudy, recorded in high fidelity. We're not looking for testimony to stand up in an Italian court, but rather a recorded conversation for the media exposure that will shed light on the case, on Rudy acting alone, and on how the PLE roped in two innocent people.

Here's my lead in:
"Rudy, here, have another. I remember seeing you play basketball some years ago. You were good. You could dunk, couldn't you? Like the best of them. How did you learn to do that? Tell me about it . . . This is good stuff. Let me fill your glass. So was it the coach who taught you? I heard he is a good coach. Quite a guy! Who else on the team could go up so high? . . . "

My suspicion is if we hear anything from Rudy it will be self-serving nonsense and condemn Raffaele and Amanda as that lie works so well for him. He had a chance to do the right thing and he just helped the prosecution once again. How could he ever admit to it when playing along with what transpired allows him to place blame against others? That just so happens to coincide with what most in Italy want to hear not to mention the family of the one he murdered.

This whole situation is beyond twisted now. Warped and disgusting in virtually every regard.

 

[Dan O.]

Some more names that were involved in the activities at the cottage on December 18:

Monica Napoleoni
Professor Dr F. Vinci - Technical consultant to Sollecito
Francesco Camana - blood splatter analysis
Stefano Buratti - always outside the house
SBARDELLA PIERO - Assistent to Stefanoni, collect biological samples
POLITI ROBERTO - Luminol tests
CODISPOTI GIUSEPPE
GIOBBI EDGARDO
​

Some people entered at different times or perhaps not at all.

 

[Strozzi]

My suspicion is if we hear anything from Rudy it will be self-serving nonsense and condemn Raffaele and Amanda as that lie works so well for him. He had a chance to do the right thing and he just helped the prosecution once again. How could he ever admit to it when playing along with what transpired allows him to place blame against others? That just so happens to coincide with what most in Italy want to hear not to mention the family of the one he murdered.

This whole situation is beyond twisted now. Warped and disgusting in virtually every regard.

How could he ever admit to it? Here's how: booze, followed by more booze. Or drugs. That's how. And tape record it for the media report. Rudy talking doesn't have to pass a Perugia court test. I'm talking about Rudy saying what really happened that night. How he got in, how he regrets what he did to Meredith, that he was alone, and how he fled. The Italian people will find it credible if it is recorded and they will realize what a frame up Mignini and the others committed.

 

[Kaosium]

How could he ever admit to it? Here's how: booze, followed by more booze. Or drugs. That's how. And tape record it for the media report. Rudy talking doesn't have to pass a Perugia court test. It just has to make it to the Italian media for Italians to find it credible and realize what a frame up Mignini and the others committed.

I dunno, how would a drunk or drugged up Rudy be all that convincing? Three have testified under threat of charges (there were originally four who were going to testify to being told that by Rudy but one dropped out when the prosecution threatened them with additional prison if they testified) that Rudy said Raffaele and Amanda had nothing to do with it. He said during the Skype tape when he thought he was just talking to his friend before he was captured that Amanda had nothing to do with it, but that hasn't convinced many.

 

[anglolawyer]

I dunno, how would a drunk or drugged up Rudy be all that convincing? Three have testified under threat of charges (there were originally four who were going to testify to being told that by Rudy but one dropped out when the prosecution threatened them with additional prison if they testified) that Rudy said Raffaele and Amanda had nothing to do with it. He said during the Skype tape when he thought he was just talking to his friend before he was captured that Amanda had nothing to do with it, but that hasn't convinced many.

He might buckle and say what we already know to be true.