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

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lionking said:
And what in the name of FSM has this to do with the case?

I think Tofufighter is spot on.
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I thought the comment was clearly pointing out that like the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese, which was a military blunder of disastrous consequence for Japan, the verdict today is seen as a victory for the Italians but will end up quite differently after Mignini presents his case to an American court and ends up swimming back to Italy holding his briefcase in his teeth, hopefully staying in front of some pursuing great whites just long enough for a photo-op before they catch him.

Please explain why that analogy is "disgusting" as Tofufighter depicted above. Perhaps I jumped when I shouldn't have, but I thought the comment was with regard to his having the audacity to mention the Japanese, and my point was there is plenty more to talk about.
 
GWCarver said:
Please explain why that analogy is "disgusting" as Tofufighter depicted above. Perhaps I jumped when I shouldn't have, but I thought the comment was with regard to his having the audacity to mention the Japanese, and my point was there is plenty more to talk about.
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I can't believe I'm being asked this question. An analogy involving a murder case and war atrocities? Can't wait for Holocaust analogies.....
 
lionking said:
I can't believe I'm being asked this question. An analogy involving a murder case and war atrocities? Can't wait for Holocaust analogies.....
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At least in his initial comment there was no reference to war atrocities. I read it the same as GWCarver - the Japanese woke a sleeping giant and ultimately lost in no small part because of it. Nothing offensive at all in my reading.

I suspect there's some prior JREF history here that GW and I am not aware of?
 
icerat said:
At least in his initial comment there was no reference to war atrocities. I read it the same as GWCarver - the Japanese woke a sleeping giant and ultimately lost in no small part because of it. Nothing offensive at all in my reading.

I suspect there's some prior JREF history here that GW and I am not aware of?
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You may be right. If so, I apologise.

However, it's getting pretty close to the line.
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
I agree. Dershowitz is the pits. I remember when he said something along the lines of how innocent people may falsely confess, but they don't falsely accuse someone else who is innocent.

Anyone with even a passing knowledge of this subject knows that is a ridiculous statement. I could cite any number of cases... Chris Ochoa, the Norfolk Four, the Central Park Five, Tommy Ward, who couldn't even keep the other suspect's name straight... ("yeah, me and Titsdale did it alright. I held her down and then Titsworth got out his knife..." Meanwhile Titsworth is at home with his arm in a cast from a compound fracture...)

But most people don't have any knowledge of this subject. They would assume there is something to it, because it is coming from an "expert."
I think what is going on here is that these people really think they see something dark and criminal in Amanda, but they realize the facts don't bear out their intuition, so they make up phony facts to convince other people.
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I think that that may be to underestimate their baseness and cruelty. The truth is that there are people who don't share your moral nature. They are not only willing to do whatever is necessary to further their agenda, but actually find it amusing that others who disagree with them can't see what they are really about.

Many of those who applaud the guilty verdict don't really think the two are guilty and think it is funny that people are so upset about it. You probably knew characters like that at school. Don't assume that they all grew out of it. Many of them post on forums just like this one.
 
Soapy Sam said:
I have not followed the case in detail and have no opinion worth anything on (any of ) the verdicts, beyond noting that many people here consider the latest version less "unsafe" than "insane" and that at least some of those are people I consider level headed and usually worth listening to on such matters.

A brief comment though on the multi-cultural setting of the trial, rather than the trial itself.

It is evident from the many photos that Ms.Knox is a very attractive young woman. I can't help wondering, had she been less so, how many people would ever have heard of her?
To what extent did her adoption by the US domestic press as a poster girl or innocent abroad actually engender a backlash against her in Italy?

There also exists a perception , true or false, outside the USA, that when American citizens are involved in crimes abroad, they often get a free pass because the local authority does not wish to upset the US press, public or government. Right or wrong, this perception leads to resentment.

I can't help wondering how influenced by these sort of feelings the Italian legal system has been, rather than being led solely by the evidence. This makes me wonder how dangerous too much publicity can be for an accused person?

It seems pretty certain there will be further appeals.

Not for the first time when looking at legal proceedings, I am aware that the more lawyers dick around, the longer they get paid. This is not a uniquely Italian aspect. I wonder, if other professions were able to drag their jobs on indefinitely, whether they too would be such a mess as most legal systems seem to be.
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IMO cultural perceptions of America do play a role. A couple of cases in particular rankle the Italians. One is a disaster where a US fighter plane clipped a cable car at an Italian ski resort, sending 20 people to their deaths. The USAF hustled the pilots out of the country. They were court-martialed in the US and acquitted. A second incident involved CIA agents who abducted an Islamic preacher from Italian soil and flew him to Egypt, where he was tortured. Again, the US got its people out of Italy. One of them, Robert Lady, was sentenced to 9 years in prison by the Italian courts but the US refuses to extradite him.

I think its fair to say Amanda is bearing the brunt of some of that resentment.

It's also worth noting that the Italian court system has generally left-wing political sympathies. The "honorary president" of Italy's highest court is in fact a bona fide truther:

http://www.journalof911studies.com/resources/2012-September---Imposimato-letter.pdf

That kind of political orientation may well introduce a bias in a high-profile case involving an American defendant with vociferous American supporters.

For purposes of comparison, take a look at the Eric Volz case in Nicaragua. Volz is even more obviously innocent than Amanda, if such a thing is possible, but that didn't stop him from being convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend, a Nicaraguan. He was in another city at the time of the murder, in an office with more than a dozen alibi witnesses who testified for him. It's hard to believe he would even have been charged had he not been an American. (He was subsequently freed through what passes for diplomacy between the US and Nicaragua.)

Early media accounts of the Meredith Kercher case played heavily on a cultural stereotype, depicting Amanda as a loud, vulgar party girl with a sense of entitlement. She is not like that at all. She is polite and friendly, with an unassuming presence, and she is somewhat introspective and bookish. A lot of people cannot let go of the story put out in November 2007, however, perhaps because it rings true from what they have seen of American college students in general.
 
Soapy Sam said:
<snip>A brief comment though on the multi-cultural setting of the trial, rather than the trial itself.

It is evident from the many photos that Ms.Knox is a very attractive young woman. I can't help wondering, had she been less so, how many people would ever have heard of her?
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Probably many fewer. On the other hand, there is a very strong case to be made that she would not have been arrested had she been less attractive.

To what extent did her adoption by the US domestic press as a poster girl or innocent abroad actually engender a backlash against her in Italy?
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The backlash against her in Italy existed for 2 1/2-3 years before the US press started looking at both sides of the case.

There also exists a perception , true or false, outside the USA, that when American citizens are involved in crimes abroad, they often get a free pass because the local authority does not wish to upset the US press, public or government. Right or wrong, this perception leads to resentment.

I can't help wondering how influenced by these sort of feelings the Italian legal system has been, rather than being led solely by the evidence. This makes me wonder how dangerous too much publicity can be for an accused person?
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That did not happen in this case. In this case, there was no evidence against the American defendant.

It seems pretty certain there will be further appeals.

Not for the first time when looking at legal proceedings, I am aware that the more lawyers dick around, the longer they get paid. This is not a uniquely Italian aspect. I wonder, if other professions were able to drag their jobs on indefinitely, whether they too would be such a mess as most legal systems seem to be.
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It's human nature that the more you get rewarded for something, the longer you do it.
 
Somewhat lost here is the boyfriend. He's going back to jail right? What a raw hand he's been dealt.
 
lionking said:
If that's true, he is an idiot of monumental proportions. He must be one of the most identifiable people in Europe.
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Skynews over here are reporting that Raffaele was stopped at the border with Solvenia, if so I wonder if he’ll be released.
 
GWCarver said:
I ran this through Google Translate, and it would seem to be saying nothing more than Raffaele was notified by the police in Udine, Italy - where he was visiting his girlfriend - that he was now under travel restrictions as a result of today's verdict.
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icerat said:
My Italian is poor, but I thought it says he was woken by police in Udine, which is in Italy, and that he went there with his girlfriend. It was she who visited family in nearby Austria and returned.

He was not so much arrested as taken to the station to surrender his documents and advised of the travel ban as per court order
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icerat said:
Mary, I'm curious where you got that "interpretation" from? Even a run through google translates somewhat wonky translator doesn't imply what you say.
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Sorry, icerat, I picked it up in a conversation on Facebook and from some tweets. I put the question mark because I was wondering if anyone knew any more about it, and apparently they did.
 
Raffaele was contacted by the police near the Slovenian and Austrian borders and his passport seized.
I guess fleeing was his plan only if he had been ordered back to prison on remand.
 
anglolawyer said:
Stefano Maffei just showed up on the BBC's radio 4 news programme. He was running a Central Scrutiniser-type line saying the verdict was correct and making the point that 27 judges had now upheld it. He also thought there was no prospect of a successful extradition.

I reviewed a civil case here recently in which the overall judicial score, after a first instance decision and three appeals, was 10-3. Unfortunately for the losers, the 3 formed the majority of a 5-judge Supreme Court so tough. I happen to think the court reached the wrong decision and the majority got it right. I don't know whether a majority of other lawyers think the same nor what difference it would make if they did.
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Someone needs to tell Maffei that 27 judges have not upheld the conviction. Something like 19 judges, at the beginning of the case, upheld the right of the prosecution to move forward with the case, before the case was tried. They had nothing to do with commenting on the convictions.
 
Arthur Wilson said:
I think that that may be to underestimate their baseness and cruelty. The truth is that there are people who don't share your moral nature. They are not only willing to do whatever is necessary to further their agenda, but actually find it amusing that others who disagree with them can't see what they are really about.

Many of those who applaud the guilty verdict don't really think the two are guilty and think it is funny that people are so upset about it. You probably knew characters like that at school. Don't assume that they all grew out of it. Many of them post on forums just like this one.
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Sure, we're seeing that here, and some of the people on the hate sites clearly operate from spite more than conviction.

But I have trouble ascribing that mind set to Dershowitz, who I would expect to care about his reputation.

Dershowitz didn't say anything about Amanda's case until after she was released. He apparently formed an opinion after reading John Follain's book. If that was his main or only source of information, it's easy to see how he was led astray. Now I suppose he is committed. He can enjoy being on the same team as "Harry Rag" and Peter Quennell and Brendan Mull. What Harvard law professor wouldn't want those associates?
 
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