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

[Darth Rotor]

Grinder,

I think you meant to say linguini.

Thank you, Felix Unger. Well played!

Rudy's defense requested a separate trial ... in the best interests of both parties to blame Amanda and Raffaele for as much of Rudy's crime as they could. It's like the Italian system cannot recognize just how corruptible that is, let us hope that other courts such as the ECHR can.

Thank you for explaining something I could not quite put my finger on.

I note with interest a reference to a certain Biblical personage in your own signature.

Three reasons for that (at least):
1. It is the perfect example of pith. (Two words, one sentence, a lot of meaning) It is for a variety of reasons, the above included, my very favorite passage in the Bible.
2. The "but did he laugh" is a reference to the discussions for years over Jesus' sense of humor, hence my Chesterton quote that follows.
3. I am not an atheist.

Who is a paragon of Justice, in terms of an image offered up with universal appeal? Not sure, but that lady with the scales and the blind fold needs a tissue or two, as one keeps peeling back the onion on this case ... and no, it isn't the onion that is making her weep.

 

[GWCarver]

"If Amanda had gone to work, probably we wouldn't be here." Nencini

This guy sounds like he didn't even look at the evidence. I think it is far more reasonable to suggest if Amanda had stayed home instead of going to work or to Raffaele's apartment, she would be dead.

 

[Grinder]

It's strange that you can be arrested just for lying to the Police but not for theft or breaking and entering.

But this is one thing that has come out from Mach's postings. There truly is a different way of thinking that is fundamental. Lying is worse than stealing. Not only that but because lying is not tolerated it is assumed that unless there is a reason to lie the person must be assumed to be telling the truth (see Curatolo and Quintavalle). The reason to lie must be something very significant, beyond just wanting fame or the appearance of helping out the police.

In a way I can see that lying is worse than minor theft. The problem comes in a case like this where Curatolo et al. are believed completely and the kids are not believed at all.

 

[Grinder]

You're wrong Machiavelli. I have always known the details of the decision. The simple fact that the court ruled that the "amorous nature of their relationship was a mitigating factor" alone is atrocious. It shouldn't be considered as a "mitigating factor".

Since neither of us reads Italian I doubt you or I have the details of this case down. but what Mach is saying and it makes perfect sense is that the law requires mitigation be applied if appropriate and that the lower court didn't consider it properly.

I can see that it possible that the Italians feel that if the under-aged child was willing that the crime is less severe than if she wasn't. Certainly in some jurisdictions date rape is thought of as different from a violent forceful rape.

 

[acbytesla]

Since neither of us reads Italian I doubt you or I have the details of this case down. but what Mach is saying and it makes perfect sense is that the law requires mitigation be applied if appropriate and that the lower court didn't consider it properly.

I can see that it possible that the Italians feel that if the under-aged child was willing that the crime is less severe than if she wasn't. Certainly in some jurisdictions date rape is thought of as different from a violent forceful rape.

She was 11. He was 60. Enough said.

 

[Poppy1016]

Since neither of us reads Italian I doubt you or I have the details of this case down. but what Mach is saying and it makes perfect sense is that the law requires mitigation be applied if appropriate and that the lower court didn't consider it properly.

I can see that it possible that the Italians feel that if the under-aged child was willing that the crime is less severe than if she wasn't. Certainly in some jurisdictions date rape is thought of as different from a violent forceful rape.

Makes perfect sense to me. NOT !

 

[MDDVS]

Since neither of us reads Italian I doubt you or I have the details of this case down. but what Mach is saying and it makes perfect sense is that the law requires mitigation be applied if appropriate and that the lower court didn't consider it properly.

I can see that it possible that the Italians feel that if the under-aged child was willing that the crime is less severe than if she wasn't. Certainly in some jurisdictions date rape is thought of as different from a violent forceful rape.

Yes, but the problem is the way they wrote the law. In my opinion it is another symptom of a culture with unhealthy views towards sex and women. If they wanted to distinguish the Ttwo cases, they could have considered the use of violence as an agravating circunstance instead of considering "love" as a mitigation. It's not the same thing...

 

[Caper]

This is why this topic needs its own subform.... I'm trying to read what's going with the case and I keep reading about a 60 year old having sex with an 11 yr old.

 

[acbytesla]

Yes, but the problem is the way they wrote the law. In my opinion it is another symptom of a culture with unhealthy views towards sex and women. If they wanted to distinguish the Ttwo cases, they could have considered the use of violence as an agravating circunstance instead of considering "love" as a mitigation. It's not the same thing...

A question I have about this case is "the amorous nature"of the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator being considered a mitigating factor.

I want to know if that is law that is written into the statute by the parliament or is it case law? If it is "case law" than I blame the court. If it is parliament written law, then the parliament is responsible.

Either way, it is atrocious to consider that a "mitigating factor" I agree with you MDDVS, It would be entirely different if the mitigating factor is violence or forcible rape...but "love"??

 

[JREF2010]

convicted on probablys

This guy sounds like he didn't even look at the evidence. I think it is far more reasonable to suggest if Amanda had stayed home instead of going to work or to Raffaele's apartment, she would be dead.

True, and even if one of the guessing game scenarios is right, how did they convict on such a bunch of unknown-evidence and ignorant motives by the prosecution?

I'd love to see a transcript of the deliberation.

 

[acbytesla]

This is why this topic needs its own subform.... I'm trying to read what's going with the case and I keep reading about a 60 year old having sex with an 11 yr old.

Your point is more than reasonable Caper. This case we are referring to is only tangentially related to the Kercher case. I wouldn't concern yourself with it at this time.

This is a deeper discussion about the misogynistic nature of Italian legal procedures and the country's culture. This was seen in the case we are discussing and definitely in the Kercher murder.

Amanda was and is portrayed as a sexpot who lured Raffaele and Rudy into murdering Meredith. The Italian authorities and their media to this day demonized Amanda Knox as a luciferina. (She devil) Normal young adult sexual exploration was demonized as aberrant.

Any way, sorry..It is definitely not central to the facts of the case.

 

[toto]

This is pure, malicious slander. She said nothing about being drunk in her statements, and she said she wasn't sure if Raffaele was even present.

She has never said anything about consuming alcohol on the night of the murder.

Is he getting this crap from Mull's wiki?

I was going to ask this question actually because I found it a bit troubling. Amanda and Rafaelle do not say anything about drinking in their books, and if she admitted to drinking as above, even in the fog of confusion that she had when being interrogated would this not be a probably true detail? I would then go on to ask if a mixture of pot and alcohol could lead to a rather motiveless crime? Maybe this has been addressed but if so if someone (Machiavelli?) could point to the original source?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I was going to ask this question actually because I found it a bit troubling. Amanda and Rafaelle do not say anything about drinking in their books, and if she admitted to drinking as above, even in the fog of confusion that she had when being interrogated would this not be a probably true detail? I would then go on to ask if a mixture of pot and alcohol could lead to a rather motiveless crime? Maybe this has been addressed but if so if someone (Machiavelli?) could point to the original source?

Sure, if Amanda herself said alcohol was involved, it would tend to make the premise of her guilt seem easier to believe. That's why Abrams put this falsehood in his article. He's happy to pass on a lie if it will help him convince people Amanda is guilty.

Same as John Follain re-writing her short story to make it sound like she was describing the rape of a woman instead of a man punching out his brother.

But, as a point of plain fact, Amanda has never said or written anything to indicate she consumed alcohol on the night of the murder, and there is no evidence she did.

 

[anglolawyer]

I hope Nencini is honest about stating that in his motivation report. It will be important if he puts it in writing.

I will repeat what I mentioned in a post about two weeks ago. I was once on a a jury. All jurors were informed by the judge when he convened the trial that the defendant had the right not to testify and we were to draw no inference from it. The judge repeated that to us as he sent us into the jury room to deliberate the cae. As soon as we sat down in the jury room, 3 jurors announced that they thought the defendant was guilty because if he is innocent he would have taken the stand to testify. Several of us jurors had to educate our fellow jurors. The verdict, by the way, was "not guilty".

The 3 jurors who stated upon entering the jury room that the defendant must be guilty because if he was innocent he would have testified were all foreign-born. That was evident from their accents as they pronounced English.

Is Nencini referring to the failure to testify in the Massei trial? I understood that Mignini declined to schedule him for cross and Bongiorno launched a broadside at Mig about that in her closing submissions before Hellman. There are a bunch of things that puzzle me about this:

1 why didn't Mig want to question Raffaele?
2 why didn't Raffaele's lawyers put him up anyway?
3 why didn't Raffaele override their advice and put himself up? - ultimately the client makes these decisions, not the lawyer

To draw adverse inferences from the exercise of a right to silence in a jurisdiction in which defendants are permitted (some say expected) to lie is utterly bizarre.

 

[toto]

Sure, if Amanda herself said alcohol was involved, it would tend to make the premise of her guilt seem easier to believe. That's why Abrams put this falsehood in his article. He's happy to pass on a lie if it will help him convince people Amanda is guilty.

Same as John Follain re-writing her short story to make it sound like she was describing the rape of a woman instead of a man punching out his brother.

But, as a point of plain fact, Amanda has never said or written anything to indicate she consumed alcohol on the night of the murder, and there is no evidence she did.

Thanks. Can anyone, maybe someone who argues for guilt, show light on were Abrams gets his source on where (if) Amanda said they were drunk? Primary source of statements or court transcripts?

 

[anglolawyer]

But it is quite well capable to rule in the opposite direction, and I believe it is what they will do in this case. They will rule that the trial was fair, that there was no violation of the ECHR standard to right to counsel, and that anyway this point may not automatically make the proceedigns become unfair.



And I had explaind about it.



It's not exactly the same evidence.
There is still no autopsy. No luminol prints. No bathmat print. No DNA. No blood DNA traces in bathroom.
There was also no overall assessment about several things such as testimonies, like those of the British girls and of Filomena. There was not yet a withdrawal of Knox's alibi by Sollecito, and there was not yet a repeated and changing testimony against Lumumba.



The charges for which Knox was informally "strongly suspected" were false declarations to investigators (art. 371) and favoreggiamento personale (covering up for a criminal person) (art. 378), and also possibly of an alteration of the murder scene.


Raffaele was called earlier, but interrogation was delayed to after dinner basically because he delayed it.



The point is: her involvement in what? They suspected she left his apartment and he was covering for her. It's obvious, because his testimony was too fuzzy, therefore not credible. They both did not remember what they ate for dinner, not a single thing that they did, not even if they had sex, got wrong the dinner time. This complete fog is obviously suspicious.
But leave to do what? Not to commit a murder, they did not have evidence to believe this. But they belived she was elsewhere and knew somethign about the murder.



Not even remotely. Mignini says exactly the same things that I am telling you. That she was not at all a suspect for tha charge of murder.
But everybody agrees that she was "attenzionata" (put under attention) from minute one because she was not credible, and because she is was related to a staging, therefore assessed to be a probable false witness, covering up for the murderer.

So why didn't she have a lawyer to advise her given she was informally strongly suspected of these extremely serious offences?

How do you know what she was suspected of btw? Not that it matters given your concession, but I am curious. What is your source? Are you speculating or has one of those involved said something.

Failure to afford access to a lawyer is only one aspect of the unfairness of the process against her, albeit a fundamental one. I made a list of them which I will try to dig up. I think it numbered about 11 distinct heads of complaint. Since then we have had Cassation's unlawful and irrational intervention into questions of fact and we shall soon have Nencini's motivation to mine for even more points.

 

[NancyS]

I hope Nencini is honest about stating that in his motivation report. It will be important if he puts it in writing.

I will repeat what I mentioned in a post about two weeks ago. I was once on a a jury. All jurors were informed by the judge when he convened the trial that the defendant had the right not to testify and we were to draw no inference from it. The judge repeated that to us as he sent us into the jury room to deliberate the cae. As soon as we sat down in the jury room, 3 jurors announced that they thought the defendant was guilty because if he is innocent he would have taken the stand to testify. Several of us jurors had to educate our fellow jurors. The verdict, by the way, was "not guilty".

The 3 jurors who stated upon entering the jury room that the defendant must be guilty because if he was innocent he would have testified were all foreign-born. That was evident from their accents as they pronounced English.

Definitely agree with this - some people are just not able to speak well in public. I've previously interviewed some really intelligent, knowledgable and experienced people and they just can't adequately explain themselves or talk conherently and fall to pieces when questioned. Some people just have terrible verbal skills

 

[anglolawyer]

I found this post of mine while looking for my list of potential grounds for complaint to the ECHR. This one sets out ECHR guidance on the 'fundamental' right to a lawyer:

Slam dunk. See this paper:

http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/FS_Police_arrest_ENG.pdf

This sets out ECHR guidance on the right to legal represenation which, of course, Amanda was denied at the questura, despite request. Some choice quotes and cases from the paper:

The Court has repeatedly held that the right of any person charged with a criminal offence to be effectively defended by a lawyer is a fundamental element of a fair trial

Imbrioscia v. Switzerland
24.11.1993
Although the “primary purpose” of Article 6 in criminal proceedings is “to ensure a fair trial by a ‘tribunal’”, it does not follow that it has no application to “pre-trial proceedings”.

“access to a lawyer should be provided as from the first interrogation of a suspect by the police, unless it is demonstrated in the light of the particular circumstances of each case that there are compelling reasons to restrict this right.”

Use of the word 'demonstrated' shows the burden will be on Italy to explain why they were denied legal assistance. Mach admits she, at least, was strongly suspected of an array of very serious offences (but not 'formally' as if the ECHR will give a crap about that ) and I am unaware of anything remotely amounting to 'compelling reasons' (such as membership of a criminal organisation, imminent terrorist threat etc) so why is this not a slam dunk?

 

[pilot padron]

But what difference does it make

But, as a point of plain fact, Amanda has never said or written anything to indicate she consumed alcohol on the night of the murder, and there is no evidence she did.

After another Knox conviction (and sentencing) are the delusional leaders of the FOA so frantic that they are now reduced to quibbling over senseless semantics ?
Pardon me, but I find this about as logical as Bill Clinton's quibbling about the definition of the word is when he needed to distract attention from his sexual abuse of an intern.

Surely you recall that one of Knox's main justification for her multi and varied and conflicting alibis was that she was under the influence of heavy drug use

To paraphrase another Clinton, '...What difference does it make...?'
What difference does it make if Knox was stoned on MJ or drunk on alcohol

What difference does it make ?????............
unless you simply cannot accept fact that Knox is a twice convicted murderer

 

[Mary_H]

<snip>It's not exactly the same evidence.
There is still no autopsy. No luminol prints. No bathmat print. No DNA. No blood DNA traces in bathroom.
There was also no overall assessment about several things such as testimonies, like those of the British girls and of Filomena. There was not yet a withdrawal of Knox's alibi by Sollecito, and there was not yet a repeated and changing testimony against Lumumba.

The charges for which Knox was informally "strongly suspected" were false declarations to investigators (art. 371) and favoreggiamento personale (covering up for a criminal person) (art. 378), and also possibly of an alteration of the murder scene.
<snip>
The point is: her involvement in what? They suspected she left his apartment and he was covering for her. It's obvious, because his testimony was too fuzzy, therefore not credible. They both did not remember what they ate for dinner, not a single thing that they did, not even if they had sex, got wrong the dinner time. This complete fog is obviously suspicious.
But leave to do what? Not to commit a murder, they did not have evidence to believe this. But they belived she was elsewhere and knew somethign about the murder.

Not even remotely. Mignini says exactly the same things that I am telling you. That she was not at all a suspect for tha charge of murder.
But everybody agrees that she was "attenzionata" (put under attention) from minute one because she was not credible, and because she is was related to a staging, therefore assessed to be a probable false witness, covering up for the murderer.

Let us engrave this in gold -- the King of the Guilters finally acknowledges that when Amanda was interrogated, there was no evidence against her. The sad thing is, many commentators, even those in the media, think the evidence for the murder was available when the kids were arrested. It wasn't.

It is customary to find evidence, then arrest people, not arrest them and then find evidence. That's called trumping up charges and is not acceptable in jurisdictions where people are sane.

Well if it's a murder investigation, the instance tends to prevail.

Oh no you don't. You have said many times that the interrogation had to be stopped at 1:45 because Amanda had become a suspect and therefore was entitled to a lawyer. Now you want to say she wasn't entitled to a lawyer in a murder investigation because she wasn't being charged with murder? Dream on.