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

[toto]

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

But just to humour me, is there a source that says Amanda said she was drunk that night? There seems to me a difference between smoking a joint, and smoking a joint and being drunk. Plus Amanda makes no reference to being drunk in her book, and since she seems to speak honestly (with the obvious exception of the wholly confusing interrogations) I would quite like a degree of precision. Meredith deserves the whole and precise truth as much as possible.

 

[lionking]

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:


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?

Like all the other "slam dunks" which proved not to be so?

 

[Mary_H]

I see it as credible. We are both just assuming. The euphemism " dating for 6 days", leads me to think they may have been spending those days in a hot rush of youth, passion, frenzy, and felt a bond of power, a connection making them feel invincible.

Their brains awash in oxytocin, also called the "love hormone," released during sex. It increases bonding, trust, generosity and monogamous behavior.

 

[Samson]

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.

This is exceedingly tiresome, and represents a grave failure by the defence to not bury this at birth. No one including you Mach have proffered the slightest evidence that supports this infantile notion.
But what's the point anymore, physical photographic logical and physical observations mean they will be vindicated because of this asinine proposition.

 

[Mary_H]

While duly frustrating, I think even more is the idea that if you have things compatible with someone that's good enough to go on the side of guilt. A finger print should match not be compatible. It's as if in Italy if you throw enough spaghetti on the wall and some of it doesn't fall off immediately that's as good as sticking.

I agree that what appears to be the "optional" nature of presenting evidence is extremely frustrating, but the apparent restrictions against asking questions is what allows such bogus evidence to stand.

 

[RoseMontague]

I cannot get those to work.

They seem to work fine from my original post...must be the post count changed..try pulling from here...

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6429428&postcount=10206

 

[RoseMontague]

Like all the other "slam dunks" which proved not to be so?

The reason it is not a slam dunk even though it should be is that the Italian cops use a law designed to protect witnesses and suspects to expose witnesses and suspects to interrogations without representation, quite the opposite of the intent of the law, imo.

 

[Welshman]

Let us engrave this in gold -- the King of the Guilters fiknowledge at 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.



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.

If the police had a strong case against Amanda and Raffaele, how do you explain what happened in the interrogation? If the police have a strong case, they should have no problem providing lawyers, taping the interrogation and officially informing people they are suspects. If the police have a strong case they should not have to rely on coerced confessions because a coerced confession is manufactured evidence. The police should not have to resort to manufacturing evidence if they have a strong case.

 

[Mary_H]

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

The type of substance imbibed does make a difference in terms of the effects on the brain, but more important, pilot, is the question of how well the reporter knows the facts. In this life-and-death matter, it is not expecting too much that a journalist be completely accurate. If he gets a little thing wrong here, it tends to suggest he might get another little thing wrong there, and there, and there.

 

[Mary_H]

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.

They had tunnel vision guiding them to their goal. As Raffaele wrote in his book, Giulia Bongiorno told him, "They want Amanda" (p. 193).

It was the same tunnel vision that prevented them from performing any deep investigation into the details of the crime, from looking for any bloody clothes, or for a knife in Patrick's kitchen. Also, what were they going to ask Raffaele about, when they had no evidence against him? No admission, no knife, no shoes; just a film production of them wiping any possible evidence off the bra clasp.

Raffaele was so frustrated, he said he tried to tell his story even to the prison guards, because no one else ever asked him about it. They just wanted Amanda.

 

[LondonJohn]

Rudy's defense requested a separate trial as they expected Raffaele's and Amanda's defense would blame him for the crime, which is what all the physical evidence and the circumstances of there being a broken window and his being connected to several burglaries in the previous month suggests. There's a 'fast track' option in Italy which abbreviates the normal three trial process and makes it mostly one trial and a review from the Supreme Court to ensure Italian law was followed, which they must do for tens of thousands of cases per year, very much unlike how our Supreme Court works.

While Amanda and Raffaele were held in prison without being officially charged, Mignini tried Rudy separately in that abbreviated trial but as one of three 'involved' and argued that the break-in was 'staged.' That worked out wonderfully for Rudy's defense being as he couldn't deny being there, so obviously they didn't contest that others were there (and killed Meredith while Rudy was taking a dump) and he didn't break in. Thus when the Motivations report was released for his trial there was only arguments and evidence supporting that view, Amanda and Raffaele had no defense in that trial, they'd not even been legally charged with the crime, they were still in the 'investigation' phase.

The Supreme Court decided that decisions from that trial could be used against Raffaele and Amanda who had no representation in that court and despite the fact it was 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.

Nencini's post-verdict remarks - if reported correctly - appear to show the root cause of the convictions. They also appear to have massive relevance to any upcoming ECHR application.

What Nencini appears to have said is along these lines: the SC tells us that two other people were involved in the murder (in addition to Guede). We (Nencini's court) accept this unconditionally. Our job was therefore to establish whether these two other people were Knox and Sollecito, or whether there was credible evidence of two other people being involved. If we had decided that two other people (i.e. other than Knox and Sollecito) were the two other assailants, we would have had to show compelling evidence to support that hypothesis. We had no such evidence. We could only therefore conclude that the only reasonable conclusion is that two other assailants were Knox and Sollecito.

If that's a correct interpretation of Nencini's remarks, then it looks like exceptionally strong grounds for a successful ECHR application right there. And I believe that this actually was the guiding oversight upon which Nencini and his court operated. It's exactly how I and others interpreted the SC's instructions to the new appellate court: if you're going to find that Knox and Sollecito were not involved, you'd better have a damn strong set of evidence that others (i.e. not Knox and Sollecito) were involved, since we already "know" that the murder was the work of multiple attackers.

It ought to go without saying that the reliance upon any "finding" of multiple attackers from a totally separate trial process is an egregious abuse of Knox's/Sollecito's right to a fair trial. It also ought to go without saying that this multiple-assailant "finding" in Guede's trial process was fundamentally flawed, since all parties had a vested interest in finding for multiple assailants, meaning that the possibility of a sole assailant was never properly tested and examined.

In addition, it appears highly likely that the defence teams would have actually damaged their case significantly in the eyes of Nencini's court by arguing for a sole attacker (Guede): if Nencini's court had already decided, via the SC ruling, that there were multiple assailants, then it almost certainly would have viewed all defence "sole-assailant" arguments as invalid on their faces. It sounds like Nencini somehow expected the defence teams to say something like: "The two other assailants were not Knox or Sollecito, and here's evidence that instead they were Mr X and Mr Y". I suspect therefore that the defence arguments - correct in fact - for Guede as sole assailant not only fell on deaf ears (which would be bad enough), but also probably served to destroy the defence's credibility in Nencini's eyes.

To me, it seems abundantly clear that this prior "finding" of multiple assailants, which appears to have been a cornerstone of the Nencini appeal, constitutes immediate and strong grounds for an ECHR application regarding the right to a fair trial. I think there are also multiple other grounds for application to the ECHR, but I think that the multiple-assailant issue is perhaps the most significant and most serious one of all.

 

[RandyN]

I agree that what appears to be the "optional" nature of presenting evidence is extremely frustrating, but the apparent restrictions against asking questions is what allows such bogus evidence to stand.

Sorry but I am confused by this. I have all along contended that the Italian courts and police have been corrupt. They and the witnesses they presented have lied and been caught lying. The "experts" Stefanoni for example were caught lying and trying to introduce false documents into the record.

How much judicial corruption does it take in order to require an investigation? Prosecutors are lying, witnesses are lying, judges are lying. Meanwhile, the SC makes rulings and they are side stepped and even they ignore that. What am I missing here?

As I have said all along. The Italians are corrupt, shameless liars. I am not prejudiced or even making things up. These are irrefutable facts. They will say and do anything to confirm a conviction of innocent persons when they have no evidence and in fact there is a great deal of evidence that the prosecutor and police lied and created and also hid critical evidence in this case!

Witnesses have been allowed to lie in court without sanction. The prosecution has been caught trying to introduce false documents into the record...who knows what did they not get caught sneaking in?

These are not honorable people and the courts are a joke. They make themselves a joke by allowing scandalous behavior in the court and yet provide no sanction against such behavior...which has to mean they condone it and accept being made a mockery of.

This case proves that beyond all doubt! The Italians are willing to reveal to the world that they consider their courts to be only a joke. And the courts allow themselves to be made a joke by the behavior they allow to to go unchallenged inside their doors. Shameful corrupt dimwits.

Please feel free to present an argument that I am wrong about this. I will gladly debate the facts of this case with anyone.

Meanwhile, I contend the SC acted illegally when overturning the first appeal decision. They never ruled on errors of law, rather they decided to return the case based on evidence...something not in their remand. That makes them criminals. No surprise.

The ECOHR finds Italian courts to be chronic violators against world standard human rights. This happens in non democratic countries regularly.

Italy has no clue what a democracy is! They are a pretend Democracy. The people cant get off their asses to protest a 60 year old pedophile freed by the ISC because there may have been love between a 60 year old and a 11 year old mentally challenged girl that he was treating???? Are Italians retarded?

Apparently that is unquestionably answered as yes! Yes they are! Who is so foolish to ignore these suspicious facts? A whole country apparently.

Put Raffaele Sollecito in jail them...you stupid stupid people you. Knox is staying here and she will get a fair review of your "facts" which are a joke BTW! Do you ever look in the mirror? You should...cuz you look stupid! Dumb illogical people!

Italy is dragging the European union down with its 16th century witch hunts. How is that going to work out for you Germany et al? Proud of your partners? You should be ashamed. Partners with criminals makes you criminals equally. Or are you missing that?

 

[Mary_H]

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.

Come on, lying and denial are second nature to these people. The only lying I ever seen Mach strongly object to has been what he perceives as Amanda's. His experience of her is as someone who is ever manipulative and always trying to put something over on other people. He is so adamant about it that to him it essentially proves the case for guilt. It's okay for Italians to lie. It's not okay when American college girls do it.

 

[icerat]

I recall that after Amanda's interrogation someone in the local police said something like "she eventually told us what we already knew"

I don't remember the exact quote, can someone help me out, with a source? Thanks!

 

[Mary_H]

Sorry but I am confused by this.<snip>

You don't sound confused to me.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

The type of substance imbibed does make a difference in terms of the effects of the brain, but more important, pilot, is the question of how well the reporter knows the facts. In this life-and-death matter, it is not expecting too much that a journalist be completely accurate. If he gets a little thing wrong here, it tends to suggest he might get another little thing wrong there, and there, and there.

His article contains egregious factual errors. He misquotes Amanda's statements, which are a matter of public record, and then he repeats the claim that she said she had been drinking heavily.

He says Amanda reported the break-in to Filomena at 12:08, which is inconsistent with both Amanda and Filomena's testimony, and he has the Postal Police arriving at 12:30, which is a claim that was demolished in the 2009 trial but has been revived on Mull's website.

These aren't "little things" to him. They are key points he cites to justify the recent verdict. Either they matter or they don't. He is presenting them as if they do matter, so he needs to get his facts right.

ABC should fire him for this article.

 

[LondonJohn]

By the way, it's probably also worth reiterating at this point that it's perfectly legally and ethically possible to find for guilt beyond a reasonable doubt purely based on the absence of any other reasonable perpetrator - even where there is zero actual positive evidence that the defendant committed the crime.

A hypothetical example that I've used before to illustrate this point is where two prison inmates (A and B) are locked in a cell overnight, and when the cell is unlocked in the morning, B is lying dead on his bunk, having been suffocated with his pillow. Provided it could be proved that a) B was murdered, b) B was alive when the cell door was locked, c) B was dead when the door was next unlocked the following morning, and d) the door remained locked at all times in the intervening period (and there was no other means of getting in or out of the cell), then A should be justly found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of B's murder. Even if there was no positive evidence supporting that fact - e.g. A's DNA on B's neck, injuries consistent with a struggle, noises heard by people in the adjacent cells, evidence of A's previous threats of violence towards B. In this instance, A could be convicted purely based on the reasonable impossibility of anyone else having killed B.

So when we examine Nencini's perverse and unlawful verdict, it's worth bearing this in mind. If it really were a fact that there were at least two others beside Guede who had participated in the murder (and if this had been properly tested in Knox's/Sollecito's trial process), then it would be reasonable to pose the question: if these other two are not Knox and Sollecito, then who else could they reasonably be? And if one were to conclude that these other two could not reasonably be anyone other than Knox and Sollecito, then it would indeed be reasonable to find for their guilt based purely on this factor.

But....... of course all of this is destroyed by two fundamental elements: firstly, it was never properly established (let alone in Knox's/Sollecito's trial process) that there were multiple attackers; and secondly, even if that had been properly established, there are no reasonable grounds to conclude that these other two had to have been Knox and Sollecito, to the exclusion of anyone else.

I'm merely pointing out that, in principle, it's possible to convict based partly or even entirely on the absence of any other reasonable perpetrator. In fact, I believe that Scott Peterson was largely (and correctly) found guilty on this basis (though I am not sufficiently familiar with this case as to be certain).

 

[LondonJohn]

I recall that after Amanda's interrogation someone in the local police said something like "she eventually told us what we already knew"

I don't remember the exact quote, can someone help me out, with a source? Thanks!

Oh, it wasn't just "someone": it was the Chief of Police of Perugia, Arturo de Felice!

He said (in English translation): "Initially the American gave a version of events we knew was not correct. She buckled and made an admission of facts we knew were correct and from that we were able to bring them in. They all participated but had different roles."

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/i-heard-her-screaming-519420#.Uu4gz86Hflw

(Note also how much of Knox's statement (the "confession/accusation") to the police had been leaked to the media by the time of this press report - this report appeared a mere TWO DAYS after the interrogation, and before the arraignment process had even begun. Another stinking abuse of office from either the police or the prosecutors (or both).

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

By the way, it's probably also worth reiterating at this point that it's perfectly legally and ethically possible to find for guilt beyond a reasonable doubt purely based on the absence of any other reasonable perpetrator - even where there is zero actual positive evidence that the defendant committed the crime.

A hypothetical example that I've used before to illustrate this point is where two prison inmates (A and B) are locked in a cell overnight, and when the cell is unlocked in the morning, B is lying dead on his bunk, having been suffocated with his pillow. Provided it could be proved that a) B was murdered, b) B was alive when the cell door was locked, c) B was dead when the door was next unlocked the following morning, and d) the door remained locked at all times in the intervening period (and there was no other means of getting in or out of the cell), then A should be justly found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of B's murder. Even if there was no positive evidence supporting that fact - e.g. A's DNA on B's neck, injuries consistent with a struggle, noises heard by people in the adjacent cells, evidence of A's previous threats of violence towards B. In this instance, A could be convicted purely based on the reasonable impossibility of anyone else having killed B.

So when we examine Nencini's perverse and unlawful verdict, it's worth bearing this in mind. If it really were a fact that there were at least two others beside Guede who had participated in the murder (and if this had been properly tested in Knox's/Sollecito's trial process), then it would be reasonable to pose the question: if these other two are not Knox and Sollecito, then who else could they reasonably be? And if one were to conclude that these other two could not reasonably be anyone other than Knox and Sollecito, then it would indeed be reasonable to find for their guilt based purely on this factor.

But....... of course all of this is destroyed by two fundamental elements: firstly, it was never properly established (let alone in Knox's/Sollecito's trial process) that there were multiple attackers; and secondly, even if that had been properly established, there are no reasonable grounds to conclude that these other two had to have been Knox and Sollecito, to the exclusion of anyone else.

I'm merely pointing out that, in principle, it's possible to convict based partly or even entirely on the absence of any other reasonable perpetrator. In fact, I believe that Scott Peterson was largely (and correctly) found guilty on this basis (though I am not sufficiently familiar with this case as to be certain).

The evidence in Scott Peterson's case is sparse, but it is utterly reliable and it fits the only plausible explanation of what happened.

The Sea Wind case may be the best example of a reasonable murder conviction with almost no evidence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_the_Sea_Will_Tell

 

[icerat]

Oh, it wasn't just "someone": it was the Chief of Police of Perugia, Arturo de Felice!

He said (in English translation): "Initially the American gave a version of events we knew was not correct. She buckled and made an admission of facts we knew were correct and from that we were able to bring them in. They all participated but had different roles."

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/i-heard-her-screaming-519420#.Uu4gz86Hflw

(Note also how much of Knox's statement (the "confession/accusation") to the police had been leaked to the media by the time of this press report - this report appeared a mere TWO DAYS after the interrogation, and before the arraignment process had even begun. Another stinking abuse of office from either the police or the prosecutors (or both).

Thanks! Do you happen to have an Italian source?