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

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Machiavelli said:
First: The ECHR gives a lot of attention to "formally", because the actual point related to this, is a difference between subjective and objective. To say that the police believed Knox to be performing some cover up activity, is equivalent to saying that they had a subjective opinion on her, which means: nothing. Being the object of suspicions by investigators means nothing and being the object of an investigation means nothing, as for being objectively a suspect, or not.

Second: The need to catch a rapist and murderer is not a compelling reason? The Italian procedure provides even for secrecy of the status of suspect, that is for keeping even formal suspects unaware about their status of suspects, for a limited period of time, whenever there is a serious danger to jeopardize the investigation. Such legislation is considered compliant with human rights under the ECHR standard.
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Citations?

OK let's move along without them. So, the compelling reason for depriving her of her right to a lawyer was that it was thought she had information about the crime that she was concealing. I guess we should also move along without wondering about the grounds for this belief. We know from De Felice they already knew stuff that she just confirmed, such as that she had met Patrick. They had checked her cell phone records already and seen the exchange ending with her 8.36 text and they knew he had called her the night of the 2nd to find out what was going on at the questura. They also knew she had met him on the 5th presumably to update him on the progress of their enquiries. Very suspicious.

Given all this, I don't see why they needed to question her at all. They could just have asked for her phone, which she would have handed over voluntarily since she was co-operating fully, checked the texts and arrested Patrick, having obtained forensic evidence tying him to the scene. Bring him in, take his prints and body samples, compare them to crime scene samples and bingo! Caso chiuso as they say. Why the third degree?
 
The Australian way

Kevin_Lowe said:
Can we please lay off the Italy-bashing? Yes, the recent ISC decision was atrocious. Yes, other recent decisions have been atrocious. So too have been multiple botched court outcomes in Australia, and in the USA, and in Canada and in the UK.

None of us get to throw stones as far as I'm concerned. The recent attacks on Italy are ugly, verge on racism and add nothing of value to the conversation.
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Kevin_Lowe,

I take no position on whether or not the most recent attacks on Italy verge on racism. But when the Australians have a DNA-related mess-up, what do they do? In the case of Jaidyn Leskie, the study it, and they involve internationally respected legal and scientific scholars, such as William Thompson and Dan Krane. In the case of Farah Jama, the person in charge of studying the case is a former supreme court justice, Frank Vincent. Italy could do far worse than to look to these examples. Instead, they have chosen to deny the problem and thus to greatly increase the odds of further wrongful convictions on the basis of faulty forensics.
 
Lumumba's interrogation transcripts?

Machiavelli said:
I said exactly what I said, and what I said is entirely consistent. The interrogation of Amanda Knox was stopped at 01:45 because she made statements which could be considered self-incriminating or admission of involvement.
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Kestrel said:
Then they brought the prosecutor in, resumed the interrogation and extracted another "confession". :mad:
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I'd really like to read the interrogation transcripts from MURDER SUSPECT Patrick Diya Lumumba. Or watch the video.

He was arrested at 6:30am, and interrogated for hours and hours without having his lawyer present. Surely he too gave the police what they knew to be correct, right?
 
Machiavelli said:
I am actually talking about the investigation, December 2007. Knox had already used her right not to answer before judge Matteini on Nov. 2007.
In December Mignini summoned Knox and Sollecito, they accepted, Knox was interrogated on Dec. 18. At first she was eager to speak, dut her interrogation was a train wreck, because she was unable to explain why she falsely accused Lumumba, her defence lawyer attempted to interrupt the questioning, and then she invoked her right to not answer.
Sollecito, at first he asked himself to be interrogated, but then he changed his mind and he refused to answer any question.

After that Mignini didn't call them for questioning any more.
They did not ask to be questioned at the 2008 pre-trial hearing.
But then, Knox asked to be questioned again in 2009 at the Massei trial, and so she was cross-questioned.
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Thanks. That's not how the accounts I've read put it. In her summation to Hellman Bongiorno roundly criticised Mignini for not scheduling Raf for questioning during the Massei trial, which suggests something different to what you are saying. My source is either Follain or Barbie. Can't remember which.

This is not a me -v- you point as I am just as baffled by the fact his team did not put him up and question him themselves.
 
Kaosium said:
Diocletus used to make an interesting point: if Amanda was (finally!) considered an 'official suspect' when she signed the first statement, how come she wasn't the moment she said that? In other words how come they didn't have to get her a lawyer before she signed that 'witness' statement?
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They were too busy typing?
 
who is telling the truth about the interrogations

Nessie said:
Completely conflicting versions of the interview(s) with Knox on 06/11/2007. The she was not mistreated here

http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/Amanda_Knox's_Confession

and the she was mistreated here

http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/TheInterrogation.html
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The pseudo wiki you cite has been shown to mislead with respect to transcripts and with respect to a knife brought to court. No serious student of the case should look there for information, except for addition evidence of its bias and tinkering with facts. Of course, the ultimate arbiter in this example would be a recording of the interrogation. More than one reason has been put forward as to why none was supposedly made; IMO they are risible lies.
 
Dan O. said:
Machiavelli's statements prove that he is incapable of telling the truth. At some point in the interrogation the police believed that Amanda had made self incriminating statements. At that point the interrogation should have been stopped immediatly and Amanda afforded console. But instead the police continued the process and typed up an incriminating statement which they then had the suspect Amanda Knox sign without legal representation. For this act in violation of the legal protections afforded to criminal suspects, the Italian supreme court said that the signed statements were inadmissible against her.
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Absolutely false. It's made up. First of all it is false that she should have been declared a suspect and afforded counsel, because the police cannot declare someone a suspect. They can either issue a provisional decision waiting for a magistrate's assessment or leave it to a magistrate immediately that will make his assessment and then decide. But there is no immediate suspect status automatically triggered.
Then, we all know that after the interrogation was stopped at 01:45, Knox was offered chamomille tee and was left alone in a room, in silence and in the company of only one police officer, who even conforted her (she was hugging him he stroke her hair etc.).
Then Knox was informed about a change of status and the need to nominate a lawyer, and she decided to release a statement, which was partly translated by Anna Donnino (and partly said in Italian by Knox).
The SC actually did not say the statements - that were collected and dictated, not just "signed" - were "not usable" (not "inadmissible") because collected in violation of a procedure, but instead that they had a "different regime of usability", in particular the 01:45 were non usable because all statements released by police witness are not usable agaisnt the witness itself, and as for the 05.45 statement, not usable in a trial in the case of murder because - albeit already a suspect - she was still not defended by a lawyer at the time.
However, they are usable in the case of calunnia, because she was not a suspect for the charge of calunnia at the time.
 
Machiavelli said:
The mitigating factor includes assessment several circumstances and behaviours, one of them is if the victim is not passive but participates.
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This is sick.

Machiavelli said:
Another factor is the assessment of how much the vitcim suffers.
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See above.

Machiavelli said:
Another factor is the means employed, in other words, if the perpetrator could do worse while he didn't (for example if I brake a jewelery window and I steal a small ring to make a present, I commit a 'minor gravity' crime, because I could have stolen much more and for less noble reasons).
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Well, we're talking about rape. What do you think the means were?
 
Chris_Halkides said:
The pseudo wiki you cite has been shown to mislead with respect to transcripts and with respect to a knife brought to court. No serious student of the case should look there for information, except for addition evidence of its bias and tinkering with facts. Of course, the ultimate arbiter in this example would be a recording of the interrogation. More than one reason has been put forward as to why none was supposedly made; IMO they are risible lies.
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The lack of a recording makes the interview unreliable and the conviction (re-conviction) unsafe. No wonder there are such conflicting accounts of what took place.
 
anglolawyer said:
Thanks. That's not how the accounts I've read put it. In her summation to Hellman Bongiorno roundly criticised Mignini for not scheduling Raf for questioning during the Massei trial, which suggests something different to what you are saying. My source is either Follain or Barbie. Can't remember which.

This is not a me -v- you point as I am just as baffled by the fact his team did not put him up and question him themselves.
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But Bongiorno's criticism - if she actually said that before Hellmann - should be counted as one of the many "lunar" things she said. It makes literally no sense, because 1. by the procedure code Bongiorno had the right to request the questioning of her client to be scheduled, and the prosecution could not object to such request; 2. the truth (I think htat's obvious) is that Bongiorno never asked for a questioning of Sollecito, nor in the Micheli pre-hearing, nor in Massei trial. but also not even in the subsequent stages, in the Hellmann-Zanetti trial as well as in the Nencini trial: she simply, always carefully avoided to file such a request. She never attempted to have her client questioned before a court. This is absolutely obvious.
 
Kestrel said:
With his comment that Amanda first admitted to being at the scene of the crime, Dershowitz shows a profound misunderstanding of what actually happened. Both Amanda and Raff claimed to have spent the night at his apartment. Only several days later did Amanda say otherwise, and that was during a coercive interrogation clearly intended to force a confession.

Most guilters don't seem to mind. They probably grew up in cultures where beating the truth out of someone is seen as proper and justified. Dershowitz should know better.
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I think Alan Dershowitz has gone off the deep end and ought to be made to own this. How can he make an argument in the future on discovery, right to an attorney, police malfeasance, shoddy forensics or reasonable doubt?
 
Nessie said:
The lack of a recording makes the interview unreliable and the conviction (re-conviction) unsafe. No wonder there are such conflicting accounts of what took place.
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There are only conflicting accounts among the various ones told by Knox. The other witnesses are actually in agreement (and largely unchallenged even by Knox's account for years).
The lack of recording does not make anything unreliable, because it's a standard, it's normal.
 
Machiavelli said:
Then Knox was informed about a change of status and the need to nominate a lawyer, and she decided to release a statement, which was partly translated by Anna Donnino (and partly said in Italian by Knox).
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She asked if she needed a lawyer and they said it would just bring her more trouble and land her in jail. They forget to tell her she was going to jail anyway.
 
Machiavelli said:
There are only conflicting accounts among the various ones told by Knox. The other witnesses are actually in agreement (and largely unchallenged even by Knox's account for years).
The lack of recording does not make anything unreliable, because it's a standard, it's normal.
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You have the cops version on one side and Amanda's account on the other. One of the cops said he heard her scream during the interrogation. Maybe the tea was too hot.
 
Machiavelli said:
But Bongiorno's criticism - if she actually said that before Hellmann - should be counted as one of the many "lunar" things she said. It makes literally no sense, because 1. by the procedure code Bongiorno had the right to request the questioning of her client to be scheduled, and the prosecution could not object to such request; 2. the truth (I think htat's obvious) is that Bongiorno never asked for a questioning of Sollecito, nor in the Micheli pre-hearing, nor in Massei trial. but also not even in the subsequent stages, in the Hellmann-Zanetti trial as well as in the Nencini trial: she simply, always carefully avoided to file such a request. She never attempted to have her client questioned before a court. This is absolutely obvious.
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And it's not disputed by me. I was just wondering aloud what it is about the system I don't understand that makes Bongiorno think it a good idea to criticise Mig for not questioning Raf when she herself didn't do so.
 
Machiavelli said:
Absolutely false. It's made up. First of all it is false that she should have been declared a suspect and afforded counsel, because the police cannot declare someone a suspect. They can either issue a provisional decision waiting for a magistrate's assessment or leave it to a magistrate immediately that will make his assessment and then decide. But there is no immediate suspect status automatically triggered. *
Then, we all know that after the interrogation was stopped at 01:45, Knox was offered chamomille tee and was left alone in a room, in silence and in the company of only one police officer, who even conforted her (she was hugging him he stroke her hair etc.).*
Then Knox was informed about a change of status and the need to nominate a lawyer, and she decided to release a statement, which was partly translated by Anna Donnino (and partly said in Italian by Knox). *
The SC actually did not say the statements - that were collected and dictated, not just "signed" - were "not usable" (not "inadmissible") because collected in violation of a procedure, but instead that they had a "different regime of usability", in particular the 01:45 were non usable because all statements released by police witness are not usable agaisnt the witness itself, and as for the 05.45 statement, not usable in a trial in the case of murder because - albeit already a suspect - she was still not defended by a lawyer at the time.*
However, they are usable in the case of calunnia, because she was not a suspect for the charge of calunnia at the time.
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People are learning to recognize your crap. It's colored by your inability to admit that the police could ever do anything wrong.

The Wikipedia article on the italian criminal procedures has this to say referencing Article 63:
Interrogations and self-incriminating statements

When a person who is neither an indagato (suspect) nor an imputato (defendant), interrogated by the police or the prosecutor, reveals pieces of information that might lead to his incrimination, the interrogation must be immediately stopped, the person must be invited to nominate a lawyer and be warned that the information disclosed may render necessary an investigation. These self-incriminating statements are inadmissible in court.
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"And thus her interrogation as a person informed of the facts was suspended by the police in compliance with article 63 of the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure".
 
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anglolawyer said:
Citations?
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As for the ECHR, the cases Salduz versus Turkey (2008), established that the right of a person under arrest to confer with a defence lawyer immediately must not be intended as absolute; there are various possibilities where other needs may force a delay.
The Simons versus Belgium case (2012) was considered inadmissible on this principle.

Italian procedure: Art. 104 c.p.p (used by Mignini) provides for the possibility to delay the right of immediate counsel for up to 5 days, and jurisprudence establishes what the "exceptional circumstances" are (danger of jeopardizing investigation). The justice comittee of Low Chamber of Italian parliament deemed the law compatible with ECHR standards. Found compatible with HR statute and Constitution by Constitutional Court too.
 
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