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

[anglolawyer]

Well that this was not "shown" is your opinion. At the EC the State may bring its case saying there was a need to catch a rapist murderer.

True, only my opinion. An opinion fortified by the fact that Mignini lied about her status, claiming she was only a witness when she arrived at the questura when we all agree here, you included, that she was strongly suspected of very serious crimes.

As for excerpts of the Salduz vs. Turkey:

There are parts that some will like to see as “favourable” to Knox:

But even the favourable parts contain som conditions and limitations that are of key relevance (like “unduly”)

I get to call straw man if you keep arguing that the right to a lawyer is not 'absolute' since no one here has made that claim. The ECHR uses the word 'fundamental' in the same passage in which you highlighted the 'not absolute' thing.

There are also parts of the case that tend to put Knox’s claim definitely off the reach of ECHR standards:

Fine, what you quote from illustrates that the right is not absolute. We are already agreed about that. This was not a mafia or terrorism case, the police were not dealing with an organised group and they had the means to pursue their investigations without depriving her of her fundamental rights. They could have got the information they wanted simply by looking at her phone and finding the messages arranging the meeting (irony intended).

As you see, the difference is that Knox was given the opportunity to correct her statements immediately, she did appear before judge Matteini, and she refused to release statement or to answer questions. Then she was given the opportunity to explain herself again on the Dec. 17. Interrogation, and when it came to the false accusation of Lumumba she invoked again her right to not answer questions. The High Court did take a stance about the usability of the statements and the first instance court (Massei) also made a ruling about their usability. The charge for which Knox was accused (calunnia) had not be filed at the time when she released the statements and there was no investigation about it. And finally, Knox did not only release a statement, she repeated further accusations and placed further false evidence against Lumumba again in her written memoriales, which were not statements released to the police and they are considered fully admissible.

Well, you can't be serious about the Matteini hearing since her lawyers did not have a proper opportunity to take instructions and advise, so it seems they recommended silence, as indeed did Raf's lawyer too, advice which he disregarded to his detriment.

As for the rest, the harm was done. The statements could not be unwritten and by various means, which I have listed, they were disclosed to the court hearing the murder rap. How do the various opportunities you say she has to set the record straight rectify that?

 

[Kaosium]

Is her interviews over that night, not recorded, the standard for murder investigations?

Here's what the European Criminal Bar Association has to say about that:

(Audio and/or visual) Recording of interviews

Electronic recording of interviews is obligatory when the suspect is detained. Furthermore, a written summary is made of the interviews, however it can significantly differ from the recordings. The electronic recordings are made by special technicians, who are supervised by the judge.

That whole page makes interesting reading.

Of course, despite being wiretapped for days and their conversations recorded earlier in the Questura, Perugian Police they claim they weren't suspects even though they called Raffaele in late at night to break Amanda's alibi and the police chief would later say:

"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."

Amanda's version of events was indeed correct, she did not go out that night after receiving the text message as they thought, Joanna Popovic who stopped by ~20 minutes later confirmed that she was at the house. Patrick had nothing to do with the murder, which Amanda hadn't even considered until police suggested it, having met him earlier that day. It was the police whose facts were not correct, but they got Amanda to believe them in the wee hours of the night, in the process of spending 53 of the 89 hours with police from the arrival of the Postal Police and the discovery of the body until signing the last statement at 5:45 AM.

Now Machiavelli will tell you she wasn't a suspect.

 

[Mary_H]

<snip>The changing, nebulous and inconsistent accounts of a girl who doesn't know what the truth is, should be credible over that of respected people like Mignini and Donnino?

No, they should not be. And they weren't. Everything in Amanda's statements to Mignini and Donnino turned out to be false.

The question remains why everyone was so eager to get information out of a girl who "didn't know what the truth was," and "whose accounts were changing, nebulous and inconsistent." Amanda was not only not credible, she was a complete airhead. Meanwhile, the police, Donnino and Mignini hung on her every word and gobbled up the statements she signed.

Who on Earth would respect Mignini and Donnino when they are obviously such absolutely terrible judges of who is and is not telling the truth?

 

[Kaosium]

'Implicated' might be too strong a word (although maybe not) but if you compare the two statements you will see that in the first he is home free. She lied to him and went out immediately. That has Raf knowing nothing of the crime and not being present at the scene. In the later version she is no longer lying to him and thinks it possible he was there. How about 'insinuated' as in 'she insinuated he may have been involved too'? Can we agree that?

Ok, I see what you mean. I just thought including that bit about 'not sure' just undermined the reliability of the statement more than it implicated Raffaele, but I see your point. Mignini wanted more about Raffaele, they must have asked more about him which led to the generation of that ambiguous statement about something that shouldn't be in question.

I mean, (tout le monde) she doesn't know for sure whether her cuddlemuffin was with her as she walked ten minutes over to the cottage in the chilly November night and then supposedly witnessed a murder? Come on!

 

[Kaosium]

No, they should not be. And they weren't. Everything in Amanda's statements to Mignini and Donnino turned out to be false.

The question remains why everyone was so eager to get information out of a girl who "didn't know what the truth was," and "whose accounts were changing, nebulous and inconsistent." Amanda was not only not credible, she was a complete airhead. Meanwhile, the police, Donnino and Mignini hung on her every word and gobbled up the statements she signed.

Who on Earth would respect Mignini and Donnino when they are obviously such absolutely terrible judges of who is and is not telling the truth?

Indeed, who actually reads those statements and thinks they have enough to arrest Patrick and Raffaele on? Only those who know they can gin up enough 'evidence' and a fantastical scenario of a sex game gone wrong for Matteini. Where's there anything in the statements about a ritualistic 'sex game?' Where is there any evidence of it at the scene? He just made it up, it was nothing but his pornographic fantasy.

But the arrest of Patrick was all Amanda's fault--her clever plan to put herself in a prison cell just so she could fool them into arresting Patrick.

 

[anglolawyer]

Indeed, who actually reads those statements and thinks they have enough to arrest Patrick and Raffaele on? Only those who know they can gin up enough 'evidence' and a fantastical scenario of a sex game gone wrong for Matteini. Where's there anything in the statements about a ritualistic 'sex game?' Where is there any evidence of it at the scene? He just made it up, it was nothing but his pornographic fantasy.

But the arrest of Patrick was all Amanda's fault--her clever plan to put herself in a prison cell just so she could fool them into arresting Patrick.

I think placing herself at the scene was the only thing that mattered to the cops. It did not matter at all whether what she said made any sense. As they were playing the game that she was not a suspect the 'confession' could not contain much detail (not sure everybody gets this) as then they would have to have justified continued questioning long after the point when it would be obvious to everybody they had crossed the line. That's why the 1.45 statement ends as it does:

The Office acknowledges that the statement stops here and KNOX Amanda is put at the disposal of the proceeding Judicial Authority

IOW as soon as she had implicated herself, questioning stopped because, obviously, to have continued would have broken the law and we can't have that, can we?

 

[Kaosium]

I think placing herself at the scene was the only thing that mattered to the cops. It did not matter at all whether what she said made any sense. As they were playing the game that she was not a suspect the 'confession' could not contain much detail (not sure everybody gets this) as then they would have to have justified continued questioning long after the point when it would be obvious to everybody they had crossed the line. That's why the 1.45 statement ends as it does:


IOW as soon as she had implicated herself, questioning stopped because, obviously, to have continued would have broken the law and we can't have that, can we?

I agree, they were just looking for something to use. That's why their statements had no effect on the theory they brought before Matteini.


Incidentally, regarding the taping here's Massei on some of what was recorded:

In the meantime the Court had initiated, at the request of the Sollecito defence and in agreement with the Prosecutor, the expert task of a joint nature for the transcription of the tapped telephone conversations and voice recordings arranged by the Office of the Public Prosecutor in Perugia in the course of the preliminary investigations, the transcription of which had been requested.

(These voice recordings were made at Police Headquarters in Perugia, appropriately prepared, where the co-tenants of Meredith Kercher, the boys of the apartment below that one occupied by the murdered girl, and the English girlfriends of the English student involved in the Erasmus Programme, had gathered on the afternoon of November 2, 2007. Other voice recordings were made during meetings in prison between Amanda and her parents. Finally, phone tappings had been made of the fixed and mobile phone services of the family of Raffaele Sollecito.)

What was the final total on how many things they taped? I read an estimate of 30k messages, as I recall it's in the defense close for the Massei trial. Recently I saw someone say it was 39k messages they taped.

But they say they didn't tape anything at the Questura (Police Headquarters in Perugia) from 10:15 PM on November 5th to 5:45 AM November 6th, in that modern facility which should have integrated taping capability, especially considering their obsession with recording everything.

What, did they turn it off that night?

 

[anglolawyer]

Unlike London John I am frequently wrong. It turns out the right to a fair trial is an absolute right:

In R v A [2001] UKHL 25, [2001] 3 All ER 1 at [38] Lord Steyn explained it in this way in relation to an alleged breach of art 6(2), the guarantee of a presumption of innocence: 'It is well established that the guarantee of a fair trial under art 6 is absolute: a conviction obtained in breach of it cannot stand: R v Forbes [2001] 1 All ER 686 at 697, [2001] 2 WLR 1 at 13 (para 24). The only balancing permitted is in respect of what the concept of a fair trial entails: here account may be taken of the familiar triangulation of interests of the accused, the victim and society. In this context proportionality has a role to play. The criteria for determining the test of proportionality have been analysed in similar terms in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Communities and the European Court of Human Rights. It is not necessary for us to re-invent the wheel. In De Freitas v Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Lands and Housing [1999] 1 AC 69 at 80, [1998] 3 WLR 675 at 684 Lord Clyde adopted a precise and concrete analysis of the criteria. In determining whether a limitation is arbitrary or excessive a court should ask itself—“whether: (i) the legislative objective is sufficiently important to justify limiting a fundamental right; (ii) the measures designed to meet the legislative objective are rationally connected to it; and (iii) the means used to impair the right or freedom are no more than is necessary to accomplish the objective”.'

 

[anglolawyer]

I agree, they were just looking for something to use. That's why their statements had no effect on the theory they brought before Matteini.


Incidentally, regarding the taping here's Massei on some of what was recorded:




What was the final total on how many things they taped? I read an estimate of 30k messages, as I recall it's in the defense close for the Massei trial. Recently I saw 39k messages they taped.

But they say they didn't tape anything at the Questura (Police Headquarters in Perugia) from 10:15 PM on November 5th to 5:45 AM November 6th, in that modern facility which should have integrated taping capability, especially considering their obsession with recording everything.

What, did they turn it off that night?

Budgetary constraints I thought. That should play well in the ECHR too. Do you think it possible Italy has wrecked its economy solely in order to make this claim more credible?

 

[Kaosium]

Budgetary constraints I thought. That should play well in the ECHR too. Do you think it possible Italy has wrecked its economy solely in order to make this claim more credible?

I wonder just how much it cost to transcribe all 30k or so of those messages?

Here they could have proven Amanda Knox a liar for all the world to see if only they hadn't decided to save money the night the biggest case of their careers was broken in an all night interrogation session. What a rotten piece of luck it worked out like that for them.

 

[RoseMontague]

I wonder just how much it cost to transcribe all 30k or so of those messages?

Here they could have proven Amanda Knox a liar for all the world to see if only they hadn't decided to save money the night the biggest case of their careers was broken in an all night interrogation session. What a rotten piece of luck it worked out like that for them.

Also concerning is that some of these messages/transcripts went poof. I have to wonder if those might contain some information on the purported deal Raffaele mentioned in his book.

 

[toto]

There are a number of problems with this passage, and one cannot do more than outline the problems in a comment (I have some entries on my blog that go into these things in greater detail). One, luminol is a presumptive test but is not a confirmatory test for blood. Some jurisdictions do not even allow luminol evidence into the courtroom without support of some kind. Two, the spot was negative by tetramethylbenzidine, and this substance has nearly as low a limit of detection of blood as luminol. If the FP had done a true confirmatory test for blood that came out positive, then I would accept that blood was necessarily present, but they did not. Three, even if the substance is blood, there are ways it might have been carried into the room by someone other than Ms. Knox. The most obvious is that it got there via the forensic police, who were photographed stepping into dried blood and were known not to change their shoe coverings. However, biological substances could have been transported into Filomena's room at any point over a six-week period. Going back to collect more forensic evidence after the cottage had been the scene of much traffic is bizarre. Four, finding mixed DNA does not prove anything about when the DNA was deposited. I have found examples of mixed DNA that could not possibly have been deposited simultaneously. Five, the forensic police were not doing a random sample of the house for DNA. Therefore, the number of times that someone's DNA was found is not meaningful. Six, exactly how does the author think that the Amanda deposited her DNA there? Her contention that DNA is much harder to deposit than is commonly conceived is 180 degrees wrong.

Thanks to you and the posters who responded. When discussing the case with friends who obviously get their information from the media it is helpful (especially for a non scientist) to have some rationale for my point of view.

 

[Wildhorses]

Also concerning is that some of these messages/transcripts went poof. I have to wonder if those might contain some information on the purported deal Raffaele mentioned in his book.

That sounds interesting. What kind of deal did he mention?

 

[toto]

I interpreted Nencini's observation as a suggestion that Sollecito's decision to answer question might have influenced the outcome trial, but depending on what Sollecito would say. I have this interpretation because of the other thing Nencini apparently said, that is: Sollecito's defence seem to have put some distance between him and Knox. So the inference is: in order to make this defensive strategy be effective, Sollecito should have testified.

I add a note, a factual point: Mignini did summon Sollecito for questioning, Sollecito first agreed but then, when he came he invoked his right to remain silent.

It is impossible to make up this stuff.

Nencini all but admits that the lay jurors were being confused by all the guilter like stuff on TV, as compared to..... what? The guilt-sounding stuff in the courtroom?

Why would THAT scenario be confusing. I bet they were hearing acquitting like stuff in the courtroom, Like the RIS Carabinieiri report on the DNA, but that Nencini all but ordered them to follow the stipulations about guilt from Cassazione.

Nencini implies (to my way of thinking at least) that if Raffaele had testified, it may have gone better for him. What? You mean the evidence could have been countered by Raffaele claiming things?

My bet is that Nencini is saying that if Raffaele had ratted out Knox, he'd have gone free. Anyone else with a differing interpretation of.....

.... Nencini's incredibly prejudical remarks TO THE PRESS, please post them here.

I don't think he would have walked free, but if he admitted to being there and witnessing Knox do something he would have got a sentence reduction, on the basis that it would have made their guilt (in some way) so much more obvious to the court and public opinion.

 

[Bill Williams]

Re: luminol I have a trick question. Did Amanda and/or Raffaele point out to the posties or anyone else Guede's footprints leading along the hallway and out the front door? I hope Mach has a crack at this one but anyone can play. The trick is to figure out why its a trick question.

Uncle.

Ok, why?

 

[anglolawyer]

That sounds interesting. What kind of deal did he mention?

You give us Amanda and we let you go.

 

[anglolawyer]

Uncle.

Ok, why?

The question was:

Did Amanda and/or Raffaele point out to the posties or anyone else Guede's footprints leading along the hallway and out the front door?

The answer is: no, they did not. The further question is: why not?

Luminol is used to reveal blood that has been cleaned up. Amanda walked around in her bare feet depositing the victim's blood and then cleaned it up but she left behind enough to react with luminol so she was caught out. Now, she cannot have cleaned up her own bloody prints but left Guede's by accident. She must have left his prints deliberately, meaning she knew they were there and could see them. She had to be able to see them in order not to clean them up by mistake. There are no partially cleaned up prints of his (not so far as I am aware). That being so, since she knew the prints were right there on the floor and visible (even if faint) and since she was controlling the crime scene, why not point them out along with all the other things she pointed out that implicated Guede - like the crap, the staged burglary and all? I mean what was the idea in leaving them but not pointing them out?

Of course, only guilters need attempt an answer because, as with all these things, the pro-innocence theory has the simpler explanation: she didn't point them out because she had no idea they were there since they were too faint to see and she did not know any bloody prints had been deposited.

 

[JREF2010]

skullduggery

Budgetary constraints I thought. That should play well in the ECHR too. Do you think it possible Italy has wrecked its economy solely in order to make this claim more credible?

The lie is that Mignini says budgetary constraints, but logic states it doesnt cost anything to record.

We know recording equipment was already bought and the actual recording , pressing a record button, has no cost.
Theres no cost in recording the audio or video.... and its a murder investigation, so they determine the budgetary issues only for a few hours.

Most cell phones will even record audio these days, for free. The Mignini ordered wire-tapping is by far more advanced recording equipment and time consuming, in addition to the fact they were recording Amanda and Raffaele in the Questura proves they had the equipment available in the Questura.
Again the cost of recording is not the issue, the issue is Mignini and the pack is lying.

So Mignini is lying on video, the CNN interview, about this topic of the interrogation recording. The ECHR will see this easily.

Mignini and all those officials who were there, they all choose to take part in the skullduggery....


I would feel confident any fair system would see this lie quickly, its child like lying, but with the ECHR Mignini and the "system" wont be able to bully people around

 

[Bill Williams]

I interpreted Nencini's observation as a suggestion that Sollecito's decision to answer question might have influenced the outcome trial, but depending on what Sollecito would say. I have this interpretation because of the other thing Nencini apparently said, that is: Sollecito's defence seem to have put some distance between him and Knox. So the inference is: in order to make this defensive strategy be effective, Sollecito should have testified.

I add a note, a factual point: Mignini did summon Sollecito for questioning, Sollecito first agreed but then, when he came he invoked his right to remain silent.

Another lie by Machiavelli. Let's break it down.

1. Mignini did nor summon Raffaele.

Perhaps true, perhaps not. Given the record of what PLE left behind of the process they used to entrap Raffaele, it really is hard to tell.​

2. Sollecito first agreed but then, when he came he invoked his right to remain silent.

When did Sollecito ever invoke his right to remain silent? If Machiavell has actual evidence of this, he should present it. Most certainly we cannot review the tapes of his interrogation, the one where he was threatened with a beating.

What happened was the Sollecito was presented with a right to give confusing evidence, most particularly by PLE refusing to allowing him to consult a calendar, so that he could distinguish the days of the week, and dates of the month, one from the other, prior to the horrible murder.​

Machiavelli, however, just like the courts in this wrongful conviction, do not deal with "evidence", they deal with prosecutorial assertion and it is up to the defence to prove them wrong.

 

[Strozzi]

I had regarded Knox's blaming of Lumumba as damning evidence against her. Now I know that happened during the interviews overnight, it shows the Italian police's conduct produced a falsehood, rather than Knox lied and deceived the police. That discredits their interview strategy and technique.

Nessie, the same applies to the police interrogation of Raffaele on the night of Nov 5/6. The Italian police produced falsehoods from Raffaele as well.

Raffaele wrote in his book that when he was interrogated he was confused about which nights were which and he mixed-up what he and Amanda did on which nights. He told the police he was confused about which night was which and asked to look at a calendar on the wall. The police forbid him to look at it. The police were not after truth and clarity. They deliberately created falsehoods. With no surviving recording to see how they questioned him, there is no way for anyone including the court to know how questions were asked of him and what his answers really were and how they were actually stated.