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

[anglolawyer]

I also wish to hear Machiavelli's source for the claim that "Knox wanted to issue a statement," at her interrogation. Mignini describes coming into a room where he intuited that the suspect wished to make a statement, and he would help her - but Mignini is clear that this was his action.....

Machiavelli will not answer, nor provide a source for his claim. Is Mignini lying or is Machiavelli?

Isn't the source for that one Mignini?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Novelli on how one looks for contamination

Not at all. ...Novelli is a scientist...

Machiavelli,

Novelli claimed to find no evidence of contamination. Did he examine the negative controls? Did he use the electronic data files?

 

[CoulsdonUK]

It will console him not one whit. For me, that was the tone of his CNN interview with Anderson Cooper yesterday.

You can hardly blame the guy, according to extracts I have seen from his book, his family wanted him to distance himself from Amanda before the 1st level trial; his initial legal advice was also the same.

I just find the duality here remarkable, might as well rename the thread to the Amanda Knox case.

Having said that, wonder if he regrets not testifying.

 

[Bill Williams]

<snip>I saw a short clip on Anderson Cooper's website tonight. Raffaele was asked if he blamed Amanda for this mess, and he was careful not to say "no," as he has in the past. Perhaps he is finally learning how to be a good Italian.

I noticed that, too, Charlie; they showed that clip on the local news.

I also would not blame Raffaele for making some kind of deal to keep himself out of prison. Hopefully some savior will intervene before that becomes necessary.

I would not be surprised either if somewhere down the line Raffaele made some sort of deal to keep him out of prison. Quite frankly, I am surprised that this has not happened by now.

Amanda is relatively safe. Both of them have faced 6 years of unjust verbal and psychological slings and arrows, but it is Raffaele whose physical liberty is in more jeopardy.

The maddening thing with CNN's recent coverage of this (Piers Morgan in October, Cooper in February) is that it is so brief. Both times had Raffaele and Kelly the lawyer. Kelly each time was asked one question, and nothing was in depth at all.

The depth of Piers Morgan was seen with his incredibly asinine question, "Meredith is dead and you're still alive. How do you reconcile that?"

Cooper on Monday mostly hit the mark. But whenever Raffaele is asked about Amanda, what the heck is he supposed to say? She was with him, and he repeats it...

...but he keeps getting asked about Amanda's behaviour. Not by Cooper, agreed, but the whole Katy Couric interview was about Amanda's behaviour, and it must be incredibly frustrating for him.

Please remember - both Amanda AND Raffaele are victims of this case being reduced to Amanda's behaviour. The case was closed on Nov 6 2007 based mainly on pizza, doing the splits in the Questura, and Knox doing her Broadway number with the little paper shoes.

So when Raffaele complains that it is HE who is going to jail because of "Amanda's behaviour", he is not necessarily blaming Amanda. Everybody is focussing on the pretty American... about whom there is no other evidence of her participation other than behaviour!

Allow him a little leeway to be frustrated..... the next 25 years are on the line for him.

Although the psychological toll is equally unjust and immense, Amanda has a chance to make a life for herself in Seattle. It's like Jeffrey Toobin told Piers Morgan in March 2013, when the big question was if Knox would ever be extradited. Morgan was still going on about the "sex-game gone wrong" and how the ISC had even potentially insulted the victim.... Toobin cut in with a "let's cut to the chase." comment.

Knox is not going anywhere.

And so it is true, Sollecito is facing 25 years in the slammer for someone else's "behaviour", and not for it, per se, but that it is still the sole "evidence" of even Amanda's involvement.

They are both the victims of how that is being dealt off the bottom of the judicial deck to incarcerate both of them.

It's not as if they have anything else.

 

[Bill Williams]

You can hardly blame the guy, according to extracts I have seen from his book, his family wanted him to distance himself from Amanda before the 1st level trial; his initial legal advice was also the same.

I just find the duality here remarkable, might as well rename the thread to the Amanda Knox case.

Having said that, one if he regrets not testifying.

The duality has always been part of the problem. It's why everyone, supporters and persecutors, in my mind need to always use the double barreled name for this wrongful prosecution... Sollecito and Knox.... not "the Knox case".

Speaking personally, for me early on this was a clue as to figuring all this out. As long as it was, "Knox, Knox,Knox, Knox, Knox...", one could be kept in a state of doubt about "behaviour", "underwear buying," "saying hoopla with paper shoes on," etc. etc. etc.

If it is the Knox and Sollecito wrongful conviction, then the case against them both becomes absurd.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

clarification requested

I just find the duality here remarkable, might as well rename the thread to the Amanda Knox case.

What do you mean?

 

[Bill Williams]

I also wish to hear Machiavelli's source for the claim that "Knox wanted to issue a statement," at her interrogation. Mignini describes coming into a room where he intuited that the suspect wished to make a statement, and he would help her - but Mignini is clear that this was his action.....

Machiavelli will not answer, nor provide a source for his claim. Is Mignini lying or is Machiavelli?

Isn't the source for that one Mignini?

If it is Mignini, then it is NOT the CNN interview with Drew Griffin. It is some source that Machiavelli has access to - which we have no access and he's keeping hidden.

Mignini is otherwise clear - to Drew Griffin Mignini is using this, "as if only a notary" excuse to preserve Knox's 5:45 am statement as "spontaneous", which is a point at issue at the eventual ISC determination of its admissibility.

Now Machiavelli is claiming something different - something not even Mignini claimed in the sources we have access to.

So is Mignini lying to Drew Griffin, or is Machiavelli lying here?

And why would Machivalli even need to even address this at this point? Machiavelli has won the war!

 

[JREF2010]

You're right, they don't care about him, but you have worked it backward in terms of the pressure tactic they are using. They aren't trying to break her. They are trying to break him, so he will incriminate her to keep himself out of jail.

"She went out that night. I stayed home with my computer."

That was the whole point of Nencini's interview: Raffaele could have saved himself.

It worked for Rudy Guede.
He burglarized, raped and murdered but not until he pointed the finger at Amanda and Raffaele did his burden seemed to be lifted.

off topic, but you won't see the Hate Mongers angry about Rudy becoming free soon...which proves its not really about Meredith for the PGP, its about getting Amanda.

 

[moodstream]

This thread is moving way too fast for me to keep up so I haven't read about the last six pages or so, but I am looking for an itemized rebuttal to Abrams piece. Has this been produced yet? Is there some effort to get one produced by the people participating in this thread? Earlier on, I saw a suggestion that one be initiated.

I am wating for Doug M to surface here to ask him. I don't want to make a nuisance of myself if he is carefully discussing the issue behind the scenes. On the other hand, I haven't forgottten, I for better or worse, my speciality is making a nusance of myself. I am just waiting.

 

[Grinder]

Mignini and Commodi are the ones who would have logically needed it - it would have been useful to them in preparing the case against Knox. If one of them had it, and nobody else had a copy then they control its fate.

I agree it has great $$$ value if it still exists but, if Mignini or Commodi had the recording, neither of them could have referred to it, sold it, or take the chance of others getting control of it once they said Knox's interrogaton was not recorded. Tt lost its presecution value except as background information once the prosecutors stated that no recording existed, which ironically is the moment its $$$ value would have soared.

These kind of tapes can NEVER be used in court. Either they are of a witness or person of interest and can ONLY be used against someone other than the witness OR they were suspects in which case the whole thing is thrown out because they didn't have lawyers etc.

Comodi wasn't there that night AFAIK and I highly doubt that Mignini "ran the board" in the control room. It stretches credulity beyond breaking to believe that if recording is normal procedure that no one of the police knew it was happening. Even if it wasn't normal procedure, given that any conspiracy some believe in wouldn't have started by that time, poeple in the station at a minimum would know the recording had been made.

As I said earlier, the people preparing the spontaneous statement for Amanda to sign would have used it to write it up.

Without some proof, I will not believe in a conspiracy on the 5th to frame Amanda.

 

[moodstream]

I would not be surprised either if somewhere down the line Raffaele made some sort of deal to keep him out of prison. Quite frankly, I am surprised that this has not happened by now.

Amanda is relatively safe. Both of them have faced 6 years of unjust verbal and psychological slings and arrows, but it is Raffaele whose physical liberty is in more jeopardy.

The maddening thing with CNN's recent coverage of this (Piers Morgan in October, Cooper in February) is that it is so brief. Both times had Raffaele and Kelly the lawyer. Kelly each time was asked one question, and nothing was in depth at all.

I think he did well for himself without implicating Amanda. Clearly ( and I am sure on the advice of counsel) he is distancing himself from Amanda. His point, and it is a good one, is he was not her puppy. He did not blame Amanda for his predicament. I think this is a strategy to win over the Italian public as much as anything else. It s clearly a strategy. But I don't blame him. And he is not blaming Knox, just pointing out the obvious - what's all this got to do with me?

 

[Dan O.]

In Mignini's cnn interview he claims there are minutes for the 1 am and 5:45 interrogations / statement takng. Have these minutes ever surfaced?

You need to take one step back from that statement first. The interview was conducted in Italian. What words did Mignini use and what are the alternate meanings of those words? Is he talking about written notes (and if so, who wrote them) or could it be a transcript such as a court reporter would make. Both of those require another person be present who would have been listed on the declarations signed at 1:45 and 5:45. Alternatively, a recording could be produced autonomously in a modern interrogation room.

As far as I know, nothing of the sort has been released.

 

[Grinder]

Cheap and simple and used everywhere?

Wrong.

NY and this 2013 not 2007: http://www.columbiapaper.com/index.php/police-blotter/3832-by-staff

The state will provide nearly $700,000 in grants so local law enforcement agencies can either purchase equipment for the first time or upgrade existing systems that allow them to video record interrogations, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced in a press release last week.
The Columbia County District Attorney’s Office will receive $15,000 for the Hudson Police Department, Columbia County District Attorney’s Office and Columbia County Sheriff’s Office.
“With these grants, New York State is giving local law enforcement the resources they need to enhance the integrity, fairness and effectiveness of our criminal justice system. The practice of video recording interrogations helps prevent wrongful convictions and at the same time, protects investigators from false allegations. These grants will provide an important and recognized tool to law enforcement agencies that will help better protect our communities,” the governor said in the release.
District Attorneys’ Offices in 29 counties across the state will use the grants to purchase or upgrade equipment for 150 agencies, including police departments and sheriffs’ offices, bringing the number of agencies that will use the technology statewide to approximately 400. There are more than 500 police departments and sheriffs’ offices in New York.
Of those 150 agencies, 55 are receiving grants from the state for the first time. With these grants, each of the state’s 62 counties will have agencies that video record interrogations.
The state has invested more than $3 million to allow law enforcement agencies to purchase and install video recording equipment since the first grants were awarded in 2006. The grants will be administered by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS).


While some of these counties are getting it for the first time it appears many are getting upgrades. Many of these counties are most likely rural and the funds are going to the sections of the county without a metropolitan center the size of Perugia.

Seattle has had video for quite some time and video certainly was available widely by 2006.

The argument is specious because Perugia did have the capability as per Mignini's CNN interview they just didn't use it.

 

[Diocletus]

They didn't spend anything for the cartoons. The cartoon was commissioned and paid by the Procura, not by the police.
And anyway, the cartoon expenses should be refunded by the two convicted perps.

Not going to happen. In fact, the Italian state is going to have to pay money to the "perps" for violating their human rights. Wait and see.

 

[Grinder]

Really? I work here in Italy and have worked with audio/visual technicians. They manage audio and video from "la cabina di regia" as they call it.

Thanks! Is there another word for control room or is la cabina di regia the only one.

 

[Diocletus]

I am wating for Doug M to surface here to ask him. I don't want to make a nuisance of myself if he is carefully discussing the issue behind the scenes. On the other hand, I haven't forgottten, I for better or worse, my speciality is making a nusance of myself. I am just waiting.

I've never really understood why Sollecito hasn't just said: "as far as I know, she was there, but I can't know what was happening during the period when I was asleep."

 

[LondonJohn]

Its a relief to find there is nothing going on that could possibly touch on the strict impartiality of these judges.

That's the delicious irony in all of this: Machiavelli apparently cannot see that his "explanations" for the brouhaha against Nencini are, in and of themselves, decisive indicators of endemic corruption, impartiality, contra-judicial behaviours, and an intrinsically broken criminal justice system.

Again I would observe: there are none so blind as those who will not see..........

 

[Dan O.]

But what about the bra clasp?

The evidence shows that the bra was torn off Meredith by the known assailant Rudy Guede. The clasp itself ripped from the bra never need be touched in that event. Contamination on the clasp is not explained in either time or circumstance. It's not even certain to contain Raffaele's DNA and since it was destroyed it can no longer be tested. The clasp is out.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

going on my memory of Honor Bound

I've never really understood why Sollecito hasn't just said: "as far as I know, she was there, but I can't know what was happening during the period when I was asleep."

In his book he points out that Amanda could not have returned without his letting her back in. IIUC she did not have a key.

 

[LondonJohn]

Nencini is the coordinator of 'Magistratura Democratica' in Tuscany, that is the leftist Magistrate gropu. He is the person who filed a report for criminal defamantion against Berlusconi, that was declared inadmissible because Berlusconi was a Senator at the time. Indeed Nencini is a prominent enemy of Berlusconi and actions against him are obviously political.

This government action is quite a pretext and will go nowhere: the minister herself is not in a moral position for that, given that she was caught in a scandalous conflict of interest, plotting at the phone trying to get her friend out of prison - minister Cancellieri is the friend of the Ligresti family, and the political coordinator of her party is Benedetto Dalla Vedova, the brother of Carlo Dalla Vedova.