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

[acbytesla]

Did they charge Amanda with carrying a knife, too?

Or was that something that could not be proven?

Well, they can't prove that, but they can prove she carried an 8" knife (almost three times the length of the blade of Raffaele's spyderco) and murdered Meredith??? How does that work again? They don't have enough evidence that she carried it, but she used it?


How bizarre.

 

[Machiavelli]

What kind of knife is considered a weapon? A specific blade length? As I have said, I have been carrying a knife for more than 40 years.. I don't consider it a weapon, but a tool.

In my book there is nothing sleazy about carrying a knife as Vibio is saying.

Jurisprudence is unfortunately unclear on the point. Until 1975 there was a law establishing a clear rule: a knife is not a weapon if the blade is shorter than 6 cm. Tools above that size needed to be related to some specific use or need. The rule was ablished and the regulation became unclear. Because some courts have argued that a pocket knife might be considered a generic tool, but on other cases it was ruled that such function was not credible.
Anyway a pocket knife can't be a tool in a police station.

 

[acbytesla]

He was a kid. The one thing he and Knox clearly had in common was exceptional naivety.

From a parent's point of view, his behavior was utterly maddening. Unfortunately, kids DO ignore parental advice -- and based on experience, I'd be willing to say are more apt to ignore it in the throes of new love.

Absolutely, the crime was serious. God knows if he'd hired a lawyer, the entire debacle would have been avoided. But don't you see? He did what innocent people foolishly do. It never crossed his mind he'd be charged with murder. If he were guilty, it most certainly would have. If he were guilty, he'd have been mightily concerned with protecting himself.

Dumb, dumb kid! He should have listened to his father. But ignoring good advice doesn't make him a murderer. What he and Knox are terribly guilty of is being caught up in their own little world and oblivious to certain aspects of what was happening around them.

It really was the perfect storm: had they not been gaga over each other they probably both would have behaved somewhat differently and attracted less suspicion. If they hadn't been innocent, they wouldn't have been so blithely unconcerned with protecting themselves.

I'm reminded about the two maxims about lawyers.

The first one is the one that Raffaele must have been thinking. "Only the guilty need a lawyer, the innocent can speak for themselves".

The other of course is the one about the man who defends himself "has a fool for a client and an idiot for a lawyer".

 

[js202]

I'm not. Raffles is very clear in his book: "Even if I’d been stoned or asleep when she rang, I would have remembered that. And it didn’t happen.”

Yet he never comes to that simple, obvious, first-thought conclusion that anyone would come to. If it were true.





That's peanuts.

I don't know about over by you... but over here by me, it's illegal to carry a knife.

Perugia isn't Camden New Jersey or Newark. It's a city with a low crime rate. So why would you habitually carry a weapon?

Also Raffaelle is wealthy...he comes from a good family. Young well-to-do Italian boys do not carry knives.

Furthermore.... this is the knife, a Spyderco Delica 4. Watch it in action.

This is the knife Raffles had confiscated from him at police station.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaZ1OehNtSQ&feature=player_embedded

BTW... I wonder what would happen to you if you were found to have this on your person inside of an American Police Station. Any ideas?

The simple fact of the matter is this: you begin with the assumption that Sollecito is guilty, and then proceed to seek out "clues" based on personality traits you perceive, language (and presumably fortunate/biased translations) you twist, to backfill your unfalsifiable belief. This is known as confirmation bias.

All the culturally nuanced nonsense about knife-carrying is just that: pure nonsense, twisted to fit the conclusion you have already made, ironclad in your mind. The fact that Sollecito may or may not have carried a knife proves *nothing* that pertains materially to this case. Do you have documented evidence that Sollecito ever drew a knife on *anyone*? No? Such evidence exists against Rudy Guede, the actual murderer in this crime.

Of course, this sort of fantasizing is much easier to do than to explain the science of the state of digestion of Meredith Kercher's last meal, whilst continuing to blame Knox and Sollecito. Much less to create a coherent timeline of AK's and RS's involvement.

Based on your reading of RS's quotes (as you have attributed or misattributed them, as the case may be), you imply that RS is covering for Amanda Knox, and perhaps only had a role in some speculative cover-up. If so, why bother with mentioning the knife-carrying? Is your postulation that, over the course of their 6 day relationship, the sleazy knife-carrier influenced Knox to do the same? Pure silliness, not worth a serious person's thought experiment.

It's just smoke. Smoke from which presumably you derive a high that makes you and your group feel terrific about hating these cartoons of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito you have ginned up in your spare time.

Again, to be taken seriously here, you'll need to engage fairly and properly with the evidence, and, once you have processed that and still maintain a belief in guilt, apply that to a coherent timeline. Anything else is just noise that the very smart people here have heard long ago and long ago tuned out in order to get to the truth.

 

[acbytesla]

Jurisprudence is unfortunately unclear on the point. Until 1975 there was a law establishing a clear rule: a knife is not a weapon if the blade is shorter than 6 cm. Tools above that size needed to be related to some specific use or need. The rule was ablished and the regulation became unclear. Because some courts have argued that a pocket knife might be considered a generic tool, but on other cases it was ruled that such function was not credible.
Anyway a pocket knife can't be a tool in a police station.

The knife was in his pocket. I carry one pretty much all the time. It goes in my pocket with my wallet and my keys when I walk out the front door. And I empty my pockets and place all of them on my dresser when I go to bed every night.

I understand the police being cautious about a knife. That goes without saying.

That doesn't make it a weapon. And do the the cops in Italy carry sidearms? Sorry to use this expression but it comes out of the movie "The Untouchables" "Carrying a knife to a gun fight." Raffaele isn't thinking of it as a weapon either. Raffaele might not be the sharpest tool in shed, but he's not that stupid to think a knife is going to save him against the cops and their guns and probably tasers.

 

[Mary_H]

First of all: "tell me again" is a rude request.<snip>

Not in the United States. Here it is a sign of interest, a complimentary one in many cases.

 

[Dan O.]

It is illegal to carry a knife in Italy, it is charged under art. 699 "unjustified carrying of weapon".

Yet another lie by the master of the art Machiavelli.

He was charged. As you can see from headlines:

http://www.corriere.it/cronache/09_dicembre_04/processo-perugia-accuse-amanda-raffaele_7cde8b6a-e11a-11de-b6f9-00144f02aabc.shtml

This does not mean the charge is significant, also because in cases of minor gravity it's a police fine and has a time expiration after 2 years.

Did Mach even bother reading the article before using the headline to support his lie? I suspect he just copied the argument from a hate site and didn't even try to understand it.


ETA: I see Mach did get around to reading the article. Will he now learn to verify "facts" for himself?

 

[Kestrel]

I don't blame Raff for hugging Amanda and giving her a little kiss. He was just tying to comfort a freind at a traumatic time. I did volunteer work at Columbine after the massacre and saw this same thing happening. I even dropped the hint to a couple of guys when it was clear their friends needed a hug. Hugs are what humans and other primates do to comfort each other.

 

[Strozzi]

Machiavelli,

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

This is the sort of thing that caused me to doubt the official PLE version of events. I read a lot of news sites. A few years ago when my daughter, a US college student, was studying in Florence I kept seeing news headlines in the Guardian's and BBC's websites about some American college student convicted in Italy for having murdered her British roommate. I went for months without reading a single sentence below the headlines. From the headlines, I assumed that two college girls got in a fight over a boyfriend and one stabbed the other.

Then, one day, I started to read the stories and the police charges of a sex orgy gone wrong and it did not make sense. The story of a cleanup did not make sense. The stories of behavior seen as indicators of guilt by detectives who do not speak the same language as the American girl did not make sense. The story of a staged break-in did not make sense, The story of a late night police interrogation the night before her mother arrived of the American 20 year-old that resulted in dream-like visions and her screams heard down the corridors, followed by her immediate repudiation, followed by a victorious press conference in which the police chief boasted to the media "she buckled and told us what we knew to be correct" really looked foul. Then I saw the YouTube video of senior detective Giobbi saying they determined guilt by psychology and that they didn't need other forms of (forensic) evidence to know she is guilty, and that didn't make sense.

Then I started to read about the physical evidence. Alibi computers fried in police custody. Scientific police staff smearing collection swabs around the sink. Paying a senior forensic police officer to be the prosecution's paid consultant to objectively measure the bathmat print and under-measuring Guede's foot size to exclude him. Smoking allowed under the crime-scene window instead of archaeologically-examining the surface soil. Tracking blood and DNA on technicians' booties. Dirty gloves.

Failure to provide DNA analysis data files. Amplifying LCN DNA to get "something" to compare with a machine that the manufacturer says can't be used that way. Stefanoni denying her lab has ever had contamination, and then asking her boss to verify that. Failure to provide the defense with all the evidence, test data, and results. Stefanoni's attempts to lie by omission in court.

The police and scientists have no credibility. They go through the motions, but it is a facade of investigating and developing evidence. The government lacks an independent oversight entity to audit the police and their forensic performance. The trial judges don't demand truth. They won't hold their police and prosecutors accountable. They are in on it.

 

[Dan O.]

You might ask Knox to release the Novelli report on her site.

Why don't you post it Machivelli? Or would that violate your mandate to hinder the discussion here?

 

[Machiavelli]

Anyone who believes Amanda is innocent is disregarded by the guilters.

Candace Dempsey was using Frank Sfarzo (paid by the Knoxs) as her source, Kestrel. Dempsey got wrong the most basic facts and lied even on her understanding of language, even on her age.

 

[Machiavelli]

Did Mach even bother reading the article before using the headline to support his lie? I suspect he just copied the argument from a hate site and didn't even try to understand it.

Did you bother to read my posts before falsely calling me a liar?

 

[Bill Williams]

The simple fact of the matter is this: you begin with the assumption that Sollecito is guilty, and then proceed to seek out "clues" based on personality traits you perceive, language (and presumably fortunate/biased translations) you twist, to backfill your unfalsifiable belief. This is known as confirmation bias.

All the culturally nuanced nonsense about knife-carrying is just that: pure nonsense, twisted to fit the conclusion you have already made, ironclad in your mind. The fact that Sollecito may or may not have carried a knife proves *nothing* that pertains materially to this case. Do you have documented evidence that Sollecito ever drew a knife on *anyone*? No? Such evidence exists against Rudy Guede, the actual murderer in this crime.

Of course, this sort of fantasizing is much easier to do than to explain the science of the state of digestion of Meredith Kercher's last meal, whilst continuing to blame Knox and Sollecito. Much less to create a coherent timeline of AK's and RS's involvement.
Based on your reading of RS's quotes (as you have attributed or misattributed them, as the case may be), you imply that RS is covering for Amanda Knox, and perhaps only had a role in some speculative cover-up. If so, why bother with mentioning the knife-carrying? Is your postulation that, over the course of their 6 day relationship, the sleazy knife-carrier influenced Knox to do the same? Pure silliness, not worth a serious person's thought experiment.

It's just smoke. Smoke from which presumably you derive a high that makes you and your group feel terrific about hating these cartoons of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito you have ginned up in your spare time.

Again, to be taken seriously here, you'll need to engage fairly and properly with the evidence, and, once you have processed that and still maintain a belief in guilt, apply that to a coherent timeline. Anything else is just noise that the very smart people here have heard long ago and long ago tuned out in order to get to the truth.

The trouble with guilters is that they do not even try to compose a coherent timeline - and this is on a skepticism site. On a skepticism site, presumably one based on fact rather than prejudice, you'd think the mods would be out on the watch for that.

Look what you've done - you've exposed someone who takes great pleasure in taunting someone over carrying a knife, then goes on to imply that Raffaele probably wasn't even involved with his knife in the first place.

Machiavelli has NEVER even tried a comprehensive timeline, at one time saying that one wasn't needed.

To me, this is shorthand for - "We'll just throw factoids at them until one sticks."

Kind of like what the various prosecutions and courts have done in relation to motive.

A CNN piece said that Nencini convicted them on the "sex game gone wrong" theory. Did he?

The ISC seems to have stipulated that as a motive. But what did prosecutor Crini say in Florence? He had the pooh in the toilet theory, one that has the unfortunate effect of making Meredith out to be a complete bitch, complaining about Rudy's pooh - in a toilet that is not even hers. Did Crini even understand there were TWO toilets on that level of the cottage? And what everyone can agree on is that Meredith was not like that at all.

Today Raffaele is describing Rudy's impending work release as a travesty. Is there anyone who disagrees with that?

This whole thing is bizarre, and the most bizarre is that those who wrongly convict the two can't even agree on the details of the crime. But hey, they must have done it - because people are still able to invent scenarios that are internally inconsistent!

 

[Kaosium]

First of all: "tell me again" is a rude request. I am not supposed to tell things twice.

It's a figure of speech. You once said something about posting in order to improve your English, now we're learning about American idioms.
(that's another figure of speech)

Second, Guede was not carrying a knife. He had a knife in his rucksack, and the bag was inside a building. There is no crime in this. Carrying a knife means carrying on your person or in a vehicle from a location to another.

So in other words it was OK to sneak into a nursery school and steal a knife and put it in his bag while committing his crimes, but if he walked out the door with it he'd be in Big Trouble?

Anyway I made a mistake: because, re-reading the article. I thin the unjustified carrying of a knife refers to the carrying of the kitchen knife back from the cottage to the apartment.

OK, I wondered if that was the case when Mary posted that, but it wasn't worth the inhumanity of google translate to try to figure it out.

Last, not only Guede could not be charged or prosecuted, but also the main point is that a prosecution on those alleged charges would have been irrelevant, because it could not be used in the Kercher case.

That was never my point, Machiavelli, he could have seen to it that Rudy did more time regardless.

The Milan episode obviously could not be prosecuted by Mignini because Milan is a different jurisdiction. He was caught with stolen items in Milan: this means only a Milan proseutor could deal with this.

How many people did he charge in Florence, is that the same jurisdiction? I thought Perugia was in the Rome jurisdiction which is why it handles the political cases.

But also, most important, you are talking about charges related to other deeds totally independent from the Kercher murder, therefore they cannot have an influence in the case. If Guede already had established criminal records, then those criminal records could be used, but only to argue against mitigation, not to increase the penalty (anyway Mignini and Comodi already managed to obtain the highest penalty, that was 30 years, they could not obtain more on that charges).

They could have charged him with more, plus made sure he was charged for the rest of his recent crime spree which culminated in the death of Meredith Kercher.

I honestly don't know how they expect people to believe Italy allows murderers like Rudy Guede walk the streets in seven or so years without the prosecutor bungling badly or cutting a deal, especially if he'd also committed recent prosecutable offenses. Mignini used mafia laws to confine Raffaele and Amanda in solitary and lied his ass off before Matteini to keep them imprisoned until their trial, he could have taken the gloves off with Rudy Guede but he let him off with a severe coddling instead. p)

But Guede did not have any criminal record. Above all, he had no criminal record for rape and violence. Also, no theft was proven to be committed in the house; not even drawers were searched.

Meredith's money, credit cards and phones were missing at the very least. Raffaele and Amanda were convicted of the phones in another travesty of justice, Rudy however ended up 'cleared' of all the theft charges.

ETA: at least one drawer was open off the top of my head, and of course after opening a drawer someone can then close it.


Why didn't Mignini appeal that considering he'd appeal Raffaele and Amanda's 25 and 26 year sentences?

 

[Bill Williams]

Candace Dempsey was using Frank Sfarzo (paid by the Knoxs) as her source, Kestrel. Dempsey got wrong the most basic facts and lied even on her understanding of language, even on her age.

Machiavelli, this is a lie and you know it.

The one thing you cannot do is provide a cite for this. What does it say when you must buttress your factoids with lies?

You'll scream and yell and make further factoid allegations and assertions - the one thing you will not do is back up anything you say.

 

[Machiavelli]

The knife was in his pocket. I carry one pretty much all the time. It goes in my pocket with my wallet and my keys when I walk out the front door. And I empty my pockets and place all of them on my dresser when I go to bed every night.

I understand the police being cautious about a knife. That goes without saying.

That doesn't make it a weapon. And do the the cops in Italy carry sidearms? Sorry to use this expression but it comes out of the movie "The Untouchables" "Carrying a knife to a gun fight." Raffaele isn't thinking of it as a weapon either. Raffaele might not be the sharpest tool in shed, but he's not that stupid to think a knife is going to save him against the cops and their guns and probably tasers.

Well a pointed knife is certainly a weapon under Italian jurisprudence. It is a tool if there is a context for it to be used as a tool and the object is shaped for that use. I am not interested in drawing any inference from Sollecito's carrying a weapon inside a police station, that could have been a mistake, a distraction. You forget to empty your pockets.
But I note that Sollecito is a knife carrier, always had a 8.5 centimeter pointed knife with him even whil wakling within the city, downtown on the streets, that is hardly justified as a tool.
I also note he used to be a knife fetishist, a knife collector. His knives are mostly of a military fashion and he also possessed a katana, so he had these knifes in the context of possessing weapons (katana is a weapon not a tool).
This does not mean anything in legal terms. You can possess weapons. Sollecito's father collected guns. It's not prohibited.
But I take note of that if I need to make a profile of the person.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

typo

Dempsey got wrong the most basic facts and lied even on her understanding of language, even on her age.

False. Candace had an typo involving a year, which she corrected when it was pointed out to her. The rest of your comment is just...silly.

 

[Bill Williams]

So, tell me again why Mignini couldn't investigate and charge Guede for his burglaries, or for that matter just carrying a knife in a school?

First of all: "tell me again" is a rude request. I am not supposed to tell things twice.

What we have here is a common frustration caused by language.... and this with Machiavelli, a competent English communicator.

Imagine someone being interrogated, though, on this point - who'd only been in the country eight weeks.

Every once in a while Machiavelli offers an object lesson in the perils of mistranslation and misunderstanding.... and then goes about claiming that Knox was able to bamboozle seasoned cops, purposely, at her interrogation.

Thanks Mach.

(PS - would someone quote my posts... I think he has blocked me!)

 

[Chris_Halkides]

the report

delete

 

[Machiavelli]

Machiavelli, this is a lie and you know it.

The one thing you cannot do is provide a cite for this. What does it say when you must buttress your factoids with lies?

You'll scream and yell and make further factoid allegations and assertions - the one thing you will not do is back up anything you say.

Actually I am the person who backs up most precisely everything I say.
For example, did you notice I cited art. 350 § 7 when answring to LJ's claim that the SC found the spontaneous statement to be improper or non spontaneous?
It happens that the TJMK folks have obtained a lot of interesting documentation including many payments to Frank Sfarzo.