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

[Grinder]

She talks about her hopping along with the bathmat down the hall under questioning by Mignini. It is in the trial transcripts.

I guess I could tell you to "do your own homework" but since the quote actually exists... I will search for it and post it here this weekend.

What is the Italian for "bathmat boogie"? I would like the cite in the original Italian. Let me help...it doiesn't exist.

You neglected to make clear why the description of moving on the mat is lame or how it helped her case.

 

[Machiavelli]

(...) Two. Rudy has all the reason in the world to toss the phones after he stole them. His brain came back to him. He stole them because he's a thief.

One. about how abitual it was for Rudy to be a thief, we have your speculation, but no proof.
Two. If he was a thief, and if he stole the cell phones, then why did he steal only the call phones? And why objects only from Meredith?
If he stole because thieves steal valuable objects, then why didn't he steal Knox's rent money in the drawer in her room? Why didn't he steal Amanda's and Meredith's laptops (much more valuable). Why didn't he steal Filomena's jewels (valuable and easy to carry)?
Thieves steal, above all, thieves search. Why didn't the thieve search Filomena's drawers? They were untouched. Everything perfectly in order. Nobody searched them. Why didn't he search Knox's drawer?

Failure to consider complete set of elements.
This is one things that makes arguments logically weak.

 

[Vibio]

Nencini: "I giurati tornavano a casa e venivano bombardati da informazioni. E quando ci vedevamo, volevano sapere: "presidente, ma in tivù dicevano in un altro modo. Come è andata veramente?" Allora la mia logica è stata: prendiamoci il tempo che serve, dobbiamo uscire con la coscienza pulita. Così è stato".

In fact: He's not bragging about anything. He says that they recognized and dealt with discrepancies in the media: "Let's take the time we need. We must have a clean conscience. And so it was".

 

[Grinder]

I don't speak Italian but this took about 5 seconds:

Nencini: "I giurati tornavano a casa e venivano bombardati da informazioni. E quando ci vedevamo, volevano sapere: "presidente, ma in tivù dicevano in un altro modo. Come è andata veramente?" Allora la mia logica è stata: prendiamoci il tempo che serve, dobbiamo uscire con la coscienza pulita. Così è stato".

In order not to wear out Google translate:

Nencini: "The jurors were returning home and were bombarded with information. And when we saw each other, they wanted to know:" President, but on TV they said in another way. How did it really? "So my logic was: let's take the time you need, we have to come out with a clear conscience. So it was."

 

[Machiavelli]

Here's something you lied about. You said "I am the person who backs up most precisely everything I say."

Where's the evidence that Hellman was paid off by money from American media figures?

Read what I said, guy

Where's your evidence that Frank Sfarzo was paid by the Knoxes?

As you have provided no evidence of either of these assertions, I have now proved that you lied about always backing up your assertions with evidence.

You are now a proven liar and everything you say in the future should be viewed with that in mind.

Yes, yes. Of course. Go on like that.

 

[Matthew Best]

Read what I said, guy

I quoted what you said. You said "I am the person who backs up most precisely everything I say."

I can point to something you have not backed up. Therefore the above statement was a lie.

 

[anglolawyer]

A big round turn, to show that you can't get around the point: there is a motive if the phones are tossed by RS and AK as part of a staging, while there is no motive if it's done by RG or by a thief.

Not only am I not trying to get round everything, I am unaware of what obstacle I'm supposed to be getting around. You have a severe case of petitio principii here IMO and corax too! (Thank God for Gelati!). A thief would not take and toss the phones but a stager, simulating the actions of a thief, would and you call that logical! ETA not to mention the stager calls one of the phones the next day causing it to be found.

If it's a stager, and if the stager is a roommate, taking the phones and toss them immediately is logical. If it's an intruder and a tieve it's not logical; it would be a sequence of illogical and unexplained actions.
It is possible. But given than one is logical, consistent, while the other is not, the non-logical option is weaker then the logical one.
And you can't get around this.

Dogma.

Certainly, you may decide to believe that there is a good argument based on life experience, and that you could find a proof anyway. But it's your burden to prove it. You say there is no proof because there is no focus? Then focus on it and prove it - onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit.

Here is how to do it. First, prove Guede alone committed the murder. Easy. There is plentiful evidence he did it and zero evidence of anybody else. Once you prove that it is very little more to attribute all the crimes of that night to him. In the same way, I could prove it was his foot print and, even without DNA, his crap.

I say there is no argument instead, and I say there would no reasonable way to convct Rudy Guede for taking of the phone, unless a judge decides to make up an unproven scenario out of his mind, without neeeding to write any logical motivation. But I think the Cassazione would crush such a conviction, given there there is no factual evidence and it's based on the logically weaker explanation.

You say. And you invoke Cassazione. I laugh. And I invoke the Queen of Hearts.

 

[Grinder]

In fact: He's not bragging about anything. He says that they recognized and dealt with discrepancies in the media: "Let's take the time we need. We must have a clean conscience. And so it was".

Shocking, I tell it's shocking that you left out the significant part of the quote and the part that you had been asking for relating to media influence.

"The jurors were returning home and were bombarded with information. And when we saw each other, they wanted to know:" President, but on TV they said in another way. How did it really?

 

[Matthew Best]

Shocking, I tell it's shocking that you left out the significant part of the quote and the part that you had been asking for relating to media influence.

"The jurors were returning home and were bombarded with information. And when we saw each other, they wanted to know:" President, but on TV they said in another way. How did it really?

In the UK a juror coming to a judge saying that sort of thing in a high profile case would probably be grounds for a mistrial. The jury would have been instructed not to discuss the case with anybody else, even family members, and not to read about it, or watch TV when the case was being talked about.

In the Italian system, apparently not so much.

 

[NancyS]

It is instead perfectly logical to look at the physical evidence without skipping piece, to assume that the lying roommate who leaves her DNA in mixed with Meredith's in Filomena's room is involved in a muder where a victim was assaulted by multiple killers, that she left the luminol prints shuffling on bathmat and towels during her staging, that she was the one who left her lamp in the muder room, and that her friend Solelcito left the bloody fooptint with a 30mm wide big toe.

Two flatmates DNA found in own home
Pathologist was happy that wounds consistent with line attacker
Random splodges and footprints that could belong to anyone and tested negative for blood
Footprint on bathmat that you can't draw any conclusions from as too distorted

And this is claimed to be logical evidence?

 

[Machiavelli]

And once again, ladies and gentleman, Machiavelli makes a drive-by assertion, without even explaining what this has to do with the argument he and I are having.

Please, you just came throwing in the wild assertion that I am lying.

In fact, we are actually not having any argument. You make wild statements saying I lie, despite the obvious fact that the interview is in agreement with me, and you made ridiculous claims about Mignini's interview to Griffin.

 

[Kestrel]

Not as if you cannot find bathroom porn scenes

Speaking of porn, do the vaunted resources of PMF or TJMK have a title for the porn film Raff watched years ago. The one that with one viewing turned him into a sex crazed killer when he met the evil Amada?

The vague descriptions we have heard fit this Woody Allen classic with the brilliant scene where Gene Wilder falls in love with a sheep:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068555/

 

[Vibio]

Shocking, I tell it's shocking that you left out the significant part of the quote and the part that you had been asking for relating to media influence.

Uh... of course they were bombarded with information.They were not sequestered. You would have to be an idiot to think otherwise.

Nencini mentions this (the media bombardment) was recognized and dealt with.

IMO it makes more sense to deal directly with questions a juror might have about the media then have them "on their honor" and hoping they don't peek.

 

[Grinder]

In the UK a juror coming to a judge saying that sort of thing in a high profile case would probably be grounds for a mistrial. The jury would have been instructed not to discuss the case with anybody else, even family members, and not to read about it, or watch TV when the case was being talked about.

In the Italian system, apparently not so much.

Not only that but the police leaked all sorts of stuff to the tabs and other media. The top example in this case is the bloody bathroom.

There is a reason that jurors in our systems are not allowed to even be shown certain things because of the prejudicial nature of the item. Showing the jury the bloody bathroom and then saying it really didn't look that way doesn't undo the impression.

 

[Diocletus]

In fact: He's not bragging about anything. He says that they recognized and dealt with discrepancies in the media: "Let's take the time we need. We must have a clean conscience. And so it was".

I recognize it as a kind of a brag, where he is praising his professional acumen for smoothly administering (and influencing) the process.

 

[Matthew Best]

Uh... of course they were bombarded with information.They were not sequestered. You would have to be an idiot to think otherwise.

Nencini mentions this was recognized and dealt with.

IMO it makes more sense to deal directly with questions a juror might have about the media then have them "on their honor" and hoping they don't peek.

In the UK the jury would have agreed at the outset not to talk about, or read about, the case outside the courtroom, and telling the judge that they had done so would have earned them a strong rebuke and possibly caused a mistrial.

In Italy, apparently it is OK for them to watch TV programmes about it and go running to the judge and let him know. He does nothing.

 

[Kestrel]

We have to remember this was an interrupted burglary. Rudy took a break to use the toilet and Meredith came home while he was doing so.

 

[Vibio]

In the UK the jury would have agreed at the outset not to talk about, or read about, the case outside the courtroom, and telling the judge that they had done so would have earned them a strong rebuke and possibly caused a mistrial.

In Italy, apparently it is OK for them to watch TV programmes about it and go running to the judge and let him know. He does nothing.

In a 6 month long trial to pretend (Scouts honor!) that a juror is not going to see a news report at home or in a waiting room or at the gym...or even have a conversation with his/her partner or family members, is wishful thinking.

 

[Machiavelli]

ILE would be totally confused if a criminal ever decided to wash their hands in the middle of a crime. We've seen this argument before from Mignini claiming that the bathmat print could not be Rudy's because Rudy left bloody shoe prints. A stupid argument that does not consider the possibility that shoes are removable just as your argument does not consider the possibility that blood can be washed or wiped off of hands given the availability of water and towels.

Tell me, did the alleged perpetrator have clean hands or bloody hands, as he partly lifted the body (let's say her legs) and picked the pillow and placed it beneath the body?

And, is there physical evidence of Rudy Guede in the small bathrhoom? It's remarkable that no DNA of him was found together with Kercher's blood, only mixed traces with Knox's DNA and Knox's blood.

And you still aren't looking at the purported semen stain. Can you not see this evidence for yourself? Must you always look through others eyes?! It's more of what I said earlier about fitting into the picture.

I can see that - besides the fact tha I may not be semen - this is not evidence of your scenario.

Rudy grabbed the pillow with a bloody hand. This is undisputed but the timing has not been established. The contact print shows considerable detail, enough to allow a match to Rudy's print on file but not enough to identify the owner of the print through a computer search (evidence to the contrary would be welcome). This indicates that Rudy's palm was painted with blood such as with secondary transfer like you get from the ink plate when taking a suspects finger print and not from the direct application of blood to the hand used for the stabbing and subsequently used to open Meredith's door. (...)

But 1. the palm print is from balancing on the pillow, not grabbing it, it's an open palm; 2. in order to place the pillow under the body, grabbing the pillow would not be enough, he would need to also grab her legs and partly lift the body. Where are the other prints from this grabbing?

But I asked you to look at the purported semen stain. This stain is on the pillow in an area that would place it directly under Meredith's genitalia. We can also time the stain because the same bloody shoe prints that we see on the pillow stepped on the stain and transferred it to a print in the middle of the pillow. That means that the stain was still fresh, it had not dried at this time after the murder.

Do you understand that this evidence is consistent with a 3 perpetrators scenario, or not?

 

[Matthew Best]

In a 6 month long trial to pretend (Scouts honor!) that a juror is not going to see a news report at home or in a waiting room...or even have a conversation with his/her partner or family members, is wishful thinking.

It's the fact that they boasted about it to the judge that is worrying.

But you are correct - the fact that this trial lasted six months is yet another terrible problem with the Italian justice system.