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

[RandyN]

There are discrepancies between time of death estimates based on the stomach beginning to empty argument put forth by the defense and that which can be calculated from Lalli's testimony.

The defense TOD estimate is based on the claim that the stomach begins emptying either 2-3 hours or 3-4 hours after the last meal. So from this information they calculate the TOD as 9:30 to 10:00 by guessing that the time for the stomach to empty is 3 hours and the last meal ended at 6:30 the earlier of the possible times for the end of the last meal. Altogether, if the arguments put forth in this thread about the duodenum emptying are correct, the defense was confused. First they used the end of the last meal instead of the beginning of the last meal for the start time and then they didn't use the testimony of Dr. Lalli who estimated 2-3 hours as the time it takes for the stomach to begin to empty.

Is it possible the reason they listed both 2-3 hours and 3-4 hours as the length of time it takes for the stomach to begin emptying is that the prosecution put on an expert witness that countered Lalli's 2-3 hour estimate with a 3-4 hour estimate or was the defense just confused and conflated the time for the stomach to begin to empty with the time for the stomach to empty completely?

This is approximately what happened. The defense never got a grasp on this digestion argument. They heard the pathologist talking about the stomach beginning to empty times meanwhile the prosecution presented professional noise makers arguing a case that digestion is a unreliable method to determine TOD and they proceed to muddle the matter by presenting evidence about the times required to empty the stomach which is actually comparing apples and oranges.

No problem ....except that the defense (pieces of crap that they were) failed to bring this point back on track either because of ineptitude or inexperience. Lali gave them the answer and professional opinion they needed, but they allowed the "transit time to begin" argument to be lost in the prosecution "stomach to empty" argument.

This was the fatal flaw of the defense. They never put on a good argument for a correct TOD that was likely 9:10 to 9:30 at the outside, but certainly no later than 10PM. They had the digestion data plus all the other circumstantial evidence that indicated an earlier TOD rather than the ridiculous late TOD presented by Mignini.

MK was attacked while fully clothed. This is evidenced by the blue outer jacket she wore that night and which BTW the crack CSI team failed to collect until 18 December and when they did collect it, the collector altered it by turning the sleeves right side in since they were inside out which to even an idiot like me seems to mean the sleeve thing is something important evidence wise and perhaps should not be altered. Guede DNA was later found on this item. Meanwhile RS and AK DNA was not found.

No testimony about MK normal routine...her texting, computer, calling, normal patterns. This is powerful circumstantial evidence as well. Would she normally start but not retry a call to her mom? When did she normally call? How about her texting habits to friends? How about her laundry habits? Was she like me who starts loads and then forgets them and so must rewash that load two days later. Or no? Was the heat turned up?

Now add Guedes statement about a scream at 9:20. Not in this case? Why not call him? And also ask him about his skype calls? Pretty sure he cant remain silent as a witness subpoenaed into court. Hard to say...Yummi can tell us when he returns from suspension.

You are correct to question how this major TOD point has never actually been raised and attacked by the defense. They simply were outwitted and or too lazy or never expected they needed to present much of a defense against this admittedly weak crazy prosecution case...and so here we are 6 years later.

What is clear is that this digestive data remains an mostly unexamined but valuable piece of important evidence. Oops too late now I suppose.

 

[davefoc]

The author is taking sides in her fictionalized story.



source

I guess if people are going to earn their livings writing about this case, I'm glad at least some of them have spent enough time on it to know what must have happened.

Thank you for the quote and the link. The article was interesting, well written and had a bit of a new take on all this.

 

[andreajo]

People seem to misunderstand the role of a US embassy or consulate regarding a legal or criminal matter. They don't provide a hotel room or sanctuary. They advise you to contact an attorney and keep a list of locat attorneys who have submitted their name to the embassy or consulate as a local attorney willing to represent an American citizen in certain type of matters. They stay in contact with you. If you are in jail, they will visit you there quickly after you have been detained and periodically follow up. They will notify your next of kin that there is an issue, if you grant consent for it.

The Italian Government apparently did not immediately notify the US Embassy in Rome of thje detention of an American citizen and that was improper, but it was known immediately as it was all over the media. I don't know for a fact, but I would expect that she was visited in prison very soon thereafter. Does anyone have any information on this?

She doesn't mention a visit by embassy personnel in her book. Her mother arrived shortly after she was incarcerated. The first visit by outsiders that she mentions are the lawyers hired by her family. Reading between the lines, I guessed that her mom was in contact with the embassy to get the lawyers' names from their list.

 

[acbytesla]

Gosh! You don't suppose they lied to her?

It was Rita Ficarra who told her she might need to stick around for a few months. "Just wait a few days for the magistrate, honey... Then we'll know for sure!"

Maybe... lol

The moment they tell you that you can't leave is the moment you get a lawyer and you call the US Consulate. My first call would be to the Consulate, in fact, I'd make sure I made an in person visit.

 

[acbytesla]

Just a general question... that I am sure some of you have experience with.

What is it like going to a guilters message board and trying to argue the case for innocence?

You must not be able to last long.

They usually kick you off pretty quick.

 

[davefoc]

...

What is clear is that this digestive data remains an mostly unexamined but valuable piece of important evidence. Oops too late now I suppose.

The notion that it was a defense attorney failure to explain this important evidence properly is sad on multiple levels if true.

For one thing it fills me with a sense that it might have been possible to do something to head off this mess and the opportunity has passed.

It is also sad, because, assuming the Italian prosecutors and judges in this case are like some American prosecutors and judges there is almost an impossible barrier set in place against exoneration and even very strong evidence of innocence will not be enough to change the verdict. This is particularly true in this case where the strong evidence of innocence might have been available at the time of the trials but the defense attorneys as a result of error and perhaps incompetence failed to bring it to light.

Assuming that you are right RandyN this is an issue where specialized experts might have been in a position to substantially increase the chances that Knox and Sollecito would have been acquitted or perhaps they might have been able to head off the indictments.

I wonder if it is possible at this late date to secure the support of one or more well known pathologists to advocate on this issue.

I was aware of the fact that Kercher was wearing her coat when she was attacked as an argument that her time of death was soon after she got home. Your description of this in your post makes this seem like an even stronger argument.

I still hope that Rolfe will comment on this discussion. I am very interested in what she has to say about all this.

 

[Mary_H]

People seem to misunderstand the role of a US embassy or consulate regarding a legal or criminal matter. They don't provide a hotel room or sanctuary. They advise you to contact an attorney and provide you with a list of local attorneys who have submitted their name to the embassy or consulate as an attorney willing to represent an American citizen in certain types of matters.

The American Citizen Services Officer from the Consular Section stays in periodic contact with you. If you are in jail, they will visit you there quickly after you have been detained and periodically follow up. They will notify your next of kin that there is an issue, if you grant consent for it. If you are abused in police or prison custody there will be an immediate protest made to a very hgh level of the host country's Foreign Ministry and possibly to the Justice Ministry as well. (The police chief in Perugia or head of the prison where Knox was held probably heard about it from their bosses in Rome and were told to knock it off, but they won't tell anybody about that.)

The Italian Government apparently did not immediately notify the US Embassy in Rome of Knox's arrest and that was an improper delay, but Knox's arrest was known immediately as it was all over the media. I don't know for a fact, but I would expect that she was visited in prison very soon thereafter. Certainly her mother contacted the US Embassy immediately. Does anyone have any information on this?

Cables show State Dept. monitored Knox case from the beginning
BY ANDREA VOGT, SPECIAL TO SEATTLEPI.COM
Updated 6:38 am, Wednesday, May 18, 2011

http://www.seattlepi.com/amanda-kno...ate-Department-has-monitored-Knox-1383417.php

Andrea might have the actual cables on her site. TJMK has some, too. The first one is the most important one but I can't find it at the moment.

 

[Strozzi]

It's actually one of the more troubling things I've had to come to terms with in my life..... that people... very intelligent, can be so blinded and stupid.

9/11 conspiracy theories is where I believe I was first exposed to this... about 12 years ago... so I was in my early 20's. I just couldn't believe how so many intelligent people could believe in something so obviously preposterous.... and I'm not talking about the Bush must have knew people... I can understand how a rational mind could come to that conclusion (I didn't)........ I'm talking about the No-planers.... or the people who believed it was a missile that actually hit the pentagon................. It kind of scares me that a person can have these beliefs... and yet still be able to get themselves dressed in the morning... or drive a car...... or hold down a good job.

Caper, just think how many Americans believe that Obama was not born in the US (a legal requirement to be president) and that he is secretly a muslim. There is a polite term for stupid people like that. They are called "low information voters".

For Obama to have been born in Kenya, his mother, a 19 year old unmarried pregnant college student about to begin her sophomore year at U of Hawaii, would have had to travel from Hawaii to Kenya many weeks before the birth, found housing and hospital care, delivered her baby, recovered, and traveled back to the US. If I recall correctly, she may have been on food stamps at the time and I doubt she had airfare for the plane which in 1961 was probably a Pan Am Clipper that flew a route across the Pacific from Hawaii to east Africa.

 

[Caper]

Caper, just think how many Americans believe that Obama was not born in the US (a legal requirement to be president) and that he is secretly a muslim. There is a polite term for stupid people like that. They are called "low information voters".

Yeah.... I know.... I think it has so much to do with hatred.... and how people want to believe the worst in people you hate.

 

[Strozzi]

Cables show State Dept. monitored Knox case from the beginning
BY ANDREA VOGT, SPECIAL TO SEATTLEPI.COM
Updated 6:38 am, Wednesday, May 18, 2011

http://www.seattlepi.com/amanda-kno...ate-Department-has-monitored-Knox-1383417.php

Andrea might have the actual cables on her site. TJMK has some, too. The first one is the most important one but I can't find it at the moment.

That article is by Andrea Vogt. A key date in the article must be wrong but I do not know who reported the wrong date. The article says that Italian authorities notified the American embassy on Nov. 6 of "Ms. Knox's detention for interrogation by police" on Nov. 5, as well as the formal notification of her arrest on Nov. 9, 2007.

According to the police, Knox was not a suspect on Nov 5. She officially became a suspect at about 2 am on Nov 6. The police late-night questioning of Knox on Nov 5 began about 11 or 11:30 pm, if I remember correctly, and I question whether she was detained then (Nov 5) or had been informed she was being detained in the early stages of the nighttime interrogation (still Nov 5).

 

[Bob001]

.....
This is exactly what women do when they don't want to look like ninnies. Get spooked, downplay the reason, distrust their own instincts. I've done it, my grown daughters have done it, and if you ask any hundred women I think you'll find that a majority of them know exactly what I mean.
.....

I don't think that's a uniquely female perspective, and I don't think it's only a matter of looking like a ninny. I'm a guy, and I think I and a lot of guys are also inclined to downplay a potential problem because the alternative is that we have to do something about it, and it might be something we can't fix. In this case, the choice is between "The crappy front door lock didn't latch" or "A bloodthirsty killer broke into the house." I'm gonna hold on to the first choice as long as I can.

 

[Caper]

Harry Rag/The Machine is unique - no matter which "side" you look on. There is no one quite like the internet-presence of HR/TM.

Even the most hardcore guilter, or most logical innocenter.... every one of them has gone through some evolution of thought.

Not so Harry Rag.

I used to try to reply to the carpet-bombing of various internet sites, but it didn't seem to matter and it was truly impossible to keep up.

Harry Rag/The Machine has not moved one iota from the "mixed-blood", "ample amount of DNA" factoids that have long, long, long since been debunked. I've not followed him that closely, really, but he seems not to have taken into account even the revision of a "guilt perspective" of the March 2013 Cassazione quashing of acquittals, and the Jan 2014 re-convictions.

Can anyone think of, or has anyone ever seen a movement of thought from HR?

Has Harry ever posted on here?

 

[Bob001]

.....
For Obama to have been born in Kenya, his mother, a 19 year old unmarried pregnant college student about to begin her sophomore year at U of Hawaii, would have had to travel from Hawaii to Kenya many weeks before the birth, found housing and hospital care, delivered her baby, recovered, and traveled back to the US.
....

And, leaving aside the questions of what kinds of housing and hospital care could have been available to her in Kenya in 1964, and leaving aside the question of why she would choose to do this, she would have to do it all without leaving any records or documentation of any kind anywhere and without one single person anywhere having any recollection of a white American teenager having a black baby in Kenya. It would be more plausible to believe that she was a secret astronaut.

 

[BaileyBell]

Harry Rag/The Machine is unique - no matter which "side" you look on. There is no one quite like the internet-presence of HR/TM.

Even the most hardcore guilter, or most logical innocenter.... every one of them has gone through some evolution of thought.

Not so Harry Rag.

I used to try to reply to the carpet-bombing of various internet sites, but it didn't seem to matter and it was truly impossible to keep up.

Harry Rag/The Machine has not moved one iota from the "mixed-blood", "ample amount of DNA" factoids that have long, long, long since been debunked. I've not followed him that closely, really, but he seems not to have taken into account even the revision of a "guilt perspective" of the March 2013 Cassazione quashing of acquittals, and the Jan 2014 re-convictions.

Can anyone think of, or has anyone ever seen a movement of thought from HR?

It's kind of amazing to me that so many people will follow his logic and "facts" without much question or dissent. I have read several of his posts and he seems kind of off, especially with his weird compassion for the thief, rapist, and murderer Rudy Guede.

 

[acbytesla]

Caper, just think how many Americans believe that Obama was not born in the US (a legal requirement to be president) and that he is secretly a muslim. There is a polite term for stupid people like that. They are called "low information voters".

For Obama to have been born in Kenya, his mother, a 19 year old unmarried pregnant college student about to begin her sophomore year at U of Hawaii, would have had to travel from Hawaii to Kenya many weeks before the birth, found housing and hospital care, delivered her baby, recovered, and traveled back to the US. If I recall correctly, she may have been on food stamps at the time and I doubt she had airfare for the plane which in 1961 was probably a Pan Am Clipper that flew a route across the Pacific from Hawaii to east Africa.

That was about making him an "illegitimate president" because in their minds, he is illegitimate. What is really strange is that during the last Presidential election, it was his Republican opponent that wasn't actually born in the US.

It's all about vilifying your opponent. If he had been a conservative white Republican, those same people could have cared less if he was born outside the country. Now the Democrats would have been bringing up the Constitutional issues.

 

[Mary_H]

That article is by Andrea Vogt. A key date in the article must be wrong but I do not know who reported the wrong date. The article says that Italian authorities notified the American embassy on Nov. 6 of "Ms. Knox's detention for interrogation by police" on Nov. 5, as well as the formal notification of her arrest on Nov. 9, 2007.

According to the police, Knox was not a suspect on Nov 5. She officially became a suspect at about 2 am on Nov 6. The police late-night questioning of Knox on Nov 5 began about 11 or 11:30 pm, if I remember correctly, and I question whether she was detained then (Nov 5) or had been informed she was being detained in the early stages of the nighttime interrogation (still Nov 5).

We can consider that as soon as she was taken into the interrogation room on November 5th, she was detained, because she did not know she could leave.

 

[Strozzi]

Has Harry ever posted on here?

We would eat him alive in a real debate.

 

[Bob001]

She doesn't mention a visit by embassy personnel in her book. Her mother arrived shortly after she was incarcerated. The first visit by outsiders that she mentions are the lawyers hired by her family. Reading between the lines, I guessed that her mom was in contact with the embassy to get the lawyers' names from their list.

Just curious, were any American lawyers involved in Amanda's defense? Obviously they couldn't practice law in an Italian courtroom, but they could certainly give advice about handling scientific and technical evidence, how to challenge prosecution claims, etc., etc. The impression I have is that Amanda's lawyers weren't nearly as aggressive as an experienced American criminal defense attorney might have been.

 

[acbytesla]

Just curious, were any American lawyers involved in Amanda's defense? Obviously they couldn't practice law in an Italian courtroom, but they could certainly give advice about handling scientific and technical evidence, how to challenge prosecution claims, etc., etc. The impression I have is that Amanda's lawyers weren't nearly as aggressive as an experienced American criminal defense attorney might have been.

Her family definitely had American lawyers for advice. Anne Bremner is a prominent lawyer in Seattle. She was involved very quickly and so was Ted something or other..I can't remember his last name. I'm not sure about their involvement with her defense though.

 

[kwill]

We can consider that as soon as she was taken into the interrogation room on November 5th, she was detained, because she did not know she could leave.

Dear god, the irony of that! She was sitting there yelling for help, and all she had to do was stand up and walk out the door.

No wonder she's so hard on herself now.