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

[anglolawyer]

Hopefully a non-controversial question. In the context of the extradition process, would the US Department of Justice act on Italy’s behalf or Amanda’s?

Italy, I think.

 

[Desert Fox]

Italy, I think.

The trouble I see is that the Justice Department official likely has to look over the material. What is he or she suppose to do when everything looks like garbage?

 

[anglolawyer]

The trouble I see is that the Justice Department official likely has to look over the material. What is he or she suppose to do when everything looks like garbage?

If you look at the treaty, all Italy has to file are a few formal documents (certificates of conviction and such) not the full trial file. So the official just checks everything is in order and then arranges her arrest, I guess. That's when Diocletus says the constitution clashes with the treaty and things get interesting. And complicated.

 

[Desert Fox]

If you look at the treaty, all Italy has to file are a few formal documents (certificates of conviction and such) not the full trial file. So the official just checks everything is in order and then arranges her arrest, I guess. That's when Diocletus says the constitution clashes with the treaty and things get interesting. And complicated.

Any lawyer worth their salt is going to want to "bone up" on the actual case I would think.

 

[LondonJohn]

Italy, I think.

Um no. The answer is that the US Department of Justice would act on behalf of the United States of America. Nobody else.

It would therefore need to decide what would be in the USA's best interests. Those may align with the interests of the Italian State. Or they may align with Amanda Knox's interests. If, for example, the DoJ thinks that Knox's convictions are prima facie unsafe, they might well refuse to extradite because the USA's best interests are then served by protecting one of its citizens from injustice. But if, for example, the DoJ finds that the convictions are sound, then it may grant extradition very quickly and easily, since the USA's best interests are then served by sending a properly-convicted murderer back to a friendly state to face justice and serve a prison sentence.

 

[anglolawyer]

Um no. The answer is that the US Department of Justice would act on behalf of the United States of America. Nobody else.

It would therefore need to decide what would be in the USA's best interests. Those may align with the interests of the Italian State. Or they may align with Amanda Knox's interests. If, for example, the DoJ thinks that Knox's convictions are prima facie unsafe, they might well refuse to extradite because the USA's best interests are then served by protecting one of its citizens from injustice. But if, for example, the DoJ finds that the convictions are sound, then it may grant extradition very quickly and easily, since the USA's best interests are then served by sending a properly-convicted murderer back to a friendly state to face justice and serve a prison sentence.

It may vary from place to place and treaty to treaty. In this current UK case the party to proceedings for extradition to South Africa is the government of South Africa. The UK government is not a party at all.

 

[Grinder]

They don't give a list using a name and a date they started that particular wiretap but the beginning was the second day of investigation (3 Nov). This included Patrick's phone and they also bugged his bar. They certainly wouldn't bother bugging his bar after he was arrested and the bar closed so it is almost certain that this happened before the arrest and most likely the same date (3 Nov). A google translation of that testimony is here...

http://translate.google.com/transla...ri-Tacconi-Latella-Sisani-Buratti.pdf&act=url

I wonder how they managed to physically do it.

I don't have the film experience to do such a thing. I just think the actual logistics behind the "test" would not be hard.

If this idea was to be pursued, what would be the next step?

One of the founding FOA members is a video/film guy.

 

[LondonJohn]

It may vary from place to place and treaty to treaty. In this current UK case the party to proceedings for extradition to South Africa is the government of South Africa. The UK government is not a party at all.

The UK is the adjudicating party for extradition in the case of South Africa (RSA) vs Dewani.

The reason the case is listed as RSA vs Dewani is that Dewani has not been charged with an offence under England/Wales law. The prosecuting party is RSA. But the UK is the adjudicator for the extradition of Dewani. And on that extradition adjudication, the UK will be acting on behalf of the UK. Not on behalf of RSA, and not on behalf of Dewani. It will (and has, so far) weigh up what is in the UK's best interests. It hears RSA's case, and it has heard Dewani's case (including, in this instance, important medical evidence about Dewani's mental state). And the UK initially rejected the RSA demands for extradition, since it judged that Dewani's mental health overrode the immediate demands of justice. However, it now judges him fit to travel to South Africa to stand trial.

In Knox's case, the DoJ would be considering a request for extradition in the case of the Republic of Italy vs Knox (the USA has no criminal case against Knox). The DoJ would be acting as the adjudicating party in that extradition request. Its decision would entirely be based upon what was in the US's net best interest. And since in these sorts of cases, the interests of the requested country (here the US) are by default best served by complying with the request of the requesting country (here Italy), extraditions are usually granted. However, if the requested country feels that its interests are best served by denying extradition - if, for example, it is seeking to protect one of its citizens whom it feels has been unjustly treated by the requesting country - then it will deny extradition.

 

[Grinder]

If Desert Fox buys the apartment, I will buy Nara's place and then we can ship Briars over to do the scream ...

I'm starting Tabata training so I'd like to run the stairs.

Yep. I wonder if the present owners wouldn't mind just leasing it out for a few months to do some experimenting?

It would seem a well planned effort wouldn't need the place for more than a couple of weeks.

 

[CoulsdonUK]

Um no. The answer is that the US Department of Justice would act on behalf of the United States of America. Nobody else.

It would therefore need to decide what would be in the USA's best interests. Those may align with the interests of the Italian State. Or they may align with Amanda Knox's interests. If, for example, the DoJ thinks that Knox's convictions are prima facie unsafe, they might well refuse to extradite because the USA's best interests are then served by protecting one of its citizens from injustice. But if, for example, the DoJ finds that the convictions are sound, then it may grant extradition very quickly and easily, since the USA's best interests are then served by sending a properly-convicted murderer back to a friendly state to face justice and serve a prison sentence.

Curious, as the treaty is between America and Italy I wasn’t sure whether the DoJ would effectively be acting on behalf of their treaty partner or the American citizen, in which case their 5th Amendment rights would always overrule the treaty partner. Obviously the process has 2 phases legal and political, so the DoJ role wasn’t that clear to me. Certainly based on extradition of UK citizens to America I get the impression our courts are working on the behalf of America with the final decision to extradite lays with the UK Home Office (Secretary).

 

[Planigale]

I may be the last person here entitled to comment on this, but this is what they should have said:

They should have said that Stefanoni had a choice with the presumed Meredith trace on the knife blade. Since it was so small of a sample, the sample would be destroyed with one test - since it was a destructive test. She could either test for the owner of the sample, or its composition, not both.

I a move which even I would agree is the only one Stefanoni could make, she chose to test to i.d. who this sample belonged to. It was not good, for instance, to find that it's blood, but not know whose blood it was.

Stefanoni wrote out that she found that the trace belonged to Meredith.

So she reported that as what she found. However, when asked to produce the electronic data files, the raw sample files, she either refused, delayed or outright disobeyed a court order. Without the EDFs, there was no independent way to verify Stefanoni's work.

Further to this, when asked how such a small sample could survive what the cops had called, a thorough scrubbing with bleach, she claimed to have found it in a groove in the blade. No one else can find that groove. DNA is the first thing to be destroyed when bleach cleans stuff... so that's the first hurdle... where the "groove" in which the small sample could have survived the cleaning?

No one can find it. Massei accepted Stefanoni's explanation that she found it by holding the blade under her lab-light and slowly rocking the blade back and forth. Hellmann, obviously, did not. Neither would have I... because so far this is not rocket science, it looks to me to be good old fashioned lying.

Instead, BBC3 just commented on the "abundant amount of DNA evidence" without even describing how Massei made sense of things.... the LCN, etc. The destructive test where the type of substance was unknowable.

I mean, if BBC3 said that Meredith's blood was found on the knife, then that's just a lie - even by Massei's standards.

You see - I have a pet theory that Andrea Vogt, Machiavelli, and BBC3 presented a documentary based on the case Mignini brought to trial; one that tends to mitigate Rudy's involvement.... yes, even the guy whose DNA is found in the victim's vagina.

Neither Massei, nor Crini, nor the ISC (as far as I can tell) really vindicates Mignini; they have moved on to other reasons why they want to find Knox and Sollecito guilty.

I would invite you to lay those other reasons side by side with what you saw in the BBC3 documentary. For some reason Andrea Vogt, the producer, needs to vindicate Mignini's case.... even in the context that Knox and Sollecito stand preliminarily convicted?

Why is that? Why does Mignini need defending?

I think that this is set out to you in a way that is not part of a PIP, PGP polemic. Truly, I'd like someone on that side of the fence to take a shot at answering?

Why would Crini, for instance, 6 years after the fact, start talking about the equivalency of the kitchen knife and the bedsheet outline? Even Mignini did not talk about that? Did Andrea Vogt mention Mignini's two knife theory, precisely because the kitchen knife does-not match the bedsheet outline?

I think the average person can follow this and make up their mind on those matters by themselves.

I disagree. Leave aside about whether this is a destructive test, since you are in fact replicating the material of interest and not destroying it. She always had the option of splitting the sample. If you are increasing the original substance 100,000s times it makes little difference whether you start with half the amount. The real point is she did test the knife for blood it was negative. Blood is mostly red cells there is far more haemoglobin than DNA in blood (red cells contain no DNA). The knife swab was tested for DNA; there was no detectable DNA. This is where the strangeness comes in does the lab routinely go further in testing samples with no detectable DNA? No. One option would have been to do a more sensitive test for DNA. Instead the whole sample was put through a non standard process for which the controls seem obscure. IMHO the likeliest explanation is that the DNA was in-laboratory contamination and there was never any MK DNA on the knife. One would expect far more DNA of the victim than the assailant on a knife not vice versa. This also reinforces the view that the AK DNA on the knife has no probative value (no relationship to the crime).

In contrast I think RS DNA was on the bra hook. Prof Baldings work addresses this - if there is a mix of DNA how certain can we be in identifying one individual as a contributor. The next question is what is the significance of that DNA. So one question to ask is how the DNA got there. What do we know about the hook? The bra was torn apart. The hook part was presumably originally attached to the rest of the bra and became separated either during a struggle or later during the forensic examination of the room. One of the hooks is pulled apart as one would expect, the other is crushed together. This part of the bra was improperly stored by Stephanoni so is no longer available for study. RS DNA was found only on the hook part of the bra. Physical contact with the hook would have been near impossible whilst the bra was hooked together. This is why no RG DNA was found at this site. We know the bra hook was moved around left in the room for six weeks possibly stepped on given crushing of one hook before being picked up put down photographed in a posed position (instead of being photographed in situ prior to collecting), then collected. We know it was handled with visibly dirty gloves and handed around. As Prof. Gill has pointed out the outside door to MK room would be a possible source of RS DNA which may have contaminated gloves, alternatively if the bra hook had been stepped on the transfer could have happened from a shoe.

 

[Desert Fox]

If the bra hook is an innocent contamination, I think my bet would be on the Door handle > investigator's gloves > bra clasp
Reading the interesting statement that Amanda's DNA was found on a cigarette smoked by Raffaele.

 

[Dan O.]

I think this is a big leap, Rose. If Patrick's bar were one of just two places they bugged on the 3rd November (the other being the police station) it's very hard to believe this wouldn't have surfaced before now and that the defence wouldn't have jumped on it. The wiretaps they started on the 3rd were most likely those of the people who were outside the cottage after Meredith's body had been found (another officer mentions getting the phone numbers of all the people present there).

In the testimony where we discover that Patricks bar was bugged they list Three locations of environmental intercepts: the police station, the jail and the bar Lumumba. In each case we learned of the time of the intercept because the prosecution chose to play the tape for the court. Since Patrick was no longer a defendent the prosecution never played any of the tapes against him so we don't have the time when the intercept was in place in his bar.

However, I have mentioned that there should be no need to speculate on when this intercept was placed. There was a rit issued for these intercepts so this rit should be on file. The defense should at least have access to such documents.

I note though that the defense doesn't always get what they should have. At one point in the proceedings the defence had to ask for more time to prepare because the prosecution had not delivered the tapes of the telephone taps.

 

[LondonJohn]

Curious, as the treaty is between America and Italy I wasn’t sure whether the DoJ would effectively be acting on behalf of their treaty partner or the American citizen, in which case their 5th Amendment rights would always overrule the treaty partner. Obviously the process has 2 phases legal and political, so the DoJ role wasn’t that clear to me. Certainly based on extradition of UK citizens to America I get the impression our courts are working on the behalf of America with the final decision to extradite lays with the UK Home Office (Secretary).

No, our courts are never working on behalf of the USA. I can say that with 100% certainty. Nor are the courts working on behalf of the individual(s) whose extradition is/are being sought. The UK's* courts are always - in every single case - working on behalf of the interests of the United Kingdom. That's always the case, whether the courts are assessing if Joe Bloggs is guilty of stealing a flat screen TV (and if guilty, what sentence he should receive) or whether they are assessing if Shrien Dewani (or anyone else) should be extradited to another country to face criminal proceedings there.

In the case of extraditions to the USA, the reason why it may appear to you (and others) that the UK courts are doing the bidding of the US is that the courts usually deem that it is in the UK's best interests (for a variety of reasons, many of them political) to grant extraditions to the US as a matter of course - barring strong reasons not to do so. But you ought to be aware that in each case, the actual decision being taken is in regard to what is in the UK's best interests. It just so happens that it is usually in the UK's best interests to hand over extradition suspects to the US quickly and simply.


* strictly speaking, England and Wales, but it's a little easier to use the shorthand of "UK" to illustrate the point.

 

[Desert Fox]

Is there any cases in recent time where an extradition was granted by a modern western style nation where the case seems such an obvious railroad? As well, to be blunt, high profile case?

Most cases, even when extradition is fought, seem to be pretty clear as far as guilt. Ira Einhorn was pretty obviously guilty yet extradition was torturous.

 

[Planigale]

To some extent this time line is irrelevant, because the sex component has gone. The problem is in the last trial the prosecution is even less specific than this time line. So even harder to rebut.

It is easy to mock this time line, the bit I like is about AK pulling the large kitchen knife out of her tight jeans pocket. Can you even get a kitchen knife in the pocket of her jeans? No timing for meeting up with RG.

More seriously if the prosecution have dropped the sex component of the homicide, then this may leave an opening for RG to appeal his sentence, on the sexually aggravated component. It does appear the charges have changed, the sexual assault and transporting of the knife charges appear to have been dropped, though the murder and staging of burglary persist. I think we will need to await the full motivations report to be sure.

 

[anglolawyer]

No, our courts are never working on behalf of the USA. I can say that with 100% certainty. Nor are the courts working on behalf of the individual(s) whose extradition is/are being sought. The UK's* courts are always - in every single case - working on behalf of the interests of the United Kingdom. That's always the case, whether the courts are assessing if Joe Bloggs is guilty of stealing a flat screen TV (and if guilty, what sentence he should receive) or whether they are assessing if Shrien Dewani (or anyone else) should be extradited to another country to face criminal proceedings there.

In the case of extraditions to the USA, the reason why it may appear to you (and others) that the UK courts are doing the bidding of the US is that the courts usually deem that it is in the UK's best interests (for a variety of reasons, many of them political) to grant extraditions to the US as a matter of course - barring strong reasons not to do so. But you ought to be aware that in each case, the actual decision being taken is in regard to what is in the UK's best interests. It just so happens that it is usually in the UK's best interests to hand over extradition suspects to the US quickly and simply.


* strictly speaking, England and Wales, but it's a little easier to use the shorthand of "UK" to illustrate the point.

I have a 'separation of powers' alert going off now. The UK courts are just courts. They don't make or break treaties. They adjudicate requests according to the terms of the relevant treaty and/or legislation. They do not act with the interests of the UK in mind. There is no 'interests of UK' defence to extradition. Some residual political discretion to refuse extradition must remain because we have had some recent cases in which the Home Secretary has blocked extradition but the courts will have played no part in that.

And sorry to be even more pedantic but your 'strictly speaking' thing sounds wrong too. England and Wales has not made any extradition treaties with anyone. All such treaties are between the UK and somebody. An application for extradition made against a Scottish resident will be made in Scotland but the applicable law will be the same (I venture to suggest, not having actually looked it up yet ) as E & W.

 

[Desert Fox]

It is easy to mock this time line, the bit I like is about AK pulling the large kitchen knife out of her tight jeans pocket. Can you even get a kitchen knife in the pocket of her jeans? No timing for meeting up with RG.

Honesty compels me to argue however that one can carry a pretty large blade flat against one's back in a downward sheath.

 

[anglolawyer]

To some extent this time line is irrelevant, because the sex component has gone. The problem is in the last trial the prosecution is even less specific than this time line. So even harder to rebut.

It is easy to mock this time line, the bit I like is about AK pulling the large kitchen knife out of her tight jeans pocket. Can you even get a kitchen knife in the pocket of her jeans? No timing for meeting up with RG.

More seriously if the prosecution have dropped the sex component of the homicide, then this may leave an opening for RG to appeal his sentence, on the sexually aggravated component. It does appear the charges have changed, the sexual assault and transporting of the knife charges appear to have been dropped, though the murder and staging of burglary persist. I think we will need to await the full motivations report to be sure.

If we are allowed to ignore the fact that only Guede's prints, DNA etc were left behind and only his fingers ended up with knife cuts, I mean if those are the crazy rules of the game, then how come Rudy was found guilty? None of the things apply that prove Knox and Sollecito are guilty: no odd behaviour, no staging, no, ahem, unusable confession. Surely there has been a grave miscarriage of justice, hasn't there?

 

[christianahannah]

Curious, as the treaty is between America and Italy I wasn’t sure whether the DoJ would effectively be acting on behalf of their treaty partner or the American citizen, in which case their 5th Amendment rights would always overrule the treaty partner. Obviously the process has 2 phases legal and political, so the DoJ role wasn’t that clear to me. Certainly based on extradition of UK citizens to America I get the impression our courts are working on the behalf of America with the final decision to extradite lays with the UK Home Office (Secretary).

Here is the response from the State Department in answer to a question asked by Matt at the January 31, 2014 press briefing concerning in general the extradition process (one of the topics during the press briefing was Amanda Knox):

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/01/221128.htm?goMobile=0

One can go to the DOJ site and look up matters on extradition which may make things more clear - or not.

The link to the January 31, 2014 State Department press briefing:

http://m.state.gov/md221118.htm#AMANDAKNOX