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

[kwill]

That's a nice, clear graphic, Kwill. A tiny suggestion - make the lines that divide the hours fainter, or dotted, so as to make the event lines stand out more. This kind of visual aid is excellent.

Thank you. Here's a second draft.

 

[anglolawyer]

Thank you. Here's a second draft.

View attachment 30316

Nice!

 

[anglolawyer]

I have a strange question in regards to that. . . .Would pissing yourself cause enough of a disruption to break the interrogation?

Now that is a strange question!

 

[Dan O.]

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.

We know through pictures some of the history of the discovery of this bra. The bra was photographed on the floor at the victim's feet quite early in the investigation. Only a couple of police had been in the room and perhaps the medical team. It is clear in the photograph that the clasp is already missing.

During evidence collection, the bra is picked up and a couple of investigators point to the end of the band where the clasp is missing. The also point the end that has the mating eyes.

In the early hours of November 3 after Meredith's body had been removed, the clasp is discovered under the pillow that was under Meredith. In this photo you can see that one of the hooks has been bent open and nearly pulled from the fabrick. The other hook is still open but not bent much out of shape.

On the return visit to the cottage in December, the clasp is rediscovered under the blue rug near the desk. The clasp looks pretty much the same as it did in November except for having gotten dirtier and one of the hooks is now crushed closed.

 

[Desert Fox]

Now that is a strange question!

With the Norfolk Four, that apparently was a trick. . .
The suspect act to use the bathroom. Was told by detective Ford "After we are done here."

 

[anglolawyer]

Just came across this:

In actions for judicial review against a UK government body, our justice system contains a gatekeeping step: one cannot bring such an action without leave from the court, and one cannot obtain such leave if one’s claim has no real prospect of success. Our law does not, however, afford the same courtesy to UK citizens in extradition cases involving South Africa.
An individual can therefore be extradited without the South African authorities having to prove that the case against that individual has any real prospect of success. The authorities need not even provide evidence sufficient to establish a prima facie case. No wonder former Home Secretary David Blunkett recently conceded that the UK may have “given too much away” with its extradition law changes in 2003.

 

[Dan O.]

I don't recall reading this,but was the question ever asked in court about how the bra clasp moved across the room if the cottage was sealed.

Could it have gotten kicked around from when the pictures were taken and when they sealed the place?

Before the December visit, the last photos we know of we're taken on November 3. Several teams of police continued to occupy the cottage through the 6th when the cottage was sealed. Then there was the mysterious access on or about the 14th.

 

[Desert Fox]

Before the December visit, the last photos we know of we're taken on November 3. Several teams of police continued to occupy the cottage through the 6th when the cottage was sealed. Then there was the mysterious access on or about the 14th.

Really, all that can be said is that there is no way of being able to know
The Italian Supreme Court then argues for the defense having to prove when it happened.

 

[Desert Fox]

Thank you. Here's a second draft.

View attachment 30316

Question, why didn't Amanda mention Naruto in her book?

 

[kwill]

Question, why didn't Amanda mention Naruto in her book?

Ask her. My understanding is that it wasn't brought up at all in the first trial because the laptop data wasn't available at the time, but that doesn't explain why she didn't talk about it.

If I had to guess, I'd say that it's one of what's probably a long list of things she couldn't remember clearly about that evening. Why would she? To me the insistence that she and R should have been able to reconstruct that evening in perfect one-hour segments has always been absurd.

You remember things clearly when they're attached to a deeply intense and focused emotional experience -- it's why people my age know exactly where they were when they learned that JFK had died. A & R's memories of the evening before they learned about MK's death would be extremely suspect, IMO, if they had been able to independently verify everything they did and the time they did it. That would be suspicious.

 

[LondonJohn]

I linked to the most recent judgment LJ. If you can find any reference there, or in any of the earlier judgments on Dewani's various applications for review, to the UK national interest, please quote. Alternatively, anything in The Extradition Act 2003 requiring the court to have regard to the national interest would settle the point. I predict (as with so many things, I prefer to use theory in place of actual leg work) there will be found nothing in there and I make that prediction with confidence because if there was anything you can bet it would have been argued by his lawyers already, but it hasn't.

What we find with Dewani is that SA enjoys a particular status as a party seeking extradition - it does not have to make out a case in an English court. It shares this status (perhaps undeservedly) with a bunch of countries whose legal systems have been judged as sufficiently sound as to warrant it. Thus, in his case, his defence to extradition has not been based on the (many) weaknesses in the case against him but rather on arguments about his fitness to plead, abuse of process etc. The national interest of the UK is not in play at all.

The law in this respect will likely be (I have not checked) the same across all three UK jurisdictions (Northern Ireland is separate from Scotland and England & Wales as I am sure you know) and harmony in its application can be achieved in the Supreme Court should the need arise.

I still think I am not communicating my point properly. I am not talking about the UK national interest in the way that one, for example, would talk about it in relation to UK foreign policy. I am talking about it (as I said in the post to which you responded here) in the sense of "justice as it is applied in the best interests of the United Kingdom".

In the Dewani case, for example, the courts decided (initially) that it preferred to safeguard one of its citizens who it thought was medically unfit to stand trial. The South Africans didn't think he was unfit to go to South Africa, otherwise they wouldn't have made the extradition request at the time they made it. The court here in London took a decision not to extradite Dewani at that point, because that was the decision which best conformed with justice in the best interests of the United Kingdom (and by extension, all of its citizens).

I'll ask you another question: where in any of the court documents pertaining to (say) the Peter Sutcliffe trial process, is there any mention of the UK national interest? There is none. Because it's an automatically-implied construct. The courts in the Sutcliffe case ruled according to how it felt justice was best served in the interests of the United Kingdom. But that was not codified or explicitly mentioned in the documentation. Just as it is not codified or mentioned explicitly in extradition hearings.

In any case, this whole to-and-fro only arose out of a question about whether the courts in Knox's potential extradition hearing would be acting in the interests of Knox or of Italy. And the entirely correct answer to that question is this: NEITHER OF THEM. The courts hearing that request and adjudicating on it would be acting (in theory at least) in the sole interests of justice serving the United States of America.


Lastly, a question to hang in the air: if the courts in any extradition hearing (let's go back to Dewani as an example, so we're talking about Westminster Magistrates' Court in London) are not acting in the interests of UK justice, then in whose interests are they acting? Are they, in your opinion, acting as an agent of (and in the interests of) the Republic of South Africa? Because if you think they are, I think there are a few district judges on the Marylebone Road that might beg to differ.

 

[anglolawyer]

Ask her. My understanding is that it wasn't brought up at all in the first trial because the laptop data wasn't available at the time, but that doesn't explain why she didn't talk about it.

If I had to guess, I'd say that it's one of what's probably a long list of things she couldn't remember clearly about that evening. Why would she? To me the insistence that she and R should have been able to reconstruct that evening in perfect one-hour segments has always been absurd.
You remember things clearly when they're attached to a deeply intense and focused emotional experience -- it's why people my age know exactly where they were when they learned that JFK had died. A & R's memories of the evening before they learned about MK's death would be extremely suspect, IMO, if they had been able to independently verify everything they did and the time they did it. That would be suspicious.

Good post. Grinder should chip in here but since he is AWOL I will make his point that in an Italian court all witnesses must be certain about everything and, so long as they are, then it is irrelevant how absurd their evidence is. Amanda and Raffaele should have been coached by their lawyers to have an agreed, down-to-the-minute timeline covering the leak, Naruto, the story line of Naruto, dinner etc etc, covering the whole time until the early morning in one hour segments. Then they would have been fine.

 

[Desert Fox]

Ask her. My understanding is that it wasn't brought up at all in the first trial because the laptop data wasn't available at the time, but that doesn't explain why she didn't talk about it.

If I had to guess, I'd say that it's one of what's probably a long list of things she couldn't remember clearly about that evening. Why would she? To me the insistence that she and R should have been able to reconstruct that evening in perfect one-hour segments has always been absurd.

You remember things clearly when they're attached to a deeply intense and focused emotional experience -- it's why people my age know exactly where they were when they learned that JFK had died. A & R's memories of the evening before they learned about MK's death would be extremely suspect, IMO, if they had been able to independently verify everything they did and the time they did it. That would be suspicious.

Actually, that is incorrect. . . .They asked a number of people what they were doing just after 9-11. They then asked them sometime later and their memories were significantly different in many cases. Even traumatic memories are far from perfect.

Otherwise, I think I agree with you. She simply did not remember the movie after the jumble of other stuff. You are also right that if their stories were exectly the same, they would more likely be rehearsed.

 

[kwill]

Good post. Grinder should chip in here but since he is AWOL I will make his point that in an Italian court all witnesses must be certain about everything and, so long as they are, then it is irrelevant how absurd their evidence is. Amanda and Raffaele should have been coached by their lawyers to have an agreed, down-to-the-minute timeline covering the leak, Naruto, the story line of Naruto, dinner etc etc, covering the whole time until the early morning in one hour segments. Then they would have been fine.

Yup. This is Major Major territory. If you act like an innocent person would (no minute-by-minute recall) that means you're lying, hiding evidence and guilty. If you act like a guilty person would, you won't be convicted.

Mind, boggled.

 

[LondonJohn]

Just came across this:

Yes, but this is just a rule. And what we're talking about here is not the rules per se, but the way in which they are applied and adjudicated.

And in any case, this rule is not as follows: "If the RSA wants an individual to be extradited from the UK (because that person faces criminal charges in RSA), the UK must extradite that person".

Rather, the rule is: "If the RSA wants an individual to be extradited from the UK (because that person faces criminal charges in RSA), the UK courts must accept unquestioningly that there is just cause when making their extradition adjudication.".

The difference between these two is fundamentally important. If the treaty amounted to the first (incorrect) interpretation, then Dewani would have been extradited immediately. He was not. For some time, the UK judges ruled that the human rights of one of their citizens - Dewani - overrode the desire of the RSA to get him to South Africa. They acted in the interests of justice as they apply to the UK and its citizens.

Incidentally, the treaty itself must (almost by definition) have been made with the UK's best interests at heart. There must either have been reciprocal reasons, reasons related to UK court costs, or reasons only indirectly related (e.g. improved trade links with RSA).

 

[anglolawyer]

I still think I am not communicating my point properly. I am not talking about the UK national interest in the way that one, for example, would talk about it in relation to UK foreign policy. I am talking about it (as I said in the post to which you responded here) in the sense of "justice as it is applied in the best interests of the United Kingdom".

In the Dewani case, for example, the courts decided (initially) that it preferred to safeguard one of its citizens who it thought was medically unfit to stand trial. The South Africans didn't think he was unfit to go to South Africa, otherwise they wouldn't have made the extradition request at the time they made it. The court here in London took a decision not to extradite Dewani at that point, because that was the decision which best conformed with justice in the best interests of the United Kingdom (and by extension, all of its citizens).

I'll ask you another question: where in any of the court documents pertaining to (say) the Peter Sutcliffe trial process, is there any mention of the UK national interest? There is none. Because it's an automatically-implied construct. The courts in the Sutcliffe case ruled according to how it felt justice was best served in the interests of the United Kingdom. But that was not codified or explicitly mentioned in the documentation. Just as it is not codified or mentioned explicitly in extradition hearings.

In any case, this whole to-and-fro only arose out of a question about whether the courts in Knox's potential extradition hearing would be acting in the interests of Knox or of Italy. And the entirely correct answer to that question is this: NEITHER OF THEM. The courts hearing that request and adjudicating on it would be acting (in theory at least) in the sole interests of justice serving the United States of America.


Lastly, a question to hang in the air: if the courts in any extradition hearing (let's go back to Dewani as an example, so we're talking about Westminster Magistrates' Court in London) are not acting in the interests of UK justice, then in whose interests are they acting? Are they, in your opinion, acting as an agent of (and in the interests of) the Republic of South Africa? Because if you think they are, I think there are a few district judges on the Marylebone Road that might beg to differ.

The courts are not (supposed to be) acting in anybody's interest. The use of this language is not apt. The court will consider the national interest only if the law applying to the case in question requires it, as it did in the Ponting case which I know you know very well. In that case the court had to decide what the national interest meant, as a distinct concept. Was it whatever the government of the day said it was (answer: yes) or was it some wider concept that could be argued more whimsically, or philosophically (no)? But considerations of the national interest do not enter into the judicial phase of Dewani's extradition. It's none of the judge's business what the national interest might be.

The original question, we have sidetracked a bit, is whether the relevant US department acts for Italy or not in an Italian request for extradition. I found this which might be useful:

 

[LondonJohn]

Yup. This is Major Major territory. If you act like an innocent person would (no minute-by-minute recall) that means you're lying, hiding evidence and guilty. If you act like a guilty person would, you won't be convicted.

Mind, boggled.

Yes. This illogicality is littered throughout the various court judgements against Knox and Sollecito. But never perhaps was it so explicitly articulated as in the Massei Report's astonishing assessment of Capezzali's "earwitness" testimony (no apologies for mentioning this stunner once again):

If there had not been such a scream, and if Mrs. Capezzali had not actually heard it, then the Court can see no reason why she would have spoken about it.

(Massei Report, p96 Eng trans)


My jaw almost literally still drops every time I read or remember this sentence. It's such a disgustingly contra-judicial ruling (not to mention its abhorrent illogicality) that I'm still deeply amazed that Massei committed it to paper. And if he and his court were prepared to write this in the sentencing report, then just how much did they apply similar chasms of logic elsewhere in their reasoning?

 

[kwill]

Actually, that is incorrect. . . .They asked a number of people what they were doing just after 9-11. They then asked them sometime later and their memories were significantly different in many cases. Even traumatic memories are far from perfect.

Otherwise, I think I agree with you. She simply did not remember the movie after the jumble of other stuff. You are also right that if their stories were exectly the same, they would more likely be rehearsed.

I think you're probably talking about this study. My read of the results is that the emotional intensity of certain events adds not just clarity about certain details but confidence in the accuracy of those details. The authors are saying that --even tho' it's not necessarily true-- we believe that we remember clearly.

In terms of the A & R situation, neither of them professed to any particular clarity about what was going on during the evening of the murder, which means -- according to that study -- that they probably were NOT traumatized by spending that evening together. Quelle surprise!

Also, it may call into question the memories of the English women who believe that they have good recall of what Amanda said and did at the police station. Their certainty might not reflect accuracy.

Also, for the record? I was at St. Michael's Elementary School in Duluth, MN. It was almost time for school to be out. A priest came into the classroom (Stand up. "Good afternoon, Father!") and whispered something to the nun who was our teacher. She wept, and then we all had to march over to the church to pray. I'm quite certain of these things, which might be meaningless.

 

[Mary_H]

If anyone knows about US law; I wonder how far discovery could be taken in an extradition hearing? Could AK lawyers insist on disclosure of full electronic records etc. on the grounds they need to show that there is no sufficient valid evidence to make a prima facie case (or what ever us equivalent might be).

From what one American lawyer has written, it does not sound like evidence is a strong factor:

....."probable cause" established from hearsay is the standard test for extradition. Judges cannot look at "evidence," incriminating or exculpatory to decide to extradite. Mainly, their decisions come from affidavits. One can file a writ of habeas corpus, but it generally does not result in an extradition denial.

"What might amaze you is that 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th amendments guarantees become all but silent during extradition hearings. Extradition becomes more of a political issue than a question as to guilt/innocence, and her salvation is in the secretary of state's hands.

"In my opinion, all extradition treaties are somewhat unconstitutional but they have never been challenged. Read "Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1" and compare it to 18 U.S.C. § 3184, 3185, 3186, which is how the U.S. handles extradition. You can also read "Extradition To and From the United States: Overview of the Law and Recent Treaties Congressional Research Service 22."

".....In my opinion, Amanda Knox has standing to challenge the extradition treaty with Italy and federal law in the extraditing process/hearings on constitutional grounds. The standing and challenge lies in the words of Justice Black see: Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1."

 

[anglolawyer]

Yes. This illogicality is littered throughout the various court judgements against Knox and Sollecito. But never perhaps was it so explicitly articulated as in the Massei Report's astonishing assessment of Capezzali's "earwitness" testimony (no apologies for mentioning this stunner once again):



(Massei Report, p96 Eng trans)


My jaw almost literally still drops every time I read or remember this sentence. It's such a disgustingly contra-judicial ruling (not to mention its abhorrent illogicality) that I'm still deeply amazed that Massei committed it to paper. And if he and his court were prepared to write this in the sentencing report, then just how much did they apply similar chasms of logic elsewhere in their reasoning?

That's a peach LJ. This is one I like, from the ISC ruling of last March, on Toto:

Moreover, Curatolo showed up when called upon to testify, in both the first and second instance trials and, even well after the fact, he never had any difficulty recognizing the two accused as those whom he had seen in Piazza Grimana the evening before he noticed the men dressed in white (whom he called “extra‐terrestrials”)